The tape starts with some LWT Weather, some ads, a super-hip trail for the new Night Network, and a trail for the Nicholas Lyndhurst sitcom The Two of Us.
This is the first series of The New Statesman, probably from the first broadcast., although I can’t be sure of that. The first episode is Happiness is a Warm Gun. Alan B’Stard is elected to Westminster with a huge majority, after the other two major candidates are seriously injured in a freak car accident. John Woodvine appears as a mad Chief Constable who drinks beer in the pub with the Holy Spirit.
Before the second episode there’s another trail for Night Network, and an extremely cheeky trailer for Never Say Never Again which used the regular Bond theme – though I would blame LWT for this.
Second Episode is Passport to Freedom, in which B’Stard’s wife inherits £1m in shares in a car company, and Alan plots to ruin the company so she won’t divorce him.
Sex Is Wrong is the third episode, with Alan using a ‘moral majority’ movement to publish a book called ‘Sex Is Wrong’ illustrated with pictures “frankly shocking in their sexual explicitness”.
Next episode is preceded by a trailer for Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Waste Not Want Not has Alan having to find somewhere to dump tons of Argentinian nuclear waste.
In Friends of St James Alan tries to set up a bank on a caribbean island, and ends up pretending to hijack a plane.
Before the next episode, there’s the end of an episode of the Nigel Havers series The Charmer. Then a trailer for The Bretts.
Three Line Whipping sees Alan give an awful performance on TV-AM, and ends with him driving the supposedly dead body of a taxi driver to be disposed of in the country.
Following the last episode there’s the trailer for The Bretts again, then the start of The South Bank Show. “Tonight a group which for the past few years have spoken in its songs for much of the intelligent, unblinkered youth of this country, The Smiths.” Melvyn can hardly keep a smirk off his face on the word ‘intelligent’.
There’s some remarkable footage of a pre-Smiths Johnny Marr.
Naturally, John Peel chips in.
And Morrissey himself is interviewed.
Is “Voice and Lyrics” incredibly arch, or am I being unfair?
“The Smiths came together quite by accident really. It just suddenly happened. Which sounds… almost unbelievable, but it really did, it really did happen in a very sudden and very casual way.”
Well, since the only non-casual way a pop group would get together is if Simon Cowell creates you from the discarded parts of failed X-Factor entrants, it’s not really that unbelievable.
Johnny Marr says that Morrissey’s performance was an attempt to ‘Take back the gork.”
The programme also talks to fans. Jo O’Keefe liked his pale skin and rugged jawline…
And it’s not just the ladies. Here’s Shaun Duggan.
“I wouldn’t want to characterise the typical Smiths fan” says Jon Savage of the Observer, all the while typifying all of rock journalism himself.
Jo O’Keefe has no such qualms about characterising fans. “Male, late teens, lonely, dejected, failed in love, very nervous, no confidence whatsoever. A box bedroom rebel.”
Sadly, we only have 10 minutes of this programme before the tape stops.
Adverts:
- Kaliber
- The Guardian
- Lloyds Bank – John Sessions, Leo McKern
- Radio Rentals
- Guinness
- The Guardian
- Renault 21
- Wispa
- Capital Radio
- Heineken
- Daily Express
- Advertise on Central TV
- The Untouchables
- TWA Ambassador Class – they serve Ferrero Rocher.
- Heinz Tomato Sauce
- Apple – “Going To Work”
Compare this to the American version
The UK version is shorter, the close-up of the report is completely different – even the format and binding is different to the preceding shot, and the UK version ends with Apple as the brand, while the US version has Macintosh as the branding.
- TWA
- Whitbread Best Bitter – another one featuring Peter Capaldi
- Renault 21
- Castrol GTX
- Intercity
- Nescafe Blend 37
- Daily Express Enterprize game – trumped up Bingo for stockbrokers
- Volvo 340
- ICI
- Thomson Holidays
- American Express – featuring Dominic Jephcott from The Beiderbecke Affair
This is the epitome of smug, rich people. “I adore Seville, but I couldn’t bear to leave Spain without spending a couple of days in Barcelona.”
- Ford Montego
- Flake
- The Cream of Eric Clapton
- Malaysia
VHiStory 