The Big Breakfast

This must have been June or July because the show was on tour during the summer holidays as The Bigger Breakfast.

Re: the titles. I don't think the flying breakfast titles were in place from when Johnny started, though it wasn't too long after they debuted IIRC.

And indeed it's got Rick Adams in it, during his brief spell on Down Your Doorstep, and he left at the start of July.

Did Sharon Davies present at all in 1997? There's so little footage of that era, consistent with how unpopular it was I suppose.

She left at the end of April, so her tenure was far longer than I remember (only 3 months less than Liza Tarbuck).

I can see what they were doing with Sharron - a Gaby-esq mumsie figure, but gosh she was so awkward. She just wasn't right for the job, and I can't believe she chose to commute every day from the Cotswolds to Bow.

They messed up when they lost Zoe, and got VERY lucky when Denise & Johnny worked out.

Crikey. No memory of that era at all. Even with their very confined camera angles the awkward blend between the 1996 relaunch and the subsequent attempts to make it go away are clear clear to see.

Did they just shove some ply over the sunken area after a few months?

When JV and DVO took over in September 1997, the grey carpet remained with the 1997 living room & there was a blue material in the centre of the living room floor where the sunken pit used to be. That's my theory anyway.

Her last day was 2nd May, the day after the election. Although for the last few months she was barely there, and I always wonder if they realised from day one that she wasn't working out, given how quickly they got Denise into the house. I know they said it was too dark to see anything from the helicopter, but they'd have known that when they started it.

The short-lived TV magazine The Box did a bit about Sharron during her reign of terror, I remember it said "Coming up next: A woman reading off a clipboard" and said that all she ever really did was read stuff off that, in a tone that sounded like she was reading her shopping list ("OK, I've trailed that item, three more items to do"). It also said that Rick Adams had clearly sensed the void where her presence should have been so just talked and talked and talked to make up for it.

In January 1997 the grey carpet covered the whole room, but by the summer the shape of the den had been cut out and covered with blue as you describe. When the grey carpet was replaced with blue, the shape was still a different colour.

You can see the blue covering in this clip from Christmas day 1997 from 12:55:

Great clip. Interesting that the clock breaks and is quickly replaced by something much simpler a couple of minutes in.

I seem to remember reading about that before- apparently the pre-recorded show was played out by Channel 4, sent down the line to the usual BB studios where the clock was added (or, looking at the artifacts when it goes down, where the clock moves but the rest of the picture doesn't, the clock was fed to Channel 4 and they keyed it on the video), somehow the line was lost and Channel 4 presentation put up their own (you'll notice it's in the same font they used at the time).

And much nicer it was to. Hated that blue framed clock. The emergency clock actually looks far better and suits the show more.