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Top of the Pops

1990 on BBC Four (January 2018)

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BU
buster
Clearly not an original VT clock with an email address and an 020 phone number Razz

I find the BBC's 80s VT clocks a bit unusual seeing as they're basically just countdowns rather than clocks as such

*


That for me is the broom cupboard monitor going into Newsround. I’m sure it was on other shows too but it always seemed to be the number countdown rather than a clock one for that.
RI
Richard
Bet Milli Vanilli were annoyed at having to mime... Very Happy
RI
Richard
Whoever was doing the subtitles for the 12/1 episode thought Rod McKenzie was ROB McKenzie. They made the same mistake in the Story of 1989 even though his name caption was on screen at the same time.

There was some controversy over him a few years back when he got fired from Radio 1 Newsbeat over accusations of bullying, though that clearly hasn't affected BBC4 showing his episodes, though I think he only appeared twice anyway, this one and the 16th March (where he was actually credited as a presenter).


He was recently featured as a guest on Shaun Tilley's 'My Radio 1' series https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07wb4c7 where he discusses his Radio 1 career (but not the controversies) and also talks about his TOTP appearances.


He did stay at the BBC though, didn’t he? He was only moved from Newsbeat. He’s now with the Road Haulage association:

JA
james-2001
Yeah... there’s fast-paced, and there’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it.



Looking at Popscene, the next episode is just as bad. Looks like it calms down (slightly) after that. The show is notoriously rushed from this point though, as Jenny Powell pointed out.
JA
james-2001
I had thought they'd got rid of the video screen and the Radio 1 logo on the set with the 1989 revamp, but both of them are still there, they're just more out of the way which is probably why I hadn't noticed them before. In fact looking at some 1990 & 91 editions they did update the Radio 1 logo when it changed. Presumably it vanished during the last few weeks before the revamp when the simulcasts ended.

Speaking of the last few weeks before the revamp, for some reason they added numbers flying around to the opening titles, even though it looks crap and was only in use for a couple of months anyway. I presume it was a Stan Appel decision, along with sticking the presenters out of the way of the audience, was around the same time he took over:



The Radio 1 logo is still on the set on that episode too, I think this must have been the penultimate simulcast episode.
Last edited by james-2001 on 12 January 2020 8:39am
SW
Steve Williams
Speaking of the last few weeks before the revamp, for some reason they added numbers flying around to the opening titles, even though it looks crap and was only in use for a couple of months anyway. I presume it was a Stan Appel decision, along with sticking the presenters out of the way of the audience, was around the same time he took over:


Although Stan Appel seemingly wasn't a big fan of the presenters appearing within the audience, the slight revamp in June 1991 - where they counted down the entire top 40 over a video and the hosts were usually on gantries and empty stages on their own - actually began during Michael Hurll's brief stint as stand-in producer, with Appel taking over at the end of the month. I assumed they change to the titles was because the graphics on the show itself now looked nothing like anything in the titles.

A very interesting period of Pops, the summer of 1991, I remember there were a few shows where the hosts did quite a few of the links in front of a CSO backdrop.
JA
james-2001
I guess with a revamp on the horizon and the presumably unexpected forced retirement of Paul Ciani has a lot to do with how TOTP was in the summer of 91, sudden changes of personell and not a solid idea of the direction the show should be going in. I always wonder how the 91 revamp would have gone if he hadn't fallen ill, I presume the no miming rule wouldn't have come in (I read somewhere they had to make last minute changes to the studio because of Stan Appel's insistence on it) and quite likely we'd never have seen the likes of Dortie or Franklin either. A revamp clearly was needed though, that set was so 80s it couldn't have lasted any longer!

Some things had already changed before Ciani left though, like the 40-11 chart countdown no longer including fallers, which admittedly made it seem incredibly odd, sometimes with gaps of 4 or 5 positions between entries.
BU
buster
I had thought they'd got rid of the video screen and the Radio 1 logo on the set with the 1989 revamp, but both of them are still there, they're just more out of the way which is probably why I hadn't noticed them before.



Yes the video screen is just to the left of the new big stage, not really serving any purpose, just floating on some black drape. The new big stage doesn't really look that big actually, and you only seem to be able to fit about four people on the gantry which looks a bit strange sometimes.
NG
noggin Founding member
I had thought they'd got rid of the video screen and the Radio 1 logo on the set with the 1989 revamp, but both of them are still there, they're just more out of the way which is probably why I hadn't noticed them before.



Yes the video screen is just to the left of the new big stage, not really serving any purpose, just floating on some black drape. The new big stage doesn't really look that big actually, and you only seem to be able to fit about four people on the gantry which looks a bit strange sometimes.


Presumably the screen was used more as an audience preview monitor if they were in the studio when charts or videos were being played?
JA
james-2001
I do wonder why they did a revamp on the first show on the year when it was 1988 holdovers and repeat performances (three performances still on the old set with the old logo). The 1995 revamp wasn't done until the first show of February, and I imagine that was to get the remants of 1994 out of the way beforehand.

In the late 90s and 00s we didn't even get a show on the first week of the year, probably because there'd have been nothing new on it so they didn't bother.
JA
james-2001
Bet Milli Vanilli were annoyed at having to mime... Very Happy


They let them sing on the record, after all... didn't they? Wink
SW
Steve Williams
I guess with a revamp on the horizon and the presumably unexpected forced retirement of Paul Ciani has a lot to do with how TOTP was in the summer of 91, sudden changes of personell and not a solid idea of the direction the show should be going in. I always wonder how the 91 revamp would have gone if he hadn't fallen ill, I presume the no miming rule wouldn't have come in (I read somewhere they had to make last minute changes to the studio because of Stan Appel's insistence on it) and quite likely we'd never have seen the likes of Dortie or Franklin either. A revamp clearly was needed though, that set was so 80s it couldn't have lasted any longer!


I've said this before but I can absolutely date to the day when I heard about the revamp - it was in the Sunday papers on 2nd June 1991, and I remember that because the very next episode on 6th June was the one where they featured records at number 41 and 42 and, stupid kid I was, I assumed that the policy of featuring records from outside the Top 40, as mentioned in the piece in the papers, was starting with immediate effect. Of course, it was just a coincidence that they were struggling to fill up the show and so ventured outside the Top 40. In any case, that was while Michael Hurll was still producing, so presumably the idea of the revamp was in the pipeline for a while.

There have been some odd transitional phases of Pops in between producers, June to September 1991 is one of them, plus also March to June 1997 when Mark Wells produced in between Ric Blaxill and Chris Cowey, and September to November 2003 when Dominic Smith produced in between Chris Cowey and the big revamp (it's almost exactly like that period, actually, given the big changes to follow).

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