The Big Breakfast

Even a blind person know this its Fright nights! WHAT a surprise ERgh.

Well, I'm sure we all appreciate the irony of that comment.

The days when Zig and Zag had a slot interviewing future presidents of the United States:


Really could have done with The Big Breakfast this morning.

I never realised that, in the final set of titles, there were top of hour versions for 7am and 8am, with the number on the bus correlating...

Yes, although strangely I don't think they had a shorter version of that 45 second sequence unlike most previous sequences. I think only the 1997-2000 fly in titles didn't have a short version.

They had a short version of the 2001 re-launch opening titles at 8am which are YouTube.

I was wondering if anyone who is very knowledgeable about The Big Breakfast might be able to help me date these two mp3s: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/91q4u410j8hgmzy/AAAUPdXOR4IuKp81r0WiQ3CGa?dl=0

The background to them is that they are stings from the BB News and they were on a Discart floppy disk which ITN used in some of its control rooms from about 1995 onwards. I've scoured various clips on YouTube but I haven't been able to even guess at a date for them. Sadly the disk wasn't labelled correctly. It may be that they weren't even used - they may have been pilot cuts - but given they were transferred to the playout format for the era, I'm guessing they probably were used at some point. Can anyone help please?

I don't ever recall hearing them used. They used a similar theme from 1998 onwards with the same beats but they didn't sound like that.

I agree - a familar beat from the BB News certainly during the Johnny and Denise eras but I don't think that version ever made it to screen - certainly not on a regular basis but I don't remember them ever changing the news bed for special events either. The only thing they'd ever do is drop it if it was unsuitable to run alongside the main news of the morning.

The four note news intro actually came with the 1996 relaunch, and if anything the files sit best along with the news bed of that era.

However, the fact that they were transferred to playout format doesn't mean they were used on air. Its possible that it could have been used during rehearsals related to an upcoming relaunch (or even in one of the pilots made for the new look Big Breakfast).

Thanks for your help everyone - I think you're right, Whataday. The stings are most similar to the 1996-98 news theme and this was definitely the time that Discart was being used at ITN. It also makes sense that they would have transferred them to the playout format for rehearsals - it's just amazing they were never thrown out if they weren't in fact used.

Does anyone remember "The Large Breakfast"? an actually fairly decent episode they did during the shows, otherwise awful, final three months. The idea behind it was to try and go "upmarket" like The Mirror was attempting to do at the time. This episode had an orchestral version of the theme which seemed overly elaborate for a one off gag. I don't suppose anyone has this? It'd be interesting to hear if that theme sounded as good now as I remember thinking it did at the time.