Back in the day, before satellite telly and streaming services, there were only 4 channels on British television; BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV and Channel 4. There were films available on VHS for rental and this was important as films often took a few years to reach terrestrial TV. You'd know films would be arriving soon on the channel as they'd advertise the blooming heck out of it, often several months before it would be shown. The sense of collective excitement was palpable in the playground when a big movie had been shown the previous night and everyone would role play or act out their favourite scenes from the movie. A hugely formative film was The Goonies as, when that was shown on telly on a school night, it was all anyone would talk about the next day. The showings of these formative movies were few and far between though and so we'd savour these shining moments between repeats of old variety shows and stuffy documentaries.
However, there were magical times when someone at the channels would clock on that by running special seasons of themed movies or shows they'd have a repeat viewership.
As a child of the 80s, there'd always be the Summer block of cartoons with The Raccoons, Mysterious Cities of Gold, Belle and Sebastian and Around the World in 80 Days with Willie Fogg. These were halcyon days when the Summer seemed to stretch on forever and there seemed to be a world of endless possibilities, after the 4 hours of early morning cartoons, of course!
However, away from the 6 weeks holiday animation bliss, the most memorable staple of my childhood would be the Bond Season. For most of my childhood, without fail, ITV would show the movies in a weekly run on Wednesday evenings. Other seasons would be the Carry On films on ITV, The Laurel and Hardy seasons on BBC 2, the Ray Harryhausen collection on BBC1 and the swords and sandals epics of Ben Hur, The 10 Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told on Channel 4 around Easter time. Then, in the mid-90s, the manga and anime season on late night Channel 4 really upped the ante on edgy late night entertainment. With the prevalence of Sky TV I remember late night Bravo having an amazing season of Hammer Horror in the late 90s/ early 2000s with classics like The Witch Finder General, Masque of the Red Death and other classic Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee films showing.
I have a lot of affection for this time as it was very formative for me. It introduced a lot of new actors, films and genres that I had never experienced before and broadened my horizons on what entertainment could mean. This was very much the epitome of appointment television as VHS recorders were a fickle and arcane piece of technology, one where I could watch films just fine but getting it to record at a scheduled time was a matter of luck. In this day of convenience and streaming, there is something to be said for the collective watching at an appointed time for media, something that only really exists in the world of sport. Don’t get me wrong, we have been going through a golden age of television and I wouldn’t want to go back to past televisual practices but it’s interesting to see the evolution of television, films and how there is channel drift.
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