Reminiscing The Big Breakfast

Indeed, the first time they were both off at the same time was in March 1994, and even that was because it was during the period when Evans had gone down to three days a week, so Danny Baker presented with Carol Smillie on Monday and Friday, but Evans did it the rest of the week. It wasn't until that summer they were both off at the same time for a full week, which seemed very unusual at the time.

As you say, later on Johnny and Denise/Kelly/Liza would often both be off at the same time. In Morning Glory Mike Hollingsworth, the former Director of Programmes at TV-am, says the first thing he did when he took over was ask Anne and Nick to always be on together and take their holidays at the same time, because they were such a brilliant pairing and the more they were on together, the better. I assume the same was the case here.



I remember this (as I was still going through the motions of watching it, and Chris Evans on Radio 1 had probably gone off the boil quicker than the Big Breakfast). Sharron was ill for the last live show on Christmas Eve, then the rest of the holidays were pre-records with her in it, and then when they were back live on 2nd January she was still ill, which looked a bit weird, like she'd had a relapse. I also remember that Christmas because the show was on the slide it only ran 9-10am.



Yeah, I remember they had the old set for the first few days of January, and then the following Monday (when Sharron was back) we were back with the French windows and the news every twenty minutes and the Family of the Week back in the house and so on. Obviously they never made any reference to that on air, and just pretended it had always been like that.

I remember that Big Breakfast Gold week, seemingly so many people were off they just decided to have a quiet week with a lot of repeat items. I remember I was on holiday at the time but I watched as much as I could (I'd abandoned it completely at the arse-end of the Rick and Sharron era, but started watching it regularly again when Johnny and Denise were in their pomp) because at the time I thought Peter Kay was brilliant, he'd been on The Sunday Show and done his stand-up on various shows and I would honestly say he was my favourite comedian. Everyone's forgotten this now but he got on the front page of The Sun in 1999 because he was performing at some BBC staff do and did some off-colour jokes about Jill Dando a few weeks after she'd died, and I got very concerned his career might be over.

The one thing I remember about Kay's week on The Big Breakfast is that when he did the paper review one day he did a big bit about a picture of some despotic foreign leader, pointing out he was wearing Hi-Tec trainers. "What was it, last day of term?"

Just found a clip from the week I was thinking of. It's not perfect, but it felt like a good compromise look-wise and I wish they'd just fine tuned this rather than popping up the curtains and rewinding to the mid 90s with the colour palette turned up to 10.

Have they ever used any BB clips of Peter Kay on those interminable BBC complications?

Probably having them for series 7.

they didn’t edit out Paul Tonkinson from the titles then

I can’t believe they actually look to have reinstated the original French doors rather than leaving the more modern ones, as if the style of window panes was the issue

Am I right in thinking that the chairs/French windows set up swapped sides of the house at some point between Chris and Gaby and Johnny and Denise?

I always assumed Johnny and Denise were on the other side of the house compared to Chris and Gaby. I assume they changed it when they first brought back that set-up in January 1997.

I think it flipped sides a few times.

I actually think they just stuck on the trim (the "white bits") to make them look like more traditional French windows. From the outside of the house they still looked like the sleeker, more modern ones - another half-arsed "fix" like so many they made in that time.

I always thought Danny Baker & Rosemarie Ford were the first non-Chris & Gaby combo, though I bow to Steve’s immense knowledge.

I totally agree with you. The decor of the whole house in 2001, in fact the whole look of the programme took it into the 21st century, why they reversed it so much I don’t understand. There was something about the later sunrise clock and captions that I disliked for being too garish, something that throughout the Vaughan era they had never been, but especially looked awful after the slick January 2001 clock (with those lovely moving rounded squares).

I’ve mentioned it in the past but a lovely compromise (for me at least) was when Ed Hall hosted with Amanda. The set was largely the same, the show had more energy and they had a brilliant original game with Woolseye. I haven’t been able to find any clips in recent years though.

I do feel that Paul Tomkinson was used as a scape goat but for me I feel like three was too much of a crowd, Donna Air seemed to struggle to gel with the two of them, and similar to the previous clip talked over the others somewhat, however it’s nothing against her as she was brilliant in the phone in room and during 1:1 interviews.

Was never the biggest fan of Donna Air but yes, it certainly suffered from there being one too many hosts - though I do think it was worth trying. She didn't last too long after they undid everything from what I remember.

I never really took to Amanda either - she was alright and had her moments but just lacked that little bit of star quality that Denise and Liza bought in different ways. That said Richard was a bit marmite too.


The 2001 revamp was leagues ahead of the 1996 effort and IMO not only bought the show into the 21st century but also took it back to its roots too of being short sharp features and a team effort rather than centred around one host with features of increasing length as it became in the Johnny era. Yes, it needed a few tweaks and had it survived they may have gone down to two presenters ultimately, plus the less said about that logo the better, but there was something to build on there rather than something to rip up. That said though the show probably still would have faced the axe a year later - but I think if you were pitching for a breakfast show to air in 2002 the effort from early 2001 felt much more current than the effort from summer 2001.

I’m really enjoying reading all of these posts, it’s great to see the recent resurgence in interest in the programme.

Thinking about the 2001 revamp, it would be great to see some of the images of the games room (canal side bedroom) and loft area that was added in this era and used briefly. I was never a fan of the blue boudoir of this era or the landing area that didn’t really have a purpose until Roland Rat arrived.