TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

Actor Paul Kaye's appalling celebrity baiting creation Dennis Pennis door-stepped any passing celeb’ with bad jokes, taunts and wind-ups. Making his debut in BBC2's Sunday lunchtime The Sunday Show, which also introduced Peter Kay to a national television audience, he was an irritant to those who felt they should be only treated with unquestioning deference.

Granada decided that Pennis would be ideal to host a new pop show, with comedy stars now being lorded like pop stars some TV producers thought it a good idea if some were given the chance to host a pop show. Popadoodle Dandy would have been Vic and Bob's pop show, but after a terrible pilot for Channel 4 it went no further. Things were not looking so good for Pennis.

Big Eye Film and Television, set up by ex-Granada director Steven Lock and executive producer Mary Richmond produced the six-part series. Lock told Music Week "The idea is to recreate the excitement that used to be generated by shows like Ready Steady Go and The Tube, but to be different from past music shows."

The Charlatans, The Boo Radleys, Dodgy, Buzzcocks and Alison Moyet were all booked, but despite being launched at the pinnacle of the media created Britpop and lad culture era, no one thought it was a good idea after all and it flopped back off the schedules. Pennis did however get a chance to abuse the talent on Top of The Pops in September 1996.

PENNIS POPS OUT

Granada / LWT / Big Eye Film and Television

17th August 1995 - 21st September 1995