Tiswas

Tiswas was an anarchic Saturday morning children's British TV show which ran from 1974 to 1982. It also had a fanatical following among students and parents. The name reputedly stood for one of:

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• 'This Is Saturday, Wear A Smile',
• 'Today Is Saturday, Watch And Smile',
• 'Today Is Saturday, What A Shambles'.

It was originally produced as a Midlands region programme by ATV and was first shown on 5th January 1974. Within a couple of years it had been taken up by most of the ITV network (though it's notable that Channel Television never showed Tiswas. Most famously hosted by Chris Tarrant between 1974 and 1981, and later Sally James, it also featured the young Lenny Henry and Jim Davidson together with Bob Carolgees and his puppet, Spit the Dog. John Gorman, former member of 1960s cult band The Scaffold - was also in regular attendance.

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The show was a stitch together of competitions, film clips and pop promos held together by sketches from the cast. The show regularly featured spoof of BBC Children's programming.

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A feature of the show was the cage wherein initially the child audience, and later their fathers, were confined and periodically doused in water (one spin-off of the show was the hit Bucket of Water Song, performed by the Four Bucketeers), while the show was also frequently visited by the Phantom Flan Flinger who would throw the eponymous flans around the studio at all and sundry.

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A magazine counterpart was produced with interviews with cast, quizzes and letters.

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Tarrant left at the end of the seventh series in March 1981, leaving the next series to be led by James with comic Fogwell Flax, DJ Gordon Astley and singer Den Heggarty. This was the be the final series, as, at the end that year, there was a restructure of ITV broadcast franchises and ATV was replaced by Central Television. Central's management brought in a new morning show, Big Daddy's Saturday Show.

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In 1982 Tarrant, Carolgees, Gorman and Henry hosted a late-night show - with the up and coming comics Alexei Sayle and Helen Atkinson Wood called O.T.T. (standing for "Over the Top") which was effectively an "adult" version of Tiswas - in other words, it attempted to be just as anarchic, but with swearing and occasional topless women. It was not such a success and is today chiefly remembered for the naked 'Balloon Dance' performed by The Greatest Show on Legs, including Malcolm Hardee. A second attempt at the "O.T.T." format a year later, 'Saturday Stayback', was also unsuccessful.

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Tiswas: External links ►



 

British: The word British has several different uses. See the article on Britain for more details on the development and use of the word Britain....

1974: 1974 is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar)....

1982: 1982 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar....