h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The TV Listings of 30 years ago today, Tuesday 25 Sep, 1979.

What would you have watched?

BBC1
3.55 Play School
4.20 Champion the Wonder Horse
4.45 Buford Files and Dinky Dog
5.05 John Craven's Newsround
5.15 Stopwatch
5.40 News
5.55 Nationwide
6.45 Rolf Harris Introduces (London, Scotland), or "Hello Sunshine" (NI), "No Loud Talking after Eleven" (East), "Know Your Place" (Midlands), "What am I Bid?" (North), "North at War" (NE), "North-West at War" (NW), "Out to Win" (South), "In Praise of Cider" (SW), "The Rectangular Picture Machine" (West)
7.15 It's A Knockout: North Walsham compete in Yugoslavia
8.30 Last of the Summer Wine
9.00 News
9.25 Prince Regent (starring Peter Egan)
10.20 The Bear Next Door (Series on Russia's neighbours - this week: Romania)
10.50 Question Time (Robin Day, with Teddy Taylor, Michael Foot, Edna O'Brien and Derek Warlock)
11.50 Weather, then closedown

BBC2
6.55 News
7.05 Film - Whisky Galore
8.25 Jacqueline du Pre Masterclass
9.00 Rhoda
9.25 Man Alive (Desmond Wilcox debates the role of the police)
10.15 Rugby League Special
10.45 Old Grey Whistle Test (Annie Nightingale)
11.20 News
11.35 Closedown (Hugh Miller reads The Unfortunate Miller by A.E.Coppard)

ITV:

The entire network was blacked out due to a strike by the technicians' unions!

I'd have been watching

It's a Knockout

Rhoda

Probably Prince Regent or whatever would normally have been on ITV

OGWT


That's not a bad nights viewing for a Tuesday night and no soaps

ITV has less dross than usual, too

Oh, I would never have missed Its a Knockout. I wish they'd bring that back. 'Total Wipeout' is the modern version, I suppose.

Yeah and not nearly as funny when you get over the people hitting the big balls and falling with style.

It's a Knockout has to be relatively cheap tv - I think the Royals killed it off for good.

Oh, it had been off the air for a while before then. It was too expensive, I understood - the European ones, particularly.

Well what I remember of the original it just needed a lot of water, some oversized costumes, plastic footballs and a big field with an ob unit. Frank Bruno and the likes weren't compulsory to read the scores out loud.

Maybe the insurance made costs prohibitive Health & Safety have a lot to answer for - anyhow how can it be more expensive than shipping a load of people out to Argentina for Wipe Out?

I enjoyed it when GB hosted the international one. I can still hear Eddie Waring trying to pronounce 'Fil Rouge' in his broad Halifax.

Eddie Waring and Stuart Hall are my enduring memory of It's a Knockout - and of course almost wetting myself laughing at it - it was just too funny. I admit to loving the local rivalries when it was out and about.

They really should bring it back.

Oh, and the stereotypes on the international version.

The Germans took it far too seriously (and always won).

The Italians didn't care at all (and always lost).

The British would lead until the last round when they played their joker and scored zero points (doubled up to zero points) after some sponge-throwing Germans had knocked them off the greasy pole.

How funny was that ..... they showed repeats on Challenge for a while there on Sunday Mornings, I watched them with the kid and they were every bit as entertaining as I remembered them.

Genaro and Guido - the international umpires (both Swiss?). Just remembered them!

Genaro was the big one - a real diplomat, always smiling and trying to explain the rules in detail (in every language).

Guido was nothing short of a European football referee - an officious little guy with a notebook. He always took delight in disqualifying a country if they got lost on the course, or had a costume malfunction. I suspect he had a bad War record.