The TV Cream Advent Calendar: Door 13

Pretty much everything from the 1950s isn't worth remembering, which is why TV Cream has little to do with it. The same goes for 1950s Christmas number ones which, rather spectacularly, nobody seems to remember at all. Ever.

Indeed, discussion of seminal festive chart-toppers tends to begin in 1973 with Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody, wisely omitting the number one of 12 months previously (Long Haired Lover From Liverpool) but cruelly overlooking that of 1971 (Ernie The Fastest Milkman In The West), 1970 (I Hear You Knocking) and, yes, Two Little Boys in 1969.

The Beatles had four Xmas number ones which nobody has beaten - hooray - and all of them are, quite rightly, superb.

However when you spool all the way back to that grisly decade that seemed to consist entirely of woman opening brand new refrigerators, old men with handkerchiefs on their head on Blackpool pier, hotel signs reading NO COLOUREDS and jivers standing by hissing coffee machines, there's not even a Rolf or a Benny for solace.

1956 has to hold the record for the most out-and-out miserable Christmas number one: Walking In The Rain by Johnny Ray. A decent enough song, sure, but not really in keeping with the season.

Harry Belafonte's Mary's Boy Child (1957) and Dickie Valentine's Christmas Alphabet (1955) are, respectively, just a touch too sacred and slapdash ("and 'A' is for the angels who make up the Christmas list" - since when?).

It's Only Make Believe by Conway Twitty (1958) is a dirge while What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For? by Emile Ford and the Checkmates (1959) sounds like it's being sung into a giant plughole.

That just leaves tonsil-troubling crooners Frankie Laine (Answer Me in 1953) and Al Martino (Here In My Heart in 1952), plus ivory-tickling Winifred Atwell with Let's Have Another Party in 1954. This five minute and 19 second marathon party medley comprised plinky out-of-tune* piano renditions of (deep breath):

Another Little Drink
Broken Doll
Bye Bye Blackbird
Honeysuckle And The Bee
I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight
Lily Of Laguna
Nellie Dean
Sheik Of Araby
Somebody Stole My Gal
When The Red Red Robin

...but not a Christmas carol to be seen! For shame! At least the robin got a look in.

Roll on Sir Cliff...

*Why did all 1950s pianos sound like this? Were professional tuners on the ration book, like eggs and preserves?

The TV Cream Advent Calendar: Door 12

Ah yes, the Christmas Day comedy special. A chance to wash down the excesses of the day with a dose of light humour and polished laughs. A chance to sit back and relax in the company of shows like...

Get Some In! (1975)
Gags about ration cards, veal and "darkies"? Shhhh, most people will be too pissed to notice.

Two's Company (1976)
Elaine Stritch and Donald Sinden bicker over the bon-bons.

Are You Being Served? (1977)
"Mrs Slocombe, Captain Peacock would like to know if you need someone to give your turkey a stuffing."

George And Mildred (1979)
The last ever episode, called 'The 26 Year Itch'. Spoiler: after four years and five series it was to be left unscratched.

Father's Day (1983)
Channel 4's first and, for a while, only homegrown sitcom, done so cheaply that lead John Alderton had to wear his own clothes.

Hi-De-Hi (1985)
Hmm. Hard to see how this would have leant itself to a Christmas special. The gang stage an out-of-season revue to raise money to buy Mr Partridge a new pair of spectacles? A charity pantomime ends in tears when Spike refuses to play the fairy godmother?

Dear John (1987)
More cheery fare. Though you'd surely take this over My Family any day.

Bread (1988)
Oh dear god. A bunch of people joylessly bickering round the dinner table, shouting insults and blubbing and storming off and coming back and joylessly bickering some more. Cue titles. Cue 69 (count 'em!) more minutes of bickering.

The TV Cream Advent Calendar: Door 11

A trio of music-related riddles are clearing their throat behind today's door.

1) Which Christmas number one did journalist David Quantick describe as "the sound of the gods making love"?

2) Who were the only people to appear on both the 1984 and 1989 versions of 'Do They Know It's Christmas?'?

3) Who puzzled over the eternal theological conundrum "black, white, yellow - no-one knows", in front of what distinctive brand of BBC proppery?

The TV Cream Advent Calendar: Door 10

Why aren't there TV bosses like this anymore?

The TV Cream Advent Calendar: Door 9

Here's Michael Palin, recalling his experiences at the BBC Light Entertainment Christmas Party:

Sunday 19th December, 1976
"Everything in full swing when we arrived, but as I hadn't been since the 1973 party, we went in the wrong entrance and found ourselves in a small ante-room, empty save for Jimmy Savile crouched over a large plate of food. A cheery exchange and we walk through to find a throng of people we once saw so much. Tim Brooke-Taylor and I commiserate over our eternal branding together in John's mind as 'nice' people."

Sunday 18th December, 1977
"The usual lot. Val Doonican and Eric Sykes seem to be still fans - Doonican is especially enthusiastic and towards the end of the evening even Eric Morecambe grasps my hand warmly. 'Great fan,' he says. 'Great fan.' Talk to Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe, who, with me, Ian Davidson and the Goodies, seem to represent the 'younger generation' in a sea of old and well-established faces."

The TV Cream Advent Calendar: Door 8

Where are the quizzes? Right here!

TV Christmas specials is today's theme:

a) What was different about the kind of format Coronation Street adopted to mark Christmas 1975, and then also at Christmas 1987?

b) In the Christmas episode of Yes Minister, what was the central issue of the campaign Jim Hacker used as his bid for Prime Minister?

c) Which never-popular yet endlessly-repeated sitcom mustered a Christmas episode boasting a cameo from David Jacobs?

The TV Cream Advent Calendar: Door 7

The new edition of Radio Times features, on its cover, the promise that no fewer than six stars have been assembled to "recall Parky's finest hours". Understandably this made for a very slim feature, hence the number of photos shoehorned into the text. Sadly absent, however, is the hitherto undiscovered snapshot reproduced below, of the man playing the part of a miserable old grouch who hates everything new and can't abide being told what to do by anybody under the age of 75 - a role, for the Thames Ditton community centre pantomime production of A Christmas Carol, he took to unsurprisingly easily.