Noel on Strike

Phillip Schofield has been 'Gotcha'd' and pranked by Ant & Dec Undercover on This Morning (in the Fern era).

I vividly remember that - it was its only ever appearance, because it totally died on its arse.

Wow that is a terrible idea.
Popular time for that kind of thing - in the same month Live and Kicking launched with Ratz, which they at least persevered with for a full year on L&K and CBBC.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of Noel's House Party not being shown on BBC1 due to a bomb scare at BBC TV Centre, there's a high quality clip on MHP PP for those interested (ref 7469) of Noel Edmonds introducing a Tom and Jerry cartoon as filler from the CBBC Broom Cupboard.

What the deal with this? which seems to have knicked the some scripts from the late late breakfast show

Wasn't it loosely a spin off from Telly Addicts?

Also available here, including the announcement into the standby Noel's Christmas Presents that went out instead

Thanks for this Steve, really appreciated.

Was I alone in thinking Noel's Addicts was simply a spoof created by Vic and Bob? I lost my mind when I discovered it was a real show.

In hindsight, I'd be interested to know how "NTV - You're on your own" *really* worked. I was always highly suspicious about it. The only location I remember was one guy spending the "entire week" in the desert, maybe someone was sent to a Scottish island as well? Even in the 90s, I assume there was rather more 'compliance' needed for that than merely signing a release form, i.e. a degree of duty of care etc. (given what had had happened on the Late Late Breakfast Show). Did they just use one day of the week to grab a few shots, put the person up in a hotel for the remainder and then get the crew back the day before the next show to setup the live OB?

Re: features like "Prime Time" (for those that don't remember, anyone could ring in and have a minute of prime time on BBC ONE to perform something), number cruncher etc. being confined to a geographic area - it always seemed pretty obvious for the former there was only a single OB truck available and it would be down to however far they could get in a half an hour or however long they had. I remember for that they also had a live screen grab of Microsoft Autoroute showing the GPS location of the truck, which was pretty cutting edge for the time.

As I mentioned on the YouTube Gold thread, that clip also contains the episode from the following week featuring Chris Evans (and Carol McGiffen) on NTV, which has become part urban legend...


The story told by Chris and Carol on their radio show the next morning (as I remember it) was that the BBC phoned earlier in the evening and spoke to Carol to warn her that the camera was going on. She replied 'you can't turn it on now as Baywatch is on, he'll be having a.... !!' and then going by the audience's laughter she obviously either mouthed the word or mimed the action

However in urban legend the production team did see, and record him pleasuring himself in front of Baywatch. Though of course the footage has never turned up anywhere.

Whether the legend is based on the comments on the radio or based on what actually happened... or whether what was said on the radio was just a joke or not I've no idea

NTV YOYO - the logistical side of this always interested me, as you'd be sending off someone, presumably with a job, for a whole week and possibly more depending on what happened the following Saturday. It did give NTV a big kick up the arse and if you got the right person it was quite entertaining to see them want to come home the following Saturday but potentially not do so. It must have been hugely expensive though, particularly as you'd have two OBs at once each week to do the decider. It also made the "camera in your home" aspect a bit of a sideshow. After Christmas they binned the "rollover" aspect of it and just sent people away for a week at a time, and had them in the great house the following week to introduce their highlights, which must have saved a few quid (and they'd probably only have to do a couple of days too). Then the very last proper NTV (as opposed to the double bluff in the final show) they sent an old woman to the US to see her sister for the first time in decades, which was a lovely way to finish.

Prime Time was yet another series 6 idea that didn't really fly and was dropped by the end of the run, they did discover Ross Lee though (he did Chute on CBBC, which was amazing). The last one they did, they actually failed to reach the person in question and showed the OB team asking for directions, bit of an embarrassment. Although by the time they did this the credits were rolling so they must have been running quite over anyway.