I can't find it on You Tube Jules although I'm sure it was once there; I have noticed this with other uploads, not sure why it happens. I have it on Sky since one of the TOTP performances of LAN1 was shown in the 'I love 1977' show earlier this year and it is great. It will be interesting to see it as part of the full length TOTP show for that week, complete with chart countdown and DJ intro/outro.

The show is not returning until 13/09/12 and the Rats are not listed to appear (having said that, only about 4 or 5 are and generally they show around 9/10 acts each week). I think part of the problem is that seemingly 4 shows from 1977 are missing, hence the break you can get with these reruns every now and again.

I really like the weekly shows in sequence and I desperately hope they don't change it. Over the next ten years I'm looking forward to seeing the development of modern pop music, plus the Rats' rise to glory - in real time. It would be a disaster if they changed it.

Playing the shows out of sequence, as some fear the BBC are about to do (or it will be a near-40 year run of a show!), would destroy it for me - it would ruin the development. Yes, there's a lot of junk, but that just builds anticipation for the good stuff. I have a personal rule that I never fast-forward through the songs I don't like - well ok, I've been making an exception with Showaddywaddy! It's one of the best shows on TV. 1982 one week, 1990 the next, 1978 the next and so on - I'm really not keen on - what do others think?

Mark L wrote:

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The show is not returning until 13/09/12 and the Rats are not listed to appear (having said that, only about 4 or 5 are and generally they show around 9/10 acts each week). I think part of the problem is that seemingly 4 shows from 1977 are missing, hence the break you can get with these reruns every now and again.

I really like the weekly shows in sequence and I desperately hope they don't change it. Over the next ten years I'm looking forward to seeing the development of modern pop music, plus the Rats' rise to glory - in real time. It would be a disaster if they changed it.

Playing the shows out of sequence, as some fear the BBC are about to do (or it will be a near-40 year run of a show!), would destroy it for me - it would ruin the development. Yes, there's a lot of junk, but that just builds anticipation for the good stuff. I have a personal rule that I never fast-forward through the songs I don't like - well ok, I've been making an exception with Showaddywaddy! It's one of the best shows on TV. 1982 one week, 1990 the next, 1978 the next and so on - I'm really not keen on - what do others think?

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 I was having a panic, thinking I'd missed something.  Are we sure they still have the 25/8/77 show?  I've been waiting for it all year

Fingers crossed the 2.15am one 'tomorrow' is a repeat. 

Rats at 28 this week, but not on show apart from picture slide in countdown. Goes up to 17 next week and they should be on show again.....unless with the current Saville controversy, the BBC realise he was presenting (I don't know that he was) and pull the show. I definitely remember him introducing Like Clockwork, Rat Trap and possibly She's So Modern.

suss wrote:

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I was struck with amazement at just how eclectic the top 30 was in 77...

Chart is so homogenous now. I know there are guitar bands and dare I say musicians still out there, but do they get a look in??

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 One of the more interesting things is how the history of Rock and Roll gets rewritten.  If you read about the late seventies you would imagine it to be a time where there was nothing but punk and new wave, but the truth is the mainstream was dominated by pretty bland music.  It's the same in the sixties.  It wasn't The Beatles, The Stones, The Who or even The Monkees battling at the top and flooding the airwaves; you were more likely to have Tom Jones, Cliff Richard and Englebert. 

The charts have always been eclectic, and the mainstream pretty bland.  Looking back there are precious few great number one singles.  Most are quite frankly rubbish.  Take 1976 and 1977.  Not one decent rock record made it to the top.  It shows how much of a breakthrough Rat Trap was, because arguably, let's not consider Showaddywaddy, there hadn't been a rock single of any sort at the top since Bohemian Rhapsody.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1970s_UK_Singles_Chart_number_ones 

I wouldn't have a clue what the chart is like now.  The last time I noticed the charts was back in the mid nineties when Blur, Oasis and Pulp were making their mark.  I even remember people used to have an interest in the Chrismas number one, as we had a sweep and Michael Jackson won...

It did get a little interesting in the mid-2000s for second wave britpop with Franz, Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs, Killlers and Arctic Monkeys all making the charts, but these days with no physical singles, even The Black Keys and Kasabian who are possibly two of the biggest live draws barely make the top 100.  I had to look that up.

suss wrote:

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Also, due to Elvis inability to perform Way Down to the audience for some reason, we got a triple helping of Legs & Co last night. Used to leave me cold at the time. Another example of how times change.....

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Bloody inconsiderate of him.  Like The Clash, Elvis never appeared live on TOTP.  Another band notable for their absence, despite composing the theme tune, are Led Zeppelin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_performers_on_Top_of_the_Pops

Lisa wrote:

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Just got round to watching the one with Rats' debut - what did it say on Simon's hat?? Good performance anyway. Wonder what had happened to Phil Lynott - he had a real shiner!

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 Great performance. Good to know that all three (0f Lookin After No 1) are preserved in the archives. If I'm not mistaken Simon's hat is a Dublin Gaelic football hat and it says 'Up Dublin'. The Dublin gaelic football colours are dark and light blue ( being a dedicated supporter of Middlesbrough FC I'm not too well up on these things!) but know enough to be pretty certain that is what the paper hat says. I did freeze frame and enlarge the screen to be extra certain.

Back in the seventies these sort of crepe paper hats were what people wore and the Dublin gaelic football team was emerging as a successful county after years of not achieving much, or indeed anything.

Glad to see there is another 'Noel' fan, Mr Edmonds and hope he hasn't pricked himself with all those Rats badges. Is he being sarcastic about 'social commentary?'Hard to say. Finally the performance is distinctive enough not be mix it up with the others of the same song on TOTP. Now we can be certain this is the original August '77 debut.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn5vbbQaPEI

This turned out to be the same performance that Noel Edmonds introduced a few weeks ago, edited in after the DLT intro (here are the Boomtown Rats looking for number one with lookin' after number one).

Position 11 in this week's episode

Mary of the Form coming later in the autumn of course (pretty sure we may lose an edition due to the Savile affair)

I think this is the full list of appearances.  So a little while to wait for the next one.

From  http://www.cyberspace7.btinternet.co.uk/shessototp.htm

Pretty sure Savile introduced them doing Mary of the 4th Form (which, depressingly, would have been some way up his street) and so it is this episode I suspect will come under the axe. Arrgee is dead right, though, and if you strip away every other episode/show where there may be 'sensitivities' involved, we are going to have to wipe away much of the '70s and some of the '80s. Many used to chuckle, rightly or wrongly, at Love thy Neighbour, Alf Garnett, drool over Legs and Co, enjoy Benny Hill and Mind your Language and the list goes on. It's a phrase often being banded about at the moment in the light of the Savile scandal, but it's true that we were such a different country at the time and it's hard not to be a product of your times and history. Clearly, the line was crossed by many in a deplorable way, even for those times, but it's also true that in certain ways the line has moved over the last 30 or 40 years in a way probably not very imaginable back then. The 'line' for instance seemed not in the same place for a certain guitarist I think I recall from a top band, who seemingly started a relationship with someone many years his junior, as it would have been today. This moral 'line' is hard to pin down too. Back in '83 Relax was banned, but that would be less thinkable now, yet teenagers routinely access now the kind of images that would have involved a lot of discreet postage and package from the Netherlands in the '80s, and a court appearance if you couldn't get it past Customs. With X Factor and suggestive clothing and magazines, aimed at teenagers, it's no wonder the moral compass is spinning round with some having no idea which way it should point.

I think 'Clockwork' was also introduced by Savile so that will probably go next year and I think because of the scale of this, it's probably right, but as I say, so much else is at risk if further down the scale, the axe falls too.

Mark L wrote:

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Pretty sure Savile introduced them doing Mary of the 4th Form...

...The 'line' for instance seemed not in the same place for a certain guitarist I think I recall from a top band, who seemingly started a relationship with someone many years his junior, as it would have been today. 

...so much else is at risk if further down the scale, the axe falls too.

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Yes, he did.   

http://www.45cat.com/45_list_view_track.php?li=102

They'll never show that.

If they start axing then we won't see The Stones nor The Who again.  Bye bye Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Still we can look forward to seeing loads of Michael Jackson.  He is totally absolved.

Last night's TOTP rerun was axed due to DLT's arrest.

This means there is virtually no chance of seeing the Rats perform Mary of the 4th Form, since the two performances concerned were introduced by Dave and Savile.

Still, at least we will be saved from every single showing of Mull of Kintyre.

1-12-77: Presenter: Dave Lee Travis

(3) STATUS QUO Rockin All Over The World (and charts)
(20) THE BOOMTOWN RATS Mary Of The 4th Form
(8) RUBY WINTERS I Will (video)
(18) ELVIS COSTELLO Watching The Detectives ®
(27) DIANA ROSS Getting Ready For Love (danced to by Legs & Co)
(21) THE DOOLEYS Love Of My Life
(45) JOHN OTWAY & WILD WILLY BARRETT Really Free
(29) CRYSTAL GAYLE Dont It Make My Brown Eyes Blue (video)
(9) BRIGHOUSE & RASTRICK BRASS BAND The Floral Dance ®
(46) CARL DOUGLAS Run Back
(1) WINGS Mull Of Kintyre (video)
(2) QUEEN We Are The Champions (and credits)

....and if the show is still airing next April, we can look forward to 3 performances of She's So Modern, with Noel Edmunds, Kid Jensen and Peter Powell introducing.

One hopes.

Mary of the 4th Form at 23 in this week's Kid Jensen-presented show, but not played.

Thanks Suss - Sky'd this now.

1979 egdes it for me too. Hope the reruns still going next year. Shame some shows will not air for reasons already well publicised.

No idea Jules, but with all the furore and editing that would be required it's highly likely they will just cobble highlights shows like these I suppose.

Initial impression on tonight's offerings - first show was interesting and great to see Pete Briquette feature heavily and getting a say for once. Rats seemed to get more than their share of show, no complaints there. Some good obsevations from the contributors I felt...punk and new wave were grudgingly included by the producers, but overall format of ToTP survived as it ever was.

The second show, just winding up as I write, has been a huge disappointment to me. Seemed an uninspired selection of songs and overall a bit dull, with one or two notable exceptions. Glasses are obviously rose tinted. Anyone think the same?

Yep, same here, no complaints, apart from Rat Trap being cut off after final 'Caught!' However, considering Airport by the Motors was savaged before it's brilliant piano mid-piece, can't say too much. And yes, good to see Pete who spoke well. Boney M and Brotherhood of Man had to be endured to get over the clash of tatstes that semed to define '78 I suppose. Interesting too to see DLT feature here and there, a sign maybe that the powers that be at the Beeb are not too worried about him now.

As far as I know the entire shows of '78 are due to be shown as last year, with the 'Savile and others' exception being applied as seen fit.

It's hard to know whether you're listening to/enduring Angelo or Figaro when the record's playing. Virtually identical twins.

Like these:

George Harrison - My Sweet Lord / The Chiffons - He's so fine

Wizzard - Angel Fingers / Marie Osmond - Paper Roses

Barry Manilow - Can't smile without you / Wham! - Last Christmas

Tears for Fears - Mad World / Cat Stevens - Matthew and son

ArrGee wrote:

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Mark L wrote:

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... and Brotherhood of Man had to be endured to get over the clash of tastes that semed to define '78

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They were Abba without the glamour and the songs.  They won eurovision, so seeing Abba released Fernando, they must have though you know what we could do that, hence Angelo, and then having seen that work, they did Figaro...

 

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 Was watching a box set of The Mighty Boosh at the weekend and was very amused at "Vince Noir "introducing one of his potential hot new bands as "the indie Abba" lol. There's also a line from Alan Partridge introducing a Wings record...."Wings, the band the Beatles  could have been..."