Gordon's Alive

A few years ago I wrote about obscure and unarchived ephemera related to The Brittas Empire, including the series of 10-minute fitness-related shorts Get Fit with Brittas -- a significant part of the show's history that were not on DVD, or indeed anywhere else. So it seems worth flagging up that the fourth episode, Gordon Works It Out, has just resurfaced on YouTube. (EDIT: I've just noticed the same episode was also uploaded to YouTube two months earlier, as part of a longer video which also includes a trailer for the rest of the series at the end.)

The most notable thing is that this episode was written by Ian Davidson & Peter Vincent, who were part of the team of writers brought in to write the last two series after creators Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen departed. I was a little surprised when their names flashed up at the end, since it really doesn't feel much like even the post-Norriss/Fegen version of the show, but maybe that's just the oddity of a sitcom meeting a legitimate attempt to educate the public about healthy living, which this apparently was. There's a very strange, un-Brittas title sequence, too.

Also note the joke at 3:51, and that this episode was broadcast on BBC One on the 8th of August, 1997...

Vraag Gewoon om Diamant

Last time on my quest for the missing 1991 Diamond Brothers TV series, I mentioned I had some information I'd been sent by Giles Leigh about the show's broadcast in the Netherlands. Bearing in mind I already knew the show was a co-production with a Dutch film company, perhaps this is something I should've thought to look into myself before now. But anyway, since that last post was already earth-shattering enough, I decided to leave what Giles had sent me for another day and another post to avoid it all being a bit too much. And here we are.

29 on 4

At some point this autumn, Channel 4 will begin airing a new-to-terrestrial season of The Simpsons, first screened in the UK by Sky One around four years ago; the eighteenth season of the show they've premiered, and, in all probability, the fourteenth consecutive season to make its debut in the tried-and-true weekdays at 6pm timeslot. Based on the last few years' form, this will probably start early in November, but it could start at any point from September so it's good to get this in now: for the third year running, the blog's guide to potential censorship cuts for those watching along. As ever, keep an eye on Wesley Mead's UK schedules page to find out exactly when.

Before we get started, a general note: When these episodes were first aired by Sky One between December 2017 and May 2018, they were shown in a new, later-than-usual regular timeslot of 8pm on Fridays, which has stuck for every season since. This means that Sky's original broadcasts of these episodes were, with one notable exception, completely uncut, even the Treehouse of Horror; I cannot say the same for any repeats they made in earlier timeslots.