Best on the Box choice for Saturday, January 10th…
Channel 5 rewinds back to 1990 to replay 12 months of shocking and controversial moments in TV, music, showbiz, and politics. Jan Leeming narrates, with contributors including TV presenters Terry Christian, Nicki Chapman and Nick Hewer, journalists Sian Williams and John Sergeant, actress Nina Wadia and former MP Edwina Currie.
On our televisions, this was the year that we first watched the ground-breaking Channel 4 series The Word; Mark Fowler rocked Walford with a dramatic return to EastEnders; and a Central Television sitcom about Adolf Hitler was pulled off air after just one episode. The underachieving Bart Simpson arrived from across the Atlantic and Star Trek: The Next Generation caused a commotion with a controversial comment about terrorism. There was the scandal of a sexual nature with BBC Two’s BAFTA-winning adaptation of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, while Madonna’s latest bondage fest was banned from MTV.
In politics, the Minister for Agriculture bit off more than he could chew when, at the height of BSE, he tried to feed a beefburger to his four-year-old daughter, while there was panic on the streets of London as the Poll Tax riots created carnage in the capital. It was also the end of the road for Britain’s longest serving PM, as Margaret Thatcher was forced to hand back the keys to Number 10.
On the music scene, heavy metal gods Judas Priest faced a meltdown when they were accused of hiding subliminal messages in their songs, and pop duo Milli Vanilli’s career came to a dramatic end when it was revealed they were nothing more than a mime act.
For fast food fanatics, 1990 was the year that the Big Mac made its way to Moscow. And on home soil, shock and horror as Marathon bars were renamed as Snickers.
1990: The Most Shocking Moments, Channel 5, 10.05 pm
