ITV in the Face: the Midlands (2 of 3)

[MrBb100000]

No mention of central's programmes ?

[tokutom]

You're like a cross between Charlie Brooker and Stephen Fry!

[rachel7000rf]

No wonder Central were unopposed in 1991 francise round. who would want to go against the cake

[rachel7000rf]

R.I.P ATV the best ITV region of the 70s

[ATVmidlands5581]

@rachel7000rf

completely agree. They had everything, warmth, charm, charisma, great programmes/presenters and a real family atmosphere about the station. Everything they did was larger than life. Television with pride and integrity - committed to good quality TV for the region they were proud to serve. Its all about shareholders and profits these days - with the viewer way down the list of priorities. Cheers

ATVmidlands

[Xxfancythat79xX]

I feel like some cake now.

[wuzzlevideos]

Always thought those Central jingles over the idents were really naff. Like some sort of lift music.

[rexeljetsmocks]

I think the 'sand sculpture' is actually meant to be the cake made of wood. Not entirely sure though.

[Applemask]

@rexeljetsmocks It's possible. It looks more like plastic than anything else, to be honest (since that was what it was made of)

[Woollylinnet]

There's a bit more symbolism in the three notes of the ABC ident than you reveal - they are actually the notes A, B and C.

[electrogeek77]

The Cake as an Ecstacy pill! The Cake as a diaphragm! The Cake as a "present" from the dog!

[newcomedyfan1973]

Yuck, Central... It just seemed so tatty compared to the greatness of ATV... also they dumped classics like Pipkins... a sad time.

[JoeScaramanga]

I can't believe some of the comments on here.

The guy is making these things off his own back, with limited resources.

As far as amusing, entertaining looks at IDENTS are concerned, I think they are very interesting, and can forgive the technical hitches.

Lighten up, people!

[pistak09]

This video is apsolutly brilliant the history, IDENTS and most of all the humor, sadly many people don't see this.

[jh94]

Can I ask what have the idents have really got to do with the history of that brilliant tv region? what have the idents got to do with the great programmes or the great people who made it?

This is just one long boring ident slideshow.

[Applemask]

You know who I blame? The guy holding the gun to your head forcing you to watch it against your will.

[jh94]

Nope, I enjoy stuff about ATV and Central, i'm even a member of the ATV land forums, but i'm afraid this video was boring.

You could've done a section all about lew grade, or some of the announcers, but all you do is go on and on about how the idents changed. The programmes and the people who amde ATV and central what it was back in the day are far more important.

[Applemask]

It's a show about idents! It's in the subtitle! You gonna bother Jean-Michel Cousteau with messages about how he doesn't concentrate on rocks enough?

And it's not as if no-one's ever made a documentary about Lew Grade before.

[jh94]

No, but you could talk a little more about the history of ATV and Central.

[Applemask]

The show is about idents! If you are not interested in idents it's not my fault! You want a documentary about the shows, there's loads of 'em. Hell, BBC2 had an entire ATV Theme Night back in 1995, it's that richly mined.

[jh94]

yes there's loads of documentary's about programmes and tv studios because they are interesting. How many documentary's do you see on TV about idents? none, because it's boring. I do like central idents but not a documentary on them.

[Applemask]

Don't bloody watch one then. I don't find idents boring. I like graphic design. You're like the man who writes to Kellogg's to complain that he doesn't like cornflakes.

[jh94]

Erm, I just said I DO like idents. Just not a half hour slideshow of them.

[Applemask]

And I just said Don't Bloody Watch One Then, if my commentary means that little to you.

[jh94]

It seems to me someone is losing their temper and can't take critisism.

[Applemask]

It seems to me someone's trolling a video for shits and giggles.

[jh94]

No I don't do that, if you look at my youtube account you'll notice I am too a television anorak.

But you're losing your temper, because someone has critisised your videos.

[Applemask]

Poking someone with a stick until they slap you in the face and then going "ha ha, you got annoyed because someone was poking you with a stick" is not an achievement.

[jh94]

But i'm not doing that, I am giving critisism to your work and then I suggested some stuff to make the next one better and you seem to be getting a little angry.

[Applemask]

You're not doing that at all.

[jh94]

Erm, I did a few comments ago. I said it was boring. That was the critisism. Then I said you show add more information about the people, the programmes and the studios. That was the suggestions.

[Applemask]

You suggested I make a completely different show from the one I am making, ie one focused on the programmes and not the presentation. That's not constructive criticism.

[jh94]

Yes but those are interesting things, what did the idenst really do? give it a well known name and logo and that's about it.

Whereas the programmes made people famous, it made programmes well known, it got millions of viewers watching the channel. I don't think people watched ATV to see the first 10 seconds of the programme.

If you want to carry on making documentary's about Television idents, that's ok, but try and make it more interesting.

[jh94]

It might be a good idea if you watch Victor lewis smith's 'Going logo' from tv hell night. It's on youtube. It's a short interesting documentary about television idents.

[prodge]

The only subtitle I see is "the story of ITV in the midlands".

And when you do touch on some non-ident material, you've made some huge clangers, such as stating the Muppet Show, Beasts, Sapphire & Steel, Pipkins, etc, were made in Birmingham.

jh94 is right, idents do not make for entertainment. They're nostalgic and friendly, but not to be obsessed over.

[Applemask]

Guess I imagined all the praise I got from other people then.

I said they were made by ATV and ITC, which they were.

[AidanLunn]

I also like it how he deleted my comment that I made a few weeks ago, in which i also stated the huge mistakes that he made, including the fact that Birmingham was NOT ATV's main production centre and that most of the shows he mentioned in the above *cough* documentary weren't made there.

[Applemask]

But they were made by ATV and ITC. Probably should have made that clearer, but I suppose that's a pitfall of making a half-hour programme with a crew of one and a budget of £0.00. Don't remember deleting anything either.

[AidanLunn]

Yeah I noticed that I posted those comments on part one.

Gizza Red Bull . . .

[ste1bro]

Brilliant. Again.

God, but they made some good programmes, didn't they?

The 'cake' always reminds me of manually tuning my portable (tuning knobs, remember them?) to a barely-watchable, snowy Central late at night, just to watch 'V: The Series' in the late 80s, because Granada decided (with good reason, in retrospect) not to show it.

[TashkentFox]

Why didn't you try to recieve HTV? You can normally get quite a good signal from the Moel-y-Parc transmitter here in Granadaland.

[brickbat246]

I can't help thinking that any one of those millions of cake animations could have been used to introduce Central's programmes if only ITV hadn't made the dumb decision to axe the idents from starting up all of its programmes since the beginning of 1988

[Applemask]

Prelude to the first generic look.

[baronscarpia1]

I honestly think someone in Central's graphics department went mad. He had a nervous breakdown, started creating new idents at a rate of three per minute, and THEY COULDN'T STOP HIM.

[glunglun]

Nice to see one of my own clips in there ;)

Don't worry, not looking for blood. It's actually reminded me to try and remember where I put my original copy!

Brilliant as ever!