Top of the Pops

Yes, I suppose BBC4 were lucky with Juan Martin's appearance as they did have enough leeway to cut David Jensen's voiceover off before the performance started. The edit made was still somewhat noticeable with the immediate jump to another part of Yellow Pearl, but not too jarring.

I wonder how many mute link/caption free editions still exist? I know we're getting back into supposition, but if not many exist then it's possible the mere existence of it could have caused confusion. Especially as it was a live edition, whereas with a pre-recorded edition any mute links copy would be an unedited studio session, so easier to tell apart from the completed episode.

Unedited session footage has been used here and there in some of the more recent Story Ofs, which is always nice to see, so those should be an indication of the ones that are still around. There were others, but during 1990's I noticed rushes of Jakki Brambles between takes of what looked like the 26/07 edition - perhaps the unaired Sinead O'Connor and En Vogue performances that were recorded during the sessions for that show account for their existence.

For anyone who's interested and hasn't seen it yet, here's the other 88 mute link episode, the 14th July edition (also Simon Bates' final edition):

https://we.tl/t-700hbp1v9q

Interesting how the way they handle the mute links is different between the two editions. On the 23rd June edition you can still hear the backing music to the links, but no ambient studio noise, but on the 14th July edition you can hear the ambient studio noise (so can still partly hear the presenters over the speakers in the studio), but not the backing music. Also the chart countdowns are completely silent on the latter, but still have audio on the former.

Also interesting that there's no voiceover on the breakers on either edition, I'd have assumed the voiceover for that was pre-recorded in advance, like the chart countdowns were, but seemingly not. Though after a while Ciani seemed to prefer having the presenters say what the breakers were beforehand rather than having them announced over the clips.

Also notable that they don't cut away from Glenn Medieros quickly enough, so you get a quick glimpse of Simon Mayo and Janice Long from the previous weeks show, though of course you can't hear them as that will also have come from a mute link version.

I've recently seen the BBC- VT files of the couple other mute link editions that BBC4 didn't broadcast (07/05 + 02/09) - either the way they recorded the mute link copies was never consistent, or they were prone to cockups with them quite often, as both had their own issues in places.


Not entirely silent - if you turn up the volume to 100%, you can still hear them faintly. Though this in itself is odd, seeing as they weren't missing from any of the other mute link editions we've had. Presumably if they were it would've created much bigger difficulties in creating suitable restorations, as I think it must've with 14/07.


I noticed that was something Stan Appel usually preferred them to do on the editions where he stood in for Hurll and Ciani, although the latter wasn't consistent with it, as a March 1991 show I've seen has Anthea Turner reading out the song titles over their clips again.

Which years are they from?

I do have a copy of the mute link 30/12/71 edition too (the only version that exists- an undited studio tape,so several pauses and retakes in it), that one is silent on a couple of the performances too.

07/05 is 1981 of course, and 02/09 was 1982. The latter has been noted on Popscene as having mute links on the master tape for a good while now, but we never were going to see it on BBC4 anyway thanks to Savile's presence.

Oh yes, the 7/5/81 is the edition where only an incomplete off-air version surfaced, missing a few minutes in the middle and ending half-way through the closing link, so BBC4 weren't able to properly reconstruct it for broadcast.

I think that edition was also the first live one in many years.

Yes, the first since the early 70s ones I believe. The off-air copy that went around isn't missing quite as much as you say - it cuts off at the end of Eddy Grant's performance and then returns a few seconds into the Legs & Co routine which came straight after him. So all that's really missing is Peter Powell's link between them, the final seconds of his closing link, and the playout; a real shame those few minutes of missing audio prevented it from getting restored as it was a pivotal show for TOTP.

02/09/1982 was also a somewhat notable one - it was a 45 minute long live special that celebrated the BBC's 60th anniversary, and Michael Hurll seemed to use it as an excuse to try and create an even more OTT carnival atmosphere for the show, replete with roundabouts, trapeze artists, and fire eaters. If little else it proves how far he was trying to take the show at that time, although it does seem a little odd when you've got Savile hosting and Showaddywaddy performing their last hit amongst all of it.

Thanks for sharing that link.

Would the shot of Mayo and Long have appeared on the broadcast version too? Unless In case I’m misunderstanding, are the “mute links” versions identical to the broadcast versions except for audio and graphics, or are they a totally different edit?

I have an off-air version of this episode, and yes it does still appear. This was a live episode though, presumably in a re-recorded episode if something like that happened they'd tidy up in the edit.

Certainly in the case of these two episodes, the mute links and regular versions are identical visually apart from the lack of captions, but they are both live episodes, so that's to be expected. I'd presume with a pre-recorded episode the mute links version would only be in the form of an unedited studio tape (though I assume that would also be identical to the regular unedited tape apart from the link audio and captions too).

I've not actually seen any mute link studio tapes for any pre-recorded episodes, apart from the 30/12/71 edition I mentioned above, so I don't know what they look like for those late 80s/early 90s editions. Not that I know how many of them still exist, I can't see them being the sort of thing the archive would typically hold on to long term.

Here's the off-air of the 14/7/88 edition for anyone who wants to compare it to the mute links one:

https://we.tl/t-6lwStCVQWx

I admit I find these mute links and raw studio tapes fascinating, not least because they give insight into the production process.

One thing I actually noticed on the mute link version of 14-7-88, you can hear the Salt n Pepa video being rewound after they cut back to Simon & Bruno. It's drowned out by the cheering and presenters talking on the off-air version.