"Let's Just See That Again"

April Fool's Day - that pointless 12-hour period at the start of April, when people and media outlets come up with unfunny, easy-to-spot "jokes", "pranks" and fake stories, then have an embarrassing tantrum when nobody falls for it.

Alright, so it's obvious that most of the silly/outrageous stuff you encounter on April 1st is going to be an April Fool's "gag", but the lack of creativity often seen makes it extremely dull and annoying (as does the way some people react if their prank dies on its arse).

Very few April Fool's Day pranks have made me smile and only two have made me laugh. One was in Doctor Who Magazine a few years ago and involved a person by the name of Augustus J Honeybun and the article made some references to the South West of England. For those of you who don't know, Augustus J Honeybun was the full name for Gus Honeybun - the Children's Birthday mascot for ITV's South West companies Westward and TSW. Then again, for most of you reading this, you probably know that...

The other April Fool's incident to make me laugh is actually still doing its job 26 years after it was broadcast.

30 Years on: The Sacred COW

As we saw in the previous post, the 1980s brought about a huge change in TV idents and presentation, as many broadcasters embraced computer graphics, leaving behind cell animation, mechanical models and sometimes, a static caption card, which had been the tried and trusted methods of on-screen branding since transmissions began.

In the 1980s, computer animation was starting to advance to a degree in which it was of a broadcast standard and although it still wasn't cheap, it was possible to produce short, high-quality pieces of animation for a reasonable price.

When Channel 4 burst onto UK screens in 1982, the highly impressive computer-animated idents had to be animated in the USA, as at the time, no computer animation company in the UK had the processing power to produce such smooth-flowing images with believable texture and lighting. Computer animation has always been a rapidly-evolving medium and this was especially true during these early days, as by 1983, the BBC had started work on creating a new ident for BBC 1 - their first computer-generated symbol.

The outcome of their research and hard work finally made it's debut at 7pm on the 18th February 1985 - 30 years ago this week, heralding a new era for the channel in more ways than one...