First viewed : 28 December 1980
Wikipedia currently credits this long-running series as beginning with Clive James in 1982 but Norden's show two years earlier was made by the same company ( LWT ) and had exactly the same premise so should be considered the pilot.
The idea behind the show was simple. Researchers scour the world's TV for funny or bizarre clips ( as opposed to bloopers, the province of Norden's It'll Be Alright on the Night ) from TV around the world including commercials. These were then presented , often in roughly thematic clusters , with a wry quip from the host.
When it became a regular series Norden was replaced by Clive James making the move from TV critic to TV personality. I'd never heard of him until 1981 when he made some vaguely off colour remark in the run up to the Royal Wedding and the Daily Mail got agitated about it. James had appeared on What The Papers Say and discussion shows but this was his first presenting gig. James's affable Aussie charm made him an instant hit.
Because the show went out weekly , certain items became a regular feature particularly the Japanese game show Endurance which delighted in making its contestants suffer . The viewers were left to make uncomfortable comparisons with their treatment of P.O.W.s in World War Two.
The show was not without its critics who pointed to the underlying assumptions about British cultural superiority that drove the show. I recall a Spitting Image sketch which had some fat Japanese guy laughing his head off at footage of Clive James. In that context it's a sobering thought that some of the things scorned in the James era are now mainstays of British TV. The voyeurism of Donohue or Jerry Springer has been replicated in things like Jeremy Kyle and Embarrassing Bodies while none of the Endurance tasks went beyond the bushtucker trials in I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here or some of the challenges in Fort Boyard.
James went over to the BBC in 1988 and the series was briefly presented the following year by Keith Floyd. I didn't see any of that because I couldn't stand the bloke. It then went to Chris Tarrant ( interrupted by two series with James again in 1997-98 ). The clip I remember best was from a Swedish chat show where a guest wandered on nude and flapped his willy up and down to thunderous applause. That was funny enough but Tarrant's dry observation about an "easily pleased audience" had me on the floor. Even that doesn't seem very outrageous now, having watched the latest episode of Channel 4's Naked Attraction last night.
With the advent of Youtube , the show seemed to have outlived its purpose by the mid-noughties and it was put to bed in 2006.
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