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+--- Thread: Top of the Pops on BBC Four (/showthread.php?tid=103)
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - James2001 - 09-05-2021
And Martha Wash got ripped off by them- just like she had by Black Box.
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - Colm - 14-05-2021
That's 1990 done and dusted. Roll on '91 next week then; actual editions getting shown before The Story of.../Big Hits for the first time, too.
I realised while watching the Christmas show how rare a treat it was back then to see archive TOTP clips on TV - I doubt anyone at that stage would've predicted the future with TOTP2, YouTube etc.
And welcome back, Cypher graphics, even if you don't get a mention on the credits...
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - James2001 - 14-05-2021
I presume the reason they got mentioned on the credits is because before they were operated by someone from Quantel- which is the reason why they vanished for several months, the unions objected and insisted it had to be operated by BBC staff, so they had to stop using it until the BBC staff had been trained to use it. Maybe they also objected to "Cypher" being named in the credits?
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - DeMarkay - 14-05-2021
Will we get TOTP November 2003?
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - James Martin - 15-05-2021
Were the unions still that powerful in 1990 on the BBC? By the end of the 80s my impression was the unions were virtually irrelevant - never really recovering from the TV-AM strike.
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - James2001 - 15-05-2021
Looks like they edited out the brief glimpse of Jimmy Savile that appeared at the end of the Slade clip. I wondered if they would, seeing as it's very brief as the picture starts to spin and you can't really tell it's him if you didn't already know it was him, but I guess they wanted to be on the safe side.
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - kernow - 16-05-2021
The TOTP2 John Lennon Special which was repeated last night on BBC2 was also edited.
They completely cut out the end credits, and replaced them with a black screen with a BBC Studios endcap, with a 2020 copyright date.
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - HEW2343 - 16-05-2021
kernow post_id=12789 time=1621162090 user_id=1430 Wrote:The TOTP2 John Lennon Special which was repeated last night on BBC2 was also edited.As well as using the 2000 video for Just Like Starting Over instead of the 1992 video.
They completely cut out the end credits, and replaced them with a black screen with a BBC Studios endcap, with a 2020 copyright date.
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - James2001 - 16-05-2021
That version was shown last year as well. Had most of the videos replaced with HD remasters and recreated captions (Just Like Starting Over is 4:3 SD that's been cropped to remove the letterboxing however, I doubt there'll ever be a HD version of that video as it would involve having to recreate all the effects from scratch).
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - VMPhil - 16-05-2021
I posted about it at the time: https://tvforum.uk/forums/post1265454#post-1265454
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - HEW2343 - 16-05-2021
Back in 2017 when the Top Of The Pops reruns were on 1983 we lost a cover of The Doors Riders On The Storm performed by Annabel Rider because they didn't allow the BBC to play their songs on TV (or in July 2015 radio) including covers.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jul/09/dont-play-neil-young-or-the-doors-bbc-tells-djs-and-programme-makers
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jul/27/the-doors-and-neil-young-cleared-to-be-played-on-bbc-radio
In 1991 The Doors appear twice affecting these editions
30-5-91: Presenter: Anthea Turner
(12) TECHNOTRONIC feat. REGGIE – Move That Body
(21) M.C. HAMMER – Yo! Sweetness (video)
(25) POP WILL EAT ITSELF – 92 Degrees
(28) SONIA – Only Fools (Never Fall In Love)
(27) KRAFTWERK – The Robots (video)
(32) SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES – Kiss Them For Me
(5) AMY GRANT – Baby Baby
(10) KYLIE MINOGUE – Shocked
(1) CHER – The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss) (video)
(29) THE DOORS – Light My Fire (video) (and credits)
>> After presenting 23 editions, Anthea Turner makes her last appearance on TOTP.
13-6-91: Presenter: Jakki Brambles
(11) SONIA – Only Fools (Never Fall In Love)
(2) AMY GRANT – Baby Baby (video)
(22) GLORIA ESTEFAN – Remember Me With Love (video) (and charts)
(36) ALL ABOUT EVE – Farewell Mr. Sorrow
(20) DIVINYLS – I Touch Myself (video)
(28) LENNY KRAVITZ – It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over
(7) THE DOORS – Light My Fire (video)
(37) MASSIVE ATTACK – Safe From Harm
(27) ROD STEWART – The Motown Song (video) (Breakers)
(26) EXTREME – Get The Funk Out (video) (Breakers)
(25) BETTE MIDLER – From A Distance (video) (Breakers)
(24) LATOUR – People Are Still Having Sex (video) (Breakers)
(1) COLOR ME BADD – I Wanna Sex You Up
(19) SKID ROW – Monkey Business (video) (and credits)
>> The chart rundown is scrapped, and is ran along the screen during a video instead.
Unless things have changed in the last four years i expect the first show will either be edited down or not aired and the second one to be edited down.
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - AcerBen - 20-05-2021
I've just had an email back from Head of Music TV Commissioning at the BBC. I asked whether she could confirm that Story Of 1991 would be shown at some point or had the series been discontinued.
She has responded:
"We think it will go out in the autumn, date to be confirmed. There is a new run of films coming to be announced soon."
Probably no point going back to ask why - my best guess would be that production/editing was put on hold due to the proposed changes to the BBC programming budget, and perhaps now that has been decided and/or they've seen how well the BBC Two repeats have done, it's back on?
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - James2001 - 21-05-2021
On tonight's episodes, the Cypher graphics seem to be jittery when there's a lot of movement, then the frame rate goes up as the letters start to fall into place, as if the equipment's struggling to render the animation, and gets better when there's fewer characters to animate. That didn't seem to really happen during the January-April 1990 run of the Cypher graphics when most of the graphics seemed to animate smoothly no matter how many characters were in motion.
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - Steve Williams - 22-05-2021
James2001 post_id=13921 time=1621628066 user_id=956 Wrote:On tonight's episodes, the Cypher graphics seem to be jittery when there's a lot of movement, then the frame rate goes up as the letters start to fall into place, as if the equipment's struggling to render the animation, and gets better when there's fewer characters to animate. That didn't seem to really happen during the January-April 1990 run of the Cypher graphics when most of the graphics seemed to animate smoothly no matter how many characters were in motion.
Delighted to see the Cypher graphics back, however jerky they are. For some reason I have absolutely vivid memories of the first edition tonight - I haven't heard Geordie Boys and Turtle Rhapsody since they were on the original broadcast of the episode, but I could remember the videos as if I'd seen them yesterday. And I certainly remember the announcement of Iron Maiden at number one, because somehow I'd contrived not to hear the chart that week and the first I knew of it even existing was when Gary introduced it, and I was amazed, possibly the first number one I'd never heard of before it got there. Incidentally while it's perhaps surprising such a fanbase-only affair lasted two weeks at number one, they released it on a million more formats in week two.
You'll note they cheated a bit to get Betty Boo on because, although she'd gone up that week, she was actually lower than she had been a few weeks earlier so technically wasn't eligible. But she was free on 3rd January, which was more important. On the second show I very much enjoyed Iain Baker of Jesus Jones "playing" the keyboards.
Some fascinating shows coming up, of course next week we get the episode that went out on Saturday teatime because the Gulf War started late on Wednesday night and the next day BBC1 was pretty much non-stop news. That's one of the few episodes at the time I watched with my family, as at this point I was usually watching Top of the Pops on my own in my bedroom, sat inches from the screen to take it all in, and refusing to be interrupted, but I couldn't really do that on a Saturday teatime. Funnily enough one theory why Queen went straight in at number one the following week - who had a big fanbase but not neccessarily rabid enough to get it straight in at number one - is because Enigma and The KLF failed to get the expected boost from Pops as it wasn't on until after the shops were shut on Saturday.
And then the two shows after that are only 25 minutes long. I saw on some forums they were already speculating on what might have been edited out, apparently The Simpsons had DEFINITELY gone for rights reasons, just like they were DEFINITELY not showing Morrissey records when they billed the wrong episode for a few days a year or so ago. But of course nothing's been cut out, it's because a load of shows were truncated in that period to make way for extended news coverage. The latter one also includes the last ever Top 40 countdown read out in full by the host.
Top of the Pops on BBC Four - James2001 - 22-05-2021
Was a very common thing for Iron Maiden's fans to go out and buy their new singles en masse in the first week so their songs charted high, then plummeted like a stone, was the only time they managed number one though, taking advantage of the post-Christmas lull.
Of course songs charting high in the first week then rapidly falling out the charts was the standard by the end of the decade.
9 years later, the Manic Street Preachers managed to get number one with a song which was barely promoted as well. Wasn't the post-christmas week in that case though, but it was the first new number one of the year (and millennium).