29th June

1978: J.A.L.N Band hit upon three gimmicks - bouncing back and forth in unison, putting an exceptionally feathery Red Indian headdress on their bongo player and tying balloons to their guitar heads. They all must have seemed like good ideas at the time. Legs & Co doing their bit weekly was all very well for most pop enterprises, but what if a trained dancer like Kate Bush was possibly watching expectantly? The answer seems to have been to break out some proper ballet moves.

1989: Maybe this is doing her a disservice but Holly Johnson's guitarist isn't entirely convincing, either in style or hair. Did Double Trouble & Rebel MC strictly require the double bass?

1995: Coincidence or design? The Ramones do two songs on the show - from an album that went on to peak at 62, and one of them isn't even sung by Joey - and a year as close as possible to the day later the Sex Pistols do two songs on the show. Touche. Modern thrills come from Menswear, with even Mark Goodier taking the piss out of Johnny Dean's delivery. And then pop reality sticks its ungainly nose in, in the particularly crooked sense of The Outhere Brothers.

2001: Linkin Park provide a prime example of something that took over the TOTP crowd early this millennium, that is whenever a rock band appeared they'd always keep their arms in the air throughout. No such courtesy applied to Five, for instance.