Quote: zooo @ September 20 2012, 11:57 AM BST

Well, evidently a lot of people thought it was the best!

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After watching the Christmas dinner special 47 times . . (as I remarked a while ago)
 

These endless repeats of the same programmes in rotation infinitum is just so bloody mind numbing. There surely must be some kind of law of diminishing returns that will one day cause some spark of originallity in their programming.
 

One would have hoped so but they still get good viewing figures, and have become LESS varied in their programming even in my own relatively recent memory of the channel. Find a typical schedule from the early 1990s though and you could weep at the loss we face today.
 

I remember when UK Gold, Granada Plus and the original British comedy channel started. UK Gold used to have a golden retriever for a symbol and showed some really interesting and unusual BBC stuff, both in comedy and drama. Granada Plus did the same for ITV output. The comedy channel was wall to wall classics like 'The Goodies', 'Porridge' etc. They slowly either were closed down or were mutated into the kind of derivative rubbish we see today.
 

Long before that, Gold had molten gold being poured into a mould for a bar with 'GOLD' embossed on the top. Those were the days. Don't recall this other comedy channel you mention though - unless you mean Paramount?
 

No not Paramount, it was on the first satellite service before Sky took over. It was the best, though at the time very few people had it. I t might of even been to do with the old squarial. I'm sure the cartoon retriever came before the gold bar, but I might be wrong, the mind isn't what it was.
 

Unless they revived it, the Labrador (more likely a Golden Retriever?) didn't come until the late 90s or early 2000s.

Ah, yes, looks like there was an earlier version, although I'm pretty sure this logo is a little later than the gold bar idents I'm thinking of.


 

Yea it wasn't as defined or well drawn as that one, but I remember it was a cartoon dog that chased a ball or something


For the first few years, idents on UK Gold featured an animated golden retriever mascot named "Goldie" posing with the UK Gold logo.

This according to wikipedia


And as a matter of interest,

The Comedy Channel was a short-lived United Kingdom subscription television channel during the early 1990s.

The channel launched soon after the merger of Sky Television plc and British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB). The merged company, British Sky Broadcasting, brought together comedy programming from its existing libraries - Sky having an archive of US imports including Three's Company, I Love Lucy, Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies and Seinfeld, and BSB having obtained rights to a number of BBC sitcoms such as Dad's Army and The Goodies.
 

Those were the days, eh? Till Death Us Do Part up alongside Father, Dear Father, Shelley and Happy Ever After.

Quote: Pingl @ September 20 2012, 2:37 PM BST

This according to Wikipedia


And as a matter of interest,

The Comedy Channel was a short-lived United Kingdom subscription television channel during the early 1990s.

The channel launched soon after the merger of Sky Television plc and British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB). The merged company, British Sky Broadcasting, brought together comedy programming from its existing libraries - Sky having an archive of US imports including Three's Company, I Love Lucy, Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies and Seinfeld, and BSB having obtained rights to a number of BBC sitcoms such as Dad's Army and The Goodies.

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God, I remember that logo now. Yeah... Imagine, a proper repeat of The Goodies! Wonder if they got through the whole lot in less than a year?
 

I know I wish I'd videoed some of them now, but at the time I thought there would be an avalanche of such channels. How wrong can you be.
 

Quote: Aaron @ September 20 2012, 1:43 PM BST

That is exactly what happens. The public are stupid and have short memories. These polls are just entertainment clip shows.

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A friend of mine said to me that in such "Best...ever" polls, for example: popstars, you shouldn't give the audience the right to choose whatever they want otherwise you have all the candidates of the latest casting show in the top ten and the whole thing is worth a crap. The should choose from a given list with real musicians from throughout the whole history of rock music. But even then I'd say they have the tendency to vote for the more recent ones.

But as Aaron says, these polls are pure entertainment clipshows. If you would do it the "right way" only comedy (or music) snobs would vote and the majority (i.e. morons) wouldn't give a monkey's toss.
 

We have three channels here that run pretty much nothing but old situation comedies -- DejaVu, Comedy Gold and TVTropolis -- and more than a few that have old situation comedies in their line-up. Two -- Vision and PBS -- routinely run old and not-so-old British sitcoms but the rest are American.

Sadly, BBC Canada is mostly home renovation/home buying shows and many repeats of Top Gear. That said, there are usually a couple of dramas a week and the odd sitcom.

All of which is to say that for those of us without access to your "gold" channels or the BBC or other channels for that matter, these "best" lists are a pretty important pointer to help us decide what we'd like to acquire on DVD. I suspect it's more likely to omit shows that would be worth seeing than include the truly dreadful.

I do agree that public "best" polls seem to work better when the universe of choices is pre-selected.

The question becomes who designs the universe?

Quote: Gordon Bennett @ September 20 2012, 2:58 PM BST

A friend of mine said to me that in such "Best...ever" polls, for example: popstars, you shouldn't give the audience the right to choose whatever they want otherwise you have all the candidates of the latest casting show in the top ten and the whole thing is worth a crap. The should choose from a given list with real musicians from throughout the whole history of rock music. But even then I'd say they have the tendency to vote for the more recent ones.

But as Aaron says, these polls are pure entertainment clipshows. If you would do it the "right way" only comedy (or music) snobs would vote and the majority (i.e. morons) wouldn't give a monkey's toss.

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Problem is then who chooses who is going to be on the panel that chooses the list for them to choose from?
 

Quote: Oldrocker @ September 20 2012, 9:01 PM BST

Problem is then who chooses who is going to be on the panel that chooses the list for them to choose from?

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This would never stop...

Quote: Rose2010 @ September 20 2012, 3:29 PM BST

these "best" lists are a pretty important pointer to help us decide what we'd like to acquire on DVD.

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Thank God we don't have to rely solely on such crappy polls. That's what we have such specialist sites like this one here for.
 

Quote: Nick @ September 20 2012, 10:01 AM BST

I wasn't necessarily talking about the BBC's attitude towards the show. I just feel, as mentioned earlier, that all of those terrible Frank Spencer impressions have led to the show not being quite as respected and liked now as it might have been. It being ranked 22 on the Britain's Best Sitcom list being an example of that.

Obviously that still isn't a bad ranking but lower than I think it might have been for such an iconic show.

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Yeah it is a shame the show's been such a big easy target for low grade impressionists, and maybe it lost some credibility from it. Still, 22's a fair ranking considering the low ranking other big shows got. Although like you, I think it's a natural top ten Britcom contender.

To avoid going off topic I'll say a quick word on the SMDAE thread.