BBC tinkering with end credits on old shows

I suspect they were filmed with the camera on the stage rotating with the first credit, then they took off the sign and put on a blank one, filming that long enough for the regular credits, and then popped the end one on for it to rotate off. All these would have been the close up shots making one sequence that was used each episode. Edits would have been easy to do given it's just one light flashing on and off in each corner.

Then just film the first credit for Bob spinning round with that weeks finalist in shot, and then change it to the final credit and film that rotating round and do it that way.

May have taken a bit more time, but the effect is good!

There so much effort on show, when the credits that could have been simply overlaid. Wouldn't get that these days!

I'm sure towards the end Big Break was one of those shows that was barely off air, and when they axed it they'd already recorded loads. As they'd axed it, there was no priority to air them quickly so they just trickled out as and when over a very protracted period.

That sounds about right, except that the blue background to the credits looks like it's not real but done as graphics

I think they just produced a set of credits with the blue background and then just wiped it (using a vision mixer, though not necessarily in the studio on the day) into the correct shape and size on top of the real shiny frame.

Unless somebody tried to find a cleaner set of credits than that 2001 episode had and didn't think to check the date.

I strongly suspect that Big Break episode was filmed in 1998 and just possibly held back for three years. It's in 4:3 - still possible for 2001-made material but increasingly rare, much more likely for the late 90s - and right at the start Jim mentions it's been "eight years" since the show started, not quite right for '98 but perhaps thinking of a 1999 broadcast date which would be correct.

There's a clip on youtube filmed in March 1996 of a Big Break with a 1995 copyright date, so it had happened before.

I'm more inclined to believe it was just a repeat of a 1998 episode that aired on 19th May 2001, because less than a month later a new series begins and is broadcast in widescreen - this is also the first listing I can find for the original version of Big Break with the "(W)" identifier: http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/de7dd3f67c444fdb947e1a8d417cde11

The previous run from April-May 2001, which the episode on the iPlayer is supposed to be from, only consisted of four episodes, and the first listing makes no mention of it being a new series http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/12af83f5f0c4420ea82de717010efc33

The earliest (and only) Big Break listings which mention "digital widescreen" are for a run of Big Break - Stars of the Future from 3-31 July 1999.
The first listing is here: http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/75f948654b954b7cb25b9505f04e80b9

The question and video about Bob's Full House, and the end credits, reminds me that in the early days, and I believe in the Les Dennis era, the end credits for Family Fortunes were put on the big screen, as opposed to overlaid.

I, too, had a Genome hunt through this a few days ago. The episode itself was not given a (R) mark in its Radio Times billing (on 19/5/01), which made me think that it was its first airing in 2001. I also went through the complete 1998 series (on Genome) and those three snooker players did not appear together at all that series. There is *one* episode from that year that does not have the players billed, so I guess it's possible that it's that episode that has been repeated. I think it's unlikely (as the first post claimed) that the credits are from a completely different episode, as they have the snooker players right, and there don't appear to be any edits later on.

I just find it hard to believe that a series could be delayed by that much! A year or two sure, but four years seems a lengthy amount of time to not broadcast a game show of all things.

They did record umpteen at a time, though, and I well remember that they still showed episodes of Big Break in 2000, billed as new, which still had the old BBC logo and 1997 copyright dates. It was used as a filler most of the time so you would get odd shows turning up years later.

It's like how episodes of Catchphrase made by TVS in 1992 would still turn up on ITV in 1994 with TVS copyright dates but Meridian endcaps. I remember that actually because in 1994 they showed the half dozen or so leftover TVS episodes and then immediately went to the first of the new Carlton-produced shows with the new theme and opening titles and graphics, which was a bit of a jolt a week apart.

On the topic of Big Break, here's a little YouTube treat - Kenny Everett performing the theme tune (originally from Mike Batt's musical 'Hunting of the Snark') on the 1991 Children in Need.