It'll be alright... until quite late at night.

Curiosity is an unbearable thing. It began with an innocent enough question on Twitter about 'It'll Be Alright On The Night'...


The source of that mystery, an incongruous apology aired ahead of It'll Be Alright On The Night 7, where TV's Denis Norden sweetly apologised that the wrong programme had aired last week, and that this week's was indeed the new one. 

Curious. A mystery, to be sure. But not something which stirred any memories, and not something which I could help with. But lurking in the YouTube suggestions, screen right, was something I did remember a little better:

I do remember that, although I'm not sure I remember it being shown in December 1987. Alright 5 was one of the first things I recorded on my first video recorder, and I didn't own one of those until the middle of 1988. But let's not quibble about dates just yet. Instead, I played the YouTube video. Which just led to more questions.

Firstly, the video seems to start quite abruptly - OK, perhaps a bum capture, perhaps someone not quite as skilled on the VCR's pause controls. You have to remember that in 1987/1988, when recording from the television, it was vitally important Not To Have Any Continuity Or Ad Breaks In Your Recording, a peculiar mania of the time (because Videotapes Were Expensive) that for your home recorded-off-the-telly efforts to look as 'pro' as possible, nothing but the production must be evident. Something which, to this day, can often make boxes of old videotapes a little less interesting than they might otherwise be. 

Anyway, Alright 5 seemed all in order, but a brief skip to the end to observe the credits revealed that something was not quite right. The closing clip, a US TV news interview asking if Christmas has become too commercialised. The hapless interviewee offers that she thinks that Christmas is a wonderful thing, and they should have it every year.

Ha. Ha ha! Yes, a classic. Very funny. But that's not how Alright 5 ends. Christmas Every Year came from Alright 3, made in 1981. Alright 5, for me, has always ended with a different clip - what looks like a TV newsman offering advice to his off-screen colleague. "David, in real life, there is no take two." How true that is. 

So what's going on here? A possible clue is alluded to in the YouTube comments underneath the video:
Huh. OK, new information in the mix. 'Alright on Christmas Night', different titles, and apparently more/different Christmas-related clips included. More research is required. YouTube doesn't seem to have a full copy of the Christmas show, but it does have the opening titles, which are quite instructive:


Look at this closely and you'll observe that every frame of the film strip has a number '5' on it. Just like Alright 5 does. 

But this copy of Alright 5 on YouTube doesn't start with the Christmas titles, so unless something hinky is going on, it's probably not the Christmas version. Or is it? By this time, I've found my digital capture of my original 1988 VHS recording of Alright 5, because I dumped all my VHS tapes to digital some years ago, something which comes in surprisingly handy from time to time. 

Clearly there is nothing for it but to go full CSI. Only a frame-by-frame examination of the material will do. Taking account of the slight differences in where each of the recordings start, we can fire up FCP10 and slap everything we have on the timeline, to see what's different.


This gives us some moving pictures to look at. Have a look at the video below to see the comparison in action. It might seem confusing at first, but you'll hear the sound from Alright 5 in your left speaker, and the Christmas one in your right speaker.


Most obvious observations - the Christmas one starts with some cheesy-looking Christmas crackers, the lined background features a green Christmas tree instead of a red '5'. Writing 'Christmas' over the screen takes rather longer, so by the time that's finished, Alright 5 has already introduced the gig with the VO "And Ladies and Gentlemen, here's Denis Norden." Watch this again and you'll notice that the same words are used on the Christmas version, but the delivery is different. The Christmas version also keeps the music running while Denis takes rather longer to get to his seat. 

The YouTube video doesn't show us all of Denis's opening Christmas link, although it's unlikely to be too much different from Alright 5 - you can spot the differences between the two:

"Hello, and (cough), and, and welcome to this brand-new out-crop of out-takes..."

"Hello, hello, and, and a seasonal welcome to this brand new out-crop of out-takes..."

What other differences are there between the versions? Certainly, the YouTube version doesn't seem to be the Christmas version - there are no obvious Christmas mentions or Christmas-themed clips. What IS apparent is that some clips are missing, but it's clear fairly quickly that these are all from Japan, so perhaps there was a rights issue involving the clips, or possibly the YouTube version is simply from a repeat much later, and the rights to use those clips could not be re-cleared in later years. Here's a further comparison video showing the main differences in the body of the show:



The first two Japanese clips are clearly easy to remove - they're right in the middle of a series of clips, and can be invisibly removed at the point of the page-spin effect. The third difference doesn't appear to be anything other than the original recorder of the YouTube version trying to pause out an ad break and coming back in a bit late. Not everyone's home recordings can be as excellent as mine, clearly. 

The fourth difference is not as clear - it appears that the music performance clip which is the first thing back out of the break is missing. Whether that was removed in transmission, or is just absent from the YouTube version due to the original recorder forgetting to unpause after the break is not easy to tell for sure. The fifth missing clip appears to be another Japanese blooper, and again an easy and invisible edit due to it happening in the middle of a series of clips. 

The sixth difference is more complicated - whereas the YouTube version returns to the studio after the clip of Channel 9's Jim Benemann getting hit by a falling prop, via a smooth page-turn, the 1988 broadcast featured a further clip - again Japanese - as the last in the sequence. This would have been a troublesome edit as so far everything else has more or less been straight cuts and splices, but this will have required a whole new DVE sequence to be arranged. Worse still, back in the studio, Denis references the now-missing Japanese clip. 

"Well, it's more or less what they did to our car industry."

The YouTube version of the show, which I think we can now officially call as a Revised Repeat, having already had to mess around with making a new DVE sequence to hide the missing Japanese clip, is therefore able to come back to the studio just after this comment, so while more of a nuisance to execute in the edit, the end result remains invisible to any viewers who don't pay as much attention to things as we do. 

The seventh, or eighth difference depending on how you're counting, is probably the only true visual difference. Presumably someone at LWT was worried about the 'TYLENOL SCARE' headline (even though Tylenol is not actually marketed in the UK), and instead smoothly obscured it with an ABC News logo. Note, however, that the Tylenol name is still visible on the bottle, in both versions. 


This change is quite obvious when watched frame-by-frame, as the 'ABC News' logo comes in a little early and does not fade up like the underlying graphic does. 


Although a simple graphic overlay, this edit will also have been a nuisance as this clip has a page-turn DVE into the next clip - there's a difference of about half a second between the versions here as it looks like a freeze was needed on the obscured clip. 

It's the end credits where the most interesting differences occur. Check it out:


The first few credits are missing from the YT version, which again we'll put down to some inexpert pausing (perhaps they thought it was another ad break), but it rejoins after only a few seconds have been lost. Near the end is where it all happens:



Aha. MCMXCI - or 1991 in old money. No way that recording is from 1987, then. But it's the final clip that's just completely different between the two versions which is the kicker. Why? 


On the left, "No, I think Christmas is a wonderful thing, I think they should have it every year." On the right, the original "David, in real life, there is no take two." - It's difficult to see why that would have been removed, at least given the evidence so far that seemingly only the Japanese clips were problematic. (Do you think Clive James upset somebody?) And "Christmas every year" would certainly have been a nice clip to end the seasonal 'Alright on Christmas Night' version on, but that's not what this version appears to be. 

But that said, look what happens next, after both versions get back in sync with each other (accounting for the different lengths of the two end clips):


That's the Christmas background! What's that doing on what is (presumably) a repeat of Alright 5 from 1991? This is the point where I start wondering if the uploader of the YouTube video has engaged in a cut-and-shut job, somehow reconstructing the credits from the pieces of two different originals - but even that doesn't seem likely, as the credits are on the '5' background all the way into the Christmas clip (which itself comes via a DVE move which is highly unlikely to have been anything but as originally broadcast - a more modern edit while preparing an upload to YouTube would surely have been more obvious.)

And if that wasn't enough, the end board mentions Christmas too!


Absolutely no more doubt about the provenance of the YouTube clip, though - the ITV logo shown there did not exist until 1989 at the earliest, so no way it could be from 1987, even assuming that LWT would somehow accidentally put MCMXCI into the end credits in 1987 in the first place. But assuming no chicanery on behalf of the uploader, that then also assumes that LWT would have (accidentally?) put the Christmas ending on an otherwise completely unChristmassy 1991 repeat of Alright 5. 

Or, assuming that Alright 5 was actually repeated at Christmas 1991, why would they not show the original 'Christmas Night' version, and remove any problematic clips from that? 

Or maybe the 1991 repeat was during Christmas but not on Christmas Night itself, hence the sticklers at LWT insisted that the original could not be used, but couldn't resist the chance to Christmasify Alright 5 instead? Well, that makes even less sense, really - if they were going to that trouble, why would they confine themselves to changing just the last 15 seconds of the end credits, when the full 'Christmas Night' version would have been much more 'obviously' festive throughout the whole programme? (Which raises another question - did the 'Christmas Night' version feature those different graphics on the reverse face of the page-turns where Alright 5 has the '5' logo? Until someone finds a full recording, that remains something of a mystery.)

So one thing's for sure... We can't tell, and may never find out. Actually I can think of maybe one person who might know, but they'd surely laugh themselves silly at the thought of anyone being quite so interested in a 30-year-old blooper show. Which, in a way, is a shame, because how can anyone not be curious?

Comments

  1. The original 1987 broadcast https://youtu.be/t4GlaPtBykk?t=1999

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