Tweenies air unexpected Savile tribute

Yesterday, as old episodes of the Tweenies were shovelled onto CBeebies, a 2001 episode in which Max did a Jimmy Savile impersonation went out.

A few people on Twitter raised amused eyebrows.

This, according to the Telegraph, means the BBC was "under fire":

Rachael Mills, from Bournemouth, tweeted: "Can't believe in tweenies on cbeebies today a character was impersonating saville in parody of totp!!! What is the bbc thinking?"

They even found a "concerned father" called Mark Roberts - there's no other context to explain who he is, or why his concern should concern us more than anyone else's - to express his concern at greater length:

Concerned father Mark Roberts said: "The complete lack of quality control the BBC have over their programming was absolutely sickening.

"The song he introduced just makes everything worse. Somebody at the BBC should get fired for this.

"The song title was just the icing on the cake of inappropriateness."

Concerned father Mark Roberts is right - the song Max-as-Jim introduced was called 'Ha! I Am Hiding My Sexual Offences In Plain Sight!'.

Hang on, no, it was One Finger, One Thumb, which I think only has sexual connotations if you want it to.

Now, clearly, it's a bit unfortunate that this went out. But anyone who thinks for a second or two will probably concede that it would have been very unlikely that anyone would think they'd need to double-check every ten year-old programme for preschool kids to make sure there's no impression of people who turned out to be sex offender - although that episode of Rosie And Jim where Jim pretends to be Cyril Smith might need a quick lookover from someone at ITV. And the paperwork for the episode would be unlikely to list every single joke - or, in this case, "joke" - featured.

Unfortunate, but... where exactly is the harm? Presumably anyone watching Cbeebies would be unlikely to see Max wearing the wig and think "that's the now-known paedophile Jimmy Savile, so presumably this programme is trying to make me think that people like that are okay to hang out with".

Come to that, even in 2001, it's unlikely that any of the target audience would have had a clue who Max was supposed to be. Savile's run on Top Of The Pops had ended in 1984 and Jim'll Fix It had stopped ten years later. Presumably the Savile impersonation was included solely as a little joke for any parents watching with their kids - although even some of the parents would have been too young to recall Savile as a Pops presenter.

In 2001, it was a reference which would have gone over the heads of the kids, and only been picked up by older people watching. It's no different in 2013, except what once would have been a small joke is now an ugly coincidence.

Yes, it probably shouldn't have gone out, but if you think the main child protection issue that has fallen out of the Savile story is making sure children never see any reference to the man, you might well be directing your concern in the wrong direction.

What the pop papers say: Fifty years, more or less.

After the 60th anniversary of the NME (or the 60 and a half-th), the next big anniversary the NME is celebrating is the 50th anniversary of the NME Awards.

They start trailing this in the current issue, with an announcement of "a special Spotify playlist" (ooh, you're spoiling us) and a look at the new art-deco logo.

I have no idea why the logo is based on the 1920s for a celebration of an event from the 1960s, but anything that gets us away from that awful raised-finger statue has to be welcomed.

I'm not sure the celebration is quite right, though. The promo says:

It's 50 years since rock n roll's biggest knees-up began...

- but surely for a long period of that time there wasn't any event as such, just the publication of a magazine containing tabulated results?

Still, there were parties and TV specials. Although, erm, it looks like there was one in 1961 - shown on ABC. Which would make 2013 the 52nd anniversary.

Never mind, it's an impressive track record however you miscount it. And clearly the NME would be keen to focus on the mid 1960s instead of the start, when they scored a pretty sweet presenter for their events. Chap called Jimmy Savile. Why wouldn't you want to fudge the numbers a little to remember those days, eh?

Top Of The Pops shut down by Savile again?

As it gets increasingly hard to work around episodes of Top Of The Pops with those accused of sexual misdeeds, BBC Four's Richard Klein is weighing up if it's worth going on:

"It is complex and it is difficult to judge," Klein told a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch on Wednesday.

"These are judgments we are making on a case-by-case basis. It requires us to be cautious and careful without overreacting, to take into account public sensibilities and legalities, and hopefully we are going to get it right."

He added: "At the moment we actually haven't scheduled 1978, so we'll take a view. We have only done it the last two years [beginning with 1976] so if we didn't do it again it wouldn't be the end of the world and audience figures have declined quite markedly.

"It has done a good job, whether I choose to continue or not I don't yet know."

You'd have to suspect that it's the declining audience as much as the rattling of Jimmy Savile's skeletons that is reducing the enthusiasm from the channel.

Britain's got Tarrant

Chris Tarrant has given an interview to Radio Times:

TELLY host and radio star Chris Tarrant has blasted the compliance culture of broadcasting, calling it a “nightmare”.

He said: “My generation may have had the best fun. Now the accountants have taken over. You have to submit scripts weeks in advance to ‘compliance’ departments.”

You're right, Chris. Modern broadcasting management - it's too micro-focused, too busy fussing around, looking at every detail, making sure everything is in order.

“I heard about Jimmy Savile – I met him twice and found him deeply unpleasant,” Chris said.

“God knows why none of it came out before."

You're right, Chris. Historically broadcasting management was too distant, too busy turning a blind eye, letting things roll on without overseeing detail, not ensuring things are in order.

Kerry Katona makes the Savile story about her

Today's Guardian Lost In Showbiz is very good on how Kerry Katona attempts to make the Savile story less about the raping of children in hospitals, and more about people looking at her in a funny way:

These are described in blunt, stark prose, the better to communicate their full horror: "He looked at us in a pervy way."

That must have been horrific, especially with Atomic Kitten's wholesome image being a world away from the sexualisation of school children, right?

Jimmy Saville sex shop brick bother

Back in 1981, as part of a fundraising drive for Stoke Mandeville, a collection of limited edition bricks were sold and, well, used for building. Bedfordshire On Sunday explains:

Around 100 limited edition bricks made bearing the fleur-de-lys crest of the Prince of Wales were specially created to commemorate the International Year of the Disabled.

One of these ended up in a building in a lay-by on the A1 which is now a sex shop. (Yes, there are drive-in sex shops in East Anglia. Whole other story.) And the charity brick being in a dildo'n'DVD store has upset Sandy Parish Councillor Ken Lynch. He reckons it's an insult to the memory iof Jimmy Savile:

“I protested against it and tried to get the brick removed. People might say I’m being unreasonable. When Sir Jimmy was alive I couldn’t really publicise it but now that he’s gone I am demanding it be taken out. I hold Sir Jimmy in great esteem and I feel it’s an insult to him and the way he lived his life. There’s no reason for it to be there. I will fight to get it removed. Sir Jimmy was a wonderful person.”

The odd thing is that although Jimmy was involved in the charity campaign, there's nothing on the brick itself to link him to wall. Even if there was, you'd have to be hard-pressed to discover the brick and a little bit overwrought to assume some sort of link between an old brick in the side of a wall and the current business inside the shop.

There's a suspicion that Lynch is merely using Saville's death to restart a campaign he's been running for over five years; indeed, given that there's nothing on said brick of a Savile-esque nature, if he hadn't said anything nobody would even have made the link.

One further point: what was the "appropriate" business originally housed in the walls in which the brick was laid?

Erm, a Happy Eater. The food chain that died of shame.

[via: Angry People In Local Newspapers]

Radiobit: Jimmy Savile

I think we've all, always, taken it on trust that Jimmy Savile - who died yesterday - really did invent twin-turntable DJing. It was certainly a story we heard often enough, normally from him, and like the yarns spun by favourite uncles, we were all happy to believe it might be true.

Mind you, Jimmy Savile could convince us of anything - that he actually had some sort of Old Record Club running in the corner of Radio One; that on days when he was noticeably elsewhere his show was live and in the hands of a hologram version of himself. He even managed to make trundling through the UK countryside on beige seats sipping undrinkable coffee sound exciting:



I think we all knew that Savile's actual technical talents weren't vast, and he benefited a great deal from being in the right place at the right time; his charm and enthusiasm helped carry his career long past the point where those with greater technical proficiency had spluttered to a halt. And his involvement in charitable endeavours never felt like cynical careerism - even during that period back at the start of the 1980s where it was almost impossible to buy a yoghurt without coming across a drawing of Sir Jimmy reminding us about spinal injuries seem motivated by a genuine desire to help.

That's not to say that he had a strong dose of creepy uncle alongside the favourite one: the Sunday Telegraph this morning claims he spent eleven straight New Years Eves with Maggie Thatcher and you'll all have heard the nastier rumours which clung to him. But it says much about how great the affection for Savile was that people could simultaneously believe some profoundly alarming "facts" about him, and be relaxed about him making kiddies' dreams come true on Saturday night TV, without feeling the slightest contradiction.

Even the Louis Theroux documentary, which Theroux seemed convinced showed Sir Jim to be a strange old stick, actually just looked like a man being bothered by a twit who was desperate to know why he didn't conform, dammit.

Jimmy Savile was rather odd, but also something rather wonderful. In another twenty years, we'll have a TV world full of Vernon Kayes and something called A Jeff Brazier who was in Milton Keynes yesterday. Aren't we better off with someone who sleeps in a caravan and spins yarns than an empty suit and an empty grin?

Radio One More Time: The pseudonyms

If, as we saw yesterday, Radio One's listings played host to a surprising number of unexpected names, the airwaves also played host to a depressing number of fake and adopted personas. It seems that nobody can work on a radio programme without being given a matey name.

Comedy Dave on Chris Moyles' show is but the latest in a very, very long line of producers, researchers and sidekicks who've travelled under false documents - either to disguise their real names, or to create a hilarious comedy character. The Steve Wright show buckled under the weight of them: Sid The Manager; Jervaise the hairdresser (complete with 'hilarious' homophobic overtones); Mr. Angry From Purley. Even Marc Riley spent his entire time at the station under the "Boy Lard" banner - although, oddly, Mark Radcliffe dropped the "Scrawn" nickname when the pair moved over from Radio 5. Gary Davies found space every day for Willie On The Plonker - two knob gags for the price of one - and Kevin Greening's travel was handled by Major Holdups. Jimmy Savile's Record Club owed the debt of organisation to Dignified Don, while Tony Blackburn's Junior Choice carried a credit for Uncle Ted.

And, one Christmas, Mike Smith got through the thankless task of presenting breakfast with the assistance of a Christmas Fairy. The fairy bore a surprising vocal resemblance to Sarah Greene.

[Part of Radio One More Time]

Radio One More Time: Studio B15

The nature of music radio made it seem like every day was one long magazine programme; what the Sony Awards used to describe as 'sequence programming' made it easy to flit from a feature to a song to a weather forecast to an interview, which you would have thought would render the need for a separate magazine programme somewhat redundant. Nevertheless, Radio One tried several, most notably Studio B15, which ran on Sundays for a surprising two hours prior to the Top 40.

It was presented by Adrian Love - the son of bandleader Geoff Love - and combined the sorts of things you'd expect to appear in a well-intentioned Radio One pot pourri: bits and pieces of entertainment and non-demanding cultural attractions, the odd competition and bands doing some studio appearances (notably, The Jam).

When the vagaries of scheduling meant that the programme was obliged to air on Christmas Day, they threw open the doors of the studio, inviting any 14 year-old who had the misfortune to have a 25th December birthday to guest present, on account of them going to be 15 on the day. But the genesis of the title was, of course, that was the room the programme was broadcast from: the sort of thing that people in radio and television think is going to be of interest to the audience, but which to the audience looks like lazy thinking - on a par with calling a cat "puss". It's worth noting that this sort of lame titling has also gifted any number of flatly-titled TV pop shows: The Oxford Road Show, two Transmissions and a TX, for example.

Still, even Studio B15 was glittering compared to its replacement, Saturday and Sunday Live. Which was a live programme which went out live, either on... ah, you're ahead of me. Helmed most successfully by Andy Kershaw, the highlight of Sunday Live was when it carried coverage of Hands Across Britain, an initiative which aped Hands Across America both in intent (something to do with drawing attention to the plight of the jobless) and success (failure both to complete a sea-to-sea chain of people holding hands and unemployment remaining no further up the agenda). Since it would have been unusual for there to be live coverage of, say, The People's March For Jobs on the DLT show, the BBC's different treatment of this event must have been down to the presence of Jimmy Savile. Savile had to play the role of participant observer, though, linking hands while trying to describe the event for listeners. An event, which, by its nature, he was unable to see much of, beyond talking of his desire to shatter into a million parts and fly all over the country to look at the people who he believed were holding hands.

Sunday Live was on stronger ground when it concentrated on Icicle Works live sessions.

Eventually, its content was folded into the Stereo Sequence, before evaporating entirely.

[Radio One More Time]

Radio One More Time: The Old Record Club

I am here, but I am not really here...

By the 80s, Jimmy Savile had long since completed the transformation from DJ to TV personality - obviously thanks to Jim'll Fix It, but also from promoting the benefits of train travel ("this is the age... [thumbs aloft] of the train") and of not being flung through a car windscreen ("clunk... click... every trip"). But he kept his hand in with dj work, too, presenting what in other hands would have been just a slightly dull Sunday lunchtime show working his way through old chart rundowns.

In Savile's hands, though, it became a surreal but slightly dull Sunday lunchtime chart rundown.

At first, the creation of a non-existent club setting - the titular Old Record Club - brought an element of oddness to the whole affair: who were these people, who gathered together on a Sunday (considering how difficult it was to get public transport anywhere during this age of the train at weekends) to play through the November 1964 top ten track-by-track? Was alcohol served? Was there a membership fee? Did the pretty young girls who sat next to Savile throughout the Club's operating hours actually exist, or were they part of a bizarre fantasy world that we were unwillingly being forced into enabling?

Stranger yet was the never-ending points battle. Sometimes, Savile would set the audience a question based around one of the songs - what, for example, would be the full title of the next song? Upon completion of the track, Jim would gurgle with delight revealing that the song in question had brackets in the title - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction and, surmising that the audience would have not remembered the parenthetical portion, would delete millions of points from the listeners and award them to himself. It was never quite explained what these points were for - presumably, you could gather them up and the discover there was nothing of any use for which they could be exchanged, like the Green Shield Stamps which were popular at the same time.

Savile's love of marathon running then added another insane twist to proceedings. Like a proto-Liz Kershaw, Savile attempted to get away with pre-recording his show and passing it off as live. But in order to create the illusion of live radio, rather than adopting Liz's approach of getting friends to ring in to take part in competitions (that, presumably, would have introduced the extra confusion of trying to explain exactly what the points business was all about), Savile claimed that he was doing the programme at the same time as running a marathon. By, erm, having created a hologram - Hebert Hologram - to do the radio show.

We know, we know, holograms don't actually make sound, but in the context of a show set in a club which didn't exist, pre-recorded live transmissions by three-dimensional pictures of the presenter made perfect sense. Mark Thompson wouldn't allow it now, of course.

On a couple of occasions, Savile did actually do the show from a marathon course, though sadly never from the London Marathon. (That, in the days before the BBC had a sort-of-dedicated sports network, fell into Radio 2's remit; they'd broadcast live from a milkfloat which chased the stragglers through the red-brick pavements of the Docklands developments district.)

Eventually, Savile decided he was getting too old for Radio 1, and so retired from the Sunday old chart show to give a chance to a newcomer. He was replaced by the older Alan Freeman, who promptly hammered the boards over the door of the Old Record Club and revived his Pick of the Pops format.

[Radio One More Time]