TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

"This is what they want."

History now insists that Tiswas was the first decent Saturday morning show, and although it predates Swap Shop the debut honour would actually go to Ed and Zed or Zokko on the BBC.

ITV had an obvious gaping hole in their Saturday morning schedule, and had done so for years, but despite potential for the sale of advertising space it took until autumn 1973 for the schedulers to come up with a decent plan. London Weekend's Saturday Scene began in October, while on January 4th 1974 at 10.00 am on ATV 'Today Is Saturday or The Tiswas Show' debuted.

Until Tiswas came along, we all had a lie-in until about 11.00 am and then we would be treated to Gerry Anderson repeats, sports tuition shows, DIY demonstrations, RAC road reports, Junior Police Five and Sesame Street. That is unless your local cinema still accommodated a Saturday morning cinema club for youngsters, but many by this time had given up.

London Weekend were the first to really take the plunge with Saturday Scene in which Sally James interviewed glam rockers in-between promo clips, bought-in shows and features. At the end of 1973 ATV had an idea to do something similar, a show which linked programmes, cartoons, pop promo clips and interviews.

The hosts in the early years were John Asher, Peter Tomlinson, Trevor East (from the sports presentation department), and on occasion Chris Tarrant, regular ATV news reporter and schools telly voice-over legend. It did seem that whoever was available at ATV on Saturday morning and needed another few quid would turn up.

Things started well for Today Is Saturday with a 7% share in the ATV area, quickly increasing to 23%. Talking to the Birmingham Mail in June 1974 Francis Essex of ATV expressed surprise at the initial success "... pretty remarkable going, by any standards." Essex claimed "We started off exploring this idea of a variation on the old Saturday morning children's cinema." Explaining the title he said "The title we decided on was Today Is Saturday. That started appearing on our typed schedules as 'T.I.S. was presented by...' 'T.I.S. featured...' and so on. One day Peter Harris, producing the show, had a brainwave 'Let's call the show Tis Was'." The show was billed as Today is Saturday in TV Times, but the staff referred to it as Tiswas. Harris would later go on to direct The Muppet Show for ATV.

But after eleven shows in March 1974 the show was dropped for unexplained "internal difficulties." It would be back after the summer school holiday, starting with a thirty-five minute Tiswas Trailer Time on 7th September 1974 with the show proper starting again the following week. The show's presentation began with a single continuity desk, later expanding to the larger studio 3 at ATV in Birmingham, but still small enough to instil a sense of claustrophobia, and no-one, no-one, was safe from the pies and water.

The hosts wouldn't act like children as such but it was playtime, all the time, and they pretty much ignored the many children around them unless they were competition winners. And there would be many competitions, Under Eights, Over Eights (presumably anyone that was actually eight was forgotten about), Telephone Tricky Test Time, Which What Where, which filled up a lot of airtime, with prizes (records, books etc) presumably pilfered from the office.

In late 1974 TV Times would refer to the Tiswas Twins, Chris Tarrant and John Asher, and Trevor East with Tiswas Sportstime.

Talking to TV Times in February 1975 about its unexpected success Chris Tarrant claimed "Great hairy lads in pubs would come up to me and say 'never miss Tiswas'." The article also mentioned "Union troubles temporarily ousted it after only ten weeks. Yet it was talked about as if it had been running for years." The said article was actually about the London Weekend show Saturday Scene, hosted by Sally James. A portent of things to come.

The show's presentation was unique and didn't pander to needy executives who probably weren't watching anyway. Even in the early days the advert breaks would be referred to as "telly selly time", while messy custard pies which would need clearing up afterwards were very much evident, as was the reference to the studio home, ATV Land. In the TV Times in late 1975 Chris Tarrant was referred to as "Old Strawhead", Peter Tomlinson as "Poochie" and "Me Myself" Trevor East.

Expanding his horizons beyond news, schools programmes and Tiswas in 1976 Chris Tarrant co-hosted the Miss ATV beauty pageant, along with Willie Rushton. Their ribald behaviour led to complaints from several of the contestants, and they were replaced the following year by Shaw Taylor.

Talking to the Birmingham Evening Mail in April 1977 producer Sid Kilbey claimed " We don't patronise kids. We entertain them. There's no rehearsal. There are lots of ideas and plans but about 80 percent of the talking is ad-libbed. It's almost like theatre in some ways. If there is a mistake then there is no cover up, we admit it. It all goes out live." By this time HTV broadcast a 25 minute sampler, while the show was also beginning to get noticed in the north-west.

ATV presentation regulars would come and go for the first few years, but in an attempt to persuade other ITV channels to take the show they brought in more familiar faces from the outside. Outside in this case being London. Sally James, from the recently deceased Saturday Scene, joined in September 1977 along with Jim Davidson who occasionally appeared in sketches. Comedian Frank Carson would become an on and off regular for several years, while Terry Hall and his friend Lenny The Lion, absent from TV for many years also made an appearance. Tarrant was initially unhappy with James' inclusion, but soon changed his mind when he recognised a kindred spirit. Sally would join Chris Tarrant and Trevor East as a co-presenter, together with new producer Glyn Edwards, whose intention was to make the show "informative as well as entertaining." The show would regrettably on occasion spend five minutes in Blue Peter land recalling a moment in history. Apart from hosting duties Sally would front Pop News, which would be her defining role for the next few years. The competitions will continue, with new ones TisQuiz for the under eights and Tiswas Tricky Trail for the over eights (once again, if you were eight, tough). To be fair it was later changed to 8s N' Over. The questions were often ridiculously tough for their age group, so one can only assume parents were answering on their behalf, after all it was weekend homework.

The show would sometimes verge into Page Three territory. On one occasion, let's be honest probably more than one occasion, the ATVLand address would be printed on Sally's t-shirt. A cartoon depiction of Sally on the front desk was surprisingly bra-less, while young women were constantly drenched with water during the show. Viewers repeatedly had to re-assure themselves that this was just a kids' show and not a wet t-shirt contest, but to be fair, it never forgot that it was a kids' show.

The soaking that visitors, cast and crew got from buckets of water superseded the super soakers that would become popular with kids from the nineties onwards, while Frank Carson got hit so hard with a bucket of water by Chris Tarrant once that his glasses went flying off his head.

Talking to the BBC in 2006 ahead of the Tiswas Reunion TV show producer Glyn Edwards confessed "I had worked as a teacher and a Punch and Judy man, so I knew that children like to see knockabout fun and custard pie fun. Programmes didn't have to be so buttoned up and strait-laced, and I thought best way to get around this was to create a character." So, the Phantom Flan Flinger was created, initially played by a local newspaper man, then Jim Davidson, then by Ben Mills, a taxi driver.

In February 1978 producers tip off the press that Princess Anne and her then husband Mark were in receipt of matching Tiswas T-shirts, as a montage of photos of wedding couples were shown and t-shirts promised to each couple, with Anne and Mark among them.

An essential part of the look of the show was the graphics of Chris Wroe, who also did the same for ATV's Revolver.

The show gave the world a classic and eternal piece of pop culture, its own dance, The Dying Fly, in which the studio audience would lie on their backs kicking their legs in the air. Tiswas friend Jasper Carrott had mentioned it to Chris Tarrant some years before. The dance would be copied by the mainly punk teenage audience at ATV's Revolver later in the year. It even had its own cash-in single in April 1978, credited to Sal, Chris 'n Trev. Not the last time they'd make it to vinyl. They would also make a star of Bob Blackman who would smash himself over the head with a tin tea tray while singing Mule Train.

In spring 1978 Chris Tarrant (probably dressed in a rugby shirt and jeans) put out a request for anyone to come onto the show and stand in their newly constructed cage in a corner of the studio and have things thrown at them. They received eleven thousand letters. The cage, and the gunge tank above it, became a show regular until the end, with the cage sometimes containing the great and good of pop.

John Gorman from The Scaffold became a regular from 1978, playing various characters including The Masked Poet, Smello, Cabbage Face, PC Plod and the studio janitor, many of them rightly the subject of booing from the cast and crew. Later Bob Carolgees joined with notorious punk glove puppet Spit The Dog (who had his own Spit's Spot), and comedian/actor Lenny Henry, fresh from summer season, who brought bad jokes and dodgy impressions. This, indeed, is what they want.

Regular items now included Creepy Crawly Corner, later replaced by Cuddly Wuddly Corner, then Creature Feature in which animals were brought into the studio which was fine if they took the Blue Peter line and had just kept it to hamsters and gerbils, but this being Tiswas, tiger cubs, cougars, an eagle, apes and bears were not out of the question. On one occasion an armadillo got loose in the studio. Another regular was Flan Your Folks in which kids get to win prizes much to their parents' physical distress. Sally (The Fabulous Miss) James had her own Almost Legendary World Exclusive In Depth Pop Profiles and Almost Legendary Pop Interviews (by the miracle of the cathode ray tube), similar to her role on Saturday Scene, while Compost Corner gave Lenny Henry the chance to do his David Bellamy impression. There were other regular characters like the dreadful Phantom Flan Flinger and the even more mysterious piano-playing pig, Porky, played by Johnny Patrick, ATV regular and big band leader. On one occasion in April 1978 the Phantom Flan Flinger was due to take on Darth Vader and a Stormtrooper sidekick.

There was no mystery that the cast wrote their own scripts, but on occasion others would contribute, Jasper Carrott among them.

By November 1978 even London Weekend was now taking it, but established fans didn't like the idea of the southern half of the country having what they have had all along. Talking to the Birmingham Evening Mail Chris Tarrant claimed "Some people have really changed their tune once they knew we would be seen in London. And that does irritate me. I'm delighted to get a national network slot but it's no great deal going to London. We'll just carry on in our own way." Not only was it now national, but international, judging by the number of letters they received from Ireland.

Various theme tunes would used over the years, with the version of Tiger Rag replaced by a specially commissioned song in September 1980, 'Saturday is Tiswas day', sung by Tom Bright and Suzi Breeze. Although it never relied on pop music the show had two hit singles of its own. The Four Bucketeers' Bucket Of Water Song produced by Neil Innes and a frightening version of Bright Eyes by the then five year old Matthew Butler.

The mixture of Saturday morning pictures misbehaviour, guest stars and pop clips soon made it a necessity to watch. The series was finally networked in 1979 with latecomers Southern TV finally allowing them in, while the show itself was attracting names like Paul and Linda McCartney, Elvis Costello, the Two-Tone brigade, Genesis, Status Quo, even members of Led Zeppelin giving kids the unmissable opportunity to cough over a pop star. The show also suffered from the same issue that practically all the Saturday morning kids' shows faced, that of pop stars, and hosts, hung-over from the night before. The show depicted a live human equivalent of the Looney Tunes cartoons they'd play every show.

By late 1979 along with the cage stocks were introduced with a willing victim locked up for the morning. A message on the continuity desk was now openly asking, or mocking, "are you sure this is what you want!!" A new background musician was brought in to accompany Porky, it was a one-man band with a horses head.

With the start of the 1980-81 series, beginning in September kids in the studio were wearing the now desirable card cut-out Tiswas hats. ATV had stumped up the cash for a cartoon animated Phantom Flan Flinger which would walk across the screen with the competition address. Cough The Cat briefly and regrettably joined Spit The Dog with their owner Bob Carolgees (as Chris Tarrant said "the only man with distemper of the arm"). The new continuity desk also hid a monster underneath, whose green paw would occasionally rise from the depths, while Lenny Henry's new character Algenon would indulge in huge and messy doorsteps of condensed milk sandwiches, something Henry's father used to take to work with him.

In 1980 they release an album Tiswas Presents The Four Bucketeers, featuring silly songs from the hosts, backed up by Timebox/Patto's Ollie Halsall, John Halsey, Clive Griffiths and Mott The Hoople's Morgan Fisher, with Neil Innes producing. The album came with an insert promoting Tiswas merchandise, something they didn't do on the TV show.

In January 1981 the Tiswas team appeared on stage at the Children's Royal Variety Performance. The team would also do a stage show, visiting campuses across the country in 1981.

The letters that make up the title were meant to spell "Today Is Saturday, Watch And Smile", an idea suggested by a viewer, but as a placard on a later show claimed more realistically "This Is Saturday, Watch And Suffer" while another placard wished "Roll on World of Sport."

Another popular feature for the grown-ups was Force's Frolics/Sal's Salutes where members of the armed forces (usually navy) would send her garters with their ship's or regiment's name on it and she would duly display them wearing fishnet stockings.

In true Blue Peter vs Magpie style you were either Swap Shop of Tiswas. The cool kids watched Tiswas and Swap Shop knew it. On the first show of 1981 someone is holding up a placard “boring old Edmunds.” "Edmunds" would get his own back by pinching the gunge tank for one of his own, much later shows.

During the first show of 1981, during a commercial break Sally James let something slip. Addressing the cast she requested “Can I just tell everyone who’s doing the OTT... so don’t do it on the wrong show.” On the final show on 28th March Sally let the cat out of the bag again saying “when I come back on September 5th.” However, they did go on tour together over the summer. They went out on the final show performing The Death Of Heraclytus by Plato, first seriously (as it could get) and then the light-hearted version. Then they gave the death scene from Hamlet a go, and after dismissing a Hollywood ending, they just said goodbye and waved at the camera, later played out by a steel band.

The unpredictable nature of the children-only audience mixed with Gorman's adult off-camera comments made this a must-see, first attracting a college audience who would go on to make up the inmates of the cage, then adults. Realising the potential for an adult version of the show Tarrant decided to leave after the 1980-81 series, taking Gorman, Carolgees and Henry with him for the poorly received OTT. Self-awareness that Tiswas was actually an adults' show masquerading as a kids' show was a mistake, leading only to its demise.

Tiswas continued for a further series, beginning September 1981 with Sally James now in charge (also given the new credit of Music Editor) with new co-host, Gordon Astley (ex-Cheggers Plays Pop), plus Den Heggarty from Darts and children's entertainer Fogwell Flax, while Glyn Edwards returned as Producer. However, there was one potential saviour, actor David Rappaport who appeared (occasionally) as "Shades", whose character had the sense of malevolence and disinterest that suited the show well. But it was probably already too late. Its fate was not dissimilar to OTT and the new Tiswas was put to sleep after one series.

The new co-presenters didn't have the sense of adventure, malice and sarcasm that the Tarrant era had. The old fans were probably determined not to like, or even watch it, but they didn't really like OTT either. The new version felt like a party where all the good people have gone home early and you wanted to be with them. It became the wacky students sitting in a bath-tub full of beans, a bit rag week. From 24th October 1981 the show had fifteen minutes lopped off due to an earlier start for World Of Sport. It was a sign.

The original show had evolved from merely a linking device to deservedly becoming a show in itself, but now it was returning to a mere linking device again. The original was inspired, the new version was contrived, like a step-father desperately trying to please his new wife's kids. The fans slowly walked away, just leaving the show with it actual intended audience, young kids.

Chris Tarrant had instilled the sense that you were at some kind of drunken rugby club outing that had accidentally turned up at a children's birthday party. Undoubtedly Tiswas attracted the same fanbase and respect that Monty Python had, the show even played host to Pythons' Michael Palin and Terry Jones. At its best it almost looked as though the TV station that made it had never checked to see what they were doing, which is always for the best. Never forget, this was made by the same company that made Crossroads, and it's likely they never saw that either.

The blatantly obvious insurance risk, health and safety issues and changing societal attitudes mean that we will never see its like ever again. It was probably the only show that required viewer's to take a shower after watching it.

It's sad to report that very few of the original shows as broadcast exist, but Network came to the rescue and released a DVD compilation of the three VHS titles released in the early 1990s. Chris Tarrant managed to retrieve some off-air tapes of the show from the estate of Kenny Everett, while Tarrant himself asked for any tapes that people had to be sent to his production company. However, many shows seem to have been recorded off-air by the parents of kids appearing on the show and some can be found online.

For the whole sordid story go to Tiswas OnLine. https://www.tiswasonline.com/

If you want to enter any of the competitions (underates and overates) then write to Tiswas, ATVLand, Birmingham, B1 2JP.

"We don't just fling this rubbish together, you know."

TISWAS

ATV

4th January 1974 - 8th March 1974, 7th September 1974 (Tiswas Trailer Time), 14th September 1974 to 3rd April 1982