Entertainment For Lively Minds
Making the move to ITV - does it ever work?
Posted by DogFacedBoy on 19 October 2010 - 11:31pm.
With news that the golden couple of BBC, Chiles & Bleakley haven't exactly caused "Daybreak"'s ratings to rise and shine, should we really be surprised?
If TV history has taught us nothing (damn you, David Starkey!) then its that the move from BBC to ITV is always doomed
Eric and Ernie
Tony Hancock
Des Lynam
Simon Dee
The Goodies
The Wombles
are there any examples of something going from the BBC to ITV and flourishing?
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You forgot Bob Wilson..
And Steve Rider.
Michael Parkinson as well.
What or who went there and flourished? Erm.. I'll get back to you on that.
when ever I turn over it's
rarely a good idea.
Like for like
recreations on ITV haven't done well. Most of the examples above are c.30 years old or so, and there was always (maybe there still is) a snobbery towards ITV which caused numbers to fall away. I vaugely recall Eric and Ern being less funny, and in shows that were shorter and with those annoying bloody adverts. I think it's early days for Daybreak (see what I did there).
Bruce Forsyth and Parky have had successful shows on both sides. Wossy could be the next one to put this to the test
Ant and Dec?
From Byker Grove to TV royalty via ITV
Yep
after their 'Beat The Barber' game on their BBC show got complaints (what has the world come to when you can't shave off all of a kids hair on TV?) they were too hot for the BBC. They were mugs to let em go.
My name is Barbara Cartland and you're all under arrest!
The Kenny Everett shows on Thames TV were funnier than the BBC ones. With the ITV shows the low budget added to the charm, where the "studio audience" seemed to be just the camera crew. The BBC shows were much more polished (and still funny), but not as good.
Men Behaving Badly improved when it did a reverse switcheroo
from ITV to BBC when Harry Enfield was replaced by Neil Morrissey (though I wasn't a fan of either version)
I've never liked Frank Skinner, David Baddiel or Fantasy Football either, but their ITV efforts were noticably worse than their time on the Beeb.
(Also didn't the 2 Ronnies threaten to defect to ITV in the early 80's after Ronnie Barker was incensed by the BBC for screening the Not The Nine O'Clock News pisstake sketch The 2 Ninnies? )
What, these Two Ninnies?
Tickle a dildo
That is fantastic. Much funnier than anything the Two Ronnies have ever done.
Those words in full in case you can't access the clip
We like birds, we're ornithologists
Horny, pornothologists
I've got a nice pair of bi-knacker-knocker-larse
You can stick them up on your tripod
We're marching up and down upon the spot spot spot
Cos the sodding choreographer's a twot twot twot
And he couldn't care a jot
If we're military men or not
With a bum, tit, how's your father
Whoops, a-diddly-i-do
Spent all day just crawling through the grass
Thistles in me hair and bracken up me anus *
I'm thrilled to bits if I see a pair of tits
And I love to watch the sun go down
Oh vagina, oh vagina, over Chinatown
We're titting up and down on the willy bum bum
Pillocking around with the cobbler's nobblers
Nibbling along with a pain in the Balkans
Piddling about in the bum plop piss
I wear my scarf when the weather turns bitter
Everybody calls him the muffled titter
I love it when the birds come a-pecking at me nuts
With a bum, tit, how's your father
Whoops, a-tickle-a-dildo
I'm a raven maniac
Got half a dozen chicks in me bivouac
I love to see them squirm with delight
When I'm giving them a little bit of worm at night
J. Arthur Rank and the titty bum Urals
Nibbling around with a pain in the Balkans
Spotty botty wee wee piddling about
In the Jimmy Riddle cami-knicker orchestras
Knickers up and down to me willy bum goolie
Knockers to the mammary nympho beaver
Knackers in the Baltic, clappering away
So we knicker and we knacker on me knocker all day
Knickers up and down to me willy bum goolie
Knockers to the mammary nympho beaver
Knackers in the Baltic, clappering away
So we knicker and we knacker
And we knocker, and we knacker
On the knicker and we knacker
And we knocker all day
A shame you missed the introduction
in which they announce, immediately prior to the above song, that "this is a family show and we will not allow smut into your home".
In fact here you go:
hehe...
Jay Arthur Rank and the titty-bum Urals :)
This brilliant parody was written by a very clever bloke called Peter Brewis, who also wrote the classic Spitting Image song I've Never Met A Nice South African
It would be very interesting to have seen what might have been if the 2 Rons had gone to ITV in the early 80's. I suspect they would've bombed like every other BBC defector - and had a totally different career path too. A break from the Beeb would have stopped successful solo BBC sitcoms like Open All Hours and Sorry happening, resulting instead in a string of flop ITV sitcoms for each Ronnie, followed by years in the comedy wilderness for both (Ronnie Barker especially risking ending up as a dated reclusive Benny Hill figure) which would make their legacy as a loved and respected double-act quite different to what it is today
P.S. Dogfacedboy: Just recalled 2 more BBC comedy giants who faded away after unsuccessfully crossing to ITV - Dave Allen and Dick Emery.
Michael Crawford's Tv career pretty much ended in the UK too after he traded in Some Mothers for a rubbish ITV sitcom called Chalk and Cheese
Morecambe and Wise
actually began their career on ITV. Then, 20 years or so later, they returned there to die.
David Jason
Has managed to switch between the BBC and ITV fairly successfully.
Benny Hill
He moved from the BBC to Thames in 1969. Did more than okay.
The basic point about the BBC-ITV switch holds, though.
It's not about the people, it's about the money
It's usually the case that the knives are out because ITV inevitably offer more money. And of course no one - more than likely the Dail Mail - thinks any star is worth whatever's on the table and must therefore justify that the move isn't simply about money.
This of course can't be done in an instant so the project/move to ITV is written off as an immediate and expensive failure. And yes, it must be said that often the work being offered isn't a patch on what's been before. So in the end, it is usally all about the money.
Simple.
The Wombles on ITV...
I don't remember that.
It was a late 90's revamp
featuring some new trendy Wombles -an Asian, Black and "street geezer" Womble.
Footie generally
"The Premiership" was ok, but no Match of the Day. And I can't get excited about the FA Cup on ITV - it just seems it's rightful place is on the Beeb. Maybe I'm just being old-fashioned...
Adrian Chiles
didn't exactly make the transition to ITV for the money. I suspect he was justifiably pissed at his Friday evening slot being handed to Chris Evans on a plate. Christine Bleakley didn't jump ship for the money either, the BBC withdrew their renewal of contract when she was unable to decide between them and ITV.
Having said that, I haven't seen them since their departure from the BBC, but I doubt they'll be as spectacularly unsuccessful as Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan since their departure from C4.