Tiswas
Ostensibly a children's show, the innovative, anarchic Tiswas format
attracted a wide audience. "Tiswas" stood for Today Is Saturday, Wear A
Smile and this is what Saturdays were made for . . . Staggering out of
bed on a Saturday morning to watch a studio full of grown adults
throwing custard pies and buckets of water at each other.
The show was
created to challenge the staid, rigid format of the BBC's Multi-Coloured
Swap Shop and was loose, shambolic, deliciously subversive and forever
perched on the brink of chaos.
 At first the show aired only in the Midlands - A 10-week run
beginning 5 January 1974 blended Tarzan reruns with a two and a half
hour package of requests, cartoons and quizzes.
Hyperactive John Asher
and Chris Tarrant were helped by 'straight man' station announcer Peter
Tomlinson and, later, sports presenter Trevor East.
Leading presenter,
Chris Tarrant, looked as if he had been out on the beer the night before
(he claimed in later years that this was in fact often the case).
By the end of its fifth series, Tiswas was shown across six ITV
regions, and the eternally bedenimed and thigh-booted Sally James (from
LWT's defunct Saturday Scene) brought a breezy sexiness to Saturday
morning television with her insider view of the pop scene and 'Almost
Legendary' interviews.
The Phantom Flan Flinger dispensed custard pies
and water, while comics Sylvester McCoy and John Gorman supplied
terrible jokes, as did local impressionist Lenny Henry.
Extreme stand-up
acts of the day - Spike Milligan, Jasper Carrott, Bernard Manning - also
took part.
 Almost immediately the show attained cult status with
Tiswas
appreciation societies bursting into life in pubs and universities
across the UK.
Running from Glam to New Romantic, Tiswas sandwiched the
punk years and will remain forever associated with the flamboyant
fringes of pop style.
1980 saw a successful university tour by The Four Bucketeers, but
such pandering to a cult following ultimately killed the series. Tarrant
and company set up the disastrous yet influential OTT (1982) for adults,
leaving James with an untried crew for the final season.
Sally James began as an actress in the 1960s. She was in To Sir
With Love and did a few soap operas.
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