Merry Christmas!
“And welcome back to your Christmas listening with Lee B on UpAndHappy!”
In part one of my Christmas programmes you could hear my original ‘Christmas Number One’s programmes from 2004 and 2008. Then in part two you could hear my Muppets and Beatles Specials.
Now it’s time for some of the special Christmas editions of my own “UpAndHappy!” programme.
A reminder: “UpAndHappy!” was my radio programme on WCRfm in Wolverhampton between 1999-2011. It was deliberately silly and daft, and I based it on all of the fun I had when watching Tiswas when I was little. The idea was that it would hopefully get you “up and happy” for the weekend. Well, I tried anyway, ha ha! How the show evolved can be seen here.
I did a number of Christmas Specials where I played my favourite Christmas songs, and threw in some festive features along the way, plus Christmas editions of some of my childhood favourites (The Wombles, Willo The Wisp).
Oh and I even managed to shoe-horn a complete Disney film into one show… read on…
There’s actually a lot of crossover/repetition between the various years. The reason for this is simple. Each Christmas on Blue Peter – which I adore to this day – they would use virtually the same script year after year from the 60s right up until the present day, but only slightly updated (watch it and see) and I thought I should do something similar.
Over the years I’d put together some nice fun features to include in the Christmas Special but I thought why should they only ever go out once? So with every passing year I tweaked the show a little more. Then by 2007 – the first year that the radio station WCRfm went onto FM after having previously been on AM/Medium Wave – the programme included everything!
With my tongue very firmly in my cheek, I jokingly call this the definitive edition, but you can listen to all of them below!
Long-time listeners may spot that these shows don’t (yet) feature the legend that is Dr StrangeGlove, nor Oli-Pop, and Jenii-Tastic only appears briefly in the 2008 2nd hour… but don’t fret, you’ll hear these and many of the other characters when I post loads more editions of UpAndHappy! over the coming year.
Oh and finally, you can hear a programme to fill in the-bit-between-Christmas-and-New-Year – that’s the one with the Disney film in it!
I do have more of my Christmas Shows in the archives, but I’ll save them for next year – surely this is plenty for now! Maybe it can become a Christmas tradition, ha ha… erm…
Jump to a show:
- UpAndHappy! at Christmas 2007-8 (the definitive edition) <—
- UpAndHappy! Holiday Special 2007
- UpAndHappy! Christmas Party 2004
- UpAndHappy! Christmas Special 2005
UpAndHappy! at Christmas (2007-2008)
So then, this is what I think of as the ‘definitive’ version of my UpAndHappy! Christmas Radio Specials (don’t worry, I don’t take myself too seriously, ever!).
By now WCRfm was broadcasting on FM across the whole of the Wolverhampton area, after previously being available only on Medium Wave/AM, and so from 2007 onwards there was a much larger audience.
Therefore I compiled together all of the ‘best bits’ from previous Christmas editions along with some new material.
The first hour went out in 2007 and was then repeated over the next couple of Christmases until the programme ended in 2011.
As you see there are 2 versions of the second hour – these simply alternated year-by-year, again until the programme ended in 2011.
As you may know, from 2008 we introduced many more silly and funny characters into the programme, but that’s for another time…
UpAndHappy! Holiday Special (2007)
For the 2007 Holiday Period I thought I would put together a second special for that special time between Christmas and New Year when nothing ever happens! I remembered from when I was little that we’d often get an edition of ‘DisneyTime‘ on BBC1 where a contemporary celebrity would introduce clips of not-often-seen Disney films. Or there would be a special showing of a Disney film.
So I thought I’d do something similar. For my 10th birthday, my Aunty Mary and Uncle Bert gave me a lovely narrated soundtrack album of The Jungle Book (see the picture) and that film has since become my favourite ‘classic’ Walt Disney film.
For this programme I ‘remastered’ it with not-so-scratchy versions of the songs, and the resulting programme was broadcast in the after-Christmas Saturday Morning slot. For the second hour, I included a behind-the-scenes feature for The Jungle Book, and followed it with another ‘showing’ of The Snowman (which also features in my ‘Muppets‘ Christmas Show).
This programme also features Jenii-Tastic’s ‘Game and That’ and Nikkster’s ‘Word of the Week’.
Happy New Year!
Buy The Jungle Book (1967 original):
The Jungle Book © 1967 Walt Disney Productions
The Snowman © 1982 Snowman Enterprises Ltd, ©1983 CBS Records
UpAndHappy! Christmas Party (2004)
The first of the earlier versions of the Christmas programme, as broadcast on 1350 WCRam in 2004.
UpAndHappy! Christmas Special (2005)
The second of the earlier versions of the Christmas programme, as broadcast on 1350 WCRam in 2005.
