Santa Claus walking past the BBC News 24 studio, and then the BBC World studio.
There was a few good London Today/Tonight ones on 'TV Nightmares', such as when Anna Maria Ashe thought she was doing a rehearsal, when she was actually live..."That's coming up tomorrow, we can't wait! Lots of love, see you! *pulls silly face*" And one from 1995, when Michael Heseltine pulled the lever to turn on the Christmas Lights somewhere in London...and they do, very, very slowly. Alistair Stewart slightly stuck for words: "And...what a...magnificent sight...".
Central News West 2003, which first 20 seconds of the 6pm bulletin was just Charlie Neil, moving around a bit, gasping just as they finally cut to the programme!
Caused much mirth at the time!
Watching Denis Nordern earlier reminded me of another one I saw at the time, when the main news goes back to the region for the headlines. Cue Bob with glasses reading a newspaper before realising he's on air!
It only just counts as a news moment, but that clip of Colin Baker signing off in the rain and getting a few things off his chest has to be up there with the best of them.
Last's night Alright on the Night had a few classics - Tanya Beckett asking questions to a completely wrong guest, Deborah Mackenzie not realising she was on camera with her make-up kit as well as 'tomatoes' heading toward the US!
Central News West 2003, which first 20 seconds of the 6pm bulletin was just Charlie Neil, moving around a bit, gasping just as they finally cut to the programme!
Caused much mirth at the time!
Wasn't she doing some kind of stretching exercises? I remember she gasped when someone must have told her she was on-air, just before it cut to the programme which had already started.
Earlier this year Emily Maitlis on BBC London News. She could not stop laughing after Riz Lateef reported from a restaurant in London that was in the pitch black. That was the point of the restaurant and so Riz could not see who she was with or what she was eating. Riz handed back to the studio.
Emily (and most of audience) found it amusing and this lead to us seeing Emily bent over laughing with tears in her eyes. She tried to read on but had to stop several times because she had a fit of the giggles. She just about got to Tim Donovan who was reporting from an OB. He made a reference to her get her composure back, it was very, very good!
The then US Secretary of State for Defence Madelaine Allbright (sp?) being aston'd "GI Jane" was quite a good one IMO.
I also really like Philip Hayton's Asia Today gaffe "Well the humble penguin doesn't normally generate much excrement ... I'm sorry ... excitement...."
Thanks for the upload of the Six o'Clock News Lesbian incident - by far the best upload to have appeared on TVF. I remember watching that programme but have never heard the gallery talkback before. The director's comment "F**king hell there's a nutter in there" is legendary.
Someone posted why they carried on rather than asking Pres to sustain or finding a graphic to go to. What you have to remember was that in those days the opening squence of the News was technically extremely challenging - everything played in manually on 5 second prerolls, vision mixed manually and PA'd manually - there was simply no way with the director only becoming aware of the security breach once on air, that a slide could be found in time. Also of course, the News was gospel - it went on-air on time (to the second) and generally never broke down badly enough for pres to be called upon to take them off (for instance when a large bulb exploded above Jan Leaming, or when the new automted cameras went crazy during a Nine with Julia Somerville and (I think) Andrew Harvey - in both cases they soldiered on. I certainly don't ever remember National Main News bulletin falling off air, but await to be corrected!
ISTR a fire (or a fire alarm) at TV Centre taking the Six off the air for around 15-20 minutes sometime around 1986-87. I think Nick Witchell appeared live on the Wogan programme that night at 7pm to explain what had happened.
