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Alan Connor's done alright for himself since, he's even got a Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Connor
He's a comedy writer and is particularly notable in the quizzing world, having been on the question writing team on Only Connect and other programmes.

Connor, alongside Jasmine Dotiwala (who I remember being unveiled as the new presenter on The Big Breakfast, as she'd previously been in the Big Breakfast crew), were the last two presenters to join The Word in its last series when it was on its last legs. Actually I remember reading about how in one episode Connor was about to do a live OB from America and a few minutes before he went on air someone turned up with a gun and started pointing it at the crew, so they had to very quickly abandon the whole thing.

As mentioned, Olivia Colman is billed as Collie, which was her nickname both then and now, in David Mitchell's autobiography he refers to her as Collie throughout. As suggested, some of The Word was a bit more constructed and scripted than they suggested at the time, you probably wouldn't get away with some of it these days.

Of course pretty much everyone on the production team of The Word went on to run British television, so it gets massively over-mythologised and overrated these days, even though it was always crap and everyone knew it. In Broadcast a few years back they did a seven page feature about it, saying it was a show that changed TV with loads of comments from some of the production team, all now in huge roles in broadcasting. I remember Andrew Newman talking about how he was charged with finding dog dirt to use for The Hopefuls, and how they spent ages trying to find the most perfect piece of dog dirt to use. A golden age of British television.

What we have here is a very interesting case of CBeebies and CBBC continuity, both from May 2003, (the first one's from May 22nd, and the latter May 6th), but they feature notable differences.



For those who don't know, CBeebies had a mini-refresh in Spring 2003, (either May 12th or May 19th), and by that I mean the set was changed and even the presentation was tweaked, (notice the music played during the birthday cards is completely different on both days).

CBBC also was changing it's presentation too, the May 6th clip shows during the Breakfast Show on BBC TWO, that they'd only just added a digital clock, (lacks the green bug shape of the logo.), they also starting calling it "CBBC ONE/TWO" again instead of "CBBC on BBC ONE/TWO".

I always loved the Meridian logo. For someone in the region, this would be very interesting - like if TTTV did a recap of its previous year in broadcasting in 1994.

Unfortunately presented in potatovision, but an episode of the first series of Play Your Cards Right from 1980, and a clear case of early instalment weirdness as it were (single players for a start, the way Bruce turns the cards round and a few presentation cues clearly inspired from Blankety Blank):


Not much of that presentation package changed for the next seven years, though the game format did. Couples appeared from the next series onwards. The 1990s revival, as well as looking and being a bit more classy, also started playing for cash.

Since I grew up with that incarnation of PYCR, nothing beats that look for class

Martin Lambie-Nairn's work, of course.

I got hold of this on an old VHS about twenty years ago and the picture was terrible then, this is several further generations down the line so clearly it's done the rounds of the trading circuit many times over the decades. The oddest bit is where Brucie says "It's gonna be a big night if you play your cards right!" to hysterics from the audience, leading him to say "That is the name of our show, I told you!". Maybe it was just the way he said it.

As you can see, Brucie hosts it with his arm in plaster because a few weeks before the first show he fell over on stage and broke his wrist (though he kept going, the trouper, even playing the piano). Apparently they initially had to use solo contestants as that was how they did it in America and they were required to follow the format to the letter, but the intention was always to go to couples from series two, on Brucie's suggestion.

Just uploaded by me and hoping it's of interest, almost all the CBBC links from Friday 31st August 2001 - the last CBBC weekday in 4:3, and Ana Boulter's last day. The final link's been on YouTube in good quality for some time, but the full day features appearances from various presenters (real and puppet) from the last few years to bid farewell to Ana. Sadly some of the links start a few seconds in as I recorded them aged 12 with a faulty video player and a bad sense of timekeeping.

Talking of last days on CBBC, the closing link for Michael Underwood's final afternoon on February 1st, 2002 was recently uploaded. Michael joined CITV later that year, of course, due to the imminent launch of the CBBC Channel and CBeebies, (CBBC bug can be spotted during the closing ident.)



His final links were pre-recorded for the Breakfast Show in the last week pre-relaunch, co-presented with Liam Dolan, who joined GMTV to present Diggin' It shortly after.

And to complete the other end of the story, how Underwood ended up on CBBC thanks to Gaby Roslin's Whatever You Want show in 1999, which included a try-out audition alongside Otis the Aardvark:


As it turned out he retired last year to become a teacher, so his presenting career lasted 20 years, although it must be remembered he did appear on the first Christmas special of the original Crystal Maze series, so his appearance on Whatever You Want wasn't his first outing on TV.

That link is also almost certainly the last live link from that incarnation of TC9 also, as continuity moved around TVC the following week whilst it was redecorated.

Worth watching that for the 180 degree pan from the audience seating to the main stage before the credit roll. Studio 1 at LWT!

I guess they used the largest studio audience seating capacity they had and to fill for Sir Brucie to play up to - but in terms of the two areas of the set (main contestant and game board and the prize holding pen) it really was far more space than actually needed.

and I think the other 2 are Emma Leaden and Barney Harwood so all 3 went on to become presenters, BTW that has been up for a year