Tuesday 12 June 2012

GET FRESH: ALAN MOORE INTERVIEW



Here's something fun: The mighty Alan Moore interviewed by Gaz Top (aka Gareth Jones) on ITV's kids show GET FRESH.

The video is undated but, presumably, from 1986 or 1987 (the years WATCHMEN was released).  Get Fresh ran from 1986-88.

The Saturday edition of the programme was a live outside broadcast (OB), usually hosted by one of the smaller ITV regions (this regional co-operation apparently means that a full set of episodes possibly no longer exists as no single ITV company had overall responsibility for archiving the series).  

The show's central conceit was that a large space ship, the Millennium Dustbin (named in a viewer competition), would land at a different location each week.  The interior of the spaceship set housed a small studio for interviews etc.

The programme initially included the animated series THE CENTURIONS.  Later seasons replaced it with THE ADVENTURES OF THE GALAXY RANGERS.  Both had British comics, from London Editions and Marvel UK respectively.

With season two, ITV launched the pre-recorded GET FRESH SUNDAY.  This was studio-bound (recorded and transmitted from Border Television) and consisted of short 'continuity links' (introducing other programmes in the line-up including THE ADVENTURES OF TEDDY RUXSPIN and Disney's THE GUMMI BEARS ) followed by the main Get Fresh Sunday programme.  

Not all ITV regions took the full networked schedule (LWT, for example, tended to run a local programme at the beginning of the morning) which led to a certain amount of repetition or unsubtle filling to ensure viewers who didn't see every link didn't notice. 

Moore's appearance is from one of these Sunday editions.

The Sunday edition was meant to take place aboard the Millennium Dustbin whilst in flight.  The sets were not used for the OB and, on one occasion, a young guest on the Saturday programme asked to see other parts of the ship.  Whoops.

Top's co-presenters were Charlotte Hindle and Gilbert the Alien (AKA Phil Cornwell).  A out-of-his-depth Gian Sammarco (ex of THE SECRET DIARY OF ADRIAN MOLE) also presented on season one but didn't return.

Another edition of Get Fresh Sunday featured a telephone interview with William Shatner and a studio appearance by Patrick Stewart to coincide with STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION's launch on rental VHS in the UK (from CIC Video).

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