From zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma!stevedc Mon Jun 10 15:48:06 CDT 1991

Re: The Fabs on Telly

>From article <1991Jun6.235936.24844@midway.uchicago.edu>, by dlm3@quads.uchicago.edu (saki):
> Remember how this started? I was just musing whether the British
> pop show, "Ready, Steady, Go!" (hereafter "RSG!"), was the same
> thing as the TV special "Around the Beatles"---Dave Clark, pop
> entrepreneur extraordinaire (now that he's tired of being a pop
> star :-), has marketed them that way.

Since this is a scholarly discussion :-), some nit picking is in order...

> Beatles also appeared. Associated Rediffusion appears to be one of
> several independent production and broadcast services in the UK, such as
> Granada, ITV, ABC-TV (surely not associated with the American ABC?),
> STV (Scottish TV)...from what I can tell, they may have been a part
> of the IBA Network, an association on independent broadcasters in
> the UK not connected to the BBC-TV system. Associated Rediffusion

• ITV is a generic term for Independent TV. No actual company called ITV exists as far as I can recall. ITV also referred to as commercial TV as it carries the adverts.
• IBA is a new term. It refers in the 1980's to the Independent Broadcasting Authority which does indeed look after non-BBC broadcasting.

>
> Their second live TV appearance was on 3 December 1962, from TWW
> Studios in Bristol (the South, for those of you without a map), on

• TWW is Television Wales and West. Not to be confused with TW3, which was a shorhand for That Was The Week That Was the late satursday nite satire show on which David Frost started. (It was actually a significant part in the establishing of the new values that the Beatles were part of)
  >
  > One was the Fabs' actual BBC-TV debut...finally, a spot on the
  > official government broadcasting service! The Beeb-TV recorded
  > the Boys for a programme called The 625 Show (it had nothing to do
• 625 because that is the number of scans on the TV screen. There were 405 on BBC1 in those days, so 625 tells us it was BBC2.

> as the Crawdaddy Club to hear an R&B group called the Rolling
> Stones (well, the guys had to relax sometime.) On 16 April is

• At the time located at the Station Hotel opposite the railway station in Richmond. Obligatory Stones mention :-)

>
> More appearances of all sorts followed for the Fabs...TV, radio,
> concerts...this was the era when the print media was beginning
> to sense something afoot in the world of pop music. The Beatles,
> for their part, continued to create new hits ("She Loves You"
> would be released that summer; "With The Beatles" was in process.)

• DON'T forget 'Pop Goes the Beatles'. It was unprecedented for a band like the Fabs to have a regular weekly show like that. Significant.
  > entire show included other Merseyside acts, and an apparently
  > reprehensible "Shakespearean" skit (Jack Good persuaded the Fabs
• Why 'reprehensible'?

Stephen Carter, Systems Manager, The Administration, The University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9RH, UK

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