And you know what? They're probably right. And as this blog's sole existential imperative is to do what isn't right, we're charging right on ahead and doing it. Move up, move down, move round, move side...
ITV's resident headline-brandisher has always been ITN, which as every Chris Morris fan knows stands for 'It's The News'. And, well, they've used that hollowed-out-gold-bullion lettering, or at least subtle variations thereupon, for pretty much their entire news-whittling existence. So not much to remark on there really, aside from the blunt scissor-afflicted show-opening photo montages they deployed in the pre-digital age, such as this one from when Ronald Reagan said "well" a lot about a plane, and the unintentionally amusingly perfunctory end captions, which cynics will not be able to help but notice was rendered in more or less the same colour scheme as the mid-late seventies BBC Weather 'Cat' and 'Dog'.
And speaking of shamelessly opportunistic 'borrowing' of established BBC ident iconography, in no way whatsoever was the green globe at the start of News At One influenced by the green globe that whizzed around between BBC programming. And if you say otherwise those scary green typing hands would like a 'word'.
If ITN ever put on its comfortable slacks and slip-on shoes and got a bit informal, then it was - ironically - with the 5.45 bulletin, whose chummy 'Top News For Super-Pals' approach will have been of scant reassurance to those post-Children's ITV youngsters spooked by reports about gorillas holding Venezuelan MPs to ransom. Above we can see both variants of its 'Chill, Newsies!' chunky lettering overload, first the standard gold variant atop the feet up-inviting beige on beige desk area, and secondly the quasi-hallucinatory slip-inside-this-house-as-you-pass-by-and-if-you-can-be-bothered-doesn't-make-much-difference-one-way-or-the-other-really Blue Jam-predicting logo repetition. Note also the corresponding alternating colour variants in Leonard Parkin's identically designed far-out ties.
BONG Inspiration-depleted writer makes tediously predictable gag about News At BONG Ten in lieu of having anything even halfway amusing to say about the nondescript BONG bombastic film-bisecting typeface and Trevor Mc BONG Donald's glasses ha ha they are glasses or something and it doesn't even sound BONG like 'bong' anyway BONG erm... how do you turn this thing off? BONG oh right, it's going to be like that is it? BONG Hang on a minute... Parky? What's he d BONG oh fuck this is serious - even that's not worki BONG oh alright then you win BONG TV Puppet Hopes It's Chips For Tea - a spokesman for TV Puppet's Human Sidekick says "Shut It You" BONG Eve Myles Tits mentioned in hope it will lead millions of unwitting sci-fi pervs to click on this post by mistake BONG and it's Back To School for TV's Hardwicke House BONG The Grimleys Is On
Well, that's been a bit of an underwhelming bulletin in this salute to ITV's extra-programme visual ephemera of days gone by and no mistake. It's a pity we never had a Brass Eye Special to shake those complacent Current Affairs people up a bit!!3 By way of consolation, here's a rare example of what used to happen in the days before they were allowed cameras in parliament, when they needed to show Thatcher saying something smug then being drowned out by a chorus of harrumphs and then saying it again only slightly angrily. Let's hope for more thrills next time when we tackle Programmes For Schools And Colleges. If 'Maggie' hasn't closed them all, that is!
