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1990 on BBC Four (January 2018)

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VM
VMPhil
He very rarely appears on screen now.
JA
james-2001
Whereas he used to be all over TV in the 90s. When I was a kid, before I knew who the Marx Brothers were, I used to think those Groucho glasses were meant to look like Steve Wright.
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SW
Steve Williams
Whereas he used to be all over TV in the 90s.


He certainly was - when he left Radio 1 he signed a two year contract with BBC Television. I remember Alan Yentob saying that they were hopeful he could recreate on telly what he achieved on the radio, and Wright himself was very enthusiastic about it, he said he was interested to have a proper full-time go at telly and he said he'd asked the BBC to send him on all the different training courses for producers and directors to see how it all worked.

Anyway, as It turned out he didn't do very much on telly at all, he did a crappy panel show called Home Truths which is now only remembered for that out-take of Kriss Akabusi falling off his chair, and then Steve Wright's People Show which lasted two series to little effect. I remember the first series had a couple of co-hosts as an obvious attempt to recreate his Radio 1 posse. But none of that worked out and he did a few other shows to see out his contract and then went back to the radio.

As for contributing to these docs, clearly these days he doesn't enjoy being in front of the camera at all. I'm not sure he'd have much to contribute anyway, you get the impression that he would generally just turn up before the recording - he never does the charts, seemingly because he was on air at the time - and just busk his way through.
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BH
BillyH Founding member
I'm still a few years away from being born (my parents had yet to meet or even start uni at this point) but I have a handful of memories of 1990s TOTP, before I properly started watching it all the time in 2002 (and even then I preferred CD:UK). All are quite hazy so it'll be interesting to see how my memories match when the episodes arrive -

* Mr Blobby being on the show in Xmas 1993/New Year 1994, I think in video rather than live form. First time I remember knowing that there was a "chart" as I watched it go from #1 to #3 the following week.

* What seemed like some sort of sound error in the mid-1990s as the end credits were briefly replaced by a second or two of classical music - I say "seemed" as knowing the era it could just have been some random dance track with a sample in the middle and childhood me registering it as a mistake. If an actual error then it presumably won't be on the BBC Four copy so I guess I'll never know.

* Bizarre late 90s performance of an obscure dance track featuring TVs full of red lips all over the studio, singing "La daa da dee, la da da daa" over and over again. A oddly compelling watch.

* Mr Oizo's 'Flat Beat' reaching #1 and it being linked by some odd sequence of the presenter "driving" to Flat Eric's "office" (the yellow puppet character in the video) and the video playing.

It really wasn't a show that was on much in our household so my only regular memories of it don't start until the dying days of the show in the early noughties.
JA
james-2001
* Bizarre late 90s performance of an obscure dance track featuring TVs full of red lips all over the studio, singing "La daa da dee, la da da daa" over and over again. A oddly compelling watch.


That sounds like Gypsy Woman by Crystal Waters, though that came out in 1991. Was there a later track that sampled it maybe?
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JA
james-2001
Gypsy Woman obviously isn't obscure either, getting to number 2 and still getting lots of airplay, but I guess a remix or a song that sampled it could be.
PT
Put The Telly On
* Bizarre late 90s performance of an obscure dance track featuring TVs full of red lips all over the studio, singing "La daa da dee, la da da daa" over and over again. A oddly compelling watch..


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JA
james-2001
TOTP did put some strange things on during the Cowey era that didn't get near the top 40. I know a fair amount of low & non-charting stuff went out during the late repeats but not the original screening too (as well as controversial stuff like Eminem, and the full Rock DJ video- one of the rare times Cowey showed a video), presumably wanting to use some of the performances they'd pre-recorded (there must be loads of unscreened ones from the Cowey era, I know some have turned up on TOTP2 down the years).

So much wrong with the Cowey era really, not sure it's going to be that entertaining to watch if BBC4 get that far.
Last edited by james-2001 on 20 July 2018 2:52am
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