6 most cringeworthy '80s TV moments - from Paul Daniels to raging John McEnroe
Entertainment in the 1980s amounted to four TV channels and a game of Twister.
So tens of millions would sit watching Wogan, 3-2-1, Taggart and The Paul Daniels Magic Show. With such massive audiences, TV stars were like gods… most of the time.
A two-hour Channel 5 special, When 80s TV Goes Horribly Wrong, features stars of the decade including Green Goddess Diana Moran, Dynasty’s Stephanie Beacham, Hi-de-Hi!’s Su Pollard and The Lovely Debbie McGee. Former EastEnder Anita Dobson introduces clips including these cringeworthy moments...
Was he dead? Find out next week!The Paul Daniels Halloween Show
It's 1987 and the nation’s favourite magician is asked to front a BBC Halloween special. What could go wrong?
Not a lot? Maybe quite a lot. His widow and assistant, Debbie McGee, says: “Most of our shows were recorded with a live audience, but from time to time we did outside specials, live."
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The Halloween Special “was all set in a castle”, she explains. “We were saying what could we do to make it a bit different? He hated bland TV [and said] ‘I can escape from an iron maiden’.”
Paul would make his escape just before the torture chamber’s 110 metal spikes snapped shut and impaled him. It was fitted with a cover like an extra door that shielded him from view. “This is very dangerous,” he told the watching millions. “I have to warn you this can go wrong.” Debbie says: “In that studio, I can’t tell you what the tension was like.
“Through rehearsal week he did it like a normal illusion, which it wasn’t because it weighed three-and-a-half tonnes. This was a dangerous trick, probably the most dangerous we ever did.” Paul was bound by a locked neck clasp and manacles. “They then set off a ball bearing thing to count time down,” says Debbie. “He didn’t come out.” Instead viewers saw his foot frantically kicking a hole in the door. The Iron Maiden’s jaws clanged shut! The screen faded to black.
“I don’t know how the camera men held on to their cameras,” says Debbie. “The switchboards were jammed.”
Was he dead? Course not.. “He had recorded a trailer to go out later in the evening to say ‘I’m OK and watch us next week’,” says Debbie. “I have to say, Paul loved it. “No one was talking about any other show for at least a week.”
Chomp: Tugger and DesThe Des O'Connor Show
As the host of a primetime chat show, it goes without saying you want the hottest West End star of the age to join you. So how far will you go to persuade Elaine Paige to do it?
For Des the answer was, babysit her new puppy, Tugger, which she refused to leave at home. As he gave a piece to camera introducing Elaine and holding the white fluffball terrier, Tugger decided to lunge for his nose. Chomp!
True pro that he was, Des, who died in 2020, never missed a beat and quipped: “Everyone’s a critic!” RIP a telly legend.
HRH: Margaret on A Question of Sport (BBC)A Question of Sport
He was a team captain on the wildly popular BBC quiz show. So former Liverpool and England footballer Emlyn Hughes must have dreamt a knighthood was in the bag.
That, mind you, was before a seemingly run-of-the-mill picture round in which he had to guess the sports star flashed on screen, face liberally smeared with mud. “John Reid, the jockey,” said Emlyn. Try Anne, the HRH instead…
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His excruciating discomfort only increased when said royal joined his team on a future episode, above, looking every inch the princess she is and not at all like the horseman Emlyn had mistaken her for.
Showdown: Cartland vs. Collins (Daily Mirror)Wogan
What a great idea – get two of the 1980s’ most popular novelists on to the Wogan sofa at the same time! One was Jackie Collins, queen of the bonkbuster and of famously filthy mind. The other, Dame Barbara Cartland, arch-romantic who specialises in virgins.
What a show! What a showdown, more like. “We’ve got to do something about the whole country, you know we have!” Dame Barbara announced to twinkly Tel. “We’ve got to get away from this awful, terrible – it’s evil really…”
“What?” interjected Jackie. “The books that you write, quite frankly!” the dame replied. “Don’t you think it has helped the perverts?”
“If there is a pervert watching me, I didn’t do it intentionally!” Jackie said.
Chris Tarrant reports from the beaches of BritainTV-Am
The dawn of breakfast TV in the 80s brought the nation news with its cornflakes and a whole lot of sexism too…
Take TV-am. “I loved the relaxed way we covered the whole of current affairs, really,” says presenter, Nick Owen. “And one of the great successes of the first summer of TV-am was having Chris Tarrant on the beaches around Britain.”
But they were different times as Chris fronted a live broadcast of the Sussex heat of Miss Lovely Legs Great Britain. And suddenly, “some random bloke appears,” says Nick. “He just sits between them. And the last thing Chris remembers was the bloke being led off in a police car.”
Bucks fizz: Brandreth and BakerBut that was nothing compared to the Guinness Book of Records attempt by Gyles Brandreth. His tad unwilling accomplice was Cheryl Baker of Bucks Fizz. And the record was for the longest-held screen kiss. “To be honest, it was not an easy watch,” Nick says.
As he fondled Cheryl’s hair mid-kiss, a horrified nation’s toes curled. And as Cheryl was finally freed after a hideous three minutes and 30 seconds, the country sagged in relief. “It was excruciating”, Nick shudders. “I think paramedics and oxygen were on standby.” For the viewers at home?
Meltdown: UK vs USA reporters at WimbledonWimbledon
Any appearance by bad boy tennis superstar, John McEnroe, was unpredictable. Would he berate the umpire? Beat the heck out of the grass with his racket?
Or start a bunch of reporters beating the heck out of each other? Incredibly, this is what happened at a Wimbledon press conference when one of the British press pack lobbed in a question about McEnroe’s then-girlfriend, fellow tennis pro Stacy Margolin.
The impudent quizzing had McEnroe storming out of the press conference. This enraged the more tennis-focused American reporters, who turned on the Brits.
Soon, decades of the US/UK “Special Relationship” were out the window as finger-pointing became wrestling became all-out melee, all caught on camera. Love all? Not a chance.
- When 80s TV Goes Horribly Wrong, tonight, Channel 5, 10pm.
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