TOTP 25/12/77 (tx 24/12/12): no Beatles, Elvis or Rolling Stones in 1977('s Christmas Day TOTP)

Well, that's another year done with. Let's start with the six most read posts of 2012 to date, inevitably affected by events but with a heartening end:

6 TOTP 7/4/77 (tx 19/4/12): boxing clever: two clips from Soul Train do some of the legwork, but the central conceit is Legs & Co's boxing exhibition to Love Hit Me. In the comments Brendon's bassist posts PDFs of two TOTP shooting scripts.

5 TOTP 12/5/77 (tx 24/5/12): bee sharp: bees, steel drums, streamers, wine bottles, orchestras, Billy Paul having to recreate his own samples, Lee Brilleaux... the maddest show of the year, where Jimmy comes on quarter of the way through in a wig and suit professing to be his brother Percy and in context it seems perfectly normal.

4 TOTP 22/9/77 (tx 18/10/12) open thread: the first Pops after the series of unfortunate events, emotional balm provided by working out whether Hank The Knife was wearing a wig, why dry ice was so upsetting Jean-Jacques Burnel and whether Stardust's singer was Paul Whitehouse in disguise.

3 The disappeared: 17/11/77: the first skipped show for which video evidence could be provided, featuring Noosha Fox, Brighouse and Rastrick's finest and Bob Geldof's noogieing. Numbers boosted by being linked to from all over the place, including David Icke's forum.

2 TOTP 25/8/77 (tx 27/9/12): your super soaraway show: Legs & Co take to the catwalk in Elvis' honour, Noel sports a Boomtown Rats badge and the Adverts fall prey to the soundman. A record 131 comments, bolstered by outside influences.

1 Contempt breed familiarity: despite everything this was a comfortable winner, a potted history of the one band the internet knew nothing about before appearing on these shows. Don't know how this ended up so popular, apart from one link on doyouremember it doesn't appear to have been linked from anywhere.

Of course were this a more representative look back at 1977 Contempt would have taken pride of place, alongside Joy Sarney, Danny Mirror, Brendon, David Parton, Trinidad Oil Company, Martyn Ford Orchestra, Honky, the Carvells, Page Three, the Foster Brothers, Hudson-Ford, Neil Innes, Gene Cotton, Dead End Kids, Jigsaw, The Banned, Peter Blake, the RAH Band, Berni Flint, John Miles' command of the talkbox, Danny Williams, the Steve Gibbons Band and the Mah Na Mah Na Legs & Co routine with a live feed from the living room of Sue's children, plus Diddy interviewing Michael Nesmith. Instead the ever unimaginative BBC LE department decided to honour the biggest hits of the year instead. Pschaw.

So before we start here's how it fitted into what some say was the greatest Christmas evening's telly of all time, featuring the two most watched Christmas Day light entertainment shows of all time, and the one that received the most viewers isn't the one everyone thinks it is (and wasn't as big as is commonly quoted):

8.55am Star Over Bethlehem
9.55am Playboard
10.10am Michael Bentine appeals on behalf of Wells Cathedral
10.15am Christmas Worship from All Saints Parish Church, Kingston-Upon-Thames
11.13am Weatherman
11.15am The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas animation
11.40am National Velvet
1.40pm Are You Being Served?
2.10pm Top of the Pops
3.00pm The Queen
3.10pm Billy Smart's Christmas Circus
4.10pm The Wizard Of Oz
5.50pm Basil (Brush) Through The Looking Glass
6.20pm Evening News
6.25pm Songs Of Praise
7.15pm The Generation Game
8.20pm Mike Yarwood Christmas Show
8.55pm Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show
10.00pm News
10.05pm Funny Girl
12.30am Weatherman
12.31am Closedown

The best ITV could do? The Christmas Stars On Sunday and nearly three hours of Young Winston.

Back to business, with an intro screen which features previous footage of those who we'll see over the following fifty minutes in the middle and chart slides of others along the side. This is the closest Barry Biggs, Berni Flint and, remarkably, the Sex Pistols get to the end of year spectacular. 'Part One' - well, it couldn't be comfortably edited out, I suppose - has Noel and Kid in charge, the former in the widest bank manager-style tie he could find, the latter in a purple suit, huge bow tie and ruffled shirt giving him the look of a school leaver on work experience at The Comedians. Noel hopes "the pudding isn't lying too heavy cos there's a bit of dancing to do today, I reckon". Not with most of this lineup there isn't. Maybe that's the idea.

Showaddywaddy – You Got What It Takes
Not a lot of new performances given the auspicious occasion but the 'Waddy are always available with a combination of colours to suit all occasions. They start with their backs turned, as per rock and roll showbiz tradition, but it doesn't work if they're initially being filmed from behind the stage left drumkit. Under a variety of large balloons Dave Bartram, who appears to have a large car key for a medallion, struts in allurring electric pink while nobody else at all mimes the prominent sax part. We know from last year that they like a visual gag, so the performance is cut into with shots of them at a large dining table re-enacting the last supper (or having a false Christmas dinner, one of the two) Buddy liberally pours out wine and makes merry, as you'd expect. Romeo looks unenthusiastic pulling a cracker, as you'd expect. Al James sits at the end on his own and looks utterly fed up.

Deniece Williams – Free
Tip: when being shot in artful half-darkness, don't wear a dark coloured dress. At least they've given her a proper stage this time. Lit by spotlight from the front and one in-shot overhead light, Deniece is definitely made out as the centre of attention which enhances her emotive heights of performance that by the end almost reach Minnie Riperton levels, though the only other people in the studio on that side of camera are a discreetly placed well back orchestra. Still applause at the end, obviously. They've got a pretence to keep up.

Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band – The Floral Dance
Kid comes up with a corker: "1977 certainly saw a lot of new names in the charts, none more outrageous than this." Really, Kid? In the year of punk, something you'd previously indicated you were well across, and the decade of rock excess a traditional brass band were "none more outrageous"? This is a repeat of their regular year performance but it hasn't been on BBC4 before, though with the audience waving balloons, tiny bits of material on large sticks behind them you might be forgiven for thinking it was a special party mood performance.

Emerson Lake & Palmer – Fanfare For The Common Man
Kid challenges Noel to name an act with three names, and Noel dodges the future editing bullet. "Carol Bayer Sager? Andy Fairweather-Low? Value Added Tax?" He actually did that same rule-of-three line when Bayer Sayer was on, but Christmas schedules are famed for repeats. Legs & Co time, and what better physical illustration of the concept behind the title than Musketeer doublet and hose? Maybe Flick was expecting Mike Oldfield to be picked or something. On the plus side it means plenty of knicker shots, which may be the partial point of the exercise. Lots of hat doffing work ensues around Christmas trees with Pauline both opening and on a central plinth from where she gets a solo that amounts to turning round in a circle

Leo Sayer – When I Need You
Noel seems to have a thing with Bayer Sager, specifying that she wrote this song. A repeat of his performance when it reached number one, where Leo in a bare, dark studio models a large ice hockey shirt, sticks his hands in his pockets and lets the director pick up the slack with multiplication visual effects.

Manhattan Transfer – Chanson D'Amour
Or as Kid still calls them "the Manhattan Transfer Company". He ends his intro to the same film clip as original showing on an odd upward inflection as if he's unsure about the chanson's actual properties after all this time.

Hot Chocolate – So You Win Again
Even though he doesn't deliver the punchline this link has the handiwork of Noel all over it as he asks Kid which bands he's not liked this year. "You mean apart from Hot Chocolate?" Kid replies before being bundled almost to the ground, and of course there they are just across the way. Of course Kid called this OK You Win when he first introduced it, so maybe there's truth in there. As usual Errol sings right to us while moving hesitantly to the rhythm while the rest of the band swap glances and knowing grins.

David Soul – Don’t Give Up On Us
Abba – Knowing Me Knowing You
Space – Magic Fly
Johnny Mathis – When A Child Is Born (Soleado)
Four repeated videos in a row, this portion notable only for a shot halfway through Soul of a large group of audience members who don't appear at any other stage of the programme dancing to Toppotron™ - that may be a straight repeated clip from a previous show, which is confusing given they clearly have a clean copy of the proper video to show - and before Space Noel reading out a purported card dedication: "Christmas comes but once a year and when it comes it's very exciting, but Top Of The Pops is always fun especially when done by crew 19". This is apparently so vital Noel never actually introduces the clip, which with its visual effect assault, men in helmets and synth oddness must have left family members baffled nationwide.

Stevie Wonder – Sir Duke
"Legs & Co have invited a special friend along" smiles Kid and that can only mean one thing - Floyd! Dressed as Santa! Well, if you want someone to willingly move and strut with absolute dedication and excitement while in a silly costume you may as well call for the acknowledged expert. Not that the girls are stinting, dressed as they are as trotting reindeer insomuch as they have antlers on their furry hoods, albeit bedecked in holly leaves plus little tops, microshorts, gloves and boots in matching shiny silver. Santa Floyd, who hardly ever breaks his look at the camera, has the human reindeer on a leash, which brings all manner of unsubtle allusions to the fore. Even that shrinks in the egregiousness stakes, however, compared to the fact someone's added to Stevie's precision funk with sleigh bells. It doesn't improve the mix. Eventually Floyd ostentatiously disappears down a model chimney and his flock wave him off. Patti seems to be blowing him a kiss, which adds yet another layer.

Kenny Rogers – Lucille
Noel stumbles forward mid-link. "I've got a loose heel here..." is his punchline. Christ, even the Barron Knights had done that one already by then, and Kid either feigns despair or is genuinely despairing. It's a video but not the one we've already seen, as Kenny is by an empty bar festooned with bottles and instead of leaping over and going mad chooses to sit without a drink and tell his story. When he sits down there's an audible creak. He doesn't seem to be singing live but no foley artist would be so moved, would they?

Baccara – Yes Sir I Can Boogie
Another act returning to the studio, so the director chooses to start with 25 seconds essentially of just red filtered lights before the proper spotlighting is set upon the duo. Uncomfortable shifting and a couple of rehearsed spare hand movements ensue.

Wings – Mull Of Kintyre
Kid predicts the McCartneys will be "celebrating up in Scotland". What, nothing else? It's not like they'd have a turkey, I suppose. The same performance as we last saw, which isn't from Yarwood as previously stated, instead just seeming to be a second, maybe slightly cheaper video perhaps just to show off Linda's tartan socks. Kid manages to get a lengthy outro link out in one breath before Noel cues in "probably the biggest selling Christmas record of all time", White Christmas. That's no excuse. Sadly Kid doesn't wish us "merry Christmas and merry love", just the first half, but, overlaid over a slowly circling camera shot of the studio ceiling that eventually alights on some tinsel and baubles in kaleidoscope-vision, the credits are in Star Wars scrolling type and font. Influential already.





This is quite a long post, isn't it? Let's make it a little longer but simultaneously easier, as thanks to Neil again here's the Boxing Day show, not complete as UK Gold cut out repeats (we assume) of Brotherhood Of Man, Billy Ocean and Joe Tex, featuring a handful of new performances - Boney M with Bobby Farrell still having to sing his own parts and an unwelcome intrusion to mime the news report bit, Heatwave, an Elvis montage, a rather literal Legs & Co routine for Silver Lady and, erm, Showaddywaddy's hit that was already going down the charts when 1977 started. It also starts with the same title sequence as the previous day so you can see what I meant.

TOTP 24/11/77 (tx 13/12/12): all the fun of the pharoah

If I knew earlier that a TOTP that wasn't shown would be so much more immediately popular than discussing so many that were, this blog might have taken a different course. Regardless, onwards.

Kid, wearing the sort of mid-length jacket-cum-robe that goes best with a long cigarette holder, a chaise longue and a louche disposition, welcomes us to "the hit music scene". Belfast under the charts, which at 29 includes The Tubes (White Punks On Dope - no, curiously TOTP didn't go near it) with a photo featuring loads and loads of people, surely including people who weren't in The Tubes - on the Old Grey Whistle Test set! Caring and sharing, that's the BBC. Meanwhile Wings are lumbered with the single sleeve, which with the fading of the distinction between photo and photo-in-photo looks on screen like the worst Photoshop you've ever seen.

The Carvells – The LA Run
I don't know what image comes to mind when you try to imagine a song from the mid to late 70s called The LA Run, but I doubt it's this. It may well start with a close-up of a bass, metronomic drumming and some Moog squirting, but before long it's headlong into the world of early Beach Boys pastiche we go, leading-on bass vocalist and everything. Except... about skateboarding. In fact the Carvells, nom de rock for prolific backing singer Alan Carvell, have a board and helmet on the amp and keyboard, called 'their' subsequent album Skateboard Rampage and this is one of only two tracks on that album without the word 'skateboard' in the title. Fad cash-in much? Almost all clad in white trousers they're apparently a three guitar band without sounding anything like one, but they won't let us see the guitar solo as we cut to some stock footage of skateboarders doing their underdeveloped thing next to Tower Bridge - which, you may know, isn't in LA - on parapets and in bowls. And ny sheer amazing coincidence someone in the crowd has brought a skateboard with them! Lofting it above their head they resist any temptation to either try out some moves or chuck it at them. The director gets bored with the overlong outro and puts the skater footage back on, after which we see the keyboard player dancing with the board. You know how Dennis Wilson was the only Beach Boy who could surf - was he the only Carvell who could skateboard?

Wings – Mull Of Kintyre
"A long, long way from the skateboard scene" comes Paul near a cottage, then near a beach, then pipers on a beach. Macca gets up just as Linda approaches so he can go on a wander with Denny Laine. He must have had some explaining to do after that. "That must stand a big chance of being this Christmas' number one sound" Kid predicts, accurately by the show's standards in a stopped clock way, while surrounded by the apparent winners of a Brotherhood Of Man Dress-alike contest.

Bonnie Tyler – It's A Heartache
We've seen Bonnie before on here but this is the first appearance since throat nodules gave her the full cement-gargling treatment. "That sad sweetheart from Swansea", as an onomatopoeic Kid is keen to point out, Bonnie's voice actually seems to be rougher even than we've become accustomed to, borderline laryngitis. Footballer-resembling keyboard player in green T-shirt aside her entirely functional backing band are all in different shades of classic mid-70s brown, keeping it low key for now until the John Milesalike guitarist gets his solo and goes for his moment including a foot up on a non-existant monitor. A very odd moment right at the end, as while Kid confidently states her to be "my tip for success in 1978" - she didn't have another top 30 single until 1983 - Bonnie's voice on its own suddenly appears at seemingly louder volume than during the song for two and a half words, literally cutting off mid-syllable. Cut like that it can't have been a live vocal mistake, but surely a pre-record would have played in the whole band. Curious.

Darts – Daddy Cool/The Girl Can't Help It
"Those darlings of the doo-wop" have their first visit, falling Hegarty and all, repeated. Kid vouches for their live reputation, as if we hadn't just had a taste of it.

Leo Sayer – There Isn't Anything
Kid chooses to deliver his link not so much with his arm round a young woman (stop it) as restraining her with his forearm round her throat. Is she gurning and glancing round the studio out of choice or for assistance as the oxygen depletes? A carefree Kid tries her out as straight woman regardless of her situation. "There isn't anything... isn't it?" is his question to her at the end, again trying to work that particular charm of his, to which she can only say "no" and laugh because the question doesn't make sense without the song. Leo's on his own, as he has been before, a service we've only recently seen granted to Queen. To think there was a time when both would be of the same level of prestige. A blacked out studio highlights the brightness of his top and also the fact that he's basically trying to recapture the big ballad emotion of When I Need You only to find his big notes are just shouting before, using the magic of perspective, he wanders into a large picture frame towards a mike stand. He is, of course, on a part of the stage well behind the frame. What the point of that little sojourn was isn't clear but it keeps us guessing a little. Afterwards he's with a different woman, the stud, making a pointed remark about "beautiful Britain". No, Kid. Not now.

Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers – Egyptian Reggae
Ah, paydirt. Kid cracks it's "the music a few English football managers are dancing to these days". Presumably that's a Don Revie joke, but he went to the United Arab Emirates. Still, all the same to Kid, isn't it? Anyway, the quixotic Richman instrumental gets the Legs & Co treatment. Treatment is the operative word. No words can do justice.



I described this on Twitter a couple of weeks ago as Legs & Co's equivalent of Pan's People's Get Down, not only in that it's probably the most likely of their routines you'll see on nostalgia clip shows but it's also people doing what on the face of it is a quite stupid looking routine with a great big animal-based elephant in the room with absolute poker faces and total commitment to their craft. In case you were wondering, according to the former it's Sue front end, Lulu at the back, and you have to say that Ms Cartwright's let the side down a little at the end there, assuming her end tableau position half a bar early while Sue's still wobbling her/its head, though she's also half a second late in the climactic head drop. And see the venomous power of that snake! I really have no idea how Pauline didn't run cowering. Or alternately piss herself laughing. "I'm sure Jonathan Richman would like that" Kid says, giggling. Well, he might.

Hot Chocolate – Put Your Love In Me
The graphical wizards have already moved on from their rainbow coloured circles and seem to have constructed an oval out of coloured lights and wires to project close-up shots of instruments into the middle of. A little moving about and the effect is quite psychedelic for the 20p budget's allowance, though the CSO framing could do with some steadiness. Errol's ever emotionless face mostly gets the full screen treatment, of course, but after he's started there's some judicious wipes from the centre so we can be reminded who's boss round here. There is an audience at this taping, but they're only glimpsed once in a long shot in complete silhouette. Eventually they end with a pan to the lights, like they want to finish already.

The Bee Gees – How Deep Is Your Love
The intro to the video, the one with all the spotlights you're probably aware of, sees Kid take to the Egyptian set and hoists a hitherto unused novelty tiger head print stole over his shoulder. With it in place he tries an Eric Morecambe routine and gets it wrong. Honestly, we shouldn't expect that sort of prop-based fallacy from anyone. Apart from DLT.

Santa Esmeralda & Leroy Gomez – Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
Odd demarcation, given "high stepping", as Kid refers to him, Leroy Gomez was the singer in the group Santa Esmeralda. It's Gloria Estefan And Miami Sound Machine before its time. Perhaps in protest Santa Esmeralda haven't shown up, which means fewer people to take issue when Kid in voiceover tells us they're "from the land of flamenco guitars, the group Baccara and Manuel". Just say Spain, Kid, we've heard of it. Leroy's up for it regardless, doing some frantic clapping as an intro before a full stage shot reveals it to be him plus three dancing girls - I don't think they're Legs & Co members, though I stand to be corrected, from other European TV performance clips it seems to be more like Leroy's personal harem - performing a routine big in standing side-on in pleated Spanish-type skirts, just to ram it home. Two of them are in their bras. The other probably counted as the demure offering. Gomez, in his afro, half-shaved goatee beard and half-open shirt with sleeves that resemble the shape of tin foil immediately after it's been removed to reveal the buffet sandwiches underneath, tries his best but it can't be helped that he's been placed out to one side of the stage so the dancers get most of the central space.

ABBA – The Name Of The Game
Still there, still at deadlock in their Ludo game. "The Kid", as by now he's calling himself, is back on that new "exotic "set seemingly surrounded by the entire audience, some of whom are in ties, some in rollnecks. Ahead of the Jacksons' Goin' Places he has only one thing left to wish us - "good week and good love!" What? Don't mess with a winning formula!

TOTP 27/10/77 (tx 15/11/12): a change to our published schedules

Right.

Well, this isn't the way I expected the impending backlog to be dealt with, at the very least of our present worries. Remember when this was a fun, carefree blog? That was a great eighteen months or so we had going back then, wasn't it?

I don't know if 20/10/77 will be shown again, because it might, you never know - the official word is merely 'postponed', though given he's been bailed til January it now seems unlikely. But in case, here's a Disappeared for that show, which I can skip through because Legs & Co aside every one of these will (technically, pending) be on again or has been on before. If it is eventually shown in some form, pretend you never saw this.

Showaddywaddy – Dancin' Party
Smokie – Needles And Pins
Dorothy Moore – I Believe You
Status Quo – Rockin' All Over The World (video)
The Carpenters – Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft (Legs & Co)
David Bowie – Heroes
La Belle Epoque – Black Is Black (video)
Queen – We Are The Champions (video)
Tina Charles – Love Bug/Sweets For My Sweet
Roxy Music – Virginia Plain (no, really, it was reissued for some reason so they repeated the famous 1972 appearance)
David Soul – Silver Lady (video)


Meanwhile...

Kid! Ah, always trust Kid, even in a complex patterned dad tank top. Santana backs the chart and appears concentrating on a closed eyed solo, which about sums him up.

Slade – My Baby Left Me/That's All Right
We catch Slade on the precipice, endless US touring having cost them their way over here and this their last top 40 single for more than three years. Even with this there's some desperation given it's an Elvis tribute, two of his songs welded together into hard rock shape. To complete the Samsonite illusion, Dave Hill's gone and shaved his head. Even Noddy's luxurious mullet passes by the notice of most, although with the shine eminating from the Hill pate it might just be that people standing at a certain angle can't clearly see it.

Mary Mason – Angel Of The Morning/Any Way That You Want Me
In front of a hoop of lights, which really should have had a dog jump through when the song completely changes volume and introduces big timpani for full effect, Mason is making her own attempt at tonsorial attention, a very tightly wound perm that seems to move independently of its owner and makes her look like a lost member of the Abigail's Party cast. Otherwise it's the sort of performance those with stage experience knock out, Mason gazing lustfully down the camera and pacing away during an instrumental section before a sudden half-turn back when time to sing. Sawing strings, Ladybirds in full voice, the full cabaret arrangement.

Darts – Daddy Cool/The Girl Can’t Help It
Three medleys in a row! Even when the charts went mad for medleys in 1981-82 I doubt TOTP ever did that. "You may not believe your eyes when you see this next group but they're for real" is all Kid can say in advance accompanied by an extravagant wave of the arm, though having been weaned on Showaddywaddy and the like some people singing call and response in a line is highly believable. The pianist - sorry, operator of the "piano machine" - is on the floor next to the audience, which is odd as there seems to be room enough on the stage until Den Hegarty gets going, jumping around on the drum riser before taking over vocals with the sort of malevolent glint which is only leading one way. That way is on top of the pianist, and then falling over trying to retake the stage leading to his having to sing the last line while sitting down. As old rock and roll lags given their moment they're putting as much as you like into it. That said, half the audience can't wait to walk away from the stage, and perhaps not before time. "Wild sounds and scenes" adjudges Kid.

Ram Jam – Black Betty
Even Legs & Co are firing tonight, and while rock has never been a Flick strong point, leading to far too much aimless running about, it allows all sorts of signifiers - ripped black dresses, extravagant hair swishing and air punching, meaningful faces to camera. Of course, not everyone makes good business out of looking hard...



Rod Stewart – You’re In My Heart
"Hit sound number four... hit sound number three, actually". Kid must have been put out by being surrounded by women, knowing what people on Twitter would say 35 years into the future. It's a strange video as Rod and his spiky ladies' mullet sits and mopes in an expensive restaurant before singing into a fancy mirror as the maitre d' improvises a violin solo

Boney M – Belfast
Kid's on the stage looking back over the audience at us, which is strange but not quite as strange as what follows. After January's near death by non-miming they're taking no chances on their first visit since, three extra backing singers in carnival gear resembling bellydancing costumes and massive headgear made from what seems to be leftover material which reaches down to the floor at the back, while Liz Mitchell has donned antenna on top of a full bodysuit. As they've brought the band Bobby in his silver reflective suit isn't even the most expressive man on stage, guitar and bass heads and the heads of their players alike bobbing and waving all over the place. This is, lest we forget, for a song about the Troubles. Most of the audience look baffled, as well they might.

Tom Robinson Band – 2-4-6-8 Motorway
I'm going to embed this because of a) Tom's school tie knot, pink triangle badge and Musician's Union sticker, b) the all over the place air punching on the first chorus and c) the tone of the end of Kid's intro. Excited much?



ABBA – The Name Of The Game
Kid's still too excited for proper words, calling this the "highest chart charter". The video, wherein the couples sit around a dinner table, chat, play ludo and experience differing emotions.

Smokey Robinson – Theme From The Big Time
"It's a bit like the pop family Robinson" Kid inaccurately reckons. Truly, if Smokie weren't available the show had to make do with whatever was closest. Wisely for the full soul-funk sound Smokey's brought his own band with him, the pianist caught in passing close-up playing just above the keys without actually depressing them, as well as an all-aquamarine outfit for his Esther Rantzen tribute. (It's not, it was the title track for a Motown-produced film) Only tentative movement now.

Baccara – Yes Sir I Can Boogie
"Can you? I'd like to watch" Kid asks a female placed next to him. Please, Kid, not now. Not here and now. A repeat of their appearance follows, after which he has a guest. "If you were watching last week" ... er, yeah, Kid, about that... "you'll have seen the back of Radio 1's newest recruit - well, this week we're giving you a full frontal" before revealing... Peter Powell" In a Radio 1 247 T-shirt too, as tradition insists. Kid promises we'll see more of him next week before, surprisingly, the Sex Pistols' current top ten single Holidays In The Sun plays us out. Peter Powell as the way forward for Top Of The Pops in 1977? A cheap holiday in other people's misery indeed.

The disappeared: 8/9/77

So we reach the final actually wiped TOTP of them all, unless there's some been misplaced or not left in good condition since then. There's weeks not represented in the TOTP archive in future, whether through strike action (for more on which, wait til 2015) or sporting action - three in 1978, for instance - but from here on the document of pop music is pretty much complete. For now we lose Kid in a pink pinstriped T-shirt introducing first The Emotions' Best Of My Love over the rundown, and subsequently...

The Motors – Dancing The Night Away
Somewhere between rhythm and rock and the kind of Chris Spedding-influenced earnest drivetime fare we're seeing every so often, this would make its, but not their, only appearance. Kind of imagine it'd be a lot of men looking hard.

Space – Magic Fly
Mummy, make the spooky aliens and their funny wavey lines go away.

Rosetta Stone – Sunshine Of Your Love
Yes, that Sunshine Of Your Love. Rosetta Stone were other charges of Tam 'Rollers' Paton and included Ian Mitchell, who'd been a Roller for seven months of 1977. What they're trying to be (Smokie) and what they are (Dead End Kids) are very different things.

Jean-Michel Jarre – Oxygene Part IV
Legs & Co... what do we reckon? Too early for robot dancing and bodypopping, but lots of stiff limb movements and head turning? Lots of blue flourescent light, surely. EDIT: Actually we don't need to ask, as thanks to One For The Dads' Andee Bee here's just under a minute of it and, of course, it turns out to be not much at all of the above.

Blue – Bring Back The Love
For all its TOTP exposure and chummy looks to camera Gonna Capture Your Heart only reached number 18 and this didn't chart at all, becoming the last we'd see of them. More playing to the gallery, that's what they needed. Also, not this song.

The Boomtown Rats – Lookin' After Number 1
And...punch! And back! And...punch!

Meri Wilson – Telephone Man
Not to be confused with Mari Wilson, as even her Wiki page says. Video for post-Chanson d'Amour/post-My Ding-A-Ling trimphone jingle novelty hit which we'll see soon enough.

Black Gorilla – Gimme Dat Banana
Ah, thanks to newfangled technol we've got this one, its only appearance:



See, not as Black & White Minstrel Show-still-on-telly dubious as it sounds, if still proving unlikely to be covered any time soon. Described as 'krautrock disco' on Discogs.com, which is ambitious. A couple of them went on to become prolific session men.

The Rods – Do Anything You Wanna Do
As you see at the end of that clip, Kid's a bit smug about his rhythm and rock predictive skills. Repeat.

Elvis Presley – Way Down
Crowd dancing next to Toppotron™ stills, it says here. You'd expect little less. Good love!

TOTP 11/8/77 (tx 13/9/12): Rods have their own back

The recent connection troubles at this end meant we've missed the opportunity to mark a couple of recent TOTP-related deaths. Jerry Nelson, who died on 25th August aged 78, had worked as part of Jim Henson's company since 1965 and was best known as the voice of Count von Count (he also did Statler for a while and innumerable minor characters), but it's him voicing Robin on Halfway Down The Stairs, the tender AA Milne-penned song that never failed to send Noel into giggles.

More pertinently for Pops, we lost Louise Clarke a couple of weeks short of her 63rd birthday. She wasn't strictly a founder member of Pan's People, joining a year after they were initially set up and not appearing with them on TOTP until May 1968, a month after their debut, but she was there through their imperial phase, leaving after almost exactly six years, the famous Homely Girl routine her swansong, to get married and start a family. Here's a tribute to her work.

Meanwhile, many have noted the letter in this week's Radio Times in response to praise for this series/year that "it has no immediate plans to show the 1978 series, but is keeping that decision under review". The reading from our end: calm down. It doesn't say they're not going to, it says essentially they don't know. BBC4 won't have made any plans for next year (apart from a couple of already announced special seasons, but that's different) by the end of August when RT would have started being put to bed and they didn't announce or start working on '77 until some way into October.

Back to this week. (Well, the week we're up to in 1977, but you know what I mean) Kid's in charge and literally showing his true colours in a red and white lace-up top emblazoned with a maple leaf motif and, in case the subtlety was lost, 'CANADA' in big diagonal letters. We later see '74' is emblazoned on the maple leaf. No idea. The countdown is restored, as is only correct, to the top of the show, and Kid has a countdown of his own to add as Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner is the chart rundown music. Kid then does a voiceover link into the first song, ruining the ever fun element of surprise and anticipation. Or maybe not, in this case.

Showaddywaddy – You Got What It Takes
"Unmistakeably Showaddywaddy" at that, though surely that doesn't take into account all the original rock and roll bands and all the songs they cover, this included. We do at least know the drill now, wherein Dave Bartram and his lush, tumbling, vitality-filled locks attempts to look appealing towards crowd and camera in turn, coupled with the odd bit of visual comedy double take. Very low forms of visual comedy, admittedly, when it constitutes looking quizzically at his open palm for the line "with your money we won't get far". This time the drapes seem to be colour coded by instrument, with the allotted backing singers in canary yellow meaning despite it being mostly hidden by Bartram's head we can kind of get the gist of their middle eight routine involving spinning, kicking and the ever present notion there's got to be more dignified ways to come across on television, as Bartram goes on to glad-hand the front row and plant a smacker on some girl's forehead. Meanwhile Buddy Gask does his single basso profundo vocal and wonders when that supposed joint lead singer role is going to come up again. To close everyone turns their back on the audience as a mystery invisible sax solos away.

Steve Gibbons Band – Tulane
Hard to describe the motion Kid makes into this, a kind of swung arm round towards camera into leg-aided air guitar power chord. Splendidly, with only two to choose from the intended opening close-up on the guitar strings chosen by the director is on the rhythm, which has two notes to play, rather than that playing the distinctive lead riff. A Chuck Berry cover, rock and roll business is conducted by a man who's really tried to look the part - receding pompadour, white shirt and leather trousers, one handed confident mike stance leading to full knee knocking once the mike is in his hand, looks, like Alvin Stardust, far too old for all this. As for his band the bassist is wearing the cap of a stereotypical camp biker - as he is in their countdown photo and was last time we checked in, maybe it was his "thing" - while I still can't work out whether both guitarists have moustaches or not. The audience are into it, at least one young couple jiving as much as what they understand jiving to look like. Even better, one long shot reveals two men in a committed full-on rendition of that shoulder-first routine usually carried out by men in distressed denim jackets at Status Quo gigs or on stage with Mud doing Tiger Feet. Not for the last time tonight, Kid appears alone in the distance, slapping the side of his thigh in time to the beat during the instrumental break. Kid promises more for "the rock fans" later.

Barry Biggs – Three Ring Circus
Repeat. The seated one rather than the ringmaster one, sadly.

The Rods – Do Anything You Wanna Do
Not a mistake, Eddie & The Hot Rods traded under this name for a little while, presumably to make people think they were a hot new young punk band. It seems to have worked on Kid, who goes falsetto by the end of declaiming the title having enthused "this has got to be one of the best rhythm and rock records this year". Rhythm And Rock, for those who don't recall, was the more ostensibly commercial parallel to A Bit Of That Sort Of Rock. Not that the band are hiding anything, Barrie Masters still restlessly stalking and covering every inch of the stage and gurning between occasionally mimed lines in white jeans and an open shirt, occasionally grabbing the above the crotch area of his huge belt. Of course there's a member, the bassist, in dark glasses. Less punk-like, he's also wearing a yellow and black striped headband.

Rita Coolidge – We're All Alone
Well, this is quite rum. "The mood is mellow" maybe but not so literally, surely. For one thing, surely it's a late replacement given we've seen the video twice, but it's not clear what it might have replaced. Tavares' One Step Away seems most likely as it had been hovering around a central position before suddenly falling right out of the top 30, while Mink DeVille's Spanish Stroll had entered the top 50 the week before but hadn't quite yet made the rundown. Danny Williams' Dancin' Easy, surprisingly sticking at 32? The Ramones' Swallow My Pride, which entered at 36 the previous week but fell? We can but ponder and create unlikely mental images. Anyway, We're All Alone it is. The troupe, in non-fetching shades of electric blue/mauve and orange dresses with matching legwarmers, start lying on their backs and kind of stay there. Not just like that, obviously, even Flick would be called into question were it a tableau rather than routine no matter how clearly properly undanceable for slowness reasons the song is. No, from there is carved out a succession of seated positions, Oops Upside Your Head-recalling bends and lunges, rolls, crawls and just about every combination of arm and leg bending and swinging, closing with an extreme close-up on... well, I can rarely get them right when their faces are the right way up, but I think it's Gill... whoever, she's making something akin to devil eyes at us, perhaps hoping for something upbeat soon. It's more like a gymnastic floor exercise routine-cum-keep fit video on 2x fast forward and for all we know might have constituted an ongoing sit-down protest following Roadrunner's seated delivery. And not a cacti in sight either.

Thin Lizzy – Dancin' In The Moonlight (It's Caught Me In It’s Spotlight)
"From some delightful Lizzies..." Eh? I double checked, he does say "Lizzies". As seems traditional with Lizzy - and that's what Kid calls them at the end so it's an official diminutive - it's a repeat, slow dancers and all. Perhaps inspired by the Rods, Kid calls them just "Lizzy".

Delegation – You've Been Doing Me Wrong
Delegation were soul's own Liverpool Express, clearly. In very Seventies ruffled white suits over paisley patterned shirts and huge bow ties and embarking on choreographed knee lifting, they can't quite disguise that they've just slowed You To Me Are Everything down a bit, or that the first verse is clearly supposed to be in three part harmony but the Willie Thorne one either has been written out of the part at late notice or can't be bothered to lift the mike to his mouth but is gamely miming along anyway. After that he's always just slightly out of the movement routine, glancing across more out of blind hope than checking, sometimes affecting a half turn to make it seem more noticeable. The main singer isn't well served by shooting from below either given it means we can see the gap in the front of his teeth all the clearer. When the camera pans back to Kid he's swaying gently sat in the lotus position grinning to himself, as if in the midst of a pleasant flashback.

Fleetwood Mac – Dreams
A few more seconds than last time of the live clip, I reckon. "Isn't that fabulous?" Kid says. Maybe if we saw more of it.

J.A.L.N. Band – I Got To Sing
"Back to the disco scene", apparently. Apart from the keyboard player in grey slacks hoping we won't notice because of his instrument, more white suits all round. Was there someone unscrupulous going round the dressing rooms? Plausible given the horn section, who so clearly aren't regular members of the band they should have had their own caption. If the singer gets any closer to the edge of the stage for the verses he'll be dragged in, and he can't say he wasn't warned. Maybe that's why he's not concentrating on his miming, missing half a line at one point. Or maybe he's just terrible at it, not clear in his own mind whether vocals are lead or backing by the end. He's completely disrespecting the title of his own band's song in that.

Donna Summer – I Feel Love
Week four of four atop, and evidently not a moment too soon for the show. Obviously we don't know what they did in week three, but given week two involved slides and seated lunges you'd have put good money on a kaleidoscopic image of a potter's wheel or similar by now. Instead once Kid has symbolically clutched at his heart it's the escape hatch once more, but with a twist - Donna's passport photos on Toppotron™ once more, awkward dancing in semi-darkness again, but in the distance five sixths of Legs & Co swish their long dresses about in strict formation - shimmy, dip left shoulder, shimmy shoulders, dip right shoulder. In other words, a standing version of the routine they developed from within RoadRunner, and just as then most people aren't paying the blindest bit of attention. Five, though? Sue's the odd one out as she faces off and shimmies on a raised corner of the set with... Floyd! The man for all emergencies. Sue's still wearing her outfit from earlier, from which we must assume her colleagues are too, and we now see a bit of netting on the front, which we see the rest moving around a bit during the chorus. The little details lost on the big stages. To fully cap this mise-en-scene of disco shaking, visible in his colours right in front of the Legs & Co quorum is Kid. He's dancing. Or so the intention seems anyway, his style developing over time from some awkward rhythmic (but not rockist) finger clicking to full-on shifting from side to side in an approximation of getting down with the groove, apparently not only completely unaware and out of time with what's immediately behind him but with everyone else too. We're allowed just the 1:50 this week before Kid, still shifting in one spot with a little arm movement too, delivers the coup de grace before resuming with even more gusto as the song continues to play us out: "from me, Kid Jensen, it's goodbye and good love!" Yep, the full version. It's been a while.

By the time Pops returned the following week, there'd been a death in the family.

TOTP 14/7/77 (tx 8/8/12): there's no point in asking

"The following few are feeling fine, cos they're this week's Top Of The Pops! *air punch*" Even more than Noel and Tony you can tell which presenter that is just from the style written down, can't you?

Last time we'll hear Whole Lotta Love for a while, this - every Christmas, like a confused uncle, then not until a slight return in 1979. Bob Marley has a chair in his photo. The Wailers are either standing up or uncomfortably crouched down. That's the perk of getting your name at the front.

The Real Thing – Love's Such A Wonderful Thing
Even by his own standards Eddie Amoo has one-upped the fashion stakes right out of the block. Not for him the sensible waistcoats of the two in the middle, albeit one pairing them with shiny light blue trousers. No, there are times when only a gold off-one-shoulder singlet and trousers that aren't so much tight as vaccuum packed, given that extra bit of pizzazz by what seems to be a choker made out of china. Chris, guitar returned, is no slouch either in an all-gold affair presumably made from the same bit of material fashioned into a barely workable workman's overalls effect, if you knew any workmen with braided hair. The one not specifically mentioned above knows his place, like Ronnie Corbett, except his place when not harmonising is to clap and click half-heartedly and generally look like nobody told him he'd be joint third banana when the day came. At the back of the audience, and thus front of shot, a couple slow dance arm in arm to a slower tempo than provided. In the spirit of the song, but maybe not the occasion. Then they realise they're on telly and, perhaps thinking of how he looks in his bow tie, the bloke begins bobbing around and says something to his partner, who by then is watching the band anyway. What a complex relationship that may turn into.

Rita Coolidge – We're All Alone
"Here's a girl who knows a lot about love". And a lot about cactus welfare, judging by the massive size of the plant on the windowsill where she sits in her top embroidered with an outline of a moth. Moths and cacti aren't usually signifiers of true love, but each to their own. The video continues with her wandering through the garden outside and resting contentedly in a hammock, seemingly perfectly content on her own for now. You wait until she drops the window key behind the plant pot, though.

The Saints – This Perfect Day
A bit of that sort of rock, part one. Kid's exclaiming, he likes this one. There's a school of thought that says this might be the first proper punk band on TOTP, taking the Jam as mods and the Stranglers as pub rockers on the chance. They almost certainly aren't the sort of punk band TOTP expected either, playing it straight faced and deadpan, never once acknowledging a camera. Guitarist Ed Kuepper spends a good part of the song staring into the monitors. One kid right at the front kind of jumps about a bit but for the most part this is a nonplussed audience. Perhaps even more so when Chris Bailey rests his wrist on the mic holder, watches it come off in his hand and examines the cord, miming regardless all the while. Before they're off camera Bailey is already wandering off grinning. Still, can't imagine there'll be anything more ABOTSOR-like on this week...

The Commodores – Easy
Oh, the lights have gone funny on Legs & Co again. It's another trip back from the fabric shredder for the costumier, both top (with glittery tube top underneath), skirts, bit in the middle and what looks like an extra bit up the back full-on fringed. The routine is nothing to write home about, just lots of sashaying on a stage with people on three sides in mood lighting. It's just unfortunate the first two audience members picked out by the crane camera are looking away from the stage. Just as the whole team begin faux-headbanging to the guitar solo it's time to leave.

Dave Edmunds – I Knew The Bride
"Something for everyone" says Kid. Rockpile in all but credited artist name, and Nick Lowe in his shaggy dog pudding bowl haircut and sporting what seems to be a picture of Graham Parker on a badge is clearly hogging it for all it's worth, standing further forward than the credited artist this week, so much so the camerman can't keep Edmunds in focus over Lowe's headstock. A number of audience members literally hop from foot to foot.

Jigsaw – If I Have To Go Away
"If you've been wondering what happened to Jigsaw..." No, Kid, nobody thought that, much as Sky High was popular. "...they've been putting it all together again." Oh, I see, it's an elaborate comedy intro. So everyone's in blue satin shirts apart from the frontman in dazzling white and GOOD GOD that's a level of falsetto from Dave Beech we haven't heard even this year. He's already dressed like a Bee Gee, why not copy their vocal style indeed. There doesn't appear to be a drummer. That's presumably why they disappeared.

Supertramp – Give A Little Bit
That Kid introduces this video standing in front of a man with a Union Jack top hat and shit-eating grin is more interesting than the clip. It's nearly longer too, cut to ninety seconds in the early edit and I'm not sure it's much longer in the full length version.

Cilla Black – I Wanted To Call It Off
A girl on each arm like a Canadian love god with a regulation shaggy 'do, and neither of them seems any more sure than you might about how this is going to fit in. Good keeping up appearances, though, as even after his part of the stage has had the lights faded on it the three remain in that tableau until comfortably off screen. Our Cilla hadn't (and hasn't) had a top 50 hit in nearly three and a half years and her BBC and ITV vehicles had ground to a halt, a career flatlining that remained until a Wogan appearance in 1983 was spotted by Alan Boyd, in the process of creating Blind Date at the time. As for now that bloke still has that grin and that hat, and now we see his polo shirt has a cross of St George emblem on, while Cilla stands like a waxwork in front of some of the orchestra, wraps her pink scarf securely around her neck and oversings directly to us. By halfway some people are having a chat, watching the monitors, not entirely taking in the stately pace and showstopper ambition of Cilla's routine. As we pull away at the end Hat Bloke is dancing to something much faster in his own head.

The Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant
"By way of contrast..." Yeah, you could say that. And now imagine Tony or DLT introducing it. So, a bit of that sort of rock, part two. And indeed ground zero, surely many people's introduction to what this band they've read about actually look, act and sound like, for good or ill. So much of this video, directed by Mike Mansfield only three months after his production/direction/link man job for LWT's Supersonic ended, is part of punk iconography - Johnny's ginger hair, practised sneer and ribbon mike stances, Sid's gormless expression and rock'n'roll textbook stance, Steve Jones' knotted hanky. Then there's all the period stuff, like the overzealous red lighting, the feather cut Paul Cook throwing something to the floor immediately before starting and the hugeness of Rotten/Lydon's sleeve cuffs. And now you can stop waiting for punk to happen. In a further development on the joy of juxtapostion, having already gone from Cilla to Pistols we now jump to Kenny Rogers, subject of this week's Awkward Pre-Number One Stilted Chat. We learn Kenny is on holiday after two weeks' work in Saudi Arabia - we can only speculate what - and announces a UK tour in November.

Hot Chocolate – So You Win Again
One of two songs out of ten we've seen already and three artists who's been on this repeat run before. Talk about new brooms. (Er, ignore the next show in that working) Kid gets Kenny to introduce it, perhaps mindful of what happened last time. A repeat from last week, Kid wishes us good love and we're out to horrible green font credits, a camera lens wrapped in tin foil and Fanfare For The Common Man, just to demonstrate the punks don't quite have it all their own way yet.

TOTP 16/6/77 (tx 12/7/12) open thread

Hello. Yes It's Number One can't come to the blog right now as he's on a business call* elsewhere. This is therefore your chance to fill in the details and ruminations without my giving you a head start for once. Kid's in charge, so remember to wish him good love back at the end, with the following:

John Miles – Slow Down
Olivia Newton-John – Sam
Hot Chocolate – So You Win Again
Andy Gibb – I Just Wanna Be Your Everything
Emerson Lake & Palmer – Fanfare For The Common Man
Gene Cotton – Me And The Elephant
Queen – Good Old Fashioned Loverboy
Archie Bell & the Drells – Everybody Have A Good Time
Bo Kirkland & Ruth Davis through the auspices of Legs & Co and special friends – You're Gonna Get Next To Me
The Foster Brothers – Count Me Out
The Muppets – Halfway Down The Stairs
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Anything That’s Rock 'N' Roll
Kenny Rogers – Lucille

(* in a wet field in Gloucestershire)



Oh, and as I didn't want to just leave you with nothing, here's a Spotify playlist of 1977 so far - everything that was performed in the studio or number one and is on there in original form.

TOTP 19/5/77 (tx 31/5/12): Jam, Jacko, Joe and Joy

"Time to bop with the best in rock and pop" Say this for Jensen, he goes that extra yard to make his intros stand out. In the background what seems to be the keyboard player with our first act of the evening tries to mime along with the end of his spiel before Kid triumphantly punches the air as final visual punctuation, a la Diddy.

If ever a smile said "I don't really understand what I'm doing here or supposed to be smiling about, but..."



Suzi Quatro – Roxy Roller
Mixed in emerging from the centre of the number one picture, which is a new one. Suzi would be given big billing by Pops for a little while yet, and it'd pay off eventually, but for now it's another, unsuccessful go-round with the glam sound. For some reason the drummer starts with his foot on top of the bass drum, making the kit look children's sized until he realises that's not really a good enough angle to play more than the snare from. Suzi for her part, in a powder blue jumpsuit, is sitting cross-legged on a box at the front of the stage, singing down to the camera, which just means she looks like she's wearing a distracting huge crown of lights until the angle changes to one lengthways on. Eventually Suzi gets up like her music teacher would have told her to, straps on the big bass and... contributes? Well, she plays the instrumental break bit while standing on the box, sadly stepping down rather than take a showbiz flying leap. The director finds Kid a second or two too early at the end, finding him in the midst of some enthusiastic arm swinging to the beat.

Heatwave – Too Hot To Handle
On grainy video with flames superimposed over the top, like someone saw the Bohemian Rhapsody version with flames at the start and took the wrong bit of inspiration. The band seem to be wearing kimonos with individual colour patterns taking up only half the outfit, as if they were meant to stand side to side and make subtitles for the Chinese. Halfway through, and it's not clear for reasons I'll come back to for a later performance whether these were added at the BBC end or not, very bright flashing lights appear in the middle of the screen of a contrast that might have blown out the RGB settings of colour sets of the time. They seem intrusively bright enough on HD. As the video cuts out one of the frontmen is into full-on karate moves. Kid finds it understandably hilarious.

Linda Lewis – The Moon And I
Why Lewis should get special treatment being alone on a stage is anyone's guess - maybe, being a rewrite of a song from The Mikado, they thought it demanded extra culture - but her entire performance is framed in a blue-purple oval, as if a dry run for the graphics of early 80s BBC news. Close-ups of cellos and a clarinet too. None of this overshadows that Lewis' great soul voice is being parlayed into somewhere it barely belongs, and that after Feelings and We'll Gather Lilacs it's the nation's pop program falling back on the classics songbook again. Very few audience shots to determine what the kids think of it, though they hardly need help in coming across as catatonic.

Bay City Rollers – It's A Game
Same as two weeks ago. Health and safety, can't have that many tartan scarves in one built up area too often.

Carol Bayer Sager – You’re Moving Out Today
Kid sees this as "a real treat", and to emphasise how special he is he gets a ride on a camera trolley while introducing it, to the evident delight of several of those he passes. DLT or Jimmy would have done all sorts of business while there; Kid just introduces it without reference or playing up to it, as if nothing were amiss. There's the mark of the man. As it stops he embarks on some self-conscious strutting on the spot as Sayer, hands deep in high waisted white trousered pockets, peppily/quirkily sings like you'd imagine Diane Keaton would, complete with mid-lyric face 'trying to remember' acting, before miming along to the trumpet/scat solo before realising it makes her look foolish. Meanwhile offscreen the male vocal role is shared by a too casual bloke from the office and a Speak & Spell machine. "The grocer told me what you do with bread"?

Joe Tex – Ain’t Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)
I mean, he's not exactly svelte either, is he? Great as it is and as successful as the single was, strange to see this make the early edit, not least because you'd imagine Soul Train would have to be paid an extra set of export repeat fees. Kid's virtually pissing himself laughing afterwards. It's been on before, man!

The Trammps – Disco Inferno
Big old edit in the early version: "For fans of Legs and Co, we have a bonanza for you today (massive jump cut) as they dance to the Trammps' new record" Hard to see in the light what the costumes are, but they appear to consist of gold bras and pants, quite a bit of tinsel and, for some reason, large gold buttons on fronts and sides. I say hard to see because the whole routine is overlaid with a screen of flashing red lights at epilepsy rates. The routine shows up the problem with still nascent Legs & Co - they're fine dancers, fully conversant in getting down, but the actual choreographed bits don't seem to have much going for them. The version on One For The Dads confirms that it wasn't BBC4 cutting the song off in mid-flow but BBC1 in 1976. Must have been given razor blades for Christmas.

Tony Etoria – I Can Prove It
"Good disco fun" says Kid, the song already long well underway behind him. In a Harry Hill-collared white shirt and elaboratedly knotted snood-cum-neckerchief with with a rarely utilised guitar strapped on, Etoria seems more than a bit nervous, perhaps because orchestra and singers are throwing everything they can at the arrangement. At various points he seems to be singing behind the rhythm, vainly trying but missing the click track altogether.

Joy Sarney – Naughty Naughty Naughty
I think all has been said that neeed to be said here.

The Jacksons – Show You The Way To Go
"From the land of a thousand dances!" Even Michael only exhibits two or three here, but it's enough. This has gone down as the record where Michael really started showing what he'd become, the eighteen year old's voice achieving full range under the new tutelage of Gamble & Huff as writers and producers. As for their actual studio presence, it's a wonder. People are dancing! Kid's swinging his mike cord! The brothers have broken out their colour coded martial jackets with glittery designs on the front that might as well have been based on the outfits from a lost Gerry Anderson series! Michael's straight to the front, leaving Jackie and Marlon to try and pull off a full choreographed synchronised routine when there's two of them and their brother's in front spinning away and adding ad-libs. Unfortunately, after a commanding performance Michael decides he can trust a Top Of The Pops crowd with participation. "Everybody clap your hands! Put 'em up high so I can see 'em!" By the time we cut away five people have done so.

Van McCoy – The Shuffle
Legs & Co again, clearly without time to rehearse new bits for this prime example of Sport On Four Pop as Sue and Lulu pretty much replicate their routine from the other week and everyone else follows their moves in pairs of Patti/Pauline and Gill/Rosie on seperate podiums behind, all sporting bedouin-based trousers.

The Jam – In The City
Ah, the point of no return, how are you.



Well, that was effervescent. Note Kid's brief spate of air guitar when he thinks he's far enough off camera - he did it again at the end - the two blokes pogoing at different speeds from first to last while everyone else remains rigid, fighting that good fight, and that in his indoor shades at that angle at 0:43 Rick Buckler looks a bit like Roger Taylor does now. Note the expert coincidental timing that sees this appear the day before BBC4's Punk Britannia season kicks off, and then wonder, while neither song nor performance are really recognised as major moments in punk's heritage, whether a crack hadn't just appeared in the prime-time pop continuum. "Right at the forefront of a new rock phenomenon known as New Wave", Kid declares confusingly.

Rod Stewart – The First Cut Is The Deepest
Toppotron™'s back! Three months after the last use of a pretend big screen, one seems to grow into the set out of nowhere, giving away its secret with its initial picture-in-picture shot, replicating what we're seeing only with a big blue bit of cloth where Toppotron™ is, eventually replaced by a projection of the countdown still of Rod in full emotive body language which someone then walks in front of, none too cleverly. Song introduced, Kid turns towards it. So does most of the audience. What were they expecting to see there? We see the video in all its back-guitar-playing, arse-waggling glory. Boz Scaggs' Lido Shuffle sees us out. Just one thing for Kid to do before the end, and he doesn't disappoint: "from me it's good love!"

TOTP 7/4/77 (tx 19/4/12): boxing clever

"Time to come alive with some hit music and jive!" You have to give Kid Jensen this credit, without resorting to props or idiocy he comes up with something new to open every show. There is, however and sad to say, little jive about the show. Just in time for their final week in the top 30 the show has updated its Rubettes picture, the old five piece in the caps and suits gone in favour of what looks more like the cast of a dropped after one series northern based down at heel ITV detective series, except for the one wearing a pilot's uniform with cap.

Dead End Kids – Have I The Right
We also get a first look at their chart rundown photo this week, which is an awkward pose chiefly for Robbie Gray pointing at us with one index finger and the bandmate his chin is resting on the shoulder of with the other. It's a several tiered performance space this week with the guitarist pulling some classic rock poses unbecoming his band's style. Gray has his braces on as before and his tubular bells in place, but he's playing them far too casually and misses the last one, or at least the last hit before he's supposed to break off. Meanwhile one camera pull-in shot from behind the drummer not only exposes how few people are there but also gives the cameraman opposite a clear focus, as well as... is that some sort of boxing ring set up behind him? Hey, maybe they'll be using that later or something.

Deniece Williams – Free
Kid makes great play of the fact there's two clips from the venerable Soul Train on the show this week, maybe something he shouldn't have promoted too much given it shows up the paucity of new songs in the studio, and for that matter the classy simplicity of the Soul Train studio, a bare wall, a lit performer, an ostentatiously branded glitterball and an audience who seem into it. Plus not even Billy Ocean would think of pulling off a light blue dress liberally equipped with sequins and matching skull cap. As for an in-house dance troupe, theirs are pushed off to the sides and unselfconscious, one couple hand in hand, certainly nothing planned out. And it's the original recording being used as backing. No wonder Johnny Pearson's boys were often made out to be a culture shock to Pops visitors.

Showaddywaddy – When
Speaking of which, from sleek sophisticated soul we emerge quickly and sharply enough to lead to a nasty case of the bends in the synesthesiac shape of a set of brightly coloured jackets, a honking sax and some comically boss-eyed bass vocal interjections. There's something very pinch mouthed about Dave Bartram's face when singing, isn't there?

Elkie Brooks – Pearl's A Singer
Described by Kid as "a regular joint", one he's been playing on his Saturday morning radio show at that, the set designers are determined to add some class to the joint to go with the bands' suits and Elkie's swish dress, this time with a big plastic tree behind the piano player - who, for the record, looks a bit like John Lennon during the bed-in, in the same way the guitarist looks a bit like Denis Law and the drummer looks more than a bit like Kevin Godley. As before, when required the Ladybirds appear and disappear on requirement.

Cliff Richard – My Kinda Life
"This face really needs no introduction" indeed. You'd think Cliff would be readily available when he had a hit around but this seems to be the same performance as last time, complete with opening lively disco lights, hopeful bopping and break air guitar.

The Manhattans – It's You
After a fade edit that proves it's not just BBC4 who can be cackhanded at that sort of thing, it's another well drilled soul outfit, this time with backup singers indulging in a lot of pointing. One to the left, then once to the right, always over everyone's heads for that less than personal touch. Not quite sure how to approach this, the middle youth sections of the audience, who by today's standards look about 35, try to look enthusiastic by shifting from side to side indifferently.

Maxine Nightingale – Love Hit Me
And so Legs & Co are in a mock ring in singlets and shorts - with their names on the right cheek! Surely meant for single use, those - with boxing gloves on. It's another Flick Colby literalism triumph. And it is a triumph, partly because it's not complex dresses and moving round in circles again, but because while no sparring move or comedy punched face - aye aye, Lulu - is left spare it's lovingly worked out. And let's face it, where thrown punches are involved the timing has to be pretty good. Eventually Lulu knocks everyone out in turn - Rosie sells it best, but Patti's side grin to camera immediately before being KO'd is a winner - then celebrates before turning to find Gill waiting with a decisive right 'ander. As everyone gets back up and boogies to an unsatisfactory general climax the camera shot pulling away reveals that of all the people gathered around Kid, young, old, male, female, the only one watching the routine is a bald middle aged man. Ah, walking cliche.

O.C. Smith – Together
Back to the Soul Mass Transit System and Smith, in a brown suit from the remainders at Debenhams, completely missing miming his spoken first line until after it's been and gone. He doesn't get a lot better at it, especially when joined by an invisible female singer. Maybe it's Barbra Dickson. After that it's Kid's call to duty in the new Short Awkward Chat Before The Number One, this week Elkie Brooks making sure to call Kid "Kid".

ABBA – Knowing Me Knowing You
Kid describes this to Elkie as being in "a position we'd all like to see you in in a few weeks' time", a phrase loaded with double meaning. Elkie at least remembers what it's called, unlike some people, and accompanies it with a local radio DJ point at camera. Kid adds it's "week number two for week number one. Number one. Or something." Retake, surely? Video again, Smokie to end, and between Kid gets his own catchphrase wrong. "From me it's good love, have a great week". Goodbye and good love, Kid! *Goodbye* and good love! Tch.

TOTP 10/3/77 (tx 15/3/12): European harmony

"It's your weekly shot of rhythm and rock" enthuses Kid Jensen, which seems a very Americanised way of putting it, especially as in his white jacket and big collared stripy shirt he seems to be dressed as an airmail letter. There's a slow clearout process going on in the top 30, though Barry Biggs is still about, the best of the new pictures being the O'Jays looking like trainee gangsters.

Graham Parker & The Rumour – Hold Back The Night
Not punk yet, no, but pub rock's still pulling at populism's coat tails. Admittedly this is Parker's soul/Van Morrison leanings rather than wiry Feelgoods pub rock, but it's all heading somewhere. Seems slightly desperate to be covering this, though, the Trammps had only sent it to number five sixteen months earlier so there was no great call for him to be resuscitating a lost classic or family favourite. It doesn't help matters that Parker is wearing shades, is tiny (unless the Rumour's guitarists are all medical giants, which I doubt) and is doing a lot of double fist pumping before the vocals start. When he does start singing, he seems to have retroactively borrowed the voice of Craig Finn from The Hold Steady, despite being from a different continent. He's big on arm movements to exude the lyrics further, the title always, always getting the outstretched palm. And what is he mouthing during the bridge? Can't work out if it's proposed new lyrics, the sax or electric keyboard solo expressed through the larynx or trying to remind himself of how the next bit goes. "What an exciting debut!" Kid makes sure to exude.

The Real Thing – You’ll Never Know What You’re Missing
"What a good week it's been for Liverpool, what with John Conteh" I like the period detail, don't you? For the record he'd defended his WBC light-heavyweight title for the fourth and last time against one Len Hutchins with a third round TKO. You don't get boxers called Len Hutchins any more, do you? As well as doing a lot of smiling to himself Eddie's gone for Zapata moustache in the works and hairline headband, while his bandmates have gone to the usual lengths of the laundry basket - red T-shirt and dungarees, fringed jacket over bare chest and what seems to be a dark blue apron. Any port in no storm at all.

Brotherhood Of Man – Oh Boy (The Mood I'm In)
Kid calls theirs "a change in style" even though they barely had a style to begin with, they were one hit wonders to this point whose only proper idea was a twist ending. This is their British Abba (But With The Blokes Singing And Not Playing Instruments Or Being Much Use To Anyone) relaunch, checkered alternating outfit colours the style plus neckerchiefs for the women.

Smokie – Lay Back In The Arms Of Someone
At least Kid admits they're "always" on the show, but you can't say they're moving on in the same way as BoM. The bassist has bought himself white flares and a home perming kit on an apparent mission to look like a future 70s stereotype and Chris Norman's lapels might be made out of Axminster but otherwise it's earnest acoustic melodic rock all the way. Right at the end of what seems to be a truncated version everyone ignores the physical probabilities and tries to go back to back on the instrumental break. It doesn't really work. As Kid prepares to tell us "I think that's just about the best 45 they've ever made" we briefly see a black man in a fedora, shades and smart suit and tie with buttonhole white carnation, so . Had he turned up at the wrong address?

Barbara Dickson – Another Suitcase In Another Hall
Just to confuse modern viewers, and probably a lot of contemporary viewers too, Kid remarks on how Dickson "has come a long way since the days of John, Paul, George, Ringo... and Bert". Kid's in an easy to please mood, he states it's his favourite song from Evita, and just for him Barbara's brought her guitar to fill the instrumentation gap where the harp from the first performance went. Still nobody to sing the male part, which makes her look like she's throwing a strange voice at the very end.

The Rubettes – Baby I Know
"Last time I was on Top Of The Pops I introduced the new single from the Rubettes and I said it would get to number one. Well, it's not far off this week, it's at number eleven!" Kid follows this with the kind of fixed smile that one can only attain when one has said something of that leap of logical faith on prime-time national television of their own volition. One strange thing given we'll never need to hear this again soon, as much of a grower as it is (just me? Oh alright then) The Rubettes didn't change their sound and look overnight, the one time we saw them in 1976 they were heading in a country direction anyway, but nobody's told whoever was in charge of the chart rundown as it's still using a picture of the band in smart jackets and two, including front and centre Alan Williams, in cloth caps. Also there's still five of them pictured, which means someone's not paying attention. This is curtailed by the single worst cut-to-black edit in the whole run so they can keep in two songs that were on the last Pops while cutting out the week's, and maybe month's, most interesting newcomer to the running order. Why bother, eh?

Electric Light Orchestra – Rockaria
Video again, still no room for Jeff's specific vision on the Pops stage.

Mary McGregor – Torn Between Two Lovers
A Gill-less Legs & Co with rather too little literalism this week. No duality, no switching from one side/emotion to the other, no general expression of feeling like a fool, just a lot of twirling and crouching down in Quality Street wrapper dresses because the song is too slow to really do much with.

Brendon – Gimme Some
"If you go to discotheques regularly here's a tune you'll have undoubtedly been tapping your toes to recently". Kid, I don't think people go to discos to tap their toes. Just a friendly word of advice. Brendon, a man with a full Keegan perm, is clearly aimed at Stardust Club - International Singing Talent And Chicken In A Basket Served All Night rather than Wigan Casino, given his song is chiefly the title shouted over a watery glam beat. The well dressed theme of the night continues with the young bassist, who in contrast to the neatly patterned shirts of the guitarists must have been sent out by his mum as there's no good reason for him to don not just a grey suit but a matching waistcoat. Wouldn't be surprised to find he's got a pocket watch on a chain on him too. Our fedora'd friend, despite being right at the back, is really going for his dance moves.

Manhattan Transfer – Chanson D'Amour
Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta! "Manhattan Transfer Company", as Kid calls them for some reason, are on video, in costume and responsive to clearly canned applause after the first line. They've got a band with them, Laurel Masse ordering "play it, boys!" like a jazz singer with ambitions. Elton John's Crazy Water sees us out. Kid sees us off with an extravagant Going For Gold opening titles-like wave and - let's not let a single mention of this attempt at a catchphrase go unnoticed - "goodbye and good love".

EDIT NEWS: Lynsey De Paul & Mike Moran's Rock Bottom, maybe cut for being the longest song on the show and it will be on again but... I so wanted to see the reaction from the prime-time crowd to this. A year after Brotherhood Of Man brought the Eurovision party home, this back to back duelling piano jazz chords duet about working together against the failing economy - hey, timely too - was offered up as our continental representative. In its own way, this was as far from the pop mainstream as New Rose.

TOTP 3/2/77 (tx 9/2/12): ITMA

Oh, hang on, that's from the wrong show, sorry about that. (No idea who made that, by the way - Charlie Brooker was first to make its presence public but it has a ring of Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper about it, especially as one of the band names is similar to something they've used)


"Another half hour of super sound and view for you" promises a bouffant Kid Jensen, which is a lie right off the bat as the proper version is nearly 40 minutes long and would have been even then. Just about scans, too. New pictures abound this week, as Leo Sayer meaningfully observes himself back at us in a mirror and Gary Glitter looks like he's pinned against a wall by an unseen firing squad. Please, say nothing. More importantly, though, we have a second, head on shot of the Rose Royce Cortina, this time with the roller up. Can't say it's affected the looks much.

Thin Lizzy – Don’t Believe A Word
You again. As if this isn't the third time we've seen it we get the screen/dancing effect, which we must come up with a catch-all title for before next week. Of chief interest this time is a man in a brown sheepskin jacket, tie and tache who appears to be trying to bust out some proper moves irrespective of whether he actually can, whether that be to the music or just generally in life. A very quick cutaway to some shifting youngsters disguises the Noel-in-background moment. In a neat shot, and as if to save on the costs of operating the crane camera, Kid backannounces "their latest 45" - hardly latest any more, Kid, more 'current' - as off to the right a figure in silver appears on the performance stage making for a neat segue to... hang on, it's not...

Gary Glitter – It Takes All Night Long
Who says you don't get surprises on television any more? Even Calvin Harris tweeted his surprise, which at least means another covert celebrity viewer flushed out. In case you missed it there's a sort of backstory here, which is that when Jonathan King got cut out last July he complained to the papers (the Mail, bravely for him), about a month later as it happened, and the DG issued an apology ("his performance will not be edited out of any future repeat" - starting again, are they?) Even so, you'd kind of think they'd have played safe and left this year's three Glitter appearances on the unedited versions, especially as the Mirror caught on to the first one claiming he'd "be seen singing a 1977 number, believed to be I’m The Leader Of The Gang". Which was a 1973 number. Good work there. Anyway, Kid's enthused, stomping along to the intro even if he does leave the last word off the title. Gary's well past the point of pop reward here so seems to be morphing into some sort of creepy glam crooner affair, dressed in a suit possibly made of Bacofoil. He actually looks nervous at the start, such is the magnifying power of the close-up. Then he starts singing come-ons in the creepiest voice he can muster and making Carry On-randy faces directly at us. At one point, having spent much of the time between vocals with an arched back and a haughty provenance, he mock-airs his collar before staring straight down the lens and stage whipsering "what a night!" before prancing up some stairs and, frankly, shaking his arse. Also bear in mind he was only 32 at the time but looks deep into middle age, and you don't have to consider anything else about him to feel the black ice forming where warm blood used to be.

Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes – Don't Leave Me This Way
Knowing we need someone to stir the loins back into order, here come Legs & Co. "There's a whole lot of directives in the chart this week" comments Kid, possibly the most deathless thing he's ever said. Elegance is the watchword following last week's Victoriana, moving on a decade or three as the budget really gets pushed out once more. Evening gowns, opera gloves, drapes, even a big old chandelier. That does mean not much space to work in, meaning a fairly vanilla for their standards number involving lots of circling the external parts of the set, striding around in pairs and limbular expressiveness in a line.

Boz Scaggs – What Can I Say
Kid promises "a very special guest", so he'd better deliver. In the meantime a video of Boz and his huge band, including two drummers and one of the three backing singers having a tambourine to hand

The Real Thing – You'll Never Know What You're Missing
The camera stays on Kid for a long time after he's introduced the song as he looks progressively more concerned. As it's a slow smootchy one, with more than a nod to Homely Girl, and maybe having seen the Pips the other week they've dressed up in their wedding suits for the occasion, flowers in the lapel holes and everything. Chris Amoo, who always has to be different, has augmented his outfit with a huge explorers' hat that any church goer would insist he remove before the service. It seems to be a perfectly reasonable live vocal, Amoo giving it plenty of huge soulful exhortation throughout the last third to remind us of his frontman status.

Silver Convention – Everybody's Talkin' 'Bout Love
Repeat from two weeks ago of the bra'd up German Three Degrees.

The Rubettes – Baby I Know
And they say pop acts grow up too fast these days. Just three years after Sugar Baby Love, the Rubettes had reverted to their archetype as session men and gone ersatz country rock. They even look the part, Alan Williams sporting a receding side parting and Les Gray-by-way-of-Parker glasses. The Rubettes, unsurprisingly, are no Eagles. In terms of studio manufactured bands going their own way, they're some distance from the Monkees. This did however lead to the wondrous spectacle of the Rubettes UK trending on Twitter and people becoming confused. You would have to ask, wouldn't you.

David Soul – Don't Give Up On Us
Last time (until Christmas), thank goodness. Even crowd dance cutaways can't really save it. It's after this that Kid reveals his special guest, and "I didn't disappoint you"... Thelma Houston. Good, except she was pretty much unknown here at the time, promoting her first single as she was, her own Don't Leave Me This Way, presumably why she wasn't on to perform, unless that was due to her work permit or something. As with all guests she doesn't get to do much, merely name her single and announce the credits song, but like Terry Kath she adds an element of impromptu dance too. Unlike Kath it's a song you actually can dance to, Heatwave's Boogie Nights, and it actually looks like dancing rather than an acid flashback. Kid again wishes us "good love" to close. If that was his attempt at a catchphrase it really wasn't working out.

EDIT NEWS: Boney M and Leo Sayer, both of whom we've seen before and will see again. That's how editing these shows should work.

TOTP 6/1/77 (tx 6/1/12): ring in the new

1977 - the year of Evita, Keith Richards' drugs bust, Studio 54, Saturday Night Fever and punk breaking. Chris Martin, Kanye West, Ronan Keating, Shakira, Danger Mouse, Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, Richard Archer of Hard-Fi and Claire from Steps were born. Elvis, Marc Bolan, Bing Crosby, Ronnie Van Zant and Maria Callas died. Also, not a single Top Of The Pops making it into the top 20 of the weekly TV ratings all year, something that didn't happen again until 1985. Truly the alpha and omega of an era, as we'll come to learn better together throughout 2012.

Oh god. This goes on all year.

No need to take too long discussing The Story Of 1977, except it's an odd form of marketing to preview a series which runs all year in prime time with an hour long trailer telling you nearly all of it is shit until punk arrives and changes everything (which obviously explains why Mull Of Kintyre, released in November, became the best selling single of the whole decade), making sure first to tell you you wasted your time over the previous eight months watching the previous year's output being rerun. Too much block revisionist history (1977 was a relatively calmed year in terms of inflation, unemployment and strikes, certainly nothing like the three day week of 1974 or the Winter Of Discontent of 1978) and plain deliberate ignorance of Pops' role - it's a family entertainment show based on the biggest selling records of the day (or in Story Of terms the old guard "clinging on"), not a rival to So It Goes - to discuss, but whoever got the reliably rotten Sue Perkins to claim the bulk of its guests "were all novelty acts" over a clip of Jonathan Richman needs taking far away from a place of pop culture influence.

Anyway. Here it is on iPlayer for the next week and another couple beyond that due to repeats, and if you don't mind spoilers here's Big Hits 1977.

So what had BBC4 got to offer the part-timers, those making a night of it who'll forget about the rest of the run and mildly irk those of who sat through Glamourpuss to get to this moment, godammit? Unusually we start with the rundown followed by the first surviving appearance of Kid Jensen - that's how he's referred to in the credits, so like Floyd/Floid that's only how this blog will refer to him - who remarks that there just wasn't a new chart published that week. Actually there was, and one of those you're about to see was on the way down. Boo, TOTP. BOO. Also, John Christie had entered the top 30. It happened, ladies and gentlemen, though he immediately started falling so the temptation to call him back in was averted. And it's with that inaccuracy ringing in our ears we embark upon the pint/quart activity of cramming eleven songs and a playout into 35 minutes.

Sheer Elegance – Dance The Night Away
And here's how to get a new year off to a flyer. This would be Sheer Elegance's last appearance, which is a shame as they've finally learnt the value of not colour clashing in alarming ways. Not that this getup isn't alarming by itself, as the red shirts with large white patch and ruffled plunging neckline are augmented by white trousers so tight Cliff Richard would wince. The hook this time is classically soulful but limited by only having one really able member the trio were never destined as anything other than a footnote, especially given the not inconsiderable US competition on the same show.

10cc – The Things We Do For Love
Without a link - no idea whether by cut or design - we're into a video shot in an overspotlit performance space of a band we last saw on the second BBC4 show of 1976. Some nice close-ups of some tambourines at one point. "Broken up but not down" Jensen points out, this being their first single without Godley or Creme.

Tina Charles – Dr Love
"A real disco delight" Kid calls it, which can only mean another singer held hostage by the orchestra's overemphasis. Actually despite the ever eager trombones they're getting the hang of the rhythm, largely through so much practice you'd imagine, and Charles is in full voice. She's also in full figure, not unreasonably given she was four months pregnant, but the cumulative effect of the lack of movement and the large kaftan means the audience are having to provide the movement visuals for her. Dr Love seems to be a similar type to Dr Kiss Kiss. Maybe they're related.

Smokie – Living Next Door To Alice
Stop that. "The pride of Bradford" - Kid's not entirely comfortable in his early Pops days, but he knows the value of a brief description - have invested in a lightbox with their name on. It finally adds something to their stage presence, though it's undeniable that Chris Norman's hair is lustrous, shiny and full of vitality more than ever. Definite extra Rod Stewart tinge to his vocals too.

Gladys Knight and the Pips – Nobody But You
Interesting staging here, as the orchestra, all in orange shirts, are visible behind Jensen during his introduction. For her own protection from the British winter Gladys is sporting a lurid green scarf over her red top. Three minutes later, an indication of why all British cod-soul should just give up on the spot, and with the Pips in matching grey jackets and light blue trousers the male groups could learn a lot too. The audience are unsure whether to look on in envy or jig about slightly to the gospel tune. "Didn't I tell you we had a special show?" Jensen appraises, though the appreciation is dimmed by the thought presenters say something like that every week.

Jethro Tull – Ring Out Solstice Bells
Very appropriate that the last of the Christmas songs would be shown on Twelfth Night. Jensen calls them "unpredictable", something immediately undercut by this being a repeat.

David Soul – Don’t Give Up On Us
"I think this next sound will be the next big number one" A correct prediction! A Top Of The Pops presenter got a chart prediction right! Stopped clock being right twice a day and all that, but see, it's the youth that really know the chart score. As big as this was there's some awkwardness around its presentation as Soul never came over to promote it, nor indeed any of his other 1977 hits. Legs & Co are thus pressed into service in their nighties for a routine based around a large circle, maybe based on Soul's assertion "it's written in the moonlight". Before long the early tactic of lying, standing and running about in a circle is abandoned in favour of the usual formation emoting for a couple of minutes until all six gather back in a circle to get down on their elbows and, through the faerie majick of CSO, admire a picture of Soul himself. Phh. Never gave Bill Nelson of Be Bop Deluxe that extra treatment.

The Drifters – You’re More Than A Number In My Little Red Book
On video and amid a misty studio setting, this week's Drifters do their supercharged cabaret suit routine.

Clodagh Rodgers – Save Me
"A sound that's got all the ingredients for success" is as maybe, but Rodgers has found an extra pitch in the shape of a dress with a spectacularly plunging neckline. Twenty-plus years ahead of her fashion time, maybe. And maybe it's to distract from the song, which sounds like Smokie on their fag break.

Boney M – Daddy Cool
Now then. Boney M becoming huge European stars is attributed to this late 1976 performance on Germany's Musikladen, where young people who'd never seen such wild movement and outfits went mad for the single release. So they get to Pops and are told they have to either re-record the song without Frank Farian or sing live over the orchestra's rendition. Ah.



First thing you'll notice is Bobby Farrell trying not to panic too much that people might discover it was Frank Farian rather than him providing the vocals on the recording. He sounds nothing like himself, essentially. In turn the girls' lack of harmony practice is also shown, someone definitely singing flat, and the die is cast. The dancing and synchronised movements can't be as energetic since they have to retain some energy for the singing, and they've been put on a tiny stage with people behind them as well as in front. Before the singing proper has started Farrell has already nearly fallen off the back, severely limiting his wild abandon potential. The sequence at 1:40, where Farrell either forgets the words or is embarking on an emergency self-regulation attempt. Checking the recording there doesn't appear to be a mariachi section in the equivalent moment at 2:26 (it's actually strings, big drums and one trumpet in the middle), but put that down to the arranging invention of Johnny Pearson. Just after that, presumably covering for the heavy breathing bit as there's kids watching, Farrell is required to fill for an English speaking audience requiring all the bi-linguality he knows. He doesn't do it very well. We don't see them right after finishing. They might well have run away. The woman next to Jensen (his evaluation: "something new and different". Yeah, you could say that) at the end is a visiting Donna Summer, whose interview requirements are to name her new single, thank Jensen for his happy new year welcome and introduce...

Johnny Mathis – When A Child Is Born
Mathis is still in his jungle hideaway for one more week. Money Money Money is the credits playout, Jensen's final words being "Goodbye and good love!" Um, if you like.

The disappeared: 18/11/76

After the Legs & Co naming ceremony on the 11th another piece of TOTP history this week as David 'Kid' Jensen made the first of 69 appearances as host. While most famous for the sixteen with John Peel in 1983 and 1984 he turned into an entirely useable if not all that initially authoritative host (that'll be down to the nickname, I'll wager - he held onto it until 1980) He only joined Radio 1 in September in the drivetime slot but had made his name in a late night slot on Radio Luxembourg and more importantly had pop TV experience with ITV, firstly 45 alongside Emperor Rosko in 1974-75, so well thought of it got a Christmas Day special in 1974, and then parallel with this stint the Yorkshire TV junior quiz show Pop Quest alongside a pre-Tiswas Sally James - here's the 1976 final. And now he's graduated to the top table and been granted...

Mud – Lean On Me
Here we find the great loss of 1976. Not the song, on which the new kings of disco retreated to a limp Bill Withers cover, but the fact this was on the show three times, reaching number 7... and all three have been wiped. Perhaps out of pity. Don't worry, they'll surely make it up with the next hit sing... oh, there wasn't another.

Bonnie Tyler – Lost In France
As we've just seen.

Showaddywaddy – Under The Moon Of Love
As we've just seen. Though the element of surprise has gone.

Yvonne Elliman – Love Me
As with last week the studio work knocks off early and the rest of the show is videos and dancing. Elliman was a Broadway musical actress who'd have her biggest hit, If I Can't Have You from Saturday Night Fever, in 1977 but for now took another Barry and Robin Gibb song of desperation to number six.

Electric Light Orchestra – Livin' Thing
Jeff Lynne works through more of his Beatles obsession for what would become their biggest hit until 1979.

Dana – Fairytale
We'll see this video later in the year, but suffice to say it's not as balladic as you're probably imagining. Quite Cliff-like, actually.

Peter Frampton – Do You Feel Like We Do
Kind of guessing Legs & Co didn't do all nine minutes... They're on a run of being given rock songs to interpret, there's a cracker next week, but they haven't quite settled in enough yet. Also this is a really awkward pace for getting movement out of.

Chicago – If You Leave Me Now
Three weeks at number one, two of which have been wiped. How's your luck?