30 years ago today: the smokey globe and the 2s

Yes it was very much unique to the 1990-1991 run of Going Live that it was introduced by the globe, which means had the revamp happened any other time it would likely have first appeared at lunchtime into the weather or Grandstand. Swap Shop and Saturday Superstore mainly used the clock. Even during the Saturday Starts Here era and the 1992-4 broom cupboard era, it would normally be straight into GL/L&K from the previous show (though curiously they would always link directly from the broom cupboard into Parallel 9). From the start of Live and Kicking they put in a CBBC ident which I always thought worked really well, normally played out by TC6 or 7 along with the credits to the previous programme so they could muck about over them. This finally disappeared around 2000 in favour of standard CBBC continuity. The globe was also used into the first L&K and Jamie and Zoe's first show, though this seems to have just been one-offs for the occasion.

For obvious reasons the Saturday morning show always occupied a no-man's land halfway in CBBC, half-way out. Even when branding started being more consistent it was always trailed as "on BBC One" rather than "CBBC One" and sat outside of the kids block in Radio Times. It was only the 2002 CBBC relaunch when it was brought into the kids branding, presumably because it would have stuck out like a sore thumb otherwise.

And good point about the Run The Risk set never being updated. It meant the final series, aired Autumn 1996 and repeated summer 1997, still had the "superhero" Going Live set design from some 5 years earlier.

But then Going Live did always recolour their set massively every year and change the titles most years towards the end. Live and Kicking was always a bit more incremental, and of course the titles were virtually the same thing for 7 series.

Seeing as we're way off topic, I did come across a 1988 Going Live on YouTube recently and had to agree with one of the comments that it seemed way more stilted than they remembered. But a quick search showed that from the 1989-1990 run of the show there was a huge change in the direction of the show, with a lot more handheld cameras and fewer static shots. No one ever seems to mention this but once you spot it you can't miss it, and it was clearly quite a deliberate attempt to modernise the direction and look of the show from that third run.

He did a few other bits and pieces during the show, some of the more juvenile items - presumably it was such a frantic show that the more people they could have in the studio who could fill in and do bits and pieces the better.

I would agree that Going Live did seem to have a bit of a boot up the arse in 1989, though TV technology was really expanding at that point so presumably they had a load more freedom with handheld cameras and the like. 1989-91 was the high point of Going Live, after Trevor and Simon went it was never the same, and then of course when they came back Pip was part-time. But those two series were the show at the height of its brilliance.

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the 1991 globe. Although its blue and bronze tones date it, I think the thought put into light and texture sets it apart from a lot of glossy CG of the time, and has (at least conceptually) aged quite well. I think in retrospect, wedged between the COW and the balloon, it tells an interesting story about how the channel's vibe has evolved.

At the risk of devolving into mock territory, I've been playing around with a globe ident that dynamically renders a real-time smokey globe that is quite heavily inspired by this era of presentation, as a way of introducing my Zoom meetings because yes I am exactly that awful.

Currently streaming it on the youtubes in case that sort of thing interests you (side effect of it being a real-time thing/work in-progress it has a tendency to end up in complete darkness or utterly garish colours so...all that stuff I said about the elegance of the 1991 globe does not apply)

Going Live's predecessors, Saturday Superstore and Swap Shop, were both always introduced off the clock rather than the globe.

As to why Peter Simon was hanging around, audience warm up perhaps? I know he has done that kind of work.

You're probably right, there to keep the kids in the studio amused when they weren't on camera. Of course, Peter Simon's first role on Saturday mornings was helping out on the OBs on SuperStore.

I was in the audience for L&K in 1994. We weren't actually in the studio all that much. They had the audience in there when needed, but moved us out into another room otherwise.

I was going to mention that, yes it's not that well remembered now but he and Sarah were (I think) the only 2 of the on-screen team from Superstore who continued onto Going Live. He was on the OB in the last episode with Keith Chegwin then reappeared after the summer in a presenting role

Interestingly, if it's true the idents were played in overnight test transmission prior to their official launch, the soundtracks are the later, refined versions that wouldn't appear until three weeks after their debut.

Makes me wonder if they'd only just remembered the newer soundtracks existed, hence why they were updated on short notice.

What was the deal with the sound thing? It was weird that they sounded a bit different after a few weeks. Not different enough that they were actual re-recordings though - more of a remix.

Although I think the "improved" versions are stronger on the whole, I preferred the "whale" sound in the original version of Silk, where it's more prominent and can be heard clearly coming in just before the first bell toll.

This also reminds me: didn't the Carlton star idents also initially sound slightly different for a similarly short amount of time when they were introduced back in 1999? Must be a Lambie-Nairn tradition.

I didn't realise they were replaced after only a few weeks. I had previously guessed that the original soundtracks were mono, and the new ones were stereo mixes introduced for the launch of NICAM in the Autumn.

I thought about the stereo thing but they were changed long before the autumn.

It also doesn't explain the deal with the Carlton idents, which went through a similar process, some years later.