The Final Vaughaning

Well I've reached the final rude awakening from Johnny on his last ever
Big Breakfast as originally transmitted on Friday the 12th of January 2001.

A rather significant date as exactly five years earlier Gaby Roslin made her bow from the programme although Johnny and Denise's final show together was nowhere near as tearful.

In fact they revealed just before the end that they were not allowed to watch the highlights VT shown to the viewers at home, as the producers didn't want them to break down before their final Friday Song.

The show itself started off with a parade of icons from Johnny's reign on the show including pushy mums, women in tabards, men in women's coats and of course the Wombles. This was accompanied by a commentary from none other than Christopher Biggins before the opening titles rolled.

It's worth mentioning the titles that were introduced in May of 2000 for the shows 2000th show which consisted of many of the above including a pushy mum and her child, a man with "mutton chops", and an Elvis impersonator, accompanied by an arrangement of the theme tune by The Artful Dodger.

It was understandble why the titles had to change for the relaunch as they were based around items on the show made famous by Vaughan.

Having said that the titles for the relaunch were changed after six months although the new theme tune from the 2001 relaunch remained.

Anyway, the guests on Johnny's final show included Lionel Blair, John McCririck, Jilly Goolden, Rowland Rivron, Quentin Wilson from Top Gear, Roger Black, Ally McCoist, Phillipa Forrester, Tony Wright from Terrorvision, and of course Trevor Bayliss.

With regards to the lead singer from Terrovision, I swear he's the dad of first year radio student Matt from Leeds, as Terrovision were a Yorkshire based band.

There was also music from Elvis Costello who provided a renditon of "Pump It Up" not to mention a really dodgy Elvis Presley impersonator from Holland.

Some of the older items were brought back including "Vital Statistics" which used to be on everyday in Johnny's first couple of years.

They also brought back a few old catchphrases such as "Life Starts At Seven" and "Time For The Last Half Hour!" which added to the fun.

It was impossible to have done "Steps Of Woe" however as there was a large crowd of 500 fans in the garden invited for their final show.

One of the other features they did for the last time was "Mind Your Manners" with "DRUUSILLLA!" Bathers, where they looked at etiquette to be avoided when someone left a job.

Like a lot of features during Johnny's reign, they ended up being resurrected to lesser successful results when the show tried to recover from it's fall in mid 2001.

One part of the show that definitely made it's last airing on was Simon Fielder reading the weather, although he had a few months left on his 6 month contract as won in the weather presenter search that summer, so they kept him on as a dogsbody of sorts.

Just to give an idea of how much television's changed in the last 8 years or so, Johnny made a joke about a crew member's bum cheeks being shown in widescreen despite the fact the show was still transmitted in 4:3.

They were still even using cue dots before the breaks.

Some of the highlights took place during Johnny's final paper review where on reading a front page story about a snooker player dumping his girlfriend for Su Pollard, John McCririck immediately shouted "So What!" which had me laughing.

He was genuinely annoyed about that piece of lazy journalism, especially for a front page story.

The paper review was never the same since.

And during the final the final Pun Of The Week, Cockney Vic made her arrival with a t-shirt that said "I Love JV" leading to jokes about it suggesting
"I Love John Virgo".

Normally I would go downstairs to wait for my taxi's arrival after the paper review but on this occasion I stayed upstairs with my window open to see the winner of the shed competition recieve his prize.

Oddly enough he already owned two sheds and used them as hiding places from his wife.

Some of my other favourite lines came during the competition "Gagging For It" where Gemma presented the prize which was a tiny bell turned on one side;
"It's a bell, and there's the end".

As well as Sindon's final gag that went like this;

Sindon: "Knock Knock!"

Audience: "Who's there?"

Sindon: "Tardis!"

Audience: "Tardis who?"

Sindon: "Doctor Who"

Audience: (Confused laughter and silence)

Sindon: "He had a Tardis didn't he..."

When watching the tape back you can tell what was recorded after I left the house as all the ad-breaks are left intact.

One of the ads being for the Clubber's Guide to 2001 which is fun to look back at as you can tell which tunes went onto be succesfull and which ones flopped.

Some of those included were "Salsoul Nugget", and The Cleptomaniacs cover of Stevie Wonder's "All I Do", which Maysa did quite a good cover of on her
"Sweet Classic Soul" album.

The last half hour itself just sped by with a brilliantly put together montage of Johnny's best bits. Even though Denise was leaving as well, the emphasis was more on Johnny as Denise had a more than tearful farewell, first time round in January 1999.

It was still a well put together selection of highlights, full of innuendo and a few of the worst moments such as Johnny's worst interview, which was Art Malik in December 1998.

There was also an appearance of Johnny's screen test with Gaby Roslin back in 1993 when they were looking for potential replacements for Chris Evans, and Denise's first appearance on the show in the "Telecopter" in 1996.

Not to mention the infamous snot incident from Xmas 1999 resulting in Liza Tarbuck being shocked and disgusted.

In fact rather than me go on about it, the montage can be seen here courtesy of 97Channel.

The show itself ended with the final Friday Song, and after the end credits there was a pre-recorded package with Johnny and Denise leaving Bow Locks accompanied by "Our House" by Crosby Stills and Nash.

I thought the time was right for Johnny to leave the show, despite many others thinking that he was tired as it was, but he was still able to have me laughing at an otherwise dreadful time of day.

I'd go as far as saying that the Big Breakfast was at it's best during Johnny's time as presenter because whilst it was still really well ad-libbed, irreverent and continued to break the rules of television, it wasn't as mad and wacky for the sake of it like it was when Chris Evans or Cheggers hosted the show,
and it was evident that Johnny didn't want the show to look like that at all.

Possibly one of the traps it fell into after it tried to recover from the 2001 relaunch.

It helped that the theme tune used around Johnny's time was arranged in a "britpop" style, which continued to be used in parts of the show even after the Artful Dodger theme was introduced to the opening titles.

I may have a gander at the following week's shows pretty soon which involved guest presenters with Richard Bacon, in preparation for the relaunch on the 22nd of January that year.

But it's fair to say that no one on television has ever made me laugh as much at that time in the morning ever since.