The first thing on my list today is the Telly Addicts Christmas Special. The champion family of 1985 (the Pains) take on a crack team of celebs – Nina Myskow, Barry Took, Michael Grade and Larry Grayson (called, wait for it, the Aches). The show, as always, is peppered with archive clips (today featuring the likes of Juke Box Jury, Rings on their Fingers and Thunderbirds). It’s probably hard for the young ‘uns to appreciate, but back then these slim morsels of old telly were like gold dust and came highly appreciated. Oh, and the quiz is quite fun as well.
Kenny Everett’s Christmas Carol offers something a little different from his usual shows. At half an hour it doesn’t outstay its welcome and there are plenty of familiar faces passing through (such as Spike Milligan) to brighten up proceedings. Plus it’s always entertaining to see Ken apparently go rogue – for example, when he breaks the fourth wall and harangues the audience for their lack of appreciation.
It’s panto time in Terry & June at 9.00 pm. Our titular heroes end up playing a pantomime cow with the inevitable hilarious consequences. Much derided at the time (especially in its latter years) there seems to be more appreciation for the series now – and why not. You might know exactly what you’re going to get, but I can never say no to a bit of Scott and Whitfield. Plus today you get the chance to see Reginald Marsh in a very fetching bonnet, so it’s a win-win situation.
It’s on a bit late, so I think I’ll video the repeat of The Good Life Christmas Special, Silly But It’s Fun. One of those Christmas perennials, the gaping plot hole (Margo not taking delivery of her entire festive supplies until Christmas Eve) notwithstanding, it’s a lovely half hour in which nothing really happens except that four friends have an enjoyable Christmas day.
There’s a new series of The Wind in the Willows over on ITV, which will be a must watch. The voice work (Ian Carmichael, Michael Horden, Richard Pearson, David Jason, Peter Sallis) is top notch and the animation by Cosgrove-Hall isn’t half bad either.
Archive Television Musings 
The one thing that I can definitely remember watching that evening was Kenny Everett’s Christmas Carol. I was excited by the appearance of Peter Cook, not though he did anything that interesting in it. I was narrating a nativity play in the early evening, and can’t remember if I got back in time for Telly Addicts and EastEnders.
If I could live this day again, though… Once again my chosen viewing would be everyday stuff – Crossroads, EastEnders, Brookside. The exceptional programme would be ‘Kush, The Fallow Deer’ at 9.00 on BBC2 – seeing seven years of the life of this beast from fawn to grand buck of the forest sounds emotionally involving. I would video ‘It’s Your Twentieth Anniversary, Charlie Brown’ at 6.40.
9.00 seems a bit late for ‘Terry & June’ to me. If I were scheduling BBC1 that evening, I’d swap it with Kenny Everett.
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I watched Kenny Everett as well. The ghosts of Christmas were played by the Private Eye trio of John Wells, Willie Rushton & Peter Cook. Which role did Spike Milligan play?
I remember Arthur being on because my godmother’s youngest daughter was watching it when we paid them a visit as we usually did on Christmas Eve at that time.
I saw the Good Life Christmas edition when it was broadcast. It was one of two episodes broadcast after the last one.
I noticed that one of the items on Jim’ll Fix It was for a couple to get married on an island in Indian Ocean. People sometimes forget that they sometimes fixed things for adults. (In the first series half the fix it’s were for adults.) I heard that they were planning the revive the Jim’ll Fix It format with Shane Ritchie as the host, but I’m glad it didn’t go ahead because they were only going to fix things for children aged 14 or under, and that was not in the proper spirit of the original programme.
It’s Your Twentieth Anniversary, Charlie Brown was an old programme. Charlie Brown had been going for 35 years in 1985.
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Milligna was Marley.
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“It’s Your Twentieth Anniversary, Charlie Brown was an old programme.” It wasn’t – made by CBS in 1985 to mark twenty years of the TV animations.
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Peter Frampton provided the voices of the adults in the Charlie Brown cartoons
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