BBC One's 3D Week (from 1993)

Vic and Bob presented A Nose Through Nature, from what I recall.

House Party's involvement was a pre-recorded segment on Friday's Children In Need where there were various points in the sketches that you were instructed to scratch and sniff. Can't have been more than ten minutes. Nothing at all during the usual show on Saturday night.

Indeed they did...
http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/271cc40e0d9c4d9fb88d10af393be33b

I remember the story at the time was that Bob got attacked by a skunk during it and the stink hung around him for weeks. I remember in the eighties getting scratch and sniff cards in the TV Times, although I think that might have been based around an advert rather than an actual programme.



I've actually looked up that episode of Pops - from 2nd December 1993 - and as I recalled, the Pet Shop Boys weren't actually on it. They did do a Pops performance with a load of computer graphics but that was just a normal episode. On the episode itself Take That was the only performance in 3D, and there was also a "3D video" of U2 and the Top 40 Breakers were also in 3D, but from memory I can only assume they played the records over some stock 3D footage.

A few years before, back in 1991, there was another 3D thing on Going Live where the video for Seal's re-release of Killer was made in "3D", and the glasses came free with Number One magazine. But I remember they had traditional 3D glasses for some 3D content in the magazine, plus a sort-of 3D monocle for watching the video because it wasn't "true" 3D, it was all about depth perception and I think was just a dark glass.



Those 3D programmes on C4 rated very poorly, and I remember loads of people saying they couldn't find any glasses - because being free, people just took the whole box from Sainsburys and then flogged them on eBay.

I remember picking up a few pairs from Sainsburys. The problem was you'd have to give away literally millions of those glasses for these shows to rate even half decently. I seem to remember there being quite a few shows in the season, they must have lost quite a lot of money because like you say none of it rated well at all.

Also it's very hard to keep a pair of those glasses on for longer than 10 minutes.

All I remember of the C4 season was a very poor show with two magicians on the opening night that was horribly edited.

No I'm sure the Pet Shop Boys performance was on Children In Need.

Actually, a quick Google, and I've found it:

Oh my God... My head hurts.
Not quite sure what to make of that, can probably tolerate all the pointy hats and PSB type shapes floating around as that's not unusual for them but the constant camera movement (which I believe was required for the 3D effect to work) makes me feel nauseous.

I can't help but think with those wigs and stuff they look more like Trev & Simon!

It looked fine without 3D-glasses, so it wasn't a problem for those who didn't have them.

What I remember about that 3D week was that because the effect worked with constant panning camera movement, the thing it accidentally worked best on was Channel 4 Racing.

Yes, sorry, I misread that - I thought you were suggesting the PSBs were on Top of the Pops.



Leading to complaints in the Radio Times from kids that it was "just the same" with the glasses and so it was a "rip-off".

The thing that worked best IMHO were the Doctor Who titles.

I think that was more by luck than judgement, since the galaxy graphic happens to rotate the right way, as does the TARDIS. I think they also sped the titles up to increase the effect (it doesn't work as well, if at all, on 25p material, and the faster things move the more 3D they look), or at least that's how it looks on YouTube, and they also added a moving starfield at the end since the spinning letters wouldn't have generated much of an effect.

It only rotates the right way because they flipped the image to make it turn that way.