Top of the Pops 12 January 1989

 

Words: Chris Arnsby
Simon Mayo: “Hi welcome to Top of the Pops, featuring for the first time in FM stereo on Radio One and BBC One, colour pictures... the brek... breakfast crew live in the flesh.
Sybil Ruscoe: “Including the nation's favourite newsreader Rod McKenzie.”
Simon Mayo: “Yes.”
Rod McKenzie: “We start tonight with the Darling Buds, Hit The Ground.”
Simon Mayo: “Yes sir.”

[33] DARLING BUDS: hit the ground. Rod McKenzie doesn't get a credit on screen or in the Radio Times. Is he not being paid?

Can you spot the point midway through Simon Mayo's opening sentence when he starts to regret not pausing and taking a breath. 

Someone, either Graphic Designer Margaret Horrocks or Vision Mixer Kathryn Randall, has been experimenting with the captions. Last week they just faded on and off screen. This week they're doing all fancy transitions; Simon Mayo and Sybil Ruscoe's caption rises up from the bottom of the screen and disappears the same way; the caption for the Darling Buds folds up and back off the screen as if it was attached to a piece of card.

It's January and as is traditional it's time to use all the thunderflashes which are just about to expire. They've been sitting on a shelf at the back of the Visual Effects workshop and now it's time to set them off. The Visual Effects Designer responsible used to get a credit but that seems to have been dropped. The nameless effects minion has fun detonating the thunderflashes throughout the song.

 

One of the perils of the new crow's nest is that the hosts are much more visible. Previously it was easy for them to sneak away from the side of the main stage but now they often appear in the background of wide shots. Simon Mayo creeps away early but Sybil Ruscoe and Rod McKenzie remain and can be spotted dancing away.

Meanwhile, it looks like the captions at the end of each performance have gone for good. Still, removing the need for a static long shot at the end of each song allows for moves like the one as the Darling Buds wrap up. The camera pulls back from their stage -with Sybil and Rod still up in the crow's nest- to reveal, in a single fluid camera move, Simon Mayo who introduces the next song.

[10] WILL TO POWER: baby i love your way. On video. Cut very short at around 75 seconds.

CHARTS FROM 40 TO 31. Simon Mayo has jogged back across the studio to join Sybil Ruscoe in the crow's nest. But where's Rod? The appeal of the crow's nest is that it simplifies recording links. It removes the worry about wrangling the audience and fretting about them misbehaving.

[32] MILLI VANILLI: baby don't forget my number. What are Milli Vanilli wearing? I think it's a complicated black lycra leotard with the top half split at the waist and styled to look like a single-breasted dinner jacket; it's hard to be precise there's some sort of lycra cummerbund wrapped around the middle and it obscures the fine details. Not obscured, the (hem-hem) groinal bulge which gives me the Raston Warrior Robot fear. Simon Mayo's enigmatic post-Milli Vanilli comment that the pair are “available now in a box set,” is I think related to the pair's beneath-the-Plimsoll-line tittivation.

At the front of the stage is a thing; stop me when this gets too technical. It could be a stage light or some sort of speaker. Anyway, whatever it is, a couple of times one of Milli Vanilli keeps trying to stand on it which doesn't seem safe.

[9] DURAN DURAN: all she wants is. All she wants is 90 seconds of the video to be played on Top of the Pops.

[12] BOY MEETS GIRL: waiting for a star to fall. Sybil Rusco goes solo in the crow's nest for this introduction. And check out Paul Ciani's swish camera move. The camera starts level with her at the top of the left side of the stage before tracking in along the top of the main stage wall. The camera moves right, past Sybil, and heads for the far right corner of the stage. When it gets there it pans round and pinballs away from the main stage towards the Needle stage where Boy Meets Girl are waiting patiently.

But where is Rod McKenzie?

BREAKERS:

19 MARC ALMOND featuring GENE PITNEY: something's gotten hold of my heart

30 ROB BASE & D.J. E-Z ROCK: get on the dance floor

17 MIKE & THE MECHANICS: the living years

31 ROACHFORD: cuddly toy

8 FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS: she drives me crazy

24 ROY ORBISON: you got it

[14] FREIHEIT: keeping the dream alive. A nice song but Freiheit look too much like the Flying Pickets for comfort, I expect them to burst out in acapella.

CHARTS FROM 30 TO 11. Mayo and Rusco are again in the crow's nest. Rod McKenzie has become the Poochie of this trio. Every time he's not on screen I keep asking “where's Rod McKenzie?”

[29] COOKIE CREW: born this way. A terrific performance captured mainly with handheld cameras. Those wide sweeping camera crane shots just don't work for some songs and this is one of them. This single has bombastic self-aggrandizing lyrics and it needs the handheld camera-up-yer-nose view to properly feel like Cookie Crew are as dominant as they claim.

Good use of cutaways during the performance. One of the camera operators has been stationed on the stairs to the left of the stage to capture some nice pictures of Cookie Crew framed by the scenery. Excitement. One of the cutaway shots looks past a bloke wearing the same nasty yellow long-sleeved shirt as Rod McKenzie, could this be a sighting? Best bit of direction, during one of the musical breaks the handheld camera pans away from the stage and goes for a brief wander up the stairs past several dancing audience members.

TOP 10.

[1] KYLIE MINOGUE & JASON DONOVAN: especially for you. On video.

[16] GLORIA ESTEFAN & MIAMI SOUND MACHINE: rhythm is gonna get you. Rod's back! Oh and Jason Donovan is here as well. Especially for you. (Yes. You!). “What are you doing here?” demands Sybil. He's recording an album. That's 10 seconds of screen time filled. Rod fills us in on the really important details, “next week's Top of the Pops with Bruno Brookes and Richard Skinner.”

Here's Gloria Estefan on video. The Miami Sound Machine are there as well.

PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: Cookie Crew, Born This Way with Milli Vanilli a close second.