Top of the Pops

I think TOTP had a few months at Riverside before moving back to TVC. Weren't they kicked out of Elstree C because of EastEnders needing the space due to going 4 times a week?

That was one of the things really dull about TOTP in the late 90s/early 00s, how it was just Jamie Theakston most weeks. Then after the 2003 revamp it was Tim Kash every week, followed by Fearne Cotton and/or Reggie Yates most weeks. It was better for the show to have decent variety with the hosts, not just one or two people doing the bulk of everything.

The 1992-94 period was similarly dull with just Dortie and Franklin every week for 15 months.




To be fair, that's what our TOTP did between 1994-97 as well!

That is very true - and there were some good moments that came out of this, IMO. One example that springs to mind is when Damon Albarn hosted; whilst he was introducing Oasis, Noel Gallagher made rude gestures behind him:



(At the end, Damon mentions a rather unfortunate guest host for next week's show...)

Another of my favourite guest hosts was Dennis Pennis (a popular fictional TV host played by Paul Kaye), who spent the entire show viciously mocking the acts that appeared and generally being a cut above your typical trite host:



I quite enjoyed that era of TOTP: other memorable hosts included one-off returnee John Peel, who was also quite sarcastic, in his own inimitable manner; and Meat Loaf, who, so the story goes, started the show by screaming down the microphone because the script said 'INTRO: Terrorvision', with Meat Loaf not realising that Terrorvision were a band...

Dennis Pennis of course is as much of a real person as Keith Lemon is.

I realise that; I would have thought that most people reading would know that he was a character played by Paul Kaye. Maybe I should edit my post anyway...

I wonder if they'd put Keith Lemon on an episode if it was still running now, he seems to be on everything else.

I think it would have been a certainty. Part of me is disappointed that the BBC chose not to revive the TOTP name instead of launching Sounds Like Friday Night: on one hand, I can understand why they might see it as tainted, but on the other, they still use it for Christmas specials - leading us to the situation we're in now, where SLFN is their main music show (albeit one that only runs for six weeks at a time), but TOTP is still wheeled out for Xmas, like the drunken uncle whom no one really likes.

Unfortunately last night's airing was once again transmitted with black bars down each side; the repeat of the previous episode immediately before it was correctly flagged as 4:3.

The fact that all three airings of the same episode went out the same seems to indicate that this programme was flagged incorrectly when loaded into the system, rather than there's someone sitting there pressing a button to make it happen as it goes out.

I was glad when BBC One's new music show launched as something other than TOTP, because my fear about reviving it as a weekly show is that it could potentially threaten the classic repeats. BBC One would want TOTP to be viewed as a contemporary brand, rather than the retro brand that it has now become, which could lead to them to ask BBC Four to end the repeat run. Personally, I would much rather have the old episodes than new ones! On the other hand, TOTP and TOTP2 were able to happily co-exist for years, so who knows?

That would be stupid. ITV don't have a problem showing classic Corrie on ITV3 and new episodes on ITV with repeats of those on ITV2 (they'd only stopped previously because the channel they were on, Plus, had closed down). All they need is separation by channel. New stuff would only be on BBC1, BBC2, and CBBC. BBC4 could easily continue the 1980s episodes without problems. To give another example, BBC4 have shown classic Doctor Who occasionally. The 21st century episodes, of course, were on BBC1 and BBC3. TOTP shouldn't be treated any differently.

Yes, perhaps oddly Pops was one of the last primetime BBC1 programmes to be made in 4:3. Most of the rest of primetime had gone to widescreen in 1998 - shows like Watchdog, HIGNFY and Buzzcocks had all gone into widescreen after their summer breaks that year. Pops stayed in 4:3 for ages after, partly I think because of it exporting all of its clips to the international versions (which I assume were later into 4:3) and also partly because it was made using ancient facilities in Elstree. I know TV Studio History says that they used to "borrow" one of the other studios' galleries in Elstree because their studio's gallery hadn't been upgraded since the ATV days, but then that studio went on long-term hire to Kilroy so they couldn't use it, and so used an old OB truck parked outside as a gallery.

As we've mentioned before, even when they went widescreen they didn't have new opening titles, they just used the old ones badly converted to widescreen, before the new ones finally arrived at Christmas.



When they went back to TVC in 2001, Theakston, Ball and O'Leary were announced as the "new" Pops team - Ball had presented it before, of course, while O'Leary had never done it. O'Leary only did one more and Ball never presented it again. That 2001 revamp also included a Liquid News-branded news round-up during it which they also never did again.



That's right - they did the show from Riverside from around May to October in 2001.