16th October

1975: A wiped final product but what does survive, oddly, is some rehearsal footage featuring gallery talkback, Pan's People with Flick adding extra direction (and in a rare post-Babs pre-Dee Dee exit lineup) and one of David Essex's less popular looks. Surely they must have done something like that every week while they had the private but necessary opportunity?

1980: Once Suzi Quatro has dragged Tommy Vance off the surely lording it rather too much pedestal, Showaddywaddy make an attempt to introduce new elements to the act, namely maracas and a comedy punk wig. The crowd look on, stunned into silence. You'll see the original post-strike idea of DJ plus guest host has been abandoned already but they're lavishing guests on the show anyway never mind what the audience think, Michael Palin plugging Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album in somewhere about the same part of the audio mix as both I Like Chinese off the album and with an underlying bed of blithe audience chatter. Not a great portent for introducing a new band to the show, but that debutant is Adam & The Ants. When all you've known is a fat bloke in a grass skirt - ah, Bad Manners - you would be struck by that image, wouldn't you? Tommy is so rapt he gets completely lost mid-sentence as to what he's already said before throwing to the woman-torturing Matchbox - but again there's an album to talk about for no reason other than that it exists and some chat with Dollar, seamlessly linking single plug and engagement announcement. By the way, they revealed later the latter was all a big publicity stunt, they'd been a couple but had split up by then.

1986: The Wizard had already been the TOTP theme for six months by the time it was a hit, so in came Paul Hardcastle for some time honoured slapping of equidistant synth keys in front of some screens.

2005: Girls Aloud incorporate the most effortlessly pointless Fabulous Baker Boys homage to date. Nobody's even pretending to play it!