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Pick of the pops...

Bryan Burnett | 18:16 UK time, Thursday, 26 June 2008

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I want to get some of your great ToTP memories on to the blog tonight. I'll start with Geo and this e-mail that arrived earlier:

"I have to confess I was struggling a bit with this one so I enlisted the help of the Leyton Orient Fans Message Board. I hope this doesn't upset your other listener - the famous "Bobby from Howwood".

The contributors were M B Gold, Clint Eastwood Bradfield, Noose, Jah Wobble, Roger O Thornhill, i8UButler, Joy Derision, Spike, the redfacedmicks, Medhorrinum, Redwin11, Hutch, RushemerO, Norbert Dentressangle and Harvey T Denton. They are all listening in on the net tonight and deserve a big shout out for their efforts. Also worth noting that the Board has a member who was in Department S back in the early 80's.

ÌýHere are the suggestions for the TOTP theme:

• Dexys Midnight Runners 'Jackie Wilson Said' with a huge picture of Jocky Wilson as a backdrop.

• Rod Stewart 'Maggie May' had John Peel miming playing the ukulele.

• Robert Wyatt - 'I'm a believer' where he was refused permission to sit in his wheelchair and so sat in an antique chair with his legs covered.

• Status Quo where a dummy operated by strings stood in for Alan Lancaster on Rockin All over the World.

• blur's - " There's no other way" had Damon Albarn either sucking a rubber chicken or the mic, or, indeed, both.

• Nirvana's - "Smell Like Teen Spirit" had them sarcastically miming their instruments (toy ones, I think) while Kurt sang live, but crooned the song an octave lower than the record

• "Going Underground" - The Jam- Weller wore a Heinz Tomato Ketchup apron. Then was told to wear it reversed because of advertising.

• Bis played Kandy Pop and were the first (only?)unsigned band on top of the pops

• Marillion doing Kayleigh, Fish was told that if he was to continue singing he could damamge his voice for good. Therefore, while the band were miming away he had all the lyrics written on a paper board and was pointing at them with a stick. (Brian this one was submitted by Noose, the Orient message Boards musical know all, please don't play it as it has a cack rating of 10)

• When TOTP was live All about Eve didn't know their song had started. Apparently because their monitors weren't switched on so just sat there oblivious their big moment on TOTP was happening without then knowing!

• Chris Eubank announcing Suggs with Cecilia has to be a highlight

• Mud were doing "Lonely this Christmas" and the drummer was just leaning on the set, reading a paper throughout the performance. Afterwards the story went out that he'd turned up late for the sound recording in the afternoon, and a session guy sat in for him, so he wasn't allowed to mime to someone else's track.

Also, apparently it's very hard to mime "talking" as opposed to singing, which is why the singer used a ventriloquists' dummy to perform the spoken part of the song.

• The Clash refused to play it when "Bankrobber" came out they had Legs & Co dancing to it - Not exactly the greatest moment in Punk history!

• EMF - "Unbelievable" playing their guitars with boxing gloves on.

• Mott The Hoople performing possibly Roll Away The Stone with the drummer playing with drumsticks 4 times bigger than a normal pair."

• Arthur Brown performing "Fire" with a hat of flames.

• Frankie goes to Hollywood singing "Relax" before they banned it

• David Bowie - Starman It was in 1972 and loads of people objected because Bowie embraced (in a very homoerotic way) Mick Ronson. AND they were wearing glitter and make-up!

• When the Boomtown Rats did "Rat Trap", Geldoff was banned from miming the sax solo by the Musicians' Union cos he hadn't played it on the recorded version; thus he 'played' the candelabra on Jonny Fingers' piano.

• Manic Street Preachers - "Faster" The singer wore a balaclava with his name Tippexed on it.

• When Pulp performed "Do You Remember the First Time" on TOTP,it was when Wet Wet Wet had been number one for bleeding ages with that awful song from Four Weddings. Jarvis opened his jacket to reveal a T shirt that said 'I Hate Wet Wet Wet'.

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• Oasis have a few TOTP facts - "D'you Know What I Mean" included only the second ever stage invasion and on "Shakermaker" they had the drummer at the front of the stage and Liam at the back.

• The Pans People routine to Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Get Down" was ace. Because it had the line "You're a bad dog baby, so I don't want you around", they performed the dance routine with a load of dogs sitting on podiums.

No way were these animals going to sit there watching the 'dancers' for an entire three minutes, and by the middle of the song, a couple of the pooches were over the other side of the stage sniffing up some of the others, and one of the dogs had got so fed up, it just walked off the stage.

• When Mike Batt had a big hit with "Remember You're A Womble", for the TOTP performance they had people dressed up in Womble suits, instead of real Wombles

• Joe Dolce's - " Shaddap You Face" will always remain memorable to me.

Anything which kept that dirge Vienna off number 1 spot will have a special place in my personal music hall of fame."

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