Make My Body Younger (BBC Three, Wednesday, 9 July, 8pm). Unhealthy girl referred to in show as “living autopsy”. Basically, her insides are rotten. So, this show will help her out with various techniques. Whatever. By comparison to George Lamb (who presents the show), she’s laughing. Why? Well, this is less ‘don’t watch this show’, and more ‘George Lamb is needs culling’ article. Read over for a kicking.
MediaGuardian reports today on a new ad campaign from Wonderbra called “puppies and jugs.” Following on from Dove’s ongoing Real Women strategy, it will feature… err… real women appearing in their underwear. To attract enough women to the shoot (ad agency Iris hopes that at least 1,000 will come) a viral film launches today featuring various images for the familiar nicknames used to describe women’s breasts. So what? you might ask. (“So what, John?”) Thank you. Well it got me thinking about how telly ads have changed over the years, and what a tough job it is these days to get us to watch them at all.
I love Brothers & Sisters. I know it’s so very American and intense and, you know, worthy, but it’s so good. The trouble is, it’s currently being shown by E4 at the ridiculous hour of 11.45pm. I go to bed at 10 (at the latest). My video broke. I fell out with Sky and I haven’t got any sort of hard drive or DVD recorder (yet). What I do have is Virgin On Demand. Which is generally marvellous, but it charges 99p per episode of Brothers & Sisters. 99p per episode! But I did watch the first series on illegally downloaded DVDs so it sort of seems fair.
If you go to Youtube and type in Touch The Truck, you’ll get absolutely nothing to do with the gameshow aired on (Channel) Five in 2001. Why? Well, basically, it’s the worst show that’s ever been aired. I can say that with some confidence. Those that are able to remember it will testify that, Dale Winton, a man not known for his shame (this is a man who pretended to wed Nell McAndrew for a TV wheeze), actively looked ashen and disinterested when hosting the show.
So. Some of you might not remember the show and may well be sat there thinking ‘what on Earth could make this the worst show ever? Ever? That’s some claim.’ Well, meet me over the jump where I’ll wallow in dreadful nostalgia…
Okay. I’ve had a small rant about this already, but now it’s time for a full blown bile unload. After watching last night’s UEFA Cup Final, which lovingly ended in riots about a mile up the road from my house, I couldn’t believe how bad ITV’s coverage is. I mean, I’ve always disliked it… but hellfire. Last night was my dream-team of useless dolts.
As a neutral, or indeed, as someone who doesn’t support one of the big four (Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal), the European finals provide a big thrill. Generally, I don’t pick a side and sit back and let the tension, the action, the to-ing and fro-ing, wash all over me. However, when faced with those that are stealing a living at ITV Sports, I can’t quite embrace the game like I could.
I’m in a grumpy mood all in all, but a grumpy mood tinged with giddy liberation and happiness. The weather has been lovely, but I’ve been plagued by thoughts about injustice, politics and elections when I should be laying back in a hammock, sipping mint juleps and toasting my ankles in the lovely, warm sun. But no. Instead I’m feeling slightly angry at he return of a TV show that was dreadful in the first place and, without any doubt whatsoever, will be dreadful now.
Normally we split these posts into ‘Why I Love… A Certain Programme’ and ‘A Certain Programme – Why?‘ But the fact is, I just can’t make up my mind when it comes to Green Wing. I realise, by the way, that this isn’t the most topical show that I could turn my attention to, but for that you can blame the fact that Channel Four are currently allowing you to download or stream the best of their homegrown comedy shows for free, on 4oD. I already own and treasure my Peep Show and Spaced box-sets, so I thought I’d have a go at Green Wing.
I’ve tried before, really I have, and my colleagues here at the Scoop are clearly fans. And I really want to like it. I love every member of the cast in other shows, and it’s a quirky, British comedy. I should love it! And, for parts of it, I do. So why do I still find other parts such a trial to watch…?
Booty? Funky Monkey? Smoothies and shakes totally rock? Perhaps I should add ARRGH! CUT MY FACE OFF AND FLUSH IT DOWN THE PAN too. Hey! I’ll lose valuable pounds in my attempts to snare a mate (“oi, boy…”). Under no circumstance should a white person ever try to say the word ‘booty’ in reference to their arse… the only time a white person should ever say ‘booty’ is in reference to pirate treasure. Quite simply, this is the worst advert ever made. Please… someone… make it stop. I’m worrying myself thin here.
Like anyone, I love a good quiz show. In fact, I love a bad quiz show as well. Sitting idly on your rump answering a few questions is a hobby that is hard to beat. Why anyone would humiliate themselves by going on a show is beyond me as I’m happy to be a coward and answer only the questions I know… or take random stabs at others without fear of national red-cheekery.
However, there is one show that I repeatedly tune in to that drives me insane… and that’s Eggheads (BBC Two, most afternoons at various times). It features some of the best quizzers in the world… and also, some of the most unbearable smuggery ever witnessed on TV.
He may well be giving it his thumbs down. If he was anywhere near as important as he thinks he is, this may have been the signal for an execution. Based on the performance so far this year, The X Factor is overdue for the chop. Last year’s winner Leona Lewis may be riding high in the charts, and 2005′s winner Shayne Ward has just released his latest album which has some reasonable material on it even though it doesn’t exactly leave me breathless (see what I did there?), but out of 200,000 auditionees for the 2007 show there is no-one that even comes close to either of these two for vocal talent, stage presence, or that elusive X factor.
So what’s gone wrong? Has its time passed? Are we the audience jaded or is there really no more talent left to unearth? Has the fourth judge spoiled the party, or is it just another case of reality fatigue?
Here he is doing what he knows. Writers are always told to “write what they know.” Why can’t the same be applied to TV presenters? I had no problem when Titchy was tidily ensconced in the backwaters of BBC Two on a Friday night presenting Gardeners’ World. He likes gardening, and he knows a fair bit about it. I don’t like gardening, and I know nothing about it. A perfect harmony was established, where I didn’t ever have to come into contact with him, or wonder which way he was looking.
Unfortunately that happy state of affairs has not continued. In recent years, as has happened in the past with other minor celebrities and “flavour of the month” presenters (Wogan springs to mind despite my most strenuous efforts to prevent it), Titchy has increased his stranglehold on the nation’s telly and grossly extended his purview. I use the word “grossly” advisedly, since it is gross. A gross affront to our sensibilities. Where, for instance, are this man’s credentials for telling us about The Nature of Britain?
Michael Grade recently said that ITV1 is to have a “huge strategic rethink“. Of course, that left me thinking that the broadcaster would be looking to unearth real talent for the camera and focus on quality programming. Well, with the news that Coleen McLoughlin is to co-host a show called Star Traders and is set to present her own fashion programme for ITV, it seems that Grade is sticking to TV tat fronted by brain donors.
The WAG signed a £2 million deal with the broadcaster in May and her first appearance under the deal will be alongside Philip Schofield on Star Traders on December 22. In addition to this, McLoughlin’s own show, Coleen’s Real Women, will begin in January and see her take everyday members of the public into modelling jobs. Jesus wept.
What the hell is a ‘celebrity beauty editor’? This is one of the many questions I find myself hurling at the television whenever Nadine Baggott intrudes upon my world on behalf of Olay. Nadine has popped up in a number of commercials for the company, patronisingly informing us ladies that she has ‘discovered’ pentapeptides (a word that Olay obviously hope sounds long enough to convince us of its scientific roots. You can imagine the advertisers adding on more and more syllables, “no pentapeps won’t cut it, how’s about adding ‘ides’ on the end?”, “Genius, drinks all round!”) According to Nadine, these pentapeptides found in Olay Regenerist make some grand promises to help us ugly hags minimise our wrinkles, defy signs of aging, do our housework and all sorts of other things we clearly spend 24 hours a day fretting about. Really, it’s a wonder that I can type these words for you, while I’m so crippled with fear about my burgeoning crow’s feet.
Even after having been subjected to Nadine’s condescending torture in various adverts, I don’t know what is the most bemusing. The fact that after promoting the product for years, she still acts like pentapeptides are her big secret or that her skin looks like its been stretched by dozens of face-lifts. Take a look and see if we can put an age on her.
I’m so late with a review of Saturday’s (and Sunday’s) X Factor “judges’ houses” double bill that it can hardly be called a review any more, but the truth is I was left with so little enthusiasm when faced with this year’s lacklustre final 12 it’s taken me until now to summon the energy to write anything about it. Ian Wylie’s excellent Life of Wylie column on the finalists and their journeys succinctly expresses my own views in its first few sentences. Manipulative, a parody of itself, and yet a seemingly unstoppable force in Saturday night television for the time being.
Previously I might have whipped up a run-down of the 12, with a bit of their sobback stories, hopes and aspirations, but as Digital Spy has already done a good job of this, there seems little point in repeating it. So if the points have all been made, what’s left to say about this year’s X Factor? I’m sure I can find something.
Advertisements are a notoriously difficult thing to get right. You have to convey the ethos of your company and all that you offer in 30 seconds or less. That said, it’s also very easy to avoid getting it disasterously wrong too. Basically, if you do exactly the opposite of the advert below, you won’t go to badly off the tracks. Don’t get the animators in, only to pay them £2 per hour. Don’t get a jingle writer in and then scrimp on their costs. And for God’s sake, don’t try to marry the Battle of Hastings with a modern vehicle and a preposterous ‘Egyptian’ dance.
The recent passing of TV legend, Ronnie Hazlehurst, got me thinking about TV theme tunes. If you don’t know who Ronnie is, let me tell you. Sir Hazlehurst composed the theme tunes for many well known British sitcoms of the 1970s and 1980s, including Are You Being Served?, Last of the Summer Wine, Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, To the Manor Born and Yes Minister. The man was one of TV’s giants.
Thinking about modern telly, it seems that the great theme tune has all but vanished. This might have something to do with the squashing of credits at the end of shows (see Charlie Brooker’s diatribe on the last Screen Wipe), but the fact still stands… what happened to the TV theme? With an absence of themes to sing-along to, I started thinking of some of my faves. The theme from psychedelic kids show, The Banana Splits, is one that is burnt into my brain. “La la laaa, la la l’laaaa, la la laaaa, la l’laaa laaaa…” and that’s only for starters.
With ITV bracing itself for a £2.8m fine for the GMTV premium-rate phone-in scandal and the news that ITV are to scrap ITVPlay, it seems that the days of phone-in competitions are well and truly numbered. We reported on the Blue Peter fix, the scandal surrounding Brainteaser and Richard and Judy… and we all secretly cheered that these robbing gits were finally being punished. Hefty fines were handed out and tails were promptly popped between legs.
We know that Ofcom hit the broadcasters hard… but were does the money go? We all blindly accept that it disappears to somewhere just and true when really, this could all be going into the coffers of some bloke in a suit all set for some very swanky holiday for him and all his mates. Having a trawl around the ‘net, no answers were immediately forthcoming. So where is it going?
So Parkinson starts his new chat show run on Saturday and as he’s been very keen to tell everyone, it’s going to be his last. Thank God. The so-called “master” of a format that’s actually been dead for 20 years but somehow keeps running around like a cockroach with its head cut off is absolutely everywhere this week. On the cover of Radio Times and all over the news and media pages as if his retirement were a public loss on the scale of Pavarotti.
Rather than go graciously into retirement Parkinson chooses to use the occasion to tell us all why no-one will ever be as great as him and that it’s OK for us to kill off the chat show now he’s finished with it thank you very much, because these modern hosts are only interested in self-promotion and making guests look stupid rather than getting the best out of them. I think there might be just a touch of harking back to his BBC heydays here. For me, Parkinson hasn’t been getting the best out of anyone for at least ten years.
When do we think a TV channel should start advertising one of their programmes? A week in advance, maybe two? Any earlier than that and you would worry that audiences might forget to tune in. Teaser trailers that are short and snappy with a vague ‘coming soon’ announcement air weeks in advance, as do station promoting ones that tempt audiences with tasty promises of what that broadcaster will deliver over the coming season – but show specific, full-on, look-what’s-going-to-go-down adverts with the date featured are usually saved for a week or so in advance.
Not so with Sky One. They have been promoting the third season of Prison Break, due to air on Monday 24th September for a few weeks now. That means a lead-in time of about a month. Who needs a months notice to help plan their night in front of the TV? The Radio Times website seems pleased with itself for featuring the next fortnight’s worth of listings, while we at the Scoop try to give you a few days notice on what’s heading your way – but a month? God reckons he built the world in a week, just think what he could have done in a whole month.
Adverts are a necessary evil of TV programming – but why is that they all seem to be obsessed with the same thing at the moment? Namely flying objects in the sky. Were all the same advertising execs at the same conference, are they all copying each other or have they just run out of ideas? Maybe falling/flying objects are the holy grail of commercials, mysteriously brainwashing us into buying their products and there’ll all be doing it. An advert for chewing gum – show it falling from the sky. An advert for motor oil – show it felling from the sky. Whatever the logic behind the phenomenon, it is everywhere and cannot be denied.
What am I talking about? Turn on any channel and you’ll see. Okay not the BBC stations as they don’t need commercials. Or many of the smaller digital channels as they’re full of insurance, price comparison site and accident claims companies. Go to Channel 4, ITV or Five and I guarantee that in the next hour of programming you will be subjected to an advert with things flying through the sky. Got an hour to spare? Try it.
From:Coronation Street fans apply here