Coronation Street

Yeah seeing Norris dressed as Batman was definitely of unpleasant nature!

There's a lot of Xmas build-up-too-many-episodes-filler nonsense going on at the moment amongst the stupid storylines of Anna Windass in prison, the continuing saga of Pat Phelan's "tricks of the trade" which they're obviously deliberately dragging out until Christmas even though it should've ended LAST Christmas. Don't get me wrong, he's a great actor but it's becoming more implausible by the minute.

If they're not careful we're going to lose the construction of the characters, this is what ruined (or, ok, changed, EastEnders) and for that to happen to Corrie would be a big shame.

Todays episodes on ITV3 were the last episode of 1986 and first episode of 1987. Cant believe we have gone through almost a years worth of episodes already (the first one back in October was 15th January 1986). I really enjoyed the Christmas episode, set and broadcast on Christmas Eve 1986, no episode aired on Christmas Day this year, but the characters mentioned what their plans were for Christmas Day and it worked.

Until 1987, when Hilda Ogden left, there was never an episode broadcast on Christmas Day unless it fell on a Monday or Wednesday and even a few times during the 70s they never aired an episode even when Christmas fell on those days. 1972 was the only year that decade an episode aired on Christmas Day, the next time being 1985! From 1987 it was regular thing and in 1988 they aired one on Christmas Day which was a Sunday! It was a half hour episode until the mid 1990s however.

I'm actually a fair bit behind now, I was away for nearly 2 weeks and I have a big backlog of episodes to catch up on that recorded while I was away! I'm up to the 29/10/86 episode as of today. I want to ration them to 2 or 3 episodes a day so I'll still have episodes to watch during the break ITV3 are taking during Xmas and New year.

Also still slowly getting through the Network DVDs- just watched the last episode from the 1969 disc and the first 2 from the 1970 disc- interesting to note the End Of Part One caption on those three episodes (with a dog in an alleyway) is still in use on the episodes we're seeing on ITV3. Also on the December 69 edition, you see someone lift the caption off the stand!

Well, not entirely- there were two episodes on Xmas day 1991, one was half an hour, but the other was longer- and it was wrapped around the Queen's speech, with Alf turning on the TV to watch it at the start and turning the TV off at the end. I remember when Granada Plus showed that episode, they moved around a couple of the scenes (putting in a scene of Mike and Alma after Alf putting the TV on, that in the original episode was before) and inserting End of Part One/Part Two captions that weren't there originally (possibly an edit made for international broadcast).

They didn't do proper 1 hour specials until mid 1990s is what I meant. I think the first was 1995 and then from about 1998 its been an hour long episode ever since.

The end of part one/part two/end credit captions, a lot of them introduced in the early to mid 1970s stayed until the early 1990s, some were even used in the mid to late 1990s. The short lived opening credits from 1975, a lot of the captions from there were kept and used for end of part one/part two and the end credits.

It was a stunt to get more people to watch The Queen’s Christmas Message on ITV. Coronation Street started at 2:50pm, then joined The Queen and the episode resumed after the broadcast.

ISTR the first 60 minute episode shown was either the episode that went out against Eldorado’s premiere or Tracey Barlow’s wedding a few years later.

Yeah, the first hour long was indeed to spoil Eldorado's launch, but it was just two normal episodes spliced together last minute.
http://coronationstreet.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_3406_(6th_July_1992)

They pulled the same stunt again when EastEnders added a third weekly episode.
http://coronationstreet.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_3686_(18th_April_1994)

The first purpose made hour episode was Raquel and Curly's wedding in 1995.
http://coronationstreet.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_3945_(8th_December_1995)

I remember that afternoon episode of Corrie on Christmas Day 1991! The days when ITV actually did something different on Christmas Day and tried new things. I wonder if that would work today, having a half hour episode after the Queens speech and then return at say 8pm for another half hour.

Reading about some of the storylines coming up over Christmas, without giving any specific spoilers away, it all looks very miserable and depressing!

And Granada Plus showed it as two separate episodes too.

IIRC, when Alf turned on the TV for the Queen’s speech we heard the David Dundas ITV 1989 ident music, even though Granada never used the package.

Vera's quip "sweet fanny adams" was just priceless!!

It pooisble


I believe there did but used variations, but the music was used.