THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS TELLY PAST (part nineteen)

The cover of 1977’s Christmas Radio Times showed a painting by Pauline Ellison of a lovely snowy little village where someone had failed to let a yappy little dog through the gate and into their cosy little houses on a rather nasty looking night. I hope that Santa didn’t bring them any presents that year, the meanies!

Christmas Eve TV on BBC1 started, in the edition that also introduced the world to “Blake’s Seven”, with part 3 of “Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe” before Noel Edmonds and Keith Chegwin hosted a “star-studded” “Swap of the Pops” concert featuring performers as diverse as Abba, Harry Secombe, Showaddywaddy, The Wurzels and (it says here) Mozart and Vivaldi. Quite a coup to get that last pair, even a long ago as 1977, I’d’ve thought… Mind you they do follow that with Elvis Presley in “G.I. Blues” in the year when the world had lost him forever, too, so what do I know?

After some Soviet Gymnastics and a showing of “White Christmas” the BBC then, rather naturally I suppose, had a retrospective look back at the Queen’s Silver Jubilee year before handing over to “Emu’s Broadcasting Company (EBC1)” for a while, and after Rod Hull had caused his usual brand of anarchy with his puppet “pet”, Esther Rantzen introduced “Superpets” which, disappointingly, also failed to include any flying or spandex outfits but did include Shimmy, the cat that plays table tennis.

You win some…

After the Disney film “Third Man on the Mountain”, BBC1 went over to visit the last of 16 episodes of “The Duchess of Duke Street”, shared “The Dick Emery Christmas Show” with us, spent an hour in the company of the “tough and rough – but likeable and friendly” young cops “Starsky and Hutch” before André Previn let us have another “Christmas Music Night” until the Midnight Mass and it was Christmas Day!

“Can we open our presents now, perleeeeese???”

Oh alright, there is still BBC2 to tell you about I suppose… “Arlecchino”, “Double Crossbones”, “Thrice Welcome Christmas” with Brian Cant and Toni Arthur, “The Snow Queen”, Michael Hordern and John Le Mesurier in a version of “A Christmas Carol” that was barely an hour long, a “Network” about Geordie folk songs, “The Lively Arts” on Karen Kain: Ballerina, a live programme of Christmas music called “Star Over Bethlehem” (I bet that gets repeated at least once…), the Kinks in concert on “The Old Grey Whistle Test” and the feature film version of “M*A*S*H”

“Now can we open our presents, then???”

Christmas Day’s sack of goodies included “National Velvet” and “Are You Being Served?” still featuring the original cast, the first part of a 2 part “Top of the Pops 77”  presented by Noel Edmonds and Kid Jensen, The Queen, “Billy Smart’s Christmas Circus”, “The Wizard of Oz” and “Basil Through the Looking Glass” with Basil Brush and his then-current sidekick Howard Williams.

Actually, as presents go, that was actually a bit disappointing… especially as they all led into a “Songs of Praise Special”, “Bruce Forsyth and The Generation Game” and a “Mike Yarwood Christmas Show” featuring special guest stars “Wings” with just a touch of the Denny Laines. This, however, was the year of the “Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show” featuring Penelope Keith, so I don’t suppose anyone cared very much what else was on, and they were probably still laughing all the way through “Funny Girl”.

In the unlikely event that they did turn over to BBC2, however, they might have seen such delightful offerings as “The Predators” narrated by David Attenborough, a performance of “Coppélia” in “The Lively Arts”, more Jubilee lookbacks, the movie “Storm Boy” and two hours and twenty minutes of people talking about their memories of 25 years of television called “Thanks for the Memory…”

Hold on… Isn’t that what I’m doing right now? You see, there really is nothing new in the world.

After that James Cameron (no, not that one…) introduced “Christmas Past” before there was a “Country Holiday” with Crystal Gayle, Larry Gatlin and George Hamilton IV (which my dad probably watched) and a late night classic, Bogie and Bacall in “The Big Sleep”.

Night, night!

Boxing Day brought more treasures, however. “Tough and rough – but likeable and friendly” young “David Soul and Friends”, “Grandstand”, “Holiday on Ice”, the second part of that “Top of the Pops 77”, “It’s a Christmas Knockout” and, of course “Jim’ll Fix It”. There was the movie “Support Your Local Sheriff”, the very first showing of “The Good Life Christmas Special”, more from “The Two Ronnies”, “The Dirty Dozen” and “Parkinson and the Comedians” featuring Jack Benny, George Burns, Jacques Tati, Peter Sellers and, er, Bernard Manning. BBC2 also served up its own range of delights including “War and Peace Parts One and Two”, “The Moscow State Circus” the final part of “Who Pays the Ferryman?” and a look back at a controversial year in the cricketing world with John Arlott. Happily they finished off the day with the Marx Brothers and “A Day at the Races”.

New Year’s Eve was a business as usual Saturday for much of the day. “Multi-Coloured Swap shop”, “Grandstand”, “Jim’ll Fix It” and a “Doctor Who” repeat of “The Robots of Death”, then Brucie, Val Doonican, “Starsky and Hutch” and “Match of the Day” saw you safely through towards the usual festivities on one, whilst BBC2 showed over three hours of “Die Fledermaus” (with the “Die” pronounced “Dee” in case you though that I was editorialising). There was a classic “Old Grey Whistle Test” pick of the year featuring Led Zeppelin and after the year switched over via a Watchnight Service and Big Ben, the Midnight Movie was “Ten Little Indians” in case you thought old Agatha had been forgotten about.

New Year’s Day brought more Jubilee retrospectives, part two of that “Doctor Who” repeat, a new series of “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” and Tom Baker again in “Nicholas and Alexandra”, as well as more “Last of the Summer Wine”, “Songs of Praise”, “Holiday” with Cliff Michelmore and a tribute to John Wayne hosted by Frank Sinatra. BBC2 featured that year’s R.I. Christmas Lecture series entitled “Planets” followed by “The World About Us” on “The Balinese Surfer”, “Benoni and Rosa” part four (of six), the Vienna Concert, a programme about home movies introduced by James Cameron (still not that one... probably…) and the most successful Canadian movie of 1977 “Why Shoot the Teacher”.

I don’t know, but I was back at school a couple of days later…