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The Big Breakfast

Where life used to start at 7. (January 2014)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
WH
Whataday Founding member
A seemingly random episode but loads of snippets to enjoy, notably the casting plea to EasEnders to hire Batbara Windsor behind the bar.

The C4 breakfast breakbumper is something I don't recall either.


Barbara had already been cast as Peggy Mitchell by this point. I think they were just pushing for Peggy to work behind the bar.

I remember that break bumper well. It lasted for quite a few years, perhaps until Channel 4 re-branded when it was replaced with a set which had text graphics saying "Morning!" and things like that.
JB
JasonB
I had wondered why in other clips on YT Zig and Zag are now in a room what they called the box room. I didn't realise Zig and Zag made an on screen appeal to be moved, I thought it was one of those things that just happened over night with no on-screen explanation.
BR
Brekkie
Any idea who was the voice of Snap, Cackle and Pop in the early years?


I think it might have been Phil Edgar-Jones, now Controller of Sky Arts but in those days a producer and occasional presenter, he was the original host of Moviewatch before Johnny Vaughan.

You can see Cheggers is on holiday that week and his replacement is David Dixon, formerly of the band Bad Boys Inc.

As in the Phil Edgar Jones of Big Brother producing fame?


I thought David Dixon was from Home and Away. Interesting he was the first presenter credited at the end despite being only a guess host. Guess they were strictly alphabetical back then. Paula Yates also credited despite not being on that show.

Do wonder if in the pilot stage pairing Chris and Paula was ever considered. As far as I'm aware she never stood in for Gaby.
JB
JasonB
Looks like it's worth keeping an eye on that channel on the previous page as they have episodes from the Johnny, Denise, Kelly and Liza era coming soon. Hopefully they are not ones that have been posted on YT already by various other users in the past.
SW
Steve Williams
I thought David Dixon was from Home and Away. Interesting he was the first presenter credited at the end despite being only a guess host. Guess they were strictly alphabetical back then. Paula Yates also credited despite not being on that show.

Do wonder if in the pilot stage pairing Chris and Paula was ever considered. As far as I'm aware she never stood in for Gaby.


You know, it probably was David Dixon from Home and Away, it was David Ross in Bad Boys Inc.

Of course, Gaby was a very late arrival, she only got the job with a few weeks to go, which is why all the original publicity photos only featured Chris, Paula, Bob and Mark. I do remember on the day Chris phoned in sick at the last minute they had Gaby and Paula for the first hour before Mark arrived.
HC
Hatton Cross
Emma Forbes was the original first choice co-host with Chris. Suspect the Live and Kicking gig put the breaks on the hiring.

I don't think Paula was ever down to be the main show co-host.
BU
buster
Emma Forbes was the original first choice co-host with Chris. Suspect the Live and Kicking gig put the breaks on the hiring.

I don't think Paula was ever down to be the main show co-host.


Live and Kicking started a year after the Big Breakfast - though it is possible she may have known Going Live was ending and wanted to hold out for the replacement?
VM
VMPhil
Can I ask, what did Bob Geldof actually do on screen for The Big Breakfast? I remember watching a clip of a pre-launch trailer with him in it, but don’t know anything further than that.
BR
Brekkie
He had a pre-recorded interview slot but it didn't last long.
WH
Whataday Founding member
Emma Forbes quit the night before the first pilot. The story goes, she popped in the day before to record some voiceovers to be used in the pilot and whoever wrote it was more used to writing the script for The Word and it was far more risqué than Emma was expecting. (It apparently included an unpleasant joke about Phillip Schofield who she'd worked with on Going Live) So she bailed.

Producer Danielle Lux hosted the pilot at the last minute and following an audition process the job eventually went to Gaby.

Can I ask, what did Bob Geldof actually do on screen for The Big Breakfast? I remember watching a clip of a pre-launch trailer with him in it, but don’t know anything further than that.


He used to do serious interviews with world leaders and the like:



You can see it around 1hr 4mins in.
SW
Steve Williams
He had a pre-recorded interview slot but it didn't last long.


Yes, as memorably promoted by Bob saying "If I disagree with someone, I'll just say 'that's bollocks'".

As you say, it didn't last very long, the interviews were stripped throughout the week but they were never very interesting and increasingly seemed out of place amid the rest of the show, and were gone by the end of the year. After that he appeared occasionally, usually with Zig and Zag in fact. As Morning Glory points out, he was on the first anniversary show with Zig and Zag and, when they said they were out of time, he said "it's time up when I say it's time up!". I also remember him popping up on a couple of the Christmas pre-records, when the first hour was Zig and Zag introducing cartoons, I remember him pretty much co-hosting one of them.
WH
Whataday Founding member
The last time I remember seeing him on air was for the 1000th show.

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