Late Late Breakfast Show death - 25 years on

According to Wikipedia Telly Addicts started in 1985 and Whatever Next was pre-Saturday Roadshow in 1988


yes, you can tell Noel's been a bit rattled by the second one, after treating the first one almost flippantly. The audience reaction for the first one is slightly disturbing too, especially the reaction to seeing the injured man limping into an ambulance.


That programme gets a mention in the second part of John Peel's autobiography, the bit written posthumously by his wife. She and their young kids were watching it on TV at home and were left hanging not knowing what had happened to him

You're quite right. I remember that anno before Telly Addicts, and it was even preceded by the words "Noel Edmonds has asked us to point out that..." (in fact I'm fairly sure it was spoken at the start of the next 3-4 episodes of Telly Addicts after the death).

Telly Addicts began in 1985. Whatever Next was in the autumn of 1987, on Mondays as you say, the one year when Noel didn't have a live Saturday night show, but Telly Addicts was on Saturday for that series. In 1988, the Saturday Roadshow began and Telly Addicts moved back to weekdays.

Cheers Steve for that. I never thought that Telly Addicts started back in 1985, I thought it started much later in that decade.

One follow up question. When TLLBS was dropped from the schedules, was Noel's live Christmas Morning show going at that time, and if it was, was it Tinybeards first appearence on live television since 'the late late'... was abruptly ended?

That started around 1988/89.

1986: http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/168966

No video evidence but any excuse to post this classic Xmas morning junction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6lQunIGWFs

Sorry I though it was Christmas present show!

It was earlier than that. 1986 was the first year it would have been called 'Christmas Morning with Noel'. It was originally called something like 'The Late Late Christmas Show', but obviously the name had to go in 1986

EDIT: according to TV Cream it started in 1984: http://www.tvcream.co.uk/?p=18685

It was called the 'Noel Edmonds Live Live Christmas Breakfast Show" when it first started, with Noel presenting from the BT Tower and Mike Smith delivering presents in the "Hollycopter", then "Christmas Morning With Noel" from 1986. The "Hollycopter" segment was then spun-off in 1989 to become "Noel's Christmas Presents".

ISTR it featured a round-the-regions thing because Noel said all the main centres were staffed and could provide inserts to a national programme. I think in the main it consisted of a lot of cold, lonely looking Local Radio presenters standing outside a totally deserted BBC centre ...

Yes, I know he went on Wogan a week or two later but Christmas Morning would have been his first proper live show. As has been said, it had started in 1984 as a Late Late spin-off but was rebranded as Christmas Morning With Noel in 1986 for obvious reasons. In addition, Mike Smith only appeared in pre-recorded bits as they thought that had he appeared live, as he had in previous years, it would remind people too much of the old show.

The Post Office Tower shows ran from 1984 to 1987. In 1988 they did the same show with the same name but from TV Centre instead, then in 1989 it became the pre-recorded Noel's Christmas Presents, originally in the same mid-morning slot and then, after a year off in 1992, moved to the post-Queen slot where it stayed until it ended in 1999.

There was indeed a round-the-regions spot, Michael Hurll says he phoned up every region and asked which reporter was on duty on Christmas Day and asked them to be on it.