TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 -
Humphrey Barclay producer of radio's I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again was given the
opportunity to assemble a comedy team from scratch for his first television venture.
Surprisingly, this show would be aimed at children and broadcast at tea-
Barclay already knew writer-
A pilot show was recorded on 6th November 1967, was viewed as a success and the series was commissioned. The first show "Do Not Adjust Your Set, Or A Happy Boxing Day And A Preposterous New Year" was broadcast on ITV on 26th December, the very same evening that the Bonzos were guests on BBC1's Magical Mystery Tour. However due to a technical error the first, introductory show was shown without the advert break at the expected time, so a three minute gap was eventually followed by the ads, shortening the show. To make matters worse, some areas saw the first edition of the show proper by mistake.
On Thursday 4th January 1968 the first series kicked off becoming an immediate favourite, not only with intended audience of children but also with adults who caught it coming home from work.
David Jason and Denise Coffey were paired up and given their own weekly in-
Proving the show's popularity the troupe were given the front cover of the TV Times, week beginning 17th February 1968. The first series would be repeated a few months' later, but this time it would be broadcast a little later in an attempt to attract and keep an older audience.
The Bonzo Dog Doo-
As the end of Rediffusion was looming it was assumed that it would also be the end of the show, but talking to the Daily Mirror in March 1968 David Jason claimed "There has been some vague talk of the series returning on Thames. But nobody has been approached officially."
The show was entered by Rediffusion into a prestigious European television competition
and its win was celebrated with a one-
The success of the show was not lost on Rediffusion's successor, Thames Television,
who had only re-
The team re-
If there was a temptation to move to series to a post tea-
By the second series the resident band had changed their name to The Bonzo Dog Band and would go on to release Tadpoles, an album of songs from the series. But despite the fun, the cracks were showing, Larry Smith, talking to Neil Innes on a Radio 4 documentary in 2016 claimed "Do Not Adjust Your Set was fun, we actually rehearsed and got disciplined, but we were also very tired when we did the damned thing. We were working really hard at that period, and we'd arrive at Paddington at seven o'clock on a sleeper, they'd thrust some awful tea into your hand and be limosined down to Teddington studio and we didn't really wake up until just before doing the gig. I always felt completely knackered when we did the shows, but I enjoyed doing them.... It was a very happy time, but we were working intensely for telly, or for anything serious you've got to have your energy up and our energy levels were frankly low ladies and gentlemen!"
According to Melody Maker in February 1969 "Bonzos threaten that on future Do Not Adjust Your Set TV show they will have 40 live tropical flies from London Zoo stomping about in jam on their faces, ‘to get a true blues effect.’"
Sadly, the show would not make it to a third series. Idle, Palin, Jones and Gilliam
helped create Monty Python, Jason and Coffey would later co-
Do Not Adjust Your Set had the magic ingredient Tiswas would later discover, making a show that crossed age demographics while not being aware of it.
In 2019 the BFI released a 3DVD set of all the surviving episodes.
DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET
Rediffusion
26th December 1967 -
Thames
25th December 1968 -