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Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

Taunton

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My father's old PA had an actress friend whose job was to sit in the audience in TV variety and magic shows and put her hand up if no one responded to "Can I have someone from the audience please?"
We had a BBC crew come to film our science class. Just before they arrived our science master said he would put questions, if we knew the answer, left hand up, if we didn't know, right hand up, so the viewers would think all his class knew all the answers. I wonder if the producer ever found out ...
 
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The exile

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Regarding Saturday TV Schedules in Ye Olden Tyme: Children's programmes…
What would the schedulers have done without Zorro, Champion the Wonderhorse or Lassie? Or were those for daytime mornings during the school holidays?
 

styles

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I've been to a few audience recordings in my time...off the top of my head (mainly gameshows!)
I went through a phase of doing this, as I was living not far from some studios. They're (almost?) always free, and a good day out. On one show, there was an elderly couple near the front and the floor manager came over to them and asked how they were. Turned out they were regulars, and even brought their own sandwiches and flask of tea for when there were pauses in recordings!
 

Mr. SW

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What would the schedulers have done without Zorro, Champion the Wonderhorse or Lassie? Or were those for daytime mornings during the school holidays?
Summer holiday viewing. You missed Robinson Crusoe, White Horses, Belle and Sebastian and (Deep voice now) "Herge's Adventures of Tin Tin" ("Produced by Tele-Hachette and Belvision!")

Saturdays was Banana Splits, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet.
 

The exile

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Summer holiday viewing. You missed Robinson Crusoe, White Horses, Belle and Sebastian and (Deep voice now) "Herge's Adventures of Tin Tin" ("Produced by Tele-Hachette and Belvision!")
Have vague memories of White Horses, but not of tgr others. Maybe a slightly different era? (I’m probably thinking late 70s or very early 80s).
 

gg1

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We had a BBC crew come to film our science class. Just before they arrived our science master said he would put questions, if we knew the answer, left hand up, if we didn't know, right hand up, so the viewers would think all his class knew all the answers. I wonder if the producer ever found out ...
When I was at school, part of an episode of Surprise Surprise was filmed there, I think it was for one of the school secretaries.

The surprise part is a lie, the whole school knew about it a couple of weeks in advance.
 

Shaw S Hunter

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Summer holiday viewing. You missed Robinson Crusoe, White Horses, Belle and Sebastian and (Deep voice now) "Herge's Adventures of Tin Tin" ("Produced by Tele-Hachette and Belvision!")
Lots of Heidi too.

Saturdays was Banana Splits, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet.
Not forgetting Laurel and Hardy as well as Casey Jones (who could also appear in the holidays). Oh and The Lone Ranger.
 

gg1

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Now we know what inspired Travellers Fare management to create the brand....
That came up on another thread a few years ago, I was a fan of their burgers as a child but it was a good 20 years after that before I discovered that Casey Jones was anything other than a fast brand.
 

GordonT

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The 1970s saw the emergence of greater competition between the BBC and ITV for child viewers, typified by programmes such as the Beeb's Multicoloured Swap-Shop hosted by Noel Edmonds and ITV's Tiswas with Chris Tarrant (along with others at various times).
 

Taunton

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That came up on another thread a few years ago, I was a fan of their burgers as a child but it was a good 20 years after that before I discovered that Casey Jones was anything other than a fast brand.
Casey Jones was a USA folk song about a high speed loco engineer, ostensibly on the Illinois Central, sung by very many singers there over the past 100 years or more, up to, of all groups, Grateful Dead. The TV series was bought by the BBC in the early 1960s. It was characterised by more repeat-footage of the train going along within the 25 minute programme, and the same each week, than just about any other cheap Hollywood TV series.

 

Trackman

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Casey Jones was a USA folk song about a high speed loco engineer, ostensibly on the Illinois Central, sung by very many singers there over the past 100 years or more, up to, of all groups, Grateful Dead. The TV series was bought by the BBC in the early 1960s. It was characterised by more repeat-footage of the train going along within the 25 minute programme, and the same each week, than just about any other cheap Hollywood TV series.
Got the theme tune going around in my head at the moment - thanks ;)
Lots of Heidi too.
Not forgetting Laurel and Hardy as well as Casey Jones (who could also appear in the holidays). Oh and The Lone Ranger.
Couldn't be doing with Heidi.

A while back I asked my cousins kids if they had heard of Laurel and Hardy after mentioning Harold Lloyd who they had no clue about.
They said they had never heard of them.
 

gg1

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Casey Jones was a USA folk song about a high speed loco engineer, ostensibly on the Illinois Central, sung by very many singers there over the past 100 years or more, up to, of all groups, Grateful Dead. The TV series was bought by the BBC in the early 1960s. It was characterised by more repeat-footage of the train going along within the 25 minute programme, and the same each week, than just about any other cheap Hollywood TV series.

Yes, that was all covered in the thread I mentioned, all completely absent from my cultural radar in the 80s and 90s :lol:
 

sprunt

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A lot of those costs will still be incurred by filming a game show though. You still need a studio, a celebrity presenter, a producer, a director, camera crew, make up, sound engineers, etc.
A game show doesn't need: a long script that's probably undergone multiple rewrites, weeks of rehearsals, multiple set designs, location filming, visual effects, etc. And just in terms of studio time, the ratio of time spent in studio to screen time filled will be far higher for dramas than for game shows.
 

SargeNpton

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Lots of Heidi too.


Not forgetting Laurel and Hardy as well as Casey Jones (who could also appear in the holidays). Oh and The Lone Ranger.
There was a 1960s series about an American trucker, that seemed to be a road equivalent of Casey Jones. Damned if I can remember the name though.
 

dgl

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This is taken from the feature, Tales From A Cold Field, on the transmission gallery website.


Talking about Robinson Crusoe the Sutton Coldfield transmitter was fitted with a telecine machine and various reels of film, mainly trade test stuff but also a copy of Robinson Crusoe in the event the programme feed from London went down. Alas the GPO were supposedly pretty hot on getting it fixed and as the rules were that when it was fixed they had to return to regular broadcasting Robinson Crusoe never got played in full.

Talking of TV transmitters, back in the day during startup they'd announce/show the transmitters and frequency that broadcaster used, of course in 405 line days that'd be only a very small list but with UHF/625 line TV there ended up being too many relays in most areas to be able to list them all, especially near the end of such broadcasts.
"This is Westward Television transmitting from the Caradon Hill, Stockland Hill, Huntshaw Cross and associated transmitters of the Independent Broadcasting Authority"
 
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MicroLithium

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Talking of TV transmitters
That’s presumably a pretty big anachronism for plenty of people these days- the last time I switched my TV to the aerial, it’s because there was a news story that the local transmitter was broken. I turned the TV on, saw that indeed there was no reception, turned it off and they could have never fixed it for all I’d know!
 

JD2168

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Regarding Saturday TV Schedules in Ye Olden Tyme: Children's programmes in the morning followed by Grandstand or World of Sport.

Children’s television on the main channels of BBC & ITV really has disappeared over the years
 

najaB

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I thought this for a long time, partly because paying out ~£10k to someone on Price is Right or BFH on Bullseye was dirt cheap compared to what you pay professional actors/actresses.
Even with the expensive prizes, you don't need to worry about sets, locations, editing, foley, ADR, effects, paying actors, extras, reshoots, second units, etc. As noted below some scripted TV can be into millions of pounds per episode, how often are the £1M-plus top prizes actually won?
 

Silent

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I think finding frit bands on glass to be something that looks modern is possibly a Gen Z / millennial or older thing because we grew up with cars from the 80’s or before. Gen Z grew up with older trains that didn’t use front cab glass that would have frit bands as lots of uk trains seem to have been replaced in the 10s/20s. So I think we would associate frit bands with modern vehicles, especially millennials or older, as bonded glass was popular on new late 90s and 00s uk trains. And new car models started to use frit bands around the windscreen more in the 90s.

I think gen Alpha would have grown up with old vehicles having frit bands on windows. As old to them would be cars from the 00s or older. 80s cars being very rare so I think they wouldn’t associate bonded glass or frit bands with modern vehicles as much. Rather it’s just the way glass is on cars, I would assume their perspective to be.
 

317 forever

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The Piccadilly Line linking Heathrow Airport with central London.

A majority of passengers would use Heathrow Express or the Elizabeth Line now.
 

317 forever

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So is that South western branch of the Piccadilly line noticeably less busy now?
Maybe not hugely less busy, but just used less for Heathrow - central London journeys.

Journeys like Heathrow - Hammersmith and Hounslow/Northfields - central London will sometimes keep it busy.
 

WesternLancer

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The Piccadilly Line linking Heathrow Airport with central London.

A majority of passengers would use Heathrow Express or the Elizabeth Line now.
Probably depends where you live. I bet a lot of the airport workers use it, but fewer share of passengers perhaps.
 

SargeNpton

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Bombay Duck on the menus in Indian restaurants. For those who have never encountered it, it's a dried fish.

I am led to believe that it disappeared because the production method didn't meet EU food standards.
 

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