Top of the Pops

That was it - thanks.
And of course for the first few weeks of year zero, they do the top 10 at the start of the show after the first song (and you'd then have to wait another 20 minutes to see the number 1). I've always wondered if that was Stanley Appel trying to recreate the 70s way of doing it? Odd decision in 1991 anyhow...

With Rob having mentioned his page about TOTP graphics, I must mention a job well done summing up the programme's history, both in general and in presentation, with avoiding the various elephants...

Reminds me of the site I used to co-run about TOTP presentation back in the early 2000s - I think I only have the content backed-up on floppy disks which I now have no way of retrieving!

In terms of running the chart countdown over the video, I agree the lower-third scroll concept worked best than the 1986 crawl with presenter voiceover - particularly with the 1995 package as, to me, that was the least intrusive in terms of size and animation:



There's the bulk of an edition from the first few weeks of the Chris Cowey era on YouTube - the fourth, if anyone's counting, which not only contains a satellite performance and three videos, but also has the host reading out the Top 20 rundown (Jo Whiley in this case) instead of Mark Goodier:

Yes, I remember that site - was it called 'TOTPtastic' or something similar? It's been a long time since it disappeared, and there hasn't been anything like it since, so with the BBC Four repeats about to move into the next era of graphics, it got me thinking about putting together a new page to summarise the show's presentation over the years.



I remember the first week they changed the chart format, which must be a couple of weeks before this one, they started to show a Red Hot Chili Peppers video (Love Rollercoaster), and then about halfway through they start reading out the Top 20 over it with short video clips, with the music continuing. That was one of those, 'huh, what are they doing?' moments. It was also a bit annoying to lose 40-21 at that point, though I was getting less interested in the music in the charts by that stage anyway.

As far as the 1986 version goes, it's funny that I don't recall the March method of them running the charts over the video, but I do remember when they tried it in April. I remember one week they ran the charts over the Falco 'Rock Me Amadeus' video, with Gary Davies saying something along the lines of "Well we can't understand what they're saying, so we might as well look at the Top 40' - which we should get to on BBC Four in a couple of weeks or so.

If they correct the listing mistake-Case in point This Friday's episode of TOTP86 is also down to be repeated next Thursday which surely can't be right.

Returning to TOTP's logos, no-one can disagree that the 1973 logo was *the* TOTP logo, while its immediate successor was nowhere near as good and very much of its time.

I suspect that, for most people, the 1966 logo comes second:

http://www.thevideobeat.com/media/description-pix/totp-v1.jpg

While "bland" would not be an inappropriate word to describe the current logo:



But what is the *worst* logo of them all? Rich Tea argues it's the 1986 logo - but, for me, it's the 1991 logo by a country mile.



I mean, look at it - tall letters, short letters, wide letters and narrow letters, all in a rather unfriendly serif font and riveted to a weathervane in such a way that the name is difficult to read (in particular, the 'P' in "TOP" and both letters of "OF" all overlapping with each other, and the 'S' of "POPS" practically inside the 'H' of "THE").

It didn't help that the graphics accompanying this logo were similarly hard to read, and that (until February 1994) each of the digits from 0 through 9 in the chart positions had its own font - some of which were similarly unsympathetic.

Yet this logo clung on for three years and four months, until February 1995 - outlasting both the 1986 and 1989 logos, and also lasting one month longer than its immediate successor. It ended up being used for much of the show's Indian summer under Ric Blaxill, too.

Personally always thought the 1998 logo was the best mix of old and new - though I'm surprised they never permanently shortened the name to TOTP considering the full name was old-fashioned and no-one ever questioned what "CD:UK" was supposed to mean!

Probably because anyone who watched CD:UK (in the early years at least) knew what it stood for, as the end of each performance ended with a "countdown UK, countdown UK" voiceover.

That must have been the very early days! It was only "CD:UK, CD:UK" when I was watching.

Here's an example (skip to 3:00):

The short lived opening titles from October 1996 did only say TOTP. But they only lasted a month for some reason (though the end shot from the titles stayed in use at the end of the show until the 1998 revamp).

I know this sounds a bit odd, but some people may have wrongly assumed that CD:UK stood for "compact disc UK", given that the "CD" part of the name was in a circle, and CDs were the main music format at the time.

^ Agreed. I never knew it stood for Count Down until way after it stopped airing.