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Tonight’s ATV Midlands… in 1962
14 June 2017 tbs.pm/12644
The TVTimes tells us what was on ATV on Thursday 14 June 1962. Things worth noting include:
- The very exact start and finish times for Lunch Box (12.47pm to 1.21pm) – broadcasting hours were legally restricted and timed to the minute
- Supercar at 5.25pm follows the pattern of all Gerry Anderson marionette series, crediting the main star as the marionette rather than the actor providing his voice, in this case Canadian actor Graydon Gould
- Thursday was usually a ‘heavy’ night for ITV, with news and documentaries prominent in the schedules. Tonight is no different, with ITN’s Roving Report leading the way at 6.20pm with a report on British Honduras. The people of British Guyana may have been surprised to have been so easily erased by the TVTimes write up
- What on earth is a thinly disguised edition of Tingha and Tucker doing stuck in at 6.45pm?
- It’s A Wonderful World at 7.30pm is not very wonderful. A 1956 colour (although not broadcast as such, obviously) musical comedy filmed at the Hammersmith Palais de Danse, the songs are forgettable and the comedy dull
- Back to the heavy material at 9.15pm, with half an hour from This Week. At this point, This Week is still an anthology, with several short segments tied together by Brian Connell; it would later devote its entire half hour to one subject
- The Roaring 20’s at 9.45pm was a crime drama series shown on America’s ABC. It had been cancelled in January, having been put up against NBC’s Tales of Wells Fargo, killing both series
- Back to the factual material again for Midland Montage at 10.35pm, with various medium to lightweight film sequences tied together by James Lloyd in the studio
- Shades of The X Factor in Find the Singer from Associated-Rediffusion at 11pm. Jim Dale – a bit-part actor with only a few credits to his name – pokes the microphone at the hopeful contestants, whilst Kenneth MacLeod – apparently the later Westward presenter – chairs the panel of judges. The TVTimes manages to suggest that the prize is both £1000 and £500
- The half-hour on air at lunchtime has to be taken away from somewhere else, so ATV is off to bed before 11.30pm
You Say
8 responses to this article
Arthur Nibble wrote 14 June 2017 at 1:49 pm
I had no idea Roy Ward Dickson (“The King of Quiz”) actually invented the game show, including “Mr & Mrs” which (again, I didn’t know) was not only broadcast by TWW, HTV and Border as there was also an Anglia version hosted by Norman Vaughan.
Arthur Nibble wrote 14 June 2017 at 1:57 pm
“Abracadabra” included a feature from one of Dickson’s previous shows, a bowl filled with coins which contestants dipped a hand into for prize money – the neck of the bowl being narrow enough to prevent a fistful of money being extracted at once.
Cover programme “The Trouble With Men” included an interview with a certain Margaret Thatcher, who questioned why there weren’t many women in high political office.
steve brown wrote 14 June 2017 at 4:11 pm
Seven hours and six minutes of ATV Midlands that day
Mark Jeffries wrote 14 June 2017 at 9:17 pm
“The New Adventures of Pinocchio” was the first stop-motion animated series from Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass before the many holiday specials they created with the process. The actual animation work was done in Japan, with the voice acting recorded in Canada and their offices in New York. Since each of the 130 episodes were only five minutes long, ATV must’ve decided to bring in Jean Morton and her little bears to fill out the 15 minutes–but yeah, why at 6:45 between a documentary and a game show? To tell the kiddies to go to bed at the end?
Paul Mason wrote 14 June 2017 at 10:46 pm
My memory of 1962 is hazy and lacking in detail.
Supercar was the.first of the Gerry Anderson “action” series which I recall (Four Feather Falls does not fall into that category).
Another TV name I recall was Gordon Luck who tended to do quizzes like Junior Criss Cross Quiz, which came off as soon as I was old enough to enter (Drat!). GL also did schools programmes. I did some research and discovered he was a bit part actor on No Hiding Place. Sadly, however,from IMDB, was the discovery that Gordon Luck died in 1988 a month short of his 57th birthday.
Paul Mason wrote 14 June 2017 at 10:53 pm
I find it odd ATV showing a children’s, or rather infants show at 6.45pm. For the first year or so of ITV a “toddlers truce” was observed between 6-7pm when an interlude took place.
Alan Keeling wrote 15 June 2017 at 8:51 pm
The Roaring 20s at 9.45 was Warner Brothers answer to The Untouchables & ran for 2 seasons (1960/61). Judge Sewards Secret is episode 7 from season 1.
Geoff Nash wrote 16 June 2017 at 6:01 pm
The usual practice would have been for the infant’s programme to run at 4.45 but presumably this would take ATV beyond it’s permitted hours. Maybe, as previously suggested, it’seems shoehorned here as a bedtime story.
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