TV Cream

Everything in the TV A-Z!

  • 0-9 are for…

  • 1990 A futuristic dystopian britain provides the setting for a hard-bitten “and-the-moral-is” fantasy runaround
  • 3-2-1 HAND JIVER extraordinaire TED ROGERS flipped his wrists throughout this hour-long Spanish-derived mystery quiz
  • 3-2-1…Contact! US SEMI-ED kid’s show.
  • 4 Computer Buffs AGAIN WITH THE home computers.
  • 4 What It’s Worth VINTAGE WORTHINESS from Four’s fledgling days
  • 4-Tel on View NOOOO! YOU don’t want to give something that’s supposed to be a far more sleek and with-it rival to Ceefax a name that sounds like a badly-translated Spanish business management course!
  • 60 70 80 Show, The ROY HUDD was your ringleader for this half-remembered Sunday matins showcase for old folk, featuring tea-dances and darning.

    A is for…

  • A for Andromeda EPONYMOUS FEMO-BOT spawned by malevolent machine made of giant spinning tape loops and teleprinters proceeds to run (slowly) amok in a Top Secret Government Laboratory on a Remote Scottish Island.
  • A-Team, The A REDUNDANT entry, really. What’s to say?
  • About Britain DOLEFUL LOOK-AT-THIS “local people with a story to tell” effort showcasing regionalia in as lumpen a manner possible
  • Abricadigance “DON’T, DON’T, DON’T give up the day job,” sang Rich. Why not, asked the viewing several.
  • Absurd Person Singular SHUFFLING SMALL SCREEN version of ALAN AYCKBOURN’s salty ensemble drama following a mithering middle class quartet through three Christmases…
  • Accidental Death of an Anarchist, The Woah, woah, steady on there, TVC! Bit outside the usual remit, this, isn’t it?
  • Ace of Wands JIM-MORRISON-ALIKE BOY magician Tarot (MICHAEL MACKENZIE) has adventures through history, for which read cheap studio set representing pyramid, cheap studio set representing Stonehenge and so on.
  • Ad-Lib DREADFUL HALF-ARSED cheapo kids’ drama-workshop-on-screen string of semi-improvised (hence title) sketches and bollocks, the most notable thing being when cast regular DUNCAN GOODHEW (yup, the bald swimmer) pretended to be Dracula flapping his cape as he swooped down on a victim.
  • Adam DISABLED WOMAN falls victim to a new automated, computer-controlled house, which seems strangely sinister, and…yeah, you guessed it.
  • Adam Adamant Lives!
  • Addams Family, The CREEPY. KOOKY. And altogether, er, ooky.
  • Adrian Mole, The Secret Diary/Growing Pains of DECADE-ENHANCING COFFEE table staple by SUE TOWNSEND adapted reasonably, if rather needlessly, for the screen
  • Adventure Game, The WHAT NOW GET OUT OF THAT was to BBC1 evenings, THE ADVENTURE GAME was to BBC2 teatime.
  • Adventure Weekly DIMLY-RECALLED KIDS series from the arse-end of the 60s about a group of kids in an English town who decided to write up their weekly adventures as a newspaper.
  • Adventures of Don Quick, The SCI-FI COMEDY outing, little remembered now, with IAN HENDRY as the quixotic space traveller, and RONALD LACEY as Sam Chopanza.
  • Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, The MORE OLD black and white stuff which strayed far into the colour era.
  • Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The DEFINITIVE SMALL-SCREEN sleuthathon saddling JEREMY BRETT, for good or ill (the latter, as it turned out) with the role of a lifetime.
  • Adventures on Kythera AUSSIE KIDS Molly (AMEILA FRID – the original Cody Willis in NEIGHBOURS) and Spike (GARY PERAZZO) holiday on a Greek island, where they have the expected nondescript adventures with local girl Tik (REBEKAH ELMALOGLOU, better known as acne-ridden Sophie Simpson from HOME AND AWAY).
  • Aeronauts, The 25-MINUTE GUNG-HO adventures of Ernest Laverdure and Michel Tanguy, young strapping pilots in the French air force.
  • After Henry SYBIL FAWLTY lives one floor below the snooty one off PLEASE, SIR! and one floor above someone who looks and sounds like Lynda Day off PRESS GANG but, sadly, wasn’t.
  • Afternoon Plus LEVIATHAN OF post-lunch shoestring scheduling and sanctuary for many a sneaky school skive.
  • Agaton Sax AMIABLE ENOUGH cartoon serial about a bowler-hatted, moustachioed detective (and some sort of police constable sidekick).
  • Agony ANNA RAEBURN-INSPIRED sitcommery starring MAUREEN LIPMAN as usual playing herself, i.e. externally strong, confident woman but internally a babbling mess.
  • Airbase LATE-PERIOD COLD War production-line thriller set in a US air force base in the UK.
  • Airport Chaplain SHORT-LIVED SUNDAY night God slot support feature.
  • Airwolf NIFTY BLACK futurocopter saga with none-more-eighties JAN MICHAEL-VINCENT as cello-playing loner maverick Stringfellow Hawke,
  • Albert Carter, Q.O.S.O. ROY KINNEAR was your jovial accident-prone street sweeper in one of those 1970s silents in the PLANK/RHUBARB mould.
  • Albion Market IT HAD a fantastic theme tune, if you watched closely sometimes you could see the back of Granada’s studios, and DAVID “SCIENCE WORKSHOP” HARGREAVES was in it.
  • Album, The RUN-OF-THE-MILL HOBBY/COLLECTING magazine (see MADABOUT) employing ex-mime artist ADRIAN “JIGSAW” HEDLEY
  • Alcock and Gander NO CHEAP innuendo suggested by that title, no way.
  • ALF NONE MORE 80s puppet sitcom with eponymous “Alien Life Form”
  • Alfie Atkins SWEDISH ADVENTURES of a bald cartoon boy and his bald cartoon dad.
  • Alfresco GRAB BAG alterno revue, late in slot and long of trouser.
  • Ali Bongo’s Cartoon Carnival A TWO-PRONGED, double-content pre-GRANDSTAND bonanza from P. Daniels’ late “magic consultant”.
  • Alias Smith and Jones BBC2 SLIPPED off its tight waistcoat and cummerbund with this endless Butch and Sundance-style banditathon
  • Alias the Jester LATE ERA Cosgrove-Hall spectacular
  • Alice BOUGHT AS a job lot by cash-strapped infant Channel 4 and flung out after COUNTDOWN.
  • Aliens in the Family WEIRD DRAMA about a teenage girl who goes to stay with her dad and stepfamily for the summer.
  • All at Number 20 Maureen Lipman is back.
  • All Clued Up WORD GAME (as they so often were) favoured mainly by senior citizens (both watching at home and playing in the studio).
  • All Creatures Great and Small Driving-through-the-Dales-in-a-lovely-old-car with Hardy and Timothy sharing a joke.
  • All Gas and Gaiters VAPOURS-IN-THE-VESTRY PALAVER fronted by DEREK NIMMO, here beginning long service as TV’s resident clerical buffoon.
  • All in Good Faith The instant Nimmo had hung up his cowl, it was only gone and swiped by RICHARD BRIERS doing a spot of moonlighting from EVER DECREASING CIRCLES.
  • ‘Allo ‘Allo! THAT EXCLAMATION mark says it all.
  • All Our Yesterdays NETWORKED SEPIA-DRENCHED homily to Better Times.
  • All-Electric Amusement Arcade, The SEASIDE-BASED KIDS’ drama, easily a step up from the salty SEAVIEW, revolving around a rather attractive young girl’s attempts to pep up a rundown shitty arcade with stuff to appeal to Young People.
  • All-New Popeye Show, The YOU NEEDN’T have bothered.
  • All-Star Record Breakers, The
  • All-Star Secrets WELCOME TO MICHAEL PARKINSON: The Wilderness Years.
  • Alphabet Zoo RALPH MCTELL was aided by various female second fiddles in this letter-by-letter song and illustrated storyathon with Holly the Hedgehog.
  • Alternative 3 ONE-OFF PRETEND conspiracy documentary about the supposed disappearance of super-intelligent citizens.
  • Amateur Naturalist, The Your familiar “home study kit” suggestion box for making the most of the wildlife “in your own backyard”.
  • Amazing Adventures of Morph, The THEY REALLY needn’t have bothered.
  • Amazing Spider-Man, The OLD HAT blue and red swingy leotard bloke
  • Amazing World of Kreskin, The WEIRDO SPECCOID Canadian mind reader who turned up for about ten minutes with confusing and unimpressive mind trickery.
  • Amazing World of Professor Kitzel, The LITTLE-KNOWN SEMI-EDUCATIONAL morning cartoon filler which began with the moustachioed titular prof in his lab introducing a wacky, sub-Wilf Lunn invention to the kids.
  • America’s Top Ten “HELLO, I’M CASEY KASEM,” beamed the garishly-sweatered host at the start of this imported Billboard countdown-cum-cheap syndicated overnight time filler, standing behind a director’s chair, sweeping his arm and clenching his fist in a matey fashion.
  • And Mother Makes Three/Five NUTS AND BOLTS RE-HEATING of NOT IN FRONT OF THE CHILDREN
  • And Now The Good News OUR FIRST SIGHTING in this A-Z of the sainted STILGOE.
  • Angels MEDICAL MARATHON.
  • Anglia Through the Night BOLD TWILIGHT TIME escapades for Fen-dwelling insomniacs.
  • Animal Fair Half-hearted HEADS AND TAILS wannabe plus dreary animation.
  • Animal Kwackers BRITISH VERSION of the BANANA SPLITS, where none was really needed.
  • Animal Magic MILD-MANNERED MENAGERIE of human foes masquerading as zany zoo awareness initiative that went the way of, well, zoos.
  • Animals in Action Soft-spoken grey haired bloke proceeds to show us exactly how to draw bird/fish encounter.
  • Annika ABOVE AVERAGE ISLE of Wight euromance
  • Anything We Can Do… DRAMATISED VERSION of THE GOOD LIFE with home computers.
  • Anything You Can Do A DEVOUTLY devolved kids’ talent contest.
  • Anzacs AUSTRALIAN EPIC re-telling sterling Oz exploits in World War One.
  • Apache NIGHTMARE-INDUCING PRODUCTION, shown to kids in school assemblies to learn them of the dangers of arseing about with dangerous farming equipment.
  • Aphrodite Inheritance, The ONE OF THE BEEB’S many 1970s Mediterranean thrillers bundled out during winter to cheer people up and which made no sense whatsoever but which you wanted to stay up and watch all the same.
  • April Fool THE HAIRY cornflake himself, DAVE LEE TRAVIS, presented this timely one-off anthology of hoaxes and ruses for kids.
  • Are You Being Served? LIFE IN THE most uncommercial, threadbare-looking department store in the world
  • Around the World in 80 Days “CAIRO? CAIRO? One. One! One way! Yes, just one. One way!”
  • Around the World with Willy Fog “Hey, I’ve got a great idea for a cartoon! Why not take some old classic book, one that’s out of copyright, and just have all the characters played by animals!”
  • Art of Landscape, The THE TEST CARD? PAGES FROM CEEFAX? Bugger that – C4 had its own special way to pretend it was still broadcasting even though everybody had pissed off home.
  • Art of Origami, The ONE GREAT big monster of a weekday afternoon craftfest.
  • Artemis 81 FUCKING ODD (and slightly laughable) pretentio-fest ’bout – yes, it’s the eighties – an apocalyptic war
  • Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World DOTTY SCI-FI guru and thing inventor introduced this “crazy world” series.
  • Arthur of the Britons MUDDY REWORKING of sprawling Arthurian swordsplay with OLIVER TOBIAS as The Nation’s Hero.
  • As it Happens SHOESTRING SPECTACULAR from a time when pointing a camera at anything and allowing people to see it was somehow the most thrilling thing in the world.
  • Ascent of Man, The A COUPLE of billion years squashed into 13 episodes and a cross-hatched jacket with leather elbow patches.
  • Asian Magazine WITTILY TITLED Sunday morning sub-continent news magazine.
  • Ask Aspel THE GREAT ASP appeared in front of a giant balsa and Fuzzy Felt (TM) speech bubble.
  • Ask No Questions WEIRD AS you like JOHN JUNKIN-fronted celebrity panel game, in the time-honoured weekday 5:15 ITV mould.
  • Ask the Family THE HOME COUNTIES’ most preposterously erudite home-owners starred in this audience-free parlour-esque intellectual joustathon.
  • Aspel and Company TOUTED AS ITV’s premier chat bunker
  • Assaulted Nuts ANGLO-YANKEE LATE night comedy from the Four’s early days
  • Asterix the Gaul GOSCINNY AND Uderzo’s pint-sized French pugilist and nemesis of the Roman Empire
  • Astronauts THREE ASTRONAUTS live in first-ever all-British space station, interrupted in their musings by US ground control boss called Beadle.
  • Astronut SEMINAL FIVE MINUTE episodes in life of friendly cartoon purple teardrop-shaped antenna sporting Astro, plus long-suffering Earth “pal” Oscar Mild.
  • Atarah’s Music THE SCOURGE of many a small child struggling to learn an outsize musical instrument.
  • Aubrey ODD CARTOON short about an accident-prone sort of orange testicle-man with big floppy nose, who had various stereotypical adventures.
  • Auf Wiedersehen, Pet ENDURING TRAGICOM FROM THE pens of Likely Lads Clement/La Frenais
  • Auggie Doggie and Doggie Daddy BASICALLY WHAT it says.
  • Automan Pretty much arse, really.
  • Avengers, The THE FORMAT might have been through the mill countless times, but when it got itself sorted, this was close to the best damn thing on telly.

  • B is for…

  • Babble HOW TO fill half an hour of early evening Channel 4 telly quickly and cheaply.
  • Bad Boyes ACE TEATIME CBBC fare documenting the exploits of one Brian Arthur Derek Boyes.
  • Baggy Pants and the Nitwits ANOTHER OF those cartoon double-bill “sandwiches” that spread like, indeed, nits during the 1970s.
  • Bagpuss 13 EPISODES of sepia soft toy sophistry
  • Bagthorpe Saga, The CAPRICIOUS CAPERS from HELEN “LIZZIE DRIPPING” CRESWELL concerning a family of middle class loons with a penchant for weirdness, paranormal events and arson.
  • Bailey’s Comets MORE OBSCURO-MATION.
  • Baker Street Boys, The ARNIE WIGGINS and a bunch of his urchin mates, soot of cheek and fleet of foot, are taken into the employ of the World’s Greatest Detective
  • Baldmoney, Sneezwort, Dodder and Cloudberry RUDIMENTARY ASSEMBLY of dull black and white line drawings
  • Balham – Gateway to the South THE OLD PETER SELLERS monologue about “glorious Bal-ham”
  • Balthazar CZECHOSLOVAKIAN CARTOON about a small, bearded scientist
  • Banacek GEORGE “HANNIBAL” PEPPARD strolls around Boston
  • Banana Splits, The RETINA-INFURIATING Hanna-Barbera live-action mayhem of hazily-yet-vividly-recollected infamy
  • Bananaman THE GOODIES decide to regroup after numerous solo efforts to “recreate the magic”.
  • Barbapapa SHIT CARTOON of Scandinavian origin
  • Barbar the Elephant KING OF some African republic or other
  • Barnaby CAKE-resembling stop-motion ursine of Gallic extraction with pedantic nomenclatural obsession.
  • Baron, The ROLLICKING ANTIQUE-THEMED spy excursionism
  • Barriers BAFFLING KIDS DRAMA about a public schoolboy (just for a change)
  • Basic Maths SIR FRED HARRIS makes his first proper appearance
  • Basil Brush Show, The UPPER CLASS FOX with a human voice insults well-known BBC face…
  • Batfink TATTY-LOOKING CARTOON Batman spoofola
  • Batman “IN TONIGHT’S CAPE-TIVATING EPISODE…”
  • Battle of the Planets IN SOME vague future, Earth was defended from aliens by a kerazee team of helmet-and-cape sporting animated types calling themselves G-Force.
  • Battlestar Galactica GOD TOOK a back seat for this Star Wars re-hash
  • Batty Adventures An eccentric character (possibly a pedlar of sorts) on a bike travels around some unspecified countryside
  • BBC Television Shakespeare, The HERE WAS a prime cut of your actual Public Service Broadcasting with a capital “p”, illuminated in red with a filigreed gold border on the finest vellum WH Smith’s could supply.
  • Beachcombers SKIVVY CANADIAN live action “drama”
  • Bearcats TWO “FREELANCE investigators” arse about down Mexico way pre-WWI
  • Beasts NIGEL “KINVIG” KNEALE takes responsibility for these plays about various animal/human horror confrontations.
  • Beat the Teacher FROM THE DESK OF DOIG.
  • Beat, The AHH, THE EARLY NINETIES.
  • Beatles, The PREPOSTEROUS POPPERMOST Yank animated antics
  • Beatrix Potter Tales QUEASY VICTORIAN anthropomorbidity-fest
  • Behind the Bike Sheds BLATANT NUDGE-NUDGE TITLE belied boring content
  • Behind the Lines/Fighter Pilot/The Paras DEFTLY SURFING the wave of post-Falklands yomp-inspired rejoicing
  • Beiderbecke Affair/Tapes/Connection, The LYNDA BELLINGHAM’S other half from Second Thoughts and Robbie Coltrane’s other half from Cracker meet in the staff room of a Leeds comprehensive
  • Bellamy’s Backyard Safari SPEECH-IMPAIRED HUNT supporter’s follow-up to the hugely successful BOTANIC MAN and UP A GUMTREE
  • Bellamy’s Bugle This time he’d given up on kids with half a brain (we’d rumbled him!) and made do talking down to toddlers.
  • Belle and Sebastian ORIGINAL LIVE ACTION version of this Alpen-yawn business saw eight-year-old Seb tame mysterious beast of the mountains
  • Benji, Zax and the Alien Prince ONE OF HANNA-BARBERA’s rare live action adventures, concerning a mutt, a kooky flying disc-shaped robot “guardian” of the Black Hole school of comedy sidekickery
  • Benny Hill Show, The MORE FAMOUS than the Queen in the US.
  • Benson NEVER-ENDING BUBBLE floated off from SOAP
  • Bergerac THROUGH THE CLOUDS, a shape appears.
  • Bernie Winters Show, The POST-BUST UP WITH MIKE canine-accursed affair
  • Bertha SHOPFLOOR STOP MOTION SHENANIGANS
  • Best of the West EL NAFFO comedy-drama for Saturday teatime
  • Bewitched SPRAWLING, MULTI-COLOURED, nose-twitching, mouth-wrinkling sorcerama.
  • Beyond Westworld BRYNNERCENTRIC FILM of mad robots in amusement park span off the road
  • Big Blue Marble SESAME STREET-STYLE affair
  • Big Breadwinner Hog BLUDGEONING BASTARD gangland bastard business
  • Big Deal LOOK, IT’S RAY BROOKS, aka Robby Box
  • Big E, The HEY, IT’S 1992 and we’re all European now.
  • Big Jim and the Figaro Club SIX-PART 50S-SET-AND-STYLE capery
  • Big John, Little John PHIL SILVERS-LOOKALIKE teaches in your average all-American high school
  • Big Match, The BRIAN MOORE-HELMED ITV rival to MATCH OF THE DAY
  • Big Time, The ESTHER RANTZEN dreamed up this JIMMY WILL FIX IT for grown-ups
  • Bilko/The Phil Silvers Show/You’ll Never Get Rich “PLAAA-TOOOON, HIYAAAAH-HA!!”
  • Billy Liar KEITH “HAPPY APPLE” WATERHOUSE adapted his own novel for this sitcom
  • Bionic Woman LEE MAJORS may have been your original Six Million shyster
  • Bird of Prey TOP HACKER thriller with the trusty RICHARD GRIFITHS
  • Birdman LACKLUSTRE CARTOON oft seen on GLEN MICHAEL’S CAVALCADE
  • Birdwatch/Foxwatch etc. TONY “WILDTRACK” SOPER was your host for “BIRD”
  • Biskitts VERY SHODDILY-DEVELOPED cartoon with gang of miniature dogs outwitting “villainous” King Max and comedy jester Shecky.
  • Bit of a Do, A WELL-REMEMBERED RETINUE of dramatised revelries
  • Bit of Fry and Laurie, A FIRST DYNASTY, THEN SWITCH OVER TO BBC2 FOR FRY AND LAURIE.
  • Bits and Pieces “PIONEERING” I.E. ROPEY SATURDAY morning techie tombola bringing primitive home computer technology to bleary-eyed weekenders.
  • Bizarre CANADIAN COMEDY skitathon helmed by John Byner
  • BJ and the Bear AHEM. VERY late (but not late enough) seventies-style amalgam of Every Which Way But Loose and Smokey and The Bandit
  • Black and Blue Lamp, The TIME-MEDDLING POLICE-THEMED one-off BBC play by Arthur Ellis (not the It’s a Knockout scoremaster, sadly) with a premise you may have seen elsewhere.
  • Black Beauty ANNA SEWELL’S Victorio-horse catalogue had fuck all to do with these “adventures” featuring WILLIAM LUCAS.
  • Blackadder SIMILING SITCOM beloved of Radio Times, and Only Good Thing in the career of Richard Curtis.
  • Blackeyes PERVY OLD MAN WHO looks like Dennis Potter but isn’t, but actually is, pervs over GINA BELLMAN’s breasts
  • Blake’s 7 “WHERE’S BLAKE?” quoth Terence of Wogan every morning on Radio 2 for years, and who could blame him?
  • Blankety Blank “ON THE PANEL, six of the finest showbusiness minds in the country. Sadly that was last week, so here are half a dozen no-hopers instead.”
  • Bless Me Father DEMOBBED BEFROCKED ARTHUR LOWE patrols 1950s London parish of St. Jude’s as wise-cracking Father Charles Duddleswell
  • Bless This House WHAT LIFE WOULD BE LIKE if you had Sid James as your dad, i.e. ace.
  • Blizzard’s Wonderful Wooden Toys/Blizzard’s Wizard Woodwork PODGY, AMIABLE West country dad with a penchant for making stuff from wood on Sunday afternoons decides to share hobby with nation.
  • Blockbusters WE’RE ALL FAMILIAR with this one.
  • Blood Money GERMAN TERRORIST Irene Kohl (JULIET HAMMOND-HILL) grabs UN official’s son for own exaggeratedly Teutonic evil purposes.
  • Bloomers RICHARD BECKINSALE’S last comedic role: an out of work actor running a florist’s. Not a classic swansong.
  • Blott on the Landscape “ROLLICKING” TOM-SHARPERY
  • Blue Peter “AND I think I can just hear the sound of the Chalk Farm Salvation Army brass band coming up the hill…”
  • Blue Thunder LAUNCHED SIMULTANEOUSLY with AIRWOLF, this had the back up of a “major motion picture” as origin
  • Bluebell SUNDAY NIGHT past-your-bedtime Nazi/nightclub confection
  • Bluey AUSSIE COP runaround
  • Blunders, The DULL CARTOON about accident-prone clan
  • BMX Bandits TOP PRODUCT placement childventures.
  • Bob Monkhouse Show, The Our man welcomes to BBC2 those viewers bored of Panorama and World In Action on the other side.
  • Bob’s Full House Here’s the man’s finest hour
  • Bod BALD-HEADED TYKE runs amok in triangle dress by terrorising neighbourhood with blank expression and whistling.
  • Body in Question, The JONATHAN MILLER poked about inside various dead people while pontificating about doctors, guts and life.
  • Bodymatters DR. GRAEME GARDEN climbs out of a giant nose
  • Bonanza PONDEROSA-BASED WESTERN ranchgoings
  • Boney YET ANOTHER BLOODY outback drama.
  • Bonny SUPERGRAN-ESQUE YARNS of mild-mannered Scottish postwoman
  • Book Game, The SQUIRE ROBERT “WOULD THAT IT WERE” ROBINSON welcomes pre-PLAYSCHOOL idlers to a literary quiz.
  • Book Tower, The READING-IS-FUN ENDEAVOUR which wasn’t set in a tower and didn’t show many books.
  • Bookie GLASWEGIAN DRAMADY involving a hapless bookie
  • Boomph with Becker PRE-GREEN GODDESS/MAD LIZZIE fitness freakout
  • Boon BLOODY SLOW geezerama
  • Bootle Saddles PRE-BOON HALF-ARSED sitcom
  • Boots and Saddles LOOK, IS THAT ANOTHER WILD WEST pixellated posse barrelling over the horizon of your telly?
  • Bootsie and Snudge SHABBY SPIN-OFF from THE ARMY GAME
  • Borgias, The APPALLING COSTUME crappery
  • Born Lucky WOEFULLY half-arsed but mercifully short-lived location game show
  • Boss Cat “PROVIDING IT’S WITH DIGNITY.” That’s that sorted.
  • Botanic Man SMALL SCREEN DEBUT for Dr David B
  • Bottle Boys OH DEAR GOD.
  • Bottom Line, The BA-BA BA-BA, ba-ba ba-ba, baa, The Bottom Line!
  • Bounder, The A MID-MINDER GEORGE COLE (playing, as ever, a shifty shyster) struggles to outwit his caddish titular brother-in-law PETER BOWLES (playing, as ever, Peter Bowles).
  • Bouquet of Barbed Wire YIKES! HUSBAND (FRANK FINLAY) falls for daughter (SUSAN PENHALIGON) while wife (SHEILA ALLEN) is busy bedding son-in-law (JAMES AUBREY).
  • Box Clever EMLYN HUGHES graduates from A QUESTION OF SPORT in order to host would-be cerebral early afternoon effort
  • Box of Delights, The “HAVE YOU HAD YOUR POSSET, KAY?”
  • Boy Dominic, The 19TH CENTURY-BASED “family serial” charting efforts of 12-year-old brat trying to find his shipwrecked father.
  • Boy in the Plastic Bubble, The TOP LOOPY clam worshipper JOHN “WELCOME BACK, KOTTER” TRAVOLTA led this adolescence-while-allergic-to-everything “true life” TV movie.
  • Boy Who Won the Pools, The ABOVE AVERAGE teencom that ended up buried in the Sunday afternoon “from the regions” slot as warmup to BULLSEYE.
  • Boys from the Blackstuff “SHAKE ‘ANDS!”
  • Brady Bunch, The THOMAS PYNCHON’S all-time fave TV show
  • Brain Drain, The MOSTLY TEDIOUS panel thing
  • Brainchild PRIMITIVE TECHNOLOGY-BASED schoolkids quiz, hosted by JOHN CRAVEN, whose computer acronym was BERYL.
  • Brainstorm LATE ERA CUDDLY KEN odd effort wherein our Maurice played anchor for techie/gadget-based quizzing.
  • Branded RIDDLE-ME-REE: IT’S made in the 1960s, it’s an American drama, it goes on for about 200 episodes… Why, it must be the Wild West again!
  • Brass TOP RANK DEMENTED Lancashire-set era-spanning lampoon-sitcom
  • Brat Farrar UBER-GLOSSY POSH BOLLOCKS trotted out on Sunday nights in the wake (literally) of HOWARD’S WAY.
  • Brave New World HUXLEY GOES disco
  • Bread THUNDEROUSLY WORTHLESS Scouse shitecom
  • Break in the Sun DRAMATISED SERIES BASED on a Bernard Ashley novel.
  • Break Point IT’S WEDNESDAY. IT’S TEN PAST FIVE. It’s time for another boring kids drama on BBC1.
  • Breakfast Serials EARLY HANDIWORK of RUSSELL “CREATED DR WHO” T DAVIES
  • Breakfast Time “IT’S 6.30AM, Monday 17 January 1983”
  • Brendon Chase YOU CAN SPOT AN ITV kids drama a mile off.
  • Bric-a-Brac ALPHABETIZED MISCELLANY with BRIAN CANT
  • Brideshead Revisited POSH TOFFS of the 1920s fancy themselves
  • Bright’s Boffins BAFFLING BONKERS SHAMBLES of a kids sitcom
  • Brookside RIGHT, FORGET ALL THE BOLLOCKS post-1990.
  • Brothers BOG STANDARD three-misfit-brothers-com, but one of them was gay! Wow!
  • Brothers MacGregor, The ABSOLUTE POLAR opposite of BREAD
  • Brothers, The WHISKY-FUELLED familial haulage business melodrama which took the Sunday evening post-SONGS OF PRAISE ‘cosy drama’ slot and played merry hell with it.
  • Bruce Forsyth’s Big Night Brucie follows Morecambe and Wise to ITV
  • Brush Strokes AMIABLE ENOUGH series that despite its relative longevity and introduction of soap-opera style ongoing storyline never quite managed to break through to the comedy premier league.
  • Bubblegum Brigade ODDIE ALERT!
  • Buck Rogers in the 25th Century ERSTWHILE LINE DRAWING and spaceman
  • Budgie WHAT DO you want if you don’t want money?
  • Bullseye DESPITE LATTERDAY APPROPRIATION BY lazy stand-ups, this is still a sleeping giant as far as fondly-remembered classics go
  • Bulman DON “MAGGIE” HENDERSON pulled on the string gloves, puffed on his inhaler and put down mending old clocks
  • Bunch of Fives, A WRONGED SCHOOLKID decides to clear his name by writing about it, only evil staffroom bastards won’t let him use the existing school rag, so he starts up his own.
  • Burke’s Law BEHEMOTH EXPORT from Stateside cataloguing antics of one Amos Burke
  • Bushell on the Box AS PART OF THE “hip”, “trendy” new ITV overnight schedules, on came a programme which featured STAN BOARDMAN, DUNCAN NORVELLE and BERNARD MANNING on a number of occasions.
  • Busker/Clock On DOUBLE POST-PLAYBOARD entry for the eternally amusingly-monikered CHRISTOPHER LILLICRAP
  • Butterflies The phrase “bittersweet comedy” used to turn up in listings mags and continuity announcements with alarming regularity, usually accompanied by a presidential motorcade of bad vibes.
  • Button Moon ULTRA CHEAPO lunchtime fare from the same stable as OSCAR THE RABBIT
  • Buzzfax UBER-OBSCURE ONE week only revival of the old Zokko/Outer Space-type links summer Saturday morning strand
  • By the Sword Divided STANDARD ISSUE fresh faced, well-scrubbed and posh sounding family is “torn apart” by the English Civil War.

  • C is for…

  • C.A.T.S. Eyes THROUGH-THE-MOTIONS SPIN-OFF from THE GENTLE TOUCH.
  • Cabbages and Kings EARLY RUN-OUT for renaissance man and “handsome chap” JOHNNY BALL.
  • Cabbages and Kings The handiwork of the seemingly ageless (and charisma-less) NIGEL REES.
  • California Fever
  • Call Me Mister ANGLO/ANTIPODEAN CO-PRODUCTION, trotted out in that tantalising post-9pm-news not-too-adult-but-worth-staying-up-for-all-the-same slot.
  • Call My Bluff “AH, WOULD THAT IT WERE.”
  • Callahan ONE OF those American imports that lit up the dark recesses of late night ITV
  • Callan EDWARD WOODWARD plays hard-as-fuck secret service “loose cannon” moping and snarling his way through Cold War Britain
  • Callimero MIDDLING-TO-MYOPIC CARTOON of curious origin
  • Calum Kennedy’s Commando Course UNINTENTIONALLY HILARIOUS DOCUMENTARY about crappy singer CK and his just as crap travelling roadshow
  • Camberwick Green/Trumpton/Chigley MOUTH-LESS STOP-MOTION surbitons later burned by creator Gordon Murray in fit of pique.
  • Canned Laughter LONG-FORGOTTEN ROWAN Atkinson blueprint for the bonechilling Mr Bean
  • Cannon WILLIAM CONRAD PUFFED and chafed as the huge great big massive fat bastard private eye Frank Cannon, sweating it out and miraculously avoiding being shot by the crooks.
  • Cannon and Ball “TO BE HONEST,” they would proclaim, “the fuss that is sometimes made when we’re playing the theatres scares me. It’s like The Beatles.”
  • Capital City “IF HE DOESN’T BREAK EVEN, he breaks his phone.”
  • Capricorn Game OBSCURE-AS-EVER EDUCATIONAL shenanegains with cutout animation
  • Captain Beaky and Friends OFF THE BACK OF two nationwide stocking filler longplayers, Henry VIII, Inspector Clouseau and Margo Leadbetter recite comic songs about sentient animals while perched on stools.
  • Captain Caveman WRETCHED CRYOGENICALLY-FROZEN four-foot furball
  • Captain Nemo’s Undersea Adventures EARLY ENTRY in the endless foreign import animation stable
  • Captain Pugwash BRACING BRINY cut-out chicanery
  • Captain Scarlet LATE PERIOD Andersoniana
  • Captain Zep – Space Detective NOT MUCH cop in itself, but included here due to its possibly unique format.
  • Captain Zeppos BUMPTIOUS BELGIUM PRODUCTION
  • Carrie’s War UBIQUITOUS SCHOOL reading homework
  • Carrott Del Sol/Carrott’s Lib/Carrott Confidential GANGLING BRUMMIE rhyming raconteur
  • Cartoon Alphabet BOG STANDARD cartoon compilation hosted by TIM BROOKE-TAYLOR of GOODIES/GIDEON fame.
  • Casey Jones “CASEY JONES, steamin’ an’ a rollin’.”
  • Cat from Outer Space, The YOU’VE NO idea how glad we are that our Creamy timespan coincides with D*****’s lowest creative and commercial ebb.
  • Catchphrase LIKE A PETULANT BOOMERANG this keeps coming back
  • Catchword PAUL COIA RAMMED THIS briefly semi-popular BBC Scotland 5pm answer to Countdown amidships with the catchy catchphrase “Cryptic clue coming up. Letter… Letter… Letter… Letter… Letter…”
  • Cattanooga Cats UMBRELLA TITLE for several H-B cartoons
  • Catweazle HAIRY TINKER who can’t speak but who’s really an 11th Century magician (and who’s really GEOFFREY BAYLDON) tries to escape from some pissed off Norman soliders
  • CB Bears, The YET ANOTHER pot pourri effort from Messrs William and Joe
  • CBTV ELONGATION OF MAGPIE via original shortlived spin-off called Ace Reports
  • Cedar Tree, The YAWNSOME MID-AFTERNOON serial about some 1930s toffs in a country house.
  • Celebrity Squares “HELLO CELEBRITIES!”
  • Chain Letters TAKE A WORD. Change a letter. Er, do it again.
  • Chalk and Cheese RUBBISH MIDWEEK sitcom fodder
  • Challenge Anneka “HELLO, IT’S ANNEKA FROM THE CHALLENGE PROGRAMME!”
  • Champion the Wonder Horse TEXTBOOK RELIC that someone hung around for decades
  • Champions, The THREE BORING FOLK crash land in the Himalayas and, naturally, inherit secret powers.
  • Chance in a Million TEXTBOOK EARLY CHANNEL 4 attempt at homegrown “alternative” “comedy”.
  • Changes, The SUPREMELY PREPOSTEROUS supernatural kids twaddle
  • Channel Four Sport down the ages IN THE BEGINNING there was AMERICAN FOOTBALL on a Sunday teatime
  • Charles Endell Esquire ULTRA-VIOLENT BLOODFEST following exploits of titular ex-con porn peddler
  • Charles in Charge MULTI-AVERAGE VEHICLE for a by now decidedly knackered-looking Chachi off of HAPPY DAYS
  • Charlie’s Angels “ONCE UPON a time, there were three beautiful girls who went to the Police Academy”
  • Charmer, The PART OF London Weekend Television’s late eighties foray into upmarket drama
  • Charters and Caldicott KEITH “HAPPY APPLE” WATERHOUSE revives the NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH cricket fanatic diplomats as present day bumbling retirees, who proceed to become entangled in intrigue and murder all over again.
  • Chat Show, The DEFTLY OBSCURE late-night women only (how daring!) blabathon
  • Chateauvallon DISEMBARK, IF you will, upon the verdant shores of Gaul
  • Chatterbox GAME SHOW WITH (good grief) schools taking part.
  • Cheggers Checks it Out FIRST IN a double whammy of Keith
  • Cheggers Plays Pop Sub-Pinball Wizard fanfare was the cue for our man to bound, literally, onto camera, do a little skip and go “Yessss!” by way of an introduction to this neverending rock’n’inflatable roustabout.
  • Chelmsford 123 SMUG BACK-SLAPATHON from Hat Trick executives-to-be
  • Chemistry in Action ONE OF THE EERIEST programmes ever.
  • Chico the Rain Maker SOME BOYS keep the shrunken head of ‘Chico’, a sort of shamen, in their tree house.
  • Child’s Play SUNDAY-NIGHT DOWNER guaranteed to send you rushing into the arms of your algebra homework.
  • Children in Need ANNUAL TIN-RATTLE from Television Centre
  • Children Of Fire Mountain
  • Children of Green Knowe, The MORE POSH KIDS piss about in the snow in Olde Rural Englande.
  • Children of the Dog Star NEW ZEALAND export about a Tearaway Girl
  • Children of the Stones YET MORE 1970s MYSTICO-QUACKERY
  • Children Playing NOT A misprint, but a weirdo drama
  • Children’s Film Foundation, The CUE THE pigeons.
  • Children’s Island ANOTHER BATCH OF pretend wartime evacuees get their lives laid bare on the box
  • Children’s TV continuity BASICALLY, THE bits between the programmes which turned into programmes.
  • Chinese Detective, The GROUNDBREAKY ETHNOSLEUTH twatter
  • CHiPs WELCOME TO SATURDAY lunchtime
  • Chips Comic THE THING IS, you’ve got this computer, right, which “makes” this comic (somehow)
  • Chish’n’Fips More weirdness from that mid-’80s period when CITV tried to steal a march on its freshly-Broom-Cupboarded-up rival by commissioning the first thing that came into the various regional studios’ heads.
  • Chockablock THE BEEB WERE scraping below the bottom of the barrel here
  • Chocky/Chocky’s Children/Chocky’s Challenge ADAPTED FROM John Wyndham books that nobody read
  • Chopper Squad CHIPS-OF-THE-AIR-‘EM-UP
  • Chopsticks GENTEEL KIDS’ music and “antics” show with PETER WEAR and the do-you-see ennamed JUSTIN CASE.
  • Chorlton and the Wheelies MORE BENIGN surrealism from the boys at Cosgrove-Hall
  • Churchill’s People “OI, CHURCHILL! Can you save me money on my quality drama output?”
  • Cinema NUTS-AND-BOLTS ROUND-UP of the week’s big screen business
  • Cinemattractions GRISLY MOVIE NEWS (but, crucially, not reviews) show linking clips of Lethal Weapon II, Die Hard II and other exciting films that were out in the US but wouldn’t be seen here for about eight months
  • Citizen Smith TOOTING POPULAR FRONT. ROBERT LINDSAY.
  • City Beneath the Sea BELOW THE WAVES carry-on from the PATHFINDERS team
  • City Lights SURPRISINGLY LONG-RUNNING Beeb mainstay going out on primetime BBC1 north of Hadrian’s Wall and BBC2 below.
  • Civilisation PROTRACTED PERAMBULATION by and about the world’s finest antiquated artefacts
  • Clairvoyant, The HANDIWORK OF ROY “LAST OF” CLARKE
  • Clangers, The TEARDROP-SHAPED TOOTLING
  • Clapperboard CELLULOID-CENTRED ROUND-UP anchored by dapper CHRIS KELLY
  • Classmates IN PUNISHMENT for her GAME FOR A LAUGH crimes, SARAH KENNEDY was forced to present this tedious sub-THIS IS YOUR LIFE effort
  • Cleopatras, The YET ANOTHER PERIOD COCK-UP
  • Clifton House Mystery, The BELT-AND-BRACES HORROR business dressed up as child’s fare
  • Climber, The ROBIN “DOCTOR” NEDWELL did little in this tale of ambitious genius Harry Lumsden
  • Clive James on Television/Saturday Night Clive FROM BEHIND an oil tanker-sized desk, from within a imperially-dark blue set
  • Clive James’ Review of the Year DINNER-JACKETED CARNIVAL of wryly-cued clippage, awards and A-list star turns, flawlessly fronted by everyone’s second favourite ageing Antipodean (after Helen Daniels).
  • Cloppa Castle EX-GERRY ANDERSON puppetmasters John Turner and Mary Read were responsible for this cumbersome palaver
  • Club X DEMENTED DOOMED toffs talking shop-cum-“happening” which knew Foucault about postmodernism and, indeed, good telly.
  • Cobblers of Umbridge, The ARCHERS PARODY with the Walter Gabriel character (WILLIE RUSHTON) as the local yokel.
  • Cockles BRIEF COMDRAM with JOAN SIMS, NORMAN RODWAY and others “getting by” in the struggling old school seaside resort of Cocklesea.
  • Cockleshell Bay DEATHLY DULL “adventures” of animated puppet twins Robin and Rosie
  • Codename: Icarus MORE COLD WAR kicks for kids
  • Cold Warrior Here’s the urbane MICHAEL DENISON as the urbane Captain Aubrey Percival, former Naval officer turned spook being run by CALLAN-esque mean bastard and having to rig up right nasty bits of business.
  • Colditz SUPERLATIVE RECREATION of famed Nazi uber-jail
  • Colin’s Sandwich A CHUBBY DEPRESSED MEL SMITH works for the complaints department of British Rail
  • Colour Me Pop AUNTIE FINALLY works out how to broadcast more than just black and white stuff and sticks a load of “now” bands in front of their fancy new cameras to see what happens.
  • Come Back, Lucy POSH KID looks into a mirror and finds she can step back into time to exchange pleasantries with Posh Victorian Kid.
  • Come Back, Mrs Noah BRACE YOURSELVES.
  • Comedians, The KEEPING THE OLD SCHOOL of British comedy in pocket for the best part of decade was this does-what-it-says stand-upathon
  • Comet is Coming, The “THAT’S RIGHT! I’m coming!”
  • Comic Relief LAUNCHED ON Christmas Day 1985 by NOEL EDMONDS
  • Comic Roots NOTABLE BRITISH funnypeople revisit the places and faces of their formative years
  • Comic Strip Presents…, The YOU ARE HERE.
  • Coming Home BLINK AND YOU’LL miss it Friday night sitcommery with ROGER “MATHSCORE” SLOMAN and SHARON DUCE getting in a lather over the linoleum.
  • Coming Next GACKY, TWATTY comedy which unleashed both CHRIS BARRIE and HALE AND PACE onto our screens.
  • Commander Badman ERIC IDLE-SCRIPTED kids’ half hour-com about a gang of bungling crooks led by the titular honcho (AUBREY WOODS).
  • Compact TWICE-WEEKLY SOAPERAMA showcasing staff intrigues at a women’s magazine.
  • Company and Co WEEKDAY AFTERNOON tosh
  • Computer Programme, The KRAFTWERK’S COMPUTER LOVE accompanying a blinky cartoon owl heralded the start of this “pioneering” pseudo-educational series
  • Comrade Dad MILD-MANNERED FATHER (GEORGE COLE) dwells in a future Britain overrun by Communism and jokes about beetroot, thick Poles and Skodas.
  • Concentration BIZARRE ROBOT-MAN NICK “who hell he?” JACKSON was the original frontman for this remember-where-you-saw-the-prizes-and-match-up-a-pair-and-reveal-bits-of-Pippin-comic-style rebus win-a-pressure-cooker-themed Friday night quiz.
  • Connections SUE ROBBIE escaped from unnecessary kiddies POINTS OF VIEW slot FIRST POST (“Manchester M60 9eeh-ayy”) to front this grim summer BLOCKBUSTERS fill-in quiz with nasty eighties blue and yellow colour scheme.
  • Connections/The Real Thing/The Day The Universe Changed/The Burke Special WHEN TV frontmen are metaphorically bottled off the screen, it’s usually either for being patronising or being too clever by half. Only JAMES BURKE has ever been hounded away from Television Centre for being both simultaneously.
  • Connie STEPHANIE BEECHAM and PAM FERRIS go head-to-head in the frenetic, cut-throat Nottingham clothing business.
  • Constant Hot Water ILL-DESERVED CURTAIN CALL for Pat Phoenix
  • Consultant, The LOAFER, SPY and latterday Walford gangster (one of about 400, it seems) HYWEL BENNETT here did what everyone else was doing in the early 80s and turned his hand to computers.
  • Cool It! “RUBBER-FACED RIBALDRY” from protege of Jasper Carrott.
  • Copy Cats Ostensibly a fast-paced succession of celebrity-lampooning sketches and songs performed by a young team of impressionists, the sheer consistent lack of quality of Copy Cats left an almost indelible mark on Saturday evening schedules.
  • Coronation Street FROM AN IDEA BY Tony Warren.
  • Cosmic Zoom/Powers of Ten BLUE PETER showed it once, PICTURE BOX several dozen times.
  • Countdown “AND AS THE COUNTDOWN to a brand new channel ends, so a new Countdown begins…”
  • Counterstrike WEIRDY LITTLE black and white forgetter similar to the big money INVADERS
  • Country Boy, The PASTORAL PIDDLING of the kind beloved of the Beeb’s kids department throughout the 80s.
  • Country Search OFFSHOOT OF SEARCH (John Craven, earnest teenagers discussing sex and bullying, an annual Young Film-maker’s competition).
  • Cover FROM THE PEN of Philip Mackie.
  • Cover Up “UNOFFICIAL…UNSTOPPABLE…UNDERCOVER…GOING WHEREVER Americans are in trouble!”
  • Cowboys OLD SCHOOL britcom with ROY KINNEAR, COLIN WELLAND, KEN JONES and that bloke who always played a t’ick Oirishman (DERMOT KELLY) as construction workers who were…well, crap.
  • CP and Qwikstitch RESOUNDINGLY HUMDRUM cartoon about two robots stuck on an asteroid and pissing each other off.
  • Crackerjack SALUTARY LESSON IN how to piss away the goodwill of an entire nation of kids.
  • Crane MISTY MOROCCAN adventures of shady bar owner Crane
  • Crazy Like A Fox
  • Creepy Crawlies STOPMOTIONARY INSECT effort from Cosgrove-Hall with Ariadne the spider, a snail called Mr. Harrison and other pests.
  • Cribb SHAMEFUL HOLMES-IAN tenth-rate pastiche, set in smog-filled “lawless” Victorian era, with titular sleuth putting his house and the metropolis in order.
  • Crossroads “ROMANCE WAS IN THE AIR at King’s Oak.”
  • Crosswits IMPOSSIBLE TO DISLIKE monochrome-gridded semantic chicanery helmed by first by BARRY CRYER (in mid-black, mid-white hair phase) then the great TOM O’CONNOR.
  • Crown Court ONE OF YOUR MORE credible off-school-with-the-Lucozade viewing options.
  • Cry Wolf HALF HOUR spoof of the werewolf genre.
  • Crystal Tipps and Alistair HUGE CLOPPING CUT-OUT nonsense between giant girl and loping dog in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, where two butterflies looked on.
  • Cuckoo Sister, The GRUMPY UNDERPRIVILEGED working-class punky girl (red hair = troublemaker) finds out she’s half-sister to one of the BBC’s familiar stock of Posh Kids.
  • Cuckoo Waltz, The DAVID ROPER is betrohed to DIANE KEEN but shares a house with LEWIS COLLINS.
  • Cue the Music SILVER-HAIRED Supersonic supremo MIKE MANSFIELD came out of retirement to host this live music showcase
  • Cuffy BERNARD CRIBBINS dons the time-honoured red neckerchief to play titular “kindly” tinker dwelling in a caravan spun off from THE SHILLINGBURY TALES.
  • Cupid’s Darts ACE DAVID “PERRIN” NOBBS-scripted “Play For Pleasure”, with ROBIN “POTTER” BAILEY as a philosopher who takes up with a darts groupie (LESLIE “HAPPY APPLE” ASH).
  • Curry and Chips RUMPUS-ROUSING MILLIGANISM
  • Cut Price Comedy Show, The VERY FIRST comedy sketch show to appear on the new network

  • D is for…

  • Dabble with Digance, A WELL, WHO wouldn’t?
  • Dad’s Army EARLY VEHICLE for CLIVE “GRANDAD” DUNN.
  • Daily Fable, The ANTHROPOMORPHIC PAPER puppetry.
  • Daktari JUNGLE QUACKERY in the Wameru Study Centre.
  • Dallas In brief, “A rich Texan family faces all kinds of trouble.”
  • Dan August PRE-STARDOM BURT REYNOLDS uses nosey gossip to track down filth in Santa Luisa, California.
  • Danger Man IN TRUTH, one big long prelude to infinitely superior THE PRISONER
  • Danger UXB SMASHING WWII bomb disposal expert saga with ANTHONY “BRIDESHEAD” ANDREWS and MAURICE ROEVES heading a team of sappers clearing up Adolf’s mess in south London.
  • Dangermouse “CRUMBS!”
  • Dark Side of the Sun, The THEY HADN’T done one for a while (see THE APHRODITE INHERITANCE), so it was high time the Beeb packed its flip-flops and E111 form for another impenetrable Greek thriller.
  • Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines HB’S TOP-RANKING baddie and his doggy in fruitless airborne pursuit of endlessly irritating pigeon with a satchel full of messages.
  • Database NEXT LINK IN THE Micro chain
  • Dave Allen at Large PREMIER LEAGUE sub-fingered foul-mouthed Catholic pope-baiter on a stool with tumbler and fag railed against the modern and ancient world alike in trademark stream of foetid consciousness style, later ripped off by many a bespangled alternative ranter in the following decade.
  • David Cassidy – Man Undercover YES, YOU read that right.
  • Dawson Watch, The A TRIUMPHANT return to prime time Friday nights for redoubtable amusical pentheraphobe LES DAWSON.
  • Day of the Triffids JOHN DUTTINE dons a raggedy beard and eye patch to battle rattling rubber penis-plants walking on stems.
  • Dead Ernest POST-FAWLTY TOWERS runaround for ANDREW SACHS
  • Dead Head LESS THAN whelming drama effort with DENNIS LAWSON
  • Dear Heart MISH-MASH OF teencentric comedy sketches aimed at the 13-plus set
  • Dear John THE LATE, great RALPH BATES was the eponymous hero, dumped via mantlepiece-mounted letter by his wife and forced to take solace in a lonely hearts-style encounter group which turns out to be nutter haven.
  • Dear Ladies FLOUNDERING DRAGCOM starring PEBBLE MILL staples Dr. Evadne Hinge and Dame Hilda Brackett
  • Deceivers, The FIRST GLIMPSE of the great Beadlebum in this A-Z
  • Delia Smith’s Cookery Course FONDLY-RECALLED GENTLE introduction to flans with the primary-school teacher charm of Delia, who sometimes went all exotic on us (spaghetti) but always came good in the end.
  • Delta UNHINGED OZ half-hourathon boasting your usual chisel-featured bloke and shapely woman assistant in fitted leather suit.
  • Dempsey and Makepeace “A GOLDEN EAGLE Production for London Weekend Television” Ah dear.
  • Department S/Jason King ORIGINAL WAS a top MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE UK-style Bentleys and fist-fights spy thrillah
  • Deputy Dawg MOUTHORGAN-THEMED TALES of speech-impaired dog deputy sheriff and tussles with Muskie (a muskrat), Vince (short-sighted mole) and racoon amusingly named Ty Coon.
  • Des O’Connor Show, The TITANIC UPHILL STRUGGLE between two equally unimpressive vocations jostling perilously inside the one man
  • Desert Crusader FRENCH MEDIEVAL adventure yarn.
  • Dick Emery Show, The CROSS-DRESSING ENTENDRE purveyor who virtually owned TV in the 70s thanks to sub-Benny Hill knock-off characters comprising bucktoothed vicar, flirty woman, bover booted union jack-vested “Gaylord” and, of course, mink-encrusted posh society lady.
  • Dick Turpin PISTOL-PACKING MASKED MARAUDER who demanded “your money or your life” decision-making from coach-bound rich folk.
  • Did You See? THE GREAT and the good settle down in a beige-toned boudoir set to ruminate upon the small screen highlights of the last seven days.
  • Diff’rent Strokes WIDOWED MILLIONAIRE adopts two black kids, Willis and Arnold (GARY COLEMAN, purveyor of wisecrackery and “brave” illness-baiting stance), to go with ever-superfluous sister Kimberly.
  • Digance at Work A CONTRADICTION in terms, surely?
  • Digby: the Biggest Dog in the World CHRISTMAS TELLY staple for the entire late seventies
  • Dimension of Fear ALIEN DIMENSION terrorises sleepy rural village via a secret space research lab.
  • Disco FARFLUNG OUTPOST of a pre-BLANK Terence of Wogan empire, wherein our host would take time out of his Sunday afternoon post-prandial repose to grill minor celebs on their knowledge of all things poppermost, before introducing some “half-time” “entertainment” accompanied by the BBC Orchestra.
  • Disney Time STRICTLY RATIONED pre-home entertainment system helpings of Walt’s supposedly greatest hits, reserved initially for Christmas but later to become a schmaltzy schedule punctuation point at Easter and other holidays.
  • District Nurse, The NERYS HUGHES singlehandedly rids the Welsh valleys of all known diseases.
  • Dixon of Dock Green JACK WARNER singlehandedly rids England of all known criminals.
  • Do It! VERY EAGER “Hey! Let’s make stuff!” bazaar for holiday mornings, presented by tomboyish SHEELAGH GILBEY, supposed “Editor” of the “Do It supplement” to some fictional rag or other.
  • Do Not Adjust Your Set TOP NOTCH TEETH-CUTTING playground for Messrs IDLE, JONES and PALIN, with DAVID JASON and DENISE COFFEY along for the ride.
  • Do They Mean Us? “THEY SURELY DO!”
  • Doctor in the House SLAPSTICK STETHOSCOPE SAGA
  • Doctor Snuggles DOUGLAS ADAMS-PENNED Dutch cartoon of Doolittlesque Snuggles MD
  • Doctor Who “NO NO, that’s not his name, it’s just the name of the programme.” Bollocks to that.
  • Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds WILLY FOG might have been testing the limits of literary credibility somewhat
  • Domesday Detectives, The PAUL COIA hosted this lunchtime quiz effort based on pointlessly elaborate mid-80s Beeb project to celebrate the 900th anniversary of The Domesday Book
  • Don’t Ask Me UNASHAMEDLY TACKY science-is-fun endeavour
  • Don’t Blame Us! ONE-OFF TRY-OUT kids comedy affair with ELAINE STRITCH and others doing WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY?-style suggestions-from-the-audience improv.
  • Don’t Drink the Water Gurning, Roland Rat-voiced ON THE BUSES Blakey (STEPHEN LEWIS) goes off the buses to start new life in Costa Del Sol devoting time to professionally insulting the natives.
  • Don’t Rock the Boat TUESDAY NIGHT 8pm sitcommery from otherwise sublime pen of ESMONDE and LARBEY, here way below par.
  • Don’t Wait Up COMFORTABLE-AS-SLIPPERS UBER-SWISH (summed up by classy brass-led theme) sitcom
  • Donahue THE SILVER-HAIRED MIC-WIELDER was king of the ITV nighttime schedules even before they went 24-hour.
  • Doomwatch OOH, TOPICAL.
  • Double Deckers, The FLIMSY FAMOUS FIVERY on a London bus
  • Double Your Money “GOOD EVENING folks!”
  • Drac Pack, The CORNBALL COMEDY detective dallyings with a wacky assortment of teenage horror characters, eg teen vampire, teen werewolf, teen mummy (how that worked is beyond us).
  • Dramarama POSH KID alert!
  • Dream Stuffing Ultra right-on com from Jeremy Isaacs-patrolled C4 (i.e. not funny)
  • Dreamstone CARTOON CONFUSION about a wizard in charge of titular rock which controls children’s dreams.
  • Drummonds 1950S-SET PUBLIC school nostalgiathon
  • Duchess of Duke Street, The SPRAWLING EDWARDIAN household powerplay
  • Dukes of Hazzard, The “JUST SOME GOOD OL’ BOYS.”
  • Duncan Dares POST-BLUE PETER green chequered trouser era PETER DUNCAN daredevil portfolio
  • Dungeons and Dragons CONVOLUTED CRAPOLA cartoonery
  • Dustbinmen, The PROTO-ON THE BUSES rubbish (literally) comedy
  • Duty Free “OOH AMY!” “Oh David!”
  • Dynasty SOUTHFORK MAY have been Wogan’s favourite Wednesday night residence, but this was his Friday evening fancy and no mistake.

  • E is for…

  • Eagle of the Ninth, The BLUSTERING PERIOD ROMP based on school library staple.
  • Ear Say Typically woeful attempt at pop-fest by junior C4
  • Edge of Darkness Nuclear wasteathon with BOB PECK
  • Educating Marmalade Future telly drama overlord ANDREW DAVIES was responsible for unleashing The Worst Girl in the World on an unsuspecting public.
  • Edward and Mrs Simpson BROWBEATINGLY PLAY-IT-SAFE dramatisation done on crappy videotape of hush-hush liaison between King Edward VIII (EDWARD FOX) and – oh no! – divorced American Wallis Simpson.
  • Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking Course ANOTHER OF those nothing-ventured, nothing-won Sunday morning fillers.
  • Edward the Seventh NOT THE same Eddie as him above; rather his dad, and Queen Victoria’s replacement.
  • Eh, Brian, It’s a Whopper POST-AUF WIEDERSEHEN, PET angling antics of a Friday night.
  • El Quiosco del Tefefono SEMINAL SHORT horror film of indeterminate Spanish origin.
  • Electric Avenue BY THIS POINT THE home computer boom of ver 80s was collapsing fast.
  • Elephant NORTHERN IRELAND. No dialogue. Someone gets shot. Then someone else.
  • Elephant’s Eggs in a Rhubarb Tree ON-THE-CHEAP JACKANORY-MEETS-PLAY AWAY effort.
  • Elizabeth R GLENDA JACKSON shaves her head, wears a beak and paints her face white in order to rule England for 60 years.
  • Emergency TWO PARAMEDICS in LA County go around clearing up other people’s mess and, indeed, other people.
  • Emergency Ward 10 BEDPAN-WIELDING BEDROCK of early ITV schedules.
  • Emery Presents ON THE ROPES and on the way out vehicle for the Dickster
  • Emmerdale Farm BANISH FROM YOUR MIND the current sex-in-the-shit-sheds kaboodle.
  • Empire RAMBLING AND RUMBUSTIOUS DALLAS parody set in the boardroom of a large industrial company run by John Steed.
  • Empire Road ARCHETYPAL GROUNDBREAKING-THEN, what’s-all-the-fuss-about-now affair.
  • Emu’s Brand New Pink Windmill Show/World SADLY, THIS is what the majority of people remember Rod Hull for.
  • Emu’s Broadcasting Company Take Rod Hull, a fake plastic arm, a bit of Goodies slapstick here, a bit of Python media parody there, and a good amount of Kenny Everett-style mayhem.
  • En Garde! ANOTHER SUNDAY morning “improving” children’s show from the Beeb
  • Enchanted Castle, The MORE FROM THE fortuitously prolific pen of E. Nesbitt
  • End of Part One SUBLIME SUNDAY AFTERNOON comedy from Andrew Marshall and David Renwick
  • End of the End of the Pier Show WEIRD ONE-OFF for kids which waxed lyrical about the bygone age of the seaside pier.
  • End of the Line DOCUDRAMA-ANTHOLOGY OF employment (and lack of) in Irvine New Town.
  • End of the Pier Show, The IN NO WAY RELATED to the above, this way lies – yikes – satire, courtesy of (already) creaky moniker-sharing threesome JOHNS WELLS, FORTUNE and BIRD.
  • Englishman’s Castle, An KENNETH MORE is ageing harassed scriptwriter living in alternative England 30 years after successful Nazi conquest.
  • Enos THICKIE SUB-SHERIFF off of THE DUKES OF HAZARD moves to LA and teams up with obligatory I-Spy style black partner.
  • Entertainment USA CONVICTED FELON JONATHAN KING spends three years on an extended jolly arseing around the States.
  • Equalizer, The
  • ER WE-WERE-THERE-FIRST STATES-SIDE sitcommery
  • Erasmus Microman MAVERICK IMPRESARIO KEN CAMPBELL’s foray into educational TV produced this oddity.
  • Escape into Night EARLY ENTRY in the 1970s Children’s Telly Fantasy Catalogue.
  • Eureka “EUREKA – OR, I HAVE FOUND IT!” trilled Beadlebum in the first episode.
  • Ever Decreasing Circles “WE’RE RESPECTABLE PEOPLE, not the London School of Economics!”
  • Every Second Counts THE SECOND, and undoubtedly the greatest, instalment of PAUL DANIELS’s great Beeb game show trilogy (alongside ODD ONE OUT and WIPEOUT), this was a long runner and no mistake.
  • Everybody Here! BEARDED BUMPKIN MICHAEL ROSEN leads kids in song, poem, story, poem and music ministravaganza with an “all nationalities/races etc. inclusive” spin.
  • Experiment POOOOOOWWWEEEEEEE! MINIMALIST single rising tone theme heralded start of this minimalist hands-only-visible chemistry show.

  • F is for…

  • F Troop JUST HOW DID all those tribes of native American Indians live so peacefully alongside the bluff lovable old coves of the 19th century US Cavalry?
  • F.A.C.T.S “FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION Coaching, Tactics and Skills” is what it stood for.
  • Face Lift THE PREMISE: in 2074, we’re all going to be idle proles.
  • Face the Music REDOUBTABLE CROTCHET’N’QUAVER quizzery.
  • Face to Face A GRUMPY JOHN FREEMAN (never seen) pelts doomed celebrities (in selfless close-up) with prurient questions about whether they cried as a child and whether they like HP Sauce.
  • Fainthearted Feminist, The PROFESSIONAL RED and sirer of luvvies LYNN REDGRAVE took centrestage in this Guardian-derived sitcom
  • Fairly Secret Army GEOFFREY PALMER more or less exported Jimmy off of FALL AND RISE OF REGINALD PERRIN into Harry Truscott
  • Fairytale Theatre VARIATION ON textbook “anthology” format
  • Falcon Crest PREPOSTEROUS VINEYARD vagaries courtesy of shameless DALLAS rip off relocated to Napa, er, Tuscany Valley.
  • Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, The SUPREME ROSSITER-ITIS.
  • Fall Guy, The HE WAS, as he kept telling us, the unknown stuntman
  • Fame FOLLOWING ALAN PARKER’S shouty 1980 big screen sweatband-and-leggings bonanza, here came more high-kicking high-falutin’ histrionics from life at New York’s School For The Performing Arts
  • Fame Game, The BASICALLY THE latest new NEW FACES since the last one, with ex-GIDEON TIM BROOKE-TAYLOR and ex-celebrity STAN “JEEEEMANS!” BOARDMAN introducing shit stand-ups and wanky singers.
  • Family Fortunes YEAH YEAH, “turkey” and all that, but there was much more to it than that.
  • Family, The DOCU-SOAP BEFORE they’d been invented, and indeed, the best one ever made.
  • Famous Five, The MUCH-TRUMPETED “prestige” adaptation of the venerable Blytonian underage derring-do saga
  • Fancy Wanders GURNEY SLADE-ESQUE gumption from pen of Sid Green, with DAVE KING and JOE MARCELL as the eponymous vagrants living mostly inside their heads talking to statues and Space Invader machines.
  • Fangface “HE’S NOT your average teenage kid – unless you call a kid who turns into a wacky werewolf average!”
  • Fantastic Journey BIZARRO BERMUDA Triangle adventures with a shipwrecked crew in the aforementioned polygon
  • Fantastic Voyage THIS, ON the other hand, was an animated knock-off of the Racquel Welch-baiting original film
  • Fantasy Island Fantasies included “having lunch with Charlie’s Angels”. Show included first comedy Sikh.
  • Farmhouse Kitchen NOT TO BE confused with the indoors-outdoors KITCHEN GARDEN.
  • Farrington of the F.O. AVERAGE AMBASSADORCOM with ANGELA “MR TYLER!” THORNE as the eponymous Foreign Office consul
  • Fast Forward “WATCH ME on the video,” went the wholly unrelated theme: not the best warning of what was to come
  • Fat Man in the Kitchen TOM VERNON was the rotund, bearded gastronaut
  • Father, Dear Father MIDDLE CLASS MITHERING from put-upon pater PATRICK CARGILL
  • Fawlty Towers LITTLE-KNOWN TRY-OUT for ANDREW “MEET THE MAGOONS” SACHS.
  • Fax “WHERE DO BIRDS GO TO DIE?” “Was ration Britain a better Britain?”
  • Feather and Father Gang, The FORTIES CRIME capers, kind of spun off from the The Sting, with Harold Gould (white-haired chap from the film) as a reformed conman and his daughter STEPHANIE “HART TO HART” POWERS as some kind of lawyer.
  • Feathered Serpent, The DREARY STUDIO-BOUND ancient Mexico-based romp through curses, secret passages and much shaking of sticks at angry Gods.
  • Fell Tiger NEAR-PROTOTYPE FOR the soon-to-follow HOWARD’S WAY
  • Fenn Street Gang, The ALL YOUR PLEASE, SIR! favourites brought back for your viewing pleasure via inconsequential, delinquent ex-pupil spin-off.
  • Fergus the Fish FIVE MINUTE cartoon fillers featuring recidivist wooden fish swimming in a river with swishy cellophane plants.
  • Fifteen to One WILLIAM G STEWART moved seamlessly from ITV sitcom producer and PRICE IS RIGHT pink tracksuit-wearing warm-up ubergrupenfuehrer to high spec quizmaster on superior Channel 4 when-COUNTDOWN-wasn’t-on gameshowery.
  • Fighter Pilot WORKMANLIKE DOCO following exploits of several RAF recruits, plucked from daily life just like you and me.
  • Film Buff of the Year ROTTEN CELLULOID anal marathon
  • Film Fun PRE-EMPTING ROLF and his giant marker pens, here was SIR DEREK GRIFFITHS as manager, commissionaire, Reg the projectionist, Doreen the usherette and, of course, himself, holding forth on nine-point rule plan for Roadrunner cartoons and the like.
  • Filthy, Rich and Catflap ENERVATING ELTONIANA starring three quarters of the Young Ones as a trio of South London losers
  • Finders Keepers AHOY THERE! STILGOE on the starboard bow!
  • Fine Romance, A BEST DESCRIBED as MAY TO DECEMBER minus that programme’s calendar-themed-age-difference twist.
  • Fingerbobs CHEAPO HIPPY puppetahon courtesy of one-man creative maelstrom (see MAELSTROM) RICK JONES, aka Yoffy.
  • Fireball XL5 RICKETY ANDERSON Supermarionation saga
  • First AIDS CENTREPIECE OF week long, decade-defining, all-star, all-channel Aidsathon
  • First Class TOOK TURNS with FAX to plug gap between end of children’s programmes and the news until Erinsborough beckoned.
  • First Post PLAYGROUP POINTS OF VIEW
  • Five Magic Minutes 300 SECONDS OF shazam shambolics
  • Five to Eleven “AS I SAT at my small kitchen table this morning, a thought formed in my mind: what price the peace of one man’s soul?”
  • Flambards ONCE MORE UNTO Edwardian England for another bout of tears’n’trauma drawing room dramatics.
  • Flamingo Road WELCOME TO the Florida swamps where ambitious politician Fielding Carlyle (MARK HARMON) jousts with his scheming political wife Constance (MORGAN FAIRCHILD in eye-shadow overload) and his real true love, singer Lane Ballou.
  • Flashing Blade, The FORGET YOUR WILLY FOGG and DOGTANIAN: this was most definitely the right kind of poorly-dubbed European export.
  • Flaxton Boys, The GREAT GREAT GRANDFATHER of every Sunday teatime period drama adaptation ever.
  • Flicks “FLICK THROUGH the pages of a book,” urged RAINBOW splinter-group Rod and Freddy in the theme.
  • Flight of the Condor ANDESCENTRIC NATURETHON known for much footage of eponymous bird and those two-foot purple centipedes, besides introducing dreaded 80s parping panpipe fad.
  • Flight of the Heron, The MORE PERIOD PALAVER.
  • Flintstones, The MONOLITHIC CORNERSTONE of Hanna/Barbera cartoon empire documenting “page right out of history” antics of Stone Age Flintstone clan
  • Flockton Flyer, The STEAM ENGINE stoics down Wessex way
  • Flumps, The HOMELY BROOD OF northern-accented pompoms
  • Flying Start NORTH WEST-ONLY business-oriented “gameshow” made by Granada in the 80s and therefore, as dictated by the Broadcasting Act, presented by TONY WILSON.
  • Follow That Dog EPONYMOUS CANINE is Patty, a spaniel (or maybe a bloodhound) whose dreams always come true and the bunch of children who own him always manage to understand and stop crime and disaster just in time.
  • Follyfoot WITH EVEN MACCA going nuts for the natural world in the early 70s (see “Ram” “Wings Wild Life” and numerous other pastoral longplayers), it was clearly time for a definitive ITV kids drama on the subject.
  • Fonz and the Happy Days Gang “HEEEEEY!”
  • Food and Drink AS WITH everything in 1982, originally presented by SIMON BATES.
  • Football Crazy THAT PERENNIAL children’s comedy staple
  • Forest Rangers, The OUTDOORSY CANUCK intrepidities as GRAYDON GOULD and a mollycoddling bunch of lads (plus token girl) with no school to go to indulge in canoe-mania on a river in a forest.
  • Forsyte Saga, The GENEALOGICAL GALLOP courtesy of (at the time) the Beeb’s most expensive production ever.
  • Fortunes of War TWO COCKTAIL-SIPPING Auden-spouting flappers move to Hungary
  • Fosters, The FIRST ALL-BLACK cast sitcom for the UK
  • Foundation, The FRIDAY EVENING serial soaper set in the high-ranking executive world – a sort of BROTHERS shifted up half a class.
  • Four Feather Falls GERRY ANDERSON marionette hokum
  • Four Square “I IMAGINE,” MUSED STEPHEN FRY at the time, “that there must be many people who have never pulled up a chair for a Four Square.”
  • Fourth Arm, The ANOTHER LOOK-IN on the “real heroes” of World War Two: the undercover ops, preparing for many a-challenging mission snipping telephone lines and dressing scarecrows with bayonets.
  • Fox EUSTON FILMS EPIC of five South London bruvvers
  • Foxy Lady DIANE “RINGS ON THEIR FINGERS” KEEN was the eponymous “dame” taking over Lancastrian local paper The Ramsden Reminder, in process battling to get entire male staff – including Dr Who and Rab C Nesbitt – under her inky thumb.
  • Fraggle Rock MEDIOCRE MUPPET goings-on with cavorting mythology well to the fore.
  • Fred Bassett CARTOON ADAPTATION of the orridge ’60s cartoons by “Graham” about the loveable thinks-out-loud Bassett hound, his nutzo terrier mate and pointy-nosed owner.
  • Fred Dibnah – Steeplejack LOVABLE OLD-ENGLISHERY with Bolton’s late lamented Dibbers
  • Freetime POST-MAGPIE BUBBLE-PERMED Leo Sayeralike MICK ROBERTSON found himself fronting this Friday evening activity magazine
  • Freewheelers ABSOLUTE ARCHETYPAL posh-kids-in-peril effort
  • Freeze Frame SLEEPY WESTCOUNTRY-ONLY hour-long replacement for TISWAS
  • Fresh Fields NONE-MORE-80S SUBURBACOM
  • Friday Night… Saturday Morning MERIDIAN-STRADDLING CHAT meanderer
  • Friends in Space WELL-REMEMBERED comedy edition of the usually straight and serious ITV PLAYHOUSE strand, co-written by JOHN “CLIFFY” RATZENBURGER.
  • From the Top WAS THERE NO WAY to keep the lesser talented Oddie off the screen in the mid-80s? No.
  • Front Line, The “MALCOLM AND SHELDON, dem fight like puss and dog,” explained EDDY “ELECTRIC AVENUE” GRANT’S reggae theme tune to ethnic-com from the pen of Alex Shearer.
  • Frontier COLONIAL RUMBLINGS up the Khyber Pass as ever-so-keen GARY BOND took time out from wooing ANNE BELL to teach the natives “a lesson or two”.
  • Full House TWO COUPLES share a house. Imagine what could happen!
  • Fun and Games CELIA HOYLES and ROB “TEETH” BUCKMAN presented various dracketty old “brainteasers” and “mental games” to a less-than-appreciative studio audience of pensioners and layabouts.
  • Fun Factory YET ANOTHER in the many summer replacements for TISWAS, as feeble as that show was mighty.
  • Fun Food Factory, The HALF HOUR Saturday morning effort piloted by Nanette Newman.
  • Funnybone SENT TO EARTH to make Cannon and Ball and Little and Large appear talented, the putative stars of this shambles were CHEESE AND ONION.

  • G is for…

  • Gaffer, The NOT MUCH to recommend this post-FROGGITT BILL MAYNARD trundler.
  • Galactic Garden, The CURIOUS CHROMAKEYFEST centring on a couple of tiny aliens
  • Galloping Galaxies! THAT EXCLAMATION MARK says it all.
  • Galloping Gourmet, The Very much a cross between George Hamilton and Robert Carrier.
  • Gambit THIS AND SALE OF THE CENTURY were the only times the rest of the country ever willingly sat down to watch Anglia’s spinning antique knight.
  • Game for a Laugh GENERATION GAME-SLAUGHTERING, hysteria-mongering, surprise-springing, staircase-shimmying, Beadlebum-annointing ogre of Saturday nights.
  • Game, Set and Match BLOATED SPY GAMES from busy-busy pen of LEN DEIGHTON.
  • Gangsters CONVOLUTED MURKY-DEPTHS shooting and shagging melodrama
  • Gardeners’ World LONG-SERVING horticultural hoedown
  • Gary Halliday PASSING RESIDENT of post-GRANDSTAND teatimes
  • Gemini Factor, The UPMARKET YARN for Children’s ITV
  • Gemini Man BEN “ALIAS SMITH” MURPHY is an invisible man with a strict operating limit of a quarter of an hour.
  • Gems DAYTIME SOAP froth set in Covent Garden workshop of titular fashion design company.
  • General Hospital DR LEW GRADE re-opens the ATV medical wing
  • Generation Game, The QUITE SIMPLY, one of the finest programmes ever ever made. The jewel in small screen’s light entertainment crown, this was absolutely essential viewing for, hey, a generation, and anyone who thinks otherwise ought to be tied to a conveyor belt for eternity…
  • Gentle Ben HUGE FUCK-OFF grizzly “befriends” chipmunk-faced son
  • Gentle Touch, The CAPABLE WOMAN-IN-A-MAN’S-WORLD coppery
  • George and Mildred “PASS THE kettle love, I’ve been up all night.” “You could’ve fooled me, dear”.
  • George and the Dragon SCRATCHY VEHICLE for SID JAMES in post-Hancock hinterland
  • George of the Jungle THICKO TARZAN-ALIKE and his well-spoken English gorilla chum (“Somebody within stone’s throw again!”) do the usual crap Jay Ward wisecrackery.
  • Georgian House, The JUST LIKE the way the Presidency of the EU rotates between different countries, so a script involving posh kids in a haunted house was passed around the ITV regions during the 1970s
  • Get Fresh PHIL CORNWELL to Aswad: “Skin up, drummie!”
  • Get it Together! WHO ORDERED the embarrassing uncle?
  • Get Set For Summer/The Get Set Picture Show/The Saturday Morning Picture Show “AND LATER on, I’ll be trying my hand at something called paragliding.”
  • Get Set Go! EARLY RUN-OUT for your blueprint Barrymore
  • Get Smart TOP HOLE Bond spoofery by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry
  • Get Some In! PART OF THAT 1950s revival which seemed to stretch from, well, 1959 right through to the final death cry of HI-DE-HI.
  • Get Up and Go! TITULAR INSTRUCTION obeyed to the letter by kids the country over as soon as they got whiff of this noneducating small tottery
  • Ghosts in the Machine/After Image REMIT-SATISFYING PSEUDATHON chucked out in the small hours by a bored Jeremy Isaacs.
  • Ghosts of Motley Hall, The SUPERLATIVE SUPERNATURAL derring-do
  • Gibberish Cuddly KENNY EVERETT’s swansong
  • Giddy Game Show, The BERNARD BRESSLAW and BILL FRASER do voices of animated observatory duo Gorilla and Gus
  • Gideon TIM BROOKE-TAYLOR, looking for a job a work while the others wrote more GOODIES episodes, undergoes metamorphosis into an animated cutout duck
  • Gigantor BONKERS JAPANESE cartoon about the mightiest robot in the world
  • Gilligan’s Island LITTLE-SEEN OVER here but beloved of everyone over there.
  • Girls About Town PLAY AWAY’S JULIE STEVENS and DENISE COFFEY are two bored housewives looking for “additional” action. Derek Wilton – yikes! – obliges.
  • Girls on Top IN THE Kensington sky.
  • Give Us a Break SHORT-LIVED SNOOKERDRAM with Daley-esque geezerian overtones
  • Give us a Clue The ultimate in parlour game riddle-me-ree telly
  • Glamour Girls, The DAVID “PERRIN” NOBBS-penned laugh-light effort about marketing men and (hey!) women.
  • Glen Michael’s Cavalcade CUT-PRICE CALEDONIAN distant forerunner of ROLF HARRIS CARTOON TIME, only without giant pieces of plain paper, fat marker pens and earnest insights into Disney studio wizardry.
  • Glittering Prizes, The CAMBRIDGIAN UNDERGRADUATION, fifties style.
  • Glums, The APTLY-TITLED SUNDAY evening miserycom, reworking bits of Take It From Here off of the radio.
  • Gnomes of Dulwich, The GNOMES, EH? Now there’s a subject for laugh-out-loud light entertainment.
  • Go For It! ROBBIE VINCENT invites middle class white families to lose weight on national television via “simple” challenges and humiliation of being weighed on battered Go For It! branded scales.
  • Go With Noakes NO THANKS.
  • God’s Wonderful Railway STEAM-SATURATED TRAINSPOTTING tribulations
  • Godzilla UP FROM the depths. Thirty stories high.
  • Going for a Song POOTER-ISH POTTERY riddleathon chaired in glory days by MAX ROBERTSON, with ARTHUR NEGUS permanently installed to one side on ribald-dispensing duties.
  • Going for Gold PAN-CONTINENTAL LATE 80s joke, mainly thanks to ludicrously ambitious Euro-harmony raison d’etre, and much-derided sub-Wogan compere HENRY KELLY.
  • Going Out EARLY SIGHTING of Professor Phil Redmond’s obsession with Telling It How It Is
  • Going Straight IFFY EEKING out of the last scraps of PORRIDGE
  • Golden Girls, The ASSORTED WRINKLED, weathered and washed-up embodiments of better days get trundled out once a week for seven years in the name of cutting edge comedy.
  • Golden Oldie Picture Show, The AN OFFICE, somewhere in Television Centre in the early 1980s.
  • Golden Shot, The “PICK A POMME, DO”. By some stretch ATV’s greatest ever game show…
  • Goliath Awaits BAFFLING MINI-SERIES about the discovery of a mini-society living in a cruise liner on the bottom of the sea since World War Two.
  • Goober and the Ghost Chasers WILL AND JOE need a new hit and fast.
  • Good Companions, The SONG AND DANCE retooling of JB Priestley yarn
  • Good Health BY THE KIDS, for the kids!
  • Good Life, The OBSCURE VEHICLE for FELICITY “HONEY FOR TEA” KENDAL.
  • Good Morning Britain Main, indeed for a time only, plank in ITV’s half-built semi-bodged creaking edifice of a breakfast television service
  • Good Old Days, The MOCK MUSIC HALL marathon “From the Stage of the City Varieties Theatre, Leeds” with LEONARD SACHS dressed up like a Edwardian fop
  • Goodbye Again ROTTEN PETE’N’DUD roustabout done for the third channel purely for a) Lew Grade money b) to give Lew Grade something else to flog in America.
  • Goodies, The WHAT can you do with an apostrophe?
  • Goodnight and God Bless DONALD “SPOONER” CHURCHILL mugs and frugs to high heaven as a HUGHIE GREEN-esque shagging, cheating bastard game show host.
  • Graham’s Ark NIFTY NATURALIST endeavour
  • Graham’s Gang BRIEF BUT BRILLIANT comdram
  • Gran GRIZZLED GRIM stop motion gadabout
  • Grand Slam MEMORABLE BBC Wales comic drama documenting misadventures of a bunch of valleys boys on a trip to Paris to watch the World’s Greatest Rugby Nation (TM) kick the shit out of the French.
  • Grandad WHO’S THAT walking down the street?
  • Grandstand ONCE BOLTED firmly to the scheduling floor on Saturday afternoon, this prized presentational paddle-steamer was berthed only when it became silly to pretend a sports show could be more than the sum of its parts.
  • Grange Hill GENERAL COLLAPSE of secondary education.
  • Grasshopper Island WORTHISOME GOOD-FOR-YOU children’s butterfly-chasing bonanza.
  • Gravy Train, The/The Gravy Train Goes East THE EEC, eh?
  • Great – Isambard Kingdom Brunel BETWIXT ROOBARB and NOAH AND NELLY, Sir BOB GODFREY gave us this tribute
  • Great Big Groove Horse #714 IN LIST OF extinct erstwhile 1970s species: the rock musical.
  • Great British Quiz, The ANTITHESIS OF WE’RE BACKING BRITAIN-1960s sanctioned patriotism
  • Great Egg Race, The IT COULD never happen today.
  • Great Grape Ape MORE FROM a decidedly wilting Hanna and Barbera
  • Great Western Musical Thunderbox, The HAY BALES AND BANJO orgy
  • Greatest American Hero, The FLIMSY FROLIC revolving around teacher (WILLIAM KATT) getting “magical” superhero suit from ghost of an alien (or something) and being forced against will to “fight crime”.
  • Green Acres REVERSE BEVERLEY HILLBILLIES business
  • Grimm Tales SKINFLINT BASTARD offspring of JACKANORY-esque “storytelling” format
  • Groovy Ghoulies, The UNRULY AND indeed unwelcome animated argy-bargy from America ripping off ROWAN AND MARTIN’S LAUGH-IN stock gimmicky
  • Gruey MORE TEATIME travails in same lineage and above average quality as BAD BOYES and WHO SIR ME SIR
  • Grumbleweeds Radio Show, The EXCEPT IT’S ON TV. Do you see? Some fucking chance.
  • Grundy HARRY H CORBETT grumbled his last as a curmudgeonly newsagent up against “bleeding permissive society” and LYNDA “NURSE GLADYS” BARON.
  • Guardians, The RARE SERIOUS sci-fi drama from LWT
  • Gus Honeybun FIVE MINUTE FLEABAG originally on Westward then the channel that sank it.

  • H is for…

  • Hadleigh GERALD HARPER stalks the moors as eponymous lairy lord of the manor, before contriving to hitch up with HILARY DWYER and, well, settle down.
  • Hammer House of Horror ON-ITS-LAST-LEGS FINAL throw of the dice for the fine folk at Hammer.
  • Handful of Songs, A TOMMY STEELE theme song heralded less-than-welcome appearance of Carpenters-style singing/acoustic guitar duo.
  • Happy Apple, The SEEMS LIKE LESLIE ASH spent an entire decade appearing in obscure shows.
  • Happy Days THIS IS the entry for the long-running American sitcom HAPPY DAYS (CUE DEAFENING AUDIENCE APPLAUSE AND WHOOPING WHICH GOES ON FOR FIVE MINUTES).
  • Happy Families FORGOTTEN INHERITANCECOM with JENNIFER SAUNDERS as ageing dame.
  • Happy House CHILDCENTRIC FIFTEEN minute afternoon filler.
  • Hardwicke House “BUT IT’S got pipes in!”
  • Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries, The EXCEPT IT was mostly the Hardy Boys who appeared after those odd close-up-of-manhole-cover titles.
  • Hark at Barker/His Lordship Entertains IMPRESSIVE RONNIE B. cavalcade
  • Harlem Globetrotters, The NOVELTY BASKETBALL bunch with annoying whistley theme tune do battle with basketball-playing robots, or something.
  • Harold Lloyd, The World of STITCHED-TOGETHER SILENT shorts
  • Harry’s Game GLOOMY THRILLER, another spin on the we’re-all-doomed pitch
  • Hart to Hart CRIME FIGHTING jet setter rich git ROBERT WAGNER is Jonathan Hart (“He’s quite a guy!”) while STEPHANIE POWERS is his missus Jennifer
  • Harty NOT TO be confused with RUSSELL HARTY the show (not the man), for which see, erm, RUSSELL HARTY.
  • Hatty Town MILLINERY FILMFAIR fun
  • Havoc BIG FUCK-OFF bran tub of real-life disasters
  • Hawaii Five-O FOLLOWING PHIL “BUSTER” COLLINS’s example, entire world criminal fraternity emigrates to island paradise.
  • Hazell MEAN-STREETS SAAAAHF LANDAN PI
  • He’s Pasquale, I’m Walsh DOUBLE JEOPARDY and no fucking mistake.
  • He-Man and the Masters of the Universe PISH TOY-FLOGGING sword and sorcery cartoon.
  • Heads and Tails DEREK GRIFFITHS at the peak of his powers
  • Heathcliff and Marmaduke THUNDEROUSLY DREADFUL cat and dog cartoon double-header
  • Hector’s House DUBBED DOPEY Gallic glove puppetry
  • Heggarty Haggarty SMOOTH-TONGUED SORCERESS sat about chanting while “Broom” did domestic chores and “Black Cat” grudgingly supplied endless whiskers for making spells.
  • Heidi Infamous school holiday-spanning serial of War And Peace proportions
  • Helen – a Woman of Today ALLISON FISKE divorces hapless MARTIN SHAW.
  • Hello Goodbye Man, The NEO-PERRINITE PALAVER penned by David Nobbs
  • Hello, Mum! A BIZARRE ONE and no foolin’.
  • Help – it’s the Hair Bear Bunch! Yet more mangy mutts from Hanna-Barbera’s lost weekend that was the mid-70s.
  • Help! IFFY SCOUSE povertycom which earned its spurs by dint of not being BREAD.
  • Helping Henry BAFFLING EARLY C4 kids show (weren’t they all?)
  • Henry’s Cat TO BE FRANK, after ROOBARB and NOAH AND NELLY a bit of a comedown from the Godfrey studio.
  • Herbs, The SUBLIME SONG-ORIENTED stop motion from PADDINGTON/WOMBLES stable.
  • Here Comes Mumfie! MARIONETTE ESCAPADES of a boy elephant
  • Here’s Boomer! LOLLOPING LASSIE/LITTLEST HOBO heroic dogathon, only this time – hey! – the dog commentates on the action!
  • Hey Look, That’s Me! ROTTEN COMEDIC perambulations by CHRIS HARRIS
  • Heyy, it’s the King! AND SO WE REACH the bottom of Hanna-Barbera’s beleagued barrel.
  • Hi-De-Hi! XYLOPHONE-WIELDING THREE-NOTE monster
  • Hickory House LONG-SERVING domesticated whimsy cavalcade and major player in ITV’s 1970s children’s lunchtime slot shake-up from Granada.
  • High Chapparal, The BLATANT COPY of same station’s BONANZA, but none too shabby for all that.
  • High Street Blues FRIGHTFUL FRIDAY evening non-comedy
  • Highway HARRY SECOMBE buys a Senior Citizen’s Railcard
  • Highwayman, The MULTI-WHEELED FUTURISTIC private dickery
  • Hilary UNTROUBLING UNCTIONS from a MARTI CAINE trying to make everyone forget about her cabaret credentials and instead concentrate on her acting acumen.
  • History Man, The MUCH-QUAKING-IN-THE-QUADS
  • Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The In a nutshell: Douglas Adams’s visionary mix of 2001, PG Wodehouse and a physics A-level paper compiled by Stanley Unwin gets totally screwed in translation.
  • Hitman QUITE POSSIBLY the dullest quiz show of all time.
  • Hitman and Her, The ALMOST UNIQUE nightclub-based Saturday night marathon passing quickly into pub-bound TV legend.
  • Hogan’s Heroes HOMER SIMPSON-IDOLISING Hunathon involving dopey Nazi kommandants getting their arse kicked by wise-cracking wacky Yanks for 168,000 episodes.
  • Hogg’s Back KIDS SLAPSTICK teatime affair
  • Hokey Cokey DON SPENCER puts words into the mouths of two shitty puppet doll things who are continually up to mischief.
  • Hold the Back Page CYNICOID YARN following fortunes of newspaper sports writer
  • Hold the Front Page BRAZENLY BONKERS kids comedy from the loony pen of DENISE “DO NOT ADJUST” COFFEY
  • Hold Tight Lamentable look-how-much-fun-we’re-having wankery
  • Holding the Fort DR WHO does sitcom!
  • Holiday EVER-RELIABLE EARLY evening winter warmer
  • Holiday on Ice WUSSES IN leotards leap about on frozen water in name of family entertainment
  • Hollywood or Bust THE ONE stain on Brucie’s CV.
  • Holmes and Yo Yo AH YES, the old “hard-bitten cop teams up with experimental robot” schtick.
  • Home Cookery Club TEN-MINUTE MID-AFTERNOON morsel.
  • Home James JIM “CAMERON” DAVIDSON is still Jim London
  • Home of Your Own, A YET ANOTHER pre-decimal diversion and faithful big screen supporting flick.
  • Home to Roost GOLD STANDARD mid-evening goofery with none-more-80s “sit” involving a grumpy JOHN THAW having to put up with layabout son REECE DINSDALE
  • Home Video BARGAIN BIN trio of plays shot on cheapola video equipment and themed on the same.
  • Homicide ANTIPODEAN SLEUTHING that basically pioneered the entire Aussie film and TV industry.
  • Honey Lane CORONATION STREET-BRUISER
  • Hong Kong Phooey WHO IS THIS SUPER HERO?
  • Honky Tonk Heroes AN ETERNALLY EVER-NAFF home counties C&W craze ran amok in the early 80s
  • Hope and Keen’s Crazy House/Bus DRIVELLY SCOTTISH funsters MIKE HOPE and ALBIE KEEN
  • Horace BARRY JACKSON doled out pathos and bathos
  • Horse in the House Kids drama involving a posh girl in a large mansion where shenanigans are going down.
  • Horses Galore MORE FOAL PLAY, this time by way of a kids equinestravaganza
  • Hot Metal “PAPER! NEWS, NEWS! Paper! News, News!”
  • Hot Shoe Show, The “ALL STYLES of music” allegedly catered for in this dance-arse variety bumstead
  • Hotline STAGE ONE of the long and winding Tarrant.
  • House for the Future, A GRAVY-LUMPENING SUNDAY lunchtime fare
  • Houseparty TOO OFTEN are the ITV stations tarred with the ‘eyes and teeth’ brush of tawdry showbiz. Here was one independent afternoon banker that was as unglamorous as the medium ever got.
  • How Dare You! TISWASIANS JOHN GORMAN and CLIVE WEBB, plus ex-WHO DARES WINS JULIA HILLS, oversaw this typically gunge-graced gagathon, capped with a theme tune, rather incongruously, by FIVE STAR.
  • How We Used To Live A Yorkshire schools’ morning stalwart.
  • How! OMNIPOTENT CHILDREN’S odds-and-sods odyssey
  • How’s Your Father? SHOP-WINDOW-ABUSING FUNSTER HARRY WORTH didn’t last long in this sitcom
  • Howards’ Way SWAGGERING BRINY proto-soap
  • HR Pufnstuf JACK WILD is Jimmy, owner of golden talking flute named Freddie much sought after by freaky gorgon Witchiepoo BILLIE HAYES.
  • Hudson and Halls CAMP CUISINE on a Grayson scale courtesy of titular Australian twosome riding the back (steady now) of late-80s NEIGHBOURS UK popularity.
  • Humdingers YET ANOTHER Grundy production.
  • Hunter MORE ANTIPODEAN antics, this time by way of their answer to James Bond.
  • Hunter Yes, it’s the bog standard (the operative word there being “yes”) Tough Dirty Harry Cop Partners Female Cop routine.
  • Hunter, The An animated detective pooch with a bashed hat and a knackered hunting horn.

  • I is for…

  • I Didn’t Know You Cared! MOANING YORKSHIRE clan the Brandons.
  • I Thought You’d Gone! TWO MIDDLE-AGED middle class middle Englanders…with mirth in mind!
  • I, Claudius Premium pulling-out-the-stops affair courtesy of a benevolent Beeb looking for something to celebrate 40 years of telly.
  • If It Moves, File It ONE JOKE officecom.
  • If You Were Me LIFE SWAP endeavour for kids.
  • Impossibles, The FROM THE BOTTOM of Will and Joe’s filing cabinet came this offering.
  • In at the Deep End HEADLINE VEHICLE for ubiquitous have-a-go merchants CHRIS SERLE and PAUL HEINEY moonlighting from THAT’S LIFE.
  • In Bed with Chris Needham “THEY SAY: ‘Do you realise you’re eating something dead there?’ Well yes, I do, and as a matter of fact, I’m enjoying it!”
  • In Loving Memory THORA HIRD, as usual playing herself, is an undertaker in a bluff, gruff, “take me as you find me” Lancashire funeral firm with stupid nephew CHRISTOPHER BEENY as co-pallbearer.
  • In the Limelight with Lesley ULTRA-OBSCURE PLACEMENT for post-BLUE PETER JUDD
  • Inch High Private Eye DECENT ENOUGH diminutive dosage courtesy
  • Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm, The FLEDGLING EFFORT from the boys at Euston Road
  • Incredible Hulk, The DR ‘DAVID’ BANNER, nebulously defined “strength” research, gamma rays, green skin, ripped shirts, slow-motion violence, back to normal, new shirt from nowhere, long trek down road, plaintive piano, “quest to control the raging beast that dwells wthin him”.
  • Incredible Mr Tanner, The RAGGED SITCOM – literally – with ROY KINNEAR and BRIAN MURPHY dressing down for the occasion as street entertainer escapologist and assistant.
  • Incredible Robert Baldick, The ROBERT HARDY unsheathed his best eccentric credentials for this bonkers Hammer-esque Victorian yarn.
  • Indelible Evidence CHARMLESS CRIMEWATCH roadtester shuttled out on BBC2
  • Indoor League EARTHY ATTEMPT to popularise earthy Professional Northern earthiness
  • Indoors Outdoors MORE PASTIME hard sell, here taking the shape of a giant castor oil dose of “home activities” comprising gardening, DIY, cooking and craft.
  • Innes Book of Records, The PYTHON IMPOSTER and ex-Rutle presents ragbag of self-penned songs
  • Inside George Webley ROY KINNEAR again, this time as a professional worrier, hypochondriac and towering bore.
  • Insight SCHOOLS EFFORT for hard of hearing kids
  • Inspector Gadget EXECREABLE ECCENTRIC with show-off retractable limb assortment and punchable face.
  • Interceptor, The “I LIKE IT!”
  • Into Infinity FRESH FROM ruling the known world BRIAN BLESSED settled his sticky paws upon no less a target than the known universe.
  • Into the Labyrinth PREPOSTEROUS MAGUFFINISM with the emphasis on guff.
  • Invaders, The CHIRPY APOCALYPSE CAPERS
  • Invisible Man (II), The BETTER EFFORT, this time with PIP DONAGHY as the unseen psycho.
  • Invisible Man, The WAFER-THIN (APPROPRIATELY) Wells-baiting update
  • Invisible Woman, The INEVITABLE ROLE-REVERSAL spin
  • Irish RM, The PETER BOWLES, playing himself, retires to the rural west coast of Ireland.
  • Ironside PERRY MASON fancies a bit of a rest and decides to serve out the rest of his ‘tec tenure in a mobile commode.
  • Issi Noho KEITH CHATFIELD’S JACKANORIED tales of the escapades of children Sally and Andrew Martin and a magical, talking panda
  • It Ain’t Half Hot Mum SIMPERING SITCOMMERY involving a single studio set standing in for the entire British World War Two Indian subcontinent campaign and two million shit gags standing in for pithy punchlines.
  • It Takes a Worried Man PETER TILBURY, pen merchant of SHELLEY, steps in front of the camera to do his own words
  • It’s A Knockout/Jeux Sans Frontiers WELL-DOCUMENTED BUT far from well-heeled national and pan-European pantomime Olympics.
  • It’s Garry Shandling’s Show PRE-LARRY SANDERS pissabout for the eponymous moocher.
  • It’s My Pleasure DES LYNAM extended the eponymous salutation to a parade of rum and rusty small screen relics
  • It’s the Wolf! UMPTEENTH BOTTOM-OF-THE-BARREL business
  • It’s Wicked SCOUSE-SCHLEPPED Saturday morning contradiction in terms.
  • It’s Your Move POST-WOGAN WHIMSY with made-to-measure wiseguy kid
  • Ivor the Engine “THERE HE is, look!”

  • J is for…

  • Jackanory RAMSHACKLE READING-IS-FUN RELIC.
  • Jake Thackray and Songs LANKY LACONIC Yorkshire yokel gets long-overdue opportunity for his own headlining effort
  • James the Cat UNBELIEVABLY TARDY travails of cut-out couldn’t-be-arsed feline.
  • James Whale Radio Show, The TRANSFERRED FROM RADIO (God knows, or cares, where), this plucky and “controversial” show kept the original title, to heartbreakingly ironic effect
  • Jamie TRIPPY TEATIME childfantasy with the eponymous kid taking receipt of a magic rug.
  • Jamie and the Magic Torch JAMIE (OSMONDS blow-wave and flared turn-ups) and his dog, Wordsworth (Norfolk accent and woolly hat) are tucked in one peaceful suburban night by their doting, silhouetted mother.
  • Jana of the Jungle POSH FEMALE aristo gets lost in overgrown shrubbery, goes sub-Tarzan native and befriends jaguar called Ghost.
  • Jane Misguided schedule filling attempt to combine wartime nostalgia with nascent video technology which probably doesn’t figure too prominently on GLYNIS BARBER’s CV.
  • Jangles HAZEL “A PROBLEM MAN HAD NOT FORESEEN AS YET” O’CONNOR and JESSE “MARRRRCCUUUSSSSSSS!” BIRDSALL hang out down eponymous local discotheque
  • Jason of Star Command LONG-BANISHED LIVE action effort from the house of Filmation
  • Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors SPLENETIC CARTOONERY involving another space blerk
  • Jem YET MORE animated antics, this time featuring an all-American girl band fronted by Jenna who’d be transformed via holograph-projecting earrings into the titular Jem.
  • Jesus of Nazareth GOSPEL ACCORDING To Lord Lew.
  • Jetsons, The RAUCOUS BUG-EYED rompery of the fourth dimension.
  • Jewel in the Crown, The ELEPHANTINE RAMBLE around the Raj
  • Jigsaw TOP DRAWER CLIVE DOIG-ery combining crossword-style quizzing with patented VISION ON pissing about.
  • Jigsaw (II) NOWT TO do with the above
  • Jimbo and the Jet Set DEEPLY IRRITATING animated aerial antipathy
  • Jimmy Will Fix It THAT’S WHAT BILL COTTON wanted to call it, and who are we to disagree?
  • Joe WATCH WITH MOTHER segment similar in style to MARY, MUNGO AND MIDGE concerning self-same kid whose father ran a roadside transport cafe.
  • Joe 90 CEREBRAL DOWNER after the Supermarionation splendour of CAPTAIN SCARLET.
  • John Craven’s Newsround THAT’S JOHN CRAVEN’S Newsround. Not the parade of non-threatening blandalikes in trendy haircuts who came afterwards.
  • Joint Account SITCOM COMMANDMENT #1: never put PETER EGAN in a situation where he cannot behave like a cad.
  • Joke Machine, The A MACHINE that told jokes. Old jokes. For kids.
  • Joke’s a Joke, A “PEOPLE SAY the funniest things!” out-and-aboutfest in the style of THAT’S LIFE! and GAME FOR A LAUGH.
  • Jokers Wild BARRY CRYER (with black hair!) fronted this spontaneous (in the same way that HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU is spontaneous) gagfest
  • Jonny Briggs “MY MOTHER…” “Who’s a nurse!”
  • Jonny Quest MOUTHY MIDGET, son of Dr. Benton Quest, has various hung-go adventures
  • Josie and the Pussycats YET MORE animated jollies from the fastest working felt-tips in Hollywood
  • Jossy’s Giants JUMPERS-FOR-GOALPOSTS JAPERY
  • Journey into the Life of John Lennon, A BLACKSTUFF BOY BERNARD HILL as eponymous whinging Dr Winston O’Boogie
  • Journey to the Centre of the Earth CUMBERSOME RENDERING of the Jules Verne epic in earnest animated form
  • Journey to the Unknown BANKROLLED BY 20th Century Fox, this forerunner of the self-same’s HOUSE OF HORROR made-for-telly tall tales had the works.
  • Juice BBC2 ‘POP’ MUSIC extravaganza helmed by MAGENTA DEVINE
  • Juke Box Jury “HELLO THERE” quoth LORD DAVID JACOBS
  • Juliet Bravo UNLIKE DR WHO, was not the name of the person as well as the programme.
  • Jungle Ted and the Lacy Button-Poppers 2D STOP-FRAME minimalist animation five-minuter parked just before HORSE IN THE HOUSE.
  • Junior Showtime CREAKY FLEAPIT of a show utilising old-time Music Hall format to showcase middle-class brats who’d been sent to piano lessons or owned their own top hats.
  • Just Amazing HOW WRONG can a title be?
  • Just Good Friends “C’MON, PEN!”

  • K is for…

  • K-9 and Company 25 YEARS before Russell T Davies, a DR WHO spin-off! And what a super one at that.
  • Kate and Ted’s Show WHAT RICHES lie ahead of us.
  • Keep it in the Family STALWART OF that post-Corrie “bathos but pathos” comedy slot.
  • Keith Harris and Orville Show, The TOOTHY BALDING-PERMED ventriloquist wields pathologically feeble green duck in a nappy on one hand and nasally-blocked orange “cheeky” monkey on the other.
  • Kelly Montieth AMERICAN EXPORTED choice of viewing to the Nine O’clock News.
  • Ken Dodd and the Diddymen SUNDAY TEATIME timewastery with the titular buck-toothed tax dodger presiding over the puppet inhabitants of Knotty Ash.
  • Kenny Everett Video/Television Show, The SHOUTY SCOUSE sound effects nerd herein masquerading as A1 kids comedy champion.
  • Keynotes MORE GRUEL FROM REG GRUNDY, here fronted by the ever-smiling ALISTAIR DIVALL.
  • Kick Start UNCLE PETER PURVES and his brainbox mate JACK STITES narrate junior motorcross time trial competitons on the muddiest courses in the land.
  • Kick Up The Eighties, A AUNTIE’S FIRST tryst with alternative comedy.
  • Kids JAMES HAZELDINE gets placed in charge of various delinquents.
  • Kids From 47A, The REDOUBTABLE KIDS sitcom from the keep-smiling-through school of jokery.
  • Kids from Degrassi Street, The/Degrassi Junior High CANADIAN SOAPERY that became a regular Children’s BBC post-school distraction.
  • Kim and Co ORIGIN UNCERTAIN for this bunch of tales involving crime-cracking youths
  • Kind of Loving, A SO-SO ADAPTATION of the not-actually-that-good kitchen sink novel
  • King and Castle MINDER RIP-OFF with characters called King and Castle behaving like the king and the castle on a chessboard.
  • King Cinder WEIRD SPEEDWAY freakery for kids done in a SWEENEY style but with PETER DUNCAN as the lead.
  • King of the Castle UTTERLY BAFFLING childathon charting the fortunes of boring posh teenager.
  • King Rollo CUT-OUT ANIMATION beloved of lunchtime schedulers
  • Kinvig NIGEL “QUATERMASS” KNEALE’S one attempt at comedy, perhaps wisely.
  • Kit Curran Radio Show, The DENIS LAWSON was your self-same self-obsessed local DJ with a big mouth and even bigger ego
  • Kizzy “MUM! THERE’S a gyppo on the telly!”
  • Knight Rider RARE CHARACTER study for EDWARD “THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR” MULHARE.
  • Knightmare WELCOME READER, bold but fair/in search of truths about KNIGHTMARE
  • Knights of God HAVEN’T HAD one of these for a while: another totalitarian sci-fi futuristic runaround.
  • Knock Knock!/Wake Up Sunday! FAR-TOO-EARLY SUNDAY morning Godbothery for children
  • Knowledge, The JACK ROSENTHAL’s quietly masterful tale of a motley bunch of nascent London cabbies is brought to authentically overcast life by Euston Films
  • Kolchak the Night Stalker NONSENSE MONSTER mithering.
  • Krofft Originals SID AND Marty Krofft, the costumiers/puppeteers who designed the BANANA SPLITS and brought the world of HR PUFNSTUF to life, also exported a fair few other weirdo shows to American (and later British) screens.
  • Krypton Factor, The SUPERLATIVE GREY CELLS weeknight workout, hosted by the unflappable Uncle GORDON BURNS in a quest to find “the UK’s superperson”.
  • Kum-Kum STOP THAT sniggering.
  • Kung Fu DAVID CARRADINE, short of tongue and long of mumbling, loafs around 19th Century America partaking of much wandering and standing still while violence aplenty goes on.
  • Kwicky Koala Show, The MUCH PANTHER-ESQUE plot reheating came courtesy of this dreary selection of characters.

  • L is for…

  • L for Lester BEFUDDLED BUFFOON driving instructor BRIAN MURPHY, playing himself, struggles to teach residents of A Quirky West Country Town the difference between mirror, signal and manoeuvre.
  • Lace “ALL RIGHT, which one of you bitches is my mother?”
  • Lame Ducks BRIAN DRAKE (do you see?), who is JOHN DUTTINE, finds himself playing mother hen to bunch of mildewing misfits including LORRAINE CHASE, a hitch-hiker, and TONY MILLAN, an ex-postman attempting round-the-world trip on top of giant inflatable ball.
  • Lancelot Link – Secret Chimp OVER HERE we had the PG Tips chimps (“You hum it son, I’ll play it”).
  • Land of the Giants DOWNSIZED DERRING-DO from the Infernomeister
  • Land of the Lost ROTTEN SPIN on the above, as a forest ranger (now there’s a readymade hero figure for you) and his boring family somehow contrive to wander into a boring polystyrene prehistoric world with blokes in suits who reckon they’re monsters.
  • Langley Bottom THE SAINTED BERNARD CRIBBINS took the reins for this short-lived rural rumpus
  • Last of the Summer Wine OH LOOK, Compo tries to catch a glimpse of Nora Batty’s night attire and then ends up in a bath on wheels careering down a hill.
  • Latchkey Children, The THOSE DEPENDABLE boys down at Euston Road had two pops at this
  • Late Late Breakfast Show, The BOMBASTIC TEATIME behemoth which sprawled across half a decade
  • Laugh??? I Nearly Paid my Licence Fee FUNNY HOW anything with the word “laugh” in the title singularly fails to elicit much in the way of such reaction among those it’s intended to entertain.
  • Laughs from Her Majesty’s WE’D WELCOME THEM.
  • Laura and Disorder NEVER SAW this one coming.
  • Law and Order FOUR-WAY GRIM crime capers, with each hour-plus episode detailing, in sequence, the doings of a police inspector, a lawyer, a felon and a prison officer.
  • Legend of Robin Hood, The NEITHER YOUR gung-ho RICHARD GREENE nonsense nor your mystical MICHAEL PRAED codswallop
  • Legend of Tim Tyler, The MITTEL-EUROPEAN PROFUNDITY
  • Lennie and Jerry TWO FOR the price of none!
  • Lenny Henry Show, The THE ONE that went “That’s right, I’m back, and it’s not a repeat” even when it was.
  • Let’s Go! SUNDAY MORNING positive programming for the disabled, featuring BRIAN RIX and some odd cartoon people.
  • Let’s Pretend ROTTEN REPLACEMENT for PIPKINS
  • Let’s Read with Basil Brush DEFECTING TO ITV in hope of big money, or at least better guests than Our Kid, the fractious fox instead found himself lumbered with this educational gig, itself a hand-me-down from, of all things, another puppet.
  • Let’s Read With Lenny the Lion VERY MUCH old school cod liver oil-esque educationalism with doddery old ventriloquist TERRY HALL and eponymous mangy cat, both of who had already been around for bloody decades…
  • Life and Loves of a She-Devil, The LIGHTHOUSE-BESIEGING, SURGERY-BAITING, Dr Who-shagging, wart-wielding epic
  • Life on Earth THE FIRST of Sir Dave’s big budget quests
  • Life Without George EPONYMOUS, ER, man buggers off from CAROL ROYLE (as made plain in wistful opening titles).
  • Lift Off with Ayesha Cheap and cheerful TOTP-baiting bonanza on t’other side
  • Lift Off! With Coppers and Co! NO RELATION to your rug-cutting frug-promoting Ayshea affair, oh no.
  • Ligmalion ONLY IN the 1980s.
  • Lillie RAGGED STUDIO-BOUND videotape romp through the turn of the century life of the titular royal-bedding ragamuffin
  • Lingo L! I! N! G! O! ran the sub-Ottawan theme tune to this half-remembered, half-arsed bingo-based Thursday night quiz
  • Little and Large FAT MAN dons comedy wig/glasses/oversized bowtie while thin man attempts to sing popular song on acoustic guitar.
  • Little Armadillos LOW-KEY LARKERY in pretend London nightspot the Seal Club
  • Little Big Time FREDDIE “DREAMERS” GARRITTY marshalled this music/talent/adventure show with audience participation.
  • Little Blue ESOTERIC, I.E. IFFY “animal living with human family” ITV situationism starring a baby elephant.
  • Little Green Man NONSENSE-TALKING GREEN egg-shaped alien visits Earth and Sidney “Skeets” Keats, a generic suburban boy.
  • Little World of Don Camillo, The COMICAL ITALIANO whimsy with red faces and ladles of pasta much in evidence.
  • Littlest Hobo, The SIMPERING EXISTENTIAL meadering mutt with sideline in crimestopping can’t be arsed staying in one place
  • Liver Birds, The THIS HAS a lot to answer for, chiefly bequeathing Carla Lane upon the nation and her “daffy” “sassy” “Scouse” “wit”.
  • Living and Growing Long-running, unchanging schools’ biology work-out
  • Living in the Past EEKING OUT the GOOD LIFE formula to its ultimate conclusion
  • Lizzie Dripping A TEENAGE TINA HEATH of Blue Peter pregnancy fame dons a bad blue anorak and converses with one very scary witch
  • Logan’s Run NUTS AND BOLTS knock-off of the bacofoil and plasterboard big screen classic
  • London Bridge STULTIFYING SUMMER holiday morning yawnathon for inner city tykes
  • Loner, The THREE PLAYLETS courtesy of ALAN “COALHOUSE DOOR” PLATER
  • Long Chase, The SEMINAL KIDS pursuit caper from pen of N.J. “DIXON” CRISP
  • Longstreet NEW ORLEANS criminal insurance investigator gets blinded in the line of duty, but on he bloody well goes.
  • Look and Read WHY DON’T you build yourself a word?
  • Look Who’s Talking SONOROUSLY DULL chattery with DEREK “MR AND MRS” BATEY jawing with various D listers
  • Look! Hear! AXED-IN-A-FLASH AFFAIR pitched at you youngsters pissing about
  • Look, Stranger! MUSTY MAN ALIVERY with a doff of a whimsy-sized hat to ABOUT BRITAIN.
  • Look-In
  • Looks Familiar SQUIRE DENIS of NORDEN helmed this assortment of archive clippage
  • Lord Mayor’s Show, The ANNUAL INTERRUPTION to your favourite (or Live And Kicking) Saturday morning entertainment.
  • Lord Tramp ANOTHER SIGHTING of a tinker on the telly (see KIZZY)
  • Losers, The LEONARD ROSSITER and ALAN COREN, apart indefatigable, together…execrable.
  • Lost in Space A FURTHER HANDFUL of hokum from the great IRWIN ALLEN
  • Lost Islands, The ANOTHER ENDLESS epic for the summer holidays.
  • Lotus Eaters, The ANOTHER BBC thriller uncovering dark secrets in the Cretan underbelly
  • Love at First Sight In the brave new enterprising world of 1990s British telly, deregulation-happy ITV companies gallop dizzily down the gangplank into a Europe that’s freshly open for business.
  • Love Boat, The LOVE, EXCITING and new. Come on board.
  • Love for Lydia ROARING TWENTIES flapper and all-round femme fatale Lydia (MEL MARTIN) moves from man to man in this furious adaptation of the H E Bates novella.
  • Love School, The WORTHY DRAMATISATION of the comings and goings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
  • Love Thy Neighbour NOWADAYS THIS is shorthand for everything that was shit about the 1970s, but in reality there was worse to be had in the likes of IT AIN’T ‘ALF HOT MUM and SOME MOTHERS DO ‘AVE ‘EM
  • Lovejoy THE gentle swish of a watercolour paintbrush, the chiming tinkle of an endlessly hummable signature tune
  • Lovers, The FORMICA AND flock wallpaper sitcommery by JACK ROSENTHAL
  • Lucky Feller DAVID JASON lands his first comedy lead and hams it up enormously
  • Lucky Ladders ANOTHER TENANT OF THE ill-patronised unhallowed post-TV-am slot.
  • Lucky Numbers OUR FIRST glimpse of “Noely” in primetime
  • Ludwig MASTERFUL FIVE-MINUTER, often trundled out in the hallowed pre-NATIONWIDE slot, featuring an ovoid eggy jewel thing out of which “things” came
  • Luna A ONE-OFF and no mistake: futuristic lunar colony houses various emotionless, artificial humans grown from “prime slime” culture
  • Lynn Marshall’s Everyday Yoga GENTEEL SUNDAY morning stretchathon, with the be-leotarded Lynn in a bare studio thrusting and mulching.
  • Lynn’s Look-In NO RELATION to the above, here was some other Lynn, hailing from the Tyne-Tees weatherbeat

  • M is for…

  • M*A*S*H “YOUR WEDNESDAY night entertainment on BBC2 continues at 9pm with another helping of…”
  • MacGyver “RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON will be in my dreams tonight!”
  • Machine Gunners, The PROBABLY SHOWN in every school in the country at some point during the mid-80s.
  • MacKenzie NO-SHAGS-BARRED MELODRAMA of a Scots builder.
  • Macmillan and Wife SAN FRANCISCO chief of police decides to do “things my own way” and employ the missus as sidekick.
  • Mad Death, The In that blessed era that we’re forced to refer to as The LateSeventiesToTheEarlyEighties, there was one disease that met all your tabloid shit-stirring needs: Rabies!
  • Madabout IN THE words of KENNETH WILLIAMS: “It’s MATTHEW KELLY isn’t it?! Game for a laugh!”
  • Madame Sin ONCE MORE unto the Grade.
  • Maelstrom IMPENETRABLE MELODRAMA out of the same school as 1983’s THE WATERFALL
  • Maggie CHIPPER CHICANERY from north of the border
  • Maggie and Her JULIA MACKENSIE, playing herself, is a divorced teacher living next door to IRENE HANDL, also playing herself. Neither can leave well alone.
  • Magic Ball, The EARLY SHOT as cut-out cartoonery from the MR BENN mob
  • Magic Boomerang, The ANTIPODEAN ANTIQUE no doubt burnt/drowned/disintegrated long ago
  • Magic Circle ALI BONGO anchored this kids magicarama “aided and abetted” by hopeless puppet cat in a fez, Ali Cat
  • Magic Micro Mission UNLIKELY ENTRY in the 1980s parade of home computer shows
  • Magic Roundabout, The FINEST FRENCH export since Pasteurisation.
  • Magilla Gorilla ABOUT TIME for another crappy effort from Will H and Joe B, this time starring the eponymous ape and his short moustachioed owner.
  • Magnificent Evans, The/Clarence TWO POST-RONNIES roustabouts for BARKER of middling spectacle (ho ho).
  • Magnum PI “THE SHIRTS to watch,” boasted the endless ITV trailers.
  • Magpie BLUE-PETER-BEATING ITV kids’ magazine
  • Make ‘Em Laugh SOME HOPE.
  • Make it Count A WELCOME re-appearance for LORD FRED HARRIS
  • Make Me Laugh LOUSY TEATIME tripe marshalled into mithersome existence by BERNIE WINTERS
  • Making the Most of the Micro/Micro Live/Micro File LONGEST-RUNNING AND most imperial of all the Beeb’s home computer shows
  • Mallens, The OLDE ENGLISH cobblers from another Catherine Cookson bodiceboiler
  • Man About the House NEITHER AGE nor any number of middling Martin Clunes-based rehashes shall wither the legend of Robin Tripp
  • Man Alive UNREMITTINGLY GRIM this-is-real-life-so-you-better-get-used-to-it strand
  • Man Called Intrepid, A DAVID NIVEN. Of course.
  • Man Dog MORE FUTURISTIC folly, this time involving space rebel types hooking up with present day kids and, well, transplanting their dying leader’s mind into the kids’ dog until they can return home.
  • Man from Atlantis “DO NOT follow me. I am going to the main airlock.”
  • Man From U.N.C.L.E., The ARCH CAMPERY of a non-Connery kind
  • Man In a Suitcase CERTAINLY WERE a hell of a lot of these “Men” about in the old days.
  • Manhunt ROISTERING RESISTANCE tales from World War Two France
  • Manimal WAS THERE no beginning to Glen’s talents?
  • Mann’s Best Friends FROM THE pen of ROY CLARKE, therefore old people doing demented things while shouting a lot and rearranging the china well to the fore.
  • Many Wives of Patrick, The DOPEY OLD buffer forgets where he’s left his spouses and gets hitched not once, not twice, not thrice, but six times.
  • Mapp and Lucia TWITTERING TWOSOME raise havoc in a decorous 1920s village populated with the likes of NIGEL HAWTHORNE.
  • Marc T-REX MAINMAN hosts glamstravaganza
  • Marine Boy JAPANESE CARTOONERY featuring the eponymous unnamed briny-basher battling deadly “foes”
  • Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury’s The MISBEGOTTEN HOTCH-POTCH of 70s production values and 50s plotlines
  • Marty/Marty Amok/It’s Marty/The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine PUPIL-POPPING PARADE of slapstick and speeded-up shenanigans
  • Mary, Mungo and Midge DO YOU live in a town?
  • Masada MOST EXPENSIVE TV film ever, apparently.
  • Masquerade HEAVENS, IT’S been all of, what, 11 entries since we last mentioned Glen?
  • Master, The NOTHING TO do with DR WHO’s laughing cavalier turned lamentable klutz.
  • Mastermind THAT FAMOUS theme tune was called “Impending Menace”
  • Masterspy UPMARKET RIDDLE-ME-REE business doled out in weekly 45 minute doses.
  • Match of the Day ONCE A Saturday night-only appointment, now a franchise seemingly wheeled out at any time of the day (it’s World Cup Grandstand, dammit!).
  • Matchpoint MASTERTEAM, but done like a tennis match.
  • Maths Counts NO-NONSENSE NUMERICAL school business
  • Maths File MORE NUMBER-CRUNCHING, this time going for the hey-kids-it’s-fun angle with comedy incompetent police inspector
  • Maths Topics AGAIN WITH the adding
  • Maths-In-A-Box This was ostensibly a “comedy adventure series” dealing with slightly more basic concepts and starring two bog-standard kids who find a mysterious “dice”, from which emerges a babbling, op-art-clothed, P’tweean alien bloke called Powkah
  • Mathscore One/Two Maths with, hey, a football twist!
  • Mathshow WHEN WILL it end?
  • Matt and Gerry Ltd. UNTIL THE arrival of I’M PASQUALE, HE’S WALSH, the most delirious coupling in TV history.
  • Matt Houston LIKE CAIN and Able, Aaron Spelling and Glen Larson engaged in a battle royal throughout the 80s as to who could rustle up the biggest slabs of preposterous prime time palaver.
  • Maverick RICKETY OLD 1950s Western gets revived for no reason
  • Max Headroom JEREMY ISAACS’S favourite ever Channel 4 programme: fact!
  • McCloud ANOTHER OFFSPRING of ITV’s Mystery Movie strand
  • Me and Meep QUIRKY KID sci-finery
  • Me and My Girl THE SMELL of a Friday night.
  • Me and My Micro LORD FRED HARRIS jumped ship from MAKING THE MOST OF… momentarily to present his own amateur games-writing show
  • Me Mammy EMERALD ISLE export Bunjy Kennefick (MILO O’SHEA), a man of fast words and even faster living, struggles to crawl out from under the thumb of horrendous matriach ANNA MANAHAN and bossy fiancee YOOTHA JOYCE.
  • Me, You & Him ADMIRABLE attempt at pre-watershed sitcommery
  • Medusa Touch, The MORE GRADE expectations.
  • Meet the Wife THORA HIRD and FREDDIE FRINTON remind JOHN LENNON when it’s time for tea.
  • Mersey Pirate ANOTHER SUMMER filler between the delirious dentures of TISWAS.
  • Metal Mickey GRAPHITE GRADUATE FROM the unlikely environs of BILL ODDIE’s SATURDAY BANANA
  • Miami Vice “MTV COPS” was the diktat issued by network bosses
  • Middlemen SIX SERVINGS of ALAN PLATER.
  • Midnight Caller THE EQUALIZER meets FRASIER.
  • Midnight is a Place ORPHANED TYKE Lucas Bell (posh, of course) is watched over by bombastic guardian Sir Randolph Oakapple.
  • Mighty Heroes, The SUPERHERO SPOOFATHON from the makers of DEPUTY DAWG.
  • Mighty Moments from World History BEFORE THEY discovered they could buy in decent comedy from abroad, ver Four made do with homegrown efforts like this
  • Mighty Mouse MEANDERING MONOCHROME rodent roustabout gets updated 30 years later courtesy of RALPH “HEAVY TRAFFIC” BAKSHI
  • Mika ONE-HIT WONDER Freddie Mercury rip-off merchant who Steve Wright played to death in early 2007.
  • Mike Harding Show, The PROFESSIONAL NORTHERNERN wielding guitar, mouthorgan and dreaded squeezebox
  • Mike Reid’s Mates and Music WE’LL PASS on both, if you don’t mind.
  • Mind Your Language “PLEASE, LET us have no racialism!”
  • Minder GEORGE COLE aka Arthur Daley (sheepskin coat, cigar, hat, jewellery, ‘er indoors, “nice little earner”, “world is your lobster, my son”) and DENNIS WATERMAN aka Terry McCann (boxer, fighter, mouthing-off-er) fall in and out of trouble
  • Mini-Pops CONTEMPORARY CHART action (Kajagoogoo, Belle Stars, Cyndi Lauper) gets radical re-interpretation by under-tens
  • Miss Jones and Son SHHHHH! THERE’S an unmarried mother on the telly!
  • Miss Marple SPRIGHTLY SPINSTER gets invited to a weekend in the country
  • Mission: Impossible THIS BILLING, should you choose to accept it, contains gags only marginally less predictable than the entire sum of this well-worn, endlessly re-spun kitschathon
  • Mitch FEEBLE HACKERY for JOHN THAW as eponymous investigative journo, filmed immediately after end of THE SWEENEY but stuck on shelf for years thanks to John Birt’s penny-pinching.
  • Mixed Blessings A multi-racial melting pot, if you will, wherein CHRISTOPHER BLAKE and MURIEL ODUNTON moved in with each other to collective muttering and tuttering from entire rest of the studio-bound universe.
  • Model World POOR MAN’S PATRICK MOORE and mutton-chopped self-styled potting shed eccentric ROBERT SYMES
  • Mog LAMENTABLE LOONCOM starring the eternally underwhelming ENN REITEL
  • Mole, The STRIKINGLY BAFFLING East European export about a cartoon gibberish-spouting mole and his woodland friends, underthreat from city developers.
  • Molly Wopsies, The ANOTHER EUSTON Road kidcom try-out which ended up going to the distance.
  • Monday’s Newcomers NOT A programme as such, not even something meant to be watched by the likes of a skiving/off sick/study period/can’t-be-arsed you and me.
  • Money-go-Round A POST-MAGPIE TONY BASTABLE hitched up with JOAN SHENTON to front this “prices”-obsessed, stagflation-busting daytime personal financathon
  • Monkees, The PETER, DAVY, PETER, MICKY, PETER, MIKE, DAVY and PETER
  • Monkey “IN THE days before Monkey, primal chaos reigned…” You said it.
  • Monocled Mutineer, The DAILY MAIL-BOTHERING armchair general-alarming Beeb-bashing yarn
  • Montreux Rock Festival, The IF WOODSTOCK was a defining moment of the 60s, Montreux had a similar impact on the 80s, but for entirely different reasons.
  • Monty Python’s Flying Circus LOAD-BEARING LEVIATHAN of British comedy
  • Moomins BERGMAN-ESQUE SCANDINAVIAN doommongery…for kids!
  • Moon Stallion MEANDERING MOPERY serving up your usual BBC 70s kids drama courses of period costumers, suggestions of ghosts, evil relations, mystical artefacts and posh girls in giant white dresses.
  • Moonbase 3 SO-SO SAGA of permanently ailing, low budget third moon settlement with a pan-European crew
  • Moondial AGAIN WITH the let’s-give-the-kids-something-to-scare-them-shitless.
  • Moonlighting DOWN-ON-LUCK MODEL (CYBILL SHEPHERD) “discovers” she owns a detective agency run by bigmouth BRUCE WILLIS and decides to join in the sleuthing. “And how!”
  • Mop and Smiff/Mike, Mop and the Moke GUITAR-WIELDING WUNDERKIND MIKE AMATT helmed this romp about his titular pet dog Mop and cat Smiff
  • Morecambe and Wise Show, The FORGET RUNNING WILD, their hopeless first foray into television during the 50s.
  • Mork and Mindy OVER-LIT, OVER-LOUD and over-egged spin-off
  • Mornin’ Sarge MERCIFULLY SHORT-LIVED spin-off
  • Moschops ONCE MORE unto the whimsy for BERNARD CRIBBINS
  • Mother Love DIANA RIGG, looking alarmingly like RONNIE CORBETT, obsesses maternally over her offspring Kit
  • Move It SIMON O’BRIEN and FIONA LEE FRANCIS hang around in light-coloured jeans and sweat shirts
  • Moving FIRST OF many tepid try-outs for PENELOPE KEITH as the face of Thames comedy
  • Mr and Mrs NUPTIAL-ENDORSING NONSENSE which, were it still running today, David Cameron would’ve co-opted as party policy within seconds (SATIRE).
  • Mr Benn “I’LL KEEP it – just to help me remember…”
  • Mr Big A FAMILY of crooks – with mirth in mind!
  • Mr Majeika SUDDEN LATE wind for STANLEY BAXTER
  • Mr Men INFINITELY CHARMING personality-monikered procession of geometric freaks
  • Mr Merlin DOTTY OVER-THE-HILL eponymous medieval meddler BARNARD HUGHES helps/hinders dopey teen CLARK BRANDON in meddlesome sitcommery ways.
  • Mr Pye FANTASTICAL NOODLINGS amongst the good folk of the Isle Of Sark
  • Mr Rossi NOT, FORTUITOUSLY, the animated escapades of a rock’n’roll three-chord-trading troubadour
  • Mr Smith ORANG-UTAN ESCAPES from zoo, accidentally drinks “make me smart” serum and runs for Senate.
  • Mr Smith’s Vegetable Garden BLUFF COVE and Professional Yorkshireman GEOFFREY SMITH is your Geoff Boycott of the allotment
  • Mr T WAS THERE no seminal US TV lovable rogue safe from cartoon enshrinement?
  • Mr Trimble KIDS’ MISCELLANY in the slot before NEWS AT ONE.
  • Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, The SUBLIME HERALD of the weekend
  • Muppet Show, The MULTI-AWARD WINNING gloves-with-eyes
  • Murder in Space “WATCH CAREFULLY,” intoned ANNEKA RICE
  • Murder, She Wrote TEA-AND-SLIPPERS SLEUTHERY, best taken over doilies and Darjeeling, if not Lucozade and egg soldiers.
  • Murphy’s Mob “EVERYWHERE YOU go, everything you see/Someone’s saying no – it’s a tragedy!”
  • Murun Buchstansangur SEMI-ANIMATED WOULD-BE philosophical musings on life of a green round thing
  • Music Arcade, The JONATHAN COHEN and dear old LUCY SKEAPING persist in dividing the class in two
  • Music Time SHUT-EM-UP-AT-THE-BACK SCHOOLATHON singalong symphony
  • My Brother’s Keeper ANOTHER ORIGINAL odd couple.
  • My Music “OR RATHER, your music” as the late FRANK MUIR would have it.
  • My World…and Welcome to it DROWSY DOMESTIC yankcom sitcom
  • Mysterious Cities of Gold YET ANOTHER Spanish speciality served up over here in something like one thousands parts

  • N is for…

  • Naked Video SCOTTISH COMEDY export leavened with two southerners when transferring from radio to TV.
  • Naked Yoga Blatant porn dressed up as mystical quackery.
  • Name That Tune BLESSED WITH THE MOST exciting opening title sequence in history, with flashing lights, blaring music and over a minute of non-stop applause, this was great fun.
  • Nanny WISELY BINNING off any lingering trace of CARLA “COW GRIEF” LANE, here was WENDY “RIA” CRAIG devoting herself to the titular vocation in “war-torn” London
  • National Film Board of Canada, The FORMED IN 1936 as a propaganda maker, the NFBC has carried on providing state-subsidised films in Canada (both short and feature length) at the rate of hundreds every year.
  • Nationwide “I DUNNO what a folly is. Bob, do you know what a folly is?”
  • Near and Far SCHOOLS’ GEOGRAPHY show.
  • Nearest and Dearest GRANADA’S BIGGEST-SELLING situation comedy.
  • Neighbours EVERYBODY NEEDS good ones.
  • Network 7 HYSTERICAL HARBINGER of that STREET-PORTER-led microphenomenon that was “yoof TV”.
  • Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width PRE-CAMBRIAN SITCOMMERY
  • Never the Twain UP IN the first 11 of ITV’s all-time ITV-esque sitcoms.
  • Never Too Young to Rock DEFINITIVE GLAM movie, miles better than Slade In Flame AND Stardust.
  • New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The ASIDE FROM that misleading moniker (in what ways were they New?), this was faultless frippery for long summer holidays off school.
  • New Adventures of Lucky Jim, The “OOH, IT’S nothing like Amis”, quoth purists
  • New Avengers, The YOU DON’T mess with a hit, runs the old showbiz lore.
  • New Faces SHODDINESS INCARNATE made bearable by the gantry of gripe that was the “celebrity panel”
  • New People, The SATURDAY TEATIME American bollocks
  • New Schmoo, The GROTESQUE GALUMPHING cartoonery
  • New Statesman, The RIK “I WAS PAUL SQUIRES!” MAYALL ruled the late-Sunday, pre-Bragg ITV slot in this harsh, tasteless and often fantastic politicom
  • Newcomers, The ANOTHER PROTO-SOAP venture from a still CORONATION STREET-reeling Beeb.
  • News 39 SUE LAWLEY sits in a 1989 studio “reading” made-up daily news bulletins from 1939 written and recorded in 1989 but produced as if it was 1939 told from a 1989 perspective in 1939 clothes.
  • Nice Time EARLY COMEDY sketch kaboodle
  • Night Beat News WEIRD, FRANTIC Welsh sitcom set in a small radio station, taped twice – once in Welsh, once in English.
  • Night Network TYPICALLY 1980s WEEKEND FLAGSHIP overnight showcase
  • Night Shift FANTASTIC FIVE-MINUTE SHOW which popped up every now and then to even out schedules.
  • Nightmare Man, The HEAD-TURNING HORROR-FI drama
  • Nineteenth Hole, The NEVER-BEFORE-OR-AGAIN CRAZED combination of ERIC SYKES, JOHNNY SPEIGHT and WILLIAM G. STEWART
  • No Appointment Necessary ROY KINNEAR does befuddled barber.
  • No Kidding! SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE thought that revamping ASK THE FAMILY as a kind of daily morning Confessions vehicle (“so who does the washing-up in your house?”) for MIKE “SMITTY” SMITH was a good idea.
  • No Limits THE HANDIWORK of “political prisoner” and professional criminal JONATHAN KING
  • No Place Like Home BELOW-PAR BONHOMIE that looked and felt like it should have been on the light channel.
  • No Problem FROM OUT OF JEREMY ISAACS’ much-in-evidence arch lever file marked “minorities” sprung this fondly remembered C4 ensemble fixture.
  • No, That’s Me Over Here! ACE-TITLED SURBUBACOM with RONNIE CORBETT (playing a character called Ronnie) married to ROSEMARY LEACH
  • Noah and Nelly LESSER-KNOWN FARE from the dependable ROOBARB stable
  • Noah’s Castle TO YOUR average politically disinterested 1970s child, only two social phenomena provided sources of real terror.
  • Nobody’s House “NOBODY” WAS the eponymous spook in this, ITV’s proto-RENTAGHOST palaver.
  • Nobody’s Perfect SUNDAY NIGHT sitcomage both featuring and penned by Yank grande dame ELAINE STRITCH
  • Noggin the Nog NORDIC SAGA with cutouts and painted backcloths in the style of IVOR THE ENGINE.
  • Northstar FAR-FETCHED, FURTHER-FLUNG one-off snubbed by evil bastard US networks.
  • Not in Front of the Children Chaotic middle England provincial family has to depend upon solitary bedrock for survival. Could it be the ditzy housewife? Could it be, whisper it, WENDY CRAIG?
  • Not On Your Nellie! SHE’S BACK! Execrable sitcommage with HYLDA BAKER
  • Not Only… But Also…
  • Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life FROSTIE’S SECOND coming after the Beeb axed TW3.
  • Not the Nine O’clock News STEAMROLLER OF a sketch’n’satire brew
  • Not With a Bang POST-APOCALYPTIC SITCOM with JOSIE LAWRENCE
  • Now Get Out of That! “MEANWHILE, THE Americans seem to be having a slight problem with the Land Rover…”
  • Number 73 RUEFULLY RECALLED by many a kid as the first long-term replacement (see just about anything beginning with the word “Saturday” and FUN FACTORY for the short term) for TISWAS.

  • O is for…

  • O’Connor, Tom WE’VE BEEN treated to a succession of vehicles for Scouse stand-up and self-styled “Mr Clean” Tom O’Connor down the years.
  • Object Z A MYSTERY entity is on collision course with the Earth.
  • Odd Man Out THANKFULLY FORGOTTEN but still rotten comedy
  • Odd One Out PAUL DANIELS haunted this grim quiz
  • Oddball Couple, The SPIFFY, A fastidious cat, shares a flat with Fleabag, a slobby dog.
  • Oh No, It’s Selwyn Froggitt! BILL MAYNARD was your hapless odd-job man
  • Oh, Happy Band! PLANS FOR a new airport in a northern province are opposed by HARRY WORTH and…his brass band.
  • Oil Strike North DRAMATISED DIVERSIONS of the go-ahead blokes on the then new and exciting recession-beating world of North Sea Oil rigs.
  • Old Grey Whistle Test, The PRIDED ITSELF on being the only place on television you’d be likely to see the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, which was probably a good thing too.
  • Old Men at the Zoo, The The brilliance of Troy Kennedy Martin’s TV drama is known to all, or at least it darn well should be.
  • Omega Factor, The CHIEFLY REMEMBERED for having starred LOUISE “DICKIE DAVIES HAIR” JAMESON fresh from DR WHO as leather-clad inarticulate Leela
  • On Safari
  • On the Buses SINGLE-HANDEDLY KEPT ITV in business in the early 70s
  • On The Move BOB HOSKINS is an illiterate removals man
  • On the Rocks TYNE-TEES SATIRISES itself with a kids’ series about a regional-as-hell TV station broadcasting from a lighthouse to no-one.
  • On the Up ON THE UP was a pretty typical BBC sitcom, albeit one broadcast at the fag end of the Corporation’s love for conventional 2.4 set ups.
  • On the Waterfront “LARD! LOTS of lovely lard!”
  • Once Upon a Time… PETER DAVIDSON’S first gig after getting smothered to death by Peri’s breastage in DR WHO.
  • Once Upon A Time… Man WELL-REMEMBERED if pretentiously-titled Gallic historicals.
  • Once Upon A Time…Life ENDLESSLY REPEATED French animation epic purporting to make plain the workings of the human body through cheery-faced cartoonery.
  • One by One ROB “WHO?” HEYLAND starred as stupidly named “zoo vet” practicing in 1960s backwater of Britain where no-one had seen an elephant before.
  • One Day in the Life of Television THE BRITISH Film Institute’s attempt to get a snapshot of What We Watch, and an absolutely stunning one at that.
  • One Game, The MIDWEEK MELODRAMA about a whiskery bloke who sets up a company designing Dungeons And Dragons games.
  • One Man and his Dog CANINE AND company for the wind-hewn, welly-bound well-to-do.
  • One Step Beyond ESP-BASED SELF-CONTAINED yarns with people travelling back to Krakatoa or the holocaust and forward into the future by means of juddery-camera visions.
  • One Summer WILLY RUSSELL-PENNED did-you-see-that-on-the-telly-last-night? playground-bothering Channel 4 play
  • One-Upmanship SKITS AND spoofery adapted from STEPHEN POTTER’s 1950s titular “guides” to modern living
  • Onedin Line, The TITANIC NAUTICAL saga which steamed through BBC1 Sunday nights for nigh on a decade.
  • Only Fools and Horses “BUSH, BUSH, BUSH, BUSH, BUSH, BUSH, BUSH”.
  • Only When I Laugh Three patients spend four years in hospital even though there’s absolutely nothing bloody well wrong with them.
  • Open Air YOU’RE OFF school – again – with an upset tummy.
  • Open All Hours TIGHT-ARSED STUTTERING grocercom
  • Open College BASICALLY, THE Open University for anyone not predispoed to a particle accelerator.
  • Open University HAROLD WILSON’S “University Of The Air”
  • Opportunity Knocks FANFARE FOR the common man, woman, child, four-piece close-harmony crooners, assorted domestic pets and muscle-bound mincers.
  • Optimist, The REALLY, REALLY shitcom
  • Organisation, The ARCH SATIRE on power games in the PR department of a large corporation and one most-literate series ever to grace the screen.
  • Origami PAPERFOLDY SHOW similar to the later ART OF…
  • Orion ANOTHER BLOODY sci-fi musical (see FACE LIFT).
  • Orlando KIDS’ SPINOFF from CRANE featuring SAM KYDD as the titular blarney-peddling hoodlum-pounding scruff.
  • Orm and Cheep CHUNKY CHROMAKEYED puppetry
  • Oscar MORE CHROMAKEYED black velvet marionettage for summer holiday mornings
  • Oskar, Kina and the Laser NOW THIS is what we call obscure.
  • Other ‘Arf, The WELL, WE know THIS one existed
  • Other One, The PIDDLING TITFER scripted by the Esmonde-Larbey GOOD LIFE dream team had RICHARD BRIERS and MICHAEL GAMBON
  • Other Side of Midnight, The IT WAS the best of times, it was the blurst of times.
  • Otherworld SUMMER HOLIDAY fare, c. 10am weekdays.
  • OTT/Saturday Stayback ADULT TISWAS
  • Our Backyard LUGBURIOUS LUNCHTIME fare for kids fronted by a cartoon seagull, whose chief job was to fill in the wearied viewer on the show’s never-changing location.
  • Our John Willie GEORDIE GRIMNESS in the form of a Catherine Cookson adaptation
  • Our Show ROTTEN SATURDAY rowdy runtathon and brief regional replacement for the “irresponsible” TISWAS
  • Our World/My World EVER-CHANGING TITLE of sub-religious “Why can’t we all just get along?”-ery in the form of a kindly bearded man in a studio “meeting” kids and showing film of global activities.
  • Out FOUL-MOUTHED, KIDNEY-KNUCKLING ex-con TOM BELL gets “out” of nick and goes on the trail of the bloke who done grassed him up.
  • Out of the Unknown SUPERLATIVE BRIT-FI anthology in the old TWILIGHT ZONE format
  • Out of Town/Old Country A PROGRAMME as old as ITV itself – nearly.
  • Outer Space PRE-SWAP SHOP carry-on of precious little consequence and even fewer viewers.
  • Owen MD RESIDENT PATIENT of the Beeb’s early 70s schedules
  • Owl Service, The FOWL PLAY from the North.
  • Oxford Road Show, The TEXTBOOK WORTHY-BUT-DULL show on “issues” for “young adults” by “young adults”

  • P is for…

  • Packet of Three ONE OF THOSE self-styled comedy showcases that did nothing of the sort.
  • Pacman’s Adventures in Pac Land EARLY ATTEMPT at computer game crossover that should have ensured it never happened again.
  • Paddington WORLD’S MOST famous sporter of the duffle coat until L. Gallagher.
  • Paddles Up AS KICK START was to junior motorcycling, so PADDLES UP was to canoeing.
  • Pages from Ceefax THE BEEB’S screensaver.
  • Paint Along with Nancy STILL RETAINS a sizeable cult following to this day.
  • Pallisers, The MASSIVE OVERDOSE of Anthony Trollope historama
  • Paper Lads, The CHARMLESS CHILDREN’S soap about paper rounds.
  • Paperplay REDOUBTABLE LUNCHTIME ten-minuter
  • Paradise Club, The BULLMAN AND DIRTY DEN – together at last!
  • Paradise Island BILL “GAFFER/FROGGIT” MAYNARD and WILLIAM FRANKLYN find themselves shipwrecked on a south sea island that looks suspiciously like a set. Laughs in a bottle.
  • Paradise Postponed JOHN MORTIMER swaps a swig of BAILEY for a hefty helping of post-war decline-and-fall histrionics adapted from his own novel and layered with two dozen coatings of A-list sheen.
  • Paramount City COMIC SHOWCASE at name-donating London nightspot
  • Pardon My Genie A HAPLESS young tyke going by the name of Hal Adden (do you see?) played by ELLIS JONES is cheerily polishing his watering cans when out pops HUGH PADDICK.
  • Parkinson ONCE UPON a long ago, this was the finest chat show of them all
  • Partners DEREK WARING and MILLICENT “TW3” MARTIN are the estranged owners of a bathroom furniture factory. Is their relationship destined to go, hey, down the plughole?
  • Partridge Family, The SUGAR-COATED DISPATCHES from the picket-fenced permanently-sunny perimeters of the eponymous bird-named brood
  • Pass the Buck BRIEF BUT not brief enough Wednesday night quizzer
  • Pathfinders A TRIPTYCH of Sunday night monochrome sci-fi escapades
  • Paul Daniels Magic Show, The THE NATION’S number one syrup-sporting sorceror
  • Paul Hogan Show, The RED-FACED ANTIPODEAN roisterer
  • Paulus the Wood Gnome MITTEL-EUROPEAN GNOMIC adventures of Paulus
  • Pebble Mill at One IMPERIAL LUNCHEON appointment and always a highlight of any school skive
  • Penda’s Fen PLAY FOR TODAY spin off.
  • Pennies From Heaven PSYCHOLOGICAL HOT shoe shuffle from the predictably barbed pen of DENNIS POTTER
  • Penny Crayon PESTERING CBBC business, based on suggestion of GOING LIVE competition winner
  • Pennywise/Bazaar WELL-MEANING BUT effortlessly patronising daytimers
  • Perfect Strangers SHORT-ARSED MISERABLIST batchelor finds out he has a wayward cousin from comedy made-up backward East European island of Mypos.
  • Perils of PC Penrose, The EARLY OUTING for PAUL GREENWOOD as a local town bobby ingenue.
  • Perils of Penelope Pitstop, The “HAYULP!”
  • Perishers, The MODEST PRE-NATIONWIDE cartoonery with various crap kids (Marlon, Maisie, the little one, the one with the hat) and their dog Wellington Boot, voiced by LEONARD ROSSITER, forever building go karts.
  • Persuaders!, The TWO “HILARIOUSLY” (hence the exclamation mark) mismatched crimefighters
  • Peter Cook & Co ONE-OFF “COMEBACK” for posh whiskery waster, aided and abetted by others, which flopped.
  • Petrocelli HARD-TALKIN’ HARD-DRINKIN’ Italianamerican lawyer (BARRY NEWMAN), married to SUSAN HOWARD, does a sort of more violent Perry Mason routine
  • Petticoat Junction RAMBLING RURAL odyssey in an Ordinary Sleepy Hotel in Hooterville.
  • Peyton Place STUBBORN SCHEDULE whelk.
  • Philomena ESCAPDES OF a cartoon blue cat in a farmyard.
  • Phoenix and the Carpet, The YET ANOTHER case of rampant Nesbitism on the part of the BBC classic serials department
  • Phoenix Five MORE UNWANTED flotsam washed up from Down Under
  • Photograph, A
  • Photograph, A
  • Pickersgill People WHIMSICAL DRAMA by MIKE STOTT set in and around a fictional Lancashire town.
  • Picture Box NO-NONSENSE BRAN TUB of films from around the world
  • Pie in the Sky “PIE SHIP to pieman!”
  • Pigeon Street THEY NEVER learned how to do hands properly, did they?
  • Pinchcliffe Grand Prix, The AN ODD (and rather depressing, frankly) feature-length stop-motion cartoon about a kindly old inventor bloke
  • Pink Medicine Show, The MEDICAL MALPRACTICE of a Friday night as written and performed by DR. CHRIS BEETLES and DR. ROB BUCKMAN with LYNDA “PRESTON” BELLINGHAM.
  • Pink Panther Show, The LET’S GET the order right here.
  • Pinny’s House FINAL PRODUCTION from the worksheds of OLIVER POSTGATE and PETER FIRMIN
  • Pipkins
  • Planet of the Apes FRIPPERSOME FRANCHISE extension of the films
  • Plank, The BEST KNOWN of several silent comedy shorts familiar from local screenings and summer holiday TV.
  • Plastic Man FLOPPY FIFTIES hero had semi-aware technicolouru adventures with the regulation fat, Hawaiian-shirted sidekick and (latterly) “Baby Plas”.
  • Play Away CAMP SONGS and stories for the under-12s
  • Play Chess IT’S THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS, school’s out… so why not draw the curtains so there’s no light on the telly and tune in to PLAY CHESS?
  • Play for Today EVERYTHING AND the kitchen sink.
  • Play Guitar ANOTHER INSTALLMENT in that rich seam of Sunday morning cheapo edutainment.
  • Play School “A HOUSE. With a door! Windows, 1, 2, 3, 4.”
  • Play Your Cards Right IT’S 5.15PM, work’s over, Thames have fucked off, “and dealing the first hand of the weekend, right on time, Bruce Forsyth.”
  • Playboard THE PLAYBOARD Puppet Theatre did many things (most famously BUTTON MOON), but started off on Sunday morning BBC1 with this effort.
  • Playbus PLAY SCHOOL-REPLACING nod to neo-multicultural values (Humpty no longer deemed to cut the inclusivity mustard) in which the titular bus called at a different stop each weekday.
  • Playhouse MINI-TELEPLAYS FOR kids of varying topics and quality, originally a JACKANORY spinoff.
  • Please, Sir! COMPREHENSIVE PRANKERY starring a mob of tousled twenty- (in some cases thirty-) somethings squeezing behind desks
  • Plum’s Pots and Plants SHORTLIVED SLAPSTICK for ver kids tipping an unsubtle-sized hat to THE GOODIES
  • Pob’s Programme SALIVA-SATURATED SILLINESS from Mrs Roland Rat, aka ANNE WOOD.
  • Pogles, The/Pogles’ Wood DIRT-CHEAP PUPPETRY filmed in the dirt and on the cheap in OLIVER POSTGATE’s back garden
  • Points of View “DEAR BBC, I am quite frankly staggered. Yours, quite frankly staggered.”
  • Poldark DREARY CORNISH period yarn charting the dreary fortunes of the titular army captain watching over his dreary Cornish estate at the end of the 18th century.
  • Pole Position TYRE-SOME IMPORT (do you see?) drawn in that crappy style of the time whereby everyone had massive eyeballs, triangular mouths and “moved” by virtue of standing still while the background maniacally juddered out of focus.
  • Police Five DOUBLE-SURNAMED SHAW TAYLOR takes personal responsibility for eliminating crime from these shores by way of five-minute despatches from pretend office.
  • Pond Life BRINGING UP the rear in the FERGUS O’KELLY voice-over triumverate (behind MATHS TOPICS and EXPERIMENT!) came this this steady-but-sure dragonfly/tadpole/frogstravaganza on good old 16mm.
  • Poor Little Rich Girls IFFY SITCOM cooked up by stars MARIA “TONY” AITKEN and JILL “COLIN” BENNETT over lunch (fact).
  • Pop Quiz DUNUNUNUNUNUH-DUH NUH! “POP QUIZ!!!”
  • Pop the Question SNAP! A futile attempt to replicate success of the above, masterminded by BEADLEBUM.
  • Poparound LOWER LEAGUE to the legendary RUNAROUND with the accent more on “the popular music of the day”, thanks to GARY “EAR SAY” CROWLEY failing to fill MIKE REID’s ample size tens by several acres.
  • Porridge OBSCURE CHARACTER study with BRIAN “WYATT’S WATCHDOGS” WILDE.
  • Porterhouse Blue ALL-IN academic decadence satire-cum-farce (sat-arce?) from the ever-deviant pen of TOM SHARPE, as adapted for the telly by MALCOLM BRADBURY, who knows a thing or two about lurid goings-on in bent universities.
  • Portland Bill “COME WITH me to the rolling sea/Where the weather’s calm and still…”
  • Postman Pat WE’RE NOT interested in any latterday lousy remake or stupid real-life roustabout; only the original, and superior, vintage is what matters
  • Pot Black WHISPERING TED LOWE and his “just behind the green” black and white accounting shenanigans were chief in this Matchroom-helmed flowering of snooker
  • Potter FIRST ARTHUR LOWE then ROBIN BAILEY was your eponymous curmudgeonly old curmudgeon with amiable mate insulting shopkeepers, landlords and numerous landed gentry.
  • Potter’s Picture Palace PRE-NATIONWIDE CARRY-ON of a kids comedy series set in an old cinema
  • Potty Time, Michael Bentine’s EX-GOON AND Square-worlder played avuncular host to the Potties
  • Power Game, The CUTTHROAT CHICANERY and dastardly derring-do in the alluring, nefarious world of budget airline manufacture.
  • Power of Memory, The YET MORE sleep-inducing sophistry for a Sunday morning
  • Powers of Matthew Star, The TRIVIAL TALE OF an alien prince (as in BENJI) sent to Earth with guardian (LOU GOSSETT) to engage in plenty of sub-Superman schoolboy telekenisis junketry.
  • Praise Be! SUMMERTIME STAND-IN for SONGS OF PRAISE, hosted by THORA HIRD from an oversized armchair in her “home” surrounded by numerous religious trinkets, baubles, bangles and beads.
  • Press Gang The finest children’s drama series ever made
  • Pretenders MORE HOKUM from Harlech.
  • Prince of Denmark, The MID-PERIOD OUTING for the littlest Ronnie
  • Prisoner Cell Block H ROTTEN PANTOMIMESQUE female lag epic
  • Prisoner, The Man drives very fast into an underground car park.
  • Private Schulz THE SECOND World War, eh? That was a barrel of laughs!
  • Professionals, The PYRO PUDDLE-SPLASHING, cardboard box-barging, “cover me!”-shouting, gun-held-with-both-hands, barrel-up-nose-having adventures
  • Professor Lobster ODDBEAT ODDMENT of a kids’ semi-educational series about building and architecture.
  • Professor Poopsnaggle’s Steam Zeppelin OZ IMPORT for kids screened in (sigh) two-hour segments.
  • Professor Popper’s Problems ONLY ONE problem, to be fair.
  • Project UFO NOT UFO, mind; instead, a keep-watching-the-skies spookarama that always began with a UFO “visitation” on a hick redneck Southern town.
  • Prospects EAST-END DESOLATION, Thatcher-style.
  • Protectors, The NOT TO be confused with THE PERSUADERS, THE PURSUERS or, indeed, THE PROTECTORS
  • PS, it’s Paul Squire ERSTWHILE SEARCH FOR A STAR starlet searches for star quality with less than star-studded sketch shambles.
  • Public Eye LONG-DISTANCE SHODDINESS from ALFRED BURKE
  • Pulaski A DASH of MOONLIGHTING and a soupcon of GARRY SHANDLING stirred together then strained with Auntie cost-cutting relish
  • Pull the Other One MICHAEL ELPHICK, fresh from botching up the German invasion of Britain (see above), decides instead to settle down for a quiet life with the missus in Birmingham
  • Punchlines LENNIE BENNETT (of LENNIE AND JERRY) helmed this flimsy half-arsed rip-off variation on Hollywood/Celebrity Squares.
  • Punky Brewster IS THERE room in your cold, mean old heart for an adorable lost little girl and her dog? No, of course not.
  • Puppy’s New Adventures, The/Further Adventures TREACLY STEW of canine comradeship
  • Puzzle Trail Another DOIG delight, and an interactive one to boot.
  • Pyramid Game, The LATE 80s MORNING TRANSPOSITION for mid-80s annoyingly sturdy triangular playing field

  • Q is for…

  • Q.E.D. MUCH LOVED BBC popular science series that seemed best served when stuck out after the NINE O’CLOCK NEWS.
  • Q5/Q6/Q7 etc. MILLIGAN MULLARKEY which bemused most (including the Beeb) but delighted enough to keep it being recommissioned despite the same things showing up in the same order every bloody series.
  • Quandaries A BIT LIKE SCRUPLES. In fact, a lot like Scruples. But with MATTHEW KELLY.
  • Quark SPACE NONSENSE about an intergalactic dustman.
  • Quatermass THE ESCAPDES of NIGEL “KINVIG” KNEALE’S phone-book-named uber-scientist.
  • Queen Street Gang, The DOZEY BOFFIN with big head is nabbed.
  • Queen, The Regal communique from Commonwealth-manufactured mahogany writing bureau doubling as traditional televised post-prandial leg stretch/retire to the other room interlude.
  • Queenie’s Castle KEITH WATERHOUSE and WILLIS HALL-penned palaver for DIANA DORS
  • Quest, The KURT RUSSELL dons statutory small screen Wild West outfit and steps out into the dust to look for his long lost sister.
  • Question of Sport, A “SPORTING WIT AND BADINAGE”, as Ceefax often had it
  • Question Time UNCOUTH VERSION of Radio 4’s Any Questions, only with pictures.
  • Quick Before They Catch Us RAMBLING SATURDAY ramble through laughably watered-down Swinging Sixties
  • Quick on the Draw WEEKDAY AFTERNOON siestathon hosted by LORD BOB MONKHOUSE
  • Quiller SO SO thriller filler based on famed torture-proof creation of US writer Elleston Trevor
  • Quincy, M.E. “GENTLEMAN, YOU are about to enter the most fascinating sphere of police work.”
  • Quiz Ball INSANELY COMPLICATED parlour game panel joust
  • Quiz Night ONE-TIME NORTH WEST-ONLY, then nationwide, shamblathon hosted by the mighty STUART HALL (in contractual obligation mode).

  • R is for…

  • R3 HIGH-FALUTIN’ MACHINE-TOOTLIN’ tribute to that most ubiquitous of 1960s freestanding studio sets, the Government Research Laboratory.
  • Rachel and the Roarettes LESBIONIC BIKER gang hold up a wedding ceremony, then turn up in 1700s period costume to do an opera.
  • Radio OIK’S DRAMA set in local kids radio station called Radio Phoenix and written in part by FRENCH and SAUNDERS.
  • Raffles CRAVAT-SPORTING CREEPERY of the yowser roisterer shafer-me-lad kind.
  • Rag Trade, The EARDRUM-BATTERING COMEDY OF the working class woman from RONALDs WOLFE and CHESNEY.
  • Ragdolly Anna LITTLE-SEEN AND less-remembered stop motion toy triviality.
  • Raggy Dolls, The MUCH LIKE the above, except with scores of ’em instead of the one.
  • Ragtime TIDDLY POM!
  • Railway Carriage Game, The WRETCHED WITLESS whimsical game show boasting a triumvirate the like of which could only have been dreamt of
  • Rainbow MEDIOCRE STUDENT T-shirt industry.
  • Raising of the Mary Rose, The DOES THE name BABCOCK POWER CONSTRUCTION ring a bell?
  • Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) ACE DEAD detective capery with KENNETH COPE Rentaghosting about in a Martin Bell suit, and the hapless MIKE PRATT as his earthbound colleague.
  • Rat Catchers, The ORDINARY BLOKE (GLYN OWEN) gets coerced into working for sinister baldy with steel-rimmed specs (PHILIP STONE) whose boss is GERALD “KAMELION” FLOOD.
  • Ratties, The FRITTERSOME FIVE-MINUTER about a group of rats living in the skirting board
  • Raven ALL YOUR usual HTV nonsense
  • Rawhide DEFINITIVE TAKE on the telly Western
  • Razzmatazz COMMERCIAL CHIP off the CHEGGERS block.
  • Ready, Steady, Go! WHAT RICHARD O’SULLIVAN was to Friday night telly in the 80s.
  • Real World, The FORMER TOMORROW’S WORLDLING MICHAEL “SCREEN TEST” RODD defected to link up with SUE JAY to front ITV’s typically flashier rival pop science wrap-up
  • Record Breakers, The LONG-RUNNING PROMOTIONAL campaign for the Guinness family and, for most of its existence, the only place you’d see 80-year-olds on children’s telly.
  • Red Hand Gang, The OVERLIT OVERLOUD American kidaventures starring five urban under-12s who separated out into the usual archetypes
  • Reilly, Ace of Spies TRUE-LIFE ESPIONAGE yarn adapted for the small screen by masterful TROY “EDGE OF…” KENNEDY MARTIN.
  • Relative Strangers HIRSUTE NON-HYSTERICS from MATTHEW KELLY
  • Remington Steele DITZY WOMAN names detective agency after a bloke that doesn’t exist
  • Rentaghost DALLAS FOR primary schools, in that it ran and ran and ran, everybody ended up bored with it, nobody could remember why it had started in the first place, and the whole thing was never less than stupendously preposterous.
  • Return to Eden HANNA AND BARBERA venture into live action, but this appalling Antipodean Dynasty rip-off was no Banana Splits.
  • Revolver GLAM SVENGALI MICKIE MOST produced this punk-pop show, notably fronted by a (as usual) glum bastard PETER COOK laughably pretending to be the manager of the venue it was set in.
  • Rhubarb Rhubarb IN THE tradition of THE PLANK, this was also written and directed by the redoubtable ERIC SYKES.
  • Richard Stilgoe Show, The NOW THERE’S a title to toy with.
  • Right Charlie RUN-OF-THE-MILL CIRCUS clownery with veteran wig-side-flap-raiser CHARLIE CAIROLI
  • Right to Reply FETED – AND ultimately fated – come-and-have-a-go drop-in centre for viewers seeking to take programme-makers “to task”.
  • Rings on Their Fingers DIANE KEEN and MARTIN JARVIS are a clean-cut coupla young aw-gee-shucks-now lovebirds for whom nuptials are on the cards
  • Ripcord BONKERS CRIME serial featuring Quick Yankee Ted McKeever (LARRY PENNELL) and Slow Southerner Jim Buckley (KEN CURTIS)
  • Ripping Yarns PALIN-JONES BRAINSTORMERY brilliance.
  • Rising Damp THAT KNACKERED-SOUNDING piano theme was your welcome
  • Ritz, The JOHN GODBER penned this adaptation of one of his “hilarious” Hull Truck Company stage plays, Bouncers.
  • River, The ABSOLUTE premier division fuck-wittery
  • Roadworthy CAR MAINTENANCE series set in what was supposedly a (curiously studio-like) garage.
  • Robert’s Robots BOB “RENTAGHOST” BLOCK-scripted sci-fi weirdoid adventures of Robert Sommerby (JOHN CLIVE), a James Burke type bloke with frizzy hair, who built robots
  • Robin of Sherwood NOTTINGHAMSHIRE NONNIER jazzed up with “mystical” overtones.
  • Robin’s Nest RICHARD “BEANS! Beans! Chunky chicken!” O’SULLIVAN gets bored of lying ABOUT THE HOUSE and opens a restaurant with TESSA WYATT.
  • Robostory ENDLESS FRENCH cartoon, often found filling in summer weekday mornings
  • Robotic Stooges, The ALARMING SPIN-OFF of The Three Stooges
  • Rock Follies TONSIL-TRILLING “EXPOSE” of the music business following the fortunes of girl band (sorry, it’s the 70s – “group”) The Little Ladies.
  • Rock School SO HOW many young careers of the time staked their hopes on this thrown-together educational band?
  • Rock With Laughter OR SIT IN sour-faced sod-it silence.
  • Rock’n’Roll Years, The PREEMPTING THE keenness of all VT editors to stick a pumping soundtrack of the day behind anything recorded, albeit in a more measured fashion, the changing face of pop was measured out in newsreel footage that eventually covered 1956 to 1980 inclusive.
  • Rocket Robin Hood FUTURISTIC CARTOON CAPERS relocating the Robin Hood legend lock, stock and barrel into some bizarre world where everyone wears jet packs and eats, no doubt, roast hog on a spit-flavoured pills.
  • Rockford Files, The RIIIIING! RIIIIING!
  • Rockliffe’s Babies BILL-BAITING FRIDAY night coppering, focusing on seven wet-behind-the-ears trainee detectives
  • Rocky and Bullwinkle PREVIOUSLY JUST “Rocky and his Friends”
  • Rocky O’Rourke GROTTY KIDS grimeathon serial
  • Rod, Jane and Freddy TOUSLED RAINBOW trio tootlers spin off with a quickly-forgotten “musical play” set around some misjudged theme – eg “Wobblyworld” where everyone was made of jelly. The kids wouldn’t have it.
  • Roger Ramjet SOMETHING AMUSING about that name, hmmm?
  • Roland Rat – the Series RAPPING RODENT jumps previously sinking ship of TV-am for primetime Saturday evening slottage just before DR WHO.
  • Rolf Harris Cartoon Time NEVER ROLF HARRIS’S CARTOON TIME, oh no.
  • Rolf on Saturday…OK! FALLING BETWEEN old school, black-and-white HEY PRESTO – IT’S ROLF! and the above came this
  • Roll Over Beethoven UNASSUMING NAIF waif LIZA GODDARD dwells in unassuming English sitcom village
  • Romany Jones WAIT! IT gets worse, for here’s ARTHUR MULLARD and QUEENIE WATTS living it up in a down-at-heel caravan park.
  • Romper Room PRODUCED IN both “national” and “regional opt-out” flavours, this pre-school programme cropped up everywhere from Norwich to Nebraska, customised to suit the locale.
  • Roobarb THAT WOBBLY felt-tip animation technique patented by Godfrey and co. was called “boiling”
  • Room at the Bottom UPDATED 1960s sitcommery painting the nefarious world of the media in big, fuck-off-obvious strokes.
  • Rooster SHAMELESS STUFF from our favourite tatmeister.
  • Roots MADE-FOR-TV MULTIPART marathon of a miniseries
  • Rosie THE TIME had come for him to leave.
  • Rough with the Smooth, The REDOUBTABLY AIMLESS sitcom providing a crust for off-duty GOODIE TIM BROOKE-TAYLOR
  • Roxy, The AN ITV alternative to TOP OF THE POPS? Surely it could never work?
  • Rumpole of the Bailey EVER-RELIABLE COURTROOM sparring from JOHN MORTIMER
  • Runaround ENJOYABLE EARTHY nuts-and-bolts kids quizzery
  • Running Scared EYEBROW RAISING (and, at the Beeb, hackles raising) gritty children’s serial
  • Runway RICHARD MADELEY would often double your agony on those precious days off by appearing twice.
  • Rupert the Bear STRING-POWERED ANTICS for early-morning kiddies’ telly.
  • Russell Harty ARTICULAR AVUNCULARISMS twice-weekly at 8.30pm
  • Russell Harty Plus LONG-RUNNING PREDECESSOR of the above, and the one that made Russ a household name.
  • Russian Language and People COLD WAR-MOCKING adult education affair wherein TANYA FEIFER taught eager proto-Glasnostians the Cyrillic alphabet
  • Rutland Weekend Television ERIC IDLE and Not The Unofficial Python NEIL INNES churned out dozens of these Temazepam-smeared post-Liberty Bell bonanzas
  • Ryan and Ronnie BI-LINGUAL WELSH sketch effort anglicised by the Beeb for a wider audience.

  • S is for…

  • S.P.L.A.T. PRE-WIDE AWAKE CLUB shortlived Saturday morning effort.
  • Sailor NAUTICAL FLY-ON-CABIN-WALL doco.
  • Saint and Greavsie/Jimmy Greaves “IT’S A FUNNY old game,” vouchsafed JIMMY GREAVES practically every week on this Saturday lunchtime soccer drone-fest.
  • Saint, The/Return of The Saint ROGER MOORE tours famous back projection blue screens of the world.
  • Sale of the Century IT CAME from Norwich.
  • Salty A SORT OF Flipper with actual flippers.
  • Salvage One FORGOTTEN GEM of a US TV movie
  • Salve Regina EARLY ENTRY in that most benighted of dramatic genres, the post-apocalyptic “bunch of raggle-taggle survivors shout at each other in the wasteland thus providing pithy commentary on modern society” format.
  • Sam on Boff’s Island WEIRD, HALF-REMEMBERED educational oddity.
  • Sandbaggers, The SUNDAY NIGHT ROY MARSDEN/RAY LONNEN vehicle.
  • Sapphire and Steel WOBBLY FRIDGE magnet letters and tadgerish geometric cartoons began this pretentious sci-fi supernatuum about two elemental agents…
  • Saracen IF DEMPSEY AND MAKEPEACE and CATS EYES hadn’t already proved that us Brits are pretty poor at this fast-paced, action-packed crime show malarkey, this dire Central effort, like Yorkshire’s ambitious Hong Kong-based YELLOWTHREAD STREET, hammered the point home.
  • Saturday Banana BILL ODDIE again.
  • Saturday Gang SCRABBLING AROUND for yet another Saturday teatime placement, John Birt settled upon this charmless formula tosh
  • Saturday Morning Show, The POST-SATURDAY SCENE, pre-TISWAS morning miscellany for London-bound kids.
  • Saturday Night Affairs ANOTHER WOEFULLY misguided effort from the regions (see SIN ON SATURDAY) to fill the 10.30pm slot when Parky, Carrott and Wogan were on holiday.
  • Saturday Night People EPIC EPICUREAN jawathon live from the South Bank boasting the tremulous troika of CLIVE JAMES, JANET-STREET PORTER and RUSSELL HARTY
  • Saturday Scene IT WASN’T all TISWAS and SIX FIFTY-FIVE SPECIAL for the lovely SALLY JAMES.
  • Saturday Show, The LITTLE SEEN and even less watched contemporary of BBC1’s SATURDAY SUPERSTORE had TOMMY BOYD and ISLA ST CLAIR sitting together awkwardly at the same desk.
  • Saturday Starship AND AGAIN with the Boydster.
  • Saturday Superstore NO BREAKDANCERS or bodypoppers, please.
  • Scarecrow and Mrs King YANKCENTRIC DETECTIVE yarns in REMINGTON STEELE vein
  • Science Workshop DESPITE HAVING a Beebed-up version of Pink Floyd’s ‘Time’ for the theme, accompanied by a cartoon elephant jumping on a triangle, this two-man one-woman schools physics show was fair enough.
  • Scooby Doo, Where Are You? IF YOU ignore THE FLINTSTONES, which we find easy to do, probably *the* flagship H-B show.
  • Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics
  • Scotch and Wry FINEST COMEDY BBC Scotland ever managed to cobble together
  • Screen Test Memory-test quizzery in old-fashioned ties-for-the-boys, sit-up-straight, desks ‘n’ buzzers extravaganza.
  • Scully ALAN BLEASDALE etched these BLACKSTUFF-lite tales of the eponymous Scouse kid (ANDREW SCHOFIELD) kicking in phone boxes and failing a trial for Liverpool FC.
  • Sealab 2000 ANIMATED ECO-FINGER-POINTING creation
  • Search Control FUTURISTIC (FOR its time) escapades following the exploits of cyber-sleuths
  • Seaside/Summertime Special ASPIC-PICKLED ASININE variety gadabout from a different pier each week.
  • Seaview YVETTE FIELDING’S most notable hour before coming clean about her Brave Skin Condition.
  • Seconds Out ARCHETYPAL “BITTERSWEET” comdram about a constantly hopeless boxer
  • Secret Army STIRRING TREMBLE-LIPPED stoicism from the Second World War
  • Secret Garden, The VOLUMINOUS VICTORIAN pinafore parade courtesy of template BBC adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett tome.
  • Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty, The VAGUELY-REMEMBERED SERIES based on Danny Kaye’s Walter Mitty character
  • Secret of Steel City, The CZECH/BULGARIAN DRAMA defects to the west and gets dubbed for its troubles.
  • Secret Railroad ANIMATED CAPRICE concerning a kid named Simon who moves into an apartment building, and one day becomes absent minded and presses the elevator button to the basement.
  • Secret Service BAH BAH bah, bi-dooby-dooby-bah
  • Secret Squirrel SUPPOSED JAMES BOND pastiche, but if so, why was the eponymous squirrel dressed in Clouseau getup?
  • Secret War MINUTE DETAILS of Messherschmitts, hush-hush plots and assorted explosive devices in the Wednesday evening documentary slot after the news.
  • See For Yourself SPRAWLING EXERCISE in self-flagellation by a newly Birt-ised BBC
  • Sensible Show, The BARELY-BELIEVABLE QUIZ quackery hosted by a bristling MATTHEW KELLY.
  • Ser/Seren 2 THIS WAS HTV’s attempt at reflecting the varied and exciting (it says here) Welsh music scene
  • Serendipity RIDING THE 1970s home crafts (i.e. Britain is broke) boom like a hastily-put-together show possessed
  • Sergeant Cork FROM THE crime-addled mind of Lord TED “DIXON OF” WILLIS came this ropey historical number
  • Serpico NOT A single Pacino in sight for this corrupt cop spin-off series; instead, DAVID “BRIDGET LOVES” BIRNEY was the exposey good apple in a short-lived effort that fooled no-one.
  • Sesame Street THESE ARE the people in your neighbourhood. In your neighbourhood.
  • Seven Up “WHAT DOES university mean?”
  • Sez Les/Les Sez/The Les Dawson Show EXPECTED EXQUISITE dog-faced drollery from the rumbling northern ranconteur
  • Shadoks BONKERS FRENCH space cartoon seen briefly on holiday weekdays
  • Shang-a-Lang THE BAY CITY ROLLERS Show.
  • Shari Lewis Show, The FEMALE VENTRILOQUIST no longer with us who garned her own variety specials on the strength of the over-cute Lamp Chop
  • Sharon and Elsie YET ANOTHER wretched mid-80s sitcom with woeful sit and even worse com.
  • Sharp Intake of Breath, A FORGOTTEN SITCOMMAGE with DAVID “LUCKY FELLER” JASON
  • Shelley ULTIMATE ABOUT-NOTHING British sitcom
  • Shillingbury Tales ALL-ENGLISH-LIFE IS here Sunday night village affair
  • Shine on Harvey Moon DOE-EYED POST-WAR bittersweet comdram
  • Shirley’s World TAKE COVER!
  • Shoe People CRAPLY ANIMATED capers of footwear with predictable personalities
  • Shoestring THIS IS more like it.
  • Show Called Fred, A IT WAS the moment that changed British TV comedy forever: 10pm, February 24th 1956, when Associated-Rediffusion, in all their independent majesty, let SPIKE MILLIGAN on the telly.
  • Show-Me Show, The AFFABLE, NOTHING-TOO-COMPLEX popular science effort
  • Silas WRETCHED SMALL-SCREEN half-sibling of HEIDI.
  • Silver Spoons ONLY A few episodes of this son-and-dad reunioncom wankery were shown over here, usually just after Children’s ITV had finished.
  • Simon and Simon LIKE THE above, ubiquitous for a while over there, rarely glimpsed if at all over here.
  • Simon and the Witch ONE OF those not-quite-toddler, not-quite-teenager programmes you’d get in the 4.20pm slot.
  • Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings BOG-STANDARD CARTOON kid makes with the “special” chalk to create a magical black-background world of his own.
  • Sin on Saturday IT’S THE FALKSTER again
  • Sin with our Permission MILTON KEYNES-BAITING drama about a new town which controls its citizens via a bizarre daily soap.
  • Singing Detective, The THE PINNACLE of Potterism.
  • Singing Ringing Tree, The UBIQUITOUSLY HALF-REMEMBERED dubbed film
  • Singles QUARTET OF big-haired, big-suited losers meet in none-more-late-80s “sit” venue of a singles bar and proceed to chase each other’s affections in search of “com”.
  • Sink or Swim PETER DAVIDSON puts on a northern accent and lives in a houseboat for this on-a-budget sitcommery shown at the very same time as he was applying the rules of cricket to the laws of space and time in DR WHO.
  • Sir Prancelot JAUNTY MEDIEVAL goings-on from the CAPTAIN PUGWASH stable of slaked cut-out capers.
  • Sir Yellow LEGENDARY UNSALVAGEABLE sitcom disaster which for a long time held the record for fastest “schedule shunt”: from 7pm on a Friday for episode one to 12.05am on Sunday by episode three.
  • Sit Thi Deawn HOMESPUN SUB-SPINNERS folkie quartet THE HOUGHTON WEAVERS in matching home-knit and beards
  • Six English Towns/Six More English Towns/Another Bloody Six English Towns EPITOME OF CHEAPO look-at-this pointy telly.
  • Six Fifty-Five Special ABSOLUTELY SOD-ALL to do with Pete Murray
  • Six Million Dollar Man, The GENTLEMEN, WE have the technology. We can rebuild him.
  • Six O’Clock Show, The ASPEL-HELMED LONDON-ONLY weekend-starting magazine
  • Six Wives of Henry VIII, The KEITH MITCHELL romps and bollocks his way through Renaissance England
  • Sixty Minutes 59 AND a half minutes too long, more like.
  • Skiboy
  • Skill of Lip-Reading, The FREAKO OLD maid duo host teach-yourself silent communication class by turning the sound off and saying things.
  • Skippy the Bush Kangaroo AUSTRALIA’S MOST exported show (to 128 countries at last count).
  • Sky DAVID BOWIE’S COKE-ADDLED mid ’70s phase influenced many areas of popular culture, though perhaps the most unexpected change was wrought on the medium of independent children’s science fiction telly.
  • Sky at Night, The SMALL SCREEN equivalent of the Galapagos Island tortoise.
  • Sky’s the Limit, The ROTTEN PLAYTHING cooked up by HUGHIE GREENE as a replacement for DOUBLE YOUR MONEY
  • Small Problem, A IN THE near-ish future everyone under five foot high is hunted down, for satirical comedy purposes.
  • Small Wonder THE DEPTHS to which mankind can sink was effectively summed up in this schmaltzcom
  • Small World of Samuel Tweet, The KIDS COMEDY vehicle for once-loved bowler-hatted weirdo FREDDIE “PARROT FACE” DAVIES
  • Smith and Goody MOONLIGHTING FROM pulling rubbery faces and dressing up as comedy punks on NOT THE NINE O’CLOCK NEWS, MEL SMITH did this uncomfortable Books Are Fun, Kids! comedy/educational effort
  • Smurfs, The NOT MUCH to add about this twiddly blue gnome franchise
  • So It Goes RETROSPECTIVELY REVERED northerly proto-punk music and “lifestyle” rabbleathon
  • So You Think…You Can Believe Your Eyes THE SO YOU THINK… format had been running on and off (mostly off) on the Beeb since 1965’s So You Think You Can Drive.
  • So You Want to be Top? NOISY SHOUTY roustabout ostensibly cocking a “snook” at “teacher” but in reality a lazily-themed kids’ gameshow ripping off CRACKERJACK
  • Soap RICH FAMILY/POOR family satirecom
  • Softly, Softly STARCHED SPIN-OFF of Z CARS
  • Soldier and Me NINE-PART ADAPTATION by David Line of his best-selling children’s thriller.
  • Solo THUNDEROUSLY PO-FACED pickle penned by CARLA LANE with FELICITY KENDAL “struggling” as a single woman trying to fight “the system” i.e. men.
  • Solo One DUSTILY-REMEMBERED STAPLE of Granada’s school holiday morning schedules, featuring PAUL CRONIN as Aussie motorbike cop Gary Hogan, spun-off from MATLOCK POLICE.
  • Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em! OH LOOK, there’s a retarded man hanging over a cliff.
  • Something Else POST-PUNK MUSIC and “issues” show which roamed the provinces each week for mohicaned discussion and the new one from Magazine.
  • Song and the Story, The ISLA ST CLAIR buggers off to some rural part of Scotland or something, sings some folk songs, and “investigates” the stories behind them. Soporific stuff.
  • Songbook INSUFFERABLE REPLACEMENT for the inoffensively irreplaceable A HANDFUL OF SONGS in ITV’s lunchtime kiddies’ slot.
  • Songs of Praise PARISHONAL POW-WOW showcasing abnormally packed congregations doled up to the nines singing in an exaggerated fashion.
  • Sons and Daughters AFTERNOON STRIPPED Aussie cut-price DYNASTY tomfoolery from the melodrama meister Reg Grundy.
  • Sooty Show, The VARIOUSLY MONIKERED capers of orange, verbally-challenged, water pistol-toting magic bear-cum-hand puppet possessed by extreme powers of endurance.
  • Sorry Mate, I Didn’t See You! YET ANOTHER of those preachy ON THE MOVE-style BBC educational initiatives, aimed at teaching the unwashed masses about road safety.
  • Sorry! PERENIALLY KNOCKED yet persistently nifty sitcom warhorse blessed with one of the greatest TV themes ever
  • Sounding Brass UNNECESSARY ENCORE for the old-as-hills brass-band-as-sitcom number
  • Sounds Like Music OH DEAR LORD.
  • South Bank Show, The JAUNDICED JUGGERNAUT of “It’s The Arts” franchise-fulfilling, regulator-appeasing slurry
  • South of the Border NORTHERNER FORCED by circumstance moves to the South of England looking for work.
  • Space Ghost SEMI-ANIMATED MASKED geezer with invisible powers and special belt fights interplanetary crime with Jayce and Jan and Blip the monkey.
  • Space Giants JAPANESE-DUBBED-TO-ENGLISH CAPERY about a 50 foot tall robot named Goldar
  • Space Patrol WHEN PEOPLE start talking about “that FIREBALL XL5 show – the one with the parrot” it’s this lesser-known effort they mean.
  • Space Sentinels STIFFLY-ANIMATED ADVENTURES of three superheroes who live in a volcano
  • Space: 1999 GERRY ANDERSON thinks he can better STAR TREK
  • Special Branch TOUGH-NOSED, HARD-PERMED, tight-trousered cop shop series which graduated from studio-bound videotaped vaudeville to all-on-film out-and-out shouting.
  • Speed Buggy THREE TEENAGE kids (a shiny new sixpence to whoever can remember their no doubt way-out names) have rattling adventures in the eponymous buggy, a crazy car that always spluttered to a halt at a crucial getaway moment.
  • Spider-Man THE ORIGINAL cartoon of the “webbed wonder” of comic fame
  • Spider-Man (II) LIVE-ACTION SPIDEYFEST that’s the best for our money simply because, being live-action, it looks completely ridiculous.
  • Spine Chillers SPOOKEEE SPIN-OFF of Jackanory, as the likes of MARTIN “RINGS” JARVIS tell mildly hair-raising tales in pre-NATIONWIDE slot.
  • Spitting Image FOREVER ERRONEOUSLY referred to with a superfluous “S” at the end of the programme’s title
  • Splash TATTY MAGAZINE programme for kids in the quarter-to-five slot.
  • Spooner’s Patch BENT COPPERCOM which lingered for a while at the turn of the decade in spite of iffy plots, endless strikes and equally numerous cast changes
  • Sport AM GNOMIC CELTIC ANCHORMAN BOB SYMONDS was your genial host for this Monday night third-rate sportsfest.
  • Sport Billy ODD CARTOON kid of vaguely Hispanic origin battles evil green Queen Vandar and snivelling gnome-like henchman who want to “destroy all sport” for some reason.
  • Sporting Chance INCREDIBLY POPULAR at the time, virtually forgotten now.
  • Sporting Triangles LAME RIP-OFF of A Question Of Sport (no, it’s different, it’s got three teams, see?) hosted by NICK OWEN
  • Sportsview/Sportsnight/Midweek Sports Special ALL UNDER the banner of the “weekly review of sport”, these “sturdy” vehicles rounded up the action for the football-deprived midweek pundit.
  • Spy Force SECOND WORLD war adventures of a bunch of characters played by actors who seemed to star in every other Australian film and television drama at the time.
  • Spytrap ODDLY-THEMED ESPIONAGE quiz show for two teams of kids.
  • Square Leopard, The SPURIOUS SITCOM hastened out in the 4.45pm slot
  • Square One JOE BROWN, sans Bruvvers, mugged his way through this outsize snakes and ladders game.
  • Squirrels, The OFFICE POLITICKING over-easy.
  • Stab in the Dark, A LATE-NIGHT satire and politicised comment monologuery which, by our reckoning, marked the last knockings of old school ‘but seriously now, unemployment eh?’ Channel Four post-pub entertainment before THE WORD and its blowsy mates took over for good.
  • Stainless Steel and the Star Spies ONE-OFF SCI-FI kids sitcom by GRAY “WICKED WILLIE BOOKS” JOLLIFFE about a bunch of alien robots
  • Standby! Lights! Camera! Action! US FILM magazine, a sort of yank CLAPPERBOARD
  • Star Cops IN TRUTH the only thing worth saluting about this jumped-up jumpsuitery were the commendably non-unrealistic visual effects and models of Sir MAT IRVINE.
  • Star Fleet THUNDERBIRDS ANTIDOTE of uncertain Euro-Japanese origin
  • Star Games CUNNINGLY SEARCHING for a rival to IT’S A KNOCKOUT during that strange period when Stuart Hall held dominion over the continent, Thames hit upon the notion of an “all-star” version
  • Star Maidens ROLE-REVERSAL SPACE drama set on a planet where the women were in charge a la The Worm That Turned
  • Star Test This nosey parker super-computer inquisition managed to attract the big stars du jour such as Kenny Everett, Stephen Fry, Wendy James and er, Sydney Youngblood.
  • Star Turn KIDS CHARADES programme presented by the mighty BERNARD CRIBBINS.
  • Stargazy on Zummerdown RETARDED FUTURE British community indulges in an annual gathering where the village folk swear and throw vegetables at each other.
  • Starlost KEIR “2001” DULLEA starred in this bonkers effort about a space ark
  • Stars and Garters ONE-OFF DOCUMENTARY about pub entertainers for A-R the previous year gave way to this pub entertainment miscellany
  • Stars on Sunday SUNDAY EVENING. The 1970s.
  • Starsky and Hutch PAUL MICHAEL “RUNNING MAN” GLAZER and DAVID “SIX FIFTY FIVE SPECIAL” SOUL
  • Starstrider YET A further kids’ quiz show needlessly complicated by a cumbersome “space” theme.
  • Starting Out SUB-PUNKY THEME tune introduced educational wank for 16 plusses.
  • Steam Video Company, The POINTEDLY GIVEN the classification “FARCES” in Mark Lewisohn’s RT Comedy Guide
  • Stepping Stones YOUNG ‘UNS lunchtime stories and songs miscellany
  • Steptoe and Son TWO MANKY men shout at each other, first in black and white, then in colour.
  • Stig of the Dump MODERN TRACKSUIT and cagoul kid finds prehistoric stoneage tyke in ostensibly “classic” fantasy.
  • Stilgoe’s On/Stilgoe’s Around HE’S BACK!
  • Stingray ANYTHING CAN happen in the next half dozen observations.
  • Stone Tape, The RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP-SATURATED premier league haunted house caper
  • Stookie KID GANGS from the Clyde arse around a bit on obligatory patch of waste ground.
  • Stop That Laughing at the Back NOISY SKETCHATHON for kids with a “parents eh? Cuh!” theme
  • Stop, Look and Listen CHRIS TARRANT’S uvular midlands thwack narrated a different “look at life” film each week.
  • Stop-Go JUST-AFTER-LUNCHTIME SPROGS show
  • Stoppit and Tidyup BLARNEY BEDECKED ultra-2D cartoonery attempt to hammer home “don’t drop crisp bags” message by stealth
  • Stopwatch POST-BLUE PETER but pre-Crufts, PETER “NATIONAL POWER” PURVES and NIGEL STARMER-SMITH helmed this dreary kids sports magazine
  • Storybook International WELL-MEANING EURO-BONDING co-production
  • Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris, The TWO VICTORIAN boys carelessly leave baby sister (Adelaide) in an orphanage in Georgian-era Brighton, in the hands of a boffiny, know-all boy in stripy trousers and a top hat.
  • Strange Report, The YET MORE glossy glamour-heavy gluttony cooked up by LEW GRADE to sell to the Americans when they weren’t looking.
  • Stranger, The OBSCURE OZ version of The Man Who Fell To Earth. Except many years before that, of course.
  • Strangers THE RETURN of the inhaler-wielding, glove-toting, Shakespeare-spouting fop DCI George Bulman, still played by DON HENDERSON.
  • Streethawk KNIGHT RIDER on two wheels.
  • Streets of San Francisco, The OLD/YOUNG DETECTIVE schtick on the mean, uber-clean highways of California.
  • Strike it Lucky “TOP, MIDDLE OR BOTTOM?”
  • Strike It Rich IN NO way related to any Barrymore business, this was a boggling drama
  • Striker FOOTBALL-MAD SCOUSE tyke Harry (JOE GLADWIN) lived in a caravan with his hard-up Dad (GEOFFREY HINSLIFF) who just happened to be ex-football hero and amusingly-monikered “Striker” Dyker.
  • Struggle SHORTLIVED SITCOM with TIM “JEWEL IN THE CROWN” PIGOTT-SMITH as a Red Ken figure running the London borough of Southam and facing inevitable strife from his Tory rival, an inevitable upper class gent called Sir Bert.
  • Stud/Bitch, The NEEDLESS TO say, we only include cinema-released films in this list if they’re of a very, very high quality
  • Sullivans, The WARTIME UPS and downs of a down under nuclear family.
  • Sun Trap, The EX-PAT BRITCOM set on some remote island colony in the Med, the first thing to be written by DAVID NOBBS since PERRIN, and as such hugely anticipated.
  • Sunday Gang, The RAKISH RELIGIOUS saccharine for kids bundled out against THIS IS THE DAY on the other side.
  • Sunny Side Up A YEAR or so after AD-LIB in roughly the same timeslot with roughly the same rough-looking cast came this “helping you to see the brighter side of life” kaboodle, with roughly the same results.
  • Supercar SCRATCHY ANDERSONIA from before Gerry worked out how to make the strings look less like massive fuck-off copper wires.
  • Superchamps A SORT of WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS on wheels
  • Supergran MISTAKENLY HIT by some kind of ray thing, GUDRUN URE became a comedy Scottish granny with super powers.
  • Supersonic ALVIN STARDUST in glove and quiff presented this also-ran glam showcase with God on vibes and a heavy MIKE “CUE THE MUSIC” MANSFIELD involvement.
  • Superstars, The LONG-RUNNING ATHLETIC championfest
  • Superted ROTTEN BADLY-DRAWN romp
  • Supertrain MASSIVE LUXURY Trans-Am train (complete with cocktail bar, swimming pool etc.) plays host to various thrilling incidents.
  • Surprise Surprise DEVISED BY JEREMY BEADLE as a new vehicle for himself
  • Survival THE MOST internationally-acclaimed thing to come out of Norwich since the A11.
  • Survivors SUPERBUG RAVAGES the planet leaving nothing but thick-set hairy hobbledehoys in its wake.
  • Swalk TEENAGE TRIBULATIONS from the early days of the Four
  • Sweeney, The “I SOMETIMES hate this bastard place.”
  • Sweet and Sour HISTORIANS OF punk rock remain blissfully unaware of the hapless BILL GRUNDY’s twilight career on regional TV
  • Sweet Sixteen PENELOPE KEITH is a building tycoon who shags an architect (CHRISTOPHER VILLIERS) while failing to erect much in the way of punchlines.
  • Sweethearts SWANSONG OUTING for GENERATION GAME ringleader LARRY GRAYSON
  • Swim! MINIMALIST “LEARN to swim” lessons with RON PICKERING
  • Swish of the Curtain, The HAPLESS VARIATION on the “gang of kids with their own theatre/variety show” staple
  • Sykes STALWART SITCOM written by Eric and starring Eric as ‘Eric’

  • T is for…

  • T-Bag DEAR GOD.
  • Tabitha INEVITABLE YET ill-advised spin-off from BEWITCHED.
  • Taggart “LIFE’S NOT always a fairy-tale, Michael”. JIM TAGGART, take a bow
  • Take a Chance BIZARRE SPIN-OFF from, of all things, RAINBOW.
  • Take A Letter, Mr Jones YIKES!
  • Take My Wife THERE JUST had to be a sitcom with this title at some point in TV history.
  • Take Three Girls …PLEASE! OH come on, cheer up.
  • Take Your Pick THIS IS more like it; a TAKE-monikered effort with a bit of class, namely MICHAEL MILES proffering the titular conundrum between “money” and “box”
  • Tale of Timothy Bagshott, The COMEDY PLAY for kids written by FAY WELDON
  • Tales from Fat Tulip’s Garden/Fat Tulip Too WOP! SURREAL, frenetic, semi-improvised short stories for kids told with almost psychopathic conviction by one-time comedian and latterday hectoring soil-botherer TONY ROBINSON.
  • Tales of the Gold Monkey TRASHY HYBRID of Raiders Of The Lost Ark and The Maltese Falcon
  • Tales of the Riverbank JOHNNY MORRIS was on hand with his repertoire of two animal voices for this highly suspect real animal story.
  • Tales of the Unexpected THE ONLY thing unexpected about them being, of course, the identity of the uber-celebrity playing the part of the doomed protagonist this week.
  • Talkabout PICK OF THE DAYTIME QUIZZING BUNCH, this one.
  • Tandoori Nights SAEED JAFFREY holds court amidst two Indian restaurants at war in Hackney-ish area.
  • Target ULTRA-VIOLENT SWEENEY-LITE copperama binned by the Beeb when it proved too much for the public to stomach.
  • Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle THE EDGAR MICE-BURROWS (according to the Ed “Stewpot” Stewart annual) story subject to the usual Filmation cut ‘n’ paste treatment.
  • Taxi HYPNOTIC BRIDGE traversal to Bob James flute/vibraphone theme started this proto-Cheers ensemblecom.
  • Teach Yourself Gibberish SKITS, SKETCHES and scumpoonery for kids
  • Teddy Edward UBER-RUDIMENTARY INFORMATHON dressed up as the adventures of a medallion-toting bear.
  • Teetime and Claudia RISIBLY BAD regional cartoon woefulness starring a “crafty cat” and a “slow but loveable” dog.
  • Telebugs, The CURIOUS SPRIGHTLY cartoon about three floaty robots
  • Television Scrabble ALAN COREN in a mauve blazer dribbles at the mouth over triple word scores.
  • Telford’s Change PETER BARKWORTH, in no way typecast as pinstriped corporate banker from the city, packs up (see? Change, like money) and moves to the English countryside
  • Teliffant ENGLISH LANGUAGE not evident.
  • Telly Addicts AH, MONDAY NIGHTS IN THE ’80S, and NOEL EDMONDS bringing us the very definition of redoubtable family fare with his relaxed and beige TV-related quiz.
  • Ten on Saturday PROVINCIAL TELEVISION companies!
  • Tenko DIRTY-FACED FEISTY POWS of the fairer sex see out the Second World War in an internment camp in Malaya.
  • Terrahawks MORE OR less the only Gerryatrics of note from the 80s and the only outing for, ahem, Supermacromation aka glorified glove puppetry.
  • Terrific Adventures of the Terrible Ten, The HARD-UP AUNTIE resorts to slapping on another shitty import to eat up expensive airtime on hot August mornings, when no-one will be inside watching telly anyway.
  • Terry and June STURDY EIGHT o’clock suburbacom
  • That Was The Week That Was “IF THEY took sex out of this programme, there’d be nothing left!”
  • That’s Life! AS NOT THE NINE O’CLOCK NEWS had it: “Bleeding bloody ESTHER bleeding bloody effing bloody RANTZEN bloody woman.”
  • That’s My Boy AND BY a quirk of fuck-you fate, here’s more Mollie.
  • That’s My Dog! DEREK “NEW Faces” Hobson hosted this dogathon of a programme, boasting Yorkshire terriers heeling, going over little see-saws and so on.
  • That’s Your Funeral MUCH LIKE the vogue for programmes beginning with a fulsome TAKE (see above), so programmes opening business with a terse THAT’S are equally near-universally rubbish.
  • Then Churchill Said To Me… FRANKIE HOWERD vehicle that lay on a shelf for almost 20 years
  • There Comes a Time… ANDREW SACHS contracts a previously unknown fatal illness and dies slowly, while JUDY “GOOD COMPANIONS” CORNWELL looks on. Sitcom.
  • There’s Something Wrong in Paradise ABSOLUTELY DIRE musical comedy vehicle for evergreen band KID CREOLE AND THE COCONUTS
  • They Came From Somewhere Else WEIRD SITCOMSKETCH thing about an alien invasion of the made-up town of Middleford
  • Thick as Thieves SHABBY SITCOM made during the Three Day Week, and it showed.
  • Think of a Number etc. THE MAN as far as TV science is concerned
  • Third Man, The SUPREMELY IFFY spin-off from seminal WELLES/COTTON/cuckoo-clock flick
  • This is David Lander/This is David Harper SPOOF INVESTIGATIVE reportery with a heavy dose of ROGER COOK-chiding
  • This is the Day EARLY SUNDAY morning Christathon where audience were invited to join in, but only if equipped with “a bible, some bread, and a candle.”
  • This is Your Life ORIGINALLY HOSTED by television’s most ill-at-ease presenter
  • This is Your Right CUE EXTENDED cymbal roll
  • This Year Next Year THAT OLD “successful corporate banker from the city (ROLAND HINES) who packs up and moves to the English countryside with his brother (MICHAEL “BOON” ELPHICK)” chestnut.
  • Thorn Birds, The DOG-EARED CASSOCK-RIPPER
  • Threads THE END of the world, Sheffield-style.
  • Three Little Words INITIALLY DON MOSS, then ventriloquist RAY “LORD CHARLES” ALAN, fronted this wordy afternoon quizfest
  • Three of a Kind A POST-TISWAS LENNY HENRY, pre-US TRACEY ULLMAN and, well, DAVID COPPERFIELD club together for a three-way averagefest of songs and sketches and jokes old and new.
  • Three Up Two Down MIDDLING MID-EVENING middlebrow stalwart
  • Thriller A SUPERLATIVE anthology of hour-long suspenseful playlets about well-tailored middle class types methodically doing each other in, THRILLER was a textbook example of straightforward, unpretentious telly drama doing its job to perfection.
  • Thunderbirds THE JEWEL in the popular Anderson crown
  • Thunderbirds 2086 UP IN ARMS bastardisation of the Gerry Anderson stringathon
  • Thundercats EARDRUM-RATTLING ENSEMBLE of busily-animated animal superheroes
  • Ticket to Ride SUNDAY TEATIMERY featuring KEITH CHEGWIN and future squeeze MAGGIE PHILBIN visiting places of interest in a GO WITH NOAKES kind of way, except without the whinging.
  • Tickle on the Tum “TICKLE ON THE WHAT?”
  • Tigris ZEITGEIST-BOTTLING DOCUMENTARY
  • Till Death Us Do Part/In Sickness and in Health EAR-SPLITTING BIGOTCOM
  • Time Express GALLUMPHING SHORT-LIVED drama boasting a FANTASY ISLAND-type format
  • Time of Your Life, The ONE OF the many “side projects” essayed by NOEL EDMONDS during his 1980s besweatered behelicopted heyday.
  • Time Tunnel, The MORE PSYCHEDELIC tomfoolery from the house of the Poseidon king.
  • Timeslip TATTY HALF-ARSED low budget DR WHO for kids that ran for six months non-stop then never came back.
  • Timeslip (II) Infamous “blokes trapped in an office block with a computer which tries to kill them” escapade with JOHN TAYLOR.
  • Tinga and Tucker Club FAIRLY ROUTINE irritating puppet-plus-annoyed-presenter kid show
  • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ALEC GUINNESS unearths a mole in the British Secret Service very very slowly
  • TinTin OR, MORE properly, “HERGEEEEEEE’S ADVENTUUUUUUURES OF TINTIIIIIN!!!”
  • Tiswas “THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT!”
  • TJ Hooker LARDY LA cop rompery with the epicurean WILLIAM SHATNER
  • To The Manor Born PUNNING TITLE and YES, MINISTER-type theme concealed ultra gentle aristocom
  • Tom Slick RACING DRIVER plus spouse plus wisecracking mother-in-law type Gertie Growler go up against different evil opponents each week
  • Tom Tom OBSCURE SHOW for boys
  • Tom’s Midnight Garden THRICE-ADAPTED SCHOOL library legend and lunchtime “reading club” fave.
  • Tomfoolery ONE OF those offbeat half-remembered cartoons produced by Rankin/Bass in conjunction with British cartoon studio Halas And Batchelo
  • Tomorrow People, The CREAKY BUT fondly remembered ITV kids sci-fi staple
  • Tomorrow’s World “WELL, IT worked in rehearsal…”
  • Top Hat Rabbits, The SHORT ANIMATED series of Czech extraction
  • Top of the Form NEOLITHIC SWOTATHON
  • Top of the Pops A new series for teenagers
  • Top of the Pops’ Christmas Party
  • Top of the World BIG DEAL at the time.
  • Top Secret Life of Edgar Briggs, The FORGOTTEN LINE on the scrappy first page of DAVID JASON’s CV.
  • Top Secret/I’ve Got a Secret MIDDLE OF the road panel game.
  • Topper’s Tales IFFY JACKANORY-STYLE stills-plus-narration tales of various pixies/woodland creatures, led by posh, top-hatted Topper.
  • Tottering Tales BIZARRO VARIATION on the perennial children’s serial theme of “kids help residents of a stately home to stop it being pulled down”, except ultra-weird
  • Tottie: Story of a Doll’s House LATE, UNLAMENTED entry in the POSTGATE/FIRMIN oeuvre
  • Touch and Go OLD-TIMEY ADVENTURE serial reworked as late-70s conspiracy thriller – for kids!
  • Touché Turtle SWASHBUCKLY REPTILE with a hat is assisted by dog sidekick Dum Dum.
  • Trade Test Transmissions ONE OF those functional but nevertheless well-remembered series that BBC2 showed in the run-up to colour broadcasting
  • Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way “ECCENTRIC” BITCHY old maid BARBARA WOODHOUSE found brief early 80s fame as a result of this semi-documentary poke around her dog owner school.
  • Trak Trix TOTALLY HOPELESS attempt by the fledgling channel to get a “funky” version of WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS on the go.
  • Transformers ROBOTS IN disguise.
  • Trap Door, The CHIPPER CHILDREN’S ITV claymation
  • Travel Quiz, The UNILLUSTRIOUS BUT HIGHLY-POLISHED “adult” debut of one-time C4 pornographer-in-chief ANDI PETERS
  • Traveller in Time, A FUSTY PERIOD-SWAPPING kids drama
  • Travelling Man, The PRE-NEWS AT TEN drama of a midweek flavour.
  • Treasure Houses A PRE-BLUE PETER MARK CURRY moonlights from MAKE ‘EM LAUGH
  • Treasure Hunt “HAS ANYONE seen a clue, a pink clue?!”
  • Treasure over the Water WORTHY ADAPTATION of the book Minnow on the Say
  • Trials of Oz, The
  • Triangle PERENNIAL TARGET for “cuh?!” criticism
  • Trick or Treat SHORT-LIVED SATURDAY night “people show” from the South Bank
  • Trinity Tales MODERN DAY Chaucerian slapstick
  • Tripods, The AS DEREK Griffiths sang in LOOK AND READ’s The Boy From Space, “space goes on… forever.” And so did this epic UK/US/Australian co-production.
  • Tripper’s Day LAST CALL for LEONARD ROSSITER
  • Tropic “NOT THE Tropic of Cancer, or the Tropic of Capricorn, but our very own little English Tropic…”
  • Troubles and Strife GOD AWFUL clergycom
  • Troubleshooters, The TOP BOARDROOM soapfest with sub-DALLAS “black gold” backstory.
  • TTV T! T! V! Teatime Television!
  • Tube summer replacements, The A DIZZYING ASSORTMENT of yoof-orientated crazed oddities
  • Tube, The SAINTED SEMI-ALTERNOPOP show of a Friday evening live from Tyne Tees
  • Tucker’s Luck GRANGE HILL continued.
  • Turnabout
  • Turtle’s Progress SHORT-ARSED SNIVELLING baldie Turtle (JOHN LANDRY) is the brains of a petty crime partnership
  • Turtle’s Witch SPURIOUSLY WEIRD US comedy drama
  • Tutti Frutti BREAK-THROUGH SERIES for EMMA THOMPSON and ROBBIE COLTRANE
  • TV Weekly PRESENTED BY a post-TV-AM ANNE DIAMOND
  • Twist in the Tale, A US-DERIVED TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED-esque capery
  • Two Ds and a Dog SPIN-OFF FROM DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET
  • Two of Us, The SCHMALTZY, SICKLY-SWEET, totally-80s lifecom
  • Two People TEENAGE LOVE affair in the HELEN mould.
  • Two Ronnies, The FLOATY YELLOW glasses in the sky and bah-baaahhh! (der-der-der-dooo-dooo) theme tune? Time for another appointment with, in the words of the BBC continuity announcer, “Messrs Barker and Corbett”…
  • Two Up, Two Down THANKLESS AND thankfully-forgotten squattercom
  • Two’s Company INTO THIS durable east-is-east effort came, from over the water, ELAINE STRITCH
  • Two-Forty Robert ON-THE-ROAD CB-RELATED crimefighters employing a truck and a helicopter to get their “man”.
  • TX VERY EIGHTIES kidsters Saturday morning miscellany
  • Tyrant King, The MORE ADOLESCENT quest malarkey

  • U is for…

  • UFO FIRST PROPER live-actioner from Supermationationer GERRY ANDERSON
  • UK/World Disco Championships, The JIVE-JOUSTING JAUNDICE-ATHON
  • Ultra Quiz POSSIBLY THE only instance of a Japanese-originated format crossing over to the west.
  • Ulysses 31 NOT A James Joyce in sight for this dubbed Mediterranean wonder.
  • Under the Mountain KIDS’ DRAMABORE series set in either Australia or New Zealand
  • Union Castle ILL-ADVISED FORAY into sitcommery by STRATFORD “BARLOW” JOHNS
  • University Challenge BEND AN EAR TO perhaps the most deceptive theme tune ever.
  • Up and Down, In and Out, Roundabout Man, The BEN BENISON, the mime artist who was succeeded in VISION ON by SYLVESTER McCOY, clears his throat by way of 13 quarter-hour slapstick routines.
  • Up Pompeii/Whoops! Baghdad “I NEVER seem to get it!”
  • Up Sunday SATIRE, EH, never as good as it blah blah blah.
  • Up the Elephant and Round the Castle Bumsqueaking sitcom starring JIM DAVIDSON as Jim London, a prejudiced Cockney waster of limited intelligence. Wonder how many others they approached?
  • Up the Workers ALL IS not going well at Wolverhampton electrical appliance factory Cockers Components Limited (spot the 1970s standard sitcom moniker-age).
  • UP2U INTERACTIVITY 80S-STYLE courtesy of JENNY POWELL, TONY DORTIE and ANTHEA TURNER
  • Upchat Line, The FREELOADING HACK JOHN ALDERTON makes his way around London society with the inevitable oooh, crikey-type situations
  • Upline NEIL PEARSON is a hard-done-by down-on-his-luck recently-made-doleite guy musician guy stuck for something to do
  • Upstairs, Downstairs THE IMPERIAL Leather of costume soap combining the best and worst of rich people and their servants with lots of dressing up
  • Urbi et Orbi Annual resurrection round robin from His Holiness, piped live into living rooms at 11am sharp on Easter Day.

  • V is for…

  • V BLOCKBUSTING SCI-FI excursion rooted in “humaniods coming in peace – oh, no! They’re lizardy Nazis with false eyes and protruding tongues and rubbery masks come to eat us!” premise.
  • Val Doonican Music Show, The Genial, Irish besweatered rocking chair maestro fronted this never-changing pleaser from “the BBC Television Theatre” for pretty much a quarter of a century.
  • Val Meets the VIPs SHORT-LIVED BLUE PETER spin-off
  • Valentine Park An absolute bag of wank.
  • Valerie BOTTOM HOLE arse-for-the-money drabcom.
  • Valley of the Dinosaurs THRILLING STUFF from the Hanna-Barbera stable, in the GODZILLA vein.
  • Van der Valk DUTCH POLICE inspector played by BARRY FOSTER in a coat, but no-one cared about that.
  • Vega$
  • Very Hot Gossip Show, The EX-KENNY EVERETT Video Show dance troupe
  • Very Peculiar Practice, A UNIVERSITY OF Lowlands higher edutainment with PETER “COME ALONG, TEGAN” DAVIDSON
  • Viaduct, The IN A brave attempt to push kids-costume-drama conventions to a dangerous extreme, this languid effort (based on book by Ray Brown) opted for the titular Victorian engineering construction as basis for familiar mystery/family-ties brooding.
  • Vice Versa ATTENTUATED ATTEMPT to create a UK version of BIG JOHN LITTLE JOHN.
  • Vicky the Viking YOUNG BOY (yes, Vicky can be a boy’s name too, like Lesley, or Stacy) warrior gains respect with his Norse chief dad and the ragbag army of vikings he leads.
  • Video and Chips TECHNOLOGY SHOW for kids who found MICRO LIVE and 4 COMPUTER BUFFS too stuffy
  • Videofashion DREADFUL AMERICAN SHOW about what was “hot” and what was “not” on the international fashion runways.
  • Vintage Quiz ANOTHER AFTERNOON vehicle for the redoubtable FRED “GAMBIT” DINENAGE.
  • Vision On Dialogue-shunning artistic hotchpotch that took the most unpromising of briefs and created a nostalgia monolith.
  • Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea LAST (OR rather, first) piece in the Allen TV jigsaw
  • Voyagers! RUBBISH PSEUDO-EDUCATIONAL time travellry with some fuckers called Phineas Bogg (ha!) and Jeffrey Jones

  • W is for…

  • W.E.B. WELL-MEANING (OR not, depending on your allegiances) spin-off from top film Network, about a fictional TV station and all the bribery, baseness, corruption etc. going on down there.
  • Wackers, The INSUFFERABLE SCOUSE-BASED “adult” sitcom
  • Wacky Races NO FURTHER explanation needed, surely?
  • Wait Till Your Father Gets Home WHAT THE SIMPSONS once did for the Clinton decade, Wait Til Your Father Gets Home did for Nixon-era America.
  • Wake Up London ON SUNDAY Mornings, after TV-AM’s eggcups faded into the ether, viewers in the London area were treated to this five minute oddity.
  • Wall Game, The ONE OF the lamest ideas for a kids’ show before Dick and Dom revived ASK THE FAMILY.
  • Wally Gator EARLY, UNDISTINGUISHED effort from Bill and Joe.
  • Walter ONE OF those (now old chestnut) tales of a mentally handicapped kid experiencing the harsh realities of the world when his mum dies.
  • War Game, The MICHAEL ASPEL announces the end of the world while a boy’s face catches fire and a bloke’s cabbages get squashed.
  • Warship BRINY QUASI-SOAP set aboard pretend HMS Hero
  • Washington – Behind Closed Doors MAMMOTH NIXON rehashing, with JASON ROBARDS as the crooked nutter Richard Monckton (names changed for legal purposes)
  • Watch GENERAL STUDIES for kids.
  • Water Margin, The PRE-DATING MONKEY, here came 108 plucky knights brought back from the dead to battle nastiness in the Orient
  • Waterfall, The “IT’S BEAUTIFUL!” quoth Jane of Malcolm’s crappy card trick at the start of this minimal MARGARET DRABBLE adaptation.
  • Waterfront JACK THOMPSON loafs around a depression-era shipping union as WARREN “GARNETT” MITCHELL invents satire in a tin-roofed music hall.
  • Waterloo Bridge Handicap, The ANOTHER OF those PLANK-esque short Britcom films
  • Wattoo Wattoo: Superbird FRENCH-DERIVED CARTOON about a bunch of greedy, untidy, irritable geese the Zwas
  • We are the Champions PE COMPETITION overseen by stern-but-fair RON PICKERING and the noisiest thing ever on children’s television.
  • We Got It Made RANK SITCOMMAGE from across the pond.
  • We Love TV GLORIA HUNNIFORD brings you this undemanding TV-based Friday at 8:30pm celebrity quiz show
  • We’ll Meet Again FRIDAY NIGHT snail’s pace-drama about US Air Force men stationed in rural England shires.
  • We’ll Tell You a Story “IF YOU like to sing songs and you like to hear rhymes…”
  • We’ll Think of Something UNSYMPATHETICALLY SLOW sitcom from the light channel
  • We’re Going Places SORRY, THAT title’s fooling no-one.
  • Weaver’s Green EARLY FAILURE of a location soap, a sort of “real life” CAMBERWICK GREEN, and one of the first to use portable video equipment. Crap all the same.
  • Wednesday at Eight BRIAN ROGERS-SATURATED variety show
  • Weekend World FIRST TV show to think that thunderously self-important po-faced analysis of politics would go down a treat at Sunday lunchtime.
  • Welcome Back, Kotter! IN BLOODY DEED.
  • What the Papers Say CAMERA-SHY JOURNO sits in empty studio and talks about how, while fellow journos are pissed-up burnt-out rabble-rousing ne’er-do-wells, the profession of journalism is the finest in the fucking world, and to prove it here’s some headlines read in funny voices.
  • What’s Happening? QUITE.
  • What’s My Line? THE TYPE of prissy early TV parlour game in which the host was referred to as “Chairman”.
  • What’s On Wogan Now probably self-deleted from El Tel’s memory banks
  • What-a-Mess! A LATE and low-key entry in the considerable Postgate canon
  • Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOUR rematch for heroes of scratchy 60s forerunner
  • Whatever Next!
  • Whatever You Want NEEDN’T-HAVE-BOTHERED YOOFY show from the earliest days of Channel Four.
  • Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch VOLKSWAGEN “WITH a mind of its own” (hmmm, sounds familiar…) and a gang of motorbikes have various minimalist highway adventures.
  • Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club, The RUMBUSTIOUS ROARATHON from pretend working man’s establishment somewhere in the north of England
  • When the Boat Comes In JAMES BOLAM laid the memory of THE LIKELY LADS to rest with this grisly 1920s depression-quest.
  • Where Are They Now? DAVID “HELLO THERE” JACOBS talks to various Suez-era celebs
  • Where There’s Life… DRS MIRIAM STOPPARD and ROB “FUN AND GAMES” BUCKMAN host an early-evening medical chat show.
  • Whicker’s World VERBOSE VOYAGES in a double-breasted suit.
  • Whirlybirds KIDS’ CAPERY featuring two chopper pilots Chuck Martin (KEN TOBEY) and Pete ‘PT’ Moore (CRAIG HILL).
  • White Horses, The IRON CURTAIN-PULLING impishness involving a 15-year-old girl called Julia
  • White Light EARNEST TEEN magazine of the kind that multiplied around the late 70s
  • Whittaker’s World of Music ATTEMPTING TO stretch his musical scope beyond ol’ Durham town, ROGER WHITTAKER sang and hosted this lunchtime music’n’quiz engagement
  • Whiz Kids UNEASY – OK, shite – cross between the HARDY BOYS and WAR GAMES.
  • Whizzkid’s Guide, The VARIOUS COMEDY skits instructing kids on how to cheat/succeed/get up to mischief at school.
  • Who Dares, Wins… PAST-YOUR-BEDTIME BARBATHON
  • Who Do You Do? “MICK JAGGER visiting a laundrette? It would probably be something…like this…”
  • Who Pays the Ferryman? HOORAY! AFTER a long long wait, we’ve finally reached another Beeb Mediterranean thriller from the late 1970s
  • Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Bear? ANOTHER KIDS’ comedy putative pilot from Thames, another crasher.
  • Who’s Bluffing Who? Presented by the magnificently named RICHARD CARTRIDGE in conjunction with ULRIKA JONSSON
  • Who’s Next? WOO! PUBLIC access!
  • Who’s the Greatest? BRIAN “IT’S IN THERE!” MOORE fronted this self-explanatory yet ultimately disposable celebrity-endorsed battle of the sporting greats.
  • Whodunnit? EARLY EVENING Cluedo-based antics with first EDWARD WOODWARD then JON P’TWEE as chairman.
  • Whoops Apocalypse EARLY MASTERPIECE from DAVID “ONE FOOT” RENWICK and ANDREW “2.4” MARSHALL
  • Whose Baby? INVENTED, IT says here, by EAMONN ANDREWS.
  • Why Don’t You? FULL TITLE was, as everyone knows, the unfortunately ironic “Why Don’t You Just Switch Off Your Television Set And Go Out And Do Something Less Boring Instead?”
  • Wide Awake Club, The ANTISOCIALLY-TIMED SATURDAY morning child rambunctions
  • Widows FIRST-RUN LYNDA LA PLANTE-ation had the wives of three cons who die in a botched heist doing the next planned job themselves.
  • Wilde Alliance FALTERING ATTEMPT to Anglicise HART TO HART
  • Wilderness Road SLIGHTLY SURREAL yet totally unfunny sitcom starring ROBIN DRISCOLL and DAVID SIBLEY as two losers who spent all their time in a seedy flat and a seedier pub.
  • Wildtrack MANY A first viewing of MIDNIGHT COWBOY’s Florida daydream sequence will have been ruined by childhood exposure to TONY SOPER’s Britnature miscellany
  • Willo the Wisp SUBLIME SIMPERING nonsense that began as an animated campaign to promote North Sea oil.
  • Win, Lose or Draw FLOWER IN THE DIRT of much that was daytime.
  • Windmill THAT’S LIFER CHRIS SERLE stoically presided over this fantastic Sunday lunchtime BBC classic clips round-up
  • Wine of India WEIRD DEATH thing about a couple’s funeral in a society where no-one cops it except by agreement.
  • Wings TIM “SON OF EDWARD” WOODWARD and NICHOLAS “BROTHER OF GEMMA” JONES lead dull canter through life in the Royal Flying Corps during WW1
  • Winner Takes All CHIRPY, GAP-TOOTHED scouser JIMMY TARBUCK waffled chummily through this tatty provincial gamblo-general knowledge quiz.
  • Winsome Witch LITTLE-KNOWN H-B short about Winnie the Witch who can’t do anything right.
  • Wish Me Luck FEMALE VERSION of SECRET ARMY
  • Wish You Were Here…? NOT REALLY.
  • Witches and the Grinigog, The SOME POSH children (naturally) go to visit a small village during the school holidays.
  • Wiz INAUSPICIOUS ROLE for rarely-popular Scots actress KATE ‘COPSTICK’ COPSTICK as a masked android/alien/robot/who cares thing given simple puzzles to solve by her computer.
  • Wizbit “TIME CAME to grow a bit, grow a bit, grow a bit.”
  • WKRP in Cincinatti RADIO STATION in Ohio gets made over as a rock network
  • Wodehouse Playhouse PERMANENTLY RAISED eyebrow-enhanced anthology of PG’s scribblings
  • Wogan LIVE FROM the verdant pastures of Shepherd’s Bush Green
  • Wombles, The UNDERGROUND, OVERGROUND… and oversold during the seventies, if you ask us.
  • Wonder Why EDUCATIONAL SERIES featuring a talking, poorly-operated puppet skeleton
  • Wonder Woman ACTUALLY CALLED THE NEW ORIGINAL WONDER WOMAN.
  • Wonder Years, The “I DIDN’T realise it at the time, but it was at that moment my relationship with dad changed…utterly.”
  • Wonderful World of D****y, The Shite.
  • Wondermaths PRIMARY SCHOOL afternoon maths frolics with Plymouth’s finest CHRISTOPHER LILLICRAP
  • Woofits, The MISERABLE BASTARD MICHAEL PARKINSON of all people did this series about some old-fashioned Yorkshire dog-things called John Wooley, Elton and Gaylord.
  • Words and Pictures BASIC ALPHABET and sentence tuition
  • World According to Smith and Jones, The HERE’S A weird one.
  • World at War, The COMES WITH a faintly ridiculous semi-mystical, hushed tones, doff-your-hat air nowadays
  • World BMX Championships THE QUARTERPIPE! ENDOES!
  • World of Sport ITV’S ANSWER to GRANDSTAND, of course.
  • World’s/Britain’s Strongest Man One of those dreary, ’70s-originating annual televised events that somehow forgot to stop happening around 1983.
  • Worldwise DAVID “RAPIDLY LOSING HIS KID LICENCE” JENSEN hosted this bizarre geographical quiz from atop a crane-mounted armchair which floated over the studio, for absolutely no reason at all.
  • Worzel Gummidge JON P’TWEE was your thick-but-loveable scarecrow
  • Write Away! THAT TELL-TALE exclamation mark heralds another patronising educational strand from the Beeb

  • X is for…

  • Xerxes UNPRONOUNCEABLE IMPORT sneaked out on Thursday evenings as part of otherwise half-arsed early C4 yoof initiative.
  • XYZ Lame alphabet-oriented word effort with GEORGE MARSHALL.

  • Y is for…

  • Yak, The RATHER SURPRISINGLY well-done cartoon (though very low-fi) series about a Yak and his friend Crow who had various unlikely adventures.
  • Yes, Minister/Yes, Prime Minister CORRUSCATING COMMONS satirecom
  • Yoga for Health MORE SELF-INDULGENT than LYNN MARSHALL on the subject of “Hatha” yoga.
  • You and Me UBIQUITOUS KIDS’ infotainment
  • You Gotta Be Jokin’! GHASTLY ATTEMPT to introduce family comedy to a peaktime Saturday audience
  • You Must Be Joking/Pauline’s Quirkes/You Can’t Be Serious MORE YOUNG persons stuff, this time a string of variety-esque affairs masterminded by ROGER “TOMORROW PEOPLE” PRICE
  • You Must Be the Husband WOEFUL BARGAIN bin laughless comedy
  • You Rang, M’Lord? YET ANOTHER load of You Have Been Watching lummoxery from David Croft
  • You Should Be So Lucky! NOTICE HOW all these “YOU…” shows have bloody exclamation marks in.
  • You’re Only Young Twice EXTREMELY ROTTEN ITV sitcom that managed to stink up the schedules for four years.
  • Young Doctors, The NOT THAT there was anything very young about them.
  • Young Ones, The TATTIEST, NOISIEST, hammiest and blusteriest thing BBC2 has ever shown.
  • Young Sherlock: The Mystery Of The Manor House
  • Your Life in Their Hands SOFTLY-SPOKEN SURGEONS inform patients of the intricacies of kidney stone removal before performing the necessary operation and inviting the patient to come back and talk about how they’re feeling four months later.
  • Your Mother Wouldn’t Like It The Central Junior Television Workshop presents!
  • Yus My Dear LAMENTABLE SEQUEL to ROMANY JONES

  • Z is for…

  • Z Cars COLOSSUS OF small screen blue light institutions
  • Z for Zachariah POST-NUCLEAR APOCALYPSE drama, but then they all were then.
  • Z Shed THE GENESIS of SWAP SHOP
  • Zig Zag EDUCATIONAL KIDS’ pot pourri
  • Zodiac Game, The DON’T WORRY, we’ve nearly finished.
  • Zokko SATURDAY MORNING cartoon linking device featuring a talking pinball machine of that name which played pinball.
  • Zoo Gang, The ROLLOCKING RESISTANCE capery wherein four French veterans reunite 30 years on to sweep the Riviera streets clean of loitering Nazi war criminality.
  • Zoo Time SHORT-TROUSERED LOOK-AT-THIS be-caged business
  • Zoom the Dolphin Hawaiian dolphin research labs, complete with absent-minded professor and his lil’ daughter, have adventures with headset-enhanced dolphin of title.

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