TV Pop Diaries
Popular Music on British Television
THE KENNY EVERETT TELEVISION SHOW
BBC1
24th December 1981 -
After his final Thames Television show was pitted against Top of the Pops Everett decided to move back to the BBC where he was then broadcasting a Saturday morning show for Radio 2.
The writers Barry Cryer and Ray Cameron came with him, but this time he would be in front of an audience.
Kenny introduced a new batch of characters to the show, but by far the best and most
loved was failing Hollywood starlet Cupid Stunt, forever regaling the sordid plot
of whatever wretched film she was promoting to a cardboard cut-
The producer of his previous Thames series Philip Jones made it clear to Everett and the BBC that Everett couldn’t use the characters he’d created for his previous shows, to which Everett replied “if Thames want to sue, they know our address”. Everett would later go on to confront Jones at a Television sales showcase.
Everett was also making regular anarchic appearances on the Terry Wogan-
There would only be one musical act each week this time around, but they would be
in the studio with him. Big name music acts like The Police and U2 appeared on the
show such was the respect the music industry had for Everett. Kenny himself became
a chart star with Snot Rap, which took him into the UK top ten in 1983 and featured
the characters Sid Snot and Cupid Stunt, while the show’s theme Electro People, performed
by seventies hit-
It was during the taping of one sketch where he, dressed as Quasimodo, was held aloft by the lighting gantry at Television Centre roasting for over half an hour that he decided that it was enough and decided to quit the show.
He would however return to Television Centre a few months later in June 1988 for
Brainstorm, a science-