Talk:Tiswas

Archives
Would it be possible to include a section of what Tiswas shows still exist in the archive? - bingo99 09:48 28 August 2006

Arthurvasey (talk) 22:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC) Unfortunately, by the time viewers in the Tyne-Tees region finally decided that they were part of the ITV network and not strictly a community station, and decided to take Tiswas, Chris Tarrant, Bob Carolgees and John Gorman had left the show to do "an adult version of Tiswas" - that became OTT and, later, the slightly less-successful Saturday Stayback. We got the trailers for Tiswas earlier in the week - but they put out their own programmes - from around 10:15, it was nearly always old films - very few of which would have appealed to kids - war films, a film called Cup Glory, about the FA Cup - on only about two occasions, did any films appear that were suitable for kids - Wombling Free and The Man Called Flintstone, a feature-length episode of The Flintstones. I think they also screened Thunderbirds Are Go once, too.

I'm not sure if whole episodes of this, or any other similar programme, exist in the archives, due to its topical - and, in the case of ATV-region-only episodes, parochial - nature - the programme did feature a lot of crazy sketches, mostly ending in people getting gunged, by all accounts - but also had things like pop interviews, celebrity interviews and even cartoons - I think that some of the ATV-only episodes had people only known in the ATV area (just guessing!).

Even its rival, Swap Shop, had stuff in it that would be lost on a modern audience.

If there are any full episodes in the archives, they probably only exist on home-made VHS recordings.

I think they recorded the whole show - but edited out the topical bits and cartoons - with those edited out, the whole show would last about 45 minutes instead of two hours and would look disjointed in places.

Randolph Sutherland
Said in this entry to be a co-presenter of O.T.T. I don't believe this to be the case. For a start, who the hell is Randolph Sutherland? Has someone just made that name up out of thin air? Having seen the first seven episodes of this show recently, there's no record of him/her. - bingo99 06:00 7 February 2007

2007 Special
According to Tiswas Online, the date of broadcast is "PEAK time on ITV1 Saturday 5th May". Has this been officially confirmed? - bingo99 06:04 7 February 2007

The May 2007 edition of Sky The Magazine also promotes the Tiswas special as being broadcast on Sat May 5th 2007 at 9.30pm. Tiswasonline.com are reporting that transmission has now been delayed until June. But the good news is that the programme will feature in a longer timeslot. So we'll get more Tiswas than originally planned. 87.74.74.65 21:35, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Tiswas definition --- old U.K. East Midlands word
I am simply astonished that no-one has pointed out that "tiswas" is a very old U.K East Midlands word. That realization has put me into quite a pucky-acky.

My mother, born in Burton-upon-Trent in 1912, would frequently declare that "I'm all of a tiswas." She and other family members in the Midlands used this expression from the earliest times that I recall, in the early 1940s, and throughout her post-WWII life in Kent (where the word was then unknown), up to her death in 2001. My cousin (born in our Burton home in 1944, later moving to be "near Auntie") and in turn her son (in his thirties), now living on the Isle of Sheppey, still use it to this day (2007).

"Tiswas" means "to be in rather a tizzy" (an equivalent state, formed from the same root), meaning uncertain about what to do, with one's mind flitting between several and sometimes conflicting possibilities. My mother, an intellectually curious and well-read woman though unfortunately educated only up to age 14, told me that it derived from a contraction of "It is, it was" :"t'is was," finally "tiswas."

It is clear to me that everyone has the logic of the origin of "Tiswas" completely backwards. The BBC program Tiswas originated in an East Midlands BBC studio.The producers did NOT dream up the title and then use its first letters as an acronym; _clearly_, being East Midlanders, they knew the word already, and devised the programme's title to fit it. And of course, it suited their purposes beautifully, as they could then quite consistently dodge around from one topic to another without much concern for continuity. It was in fact an inspired choice. Too bad that that has not been recognized.

Spock2 21:11, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Over the years I have seen assorted explanations for "TISWAS", a couple being "This Is Saturday, Watch And See" or "We Are Stupid", among others... Lance Tyrell193.130.128.2 12:55, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I've heard of it expanded as "This Is Saturday, Wear A Smile" or "This Is Saturday, Watch And Smile". But I'm not sure I've heard of it being "Today" before just now.  We could do with a source to tell us which expansion is correct. — Smjg (talk) 22:42, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

There was a question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire once - which Chris Tarrant hosts - can't remember the question, but one of the wrong answers was Tiswas - and he said that the initials stood for Today Is Saturday, Watch And Smile - mind you, other variations on a theme are derivable!

Arthurvasey (talk) 15:51, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Series 7
The article claims that midway through series seven, "Chris Tarrant decided to go out on a high, and make it his final Tiswas series."

I'm pretty sure I recall Tarrant appearing on ATV Today to promote Tiswas, the night before the start of this new series. He revealed then that this would be his final year with the programme. Hence to claim he decided midway through the series that he was going to quit is not quite right.

87.74.74.65

Fair use rationale for Image:TiswasReunited.jpg
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BetacommandBot 19:57, 23 October 2007 (UTC) Italic text

John Asher
The article wrongly credits John Mallory Asher as being one of the first presenters. The presenter's name was indeed John Asher, but it could not possibly have been John Mallory Asher. I remember John Asher well. He was definitely an adult. He was relatively tall, and had black curly hair. John Mallory Asher was born in 1971, and so he would have been 3 years old in 1974. I'm sure Chris Tarrant would have noticed if his co-presenter had been a toddler. The viewers would certainly have noticed.

IMDB gets this wrong too. (Possibly they sourced their information from Wikipedia.) The real John Asher would have been in his late 20s or early 30s, I guess - although I was still a schoolboy in 1974, so my age perception was probably a bit dodgy; but I'd definitely have noticed if he was only just out of nappies/diapers.

If you can get hold of Chris Tarrant, I'm sure he'll be able to set the record straight. 86.167.68.118 (talk) 02:18, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Regional start dates
There is some uncertainty on when Tiswas started in various ITV regions, this information can be obtained from newspaper archives.

The Glasgow Herald suggests that Christmas Eve 1977 was the first broadcast of Tiswas on STV. Listed as a new series it was actually Series 4 Ep 16 according to IMDB http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xY5AAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3qQMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4170%2C4959128 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.53.175.24 (talk) 19:09, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Tiswas. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070406121821/http://www.tiswasonline.com:80/news.php to http://www.tiswasonline.com/news.php
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070313155759/http://www.offthetelly.co.uk:80/blog/2007/03/this-is-what-they-want.html to http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/blog/2007/03/this-is-what-they-want.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 03:00, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

No mention of Flanderella the Phantom Flan Flinger's female counterpart.
Flanderella made regular appearances and was particularly notable for her assistance in the flanning of St Winifred's School Choir whilst they were singing Clive Dunn's "Grandad". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:4B20:600:495F:D666:198A:625 (talk) 22:38, 12 January 2019 (UTC)