TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

From the TV Times “A tattyphilarious session of laughter with songs with Doddy and his Knotty Nashville top pop guests.”

Hosted by the King of Knotty Ash, Ken Dodd and produced by Philip Jones, late of Thank Your Lucky Stars, it presented pop acts plugging their new discs between Doddy’s comic skits. No stranger to the pop charts himself, he had respect not only from the comedy world, but also popular music, so a show like this was was no surprise. Talking to TV Times ahead of the first series Dodd boasted "It will be a very slick, punchy mixture of comedy and music, featuring people in the charts." He also promised that he would be singing songs from his Diddymen EP as well as singing straight ballads for which he was justly successful. TV Times noted "Philip Jones, an ITV light entertainment executive, says of the Ken Dodd 'capture': 'This is quite a scoop for us. Naturally Ken will be encouraged to present both Doddy the comic and Dodd the singer in an attempt to get the very best out of this extremely talented artist."

The voice over was provided by ABC's David Hamilton whom Doddy nicknamed 'Diddy' which stuck with him for life. Hamilton also willingly acted as Doddy's straight man in both series.

Doddy played host to many of Britain's finest pop stars at the time, all of whom would trek up to ABC's Didsbury, Manchester studio, however show director Peter Frazier-Jones banned Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich from playing their EP track "The Loos Of England" on the show. It was very much a pop show, but it did dip it's toe into Midlands psych with The Moody Blues in 1968.

The eight week second series beginning 20th January 1968 would be recorded two days' before transmission in order to keep the jokes topical, with the gags themselves provided by Dodd and Eddie Braben, a few years before his classic work at the BBC with Morecambe and Wise. The series was due to finish 10th February, but was extended by another four shows until the 9th March 1968, but it's possible that the show would have been extended even further as Anita Harris was booked for a 16th March 1968 appearance.

The show would be back in the top ten ratings by the end of its run reaching 7.5 million homes, but Thames chose not to renew the show's contract when it took over from ABC later in the year. One show is thought to exist.

DODDY’S MUSIC BOX

ABC

7th January 1967 to 9th March 1968