Seasons Greetings one and all! Welcome aboard the Den Of Geek time machine!. It's smaller on the inside, so budge up!

I thought it would be a nice idea this festive season to revisit Christmas Day TV Past. First up is a year of great personal significance to me. I was only four days old when I witnessed my first Christmas. Okay, I barely knew what was going on let alone what Christmas was all about. So, If you'll forgive the self-indulgence (and if you can't indulge yourself at this time of year then when can you?) let's set off.

Hold tight! We are going a long way back!...

CHRISTMAS DAY 1969

In the News: Yassar Arafat's PLO were proving themselves to be a thorn in Israel's side. There was a famine in Biafra and in the US, Senator Edward Kennedy left the scene of an accident at Chappaquiddick. The tragedy was to overshadow his future Presidential plans. The newly elected US President. Richard Nixon was enjoying a honeymoon period, helped in no small part by his association with the recent NASA Moon landing.

In Sport: Swindon Town beat Arsenal to lift the League Cup, while Manchester City got past Leicester to win the FA Cup. John Newcombe and Anne Jones were the successful Wimbledon finalists. Jones went on to become BBC Sports Personality  of 1969. Tony Jacklin was the star of Golf's Open tournament.

Top of the Charts: Rolf Harris was number one in the yuletide charts with Two Little Boys. 1969 had seen many a one-hit wonder top the charts with the likes of The Archies, Thunderclap Newman and Zagger and Evans all spending time at the summit. While The Beatles completed Abbey Road, new stars were emerging with Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull and a young David Bowie all having their debut hits this year.

At the Box Office: James Bond as played by George Lazenby was packing them in at the cinema. On Her Majesty's Secret Service, featuring erstwhile Avengers star Diana Rigg, was the number one film on Boxing Day. The year's films in general had a strong war theme: Where Eagles Dare, The Battle Of Britain and The Virgin Soldiers. By contrast, there was The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, a tour de force performance from Maggie Smith and musicals such as Hello Dolly! and Oliver!, the soon to be archetypal Christmas TV film favourite.

On TV: Christmas Day (Thursday December 25th 1969)
On Saturday November 15th, BBC1 and ITV officially became colour services (BBC2 embraced colour for Wimbledon in June 1967 and never looked back), Just 40 days later came the first festive season "in full colour" to be honest, only if you had a colour set that is! In 1969 most of the country still watched in black and white! BBC1 adopted a new regular ident  which despite featuring the word "colour" was largely seen on screen as light blue and black. Clearly it had cost the BBC quite a bit and consequently they didn't have any money to finance a Christmas ident that year. In fact,  BBC1's first Christmas Ident was a whole five years away...

BBC1 Colour

9am Carol Service
9.30am A Spoonful Of Sugar- from Stoke Mandeville Hospital
10am News
10.05am Tom and Jerry
10.15am The Doctors
10.35am Morning Service
11.45am Rolf Harris live OB from Queen Mary's Hospital
12.30pm Royal Family Documenatry 
2.15pm Top Of The Pops '69 
3.00pm The Queen
3.10pm Billy Smart Circus
4.10pm Disney Time
5.00pm Cinderella Panto
6.30pm News and Christmas Appeal
6.45pm Christmas Night With The Stars 
8.15pm Morecambe and Wise
9.15pm FILM : McLintock
11.15pm Tony Bennett and Count Basie Orchestra c
12.05am This Christmas night, weather

BBC2 Colour

10.15am Play School
10.35am as BBC1
11.45am Kyoto Japanese culture
12.30pm as BBC1
2.15pm Chronicle The Armada
3pm The Royal Ballet
5.25pm News
5.30pm Call My Bluff
6pm The Price of Fame
6.45pm Paladins of Palermo Scillian Puppet Theatre
7.10pm Children Talking
7.20pm Jesus-Through Children Eyes
8.05pm News
8.15pm Birds Eye View: Sir John Betcheman
9.05pm This Colourful Year of Sport
10.25pm Barbara Striesand in Central Park
11.15pm Headlines
11.16pm FILM: The Day They Robbed The Bank of England

ITV Thames Colour

8.15am Carols for Everyone
9.05am Superman
9.30am Cinema Special
10.15am Christmas Morning Service
11.00am A Very Merry Morning
11.30 FILM Moonfleet
1pm Kelvin Hall's Circus
2pm This is... Tom Jones!
3pm FILM: Petticoat Pirates
4.35pm Aladdin - pantomime
5.50pm News
6pm All-Star Comedy Carnival
6.35pm Thundererbirds
7.30pm Benny Hill
8.25pm The Arthur Haynes Show
9.30pm FILM: Robin and the Seven Hoods
10.30pm News
10.40pm FILM: Robin and the Seven Hoods (contInued)
11.45pm Whicker in Europe
12.15am What was Jesus Like?

The main thing that strikes me about these listings (especially for the main channels) is how similar they are. Morecambe and Wise on BBC1 were just at the start of their BBC careers, having signed up in late 1968. Thames' new "golden boy", Benny Hill, had gone the other way having been a BBC fixture for most of the 60s. Arthur Haynes is a now largely forgotten comic. His straightman is still well known today Nicholas Parsons.

Thunderbirds (albeit a repeat) is a welcome addition to the Christmas Day schedule. In the past ITV had put Patrick McGoohan's Dangerman in the same slot.

Over on BBC1, Christmas Night With The Stars was a long established comedy and variety special made up of several short vignettes from all the top talent of the day. Interesting to note in 1969 short sketches were enough to make an impact on Christmas Day, yet by 1989 every major sitcom would be elongated to an unconvincing feature-length seemingly stretching the jokes out too! ITV countered with All-Star Comedy Carnival.

Whilst BBC1 had Billy Smart's Circus,  ITV had a circus with Kelvin Hall. Both channels began the day in very reverential religious style. The late morning slot on both main channels was devoted to a celeb taking cameras to a children's hospital. Rolf Harris (with holly on his specs, no doubt) was BBC1's jester of choice. Leslie "Crackerjack" Crowther did the honours for ITV in A Very Merry Morning. It's often believed this gig led Crowther to his lucaritive association with Stork SB. In the famous ads, Crowther bothered housewives in supermarkets about the choice of butter or margarine...

BBC2, (which at this stage only broadcast after 7pm - much like BBC3 and BBC4 today) would share some BBC1 shows. An intriguing aspect and one reminiscent of the early days of Radio 1 and 2 when the two stations shared "needle time" One such shared programme was Royal Family a high profile documentary made in full colour at great expense by Richard Cawston, which got up close and personal with the Royals. In part this helped to shape the Queen's reputation as being very open about the way she ruled the country.

And in Radio Times...
1969 saw the first of the now legendary Christmas Double Issues. The cover is a strange mix of ideas. Clearly no one show stood out. Of course, in 1969 Radio Times only gave details of BBC TV and Radio programmes. It would be Christmas 1991 before the magazine encompassed the full complement of channels.

CHRISTMAS GEEK RATING:

Next time we materialise in 1977...