First viewed : 13 May 1994
While not being a great fan of Danny Baker, I did quite enjoy this short-lived quiz show which put a major spoke in the wheel of his TV career. Bygones, ( not to be confused with a documentary series about rural crafts made by Anglia in the sixties ) followed on from his TV Heroes slot and featured celebrity teams answering his questions about music, adverts and light entertainment from the past. It was lighthearted and always ended with a musical number from a faded act who were still going like Pilot or The Nolans. The team captains were Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson and Rick Wakeman whose transformation from po-faced prog rocker to genial TV personality began here.
The show was pulled after just seven episodes. Baker enjoyed a lot of support from BBC Controller John Birt who blethered on about his "inventive torrents of thought" but the failure of this and his concurrent Saturday night chat show proved that he was not the man to cultivate a mass audience with his erudite nostalgia shtick. It was the end of his peak time presenting career.
… and instead latched onto the career of a former radio DJ and probably made more cash than he ever would presenting himself!
ReplyDeleteThough Ferguson would eclipse even that status of fame eventually. Not sure if anyone saw that coming.
To me in the mid 90s, Rick Wakeman was one of those people who was just "on TV". My dad might have mentioned he used to be in a band, but Yes weren't, and never would be, anything close to my choice of listening.