Top of the Pops

Take a closer look, especially at the G. Both the box and text stop slightly above the grey area.

What with the show being live and the numerous studio acts, plus the attempt at creating a party atmosphere, that episode of Pops resembled one from abou five years earlier, and was all the better for that. I always enjy it when Pops is a spectacle and there are loads of acts in the studio. Of course, Chris Waddle has suggested that Pops demanded they performed Diamond Lights in the studio because the video was so bad.

We don't get as many live episodes as we used to, circa 1983 it was live very frequently but it now seems to pretty much be restricted to weeks following a Bank Holiday weekend, as this one was after Easter Monday, when presumably they lose a day's preparations. Seemingly there'd been some kind of budget cut in the mid-eighties which all made the show less of a spectacle on a regular basis, but they could still turn it on for the odd show like that. On Like Punk Never Happened, the website that uploads complete episodes of Smash Hits, there's a piece from 1985 about Top of the Pops where they interview Michael Hurll, and he said that since the show was reduced to half an hour on a regular basis they never use up all their studio time, and they could have recorded a second weekly episode at the same time, which he wanted to do.



I used to be obsessed as a kid with watching the credits disappear ever so slightly early at the top of the screen, I used to refer to it as "the magic line". I was a great kid.

I'm afraid to say I actually went "ooh" when the credits started scrolling.

The magic brought to you by the Aston 3 caption generator.

Indeed, a great episode of TOTP, with an interesting mix of studio performances - including the last showing for The Smiths.

And if you thought the return of the party atmos was a throwback, wait 'til you see Wrighty's costume of choice later tonight.

A BBC Archive copy of the 7/5/87 Smith'd episode has pooped on up online.

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/b1a4101f37cdfe2fd7cc42fc9b04cb6a20190222074038/e7c263?src=dnl

This was a live episode, and you can see the playout ends not long after the credits have finished rolling, unlike with the pre-recorded ones where it goes on for another 1-2 minutes, if this is standard for live episodes it explains why we never seemed to get long playouts on BBC4 showings of originally live episodes.

Also shortly after the video cuts out you can hear someone (presumably the floor manager) telling the audience they're off air and to go home.

Another thing I've noticed is between April 1986 and September 1987, with the exception of the 15/5/86 episode, Mike Smith only ever presented by himself or with Steve Wright, I wonder why that was? The 4 consecutive episodes he presented with Gary Davies in September/October 1987 were the first time he presented with someone other than Steve Wright since he presented with Simon Bates 16 months earlier.

Probably because he was a very competent presenter on his own, and didn’t need someone to bounce off of.

As of next week we'll be at the start of what will hopefully be the longest run of uninterrupted episodes since we had since a near 5 month run back in 2012, as Mike Smith didn't appear in June, July or August 87. He's back with a vengence in September though.

Another BBC Archive copy of a live Smith edition- this time you actually see some footage of the audience leaving the studio at the end, not just hearing the floor mananger. And this one has the original VT clock as well.

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/7f91cca06371b2d8a224a8336123f14420190301050414/4684b6?src=dnl

I find these tidbits fascinating, obviously bits us viewers wouldn't normally see.

Quite a lot of capgens from that era (and a fair bit later) treated the animating text and animating shapes differently (and static full frame images differently again). It’s not at all uncommon to see captions not covering the full screen when you watch archive. As you say, on TV sets of the era, the overscan sorted all that stuff out.
Am I right in thinking some of those lines would be blanked further down the tx chain anyway for stuff like VBI and ceefax and do on?

Some strange sound mixing on last night's BBC4 episode as well, again something that presumably wouldn't have been noticed originally as it would have been in mono.

By this time it may well have been radiated in NICAM stereo from Crystal Palace. I think tests started in 1986 (but at that time the audio didn't always match the programme content - but pretty soon it did) We were listening in NICAM using a DIY upgrade to our Philips VHS HiFI VCR years before the official launch.

So a few people may have heard it