One of the joys of researching The Young Ones and flash frames is scouring through people’s old tapes. And sometimes, you find something just too good not to share. Last time, it was an ad-break from a 1984 episode of Spitting Image.
This time? A three minute trail shown in April 2001 on UK Gold, just after a showing of the Young Ones episode “Cash”.
I can’t in all honesty say that “To the Moon and Back” is one of my favourite songs.1 But it works in the context of the above trail, which is really rather wonderfully put together. The mix at 0:47 is particularly effective.
It’s also a reminder that the television of the late 90s/early 00s really does have a distinctive look about it now, entirely distinct from how TV looks today. A certain kind of film stock and transfer, with of course our obligatory 14:9 letterbox.
Anyway, I thought it was something worth sharing, from a time when UK Gold had some absolutely spectacular trails. I really do love it when a channel goes all out and uses virtually the entire length of a song to do something fun, rather than always chopping it down to 30 seconds. It occasionally happens today. But nowhere near enough.
Although maybe I just love that trail purely with my professional, TV channel director hat on. Seriously, do you know how useful three minute trails are, when a live programme finishes unexpectedly early? It can help get you out of a whole world of shit, believe me.
With many thanks to Dan Tootill for digging out this recording. Dirty Feed relies on many people providing access to their old off-airs for research, and I’m absurdly grateful.
I did have a Savage Garden phase c. 1998, and believe it or not, that is not a euphemism. I wanted to make it look like I had cool music to listen to when I was feeling down. There are at least three things wrong with that sentence, and I have no justification for any of them. ↩