It's 25 years to the day since Channel 4kicked off with the very first edition of the yet-to-be-cult Countdown. I missed it because I was out having a driving lesson, but I was back in time for Brookside and The Comic StripPresents and all the other first night shenanigans. In the 25 years since that dark Tuesday, Channel 4 has broadcast more than its fair share of really rather fine programmes. Here are 25 of my favourites (all clickable). (you'll probably disagree wth my choice, in which case there's a full 300-month summary over here)
• Brookside (1982): The everyday story of everyday Liverpool folk used to be great, inbetween the over-realistic early years and the long-faded final years. I've probably watched more episodes of Brookie than any other programme on the channel. Our Sheila would be proud. • TheTube (1982): Possibly the finest music programme ever, blessed by its north-east location, professionally shambling presenters and a golden age of proper music. • TreasureHunt (1982): If this list were in rank order, Anneka's chopper would be at the top. 45 minutes every week to zip about an English county looking for clues in increasingly bizarre locations, while Graham's camera focused on the glorious countryside and a jumpsuited rear. Geography was never so attractive. • MaxHeadroom (1985): Latex-headed actor Matt Frewer stuttered wry comments from 20 minutes into the future (it was really just another music show, but so well dressed up). • The ChartShow (1986): Stuff the presenters, just play back-to-back videos for an hour. Inspired, for the 80s at least, but now there are fifty channels that do the same. • Saturday Live (1986): Cutting edge comedy (UK version) which made staying in at the weekend the preferable option. A studio-based tour-de-force which broke the careers of an unexpectedly high proportion of today's comedy mainstream. • Network 7 (1987): Jerky camera angles, on-screen captions and bite-sized news chunks - most people hated Janet Street Porter's Sunday yoof magazine at the time, but now nigh every TV producer mimics it. • Whose LineIs It Anyway? (1988): Ultra-cheap TV, just a quartet of comics generating laughter out of nothing, but demonstrating far greater cleverness and nerve than any comparable over-rehearsed panel show. • Sticky Moments (1989): Unparalleled innuendo from Julian Clary (and the lovely Hugh Jelly) in this uber-camp gameshow format, all at the expense of four unfortunate contestants plucked from the audience. I don't think my BestMate's ex ever recovered from the experience. • Vic Reeves Big Night Out (1990): Half an hour of weird. Much the same half an hour of weird every week. And all the better for it. Spin spin spin that Wheel of Justice! • The CrystalMaze (1990): Only Richard O'Brien (and an exceptionally creative production team) could have made an hour-long hit show about logic problems and falling off logs. But who, sat watching at home, didn't secretly want to have a go at riding the Aztec river or meeting Mumsie in a Medieval dungeon? • Drop TheDead Donkey (1990): A properly topical newsroom comedy, filmed dangerously close to transmission, set in the charming world of egotistical media buffoons. Ran for years because it was so grotesquely believable. • GamesMaster (1992): Did you watch this pioneering virtual world for Dominik Diamond's sarky asides, or for the surreal sight of Patrick Moore dressed up as the King of the Joysticks? • The BigBreakfast (1992): No other breakfast TV show has ever managed to be must-see, not since Chris and Gaby (and then Johnny and Denise) put E3 on the broadcasting map. A perfect load of Bow Locks. • Don't ForgetYour Toothbrush (1994): Brought an unexpected sense of occasion to the Saturday night gameshow genre, back in the days when a foreign holiday was still a prize worth winning. And if you were in the audience, maybe it was under your seat... • TFIFriday (1996): Hang on, that's Chris Evans' third show in a row on this list. Either he had the golden touch in the mid 90s or there was nothing else on. • Wanted (1996): Remember this game of cat and mouse? Three teams of Runners attempted to hide somewhere in the UK from an evil band of Trackers, spending the programme hiding out on camera in an anonymous phone box, and if they survived they won money and got to stay on the run for another week. Inspired, exciting, and so wouldn't work ten years later in an age of mobile phones, email and the internet. • BrassEye (1997): Chris Morris's enticingly anarchic fake documentary series in which celebrities were tricked into saying the unsayable in front of swirly video backdrops. Nowadays Sky News looks like this all the time. • Queer AsFolk (1999): Before Russell T Davies got Doctor Who to play with, he cut his teeth on this ground-breaking drama about Doctor Who nerds having rampant gay sex. Alas no gay daleks. • Big Brother (2000): OK, so I probably have watched this more than I've watched Brookside, if only because all the drama (or lack of it) was real. Dominates the year in a way that no other show anywhere could ever equal. And it'll be back in six months.... • FakingIt (2000): Ushering in an age of lifeswap documentaries, there was nothing quite like watching somebody wholly unlikely attempting to learn something wholly unsuitable. At least for the first five shows anyway. • AsIf (2001): Character-based teen drama (a sort of pre-Skins Skins) where a bunch of six friends had almost-possible adventures in London suburbia. Would you? • Jamie'sSchoolDinners (2005): Influential current affairs programmes don't have to be dull and boring. Mr Oliver has been single-handedly responsible for transforming the nation's school canteens into healthy green eateries, and significantly decreasing take-up in the process. • The ITCrowd (2006): It's about time a Channel 4 comedy was funny. Maybe it's because every workplace has an IT department and they're all, well, you know, a bit odd. • UglyBetty (2007): It's saying something when my favourite programme on C4 at the moment is an American import. But this is Dynasty with teeth braces and botox, and it's hard to beat that. Here's to another quarter century.
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