So, last week I wrote about a little mystery: How did ITV cope with Children's ITV lasting seven and a half minutes longer than usual on 16 April 1991, owing to a transmission error the previous week stopping them from finishing broadcast of episode 3 of The Diamond Brothers: South By South East? And looking at the TV listings for episode 1, and then episode 3, seemed like it had the answer:
Comparing those two, I came to a conclusion that, in my defence, wasn't entirely unreasonable: ITV just scrapped the cartoon at 5pm to account for the extra running time.
But then Steve Williams, who provided the Radio Times listing for episode 1 seen above back in December 2017, got in touch with a startling recollection: In early 1991, the outbreak of the Gulf War often led to extended editions of the ITV News, which meant Children's ITV ended at 5pm to account for that. After that, they kept a Merrie Melody at 5pm for a while, as filler which could easily be scrapped in the event of the news needing to run long again. And he also provided the Radio Times listings for the second and fourth episodes, which include a lovely new publicity picture we've not seen before as a photograph, but was clearly the basis for the series' promotional poster:
The Radio Times 16 April listing, if you compare it to the one taken from The Independent listed above, must have been published before the listings were revised, and comparing the two clearly shows what actually happened: ITV scrapped The Wombles (which I'd presumed had been replaced by Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes before), bumping everything before SBSE on the CITV schedule back five minutes, and there was never a Merrie Melody scheduled for 16 April in the first place.
Just to make sure, though, I decided to check the original listings for the other episodes, and Stuart Ian Burns, who provided the Independent listing for the 16th, came to my rescue again. Here, then, is what was meant to happen on the 9th April, but didn't due to the transmission error:
The 23rd, and episode 5:
And finally, the series draws to a close on the 30th:
The use of the Merrie Melody as a time-filler stops in the week of episode 2. Perhaps not coincidentally, that was the same week as CITV relaunched with new presenters (with Tommy Boyd taking over from Jeanne Downs), so they might have taken the opportunity to get rid of what was only intended as a stopgap in case they were cut short -- if only they'd done it a week earlier!
With thanks again to Steve Williams and Stuart Ian Burns
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