CuriousIdent
Not yet SO old Great Old One
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2004
- Messages
- 1,510
- Location
- Warwickshire, England.
Absolutely. It's all about audiences and money.
The LLBS disaster was about a real death, though, whereas Ghostwatch and The Paul Daniels Halloween Special were elaborate and well-done hoaxes. Plus, we didn't see Michael Lush die. There's no footage of the accident. If there were, I'd expect it to have surfaced on the 'net at some point to haunt Noel Edmonds.
This happened with film of the death of Tommy Cooper, which you can find if you dig a bit. He died on stage and his collapse looks like part of the act.
Cooper's friends have said it wasn't so bad to die that way, as the last thing he'd have heard would have been the audience laughing.
Agreed. In many ways I think that's how Tommy Cooper would have wanted to go. As a bystander I think he'd have found it darkly humourous a notion to literally die on stage.
The footage does exist. I've never felt that I wanted to seek it out though. Somehow seems a little disrespectful (to me at least).
The Michael Lush death was different. I perhaps shouldn't have included it in that bracket. I was thinking more in terms of tabloid negative coverage and reaction against the BBC.
While it was an accident it was obviously concluded that the BBC was at a level of fault. It was a rehearsal. I'm glad we have no footage. I agree that there's no way that wouldn't have found it online somehow.
Edmonds did of course resign. He wasn't pushed. It was a hiatus and the BBC did not instantly opt to can the show. Edmonds chose to walk away from the show, and that largely made the whole thing a moot point.
Within two years mind, he was re-devised and relaunched as the king of Saturday Early-Evenings. First the Saturday Roadshow, then Noel's House Party.
Live broadcasted Family-friendly Saturday evening TV, serving both as light entertainment and (through guest appearances) covert publicity for some of the Channel's other programmes.
It's the kind of thing The Beeb don't really do anymore. There was an intentional house style to their Saturday programming in the early 90s. A very cohesive, safe and inclusive brand - beginning with the likes of Going Live and Live and Kicking in the morning, moving onto Sports coverage through Grandstand in the afternoon, and then Noel and company in the early Evening.
And in many ways that is exactly why Ghostwatch jarred with/duped so many viewers. Because to all intents and purpose it carried on with that BBC One House-style (which had been flowing for over 12 hours of very safe Saturday programming by that time of the evening) only to then have something a little bit creepy starting to happen within it.
Shaking up that safe sequence of programming is why it worked so well.