Top of the Pops

Here's Belinda Carlisle's performance of "(We Want) The Same Thing" on the episode of 25 October 1990:



I bring it up not because she turns 60 next week - but because it was among the clips on the 24 November 1999 episode of TOTP2, and Wrighty made a remark about her dress that surely wouldn't be allowed now. Although I was only 11 at the time, I clearly remember him saying, "I thought she was going to take it off."

Incidentally, this was a week in which TOTP and TOTP2 were both on BBC2 and TOTP2 pulled in more viewers. Obviously, this was because of Children in Need and not because of Belinda's dress, or Wrighty's remark about it.




*insert obvious "don't feel like dancing" remark here*




Some people give out about TOTP's use of the Clarendon font - but I actually can't decide how much of an improvement Times New Roman Bold and Futura Condensed Bold were, even if they looked more up-to-date.

As it turned out, they lasted only around half as long.

If the information on Popscene is correct, next Friday's episode is the end of an era as it's the final "audience dancing during the credits" sequence as it switches to a video instead (which is initially superimposed over a static wideshot of the studio). I've really enjoyed seeing the "extra" material that clearly wasn't transmitted on the initial airing (and the kaleidoscope on the 70s episodes). I wonder if BBC4 will show the full video as I imagine this could go on longer than many of the dance sequences.

I've seen a couple of 1986 episodes on Vimeo that are taken from the original master tapes, and on those the videos are faded out before the end (and you can hear the audience in the studio applauding after the fade out on one of them), so I can assume they didn't always run the video right through to the end.

How would you rate the 1991-95 logo then?

I can totally understand why you find that logo horrendous. It's certainly not aged well.

But in 1986, that particular style (each letter in a different font with a mix of uppercase/lowercase/italics) was very much in keeping with the graphic design found on record sleeves and in magazines like Smash Hits.

The logo wasn't a random stab in the dark, it was a considered attempt to keep up with the graphic design trends of the moment.

Also I'd say that 1986-1990 was the most avant garde era in BBC graphic design - most programmes had a heavily creative and stylised logo (look at Wogan, Tomorrow's World, the 6 or 9 O'Clock News, for example), very different from today when it's usually a line of straight text in a simple font.

The logo probably didn't look bad at the time, even if it hasn't dated well. And obviously the logo was made for then, not 30 years down the line.

Well, that one only lasted two years. What do you think of it's successor?

Apparently, that font for "Move Closer" is called simply Computer:

http://www.fontscape.com/pictures2/monotype-imaging/Computer.gif

It is, of course, similar to Westminster and Data 70.

rdobbie mentioned Tomorrow's World a few posts back - that show used a BBC own-brand version of Westminster in its early years.