The Official Ident Thread of Christmas Past

To tvarksouthwest, do you know what was used in 1978 on BBC1? 1976 had the rotating electric snowflake, 1977 the Christmas pudding and in 1979 the carol singer rotation with a dog. But I have not seen any from 78.
Another of my favourites was the 1987 "CHRISTMAS" formation ident with the simple flickering candle.

Well since you ask, here are the 1978 idents:

http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/bbc1national/idents/bbc1xmas1978large.jpg

http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/bbc2national/idents/bbc2xmas1978large.jpg

BBC1 had the famous Santa Claus head which broke down live on air. 1978 was the year of the BBC strike and news coverage of the dispute contained footage of the model being assembled.

And here's the BBC2 ident for 1977:

http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/bbc2national/idents/bbc2xmas1977large.jpg

The 1979 idents can be seen in colour at http://home.clara.net/jim.edwards

Certainly in their 2001 guise the christmas idents did look very nice (they even introduced a new one that year). I also liked the new year ident with the year appearing in the animation and the champagne bubbles.

Carlton's 1999-2002 set were I agree excellent stuff - and it's hard to believe that this is the kind of material that Lambie-Nairn used to produce before the people ident invasion (amazing to think that the BBC1 dancers came from the same design house) and were innovative especially when held up to the drab blue spinning hearts which most stations used. Another innovative thing was that quick re-edit they had for the Star Wars season (although IIRC it didn't last the entire season - October 28th came along before it was over).

What was the Star Wars edit, I dont remember that.

Its a shame that they couldn't have hired Lambie Nairn to do the current lot.
What I don't understand is how this year, they have said that itv1 wont have christmas idents as the marketing director doesn't like them, yet they are having them on itv2 (apparently), but isn't the marketing director the same for all itv related stuff?

I actually liked the christmas idents before 1999, they had central & carlton versions. The straight text on the coloured background. I especially liked the gold letters that bounced onto each other, and the music was great.

(OT) tvarksouthwest, wasn't the BBC strike of 1978 an all-out strike, and were programmes on Christmas Day seriously threatened (e.g. was there ever a real threat of NOTHING at all-just the usual apology caption, on Christmas Day?)

There was never a threat of nothing on Christmas Day - management would have provided a holiday service if necessary. A caption advised viewers of this a few days beforehand. In the event, everyone returned to work so Christmas TV was saved.