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This is a story about
a television title sequence,
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00:00:02.931 --> 00:00:05.448
and about me,
as a child watching it.
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00:00:05.448 --> 00:00:08.294
It's also a warning about
how YouTube won't last forever,
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00:00:08.294 --> 00:00:11.607
and it's the reason
I'm climbing this particular hill.
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00:00:15.493 --> 00:00:18.405
It'll Be Alright on the Night
was an outtakes show.
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00:00:18.405 --> 00:00:21.823
It compiled mistakes, technical errors,
and flubs from television and film...
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00:00:21.823 --> 00:00:25.162
what its presenter and writer,
Denis Norden, termed "cockups".
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00:00:25.162 --> 00:00:29.225
When the first episode aired in 1977,
it was the only television show anywhere
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that was dedicated to showing clips
that the public weren't meant to see.
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00:00:32.360 --> 00:00:35.454
The show's formula was simple:
compilations of cockups
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00:00:35.454 --> 00:00:39.380
presented by Denis Norden, clipboard in hand,
to a live studio audience.
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00:00:39.380 --> 00:00:41.955
He'd add some wry comments
around each set of outtakes,
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00:00:41.955 --> 00:00:44.380
his delivery slow and measured and droll.
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00:00:44.380 --> 00:00:48.973
He chose the clips and wrote the script himself —
he'd been an accomplished comedy writer for decades.
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00:00:48.973 --> 00:00:52.566
In that first show, he has to explain
the concept of the outtake,
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00:00:52.566 --> 00:00:55.779
of how they've picked up the no-good — NG — takes
off the cutting room floor,
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00:00:55.779 --> 00:00:57.910
either literally or metaphorically.
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00:00:57.910 --> 00:01:02.549
And it's around some of the choicer
of these NG takes we've found
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00:01:02.549 --> 00:01:05.741
that this programme has been nailed together.
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00:01:05.741 --> 00:01:10.091
In truth, those clips had been quietly circulating
among film and television technicians for a while:
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they'd save the best ones and compile them together
to show at the office Christmas party.
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00:01:13.832 --> 00:01:17.400
Occasionally, a comedy show might put
its own outtakes in somewhere,
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00:01:17.400 --> 00:01:20.415
but the idea of compiling them together
as a show in itself
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and displaying other people's mistakes
to the public: well, that was new.
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In that first 1977 show, even the simplest,
most basic mistakes get a laugh,
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partly because they're being shown
to a warmed-up live audience,
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but partly because things like that
had not been seen by the public before.
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And I know that's weird from a 21st-century perspective,
but seeing a film actor forget their lines was novel.
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Now, that was a one-off programme,
so it had a one-off title sequence.
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00:01:45.799 --> 00:01:47.652
And those titles are slow by modern standards.
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It's literally just someone using
dry transfer letters to create the title,
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and making obvious pre-planned mistakes.
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It's more than a minute long.
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But it gets a couple of laughs,
it sets the tone,
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00:01:57.080 --> 00:02:00.890
and it's exactly the sort of thing you'd expect
for a show of that era and that budget.
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Alright On The Night was an obvious success.
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00:02:03.765 --> 00:02:06.122
But there weren't enough available outtakes
to make it a regular thing.
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It returned for a second edition
two years later,
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concentrating more on mistakes from film,
with a title sequence built as a fake movie trailer.
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00:02:13.092 --> 00:02:16.989
And the third edition, 1981, had to focus
a lot on American outtakes,
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00:02:16.989 --> 00:02:19.580
partly because the UK had started
to run out of material,
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but partly because America
now had a similar show,
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00:02:22.122 --> 00:02:25.427
and the two countries' productions
were sharing tapes across the Atlantic.
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00:02:25.427 --> 00:02:29.636
You can see the UK team set the audience's
expectations in their title sequence.
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And it's, again, a pretty standard set of titles
for a one-off show: some commissioned animation.
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But as the '80s went on, Alright On The Night
became more and more popular.
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When a new show aired, which was only
every two years or so, it was event television.
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There was even one late-night, more-adult edition
on the new, edgy Channel 4,
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and one sports edition called It'll Be Alright on the Day1,
which as far as I can tell is entirely lost to history.
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Now, the only source that I have for ratings is Wikipedia,
which doesn't have its sources cited.
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I don't have any explicit reason
to doubt those numbers,
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but also, I can absolutely imagine some jerk
emailing me after this video
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00:03:02.612 --> 00:03:06.476
gloating that I believed the fake viewing figures
they hilariously added years ago.
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But, the numbers do seem reasonable,
so assuming they're true:
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by the late '80s, the show was pulling in
17 million viewers.
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That means about a third of the entire
British population were tuned in.
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After all, there were only four television channels.
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By the early 90s,
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Alright On The Night was an institution
on ITV, the main commercial network.
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Their publicly-funded rivals at the BBC
launched a competing show,
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00:03:28.749 --> 00:03:30.944
raiding their own archives
and Christmas tapes,
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00:03:30.944 --> 00:03:33.736
but they were always playing second fiddle.
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00:03:33.736 --> 00:03:38.742
Alright On The Night was a show that belonged to
that massively centralised era of television.
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Big, monolithic studio complexes
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where half a dozen shows might be
recorded at the same time:
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a comedy in one studio, a drama next door,
light entertainment just down the hall.
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And each studio complex would have
a central VT Department — VT for "video tape".
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Back then, television cameras didn't do
the actual recording to tape themselves,
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they just sent live signals
down the cables to VT,
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who were usually stuck in a windowless
basement room with big specialised equipment.
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So the folks in VT would do
the actual recording,
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and they'd see pretty much
everything that was going on.
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And by the '90s, those VT engineers,
and the editors putting the footage together:
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00:04:10.973 --> 00:04:13.715
oh, they all knew about the outtake shows.
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So if an actor slipped up and
happened to make the folks in VT laugh,
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it wasn't just "huh, maybe that clip'll end up
in the Christmas tape".
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It was, to quote actor Rik Mayall...
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...which is a great line,
well delivered,
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but also not quite as improvised as it seems.
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He said that several different ways
over the years after various slipups,
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because it could reliably get a laugh
from a British audience.
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Alright on the Night
was part of British culture.
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And as it went on through the '90s,
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the title sequences were always
specially-commissioned,
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because they had to be.
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Each show was numbered,
and that number would often appear
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throughout the show's artwork
or as part of the set design.
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The budget did seem to
stretch and shift a bit:
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Sometimes there would be an
elaborate animated title sequence
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and a live studio audience very clearly in shot.
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Sometimes there'd just be
a quick bit of computer graphics
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and no audience actually visible.
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I'm not saying they used canned laughter.
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I don't have access to the paperwork
and records that'd prove it either way,
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but I am saying that for
studio entertainment shows,
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TV directors very much like to show off
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and prove there's a live audience...
if they can.
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But, the show had settled down,
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as much as a show can settle down when it
only has a new episode every two or three years.
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It finally got a consistent theme tune.
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Instead of a different stock library piece every time,
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it became a specially-composed, saxophone-heavy
and very, very '90s bit of music.
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And that's where you'd expect the show to stay.
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Title sequence, regular theme tune,
studio section, outtakes.
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You'd expect it to become a stock-standard show
with stock-standard production.
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Yes, it's popular. Yes, it takes
a lot of research and clearance —
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particularly because the show not only
needed permission to show clips,
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but also paid a fee to the performers
as thank-you.
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But it's a regular studio show,
in a routine.
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You'd expect the titles and production
to be... just okay, fine.
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But they're a lot more than that:
as the show goes through the 90s,
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you start to see some really clever bits
of compositing and technical work.
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Look at this transition from the titles of
the seventh edition, January '93:
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Completely CG introduction, there's a red circle,
the film reel morphing into a number seven.
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All CG, completely CG text over it.
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But seamlessly, it becomes
a live camera shot of the actual studio set.
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Now, if you look closely,
you can see there's a fade just there,
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they've used a looped few seconds of footage,
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but I have gone frame-by-frame
through that title,
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and I am not certain where
the transition from CG to real set is.
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It's brilliant work.
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And importantly, it meant
there was probably coordination
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between the title designers and the set designers
and the director and the camera team.
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That'll be a huge amount of effort
for a production team nowadays,
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let alone one using tech from
nearly 30 years ago.
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They didn't have to do that.
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No-one was going to think
less of the show
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if they'd just had a regular title sequence
and then cut to the set.
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Who does that? Who bothers to do
that much for a clip show of outtakes?
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Well, some people who are clearly
very dedicated to their craft.
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It's similar with the eighth edition:
it's not quite as smooth,
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but there's still a nice transition between titles
and set and live studio audience.
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All of which sets the stage for the single greatest
title sequence I have ever seen.
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I'm going to play it out in full,
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because I think the amount of
criticism and review that I'm about to do
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covers me for both US fair use
and the more strict UK fair dealing,
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but also because this deserves
to be seen in full.
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As a kid, watching this,
this was the first time that I can remember
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noticing the craft that went into making television,
and genuinely wondering...
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wait, how was that done?
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'Cause I couldn't go back and watch it again.
This was linear television.
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There was no pause or rewind unless
for some reason you'd bothered to tape it.
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Officially, the next show
was not "the ninth edition".
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There's no show number 9.
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Instead, they went to film on location,
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and they called the show
It'll Be Alright On The Night's Cockup Trip.
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♪♪ [theme music begins]
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[applause]
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[music and applause end]
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Hello, from a hill in Cumbria
called Great Cockup.
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So. You may be asking,
what's so impressive about that?
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Well...
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First, we're coming in from a clip
in which a skier knocks over a camera
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and sends it rolling anti-clockwise.
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So we fade to a camera shot
that's also rolling anti-clockwise,
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which then lines up perfectly.
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Then the laser effect.
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Not tricky for a video artist in the 90s,
sure, but look:
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someone masked out the leaves
on that plant frame-by-frame,
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and someone's off-camera
making them move and react
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so it seems like the laser is
physically there, affecting things.
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00:09:01.450 --> 00:09:04.257
Those leaves cast shadows
on the rest of the scene.
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This isn't just layers of photos composited,
it's real physical stuff.
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See the compass up at the top?
It swings wildly when the laser hits.
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It looks like it's affected by it.
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Completely unnecessary, no-one would have noticed
if that compass stayed still.
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It's not like the audience would have gone:
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"That's wrong, I thought compasses
reacted to nearby magical laser beams!"
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But still, they bothered to make that happen.
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And then, the map unfolds.
Okay, it's probably just some hidden wires,
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but anyone who's ever tried to fold and unfold
one of those massive Ordnance Survey maps
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knows what a pain in the ass that can be,
but they've rigged it to be smooth.
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And the map just clips the leaves as it opens,
proving that it's done for real.
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While that's happening, we get
this perfectly eased, smooth camera move,
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including what must be a focus pull,
to exactly the right point on the map.
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Second laser beam, more digital art,
which isn't too tricky,
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except it paints out
the contours on the map.
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00:09:54.151 --> 00:09:57.749
Then, 3D animation.
Maybe a bit tricky, but this is 1996.
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00:09:57.749 --> 00:10:01.454
Sci-fi shows like Babylon 5
were already doing full space battles in CG.
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00:10:01.454 --> 00:10:04.052
Moving some contour lines around
is a pretty standard job.
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00:10:04.052 --> 00:10:07.064
The flying-in text is very '90s,
but again, standard.
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00:10:07.064 --> 00:10:10.157
But then... it's a helicopter shot!
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00:10:10.157 --> 00:10:12.000
They hired a helicopter.
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00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:14.550
Actually, they hired Castle Air
and pilot Michael Malric-Smith,
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00:10:14.550 --> 00:10:17.597
who were well established as the go-to team
for aerial filming in the UK.
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00:10:17.597 --> 00:10:19.535
And given there are no crew
around Denis Norden,
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they must have taken him by helicopter
to the top of the hill, then flown away,
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and then flown back in for that shot
however many times they needed to get it right.
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And what a shot!
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00:10:27.352 --> 00:10:29.725
They hold on it for long enough that
they have to extend the theme tune,
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00:10:29.725 --> 00:10:30.827
keep the drum loop going.
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00:10:30.827 --> 00:10:33.603
And with the blue overlay at the top
and the changed speed of the footage,
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00:10:33.603 --> 00:10:36.000
it almost looks computer-generated.
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00:10:36.745 --> 00:10:39.512
They could have just hired an animator
for some regular titles
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00:10:39.512 --> 00:10:41.330
and filmed in a studio,
same as usual.
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00:10:41.330 --> 00:10:44.978
Or if they wanted an excuse to have a buzz around
in a helicopter on someone else's budget,
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00:10:44.978 --> 00:10:48.147
they could have just used the single helicopter shot
and put some text over it.
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00:10:48.147 --> 00:10:49.656
But they didn't.
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00:10:49.656 --> 00:10:54.000
They used elaborate props and CG,
and they bothered to make a compass spin.
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Everything in that title sequence is so far
above and beyond the standards of the day.
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00:10:58.344 --> 00:11:01.937
Yes, a few other shows had impressive,
painstakingly-made titles,
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00:11:01.937 --> 00:11:04.402
but not for a one-off clip show.
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I have a vivid memory of
watching that as a kid.
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I didn't notice any of those fine details,
of course I didn't,
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00:11:09.446 --> 00:11:11.759
but I remember being impressed
by the whole thing.
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00:11:11.759 --> 00:11:15.657
And I think it's then that I really started
to understand for the first time
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00:11:15.657 --> 00:11:19.123
that there are whole teams of people
who make the shows that we watch;
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00:11:19.123 --> 00:11:22.445
that the way they do their job can be impressive,
they can go above and beyond;
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00:11:22.445 --> 00:11:25.766
and that... well,
maybe I could do that too one day.
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00:11:25.766 --> 00:11:30.540
And I reckon that that show was the peak,
the decadent height of old-school TV.
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00:11:30.540 --> 00:11:32.401
When the Cockup Trip was aired in '96,
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00:11:32.401 --> 00:11:35.267
very few people questioned
the dominance of television,
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00:11:35.267 --> 00:11:38.835
and the standard big broadcaster model
that had been stable for decades.
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00:11:38.835 --> 00:11:41.778
It was all about to change,
but right then,
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00:11:41.778 --> 00:11:44.977
even a clip show could spend money on
elaborate titles and helicopters,
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00:11:44.977 --> 00:11:48.161
because with more than
ten million people watching,
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00:11:48.161 --> 00:11:50.979
they would still make a lot of profit
from advertising.
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As for how that all fell apart?
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Well… I'll tell you after the break.
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The future might have seemed bright
for television in 1996,
221
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but the first signs of the changes to come
were already there,
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if you knew where to look.
223
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Cable and satellite TV were starting
to reach the mass market,
224
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and there were a few more channels
available to a few people.
225
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And this new thing called the World Wide Web
was starting to get some attention,
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even though so far it was mostly
just a toy for a few nerds.
227
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But unless you were in the media industry
and really forward-thinking,
228
00:12:23.808 --> 00:12:26.936
television and the big broadcasters
were the kings.
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00:12:26.936 --> 00:12:31.135
And to the public, it certainly looked like
there weren't any pretenders to the throne.
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In the ten years that followed:
Big Brother kicked off reality TV,
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hundreds of channels of digital television launched,
broadband internet rolled out,
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almost everyone bought a mobile phone,
Facebook and Twitter launched,
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00:12:41.057 --> 00:12:43.429
video editing on home computers
became possible,
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00:12:43.429 --> 00:12:48.000
and the first clips were uploaded
to a small website called YouTube.
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The years from 1996 to 2006
were the fastest acceleration
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that the media industry had ever seen.
237
00:12:54.755 --> 00:12:57.097
And you can see that change
in Alright on the Night.
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00:12:57.097 --> 00:12:59.250
Denis Norden continued presenting
for those ten years,
239
00:12:59.250 --> 00:13:01.822
until poor eyesight eventually
forced him to retire.
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00:13:01.822 --> 00:13:05.384
In the episodes that followed,
the show was still at a high standard, of course,
241
00:13:05.384 --> 00:13:07.834
but the introductions became standard
animated affairs again,
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00:13:07.834 --> 00:13:11.145
and after a brief dalliance with
2D animation and stop-motion,
243
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they went down the same CG route
as every other show.
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00:13:13.987 --> 00:13:17.502
Although fair play, the 21st-anniversary special
was recorded on a yacht...
245
00:13:17.502 --> 00:13:21.259
albeit with a much less impressive set of titles,
no credit for aerial camerawork,
246
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and Denis Norden being suspiciously
not visible in the aerial shots.
247
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Again, I'm not saying they just
went to the seaside, hired a small boat,
248
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and then used stock footage of
a big expensive yacht for the aerials,
249
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but I am saying that directors always
like to show off... if they can.
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Don't ask me.
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00:13:36.568 --> 00:13:39.089
So Denis Norden retired,
but the show continued.
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Griff Rhys Jones took over as presenter,
in much the same style.
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He presented from '08 to '16,
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with the sort of standard CG titles
you'd expect from a regular studio show,
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and shortened, faster title music
with some fiddly bits added.
256
00:13:50.937 --> 00:13:54.193
And even now, in 2020,
the show limps on,
257
00:13:54.193 --> 00:13:56.639
with David Walliams narrating
just as a voiceover.
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00:13:56.639 --> 00:13:58.261
No cameras anymore, no studio.
259
00:13:58.261 --> 00:14:01.361
it's just a compilation clip show,
with regular animated titles,
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00:14:01.361 --> 00:14:04.738
and the music has
even more fiddly bits added.
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♪♪ [theme music coda]
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I'm not meaning to cast aspersions
on the creative teams who've made those titles.
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They're perfectly good titles,
they haven't cut corners.
264
00:14:14.387 --> 00:14:17.981
But they also haven't made
an actual, physical compass needle spin
265
00:14:17.981 --> 00:14:22.553
for no reason other than it'll make the show
look very, very slightly more impressive
266
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for the few people who notice it.
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00:14:23.929 --> 00:14:28.053
No-one's asked them to do that.
And no channel has the money or time for it.
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Because the show's ratings are...
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well, they're going the same way as
everything else on television.
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Don't get me wrong, I don't think
TV's going to die entirely —
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radio's still going, after all.
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I think TV is still going to be an important
part of culture for a long while.
273
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But the days of seventeen million people
watching an outtakes show are long past.
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00:14:46.831 --> 00:14:49.776
Denis Norden died in 2018,
at 96 years old.
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His memoirs include a story about being in
a landing craft in Normandy on D-Day,
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00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:55.686
and also a reference to Google.
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00:14:55.686 --> 00:14:57.139
He wrote of him and his peers:
278
00:14:57.139 --> 00:15:00.992
"We not only lived through the golden age
of so many forms of popular entertainment.
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00:15:00.992 --> 00:15:04.373
"We were present at the birth of many of them,
enjoyed their heyday,
280
00:15:04.373 --> 00:15:06.480
"and we were there
to mourn their passing."
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00:15:07.438 --> 00:15:11.050
I wasn't there for the birth of television, obviously,
but I was there for its heyday, and...
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00:15:11.050 --> 00:15:13.597
Sitting there, as a kid in 1996,
watching the screen,
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00:15:13.597 --> 00:15:17.413
I had no idea how much
everything was about to change.
284
00:15:17.413 --> 00:15:21.036
And we're here now, watching online video
on a phone, or a computer,
285
00:15:21.036 --> 00:15:24.273
or maybe what we still call
the big screen on the wall, the TV.
286
00:15:24.273 --> 00:15:26.550
How long will it be until
the next big change comes along,
287
00:15:26.550 --> 00:15:29.786
and a whole new medium arrives
to outcompete... this?
288
00:15:29.786 --> 00:15:31.666
Because sooner or later,
that will happen.
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00:15:31.666 --> 00:15:34.415
All the people and companies out there,
including me,
290
00:15:34.415 --> 00:15:37.892
everyone who's spending money to make
big, expensive, impressive videos:
291
00:15:37.892 --> 00:15:40.487
Enjoy it, by all means, but...
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00:15:40.487 --> 00:15:44.659
it's worth keeping an eye on the horizon and
planning for whatever might come next.
293
00:15:44.659 --> 00:15:47.290
That's the lesson to take from the Cockup Trip
now as an adult,
294
00:15:47.290 --> 00:15:51.049
but as a kid watching back in '96, well...
295
00:15:51.049 --> 00:15:54.852
First, I learned that anything you say or do on camera
can and will come back to haunt you.
296
00:15:54.852 --> 00:15:57.282
But more than that:
I learned that sometimes,
297
00:15:57.282 --> 00:16:00.352
it's worth doing things for your craft
just because you can.
298
00:16:00.352 --> 00:16:03.133
That sometimes it's worth going above and beyond,
and sweating the small stuff,
299
00:16:03.133 --> 00:16:06.132
because someone else will notice
what you've done.
300
00:16:06.132 --> 00:16:08.456
When I add a little easter egg
in the background of a video;
301
00:16:08.456 --> 00:16:12.929
when I tweak a graphic to fix something that
only a couple of people would ever notice;
302
00:16:12.929 --> 00:16:18.085
or when I go and spend hours in a library
fact-checking and looking up obscure references:
303
00:16:18.085 --> 00:16:21.371
that title sequence is the sort of thing
that inspired me.
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00:16:21.371 --> 00:16:25.275
It taught me that while you don't have to
strive for absolute perfection,
305
00:16:25.275 --> 00:16:28.027
sometimes it's worth taking
a little bit of time and effort
306
00:16:28.027 --> 00:16:30.228
to make something you're really proud of.
322
00:16:30.228 --> 00:16:33.524
I didn't need to travel to the Lake District
to make this video.
308
00:16:33.524 --> 00:16:36.144
I didn't need to climb this hill
called Great Cockup,
309
00:16:36.144 --> 00:16:39.788
or hire a drone operator so I can end this video
the same way as Cockup Trip ended,
310
00:16:39.788 --> 00:16:41.785
with a spectacular final aerial shot.
311
00:16:41.785 --> 00:16:44.899
I didn't need to commission
a saxophone-heavy, very 90s,
312
00:16:44.899 --> 00:16:49.146
but legally-distinct for copyright purposes,
theme tune to end this video on.
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00:16:49.146 --> 00:16:50.444
But I did.
314
00:16:50.444 --> 00:16:53.288
And that's partly because I want to pay tribute
to the folks that came before me.
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00:16:53.288 --> 00:16:55.993
Partly because I want to show off
while I can.
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00:16:55.993 --> 00:16:59.262
And it's partly because,
nearly 25 years ago,
317
00:16:59.262 --> 00:17:02.328
someone bothered to make a compass needle spin.
318
00:17:02.328 --> 00:17:05.117
So, I say this unironically:
319
00:17:05.117 --> 00:17:06.945
Merry Christmas, Denis Norden.
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00:17:06.945 --> 00:17:10.001
♪♪ [legally-distinct theme tune]
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00:17:11.145 --> 00:16:30.228
[Caption+ by JS*
https://caption.plus]
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00:16:30.228 --> 00:16:33.524
I didn't need to travel to the Lake District
to make this video.
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00:17:36.723 --> 00:17:38.095
Outtake!
324
00:17:39.212 --> 00:17:40.845
You okay?
Yeah!
325
00:17:40.845 --> 00:17:42.892
That was —
I'll be honest, I'm —
326
00:17:42.892 --> 00:17:45.465
I'm genuinely annoyed that's not a 360 camera,
and didn't have a back shot.
327
00:17:45.465 --> 00:17:48.383
'Cause that was so graceful!
That was lovely!
328
00:17:48.383 --> 00:17:50.660
You know that's gonna be
the outtake at the end now.