Top of the Pops

I believe The Archies (so far as Sugar Sugar is concerned) "recorded" that outside of the context of the book and original TV show, and the "original" video for it that's on YouTube is actually from The Archie Comedy Hour, which reused segments from the original show and was otherwise "all-new material, now in an hour-long format", and that video was one of the new segments.

There's footage of members of the audience - one in particular - dancing to 'Sugar Sugar', reportedly from the recording session for a 1969 Christmas show, but (and I'm not being prudish here) it's not what I'd call suitable for broadcast, especially in the post-Yewtree, post-MeToo era.

As you'd expect, it's on YT if you want to find it, but I'm not linking.

It actually has been shown, as part of the video TOTP made for "Music Sounds Better With You" in 1998 (as there wasn't an official video for the song at the time). I'll upload it later once I'm on the computer with access to the episode.

It's part of one of the many tapes Bob Pratt made by copying various material he deemed saving, then hiding the tapes so they wouldn't get wiped. Someone uploaded the entirety of the tape with the "sugar sugar girl" to on YouTube a few years back, featured a suprising amount of footage of nubile young ladies, not just the Sugar Sugar girl. A lot of musical material from the late 60s/early 70s got saved thanks to him, but there is also some... odd stuff on those tapes.

Here's the video:



Seems a bit strange than in an era where TOTP wouldn't show some of the biggest selling songs because of their resistance to videos, that they actually went out of their way to make a video for a song that didn't have one.

I remember the dancer and Theakston's link into this, but I never picked up on the crowd shots. Of course, the 'Sugar Sugar' extreme close-up shots don't feature...

I reckon this only got through in the line-up because of the hype behind it - which, for once, was justified. Involvement from Daft Punk probably helped too.

They actually ran the song again on the Christmas show, this time with a montage of TOTP clips from throught the year. Seems doubly strange this happened with this song twice in an era where they'd rarely show something they couldn't get a studio performance for even when there was a video available.

Of course there is a video for it now, but it wasn't made until after the chart run was over. The Chart Show used the song as a reason to show load of old graphics, but sadly it only appeared in full on the penultimate edition, which I haven't seen since it was shown.

Here it is!



As you say, this was the penultimate edition when it was number one on their chart, they showed a brief edit of it on the final show when it was at number two. No more appropriate way for The Chart Show to bow out than announce a number one that didn't actually get there officially, in the grand tradition of that show.

Under Chris Cowey, a lot of the "rules" were very inconsistently applied and seemed to be happily abandoned, so there weren't usually exclusives but they would put them on if it was Robbie Williams. I also remember they played I Would Die 4 U by The Space Cowboy which was actually ineligible for the chart (they had "!" as the chart position) but the fact it was disqualified due to a clerical error - the CD was I think a few seconds too long - had been in the news that week, so on it went. There was that issue too when Will Young got to number one for the first time and his management said he'd do both sides of the record or not at all, so Pops said not at all and they showed the video instead, but they would happily let other bands like Oasis do that. Anything went.

The montage on the Christmas show also happily served as a bit of brand-building on presumably the most watched show of the year, using a montage of clips to illustrate to the casual audience what went on the rest of the time. They did that a few times actually, I remember them doing it to Starry Eyed Surprise by Paul Oakenfold, a record I always associate with the job I had at the time, which I see was on the 2000th show in 2002, and I see they also did it to Without Me by Eminem on Christmas 2002. And that certainly had a video.

Anyway, the general point about The Archies is that seemingly some footage exists - when it's been on docs before they show what appears to be a "video" which is seemingly just a clip from the show - but TOTP2 presumably didn't have the budget or time to dig it out so did that as a bit of fun.

Thanks for that! I'm sure I remembered them showing a lot more graphics than they did there and it running for a lot longer than 70 seconds, but that's clearly just my memory playing tricks on me after 22 years. I do remember that caption about the band making a video "once they get back from holiday" though! Can't help but think part of the video they did make was inspired by The Chart Show too, with the video countdown the boy's watching on the TV, even uses the same font they used in the 1991-96 era. The caption says the graphics date back to 1987, though they do have the Dance Chart graphics from the 1986 series in there too.

I've seen the video for the Archies countless times on music channels down the years, so it's clearly easily accessible!

Speaking of that, I remember them showing the video for Rock DJ... when Robbie was actually in the studio to introduce it (then to tell us at the end we had to watch the late night repeat to see the ending). Clearly the rules were different when it was something Chris Cowie himself liked.

Then that Rock DJ showing was immediately followed by Five instead of Eminem who actually was at number 1, again with us being directed to the late night repeat to actually see him.

A quick look at Popscene shows Rock DJ then got a studio peformance 2 weeks later- again before the song was actually in the charts.

Definitely the ‘87 intro to the Dance Chart in the Stardust video. Though that weird shape figure (or three of them) was in that of series one.

Yes, as you say they showed the full-length version of Rock DJ on the repeat, followed by a cut back to the green room with Robbie saying "Good that, wasn't it?" and everyone else (including Victoria Beckham) staring at him in mock disbelief. And as you say, that was then followed by Theako announcing they weren't playing Eminem at number one because it was too rude (I remember even the version in the repeat seemed quite heavily edited), so instead here was something "bound to be a future number one" from Five.

There were a couple of other tracks that only appeared in the repeat, they only showed Sex on The Beach by T-Spoon even though it was a totally innocuous track and they mentioned the name of it on the main show anyway. I also remember in 2000 that Doves and Len (with the follow-up to Steal My Sunshine) were only on the repeat, seemingly because they'd recorded performances but only entered the charts at number thirty-something so they weren't big enough hits for primetime but they didn't want to waste them.

I think that can basically be thought of as a one-off return for a dancing troupe (albeit consisting of one person) given the introduction as a Pan's Person (though visually quite dull compared to the old routines). I wonder what the difference was with the various "live" performance of dance tracks that were just dance routines anyway, presumably that this had no input whatsoever from the actual act?