Beatlemania Explodes!

The Beatles Mersey Sound 1963



"The Mersey Sound" was a one-off BBC special documentary profiling none other than the legendary 4-man band "The Beatles", and in this clip, well it shows The Beatles singing live a cover of the 1962 "Top Notes" song "Twist and Shout" to an audience of manic, screaming teenage girls, but not only that, fascinating coverage of the masses of people running and wanting to touch any one of the "Fab Four". Unbelieveable. 1963 was The Beatles at this stupendously stage of uber-popularity, reaching not only in their hometown of Liverpool and the UK, but reaching the far corners of the world, including breaking in America. Then we hear one of The Beatles (and Britain's) biggest ever single hits "She Loves You"...along with more hysteria. This live act footage was filmed at the Little Theatre, Houghton Street, Southport.

This documentary was originally shown on October 9th 1963, and was a 36 minute special, not only featuring The Beatles cast of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, but the film also covers 2 much lesser known rock/pop bands, "Group One" who were the opening act for The Beatles, and also "The Undertakers".

As regard to "The Beatles", Lennon and McCartney were the brains of the band, who plied their hand into writing all of their original songs such as "She Loves You". The Lennon/McCartney wrote a whopping 180 songs between the period of 1962 to 1969. However, they mostly worked by their own, writing the music and words, each song more relating to one rather than the two, however a double team effort was always needed to push that song as "all clear" for the band. They had been writing songs together since their teens. There is of course the infamous dispute of in the writing credits of whose name should come first! Naturally Lennon would come first, if in alphabetical order, but in the early days they would be reversed too, but this issue has angered John Lennon's wife Yoko Ono's wife after his death, as McCartney seemed to lean on having his name first on all the Beatles songs, and claiming it wouldn't have bothered Lennon in the first place. Although McCartney now says, he's over it, he still bloody does to this day...

The members of the band each had different roles of course, with McCartney on vocal, I can't say lead vocal, as Lennon was heavily involved with the singing too. McCartney would also be on bass guitar, Lennon on rhythm guitar, while George Harrison was the backing or harmony vocal with the lead guitar, and lastly Ringo on the drums, as we see on the clip.

The Beginnings of the Spinning BBC Globe...

BBC GLOBE pre BBC2 1963



A short and sweet clip, of the first incarnation of the spinning BBC Globe ident from 1963. I'm not sure if this is the exact first appearance of the globe from November 30th September, but obviously pretty close. The globe theme lasted up to 2002, with the spinning globe really ending in 1997, replaced by BBC globe hot-air balloons shown in outdoor locations soaring above. The idents after 2002, became more human-orientated appealing to a multi-cultural society. Oh...pour me a drink...

BBC Normal Schedules are Awashed as Kennedy is Assassinated

BBC President Kennedy death continuity 1963




The assassination of US president John F. Kennedy is one those news events of "where were you when the news hit?". On the 22nd November 1963, the 35th president of the United States was shot in the back and then the head, while in a open-top car procession in Dallas, Texas. Not much to say about this clip, also profiling the UK weather, squashed in-between the replacement of normal scheduled programmes, for a Kennedy tribute and more changes over the course of the weekend as announced by the typically well-spoken announcer. The clip is of good ident and ends with a non-fancy schmancy graphical, real-as-real BBC clock ident.

Genteel Vicar Comedy from the early 1960's, featuring a smut-free Leslie Phillips

Our Man At St Mark's Pt1 Leslie Phillips - Rediffusion 1963



Been digging hard to find more British TV 1960's material for this blog, and we have found what I believe to be very rare, and our most extensive exerpt from the 60's UK TV, as this is a full episode.

A full episode from ITV's "Our Man At St Mark's", a comedy sitcom. Much of this series no longer exists in the archives apart from a few minutes worth, as claimed by this youtube uploader. Well, that's a sad state of affair's, but "wiping" was common place in the early days of television.

The sitcom stars Leslie "Ding Dong" Phillips, of the "Carry on..." movies fame, as. It is produced by Associated Rediffusion, which as a regional broadcaster for London and surrounding counties. What makes this a more rarer find, is the fact Phillips appeared in only the first series or 7 episodes of the show in 1963, replaced by Donald Sinden in 1964. The episode featured here, in 3 parts, is meant to be the very first episode "The Facts of Life", claimed in the youtube comments section. It is indeed.

Phillips, plays Rev. Andrew Parker in a very different role to his most famous role, he still comes across as charming and suave, making a good effort in the lead role. Still alive at the age of 85 today!

"Our Man At St Mark's" was followed up by another 3 series, not starring Leslie Phillips, with a meaningless change to "Our Man From St Mark's".