Reminiscing The Big Breakfast

This would have been Denise's last live show.

Yes, the show was probably only really at it's peak for 30% of it's run, although Johnny and Liza were the third best duo in the shows history and it was a shame she quit after a year.

More of Denise's final live show:



I've always felt she was a bit mellow in this clip.

Of course, there was surely no need to have the decorations up for an actual live show, that makes no sense - "we need to have Christmas decorations up so people think we're live at Christmas when nobody's watching anyway, but we won't bother taking them down for a regular live show so everyone knows we're not". There's no way they needed to do that, I'm assuming this is is just patented Vaughan silliness and self-indulgence. Amusing enough, mind, I remember them doing something similar around that time when they did a "Standby Item" because something had fallen through, and they referred to it throughout as "Standby Item" and all the graphics and props had "Standby Item" on them.

For the first Christmas in 1992, The Big Breakfast was live as usual from 7-9 throughout, including Christmas Day (or near enough live, anyway, it was a regular show but I don't doubt there was a bit of smoke and mirrors), and of course there were two shows in 24 hours with the New Year's Eve episode at midnight followed by the regular show at 7am on New Year's Day. I'm assuming the midnight show might have been pre-recorded because I remember watching the New Year's Day show (we'd gone away for the New Year and I doubtless irritated everyone in the place we were staying by getting up so early) and it was live and they played the first ever Spot the Sausage on it.

The first pre-records (and the shift to 8-10am) were Christmas 1993, where it would be an hour of Zig and Zag introducing cartoons and an hour with everyone in the house, with old clips and an old Family of the Week coming back. I remember really enjoying those episodes because they were even more relaxed than usual, although I was completely obsessed with The Big Breakfast at that point, the show was at the height of its brilliance and I thought of little else.

The New Years show in 1992 had the first ever self-funded Channel 4 ad break, which Chris and Gaby kept mentioning, then when it came it was a spoof break full of cheap 70s local cinema adverts, which cut back to Chris & Gaby looking worried for Channel 4's future.

Here's the video of that very event:

Something that's been discussed on here before is how, in order to interview A-listers they would sometimes send a pop up set to a press junket.

Here are some examples of those pop up sets:

Paula's Bedroom - Actual


Paula's Bedroom - Pop Up Set


Zig & Zag's Bathroom - Actual


Zig & Zag's Bathroom - Pop Up Set


Johnny's Shed - Actual


Johnny's Shed - Pop Up Set

That’s fascinating. I always knew they did this, but at the time I swore it was done so well that no one could tell when they were doing it. Looking at them now, it’s so obvious!

I think they had the bed set with Denise as well. Of course when they were doing such things it was their main presenters having to go out and do it, unlike the early years when if Paula had done a pre-recorded interview she could probably have the morning off.

Moving back to later in the shows history and with the 2001 revamp alongside the three main hosts and Richard Bacon they billed Melanie Sykes as returning as part of I guess a new gang of five. Did she ever appear though other than perhaps hosting the Oscar coverage?

Mel would have probably hosted the short lived "Selector" inserts, before they resurrected "Snap Cackle Pop".

There's quite a revealing anecdote in Mike McClean's autobiog as to why she didn't last long second time round.

Mike McClean wrote an autobiography?!

Well he's probably not famous enough to get someone to write it for him.