A Christmas ident Easter Egg

I hadn't noticed this before, but TV Ark has highlighted this on Youtube. This is one of the 2004 BBC1 idents - look in the bottom right corner about 20 seconds in as one of the kids falls off the bouncing pudding and fails to get on again. Awww!

Channel 4 used to be able to do Christmas presentation

It's been a few years since Channel 4 had a stab at Christmas presentation. Sure, they'd put on festive shows, films and specials, but the bits in-between - the idents and trailers - share the style that is used throughout the year.

It's a shame, because even though Channel 4's budget is much lower than its competitors, it used to punch above its weight in terms of presentation. What do you think?:

And even though few people would watch their closedown - this was back in the days before 24-hour broadcasts - they'd come up with the odd gem:

2009 Flashback: Channel Idents

A quick jump back to last December - someone on YouTube has created this lovely collection of channel idents used last Christmas. I create computer animations from time to time, so have become obsessed with the design of these, from the bog-standard animations used for watch, through to the mixture of computer graphics and live action used by Sky and BBC1.

All I Want For Christmas Is... a decent BBC Christmas ident

Christmas TV comes and goes, but one of the things which stick in your memory is the BBC Christmas ident - the little animation they play whilst introducing the next programme. In the early days, these were mechanical models featuring everything from snowflakes to rotating disembodied Santa heads. In the '80s these switched to animations, and then became ever more elaborate as computer technology improved.

The BBC's been slipping when it comes to Xmas idents recently, even repeating idents from one year to the next. If they repeat the BBC2 ident this year, it will be the fourth time it's been used - sadly it's a sign of corporatism and the rise of the bean-counters rather than any huge desire to please the viewer.

Anyway... here's a collection of BBC1 Christmas idents from the '70s to 2007: