Top of the Pops

Me too. Without triggering a poll, it’s not even in the Top 3 of TOTP themes, but it has a real charm and somehow felt fairly contemporary and appropriate in both eras it was used (it would never have worked in the Britpop/post-Britpop years).

Great visuals in the 1991 titles too- filmed at the Brentford Museum of Steam no less! I think the music, titles and graphics were the only things that worked in the 91 revamp.

I don’t think there’s a TOTP theme tune that I don’t like to be honest.

Wonder if this sign is hanging about somewhere? Possibly in a BBC staffer's man cave

Shame about the logo, though...



Obviously, a fair amount of effort was required in crafting it, shooting it on camera and keying it into the titles - and that effort wasn't for nothing as it was used until early 1995. But if you didn't already know what the show was called, I'm not sure you'd have the easiest time working it out...

I always liked it too, though I would say the original version was superior to the remixed version they used in 2003. In those days, as you can see on YouTube, they often wouldn't introduce the programme over the globe but straight off the back of a trailer, and the intro always sounded quite good in that context.

Stan Appel was clearly a fan of Tony Gibber's work as he also commissioned him to do the theme tune for the short-lived Les Dawson quiz Fast Friends that he produced in 1991, and the two themes are not dissimilar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLPc4eFH6hk Fast Friends was a big flop, in Louis Barfe's Les Dawson book Appel says the whole thing was acquired, piloted, recorded and broadcast within about three months, so it was a bit of a frantic production. I love how Les is blatantly superimposed into the titles.



As I've said before, one issue they had in Elstree is that the gallery for their studio hadn't been refurbished since the ATV days, and so initially Pops would use the gallery from another studio, but towards the end of the nineties that studio went on long-term hire to Kilroy and so the gallery was in use every day and they couldn't use it anymore - so instead they used an OB truck parked outside the building, so it does sound like they were using rather limited facilities in the last few years. Even so, seems bizarre there wasn't a better option.

As I've also said before, Richard Marson talks in his book about filming a Blue Peter item on Pops and seeing that, as they were at Elstree away from all the other programmes, Chris Cowey had total control over the whole thing and everyone would defer to him at every opportunity - "I'll just check that with Chris", all that - and it had turned into totally its own self-contained empire.

A possible development - yet TBC officially, should be by Wednesday.

At very long last, We finally have movement on #TOTP1990! Both the Story of 1990 and the big hits of 1990 are Currently down for Friday 2nd October from 8:00 on BBC4! @UKChristmasTV @WestCountrySuzi @russty_russ @neilsmiles @Page_888 @cobaltmale @Badwolf2050 @leethommo

— Matthew Chapman (@Matt528chap) September 14, 2020

Update: Confirmed and now listed on the BBC website.

1990 Big Hits, Friday 2-10-2020 at 8.00pm

The Story of 1990, same Friday at 9.00pm.

So "On This Day in History" on the menu page says that in 1976 "The 1,700th edition of Top of the Pops airs on BBC One."

That can't be right surely.

Seeing as the 1,000th didn't air until 1983...

Might mean the 700th. But I'm not sure even that aired as early as 1976.

We did see the 750th edition in the repeats, it was in August 1978 (they didn't do anything particularly special, but Peter Powell made reference to it and they had a big cake at the end). The Kaleidoscope Pops guide suggests the 700th was in August 1977, so it's not that either.

I think it should be 1996 not 1976.



I've got the 700th noted as being aired on 25/08/77. TOTP episode numbering is all over the place anyway - for example I can never understand how they managed to make the 1000th episode follow only 97 episodes after the 900th...

Yes, you're right, because I remembered that weekend they did a special edition of TOTP2 which featured the number one from every hundredth episode. Obviously they had to use rather lateral thinking for some of the older ones where the relevant episodes had long been wiped, so there were a couple represented by performances from Christmas shows and other programmes instead, and they had nothing at all for Sugar Sugar by The Archies so they did a montage of shots of the audience dancing from various episodes around that time.

That was just after they'd moved it to the 7.30 death slot, and as well as that, they also had highlights of the one and only Top of the Pops Weekend which was a pair of Smash Hits Poll Winners Party-style concerts at Wembley Arena, seemingly just to emphasise it was still a major brand for them despite its unhallowed new slot.

Aren't The Archies a cartoon band? They're based on the Archie comic book. Even if the episode that song was on wasn't wiped, there could be rights issues with the footage, which probably came from the cartoon the song is originally from.