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No, I am certainly not referring to the UK's Eurovision Song Contest heroes for 2025, but I am referring to remembering a Monday or multiple Mondays in 1985, a few years before the girl group was born; and no doubt that it is sobering to think that 1985 is as distant as the present day now as that year was to the end of the Second World War. A couple of years ago I started a thread about adverts from 1985 on the Adverts part of this forum, and thus, mentioning the "shivers down the spine" moments that the Philips Ladyshave advert gave to seven year old me, beckoning echoes of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill in the process. Just before Christmas last year, I came across this very generous video on YouTube, submitted by the wife of a participant of that year's Krypton Factor series in which he appeared in at least one episode taped, and recorded from a Tyne Tees region perspective. It does give a fascinating insight into ITV's autumn schedule for 1985; the TV channel itself had just reached its 30th birthday (in London at least) and was still in great shape. Here are four hours worth of pure 1985 nostalgia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnTRcB2JF9w - thank you to the person who put it on YouTube. I got home from First Year Junior School to see some of this - I could have sworn that I could have remembered what I did on that day at school as well!
The video starts with around three episodes of The Krypton Factor which was the series before Art of Noise was introduced, and I believe that it was the final one to have the Identity Parade part with the Observation round; someone with brightness and contrast to Timmy Mallett had the winning streak (no pun intended) the third edition. The Tyne Tees continuity announcer, Judi Lines gave their local hero an honourable mention at the end of one of the episodes. One and a half hours in, we get to see two different soaps; one is, of course, Coronation Street, a couple of months away from its 25th birthday, and the other was with 24-year-old German actress and model Nastassja Kinski promoting Lux soap. (She is not to be confused with Natasha Kaplinsky). The foundation of the Gold Blend series of adverts could also be regarded as another soap in its latter sense which ran for years and years. In the ad breaks, if tea floated your boat rather than coffee, Presto were offering Tetley teabags for £1.97 for a box of 160, when the bags were still square, but if you wanted to "not quite" save money further with your 1985 cup of tea, then go along to the North Eastern Co-op and get some 99 teabags for that very price - 99p, although you do only get 80 of them in the box, which means that two boxes for the same amount would cost 1p more than Presto.
Just a couple of minutes of that evening's Coronation Street remain so I assume that soap operas weren't their cup of tea (linking to Tetley again) for around two minutes were seen, but even if the episode was in tact, we would have found the Claytons doing a bunk from number 11; the Barlows were onto the second young actress to play Tracy; and number 11's future occupant, Alf Roberts, modernising his Corner Shop. The final episode of the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 was seen - a real comedy drama. Adrian Mole was the Harry Potter of the mid 1980s and Gian Sammarco, (who has a name sounding like a brand of pizza) could have played Potter to a T back then had Rowling had written her books back in the 1980s - from black bedroom walls ("disappear Noddy!") to wearing red socks; Mole had it all. Politically, he could have been a Labour of Moles, geddit? Sammarco did a stint presenting one of those Saturday morning children's TV programmes before becoming a chiropodist in Northampton, I assume. Lyndsey Stagg who played the white (and sometimes red as a protest) knee-socks wearer Pandora, gave up acting soon afterwards which is a shame as she would have had great potential in Grange Hill-alike programmes before doing something like work in a bank or something. Julie Walters played Adrian's Mum and Beryl Reid who still had plenty of "get-up-and-go" (geddit?) as his Gran. It was a programme made by Thames, but its liberal feel made it feel like a Central programme, in particular if one thinks of Sue Townsend's original Leicester roots. The Growing Pains was to debut in early 1987 on the ITV network.
World in Action had the shortened opening titles but still the red da Vinci's Vitruvian Man in the opening titles; this episode was about British Airways, and at the end of the edition, a complaint from the National House-Building Council's adjudication to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (an Ofcom predecessor) which was read out on-screen in relation to an edition from two years before. Adverts for the Eldon Square Shopping Centre (I visited it in 2007); Oil of Ulay; and yes, that classic animated sub-Julie Andrews Ovaltine advert was seen while we waited for the other side of the Watershed to arrive. By the time The Winning Streak was on, it would have been my bedtime; still, nearly 40 years on, I go to bed when I damn-well feel like it! The Winning Streak was a drama about motor-racing, only ran for one series and starred Shaun Scott (he of the Café Hag adverts and Chis Deakin in The Bill fame). Carol Dayton was seen in her black leather skirt and white blouse preening herself in the bathroom before the day ahead; Carol is indeed the Streak's "stage name" (character name if you must) of Canadian actress Shelagh McLeod, also in her mid 20s at the time. The News was indeed at Ten and featured Burnett and Gall at the ITN desk - an institution, just like Big Ben striking ten.
A trailer for Girls on Top was seen during the course of the evening, and I suppose that it was a relief that an episode of that wasn't on the tape! One can only cope with rationed servings of Ruby Wax, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders all in one go! If Carlton (not Lady Carlton, alas) or even BBC Three were on the air in 1985, no doubt that one of them would have been responsible for that! Mind you, I wouldn't have minded a Friday evening back then: some Albion Market, moving Brucie's Play Your Cards Right to that post-Highway Sunday night slot, and an episode of Drummonds, set in a 1950s boarding school and starring the late Richard Pasco, in which I would have probably have stayed up to see as I wouldn't have had school in the morning. Bring back Mondays in 1985, I would say!
The video starts with around three episodes of The Krypton Factor which was the series before Art of Noise was introduced, and I believe that it was the final one to have the Identity Parade part with the Observation round; someone with brightness and contrast to Timmy Mallett had the winning streak (no pun intended) the third edition. The Tyne Tees continuity announcer, Judi Lines gave their local hero an honourable mention at the end of one of the episodes. One and a half hours in, we get to see two different soaps; one is, of course, Coronation Street, a couple of months away from its 25th birthday, and the other was with 24-year-old German actress and model Nastassja Kinski promoting Lux soap. (She is not to be confused with Natasha Kaplinsky). The foundation of the Gold Blend series of adverts could also be regarded as another soap in its latter sense which ran for years and years. In the ad breaks, if tea floated your boat rather than coffee, Presto were offering Tetley teabags for £1.97 for a box of 160, when the bags were still square, but if you wanted to "not quite" save money further with your 1985 cup of tea, then go along to the North Eastern Co-op and get some 99 teabags for that very price - 99p, although you do only get 80 of them in the box, which means that two boxes for the same amount would cost 1p more than Presto.
Just a couple of minutes of that evening's Coronation Street remain so I assume that soap operas weren't their cup of tea (linking to Tetley again) for around two minutes were seen, but even if the episode was in tact, we would have found the Claytons doing a bunk from number 11; the Barlows were onto the second young actress to play Tracy; and number 11's future occupant, Alf Roberts, modernising his Corner Shop. The final episode of the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 was seen - a real comedy drama. Adrian Mole was the Harry Potter of the mid 1980s and Gian Sammarco, (who has a name sounding like a brand of pizza) could have played Potter to a T back then had Rowling had written her books back in the 1980s - from black bedroom walls ("disappear Noddy!") to wearing red socks; Mole had it all. Politically, he could have been a Labour of Moles, geddit? Sammarco did a stint presenting one of those Saturday morning children's TV programmes before becoming a chiropodist in Northampton, I assume. Lyndsey Stagg who played the white (and sometimes red as a protest) knee-socks wearer Pandora, gave up acting soon afterwards which is a shame as she would have had great potential in Grange Hill-alike programmes before doing something like work in a bank or something. Julie Walters played Adrian's Mum and Beryl Reid who still had plenty of "get-up-and-go" (geddit?) as his Gran. It was a programme made by Thames, but its liberal feel made it feel like a Central programme, in particular if one thinks of Sue Townsend's original Leicester roots. The Growing Pains was to debut in early 1987 on the ITV network.
World in Action had the shortened opening titles but still the red da Vinci's Vitruvian Man in the opening titles; this episode was about British Airways, and at the end of the edition, a complaint from the National House-Building Council's adjudication to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (an Ofcom predecessor) which was read out on-screen in relation to an edition from two years before. Adverts for the Eldon Square Shopping Centre (I visited it in 2007); Oil of Ulay; and yes, that classic animated sub-Julie Andrews Ovaltine advert was seen while we waited for the other side of the Watershed to arrive. By the time The Winning Streak was on, it would have been my bedtime; still, nearly 40 years on, I go to bed when I damn-well feel like it! The Winning Streak was a drama about motor-racing, only ran for one series and starred Shaun Scott (he of the Café Hag adverts and Chis Deakin in The Bill fame). Carol Dayton was seen in her black leather skirt and white blouse preening herself in the bathroom before the day ahead; Carol is indeed the Streak's "stage name" (character name if you must) of Canadian actress Shelagh McLeod, also in her mid 20s at the time. The News was indeed at Ten and featured Burnett and Gall at the ITN desk - an institution, just like Big Ben striking ten.
A trailer for Girls on Top was seen during the course of the evening, and I suppose that it was a relief that an episode of that wasn't on the tape! One can only cope with rationed servings of Ruby Wax, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders all in one go! If Carlton (not Lady Carlton, alas) or even BBC Three were on the air in 1985, no doubt that one of them would have been responsible for that! Mind you, I wouldn't have minded a Friday evening back then: some Albion Market, moving Brucie's Play Your Cards Right to that post-Highway Sunday night slot, and an episode of Drummonds, set in a 1950s boarding school and starring the late Richard Pasco, in which I would have probably have stayed up to see as I wouldn't have had school in the morning. Bring back Mondays in 1985, I would say!