- "Sadly, there's one thing we all know about golden ages: they end."
Franchise: The Midlands
Companies: ATV (weekdays 1956-1968, all week 1968-1981), ABC (weekends 1956-1968), Central, Carlton
Provides examples of:
- Art Shift: Central's original flat rainbow disc ident eventually evolved into the segmented "cake" where the colours were split out into separate blocks.
- Bittersweet Ending: Carlton may have taken over and completely erased the identity of its predecessors, but it can't erase ATV and Central's legacies of their past work."That's the one thing that Carlton can't take away. It can destroy the present, it can control the future, but it can't destroy the past."
- Brief Accent Imitation: Harris does his opening narration in a Birmingham accent.
- Credits Montage: The episode ends with a montage of past Central idents set to "You're a Star" by Carl Wayne.
- Mickey Mousing: ABC had the advantage of its jingle actually being able to play the notes A, B and C in order to go along with the form-up of the logo.
- Named Like My Name: ABC and ATV originally had to duke it out over who got to retain the acronym "ABC", as their names were originally "Associated British Corporation" and "Associated Broadcasting Company" respectively.
- Shout-Out:
- The episode opens with a clip of Rik Mayall performing as Kevin Turvey.
- "Cum On Feel the Noize" by Slade plays over the opening narration to set the scene.
- Lew Grade is described as a "Vaudeville Wilson Fisk".
- The ITA-mandated team-up of Norman Collins and Lew Grade saw Collins "playing Clegg to his Cameron".
- ATV's shadowed eye was inspired by CBS's eye logo.
- "Percussion. It's not just for rhythm anymore" is a take off of the Florida Orange Juice "not just for breakfast anymore" campaign slogan.
- Angela Morley, the musical director of The Goon Show, is mentioned during the discussion of Zoom 2.
- Midway through the episode, there's a montage of some of ATV's greatest hits, including:
- Crossroads, whose theme music is also used as the backing track for the montage.
- Tiswas
- The Muppet Show
- Revolver
- Jesus of Nazareth
- The Golden Shot
- Beasts
- New Faces
- Pipkins
- Marty Feldman's Comedy Machine
- Muck and Brass appears in Central's opening trailer on New Year's Day.
- One of the Cake variations is described as "an homage to Derek Jarman's Blue". Another is described as an M.C. Escher painting.
- The first Carlton-made Central ident is accompanied by a clip of Pinkie Pie yelling "How dare you take the cake!"
- The Stinger: Gonzo attempts to play his trumpet before getting hit by a football (or soccer ball) and getting the trumpet stuck in his mouth.
- Viewers Are Morons: Harris voices his frustration over not Central not being permitted by Carlton to maintain its own identity, seemingly because Carlton's executives decided it would be "confusing" for the viewers.
