When the who’s who of 90s presenting was gradually replaced by a ‘who’s that?’, the show lost its early morning buzz
If there is one word most people would not use to describe their early mornings, it is “zany”. Modern-day breakfast TV adheres to this rule: the output needs to be as dull as most viewers’ sun-up routines.
BBC One Breakfast’s Charlie Stayt and Louise Minchin are only slightly more riveting than the sound of a boiling kettle. And it is easy to lose concentration on what Good Morning Britain’s Susanna Reid and Piers Morgan are gibbering on about on ITV when you are hopping on one foot in your underpants trying to pull on the other sock.
Back in 1990s, things were very different. TV presenters were so in-your-face at 7am you would think the producers must have sprinkled something on their 5am cornflakes. The Big Breakfast launched in 1992, broadcast from an over-stimulatedly decorated house in east
London, with ex-part time-Radio 1 DJ
Chris Evans and ex-Motormouth host Gabi Roslin coming through the TV screen at such a frantic rate it was like something in the TV studio was on fire. There were crazy alien puppets (Zig and Zag). Paula Yates interviewed blurry-eyed celebrities On the Bed. Actual bands from the Top 40 played out the show. If you were unlucky, The Word’s Mark Lamarr might actually walk Down Your Doorstep and ding-dong your front bell. The TV crew whooped and jeered. Even the newsreaders and weather people looked as if they had been out on an all-night bender.