Christmas Day films on after the Queen (Thankfully revived)

[George 1978]

(I have just managed to find the old thread that I started at Christmas courtesy of http://webcache.googleusercontent.com, and so I am reconstructing the opening post, along with the responses I made on it. Hope this will be alright with the powers that be on here...)

After The Queen has done her seven or eight minute stint at 3.00 pm, (going on about the latest Royal birth, wedding, jubilee, or Annus Horribilis), in a lot of years, BBC 1 and ITV have had quite a few films on to take us into the early evening, and also to allow the family to help digest the turkey before wondering whether there would be room for both the pudding and the biscuits for cheese.

I have been looking at a website that lists old television schedules from the 1930s to the present day, and just like the films seen on ITV during the afternoons, there seemed to be an interesting choice over the years. Not every year this had happened, but they started at around 3.10 pm to 3.15 pm and were mostly family films, some for the children while others for more older people.

On ITV, different regions had various films during the 1960s, and it wasn't until 1971 that they were networked (although Scottish and Ulster still shown their own films for another couple of years after that). King Solomon's Mines was the film that year. The Please Sir! film was networked in that post-Queen slot in 1976, and the newly released George and Mildred film was first seen in 1980, although Yootha Joyce never got to see it herself. James Bond was an ITV favourite in this slot with Thunderball making it on here in both 1985 and 1990 respectively, as long as you don't mind the MFI, Texas Homecare and Queensway adverts every 25 minutes. The oldest Bond film, Dr No got the 1981 slot.

Mary Poppins premiered here on BBC 1 in 1984 (a film which I had already seen just before Christmas at Infant School), and ITV (sans Ulster) had showed it 10 years later to the very moment. Dumbo premiered in the same slot in 1986, 45 years after Walt Disney made the film. Superman was rewarded the slot in 1983 (ad breaks on YT) providing the warm up to Bullseye. Some films have been seen more than once such as the Disney film Tangled, and the odd Harry Potter film. Thames had opted out of Clark Kent's female counterpart Supergirl in 1992, throwing one of their "we're going off the air very soon so we don't care" tantrums by repeating the BFG in the slot immediately after the Annus Horribilis speech, and it also meant that Londoners didn't get to see on that occasion, Helen Slater as a female superhero or official product placement on behalf of Lee Jeans courtesy of the derriere of Ethan (Hart Bochner) either. No connection with the recent Sky series of course.

The Never-Ending Story was seen on ITV in 1993 when they decided to not bother with Christmas that year and just show films back to back (at least Carlton couldn't be blamed for that as their first Christmas Day wasn't until 1995). The Muppet Christmas Carol (Kermit's voice changed an octave or three because of Henson's death two years before the film was made) was seen on ITV in 1997. And The Great Escape (who many people think was seen every Christmas since the Year Dot) was on in 2001.

There were years when films didn't follow the Queen - ITV had Blind Date on in 1988, and for many years, BBC 1 had Noel's Christmas Presents on in the 1990s and a circus event 20 years or so before that. BBC 1 still shows the same CGI animation in that slot now, although they do feel the same every year now. There were others and I could make a list of them, but they are the main examples.

OK, Mary Poppins is still being seen at Christmas (BBC 1 has it on Christmas Eve this year, and they had it on Boxing Day last year), but there is something quite comforting about having it mid-afternoon after the Queen to allow the dinner (rather than the medicine) go down.

We still get films after the Queen but they seem to be mostly children's animated ones rather than live action than we used to in the 1980s and 1990s. Do you remember any of the films in that slot?

[George 1978]

It's normally the biggest cartoon film originally released 2-3 years earlier.

I am not against cartoon films - I actually prefer your actual old school Disney and Warner Brothers stuff, but they do feel the same each year when they are shown, and very little has changed in the last decade. CGI seems to be modernisation for modernisation's sake.

It's a pity that Disney won't really allow broadcasters to show a lot of their cartoon films such as Snow White instead of limiting it to cinemas and on video and DVD - even if they are under a 70 year rule or something. It took 45 years for Dumbo to be shown, and 73 years for Fantasia to be shown on TV. I have a feeling that Walt Disney hated the idea of television which he probably thought would dilute the way we would view films.

[George 1978]

I think Superman, starring Christopher Reeve was aired after the speech. It may have been the early 80s.

In the 70s The Marx Brothers was always on during Christmas.

The first Superman film from 1978 was on Christmas Day in 1983 as a warm up for Bullseye - and your namesake was on in both 1985 and 1990 as well (rather than Thunderball as I had originally said at the start, which was in that slot in 2002).

[agfagaevart]

The first Superman film from 1978 was on Christmas Day in 1983 as a warm up for Bullseye - and your namesake was on in both 1985 and 1990 as well (rather than Thunderball as I had originally said at the start, which was in that slot in 2002).

Um...Nope!

[George 1978]

That trailer was for the start of 1983 (from an end of 1982 perspective) where I was referring to the end of following year.

[darren]

HERE IT IS SUNDAY DECEMBER 25TH 1983 CHRISTMAS DAY.
WITH SUPERMAN IN BIG LETTERS.


12.15pm Film : The Capture of Grizzly Adams (1982)
with Dan Haggerty (TV Movie)

2.00pm The Royal Year
ITN compilation

3.00pm The Queen

3.15pm Film : Superman (1978)
starring Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, Marlon Brando

5.40pm Bullseye Christmas Special
presnted by Jim Bowen, with Kenneth Kendall and Anne Diamond

6.25pm ITN News

The first Superman film from 1978 was on Christmas Day in 1983 as a warm up for Bullseye - and your namesake was on in both 1985 and 1990 as well (rather than Thunderball as I had originally said at the start, which was in that slot in 2002).

[George 1978]

Spot on, Darren.