TOTP on BBC4

[dalliance]

TOTP on BBC4

I have never, ever heard that weird funk version of Tubular Bells before. As ever Ruby Flipper mystify, they are less a dance act and more a really, earnestly bad performance troupe. Their flower scattering, slightly hippyish routine around the Blue Peter garden was oddly set off once more by a totally out of context costume - one of them was dressed as a flower scattering sheik.

Kiki Dee makes her impressive contribution to the women in dungarees who are not necessarily lesbian discussion. She sports a fetching pink pair with large front pouch in her duet with Elton John. At one point he examines her baggy flap and kisses it, still on the dungarees here folks.

Alex Harvey looks less and less kempt with every TOTP performances, as if he has been sleeping rough in the studio for the duration of his chart run.

Candi Statton Island, good voice, great song but by god the woman has no rhythm. She awkwardly perambulated her way through Young Hearts Run Free like your gran at a wedding after drinking too much Advocaat.

And Tony Blackburn in fine form, he boldly states that he has never known as much good music around just before he introduces the awful Doctor Kiss Kiss. No wonder Tessa Wyatt is bouncing up and down on Richard O'Sullivan each Thursday at 7.30pm.

[Sean of the Shed]

TOTP on BBC4

The lead singer of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band is just some drunken bum they found off the street who normally spends all his time berating and cursing at random passers by.

[George]

TOTP on BBC4

All the kids wanted one of those 'Sutherland Brothers and Quiver' badges back in the summer of 76.

Our Kid still in the top 5.

[George]

TOTP on BBC4

Ruby Flipper maintain the standard set during the previous weeks as Mike Oldfield meets The Average White Band.

[Come along, Min]

TOTP on BBC4

George wrote:

Ruby Flipper maintain the standard set during the previous weeks as Mike Oldfield meets..

I would say it was Donna Summer with Love To Love You Baby.

Dorothy Moore with Misty Blue deserves a shout.

[historyman]

TOTP on BBC4

laverte wrote:

That fellow from 5000 Volts with the mouth instrument made me feel a little sick. An unsettling week.

The Ruby Flipper routine reminded me of the film Together, maybe mixed with a bit of The Idiots. And Tommy Seebach.

You're right there. If TOTP was supposed to be a light entertainment show for the whole family in 1976 then some producer behind the scenes was dropping subtle hints into the mix.

I'm sure that many a young teenage boy (and his dad) got a bit excited at seeing Dorothy Moore's see through dress complete with nipples standing to attention. You had to take it where you could find it in 1976.

That Ruby Flipper cameo was what it must have been like to have tripped on some bad acid during the mid '70s.

And the theme of dungarees just keeps cropping up. First we had Kiki Dee's pair, a perfect foil for Elton's shoulder padded striped jacket, then that bloke from The Real Thing was at it again. This time his pin striped pair seemed to be modelled on a butcher's apron.

Billy Ocean saved the day for cool mens' clothing though. How many men could wear a pink shirt and white trousers and carry it off so effortlessly?

[Satchmo Distel]

TOTP on BBC4

Showing the real Top 30 at the beginning seems to be an admission that the rest of the format in 1976 did not address the chart in any logical or coherent way. In the 80's, not only did they restrict themselves to the Top 40, they ran down the chart in four chunks of 10, and the structure of the show would reflect this logic, with the lower entries played in the first part of the show.

However, as David says, this was due to the technology they had to work with. I also suspect that, by the 80's, the producers had access to midweek data, etc, that would enable them to accurately predict the next week's entries, whereas in 1976 it was guesswork so they played safe by booking established acts like Mud and T Rex. There was no desire to take a chance on a new act that only might chart, or an act that would be expensive to fly in.

Presumably, American acts had a better chance of appearing if they were already in the UK touring, unless they were highly popular. Did The Partridge Family ever appear on TOTP, for example, let alone a cooler act like The Chilites?

The Stylistics made it because they had the video set on a rooftop IIRC. Bohemian Rhapsody was also video driven.

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

Mud and (particularly) T Rex had no guarantees of chart success by 1976, but point taken.

Showing the chart in full at the start of the show made some kind of sense - especially under the theme tune, and not under a chart track, as was done until 1975 (?) It was, after all, the first most viewers would've seen of a Top 30 only revealed the previous Tuesday lunchtime. (At a time when this actually mattered to people, of course.)

Pretty certain The Chi-Lites made TOTP appearances in 1975 (perhaps with 'It's Time For Love'), if not later - though doubt that The Partridge Family would've done. Getting them all together at the same time would've been the main problem there, I suspect.

[Calvert]

TOTP on BBC4

Ruby Flipper have surpassed themselves this week with their, ahem, interpretation of Back in the USSR.
A Soviet flag, them capering around dressed as peasants, fake snow and barbed wire.

That Bobby Goldsboro's a laugh a minute, isn't he?
Not content with depressing everyone about his wife dying, his son's been born blind!
Still, at least he wouldn't be able to see those punters shuffling around self-consciously attempting to dance behind his dad.

[Come along, Min]

TOTP on BBC4

Enjoying the continued weirdness, The Sunfighters?? Glamour Puss (Imagine 5 shake N'Vac ladies) did either of them trouble the top 40?

Ruby Flipper carry on with their sexless, artless, primary school assembly crud.

Noticed Jonathan King in the charts, I wonder if the BBC will show him when he appears? he did appear at some point I'm sure, don't think it was with the song he was in the charts with currently.

Liverpool Express - You Are My Love is growing on me.

Status Quo - Mystery Song was a breath of fresh air.

Jimmy James & The Vagabonds with Now Is The Time.. were tight, and live in the studio.. chugged along nicely, classiest thing on tonight.

It might have been said here already, but I'll say it anyway, Demis Roussos was looking a lot like Danny Baker with a beard (pre-cancer Danny Baker)

[Alderman Barnes]

TOTP on BBC4

Interesting stuff this week, with a couple of acts that didn't get a sniff of the charts.

I quite liked that Sunfighters thing. It was the missing link between the Sweet, the Bay City Rollers and the Rich Kids.

Glamour Puss seemed to be an early, defective prototype of the Spice Girls. Having said that, I'd vote for it if it were in the Eurovision song contest.

And were Doctor Hook snogging in that video?

[laverte]

TOTP on BBC4

Has there ever been a band less sexy than Dr Hook? That song always gives me the shivers, with its undertone of sexual assault: some poor exhausted woman being pestered for beyond-the-call-of-duty sex by a man with a haystack for a beard or, worse, by the hyperactive goon with the maracas. The video turned out to be thankfully insipid. Even so, Maracas Man managed to act the chump in the ten seconds he was on screen.

This was the era of falsetto harmonies recorded in a really ugly synthetic-sounding way. Whenever I hear I'm not in love I see a gang of hairy men wearing nothing but nylon y-fronts. Perhaps that's just me. Sunfighters contained too much falsetto for my taste. They looked really Scottish — does anyone know if they were?

Bobby Goldsboro's hair: just wow.

Finally, a message to Noel Edmonds: it's not particularly amusing to take the piss out of long Greek names that end in -os, not even in 1976. But Roussos?

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

Yep, I think that's just you.

[Come along, Min]

TOTP on BBC4

Well it was just her, until now.

[Squarewheelbike]

TOTP on BBC4

Jimmy James, an absolute complete and utter legend, always has been always will be!

[David Agnew]

TOTP on BBC4

It almost had the look of not being produced in front of a live audience that week.

The Dr Hook video looks like a huge influence on Mulligan & O'Hare.

atlanticjaxx wrote:

Enjoying the continued weirdness, The Sunfighters?? Glamour Puss (Imagine 5 shake N'Vac ladies) did either of them trouble the top 40?

The Sunfighters, Glamour Puss and Bobby Goldsboro would all fail to dent the top 50.

As for reflecting the chart buying public, it's probably one of the lowest ever with Demis Roussos (1), Dr Hook (3), Liverpool Express (16), Tavares (23), The Beatles (29), Status Quo (34) and Jimmy James & THe Vagabonds (48), with the Chanter Sisters (50) wrapping up the show.

You have to wonder what the criteria was for decideing which songs Ruby Flipper would do - The Manhattans, Queen, Hot Chocolate and Don Williams had all climbed in the top 20, without having previously been on, and Dorothy Moore and T-Rex were also climbers in the top 20 who hadn't been on the previous week, if they were looking for repeat performances.

Noticed Jonathan King in the charts, I wonder if the BBC will show him when he appears? he did appear at some point I'm sure, don't think it was with the song he was in the charts with currently.

According to the iPlayer (and the TV Guide): "Noel Edmonds presents the weekly pop chart and introduces acts including Sunfighter - Drag Race Queen, Liverpool Express - You Are My Love, Bobby Goldsboro - The Story of Buck, 100 Ton & a Feather (featuring Jonathan King) - It Only Takes A Minute, Glamourpuss - Superman, Jimmy James & the Vagabonds - Now is the Time, and dance sequences from Ruby Flipper."

Looks like it was just cut - it's his third week in the charts as a climber or an entry, and it climbs for another two weeks - no way would someone as fame hungry as Jonathan King miss out on being on TOTP over five weeks.

[Benjm]

TOTP on BBC4

David Agnew wrote:

It almost had the look of not being produced in front of a live audience that week.

Yeah, it's one thing not being able to coax Bryan Ferry into the studio but relying on previous weeks' footage of Liverpool Express smacks of real desperation.

You have to wonder what the criteria was for decideing which songs Ruby Flipper would do

Could one factor be that Flick and her accomplices worked with a longer turnaround time for a routine than the 40 odd minutes the end results sometimes suggest? Back in the USSR was great though, right down to the barbed wire at the front of the stage.

This week included some impressively brutal camera work, smashing one unfortunate Deirdre Barlow lookalike out of the way as if practising a shot for a particularly hard hitting anti-drink driving ad.

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

Looks like it was just cut - it's his third week in the charts as a climber or an entry, and it climbs for another two weeks - no way would someone as fame hungry as Jonathan King miss out on being on TOTP over five weeks.

That, plus the fact that the BBC loved him: well, gave him more exposure than was actually merited by chart performance. (Another to add to the list of 'favoured' acts that the Beeb had back then. In his case, so much so that he wound up with a couple of his own series.)

[Come along, Min]

TOTP on BBC4

benjm wrote:

This week included some impressively brutal camera work, smashing one unfortunate Deirdre Barlow lookalike out of the way as if practising a shot for a particularly hard hitting anti-drink driving ad.

Ha!, I saw that too,

I pictured it as shot a serial killer movie, from the killer's POV, just before he pounces.

[historyman]

TOTP on BBC4

laverte wrote:

Has there ever been a band less sexy than Dr Hook? That song always gives me the shivers, with its undertone of sexual assault: some poor exhausted woman being pestered for beyond-the-call-of-duty sex by a man with a haystack for a beard or, worse, by the hyperactive goon with the maracas. The video turned out to be thankfully insipid.

Bobby Goldsboro's hair: just wow.

Maybe they were in a kind of kitsch mid '70s way. See also Demis Roussos - but at least he had a couple of decent tunes.

Funnily enough, this weeks's show was the first time that I've ever seen any of Dr Hook. I'd heard some of their songs alright, but never seen them before. I suppose if female groupies wanted to shag the lead singer they could use his beard as something to hang on to. Just hope that there are no soup stains left from lunch.

Bobby Goldsboro's hair has got to be heavily lacquered. It was a toss up between his barnet, Dr Hook's facial hair and Francis Rossi's Victorian sideburns for the '70s look of the week.

Demis Roussos' voice is a strange one though. Much as I quite like 'Forever and Ever', it sounds at times as if he invented Autotune about 20 years before Cher used it on 'Believe'.

One oddly reassuring thing from this week's show was that Status Quo's music hasn't really changed in 35 years.

[Commodore]

TOTP on BBC4

Mildly intrigued by the collection of sailors witnessing Bobby Goldsboro, whose hair mildly resembles Blackburn's by some coincidence.

Had never seen Parfitt take lead vocal duties for the Quo before. Not that it makes much difference to the sound, mind. And Jimmy James and the Vagabonds is right as I'm pretty sure he had that same getup on for his last appearance on TOTP. Must be his lucky suit or something.

And I can't help but love old Demis, if only for Forever and Ever being played on Abigail's Party. The film was a bit Network 7 in the camera work, though.

[Come along, Min]

TOTP on BBC4

David Agnew wrote:

atlanticjaxx wrote:

Noticed Jonathan King in the charts, I wonder if the BBC will show him when he appears? he did appear at some point I'm sure, don't think it was with the song he was in the charts with currently.

According to the iPlayer (and the TV Guide): "Noel Edmonds presents the weekly pop chart and introduces acts including Sunfighter - Drag Race Queen, Liverpool Express - You Are My Love, Bobby Goldsboro - The Story of Buck, 100 Ton & a Feather (featuring Jonathan King) - It Only Takes A Minute, Glamourpuss - Superman, Jimmy James & the Vagabonds - Now is the Time, and dance sequences from Ruby Flipper."

Looks like it was just cut - it's his third week in the charts as a climber or an entry, and it climbs for another two weeks - no way would someone as fame hungry as Jonathan King miss out on being on TOTP over five weeks.

I suspect there's no clearly defined scale of what should or should not be censored in cases like these, and I'm certainly not making the case for Jonathan King OR Gary Glitter (assuming they will give him the same treatment). I'm sure the beeb's reasoning would be because of sensitivity to the people who they abused who could be watching, rather than a Nanny state notion of protecting us from anything detrimental to viewers health.

BUT, I think the BBC should make the viewers aware of what they have cut. Erasing these moments without explanation strikes me as somewhat phoney, a neat and tidy rewriting of history. Indeed, their bizzare depiction of the 70's (without Glitter in particular) would seem closer to something The Ministry Of Truth would get up to more than anything else.

[Come along, Min]

TOTP on BBC4

David Agnew wrote:

The Dr Hook video looks like a huge influence on Mulligan & O'Hare.

Bob's twitter feed (@RealBobMortimer) is indicating a Mulligan & O'Hare album is being released on 15th August.

Apparently its called CHRIST!..WHAT CHRIST!?

I hope it's true.

[Auntie Beryl]

TOTP on BBC4

atlanticjaxx wrote:

BUT, I think the BBC should make the viewers aware of what they have cut. Erasing these moments without explanation strikes me as somewhat phoney, a neat and tidy rewriting of history. Indeed, their bizzare depiction of the 70's (without Glitter in particular) would seem closer to something The Ministry Of Truth would get up to more than anything else.[/quote]
Think I'm right in saying they cut stuff every week - TOTP had a 40 minute running time in those days. Madness that they are billing these repeats as the full monty when they are editing out 25% of each show.

[George]

TOTP on BBC4

They have aired both the 40 minutes and the edited version at different time slots most weeks I believe. But it's only the 30 minutes version that gets put up on Iplayer.