History Series / TopOfThePops

* EarnYourHappyEnding: There is a suspicion that in the old days of Lord Reith as Director-General, the Creator/{{BBC}} felt compelled to meet its mission statement of seeking to educate the viewing British public, whether the British public wanted to be educated or not. Thus, in TheSeventies, British youth avidly and impatiently waiting for its weekly fix of exciting live bands on ''Top Of The Pops'' at seven-thirty on a Thursday evening had first got to sit through the worthy, earnest, and often rather dull science and technology magazine show ''Series/TomorrowsWorld'', which began at seven. It was the TV equivalent of GreensPrecedeSweets.

** ''Series/AmericanBandstand'' (in fairness, this started in the 1950s). Other similar programs included ''Series/SoulTrain'', ''Dance Party USA'' (on the Creator/USANetwork when they were a tiny network with little original programming), and ''Club Creator/{{MTV}}''.

* UnPerson: After the exposure of Jimmy Savile's serial predations, the BBC is understandably reluctant to ever show any footage including him. Unluckily, that includes major portions of the show's history.

Sadly, the entire original show is now trapped in the shadow of the discovery that Savile abused his position at the BBC and with various charities to become the British Isles' most prolific sex offender (although according to Operation Yewtree, the investigation into celebrity sex offences, he probably wasn't the ''only'' [=ToTP=] presenter to abuse his position this way; colleague Dave Lee Travis was tried on similar allegations, and was convicted on an indecent assault charge, although it was not directly connected to [=ToTP=]). The stories of his assaults only broke to the public after his 2011 death, so he was never brought to judgment for his crimes. Not surprisingly, [[BannedEpisode his episodes are no longer seen in reruns]], and any footage used for news/archival purposes is heavily blurred to edit out audience members out of fears that ''anyone'' in the audience was a potential victim.

* UnPerson: After the exposure of Jimmy Savile's serial predations, the BBC is understandably reluctant to ever show any footage including him.

For a large part of its history, the artists performing on the show were required to lip synch their performance. Some (like Music/JethroTull, Music/BelleAndSebastian, Music/{{Blur}}, Music/{{Oasis}}, Music/{{The Cure|Band}}, Music/{{Nirvana}} and Music/{{Marillion}}) had fun with this, intentionally miming their vocals and instruments poorly. Music/TheSmiths, in fact, gained their first major breakthrough with their anarchic miming of their first UK Top 40 single "This Charming Man" on the show. Before the "lip sync-only" rule was removed, there were a handful of performers (namely Music/NewOrder, Music/DavidBowie, Music/JohnLennon and Music/BillyBragg) who performed one of their songs ("Blue Monday", "Starman", "Instant Karma" and "Between the Wars", respectively) live on the program. These performances were always a made into a big deal. Music/SuziQuatro's band really went to town on this: during a performance of "Devilgate Drive", the keyboards player left the piano and got up and danced, whilst the piano appeared to play itself. The drummer soon joined in, whilst the thunderous drum-playing continued with no obvious musician at the drum kit to provide this. Suzi herself took both hands away from her bass guitar to emphasise the point she was miming. Meanwhile three hundred clearly bored and embarrassed kids just sat there, listlessly clapping out the beat ''and still getting it wrong''.

* BookEnds: Creator/JimmySavile presented the first episode. At the end of the series, he co-presented the last, and the final scene showed him shaking his head in sadness and then pulling a giant switch as though to cut the power. This is grim in hindsight, of course -- Savile is now an UnPerson in the eyes of the BBC and much [=TotP=] material featuring him as linking man has been locked up in the archives, [[BannedEpisode unlikely to ever be screened again]].

* ''Top of the Pops (Year) - The Big Hits.'' (Hour long ClipShow of the big, and not so big hits, of a particular year. Starting with 64-75 in 2011 and currently up to 1999
as of 2022)

* ''Top of the Pops 2'' (Originally a mix of the main programme, new music and archive show performances, {{Re Tool}}ed as mainly archive with the arrival of Steve Wright (1997-2009) replacing Johnnie Walker (1994-97) and later Mark Radcliffe (2009-2017). Usually shortened to [=TOTP2=]. Aired from 1994-2017)

* ''Top of the Pops (Year) - The Big Hits.'' (Hour long ClipShow of the big, and not so big hits, of a particular year. Usually buried away on BBC4 at stupid o'clock on a Friday night.)

* ''Top of the Pops 2'' (Originally a mix of the main programme, new music and archive show performances, {{Re Tool}}ed as mainly archive with the arrival of Steve Wright (1997-2009) replacing Johnnie Walker (1994-97) and later Mark Radcliffe (2009-2017). Usually shortened to TOTP2. Aired from 1994-2017)

** TOTP2's Steve Wright had his moments as well. Then Mark Radcliffe took over, the snark level went up, and even the text box (During the songs on TOTP2 a little box would appear at the bottom of the screen with facts about the songs or artists) got in on the act as well:

* ReTool: Often when a new producer was appointed. Either made the show good (Ric Blaxill) or awful (Andi Peters). Also the ''TOTP 2'' {{Re Tool}} mentioned above.

* ''Top of the Pops 2'' (Originally a mix of the main programme, new music and archive show performances, {{Re Tool}}ed as mainly archive with the arrival of Steve Wright and later Mark Radcliffe. Usually shortened to TOTP2)

For a large part of its history, the artists performing on the show were required to lip synch their performance. Some (like Music/JethroTull, Music/BelleAndSebastian, Music/{{Blur}}, Music/{{Oasis}}, Music/TheCure, Music/{{Nirvana}} and Music/{{Marillion}}) had fun with this, intentionally miming their vocals and instruments poorly. Music/TheSmiths, in fact, gained their first major breakthrough with their anarchic miming of their first UK Top 40 single "This Charming Man" on the show. Before the "lip sync-only" rule was removed, there were a handful of performers (namely Music/NewOrder, Music/DavidBowie, Music/JohnLennon and Music/BillyBragg) who performed one of their songs ("Blue Monday", "Starman", "Instant Karma" and "Between the Wars", respectively) live on the program. These performances were always a made into a big deal. Music/SuziQuatro's band really went to town on this: during a performance of "Devilgate Drive", the keyboards player left the piano and got up and danced, whilst the piano appeared to play itself. The drummer soon joined in, whilst the thunderous drum-playing continued with no obvious musician at the drum kit to provide this. Suzi herself took both hands away from her bass guitar to emphasise the point she was miming. Meanwhile three hundred clearly bored and embarrassed kids just sat there, listlessly clapping out the beat ''and still getting it wrong''.

* {{Fanservice}}: Resident dance troupes Pan's People and follow-ups Legs and Co; arguably most of the female presenters in the late 1990s: Creator/ZoeBall, J ayne Middlemiss, Gail Porter, Lisa Snowdon...

It ws presented by disc jockeys from BBC Radio 1 for many years (including legendary indie rock DJ Creator/JohnPeel) but most viewers associate the show with Creator/JimmySavile, who presented the first episode, co-hosted the last, and appeared regularly as a host for 20 years.

Sadly, the entire original show is now trapped in the shadow of the discovery that Savile abused his position at the BBC and with various charities to become the British Isles' most prolific sex offender (although according to Operation Yewtree, the investigation into celebrity sex offences, he probably wasn't the ''only'' [=ToTP=] presenter to abuse his position this way; colleague Dave Lee Travis was tried on similar allegations, and was convicted on an indecent assault charge, although it was not directly connected to [=ToTP=]). The stories of his assaults broke to the public after his 2011 death, so he was never brought to judgment for his crimes. Not surprisingly, [[BannedEpisode his episodes are no longer seen in reruns]], and any footage used for news/archival purposes is heavily blurred to edit out audience members out of fears that ''anyone'' in the audience was a potential victim.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: There is a suspicion that in the old days of Lord Reith as Director-General, the Creator/{{BBC}} felt compelled to meet its mission statement of seeking to educate the viewing British public, whether the British public wanted to be educated or not. Thus, in TheSeventies, British youth avidly and impatiently waiting for its weekly fix of exciting live bands on ''Top Of The Pops'' at seven-thirty on a Thursday evening had first got to sit through the worthy, earnest, and often rather dull science and technology magazine show ''Series/TomorrowsWorld'', which began at seven. It was the TV equivalent of "you can't have your pudding until you've eaten up all your greens".

** ''Series/AmericanBandstand'' (in fairness, this started in the 1950s).

** Canada also had their own equivalent, Creator/{{Citytv}} / Creator/MuchMusic's ''Electric Circus''.

* {{Fanservice}}: Resident dance troupes Pan's People and follow-ups Legs and Co; arguably most of the female presenters in the late 1990s: Creator/ZoeBall,Jayne Middlemiss, Gail Porter, Lisa Snowdon...