Christmas TV 1975

Christmas 1970s style and the heyday of British Christmas TV. The big hitters of the BBC out in force. Wall to wall comedy, variety and new films. What bliss it was in those days to be watching the telly … or was it? As with music from ages past we tend to remember the good bits and forget the rubbish. I wonder to what extent we are fooling ourselves as to its quality? Well, thanks to the Radio Times Genome Project, I am able to take a look at Christmas TV from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day 1975 on the BBC. Why have I chosen that particular year? Partly because I was 10 and therefore in the sweet spot of my childhood where memories are more solid and I can remember specific programmes and events. Also, partly because I see so many reflections on the quality of mid 1970s TV and I thought it would be fun to investigate how good it really was. Be prepared to have your memories jogged and perceptions challenged if you were around at the time. For the rest of you, ‘The past is another country, they do things differently there.’

Christmas Eve 1975

On BBC1, the main focus of Christmas Eve was very clearly the younger viewer. In those days it was quite accepted that TV would keep the children out from under your feet, in the same way as it is accepted now that various screens will serve the same purpose. In a 3 channel world, this meant children being entertained in the morning and later afternoon whilst the parents – well in the 70s almost invariably the mother – got on with last minute preparations for the big day. So what was on in the morning, and was it Christmas themed? Well, for the most part, no. There were episodes of Mr Men, Banana Splits (tra la la la la la la!), Star Trek, Laurel and Hardy and the very unfunny (in my opinion at least) Foghorn Leghorn! There were two programmes with a Christmas connection, the Royal Society Christmas Lectures which I loved watching and something called Away in a Village which I have absolutely no recollection of.

In to the afternoon and we had the Pebble Mill Christmas Special followed by a Doris Day film called Jumbo, set in a circus. I would have watched Pebble Mill which I always enjoyed and not the film for reasons that will become clear later. For a 70s time capsule, take a look at the Pebble Mill guests!

It’s Wednesday, it’s 4.15 and it’s Crackerjack! One of the highlights of the Christmas programming for me, and I’m sure many other children, was the Crackerjack Christmas Pantomime. 1975 saw the classic Crackerjack team of Ed Stewart, Jan Hunt, Peter Glaze and Don Maclean. The double act of Glaze and Maclean was a total joy with their slapstick and their silly jokes, so they were perfectly suited to the pantomime season. The guests in 1975 were a very good guide to the comedies the average family and therefore the average 10 year old were watching. You had Don Estelle and Windsor Davies from It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum along with John Laurie from Dad’s Army and John Inman from Are You Being Served? A real roll call of 70s classic characters there. The fact that I still remember them so clearly when characters from latter years have made little impression is interesting. I wonder if it’s because they are associated so strongly with my formative years? Given my reaction to music from a similar vintage I would say so.

The rest of the day saw a certain tracksuit clad presenter making dreams come true, a Walt Disney film in the early evening based on the American Civil War, the sketches of Dick Emery and the Porridge Christmas Special No Way Out, which still holds up incredibly well nearly 50 years on. Then, it was time for bed to prepare for the arrival of Father Christmas!

Christmas Day 1975

It’s highly likely that I was more interested in present opening than TV viewing on Christmas Day, as most 10 year olds would have been. However, what I could have watched in the morning may not have had me switching on even if presents were removed from the equation. There was a programme featuring schoolchildren from Leicestershire, a cartoon version of The Happy Prince, never a favourite story of mine, and finally a Christmas Morning service from St George’s Chapel, Windsor with the Queen and other members of the royal family in attendance. At 11:45 one of my Christmas presents that year appeared on the TV. Along with probably a few others I had a toy Emu! Rod Hull had created his act based around a silent but very angry bird that he carried with him and used to attack people. Michael Parkinson was probably the most famous victim of Emu’s rages and it was this incident that, probably more than any other, catapulted him into the public eye. I can’t remember if I saw this, but I can imagine that if I did, I would have had my toy Emu on my arm copying any mayhem that may have arisen! Given the subject matter though, I can imagine that it was generally a more restrained Rod Hull and Emu that day.

I would definitely have watched the Christmas Top of the Pops with Noel Edmonds and Tony Blackburn at 2.10, after Christmas Dinner, followed by the Queen’s Speech at it’s traditional time of 3pm. What I wouldn’t have done is watched Billy Smart’s Christmas Circus. I can say that for certain, because that was the year when a circus set up on the rec opposite our house. Along with most of the children from the immediate neighbourhood, I went along to watch it and, probably at the time I enjoyed it. However, after the circus was over we were told we could pay our 5p and go to where the animals were to see them up close. I suppose I expected something like London Zoo. What is burned into my memory is a lion in a cage that was probably a few feet longer than she was. It broke my heart, made me angry and gave me a lifelong hatred of circuses. I never took my own children to a circus even after they reluctantly gave up their cruelty to animals, because any circus that had made money from that in the past was tainted in my view. It is one Christmas TV tradition I was pleased to see ended.

Following the circus, there was the TV premiere of a film that was 36 years old!

Remember, that back in those days there were no VCRs for the vast majority of homes, no videotapes on sale, although you could buy cine films if you had the large reel cameras. I remember going to a party of one of my classmates and her parents had a cine film camera to play old cartoons and Laurel and Hardy shorts, which was incredibly exciting at the time! You had probably never seen the Wizard of Oz if you were under 30, even if you had heard Over the Rainbow, so you had no idea what the film would look like. The technicolour was amazing and the whole film was just amazing to my ten year old eyes. Given all our special effects nowadays, it is easy to be blasé but at the time it was awe inspiring. Following Wizard of Oz, you had Bruce Forsyth’s Generation Game and the Christmas Special of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em followed by Morecambe and Wise, so it was probably four hours in front of the screen followed by bedtime at the end of a day which would have had me overdosed on excitement and wanting to play with or read all my presents!

Boxing Day 1975

Boxing Day, rather like Christmas Eve seemed to be a case of keeping the children out of mischief, but perhaps this time to ensure that they didn’t wake up hungover and/or tired parents! To that end, there were cartoons like Boss Cat (as Top Cat was inexplicably called in the UK) and Hong Kong Phooey and an episode of Holiday Star Trek – not Christmas themed, just Star Trek shown during the holidays! Just after midday it was time for sport, and in those days sport meant only one thing – Grandstand!

Look at that role call of 70s icons! Frank Bough, Eddie Waring, Bob Wilson, Peter O’Sullevan and Julian Wilson, all instantly recognisable to those of us of a certain age. I would definitely have drifted away from the screen during the racing but Eddie Waring’s commentary made this sport an absolute must watch. It wasn’t the last I’d see of sporting competition either, as after the lacklustre feature film Tom Thumb, it was time for It’s a Christmas Knockout! No Eddie this time for some reason, but the games never failed to make me laugh and cheer. It was pure fun and pure theatre and I loved it.

Bing Crosby introduced Disney Time, a seasonal staple that thrived in the days when we only saw clips of the films on the television. Dad’s Army followed hot on its heels and the evening film was The Railway Children. Confession time, it was never a film I ever really liked despite its classic status, and even now I can’t see its appeal. Finally, there was the other main highlight of Christmas 1975 in terms of big audience entertainment, the Boxing Day appearance of Mike Yarwood who was a rival to Morecambe and Wise in terms of popularity at the time. His impersonations were often very funny and he brought a particular skill to humanising politicians of the time, especially Harold Wilson, Ted Heath and Denis Healey. The reason we don’t see his shows now is because many of his characters would mean little or nothing nowadays, which is a shame, whereas the sketches of Morecambe and Wise are quite simply timeless.

So there you have it. The good, the bad and the average of the BBC1 offerings for the three days of the festive season in 1975. I really enjoyed wandering down memory lane thanks to the Radio Times Genome Project so join me tomorrow when we will look at Christmas TV for 1977.