Ski Sunday: The Show That Sent Britain Downhill Fast
The recent cold snap makes this as good a time as any to celebrate 45 years of a BBC institution.
Can a terrible piece of music simultaneously be a superb television theme tune? It can if it's Sam Fonteyn's 'Pop Looks Bach', a track that owes rather too much to the equally dreadful disco classical numbers showcased on the Saturday Night Fever OST but is truly sublime when played under footage of Franz Klammer conquering the Hahnenkamm or Peter Muller breaking his collarbone. Again.
Welcome to Ski Sunday. Now about to embark on its 38th series, today's Ski Sunday is hosted by Ed Leigh and a brace of British Winter Olympians, Chemmy Alcott and Graham Bell. In its current incarnation, it's a programme part travelogue, part roundup of the week's competition results. Previously in the mid-noughties, the show's format veered rather too that of Top Gear's, with celebrities such as Fiona Bruce, Marcus Brigstocke, Colin Jackson and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson being set various, potentially bone-shattering challenges.
All of which is so very different to the show that launched on January 15th 1978. During those peak years, Ski Sunday was entirely dedicated to the World Cup circuit in general and downhill and slalom skiing in particular. It was also but one of many programmes from the era to showcase the reassuring baritone of David Vine. The host of Superstars, Question Of Sport, Pot Black and World's Strongest Man, Vine was ubiquity personified. He also made frequent appearances in Private Eyes' Colemanballs strand, with his description of Israel as "a Mecca for tourists" guaranteeing him a place in presenting infamy.
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