LARRY'S CHRISTMAS PARTY
Although it now appears to be a permanent all-year-round television fixture, there was once a time when the dreaded 'clip show' was the exclusive preserve of the Christmas schedules. At a time of year when people revel in the idea of wallowing in inaccurate nostalgia for things that they don't even properly remember anyway, it's only fitting that they should sit back and enjoy a fine selection of 'classic' clips from yuletide television favourites of years gone by. But what can they do if there is no clip? Oddly enough, that question was answered in the early 1990s by "Schofield's Christmas TV Gold", a special festive edition of Phillip Schofield's somewhere-between-awful-and-reasonable nostalgia show, that featured clips from the top rated television programme over Christmas for each year. For 1972, this was "Larry's Christmas Party", featuring everyone's favourite camp entertainer Larry Grayson. As the sixty minute show was made by ATV, the master tape has long since gone the way of most episodes of "Pipkins" and been wiped by some ignoramus who was more concerned with saving a couple of pennies than with preserving vintage television programmes. Thus little is known about "Larry's Christmas Party" (even Mark Lewisohn's exhaustive "Radio Times Guide To TV Comedy" can only manage "a seasonal special, with more guests" as a description), and the production team of "Schofield's Christmas TV Gold" were left with an embarrasing gap where they were unable to illustrate one particular example of TV Gold. Surprisingly, they actually admitted to this ("we've looked everywhere", Mr. Schofield overemphasised), and in lieu of an actual clip they showed a still picture of Larry Grayson with a short extract from the still-extant theme song played over the top. As this was 1972, the song constituted little more than a long stream of unsubtle in-character single entendre lyrics ("shut that door, get yourself in here, I'm feeling rather queer" and so on), and was no doubt released as a single on Pye. Honesty in a clip show is rare; rarer still is the admission that now-forgotten shows might have been more popular than the 'big names' in their day, and as depressing as it was to discover that the tape had been wiped, it was still curiously uplifting to get to hear that particular camp oddity. Something to thank a clip show for. Now that is a strange feeling.

TELLY ADDICTS
Before he quit broadcasting after warning us all of the dangers of 'cake', Noel Edmonds used to by virtually synonymous with Christmas. Every year on Christmas Day, for puzzling and still unclear reasons, he would conduct live broadcasts on BBC1 from the top of the Telecom Tower, co-ordinating celebrity hospital visits, live linkup reuniting of globally dispersed families, and so on. Said broadcasts were certainly extremely popular, but those less easily swayed by sentimentality have far fonder memories of the festive editions of his much-missed game show "Telly Addicts". Although not usually remembered as such, "Telly Addicts" was a superior quiz that unearthed rare archive footage and asked reasonably taxing questions, linked by Edmonds, his customised remote control the 'hoofer doofer', and his vast wardrobe of colourful jumpers. Eventually running for over ten years, each series began in September, and continued through the winter months until reaching an exciting climax at Christmas. Regular editions of "Telly Addicts" were introduced by odd part-animated caricatures of Dot Cotton, Paul Daniels and other televisual icons, backed by an unusually moody and very un-game show like guitar-driven piece. For the festive editions, this tune was 'christmassed' up with additional instrumentation, and the short stings that introduced each round saw the familiar "Telly Addicts" riff replaced by a manic electric guitar rendition of 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas', which spiralled off into the more typical instrumental mayhem of the regular theme tune for the last two notes. Intruiging and memorable stuff, but all of this went out of the window when "Telly Addicts" was pointlessly reincarnated as a tacky gameshow with celebrity contestants. Not long after this decline started, the plug was pulled on "Telly Addicts", and the series itself became a TV trivia question. There are still people out there, though, who consider it to be as much of a yuletide hallmark as holly, ivy and 'figgy' pudding. If only you could get Christmas cards with pictures of Noel Edmonds on them.

ROLAND'S COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS
As 'wry' newspaper columnists love to point out as if it actually means something derogatory, one of BBC supremo Greg Dyke's biggest career successes was his discovery of the ratings-saving Roland Rat, a brummie puppet rodent with a neat line in Hawaiian shirts and mod hats, while working at TV-AM. Having tasted success, the company were understandably keen to get as much exposure out of their fabric saviour as possible, and Roland Rat was cast in a seemingly endless string of early morning programmes including "Roland's Countdown To Christmas". The staggeringly weak format - that is, if the word 'format' can really be used with any justification here - involved Roland opening doors on his advent calendar every day with some some waffle beforehand and afterwards. A simple enough concept, you would probably think, but for some reason "Roland's Countdown To Christmas" was seen as needing its own distinct title sequence to explain it. Over a rather cheap-lloking animation of falling snow, Roland would count all the way from one to twenty five in that infuriating voice of his, ending with his trademark cry of "ye-hehhhhhhhhhh" and some twee girly backing singers trilling "Roland's countdown to Christmaaaaaaaaaas". Every single morning. No doubt the show proved to be a huge draw for children, even though they probably all had their own expensive chocolate-filled light-up glow-in-the-dark advent calendars anyway, but to most people it came as an enormous relief when the self-appointed 'superstar' opened the final door.