What Was TFI?

26 May 2015

 

There are music shows. There are chat shows. There are even all-round entertainment shows. And then there's TFI Friday. 

For four years between 1996 and 2000, this iconic institution kicked down the doors to the weekend. As its name implies, the show aired on Channel 4 at 6pm Fridays and rapidly became part of its fanatical and fiercely loyal fanbase’s week. The title stands for “Thank Four it’s Friday” - nothing rude, honest.

Raucous, rowdy, relentlessly inventive and smelling faintly of booze, TFI was hosted by the legendary Chris Evans, who wrote the show with the equally legendary Danny Baker, and filmed in a bar at Hammersmith’s Riverside Studios.

In front of a frisky studio audience, Chris presided over a freewheeling mix of live music, comedy sketches, daft games and celebrity interviews.

TFI's unforgettable features and cast of cult characters included:

• Freak Or Unique? - members of the studio audience show off their bizarre abilities. Memorable talents include juicing an orange between their shoulder blades or forcing milk out of their tear ducts, then drinking it
• Ugly Blokes - unattractive gentlemen get the chance to turn down the amorous advances of “gorgeous girl” Catalina Guirado
• Everyone in the bar points their fingers at producer Will Macdonald, begin to swivel them and chant “Wiiillll” in a sinister  manner
• The Incredibly Tall Old Lady - she’s always waiting outside the studio window
•  It’s Your Letters - viewers’ mail, introduced by a burst of Reef’s re-recording of Place Your Hands"
• Andrew Carey, the TFI barman and landlord of the team’s favourite hostelry, The Haverstock Arms
• Show Us Your Face Then – someone in a football mascot costume reveals their real face
• Will: Pub Genius - producer Will Macdonald demonstrates a trick that can be performed down the boozer
• Baby Left, Baby Right - a cute kid gets placed on a cushion and the guest is asked which way it would fall
• Comment From the Cafe – Cedric, the proprietor of a local caff, performs a skit including his catchphrase “Hellooooooooo!"
• Fat Lookalikes - people who looked like porky versions of celebrities. Later replaced by Asian Lookalikes
• Cheesy DJ Johnny Boy Revell with his Wheels Of Steel
• Wooden Bird With Purple Hair - Chris Evans amuses the audience with a small, nodding, purple-haired wooden woodpecker which slides down a pole
•  The Lord Of Love - veteran thesp Ronald Fraser, dressed in a quilted smoking jacket, recites romantic poetry to girls in the audience.
• Sink Or Swim – will a chosen animal sink or swim in a fish tank?
• Kids in Mash – children submerged in a giant bowl of mashed potato

It was one of the touchstones of 90s TV and synonymous with that heady, lager-fuelled, Hooch-splashed, Fred Perry-clad, CK One-scented era of Britpop, Euro 96 and Cool Britannia. TFI’s mere mention makes an entire generation mist over with nostalgia for those halcyon, carefree days.

TFI Friday changed the face of UK television. Music programming, talk shows, entertainment formats and Friday nights would never be the same... Until now.