I was 15 in 1990, I’ve Cerebal Palsy, Telethon paid for my first ever Electric Wheelchair, They said they would pay in full if I agreed to stickers on it saying helped through Telethon, By 1992, I was at a residential College for the Disabled in Hampshire, it had to sites a college and a School. Michael Aspels son, was a pupil at the school
Hey, that's really cool. Shows how Telethon did stuck to their word on intentionally helping out people who needed help while unintentionally kick-starting the modern disabled rights movement in the UK.
I remember trying to phone to donate to Telethon '88. All that happened was that I got into a crossed-line situation with various people from around the country. I had some very pleasant conversations from my South London home with ladies from Glasgow and Bristol. Various others joined the party from time to time, as we hung on to see if anyone from the Telethon was actually going to answer the phone, and if they did, how they would manage the multiple people who were on the end of the line at once, all eager to donate. As each new person joined our merry telephonic bunch, their initial elation when they thought a Telethon operator had actually answered the phone was soon quashed. They would excitedly open with "Oh hello, I'd like to donate...", only to be shouted down when we responded in unison with "Yes, we all would."! Personally, I never did get through to an actual operator that day as my dad was nagging me to "Get off the bloody phone", so they didn't get my fiver. I often wonder whether my new friends from Glasgow and Bristol had better luck giving their hard-earned money away. 🤔
Hah! I saw a video on the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987 and one of the big issues to come out of that was the antiquated telephone system blocking lines that could have been used to communicate with the emergency services and potential victims. Evidently 1988 was still too soon to have done anything, but that's an interesting data point.
Haha yeah! I was 7 at the time of Hungerford and 8 or 9 at the telethon time and can't imagine what it was like! Drop the Dead Donkey had an episode with crossed lines. I work for the NHS now and we sometimes get people who think we're the DVLA, but that's not a fault with the lines -- it's the DVLA's crappy answerphone message.
I was a volunteer for Yorkshire TVs Telethon 90. Expecting to be there for the full 27 hours my mum dropped me off at the studios in Leeds. We volunteers were handed a T Shirt to wear and given a timeslot of when our volunteer time would start. My slot was a couple of hours on the following day. I had to catch a train home and get my mum to bring me back the following day.. In my 2 hours the only thing I did was take a piece of paper from one studio to another. It was a complete waste of time.
so appreciative of your sensitive and honest coverage of this. as a disabled person born a decade after this farce, knowing another part of my community's history reignites my passion for equity and the exact kind of normalcy you described- we're just people. some of us are on wheels is all.
Ha, I had a Telethon'88 t-shirt as a kid, got it from Wembley market if I recall. But there was a rumour that Terry Wogan always demanded an appearance fee for hosting Children in Need.
Sky One's "Gold Heart Day" from 1995, has to be the most forgotten Telethon ever. I cannot find anything online about it, but it did actually happen. I remember my 14 year old self being annoyed The Simpsons wasn't on that night because of it.
Someone on a Digital Spy forum remembers it, but not the name. It's a 2004 thread and they said the total was just over a million. Not bad considering not many had Sky TV back then.
Okay so as someone who didnt live in the UK at the time (In fact i wasnt even alive for two out of the three) but who has watched every episode of KYTV, the "Brown Nose Day" episode now makes SO much more sense to me now. Thank you...
Dear Bob, Thank you for an excellent and thoroughly researched video documentary. I'm disabled myself, due to a car accident while I was rescuing another crash victim - he was fine, I came off pretty badly - in 1997. To be honest, I hadn't really seen any of these telethons, as I find all this stuff (ITV Telethon, Comic Relief, Children In Need etc etc) to be horribly patronising, whilst swallowing up contributions in the administration, rampant corruption, and the eventual UK outbreak of Compassion Fatigue. I grew up with disabled family members before my life changed in 97, and always found, as you so perfectly put it, that Radio 4's "Does He Take Sugar" was so very aptly named. Your documentary highlighted the dehumanising and patronising of the disabled, afflicted, and infirm. Shove a microphone in this kids face, shove a token "gift" in this kids lap, and the worst of all was the "cake presentation" to a chap who looked totally paralysed. Thankfully, times *have* changed. I am still driving, albeit with a slightly modded vehicle. I am treated as a person, an equal, just differently abled. This is a *societal* change, and nothing to do with "ITV Telethons". Thank you again for your excellent documentary. Your commentary throughout was absolutely spot on, and my wife and I were agreeing with you all the way through. I wish you the very best for the future, and your further endeavours. Your wit and presentation I cannot praise highly enough. It took us about an hour and a half to get through it - due to rampant PAUSE usage to discuss points you raised! 😂 From the Frozen Wastelands of The North, I wish you joy and happiness.
I mostly remember Telethon 90 as a bit of fun, me and two friends went to the city (Norwich) and hung around Anglia TV for a while, I saw Sid Owen (Ricky from Eastenders), we said hello to each other as he came down a set of stairs, my claim to fame 🤣🤣 We then managed to get into the audience too, we were sat directly behind a six y/o lad that was a black belt in Karate, who done a demonstration for the show. So somewhere out there is footage of me and my two friends of 12-14 y/o's in the audience. I remember going back to school and quite a few people saying they saw me on TV too.
I do remember these ITV Telethons. There was always an air of being a 'poor relation' abut them. Well done for the research into this now rather obscure and unmentioned slice of TV history.
Cracking video! I remember being so excited to watch the first one due to it being 24 tv, which didn’t exist back then (at least not in the midlands). I had no idea of the protests and was oblivious at the time to the patronising nature of it all, but looking back, it’s painful
Thanks for making this. Inexplicably, ITV's Telethon came to my mind about three or four months ago and caused me to look up it's history and controvery. But your video fills it in a lot of the gaps and adds much more to the whole story. Even though I was too young to really watch it when it was broadcast, I remembered seeing ITV Telathon merchandise appearing in carboot sales and elsewhere, well into the 90's.
Wow, this ended up going somewhere I wasn't expecting. I was not aware of the opposition to the ITV Telethon, and certainly not of the fact that the opposition was so strong and vocal, even managing to get their protest into the studio. I remember the Telethon with fondness, even though not with any memory of enjoyment. As a kid, I'd dip in and out of it purely because it was there, it was inescapable, and it seemed like a bit of an exciting event. But it was a long-winded affair, with next to zero entertainment. I remember it being mostly Michael Aspel padding it out, with cutaways to various clips, but not much in the way of any real content. Of course the aim was to raise money for charidee, more than it was to be top flight TV entertainment. But even so, it was very thin on enjoyment substance. It would be a struggle to make a two hour show out of the bits that were actually worth watching, and this thing was going for some thirteen times that duration. It would never cut the mustard today, it didn't really even back then. But, like I said, I have fond memories of it just being a thing on TV.
Yeah, that's pretty much the ITV Telethon in a nutshell. I wish I could remember what it was, but there was a comedy show which used to do some great sketches taking the mick out of ITV's insistence at crowbarring in as much Coronation Street plugging as possible into situations which really didn't warrant it. Like a serious interview with the PM, and Martin Bashir constantly trying to compare political issues with Coronation Street storylines.
Probably the only time a studio invasion achieved its cause. That Fathers For Justice one during a lottery draw didn't see much achieved on the other hand.
I too remember the telethon, and had no idea until now they were controversial. The only bit I really remember from Telethon '92 was some bloke doing press ups for 24 hours.
@@lewisclark1122 My memories of the Telethon were of nothing particularly specific, but I always maintained a very clear picture of the general overview of the whole thing. The theme tune, the set, Michael Aspel, the total counter, cutaways to awkward looking regional hosts, Coronation Street, Cannon and Ball, Cilla Black, the obligatory involvement of Jim Davidson who was probably talking about "our boys" in the forces. And when I eventually found clips on the internet it was all right there, exactly how I remembered it. That is, of nothing much really ever happening. It didn't have many standout moments like Comic Relief or even Children In Need. It's actually quite remarkable how they stretched out such little content to fill 27 hours.
Matthew, I would also make this point, one reason for the £24 million figure was, in 1990, some ITV companies, such as TVS and Tyne Tees, donated money from their own profits. Had it not been for that, the 1990 figure would've been less than 1988. As for the 1992 Telethon, I only watched bits of it, and was glad when the show ended on the Saturday evening, as there was International Rugby Union highlights after it, Australia v New Zealand! Being a Rugby Union fan, I wanted to see that more than the Telethon! One other thing, the claim made by Telethon was, all the money raised in each ITV area, such as Scottish, Tyne Tees, Anglia, stayed in that region. I'm not aware of any organisation in Fife, where I live, that benefited from Telethon. Also, I'm not aware of any mates of mine who raised money for Telethon.
@ClydebridgeStation most of the money supposedly raised no doubt paid for the booze-up in LWT's bar, hence all the celebrities who turned up at their studios in London
My recollections of Telethon were that I was on holiday abroad in 1988 so I missed out. In 1990 I tuned in but was surprised and perhaps disappointed to see that Michael Appel disappeared in the early hours of the first day presumably to go to bed for a few hours before returning the next morning which surprised me because I expected he would be doing the full 27 hours. Telethon 92 was remembered for an on-air protest of people in wheelchairs who proclaimed they wanted rights not charity!. The amount raised in 1992 was very low and was the nail in the coffin. After the final total was revealed and as they were waving goodbye they revealed another amount that had increased by a million or so which presumably was ITV putting their hand in the pocket although it could probably impossible to find out the truth of how much was donated so it made a mockery of the entire Telethon saga.
Telethon 88 was actually quite a good memory from my childhood. As far as I remember TV being broadcast all night was still quite new. My parents stayed up to watch and shockingly said I could too. Naturaly I fell asleep at about 10:30pm but we had it on all night and all the next day. My school did a fund raiser (A fun run) and as a child there was a feeling of doing something good I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes
The choice of the Bug as a symbol really underlines the lack of imagination involved. I had a collection of bugs at this time, they were a cheap and basic merch item that were commonly used by small businesses such as video shops/car dealerships/diy stores as promo items. Not surprised they didn’t sell, being so ubiquitous to most kids at the time. However I did not hesitate to get a Red Nose from Woolworths.
I also had loads of those fluffy bugs as a teenager in the late 80s! They were a pretty small and cheap souvenir from tourist attractions as well as the business promos you mentioned.
I remember watching the entirety of Telethon 88 as a 16-year-old WHO SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER EVEN AT THAT AGE, whose sole premise was to wait for the much-hyped Tiswas reunion. What I also remember was the moment that some faceless government official passing a cheque for £1 million to Michael Aspel, wondering what stopped this person's particular department from issuing that amount any other day in the year. Pity the poor Natwest sods that had to give up their weekend to man the phones for Telethon 92, while their pasty-faced chief exec tried and failed miserably to exude any sort of humanity in front of Mr Aspel and the mugs who had to watch so much as a flicker of that event. I dearly hope he wasn't chief exec for long.
Until 1999-when he was ousted & left with a 3 million quid sendoff. He remained in banking & advising the government until the crisis in the late 2000's, when he was disgraced as he was a non-executive director of Northern Rock & being chairman of the risk committee. He passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2012.
I've always found it odd that one of the "celebrities" on stage for the finale of Telethon '92 was Cynthia Payne, a woman most famous for running brothels. Makes more sense now, knowing the show was going down the toilet and perhaps struggling to attract many other celebs.
Payne was everywhere at one point, especially after Personal Services (1987) came out, so she was a regular fixture on talk shows and she even appeared on Through The Keyhole.
What a great documentary - brings back so many memories! I was a Community Service Volunteer working for Barnardo’s in Bristol that year. There was a great CSV community there and we got roped in with fundraising, including a charity Bed Push and a celebrity cruise under the Severn Bridge on a paddle steamer. In return, we got tickets for a couple of hours in the Bristol studio for the local segments. We were in the second row, centre stage, and I was wearing a rather obvious rainbow jumper. Ironically, we also travelled to London to take part in the big Rights Not Charity demonstration in Trafalgar Square later that same year.
Oofft - you didn't miss many targets here. I was blissfully unaware of any controversy surrounding Telethon, other than it being a bit crap and an ersatz CiN/Comic Relief. I've no idea what RUclips algorythm led me here, but I'm glad it did. 3:20 is a genuine LOL moment - funny because it's true and spat out with the venom he deserves. Excellent work - interesting and informative.
I remember donating to the '85 Telethon. I sent off the postal order and everything. Some weeks later I got a letter telling me that my donation was still outstanding. I was very confused. I was only nine. Thieving bastards.
I’m not sure how much truth there is in it, but I believe part of the reason why the Telethon in 1992 was moved to July was because they expected the General Election to be in May/June, however as we know it ended up being in the first week of April. But I wouldn’t be surprised that both Thames and TV-am couldn’t be bothered. Great video as ever Matthew.
ITV Telethon 88 helped to pay for our school swimming pool to be rebuilt. Our school was in an affluent Sussex town and in the wealthiest area of the town, the school applied to the Telethon for funds to build a new school swimming pool and we got the funding.
Brian Rix did a lot for folk with Learning Disabilities - they were hardly ever seen on TV until the Let’s Go programme which featured people with similar disabilities as my brother. I know the terminology has now changed but Brian Rix did do a lot of good.
I also heard a brilliant story recently about Brian Rix doing 145 mph on the M1 before it had speed limits, because he wanted to show off the awesome car he had just bought (a Facel Vega HK500) to his friend. By all accounts, he seemed like an absolute legend.
The ITV Telethon used the studios of LWT on the south bank, and those studios were actually superb. The London Studios as it later became known were far better than BBC Television Centre. Telethon used the largest studio, Studio 1, which became well known to viewers for it's audience seating platform used for shows like Game for a Laugh. They also had Studio 2, another large studio to help ease the pressure on Studio 1. This is the studio Cilla was using in the 1992 event.
My memories of the 1988 Telethon: 1. My best friend sticking a cute Telethon bug to her Hianyu colour portable. 2. Linking up with Channel Television and seeing locals allowed on the normally private Zethou island. 3. Eating my breakfast on the Monday morning and not being quick enough to get a VHS tape in to record Scritti Politti '(Oh Patti) Don't feel sorry for loverboy'. Probably one of Green's last studio performances for about 30 years. Can't find it online anywhere😢.
Fun fact - Telefon '92 featured the first TV appearance of a little known band from Manchester called Oasis. No-one can find any surviving footage (and it was only shown in tbe Granada region). But apparently Liam got into a fight with Albin Stardust (the host) at the end. Ummm, yeah! Top! Rock 'n' roll! Mad for it! Etc etc
I recall letters to Bournemouth Echo that demonstrated how donations from viewers in Dorset intended for local charities or counted by individual itv regions were being split & was causing jealousy or confusion between charities because of the counties’ geography & location being shared or covered by 3 itv regions separately based in Plymouth Southampton & Bristol. Viewers across North & East Dorset whom received all available signals of TVS HTV West & TSW complained of not knowing which line to call to make donations ! Thanks for your work covering this subject . 🏴😁❤️🐢
Yes, my childhood was spent in the North Dorset village of Child Okeford, near Sturminster Newton, and we were indeed right on the cusp of Westward and HTV West while neighbours got Southern as well.
@@319metresMW because Sunday afternoons were so dire on TVS we rigged up a mast to watch HTVs Sunday soccer . Being the wrong side of Thorney Hill nr Bransgore the picture wasn’t always reliable but it beat b&w movies ! We used to work for Pat Cross Kitchens in Stur. Beautiful area for sure 😁👍
@@newforestpixie5297 I remember people buying such equipment to watch Italian football, then Channel 4 picked up on it to create Football Italia. Sundays on TVS were awful, especially the watered down editions of Motormouth.
I wasn't expecting to watch a 40 minute documentary on a telethon I barely remember but got sucked in (Only the blue bastard and my first experience of FOMO when my dad turned the TV off for the night during Telethon '92 and I felt I was missing out on the "party" that continued on in to the small hours). I do remember wondering when we were going to get the next one. I had zero knowledge of the controversy, and I guess as I got more understanding of the ITV network I presumed it was due to that merging in to one big monster. Anyway, facinating stuff!
I haven't thought about these in years. I have vague memories of the '88 one because some of the Central stuff was filmed in Sutton Park, which was in walking distance of my house. I don't think I remember anything about the other two though.
Just got reccomended this video by RUclipss algoritham today. Great video. Went and watched your BSB series and happy to see you go from 1.9k Subs to 2.01k over the day. You should have more.
That was brilliant! Never actually knew what the hell had happened to ITV’s Telethon, kind of embarrassed that I participated in the last one in 92 by going to laser quest in Manchester and playing loads of games of it with all the money donated to it! But at least I got to play against the legend that is Frank Sidebottom so I have something to treasure forever there!!!!
wow I forgot all about this event! Thank you for jogging my memories, great flash back and great interesting info aloing with it ! Have a brilliant weekend, Sonique
It was a great idea in practice (I remember watching all three - as a 5 year old in 1988,7 year old in 1990 and a 9 year old in 1992) - and wondered why they ditched it. ITV should revive it - Text Santa was a great concept.
I was 11 when Telethon 90 was on… I have very little recollection of it, but I do remember the Italy World Cup that year… clearly where my priorities were at that age.. Interesting video this though, highlighting the way disabled people were treated. Thank you for putting this together, I loved your humour.
Given this was all before I was born, I never even heard of this, even from my parents, which I guess shows just how much impact it had. Yet I have fond memories of growing up with fundraisers at school for Comic/Sport Relief and Children in Need followed by coming home and staying up later than normal (until the watershed at least) to watch the show. Standout memories to me are when we changed our computer screensaver to a Pudsey one that we must have purchased at one point, where the white blocks that made up the logo would appear and disappear, and "Comic Relief in da Bungalow" with celebrities doing the ridiculous games that the kids would normally take part in in the regular episodes on Saturday mornings.
I remember being pretty hyper about this and hooking up an extension cable through to the bathroom so I could watch it on the portable TV. We didn't get the bank holiday so had to miss all the Monday daytime stuff and just get back for the end!
I just about remember Telethon '90 & '92...not much but I remember it existing. As for HTV Wales' technical problems, don't judge our lot too harshly. Welsh Broadcasting never had that much money until Doctor Who started to be made here full-time. Speaking of which, as a Whovian even I embrace the spirit of destruction also for 'Doctor in Distress'
Many thanks for this, it’s really informative. I never realised there was so much controversy about it; I thought it stopped due to the new ITV franchises being in place for a 94 telethon. But I can see where KYTV got their telethon (brown nose day) ideas from!
I think the new franchise setup would have killed it off if it hadn't been seen as controversial. The conglomeration of ITV had begun and it would have taken place less than 18 months after launch for certain franchise holders who would still be looking to make back what they spent.
@marcuslavaggi-bowen6539 that was typical LWT around that time, even though they were one of the 1st ITV companies to have NICAM stereo capability. I sent a letter of complaint to the IBA about LWT's mediocre sound quality on this & other Light Entertainment shows they made. Lo & behold they all denied it, the lying bastards. The sick irony is that, before the mid-80's, LWT made shows in the same studios without this distorted sonic mess which made my argument stand out even more. In the end, it only stopped when Granada took over LWT in the mid-90's
I watched this Itv 1 live as a young teen and 30 yrs later now. We tried one or 2 in Rep of Ireland 7 hours long. The People in Need Telethon in 1990s to early 2000s. Now Comic Relief and Children in Need tv part is only live for 3 hrs used to run from 7pm to 2am.
Hi, People in Need Telethon in Ireland actually lasted longer than ITV Telethon. First one was in 1989, then 1990, and then it went every 2 years from 1992 until 2000. It came back in 2004, 2007 and the financial crash of 2008 meant the show was axed. A sort of telethon returned for Covid in 2020. Gay Byrne was the host for the Irish telethons until 2004.
I do remember it. I remember in 1988 waiting fir the Tiswas bit, i was 17. It was like at nearly 1am. Years later i worked at a call centre in the miid to late naughties and we bacame a call centre for red nose day or children in need. I can't remember which.
This sure brought back memories! I don't remember much of the 88 and 90 Telethons but I do remember 92 featuring a pair of street entertainers talking for 27 hours, some poor couple snogging for 27 hours (pretty sure that could prove fatal - thinking back that was probably a joke) and some kids doing a very cringey rap with people dressed as cartoon characters heading through the audience with collection buckets. I was unaware of the protests at the time, but I can understand their frustrations. I initially wondered if the lack of Telethon in 1994 was down to network changes but I guess the fact that that style of show was rapidly going out of fashion was an even bigger part of the reason.
Looking back, I think some of those memories were from 1990 rather than 1992. Around the time of my 9th birthday and I was watching way too much TV. I definitely recommend Then Barbara Met Alan for an insight into the 1992 protests from the front line.
I remember the fact that they happened clearly enough but didn't actually remember any of the actual content. Which i suppose is indicative of the whole vagueness of the aim of it all. I didnt remember anything about the protests and like others assumed it stopped due to the changes in the franchises. Very interesting video indeed
In Ireland on RTE they had their People in Need Telethon in Ireland which actually lasted longer than ITV Telethon. First was in 1989, then 1990, & then it aired every 2 years from 1992 until 2000. It came back in 2004, 2007, the financial crash of 2008 meant the show was axed. A sort of telethon returned for Covid in 2020. Irish legendary host Gay Byrne was the host for the Irish telethons until 2004.
I always thought the reason that the 1992 Telethon did relatively poorly was because it was moved from the Spring Bank Holiday weekend to an ordinary weekend in July. Children in Need also had years when the total raised was lower than the previous year. My father, who was disabled for most of his life, did not agree with the criticisms of the ITV Telethons. He enjoyed watching them on TV (not all 27 hours!) and was appalled by the actions of the protestors. Through him I knew a lot of disabled people, most of whom also disagreed with those trying to stop the event. Were the protestors representing a silent majority of disabled people or a noisy minority?
Setting the Telethon aside, I imagine a comfortable majority of disabled people prefer having civil rights enshrined in law to not, and that's thanks to those exact people.
@@applemaskMichael Aspel himself has a severely disabled son, and actually if you look at some of the appeal videos broadcast during the 1992 Telethon many actually had strong messages on disabled rights, and rights for sufferers of conditions like dementia. I genuinely think the protests did more harm than good bringing an end to an event that in just three outings had raised more than £60 million for local community groups all over the UK, which is where the majority of the money went, as well as prominent national charities. However the other side of the coin was the fact 1992 was the last hurrah of an ITV that ceased to exist at the end of that year.
The reason it was moved was because of the 1992 Election. It was eventually held on April 9th but technically John Major didn't have to go to the polls until early June. Which could have meant holding the Telethon slap bang in the middle of the campaign or even possibly the day after the election. As the Telethon used the equivalent broadcast resources of a general election it was simply logistically impossible to keep it at the May weekend, given the advance planning that goes went into these shows. The weekend in July was chosen I think as it was the start of summer holidays, and it was the equivalent weekend of Live Aid in 1985. In fact the first few Sport Reliefs were held in the same July weekend from 2002 onwards.
@@applemask Rights aren't enough. For severely disabled people, money is needed in the here and now for care and the tools to help us. Being disabled isn't like being gay or black where the prejudice is all external. Your body is objectively crippled -- you can't do things other people can do like wash yourself or whatever, so you need help, which is expensive. Tools like wheelchairs are also pricey. A family with someone incapacitated also needs help themselves -- they may have to give up work to care for people (like my brother in law for his mum), the incapacitated relative might have previously been bringing in an income (like my husband who died of cancer) and so on. Dementia and cancer aren't respecting of anyone's social rights and it takes money to support them. And the end of life care that both my husband and MIL enjoyed doesn't come cheap -- but if the government try to raise taxes to pay for it there's an outcry. So where else is the money supposed to come from?! While rights are brilliant, disability is not simply a social identity. It's something which paralyses, causes pain, causes limits on people's life and leads to death in many cases. You can't cure dementia and my husband's cancer ran away from anything hubby's doctors could throw at it. It left me a widow having to pick up the pieces and charities like Macmillan were there to support me through the hardship of caring for him and in the aftermath of his death. Likewise I've seen a friend widowed by Parkinson's. The guy needed actual care. He had rights, but rights don't get you to the bathroom and back, or provide a wet room or a stair lift or pay a carer's salary. Those all need actual money to be spent. Even when I broke my ankle I had to stay with my parents for six weeks since they had a downstairs toilet and I didn't. New houses have to be built with them but older homes -- even postwar builds like mine -- still need some things to be installed at the cost of the owner. I'm not in as much need as I was for a while despite my ankle being busted for good, but you better understand that all the rights on paper mean nothing when you're struggling up the stairs on crutches or watching someone waste away from cancer. Rights are important in the disability sphere, but you're incredibly lucky if you've never experienced a debilitating illness or known someone with one. May you never find out how bloody expensive disability can actually be to someone and never have to watch your loved ones dying and your care bills eating through your savings. And stop protesting the government increase in NI next time. If you really want to do something for disability rights, support the monetary needs as well as the bits of paper which don't actually help with the material cost of being disabled.
Thanks for this. Although I have a vague memory of these I'd forgotten what it was called. In fact the only thing that is stuck in my mind was the Detective crossover (92) (which thanks to this video I have now been able to find more information on) involving Sherlock Holmes, Van Der Valk, Taggart and Inspector Wexford. It's probably where my love of crossovers comes from. Apart from this I'd basically forgotten everything else about these telethons.
Which was the edition where the government minister gave a huge cheque to the telethon and there was accusations that the money had been misappropriated somehow?
Channel 4's stand up to cancer is probably the only sustained success from independent tv. One of the reasons is obvious -the cause is right there in the title.
I was starting to think I had imagined these telethons over the years since. Well I was 4 in 1988 and not a lot registered at the time what was going on. But ITV only showing one show for as long as they did definitely registered at the time. Years later I did become an advocate and supporter of disability causes and I almost want to celebrate that they raised that much awareness and money for the cause. Can’t say I feel the same about it being done as an after thought though.
Excellent video! Found it through Tom Scott's newsletter, piqued my interest as I have an interest in old television and disability politics. Presented very well too.
Another excellent video Matthew, I'm smashing that like button just like the ITC rubber stamp thingy ;) Very informative, I vaguely remember the studio intrusion when I was watching as a youngster but having no idea what was going on with it only being when I was older and looking the Telethon up out of nostalgia that I got a better understanding of the protests against the programme.
Interestingly you can come by a fair few second hand copies of Power to the Pupils online which makes it stranger that it's near impossible to find a rip of it
I vaguely remember some controversy when the amount raised went up by a million in a single instant near the end of the show. Alas, I can't find anything about it. Anyone recall that or was it a figment of my imagination?
I’m autistic and can’t tell how many time’s especially when I was in school mainly elementary school that I was treated like I was less than human and put into a room with a bunch of screening kindergartners and this took a sledgehammer to my mental health and from about the Third grade to about the fifth grade my mental health went down hill to the point that I contemplated committing suicide and I would have attempted if it wasn’t for my dog giving me the will to live thankfully I got the help I needed which saved my life but I still have flare ups every now and then, the trauma which now started to heal but the damage will be with me for the rest of my life I know that this is long winded but I had to get my experience out there
I really enjoyed this, thanks for your efforts. I remember having the blue ears when I was about 10. Probably giving off toxic gases from some landfill in the Philippines now along with a million more.
Disability is a weird thing. The discourse is better now, but what frustrates me most is the rush to diminish how awkward things are in the name of seeing disability as an identity. You can't win. You can't obviously express pity, but platitudes like 'differently abled' is also cruddy because it erases the objective struggles of us with our bodies rather than with society in general. Society is much better, but in a perfectly accessible and understanding world there will still be things that don't work properly, in pain or a struggle, and no amount of right-on politics will make that better. The one absurdity I've encountered was someone demanding that a writer not write a story about a cancer patient seeking a cure. As a cancer widow, it actually erased my husband's very real pain and needs and covered up the way he had actually got something wrong with his body and needed it put right. Communities like the deaf do form bonds within such groups and that's great, but for me neurological disability has been nothing but a hardship and a limit on what I can do, and I'd imagine someone very ill like in some of those VTs you talk about may want immediate respite and financial aid rather than more abstract rights. Having to care for a loved one who's dying is a financial hardship for many people and those people need the cash. The advert you held up about the government booklet about benefits and so on surely was actually helping people access the services provided for them, just like the hospice looking after my husband helped him apply for his PIP. Even in the case of your home, the money may well have gone to fund a disability access ramp. While having the need for better home design (such as the current mandatory need for a downstairs toilet in new build houses), money is needed to bring older homes like mine up to scratch. (I broke my ankle badly and two years on am still crippled by it.) Also, while the social landscape is changing, real people actually need help: money for tools, for new treatments, for new research and so on. For someone struggling with, say, a pain condition making it hard to hold down a job, no amount of awareness or rights will actually help them feel betrer. Relieving actual suffering is as important as political change; the political change happens over time, but the pain and stress and financial hardship doesn't stop just because people are protesting about their rights. The patronising thing of today is people policing others' responses to language and that just because I have a broken ankle doesn't mean I claim it as an identity. The discourse is much better but it still centres able-bodied politics rather than acknowledging that we need as much physicsl treatment in the here and now as we do for self-righteous allies trying to whitewash the experience of being disabled, particularly when that disability involves pain or other mental discomfort, and the rights of carers to be able to be honest about their experiences. It's a problem of social justice paradigms which promote social identity over getting the right help to the right people and working in the here and now to help relieve suffering. Being there with fundraising to help fit a downstairs toilet or a wet room to someone who needs it isn't mutually exclusive with political struggle, but fundraising through charity is nonetheless important to ensure that people are practically liberated as well as emotionally satisfied.
the thunderbird 1 with the red nose was from the long forgotten pre peter kay kids cartoon ensemble 'everybody needs a helping hand sometimes' from comic relief which i had locked away at the back of my mind
Another brilliant documentary Matthew and a serious look at disabled rights from a bygone age. You handled it with sensitivity and tact. After Telethon, GMTV did their own mini-Telethon thing with Get Up And Give, which as I remember, did the ITV Telethon thing of pointing cameras at disabled people going "AWWWWWW!!" That was quietly dropped after a few years.
There was also the Gold Heart Day Telethon for the Variety Club on Sky One, which was held a couple of times in the mid '90s before falling by the wayside.
It was designed as a national project to raise funds in each ITV region - all the money raised in each region stayed in that region- the amounts raised were sent to the national centre - not the actual cash, just the figure - and were totalled up nationally - but the amount raised in each region stayed in that region - viewers in Plymouth were not funding organisations in Norwich or whatever - it raised funds for all sorts of charitable organisations - not just disabled or children’s charities or OAP charities - it was a combination of national and regional programmes, with neither encroaching on the other - although the national programme had reports shown nationally from the regions at various times throughout the show - you could have seen yourself on national television if you were at any of the events - or, rather, your family and friends would - but the opt-outs didn’t mean that you missed out on the national programme! There was another Telethon broadcast in the early 90s that featured a murder mystery being investigated initially by Sherlock Holmes, then it was taken up by other fictional detectives, including Van Der Valk - it somehow managed to get over to Amsterdam and Van Der Valk took up the baton - it was finally solved by Inspector Wexford!
'3 Line Whip' genuinely feels like an Eric Andre bit. Edit: I came for the telethon cringe, I stayed for the history lesson on disability rights activism.
I'm 38 and this is the first time I've ever heard anyone having anything close to my condition I have multiepiphyseal displacia and it's got no better I cannot walk am forced to live upstairs in a shared HMO and there's a foot high drop from my garden to the street but there's nowhere left suitable to live all the ground floor flats got given away
Thank you for forcing me to remember Doctor in Distress. There's a rumour that it'll be played in the most ironic of senses as part of the Toymaker's plan in the 60th!
I remember all those ITV telethons, I was a teen at the time and I remember distinctly thinking it was a lot of patronising BS, chasing the success of the BBC. Very well done, very interesting and certainly a trip down memory lane that I’d forgotten.
I was 15 in 1990, I’ve Cerebal Palsy, Telethon paid for my first ever Electric Wheelchair, They said they would pay in full if I agreed to stickers on it saying helped through Telethon, By 1992, I was at a residential College for the Disabled in Hampshire, it had to sites a college and a School. Michael Aspels son, was a pupil at the school
I was the grand total of Minus Twelve.
Hoorah.
You couldn't even have peeled the stickers off cause Aspel junior would've grassed to his dad, the little rat
@@Ceej_MMThink they fell off in the end, Don’t think I ever saw Aspel there, a nanny probably drove his son there
@@EmmaJones925 too busy filming episodes of Strange But True and being a posher version of Michael Parkinson to mingle with the likes of you and I
Hey, that's really cool. Shows how Telethon did stuck to their word on intentionally helping out people who needed help while unintentionally kick-starting the modern disabled rights movement in the UK.
I remember trying to phone to donate to Telethon '88. All that happened was that I got into a crossed-line situation with various people from around the country. I had some very pleasant conversations from my South London home with ladies from Glasgow and Bristol.
Various others joined the party from time to time, as we hung on to see if anyone from the Telethon was actually going to answer the phone, and if they did, how they would manage the multiple people who were on the end of the line at once, all eager to donate.
As each new person joined our merry telephonic bunch, their initial elation when they thought a Telethon operator had actually answered the phone was soon quashed. They would excitedly open with "Oh hello, I'd like to donate...", only to be shouted down when we responded in unison with "Yes, we all would."!
Personally, I never did get through to an actual operator that day as my dad was nagging me to "Get off the bloody phone", so they didn't get my fiver. I often wonder whether my new friends from Glasgow and Bristol had better luck giving their hard-earned money away. 🤔
Hah! I saw a video on the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987 and one of the big issues to come out of that was the antiquated telephone system blocking lines that could have been used to communicate with the emergency services and potential victims. Evidently 1988 was still too soon to have done anything, but that's an interesting data point.
@@louiseogden1296crosslines were common back then. In 1988 I ended up talking to a woman in Derby and there I was down South in Hastings.
Haha yeah! I was 7 at the time of Hungerford and 8 or 9 at the telethon time and can't imagine what it was like! Drop the Dead Donkey had an episode with crossed lines. I work for the NHS now and we sometimes get people who think we're the DVLA, but that's not a fault with the lines -- it's the DVLA's crappy answerphone message.
@@louiseogden1296 Looks like things haven't improved much!🤣🤣🤣. Love to see that Drop the Dead Donkey episode!🤣🤣🤣
@@marcuslavaggi-bowen6539 It's early in the first season. Channel 4's streaming service has the box set. It's a fab show.
My grandad was part of the tech crew at Anglia TV for Telethon 88, I found a jumper in his wardrobe with "ITV Telethon" printed on it, I still have it
I was a volunteer for Yorkshire TVs Telethon 90. Expecting to be there for the full 27 hours my mum dropped me off at the studios in Leeds. We volunteers were handed a T Shirt to wear and given a timeslot of when our volunteer time would start. My slot was a couple of hours on the following day. I had to catch a train home and get my mum to bring me back the following day.. In my 2 hours the only thing I did was take a piece of paper from one studio to another. It was a complete waste of time.
so appreciative of your sensitive and honest coverage of this. as a disabled person born a decade after this farce, knowing another part of my community's history reignites my passion for equity and the exact kind of normalcy you described- we're just people. some of us are on wheels is all.
If you’re here from Tom Scott’s newsletter I highly recommend you have a good poke around this channel. There is so much great content here.
Ha, I had a Telethon'88 t-shirt as a kid, got it from Wembley market if I recall.
But there was a rumour that Terry Wogan always demanded an appearance fee for hosting Children in Need.
He never demanded it and always donated it to CiN.
Sky One's "Gold Heart Day" from 1995, has to be the most forgotten Telethon ever. I cannot find anything online about it, but it did actually happen. I remember my 14 year old self being annoyed The Simpsons wasn't on that night because of it.
Someone on a Digital Spy forum remembers it, but not the name. It's a 2004 thread and they said the total was just over a million.
Not bad considering not many had Sky TV back then.
Over 30 years later, and that bloody annoying jingle is still haunting me.
I know, every so often it pops in my head lol
I was going to comment about how I was able to hum it even before pressing play, but it seems I'm not alone.
same
You too! 😜
Oh God. Me as well..
Okay so as someone who didnt live in the UK at the time (In fact i wasnt even alive for two out of the three) but who has watched every episode of KYTV, the "Brown Nose Day" episode now makes SO much more sense to me now. Thank you...
ITV Telethon '94 would have been the first telethon involving Carlton, Meridian and Westcountry.
Dear Bob,
Thank you for an excellent and thoroughly researched video documentary. I'm disabled myself, due to a car accident while I was rescuing another crash victim - he was fine, I came off pretty badly - in 1997.
To be honest, I hadn't really seen any of these telethons, as I find all this stuff (ITV Telethon, Comic Relief, Children In Need etc etc) to be horribly patronising, whilst swallowing up contributions in the administration, rampant corruption, and the eventual UK outbreak of Compassion Fatigue.
I grew up with disabled family members before my life changed in 97, and always found, as you so perfectly put it, that Radio 4's "Does He Take Sugar" was so very aptly named.
Your documentary highlighted the dehumanising and patronising of the disabled, afflicted, and infirm. Shove a microphone in this kids face, shove a token "gift" in this kids lap, and the worst of all was the "cake presentation" to a chap who looked totally paralysed.
Thankfully, times *have* changed. I am still driving, albeit with a slightly modded vehicle. I am treated as a person, an equal, just differently abled. This is a *societal* change, and nothing to do with "ITV Telethons".
Thank you again for your excellent documentary. Your commentary throughout was absolutely spot on, and my wife and I were agreeing with you all the way through. I wish you the very best for the future, and your further endeavours. Your wit and presentation I cannot praise highly enough. It took us about an hour and a half to get through it - due to rampant PAUSE usage to discuss points you raised! 😂
From the Frozen Wastelands of The North, I wish you joy and happiness.
I mostly remember Telethon 90 as a bit of fun, me and two friends went to the city (Norwich) and hung around Anglia TV for a while, I saw Sid Owen (Ricky from Eastenders), we said hello to each other as he came down a set of stairs, my claim to fame 🤣🤣
We then managed to get into the audience too, we were sat directly behind a six y/o lad that was a black belt in Karate, who done a demonstration for the show. So somewhere out there is footage of me and my two friends of 12-14 y/o's in the audience. I remember going back to school and quite a few people saying they saw me on TV too.
"people clap out of confusion" is now one of the best subtitles I've ever seen
I do remember these ITV Telethons. There was always an air of being a 'poor relation' abut them. Well done for the research into this now rather obscure and unmentioned slice of TV history.
Cracking video! I remember being so excited to watch the first one due to it being 24 tv, which didn’t exist back then (at least not in the midlands). I had no idea of the protests and was oblivious at the time to the patronising nature of it all, but looking back, it’s painful
Thanks for making this. Inexplicably, ITV's Telethon came to my mind about three or four months ago and caused me to look up it's history and controvery. But your video fills it in a lot of the gaps and adds much more to the whole story. Even though I was too young to really watch it when it was broadcast, I remembered seeing ITV Telathon merchandise appearing in carboot sales and elsewhere, well into the 90's.
That sound problem at 20:34 was heard on all regions, a connection problem at the LWT studios
Wow, this ended up going somewhere I wasn't expecting. I was not aware of the opposition to the ITV Telethon, and certainly not of the fact that the opposition was so strong and vocal, even managing to get their protest into the studio. I remember the Telethon with fondness, even though not with any memory of enjoyment. As a kid, I'd dip in and out of it purely because it was there, it was inescapable, and it seemed like a bit of an exciting event. But it was a long-winded affair, with next to zero entertainment. I remember it being mostly Michael Aspel padding it out, with cutaways to various clips, but not much in the way of any real content. Of course the aim was to raise money for charidee, more than it was to be top flight TV entertainment. But even so, it was very thin on enjoyment substance. It would be a struggle to make a two hour show out of the bits that were actually worth watching, and this thing was going for some thirteen times that duration. It would never cut the mustard today, it didn't really even back then. But, like I said, I have fond memories of it just being a thing on TV.
I remember the Telethon, but just that it was boring and spent a lot of time…..
On Coronation Street??!!
Yeah, that's pretty much the ITV Telethon in a nutshell. I wish I could remember what it was, but there was a comedy show which used to do some great sketches taking the mick out of ITV's insistence at crowbarring in as much Coronation Street plugging as possible into situations which really didn't warrant it. Like a serious interview with the PM, and Martin Bashir constantly trying to compare political issues with Coronation Street storylines.
Probably the only time a studio invasion achieved its cause. That Fathers For Justice one during a lottery draw didn't see much achieved on the other hand.
I too remember the telethon, and had no idea until now they were controversial.
The only bit I really remember from Telethon '92 was some bloke doing press ups for 24 hours.
@@lewisclark1122 My memories of the Telethon were of nothing particularly specific, but I always maintained a very clear picture of the general overview of the whole thing. The theme tune, the set, Michael Aspel, the total counter, cutaways to awkward looking regional hosts, Coronation Street, Cannon and Ball, Cilla Black, the obligatory involvement of Jim Davidson who was probably talking about "our boys" in the forces. And when I eventually found clips on the internet it was all right there, exactly how I remembered it. That is, of nothing much really ever happening. It didn't have many standout moments like Comic Relief or even Children In Need. It's actually quite remarkable how they stretched out such little content to fill 27 hours.
Matthew, I would also make this point, one reason for the £24 million figure was, in 1990, some ITV companies, such as TVS and Tyne Tees, donated money from their own profits. Had it not been for that, the 1990 figure would've been less than 1988. As for the 1992 Telethon, I only watched bits of it, and was glad when the show ended on the Saturday evening, as there was International Rugby Union highlights after it, Australia v New Zealand! Being a Rugby Union fan, I wanted to see that more than the Telethon!
One other thing, the claim made by Telethon was, all the money raised in each ITV area, such as Scottish, Tyne Tees, Anglia, stayed in that region. I'm not aware of any organisation in Fife, where I live, that benefited from Telethon. Also, I'm not aware of any mates of mine who raised money for Telethon.
@ClydebridgeStation most of the money supposedly raised no doubt paid for the booze-up in LWT's bar, hence all the celebrities who turned up at their studios in London
My recollections of Telethon were that I was on holiday abroad in 1988 so I missed out. In 1990 I tuned in but was surprised and perhaps disappointed to see that Michael Appel disappeared in the early hours of the first day presumably to go to bed for a few hours before returning the next morning which surprised me because I expected he would be doing the full 27 hours. Telethon 92 was remembered for an on-air protest of people in wheelchairs who proclaimed they wanted rights not charity!. The amount raised in 1992 was very low and was the nail in the coffin. After the final total was revealed and as they were waving goodbye they revealed another amount that had increased by a million or so which presumably was ITV putting their hand in the pocket although it could probably impossible to find out the truth of how much was donated so it made a mockery of the entire Telethon saga.
Thank God ITV no longer has the telethon as part of its schedule, Twenty seven hours of Ant and Dec is more than i could stand,
I think it's a recognised method of torture, at Guantanamo bay. Those poor souls have to listen to that twat Jerry Lewis though.
They did have Text Santa from 2011-2015 and for a while now Channel 4 have been doing Stand Up 2 Cancer
I’m confused as to why Dougie from Supertramp was part of the team being live from Sudan
Doesn’t necessarily have to be Ant & Dec ffs moving with the times could have multiple hosts every few hours
Telethon 88 was actually quite a good memory from my childhood. As far as I remember TV being broadcast all night was still quite new. My parents stayed up to watch and shockingly said I could too. Naturaly I fell asleep at about 10:30pm but we had it on all night and all the next day. My school did a fund raiser (A fun run) and as a child there was a feeling of doing something good
I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes
The choice of the Bug as a symbol really underlines the lack of imagination involved. I had a collection of bugs at this time, they were a cheap and basic merch item that were commonly used by small businesses such as video shops/car dealerships/diy stores as promo items. Not surprised they didn’t sell, being so ubiquitous to most kids at the time. However I did not hesitate to get a Red Nose from Woolworths.
Can I make the joke that the bug was like the Minions of the ITV Telethon?
I also had loads of those fluffy bugs as a teenager in the late 80s! They were a pretty small and cheap souvenir from tourist attractions as well as the business promos you mentioned.
I remember watching the entirety of Telethon 88 as a 16-year-old WHO SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER EVEN AT THAT AGE, whose sole premise was to wait for the much-hyped Tiswas reunion. What I also remember was the moment that some faceless government official passing a cheque for £1 million to Michael Aspel, wondering what stopped this person's particular department from issuing that amount any other day in the year.
Pity the poor Natwest sods that had to give up their weekend to man the phones for Telethon 92, while their pasty-faced chief exec tried and failed miserably to exude any sort of humanity in front of Mr Aspel and the mugs who had to watch so much as a flicker of that event. I dearly hope he wasn't chief exec for long.
Until 1999-when he was ousted & left with a 3 million quid sendoff. He remained in banking & advising the government until the crisis in the late 2000's, when he was disgraced as he was a non-executive director of Northern Rock & being chairman of the risk committee. He passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2012.
The Tiswas reunion was the only bit I can remember. That and some waffle from Michael Aspel.
I've always found it odd that one of the "celebrities" on stage for the finale of Telethon '92 was Cynthia Payne, a woman most famous for running brothels. Makes more sense now, knowing the show was going down the toilet and perhaps struggling to attract many other celebs.
Payne was everywhere at one point, especially after Personal Services (1987) came out, so she was a regular fixture on talk shows and she even appeared on Through The Keyhole.
What a great documentary - brings back so many memories! I was a Community Service Volunteer working for Barnardo’s in Bristol that year. There was a great CSV community there and we got roped in with fundraising, including a charity Bed Push and a celebrity cruise under the Severn Bridge on a paddle steamer. In return, we got tickets for a couple of hours in the Bristol studio for the local segments. We were in the second row, centre stage, and I was wearing a rather obvious rainbow jumper. Ironically, we also travelled to London to take part in the big Rights Not Charity demonstration in Trafalgar Square later that same year.
Oofft - you didn't miss many targets here. I was blissfully unaware of any controversy surrounding Telethon, other than it being a bit crap and an ersatz CiN/Comic Relief. I've no idea what RUclips algorythm led me here, but I'm glad it did.
3:20 is a genuine LOL moment - funny because it's true and spat out with the venom he deserves.
Excellent work - interesting and informative.
Bless that little algorithm, this video does seem to have blown up a bit. Shame I didn't include more links on it to my other stuff.
I remember donating to the '85 Telethon. I sent off the postal order and everything. Some weeks later I got a letter telling me that my donation was still outstanding. I was very confused. I was only nine. Thieving bastards.
I’m not sure how much truth there is in it, but I believe part of the reason why the Telethon in 1992 was moved to July was because they expected the General Election to be in May/June, however as we know it ended up being in the first week of April. But I wouldn’t be surprised that both Thames and TV-am couldn’t be bothered.
Great video as ever Matthew.
Excellent documentary- as a teenager I was unaware of the level of opposition.
ITV Telethon 88 helped to pay for our school swimming pool to be rebuilt. Our school was in an affluent Sussex town and in the wealthiest area of the town, the school applied to the Telethon for funds to build a new school swimming pool and we got the funding.
Brian Rix did a lot for folk with Learning Disabilities - they were hardly ever seen on TV until the Let’s Go programme which featured people with similar disabilities as my brother. I know the terminology has now changed but Brian Rix did do a lot of good.
I believe he had a child of his own with Learning Disabilites and wanted to stop the "Hide them away" narrative that had gone on for so many years.
I also heard a brilliant story recently about Brian Rix doing 145 mph on the M1 before it had speed limits, because he wanted to show off the awesome car he had just bought (a Facel Vega HK500) to his friend.
By all accounts, he seemed like an absolute legend.
The ITV Telethon used the studios of LWT on the south bank, and those studios were actually superb. The London Studios as it later became known were far better than BBC Television Centre. Telethon used the largest studio, Studio 1, which became well known to viewers for it's audience seating platform used for shows like Game for a Laugh. They also had Studio 2, another large studio to help ease the pressure on Studio 1. This is the studio Cilla was using in the 1992 event.
Now those studios are being demolished. I believe the tower may remain.
My memories of the 1988 Telethon:
1. My best friend sticking a cute Telethon bug to her Hianyu colour portable.
2. Linking up with Channel Television and seeing locals allowed on the normally private Zethou island.
3. Eating my breakfast on the Monday morning and not being quick enough to get a VHS tape in to record Scritti Politti '(Oh Patti) Don't feel sorry for loverboy'. Probably one of Green's last studio performances for about 30 years. Can't find it online anywhere😢.
Fun fact - Telefon '92 featured the first TV appearance of a little known band from Manchester called Oasis.
No-one can find any surviving footage (and it was only shown in tbe Granada region). But apparently Liam got into a fight with Albin Stardust (the host) at the end.
Ummm, yeah! Top! Rock 'n' roll! Mad for it! Etc etc
I raise a glass to your Clive James. Spot on 😄
I recall letters to Bournemouth Echo that demonstrated how donations from viewers in Dorset intended for local charities or counted by individual itv regions were being split & was causing jealousy or confusion between charities because of the counties’ geography & location being shared or covered by 3 itv regions separately based in Plymouth Southampton & Bristol. Viewers across North & East Dorset whom received all available signals of TVS HTV West & TSW complained of not knowing which line to call to make donations ! Thanks for your work covering this subject . 🏴😁❤️🐢
Yes, my childhood was spent in the North Dorset village of Child Okeford, near Sturminster Newton, and we were indeed right on the cusp of Westward and HTV West while neighbours got Southern as well.
@@319metresMW because Sunday afternoons were so dire on TVS we rigged up a mast to watch HTVs Sunday soccer . Being the wrong side of Thorney Hill nr Bransgore the picture wasn’t always reliable but it beat b&w movies ! We used to work for Pat Cross Kitchens in Stur. Beautiful area for sure 😁👍
@@newforestpixie5297 I remember people buying such equipment to watch Italian football, then Channel 4 picked up on it to create Football Italia.
Sundays on TVS were awful, especially the watered down editions of Motormouth.
Sundays on Ulster were grim, usually religious programming, Highway, Glenroe
I wasn't expecting to watch a 40 minute documentary on a telethon I barely remember but got sucked in (Only the blue bastard and my first experience of FOMO when my dad turned the TV off for the night during Telethon '92 and I felt I was missing out on the "party" that continued on in to the small hours). I do remember wondering when we were going to get the next one. I had zero knowledge of the controversy, and I guess as I got more understanding of the ITV network I presumed it was due to that merging in to one big monster. Anyway, facinating stuff!
I haven't thought about these in years.
I have vague memories of the '88 one because some of the Central stuff was filmed in Sutton Park, which was in walking distance of my house. I don't think I remember anything about the other two though.
Just got reccomended this video by RUclipss algoritham today. Great video. Went and watched your BSB series and happy to see you go from 1.9k Subs to 2.01k over the day. You should have more.
That was brilliant! Never actually knew what the hell had happened to ITV’s Telethon, kind of embarrassed that I participated in the last one in 92 by going to laser quest in Manchester and playing loads of games of it with all the money donated to it! But at least I got to play against the legend that is Frank Sidebottom so I have something to treasure forever there!!!!
wow I forgot all about this event! Thank you for jogging my memories, great flash back and great interesting info aloing with it ! Have a brilliant weekend, Sonique
It was a great idea in practice (I remember watching all three - as a 5 year old in 1988,7 year old in 1990 and a 9 year old in 1992) - and wondered why they ditched it.
ITV should revive it - Text Santa was a great concept.
Very insightful documentary. Ended up here after watching Comic Relief last night and Lenny's last show and felt nostalgic!
I was 11 when Telethon 90 was on… I have very little recollection of it, but I do remember the Italy World Cup that year… clearly where my priorities were at that age.. Interesting video this though, highlighting the way disabled people were treated. Thank you for putting this together, I loved your humour.
The only thing I remember is the blue ears. And you know, I think I remember asking where they went to on the '92 edition.
My friend Mik Scarlet was on the 1992 Telethon as a presenter
Given this was all before I was born, I never even heard of this, even from my parents, which I guess shows just how much impact it had. Yet I have fond memories of growing up with fundraisers at school for Comic/Sport Relief and Children in Need followed by coming home and staying up later than normal (until the watershed at least) to watch the show.
Standout memories to me are when we changed our computer screensaver to a Pudsey one that we must have purchased at one point, where the white blocks that made up the logo would appear and disappear, and "Comic Relief in da Bungalow" with celebrities doing the ridiculous games that the kids would normally take part in in the regular episodes on Saturday mornings.
I remember being pretty hyper about this and hooking up an extension cable through to the bathroom so I could watch it on the portable TV. We didn't get the bank holiday so had to miss all the Monday daytime stuff and just get back for the end!
Congratulations on this excellent retrospective.
The Telethons did cause a blue gonk epidemic at my school, but they weren’t the official Telethon gonks. Those were far too expensive.
I just about remember Telethon '90 & '92...not much but I remember it existing.
As for HTV Wales' technical problems, don't judge our lot too harshly. Welsh Broadcasting never had that much money until Doctor Who started to be made here full-time. Speaking of which, as a Whovian even I embrace the spirit of destruction also for 'Doctor in Distress'
Many thanks for this, it’s really informative. I never realised there was so much controversy about it; I thought it stopped due to the new ITV franchises being in place for a 94 telethon. But I can see where KYTV got their telethon (brown nose day) ideas from!
I think the new franchise setup would have killed it off if it hadn't been seen as controversial. The conglomeration of ITV had begun and it would have taken place less than 18 months after launch for certain franchise holders who would still be looking to make back what they spent.
The poor audio quality on Telethon 90' with opening countdown was actually on the broadcast!. Three Line Whip..... just what were they thinking?!.
@marcuslavaggi-bowen6539 that was typical LWT around that time, even though they were one of the 1st ITV companies to have NICAM stereo capability.
I sent a letter of complaint to the IBA about LWT's mediocre sound quality on this & other Light Entertainment shows they made. Lo & behold they all denied it, the lying bastards.
The sick irony is that, before the mid-80's, LWT made shows in the same studios without this distorted sonic mess which made my argument stand out even more.
In the end, it only stopped when Granada took over LWT in the mid-90's
I watched this Itv 1 live as a young teen and 30 yrs later now. We tried one or 2 in Rep of Ireland 7 hours long. The People in Need Telethon in 1990s to early 2000s. Now Comic Relief and Children in Need tv part is only live for 3 hrs used to run from 7pm to 2am.
Hi, People in Need Telethon in Ireland actually lasted longer than ITV Telethon. First one was in 1989, then 1990, and then it went every 2 years from 1992 until 2000. It came back in 2004, 2007 and the financial crash of 2008 meant the show was axed. A sort of telethon returned for Covid in 2020. Gay Byrne was the host for the Irish telethons until 2004.
I do remember it. I remember in 1988 waiting fir the Tiswas bit, i was 17. It was like at nearly 1am. Years later i worked at a call centre in the miid to late naughties and we bacame a call centre for red nose day or children in need. I can't remember which.
I remember the telethons. In my region, Granada, they were presented by the station’s golden couple - Richard and Judy.
Richard Madeley's kind of exposed his whole arse by going to bat for the more blatantly evil excesses of Tory misrule, after Piers Morgan left ITV
Yes I remember them presenting.
Golden as in an absolute Golden Shower. How Madeley still has a career in TV is beyond me.
The ITV Telethon is reminiscent of Alan Partridge’s Christmas show.
Aspel was supposedly an influence on the Partridge character 😂
Fascinating video. Did anyone write about the tumultuous Telethon '92?
I remember the 1990 & 1992 ones. I wasn't aware of the backlash the 1992 one recieved until later.
This sure brought back memories! I don't remember much of the 88 and 90 Telethons but I do remember 92 featuring a pair of street entertainers talking for 27 hours, some poor couple snogging for 27 hours (pretty sure that could prove fatal - thinking back that was probably a joke) and some kids doing a very cringey rap with people dressed as cartoon characters heading through the audience with collection buckets. I was unaware of the protests at the time, but I can understand their frustrations. I initially wondered if the lack of Telethon in 1994 was down to network changes but I guess the fact that that style of show was rapidly going out of fashion was an even bigger part of the reason.
Looking back, I think some of those memories were from 1990 rather than 1992. Around the time of my 9th birthday and I was watching way too much TV. I definitely recommend Then Barbara Met Alan for an insight into the 1992 protests from the front line.
I remember the fact that they happened clearly enough but didn't actually remember any of the actual content. Which i suppose is indicative of the whole vagueness of the aim of it all. I didnt remember anything about the protests and like others assumed it stopped due to the changes in the franchises. Very interesting video indeed
In Ireland on RTE they had their People in Need Telethon in Ireland which actually lasted longer than ITV Telethon. First was in 1989, then 1990, & then it aired every 2 years from 1992 until 2000. It came back in 2004, 2007, the financial crash of 2008 meant the show was axed. A sort of telethon returned for Covid in 2020. Irish legendary host Gay Byrne was the host for the Irish telethons until 2004.
I always thought the reason that the 1992 Telethon did relatively poorly was because it was moved from the Spring Bank Holiday weekend to an ordinary weekend in July. Children in Need also had years when the total raised was lower than the previous year.
My father, who was disabled for most of his life, did not agree with the criticisms of the ITV Telethons. He enjoyed watching them on TV (not all 27 hours!) and was appalled by the actions of the protestors. Through him I knew a lot of disabled people, most of whom also disagreed with those trying to stop the event. Were the protestors representing a silent majority of disabled people or a noisy minority?
Setting the Telethon aside, I imagine a comfortable majority of disabled people prefer having civil rights enshrined in law to not, and that's thanks to those exact people.
@@applemaskMichael Aspel himself has a severely disabled son, and actually if you look at some of the appeal videos broadcast during the 1992 Telethon many actually had strong messages on disabled rights, and rights for sufferers of conditions like dementia. I genuinely think the protests did more harm than good bringing an end to an event that in just three outings had raised more than £60 million for local community groups all over the UK, which is where the majority of the money went, as well as prominent national charities. However the other side of the coin was the fact 1992 was the last hurrah of an ITV that ceased to exist at the end of that year.
The reason it was moved was because of the 1992 Election. It was eventually held on April 9th but technically John Major didn't have to go to the polls until early June. Which could have meant holding the Telethon slap bang in the middle of the campaign or even possibly the day after the election. As the Telethon used the equivalent broadcast resources of a general election it was simply logistically impossible to keep it at the May weekend, given the advance planning that goes went into these shows. The weekend in July was chosen I think as it was the start of summer holidays, and it was the equivalent weekend of Live Aid in 1985. In fact the first few Sport Reliefs were held in the same July weekend from 2002 onwards.
@@applemask Rights aren't enough. For severely disabled people, money is needed in the here and now for care and the tools to help us. Being disabled isn't like being gay or black where the prejudice is all external. Your body is objectively crippled -- you can't do things other people can do like wash yourself or whatever, so you need help, which is expensive. Tools like wheelchairs are also pricey. A family with someone incapacitated also needs help themselves -- they may have to give up work to care for people (like my brother in law for his mum), the incapacitated relative might have previously been bringing in an income (like my husband who died of cancer) and so on. Dementia and cancer aren't respecting of anyone's social rights and it takes money to support them. And the end of life care that both my husband and MIL enjoyed doesn't come cheap -- but if the government try to raise taxes to pay for it there's an outcry. So where else is the money supposed to come from?!
While rights are brilliant, disability is not simply a social identity. It's something which paralyses, causes pain, causes limits on people's life and leads to death in many cases. You can't cure dementia and my husband's cancer ran away from anything hubby's doctors could throw at it. It left me a widow having to pick up the pieces and charities like Macmillan were there to support me through the hardship of caring for him and in the aftermath of his death. Likewise I've seen a friend widowed by Parkinson's. The guy needed actual care. He had rights, but rights don't get you to the bathroom and back, or provide a wet room or a stair lift or pay a carer's salary. Those all need actual money to be spent.
Even when I broke my ankle I had to stay with my parents for six weeks since they had a downstairs toilet and I didn't. New houses have to be built with them but older homes -- even postwar builds like mine -- still need some things to be installed at the cost of the owner. I'm not in as much need as I was for a while despite my ankle being busted for good, but you better understand that all the rights on paper mean nothing when you're struggling up the stairs on crutches or watching someone waste away from cancer.
Rights are important in the disability sphere, but you're incredibly lucky if you've never experienced a debilitating illness or known someone with one. May you never find out how bloody expensive disability can actually be to someone and never have to watch your loved ones dying and your care bills eating through your savings.
And stop protesting the government increase in NI next time. If you really want to do something for disability rights, support the monetary needs as well as the bits of paper which don't actually help with the material cost of being disabled.
Telethon '92: gained an hour, lost a bow tie.
Edit: When Barbara Met Alan is so good
Thanks for this. Although I have a vague memory of these I'd forgotten what it was called. In fact the only thing that is stuck in my mind was the Detective crossover (92) (which thanks to this video I have now been able to find more information on) involving Sherlock Holmes, Van Der Valk, Taggart and Inspector Wexford. It's probably where my love of crossovers comes from. Apart from this I'd basically forgotten everything else about these telethons.
Fantastic, as always.
Which was the edition where the government minister gave a huge cheque to the telethon and there was accusations that the money had been misappropriated somehow?
Channel 4's stand up to cancer is probably the only sustained success from independent tv. One of the reasons is obvious -the cause is right there in the title.
I think we recieved a telephon 88 mug for donating. It was from the bisto kids if memory serves me correctly.🤔
I was starting to think I had imagined these telethons over the years since. Well I was 4 in 1988 and not a lot registered at the time what was going on. But ITV only showing one show for as long as they did definitely registered at the time.
Years later I did become an advocate and supporter of disability causes and I almost want to celebrate that they raised that much awareness and money for the cause. Can’t say I feel the same about it being done as an after thought though.
Excellent video! Found it through Tom Scott's newsletter, piqued my interest as I have an interest in old television and disability politics. Presented very well too.
1:29 The late John Hudson of WRAL in Raleigh hosting their local cerebral palsy telethon.
Brillian documentary Matthew.
15:47 is that the person who channel 4 made a documentary about years later? "The boy whose skin fell off"
Ive got Autism and ADHD, Im not in a Wheelchair......
I try to live my life as normal as possible and be nice to everyone
Thank God for Block Telethon
Nice guys like you shouldn’t have bad days.
Another excellent video Matthew, I'm smashing that like button just like the ITC rubber stamp thingy ;) Very informative, I vaguely remember the studio intrusion when I was watching as a youngster but having no idea what was going on with it only being when I was older and looking the Telethon up out of nostalgia that I got a better understanding of the protests against the programme.
sorry claire rayner but its 'long wave radio" atlantic 252!😅
Interestingly you can come by a fair few second hand copies of Power to the Pupils online which makes it stranger that it's near impossible to find a rip of it
Christ it must be bad
@@BobtheFishProductions probably
Near-impossible means there's a chance it's floating around somewhere in the torrent hubs or the Internet Archive?
@@9thfloorchaos I mean I say that with the chance of it could be somewhere and just isn't listed by most places
ruclips.net/video/yHnQluzypFU/видео.html thank heavens for discogs huh?, the track is not nearly as bad as it suggests, it just kind of ......exists
I vaguely remember some controversy when the amount raised went up by a million in a single instant near the end of the show. Alas, I can't find anything about it. Anyone recall that or was it a figment of my imagination?
I had a Telethon bug. My mum probably got it from somewhere. It's almost certainly long been binned.
I’m autistic and can’t tell how many time’s especially when I was in school mainly elementary school that I was treated like I was less than human and put into a room with a bunch of screening kindergartners and this took a sledgehammer to my mental health and from about the Third grade to about the fifth grade my mental health went down hill to the point that I contemplated committing suicide and I would have attempted if it wasn’t for my dog giving me the will to live thankfully I got the help I needed which saved my life but I still have flare ups every now and then, the trauma which now started to heal but the damage will be with me for the rest of my life I know that this is long winded but I had to get my experience out there
Nice guys like you shouldn’t have bad days.
I really enjoyed this, thanks for your efforts. I remember having the blue ears when I was about 10. Probably giving off toxic gases from some landfill in the Philippines now along with a million more.
Disability is a weird thing. The discourse is better now, but what frustrates me most is the rush to diminish how awkward things are in the name of seeing disability as an identity.
You can't win. You can't obviously express pity, but platitudes like 'differently abled' is also cruddy because it erases the objective struggles of us with our bodies rather than with society in general. Society is much better, but in a perfectly accessible and understanding world there will still be things that don't work properly, in pain or a struggle, and no amount of right-on politics will make that better.
The one absurdity I've encountered was someone demanding that a writer not write a story about a cancer patient seeking a cure. As a cancer widow, it actually erased my husband's very real pain and needs and covered up the way he had actually got something wrong with his body and needed it put right. Communities like the deaf do form bonds within such groups and that's great, but for me neurological disability has been nothing but a hardship and a limit on what I can do, and I'd imagine someone very ill like in some of those VTs you talk about may want immediate respite and financial aid rather than more abstract rights. Having to care for a loved one who's dying is a financial hardship for many people and those people need the cash. The advert you held up about the government booklet about benefits and so on surely was actually helping people access the services provided for them, just like the hospice looking after my husband helped him apply for his PIP. Even in the case of your home, the money may well have gone to fund a disability access ramp. While having the need for better home design (such as the current mandatory need for a downstairs toilet in new build houses), money is needed to bring older homes like mine up to scratch. (I broke my ankle badly and two years on am still crippled by it.)
Also, while the social landscape is changing, real people actually need help: money for tools, for new treatments, for new research and so on. For someone struggling with, say, a pain condition making it hard to hold down a job, no amount of awareness or rights will actually help them feel betrer. Relieving actual suffering is as important as political change; the political change happens over time, but the pain and stress and financial hardship doesn't stop just because people are protesting about their rights. The patronising thing of today is people policing others' responses to language and that just because I have a broken ankle doesn't mean I claim it as an identity.
The discourse is much better but it still centres able-bodied politics rather than acknowledging that we need as much physicsl treatment in the here and now as we do for self-righteous allies trying to whitewash the experience of being disabled, particularly when that disability involves pain or other mental discomfort, and the rights of carers to be able to be honest about their experiences.
It's a problem of social justice paradigms which promote social identity over getting the right help to the right people and working in the here and now to help relieve suffering. Being there with fundraising to help fit a downstairs toilet or a wet room to someone who needs it isn't mutually exclusive with political struggle, but fundraising through charity is nonetheless important to ensure that people are practically liberated as well as emotionally satisfied.
the thunderbird 1 with the red nose was from the long forgotten pre peter kay kids cartoon ensemble 'everybody needs a helping hand sometimes' from comic relief which i had locked away at the back of my mind
Another brilliant documentary Matthew and a serious look at disabled rights from a bygone age. You handled it with sensitivity and tact.
After Telethon, GMTV did their own mini-Telethon thing with Get Up And Give, which as I remember, did the ITV Telethon thing of pointing cameras at disabled people going "AWWWWWW!!" That was quietly dropped after a few years.
There was also the Gold Heart Day Telethon for the Variety Club on Sky One, which was held a couple of times in the mid '90s before falling by the wayside.
Sport Relief is now dead and buried. Red Nose Day is now on every year. The last Sport Relief was in 2020, just a week before lockdown commenced.
It was designed as a national project to raise funds in each ITV region - all the money raised in each region stayed in that region- the amounts raised were sent to the national centre - not the actual cash, just the figure - and were totalled up nationally - but the amount raised in each region stayed in that region - viewers in Plymouth were not funding organisations in Norwich or whatever - it raised funds for all sorts of charitable organisations - not just disabled or children’s charities or OAP charities - it was a combination of national and regional programmes, with neither encroaching on the other - although the national programme had reports shown nationally from the regions at various times throughout the show - you could have seen yourself on national television if you were at any of the events - or, rather, your family and friends would - but the opt-outs didn’t mean that you missed out on the national programme!
There was another Telethon broadcast in the early 90s that featured a murder mystery being investigated initially by Sherlock Holmes, then it was taken up by other fictional detectives, including Van Der Valk - it somehow managed to get over to Amsterdam and Van Der Valk took up the baton - it was finally solved by Inspector Wexford!
I must have forgotten that Rolf had kicked it. and it was only last month.
Every so often the telephon music comes into my head that’s over thirty years ago crikey
33:16 So awkward. That guy that showed up is like the supervisor suddenly assessing the teachers performance.
'3 Line Whip' genuinely feels like an Eric Andre bit.
Edit: I came for the telethon cringe, I stayed for the history lesson on disability rights activism.
3 Line Whip was from Border Television's opt-out.
@@stuartkenny7430was about to say that was Eric Wallace introducing 3 Line Whip
@@briansergeant I met Eric Wallace at Cumbria College of Art and Design over 20 years ago, lovely fella and still sadly missed.
@RobtheMod Ask and ye shall receive. ruclips.net/video/7t2Cz_F4poU/видео.html
Very good piece of work. Appreciated.
I'm 38 and this is the first time I've ever heard anyone having anything close to my condition I have multiepiphyseal displacia and it's got no better I cannot walk am forced to live upstairs in a shared HMO and there's a foot high drop from my garden to the street but there's nowhere left suitable to live all the ground floor flats got given away
It's very rare. You're one in a million, apparently.
@@applemask Was that your actual old house as well?
25:30 as someone with Aseprgers Syndrome which is a very mild form of Autism i coudlnt agree more.
Thank you for forcing me to remember Doctor in Distress. There's a rumour that it'll be played in the most ironic of senses as part of the Toymaker's plan in the 60th!
That would mean involving Ian Levine, if only tangenitally.
I vaguely remember being on the phones for one of these in the Girobank regional office in Birmingham
I remember all those ITV telethons, I was a teen at the time and I remember distinctly thinking it was a lot of patronising BS, chasing the success of the BBC. Very well done, very interesting and certainly a trip down memory lane that I’d forgotten.
Kind of like the Roger Mellie cartoon "Challenge Roger".