Bat's wings 60th anniversary

No, I don't remember either of those things, and saying coloured people is hardly a 90s thing, it's a very old term used mainly by my parents generation and banished by the 90s. Anyway, off topic...

The dancers weren't great, some were ok, although perhaps they were a bit ahead of their time.... with the success of Strictly and it's various imitators, they might have gone down better in 2013

Not really, if they had to spend money on some anyway.

The problem with the balloon idents is that in isolation, out of the context of it's predecessors it's an odd concept.

Bringing it back as a kind of nostalgic resurrection just wouldn't work

After a very long time of BBC One being represented by a spinning world (which if you think about it, is actually a rather bizarre concept - why the world? This is a British broadcaster - so why the whole planet?) I remember those who'd seen the initial concept for the Balloons saying how brave it was. I still think the Balloons concept is a triumph - retaining the globe to provide some continuity of branding but introducing the wonderful British countryside, and later, people, places and, dare I say it, dancing.

I think it had had its day however and some of the later idents in the Balloons series are not my favourites in the set.
(I'm looking at you Bungee:)
http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/bbcone/images_idents/1997/bbcone_id_bungee99b-01.jpg

Back to the Batwings - I think I have some continuity somewhere introducing Quatermass - I'll see if I can dig it out and upload it ...

That has to be my fave ident of all time I think...

... and apparently not quite as it appears, Nick Higham tweeted that as it's illegal to fly a balloon over the sea, they filmed the lighthouse from a helicopter and filmed the balloon somewhere else and married the two up in post.

Indeed, it's not a concept that would be arrived at from a blank bit of paper, it's an odd hybrid. Having shots of landscape and landmarks as a part of TV presentation is an idea that's been done a lot, and it works (although can date quickly), but it's almost as if they had that idea and then came up with the balloon as a way to get a globe into it.

You're right about the globe too, as I kid I just assumed that BBC1 was seen everywhere. Of course it probably wouldn't have been chosen these days as it's not a copyrightable design.... unlike the bats wings bringing it back to the topic.


No, some of the later ones looked quite bad as they were obviously done with less care than the originals, The Sydney Olympics one being a good example, and the set that included Kingston Market

Mind you, some of the later BBC2 ones at that time weren't quite so good either


That was used at the start of one of yesterdays videos (the one on the BBC Press site) I remember it being shown on the TV50 documentary when I was a kid and asking my parents what a 'nervous disposition was'

It did look strikingly good on the report, perhaps because it's a long time since I've seen a balloon ident in broadcast quality, as for over the last decade I've only seen them on a television screen from VHS recordings. The Needles ident was part of the second batch introduced in 1998, and I think from that point on all the new balloon idents that came along were 'faked', whereas most of the original 47 from 1997 were done for real.


Funnily enough, of all the those idents, I hated Tapdogs the most. Generally, it was the more upbeat dancer idents that grated on me the most, whereas ones like Acrobats and Tai Chi I found less annoying.

Strange to think that at over 7 years old, the circle idents have now outlasted all of their predecessors, even the Bat's Wings. I don't take much notice of ITV, but what I've seen of their latest idents, they look utterly dull. I'd take ageing circle idents over those any day.


I remember that too, it was the first time I'd ever seen the Bat's Wings symbol and I remember being rather bemused by it, to say the least.

I'm totally the opposite, the slow ones just seem so dull whereas I liked the more upbeat ones like tap, rave and bollywood. Incidently, I just watched the set on youtube and it occurred to me that what sets the tap one out from the rest is that the dancers are actually contributing to the music rather than just dancing to it.

The other thing I notice is that the early set seem very lazy and half arsed and they improved in terms of production and style.... the balloons did totally the opposite

Not sure about it being my all time favourite, but its definitely up there somewhere.

I've always thought the balloon idents were slightly ahead of their time because they appear very cinematic but were introduced before the adoption of widescreen TVs really took off. Would love to see them re-shot in HD and used again.

I suspect they were shot on film and thus a HD transfer is more than possible.

The original ones yes, but the CGI ones might have to be redone.

Although all of this is but a pipe dream of course...

I was having a nostalgia hunt on YouTube earlier today (inspired by this thread!) and came across this. Thought that it might be interesting to some.