Christmas Day 1989 means three hosts: Bruno Brookes of Gnome, Jakki Brambles CBI, and Lord Gary Davies of Wooton, all in smart outfits (dinner jackets and no tie for the lads, a slinky dress for Jakki).
New graphics fizz and bang on and off screen, this Cypher package will be used on and off until the Year Zero error.
Mike + the Mechanics perform "The living years" - or two verses and a chorus thereof. All the energy they got from the opening is dissipated with this melancholic and maudlin and static song.
Yes, it's one of the songs of the year both in sales and importance, and it's a coup to finally get them in the studio, and the whole perf will appear on TOTP2 eventually. And we don't begrudge it a place on the show. But it really shouldn't be second up.
Marc Almond Featuring Special Guest Star Gene Pitney perform "Something's gotten hold of my heart".
Like Gary Barlobe and Lulu, like George Michael and Elton John, Marc takes the first verse so he can get overshadowed by a much better vocalist. Could have seen more of that.
#TOTP #MarcAlmondFeaturingSpecialGuestStarGenePitney #MarcAlmond #GenePitney
Given who else is in the studio, I can see why they didn't book Michael Ball - not that my mother liked the decision.
The same bit of Simple Minds' video they played for three straight weeks. Then the Madonna video re-edit we saw for a month.
"Too many broken hearts" from Jason Donovan. Our Jase is in a white cotton suit, guitar slung over his back as though he's going to play that.
Naaah, all we want is for Jason to find the camera, look through his foppish fringe, and make a million viewers go all a-googlie. The rest of us can enjoy the camera doing a slow pirouette round Jase during the chorus.
For the 1989 Brits cycle, Jason Donovan was treated as a British performer, almost got nominated in "Best British Bloke" and "Best British Single".
Would he have beaten the winner in either category? Doubt it; Phil Collins was too popular amongst the "great" and the "good" of the "industry".
Kylie Minogue cannot be with us tonight, she's just finished promoting "The Delinquents" movie and is taking a well-earned break in Melbourne.
No Soul II Soul either, they'd had a row with producer Paul Ciani over the summer about live vocals and apparently weren't invited.
We've gone from January to July in about nine minutes, with one studio performance representing 40% of the year. When this chronological format breaks down, it *really* breaks down.
Remember Bros? (Ask your kid sister.) They were big last year, but this time around was "Too much".
Matt is in a red bomber jacket with flowers on the sleeves, with matching hat. White trousers. The whole effect is rather like the Kansas City NFLball team after their travelling jackets were remixed by a bunch of Swifties.
Matt doesn't find the camera, which may be a deliberate decision, but means he looks distant, less involved than Jason a few minutes ago.
London Boys get one final run-out with "London nights". Rob is dressed as a cowboy, Edem as a cop.
Both wear spangly leather jackets with lots of rhinestones, it's not if but *when* the jackets come off to reveal the vest and muscular arms. Backflips and pirouettes in the instrumental break, natch.
The London Boys made nothing songs, and sounded so good doing it. Glad they got this swansong; a desperate shame it is their final appearance.
The Beautiful South with "Song for whoever". Paul and Dave are in casual polo-necks, the rest of the band performs.
*Really* not sure about the line of snowmen just behind them. One duff note and the band will be pulverised and turned into ice, or something like that.
Sonia and "You'll never stop me from loving you". Lots of warm lights tonight, oranges and reds dominate, there's a gorgeous pink-and-turquoise effect on the curve of the stage above Sonia. She's alone on the stage, no dry ice, none of the backing dancers from the summer.
Close camera angles mean that she fills the frame, a bundle of nervous energy. The Bonnie Langford of the 1990s.
Blackbox with "Ride on time". Another week, another studio performance - if they ever made a video, #TOTP never played it.
Katrin continues to mime to Loletta's voice, Mr. Black and Mr. Box chug out meaningless chords on their keyboards, and the whole thing is shot really very darkly. Still, plenty of close-ups of Katrin's face.
Heather Small provided the soundalike vocal on the version most of us bought, so it's her biggest hit.
Moment of the show: at the start of "All around the world". Lisa Stansfield catches the eye of the camera, delivers her opening line "I don't know where my baby is", cocks one eyebrow, and we're in her world.
Black beret, black spangly jacket, is that a little nose-ring or is Lisa pleased to see us? Kiss curls are her trademark, and the voice is something else we'll never tire of.
Vies with Jason and the Londons as Performance of the Night.
The Christmas number 1: Band Aid II with "Do they know it's Christmas?". Stock Aitken and Waterman had expected the stars to come in, sing their bits, and clear off - but the stars wanted to hang around for the big chorus, and to hang out with each other.
Bananarama talk with Wet Wet Wet! Kylie exchanges tips with Lisa Stansfield! Jason and Cliff pal about? The Pasadenas kept everyone's spirits up, and the tune sold half-a-million copies, which meant £500,000 for good causes.
For the final link, Bruno and Gary change into panto costumes as the ugly sisters, Jakki as Cinderella, and Jason Donovan comes in as the handsome prince to whisk Jakki off to the ball.
Playout is the Top of the Pops theme, "The wizard", over a montage of clips from videos of the number one singles, all ending on the "Merry Christmas" from the Jive Bunny clip.
The final scores from 1989:
Kylie Minogue 4-6 Jason Donovan
Jive Bunny 3-1 Bros
Mystery Years next!
Sir Simon Bates is in your system. Or something.
Duran Duran kick us off with "My own way", with red kerchiefs around everyone's neck - except for lead singer Simon Lebon, who has tied his around his head, the scamp!
"Daddy's home" for Cliff Richard has somehow made number 2, we're treated to a clip from BBC2's "Cliff!".
Oh, crikey. Chas and Dave's "Stars over 45". A pastiche of the medley songs we endured over the spring and summer.
The professional cockneys bang out "When I'm cleaning windows", "Any old lion", "Run rabbit run" (featuring one of the house dancers in Anya's furry bunny outfit), "The laughing policeman", "Knees up Mother Brown", and it continues long after the fadeout.
Quick plug for "The Stories Behind the Songs", where Chas's daughter Kate Garner explores - and plays - some of these music hall songs, and reminisces about her dad.
That's on the Talking Pictures channel. https://talkingpicturestv.co.uk/
Godley and Crème's "Wedding bells". The stars are in black tie, with grey-toppered ushers behind.
The audience throw confetti, and the performance proceeds down an impromptu aisle in the audience.
More imaginative staging than anything we've seen all year.
Brown Sauce started as the interval act for the Swap Shop Awards at Easter. It's a faux rock band, featuring Maggie Philbin and Keith Chegwin on guitars and vocals, with ex- #TOTP host Noel Edmonds on drums and keyboard.
"I wanna be a winner" compares their efforts to stars of the day: Barbara Woodhouse, Penelope Keith, Willie Carson. The lyric's a BA Robertson compost-heap, rhyming Keegan (Kevin, footballer) with Reagan (Ronald, actor).
Our group declare to be true
Ebly Pamplemousse
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