BBC1 offers us another opportunity to see the final episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em (originally broadcast five years earlier on Christmas Day). Dick Bentley (his last television credit), Frederick Jaeger, Tenniel Evans and Christopher Biggins are amongst those guesting.
A devoted Limahl fan has ensured that today’s edition of Pop Quiz is available to view. The former lead singer of Kajagoogoo (he was unceremoniously fired in mid 1983) teams up with Midge Ure and Roger Taylor (of Queen) to take on Mari Wilson, Leee John and Dave Edmunds.
At one point, Mike Read gets his guitar out, but thankfully the professionals do most of the singing …
Over on BBC2, the Bardathon continues with The Comedy of Errors. Plenty of familiar faces – Charles Gray, Cyril Cusack, Michael Kitchen, Frank Williams, Ingrid Pitt, Noel Johnson, Wendy Hillier – appear, most notably Roger Daltrey who gives us his Dromio (and very good he is too).
Val Doonican welcomes Howard Keel and The Nolans to his Christmas Eve show. It would have been nice to see this one on BBC4 rather than the oft-repeated example they’ve dug out again this year.
After Val’s faded away, there’s Bergerac and The Ice Maiden, which features the debut of Liza Goddard as Phillipa Vale (someone who would haunt Jim for a number of years to come).
Next it’s off to the City Varieties, Leeds and your own, your very own, Leonard Sachs with a festive Good Old Days. It was nearly the end of the road for the series, but there was still time for the likes of Bernard Cribbins, Barry Cryer and Danny La Rue to entertain us (not to mention, of course, a chorus of Down at the Old Bull and Bush).
That’s a pretty packed BBC schedule, so I won’t have too much time to spend with ITV and C4 today. But I might just have time to squeeze in the Christmas Eve special of Punchlines.
Archive Television Musings 
They showed the cartoon version of Flash Gordon, and the film version, but they didn’t show the original Flash Gordon serial, which would have been appropriate as Buster Crabbe died in 1983.
In 1979 David Jacobs did a series called Where Are They Now?, and in one edition he spoke to Buster Crabbe, who was then in his seventies and running swimming lessons for the elderly. David Jacobs mentioned that a new film version of Flah Gordon was being made, and Buster wanted to appear in it as Flash’s father, but it didn’t happen. Whereas of course if they did a remake of Flash Gordon now (and the 1980 version is nearly as old as the first Flash Gordon serial was at the time) they would definitely give Sam Jones a cameo role.
He did appear in a remake of his other Saturday morning serial when he appeared in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century as Brigadier Gordon. (A descendant of Flash?) In one scene Brigadier Gordon tells Buck Rogers “I was doing this before you were born.”, which was a joke because i) the temporarily displace Buck Rogers was actually born a few centuries before Brigadier Gordon, and ii) Buster Crabbe was play Buck Rogers before Gil Gerard was born.
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With Christmas Eve falling on a Saturday in 1983 it appears that the BBC and ITV have scheduled their usual offerings alongside some festive treats. Bergerac was part way through it’s third series with the ‘Ice Maiden’ episode, but from 1986 to 1991 (when John Nettles finally called it a day) the programme did in fact have feature length standalone episodes that were made for the Christmas period (usually televised on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day).
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