It'll be alright... one more time.

Some months ago I wrote this piece taking a detailed look at the differences in the edit between It’ll Be Alright On The Night 5, the original version screened in 1988, and a later repeat shown in 1991. (You might want to read that first if you haven't already.) At the time it was known that Alright 5 descended from ‘It’ll Be Alright On Christmas Night’, something which was apparently the same programme but “with some more Christmas stuff” shown the previous year, in 1987. But at the time, we only had about the first minute of the show to go on. 

Recently, a full copy of the Christmas Night version appeared on YouTube - huge thanks to Lee Wall who spotted it and let me know. So it seemed like a good time to revisit the show and fully compare each version to see if we can get any further insight into the differences between them all. 

The easiest way to demonstrate what’s going on is to play all three shows together, pausing each one at the right points so as to keep them all largely in sync with each other. Happily I've done all that hard work for you, and you can watch the result below.

The ‘Christmas Night’ version was first aired, so that is shown on the left hand side of your screen. The 1988 version is in the centre, the 1991 repeat on the right. So let's get started. The times listed below match this video:

You'll see that there's an embedded advert in that video, that's not something I did, but was added automatically by YouTube on account of the music, which triggers a copyright match. Not only is that totally fair (artists should be paid for their work) but it's also really helpful as it serves to identify the Alright on the Night theme music as "Broadway Lights" by Ruffino Francis, a piece of library music which you can now enjoy in its full length stereo version over at the Upright Music Catalogue.

OK, let's go.

00:00 - LWT ‘Genesis’ Ident

Aah. 

00:09 - CHRISTMAS NIGHT VERSION ONLY: Clip: Santa Claus Doll

US News & Weather anchors enjoy a Santa Claus doll which will not stop playing music.

00:52 - CHRISTMAS NIGHT: OPENING TITLES

00:55 - ALRIGHT 5: TITLES IN

Alright On The Night 5 didn’t seem to have any pre-title clips, so we’ll bring both versions in here so that they’re roughly in sync with the Christmas Night version.

01:04 - ALRIGHT 5: Voiceover - ‘And Ladies and Gentlemen, here’s Denis Norden’ 

Alright 5 is not messing about, getting straight to the point and ending the music with no delay.

01:09 - CHRISTMAS NIGHT: Voiceover - ‘And Ladies and Gentlemen, here’s Denis Norden’ 

The Christmas Night version spends longer with the music, giving Denis more time to get to his chair. The voiceover is also different. The same announcer (Ray Brooks?) but slightly more downbeat in the delivery.

01:13 ALRIGHT 5: STUDIO - Denis: INTRODUCTION

“Hello, and-and welcome to this brand new out-crop of out-takes. All of them demonstrating what I once saw a management training manual describe as ‘un-planned deviations from criteria-based standards of competence.' Or what we rank-and-file call cock-ups. Anyway, this sort of thing…"

01:22 CHRISTMAS NIGHT: STUDIO - Denis: INTRODUCTION

“Hello, hello, and-and a seasonal welcome to this brand new out-crop of out-takes. All of them demonstrating what I once saw a management training manual describe as ‘un-planned deviations from criteria-based standards of competence.' Or what we rank-and-file call cock-ups. Anyway, this sort of thing…"

A tiny difference, but obviously two completely different introductions. 

01:42 CHRISTMAS NIGHT ONLY: Clip: Australian telephone problems

A further cock-up exclusive to the Christmas Night version.

02:57 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Winner Takes All - chair fault

This is the first clip seen in Alright On The Night 5, so comes directly after Denis’s “this sort of thing…” introduction for non-Christmas viewers. 

03:07 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Margaret Thatcher clip - drops microphone

03:17 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Reporter annoys horse

03:26 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Highway - Harry Secombe - Mary Queen Of Spots

Notable here at 03:45 is that Christmas Night leaves this clip 5 seconds earlier than Alright 5 does. Only loss is some extended laughter and a comment which sounds a bit like ‘What a pillock.’ (Perhaps a homage to Fred Dinenage.) 

This begins a bit of a trend throughout much of the edit - the Christmas Night version often cuts studio pieces and clips more closely, saving a few seconds (sometimes only a few frames) here and there.

03:50 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Black and white - man falls over deckchair

03:55 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Professional football

04:18 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Presenter rips dress while hanging up Christmas baubles

Wait a second, this is interesting. None of the Christmas clips are necessarily SO Christmassy that they couldn’t be used at other times of the year, but this is the first obvious Christmas clip which remains present in Alright 5 and not just the Christmas Night version.

04:24 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Sheepdog ‘toboggan’

Christmas Night comes out of this clip two seconds earlier than Alright 5. Note the reverse side of the DVE move is a Christmas tree on ‘Christmas Night’ but is the stylised number on Alright 5. That graphic styling continues throughout each show.

04:42 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Backref & intro ‘international’ clips 

Exactly the same, although Christmas Night at 05:14 comes into the clip slightly earlier. Christmas Night also brings in the ‘Austria’ caption rather earlier, and then takes the opportunity to lose 3 seconds before the close-up of the milk company manager.

05:14 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Milk carton spillage clip (Austria)

06:34 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: History is being made before your very ears (Canada)

06:43 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Table collapse (Brazil)

06:56 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Beer Keg (“W. Germany”)

By the time of the 1991 repeat, the term ‘West Germany’ might have been a little out of date, but changing the graphic might have been a nuisance. 

07:31 CHRISTMAS NIGHT ONLY: Clip: Flying plant pot gets smashed (Hong Kong)

A little strange to see the clip illustrated with a Union Jack in the lower third, but of course that would have been correct at the time, and would have remained so even in the later years where Alright 5 was shown - except this clip only seems to be present in the Christmas version. It doesn’t look especially seasonal, and may just have been an early example of what I’ve presumed to be rights issues that caused more clips to be lost between initial showings of Alright 5 and its repeat (of which we’ll see more later). Incidentally, the sound of the plant pot smashing is too good and almost certainly from a sound effects library - perhaps added to make it more obvious since it is not seen on camera. 

07:45 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Ballerina falls over (USSR)

All back together again. The term ‘USSR’ would still have been valid as late as the 1991 repeat, but not past then. 

07:57 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Water trick spillage (Mexico)

That trick only works if you don’t show off too much and start tipping the glass from side to side - which is of course exactly what happens. 

08:08 CHRISTMAS NIGHT AND ALRIGHT 5 1988 ONLY: Clip: Japanese scenery collapse

The first of many Japanese clips which were removed for some reason in the 1991 repeat of Alright 5.

08:22 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Chantal Cuer - Background collapse (France)

08:35 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Backref & Intro ‘One Word’ cock-ups

Notice the timing of the DVE move is slightly different between the Christmas and Alright 5 versions. No biggie, but obviously it’s easier to see here.

09:12 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Sky TV ‘Viewers joining us in Rude’ 

Alright 5 joins this clip exactly four frames earlier than Christmas Night does. Just saying.

09:33 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Beryl Reid - Industrial Revelation (silly old cow) 

09:50 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Crazy Eddie - Microwave Ovem 

10:02 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Talking books for the deaf 

10:16 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Vox Pop - Regan vs Mondale - “I don’t think he’s sterile"

Presumably from the 1984 presidential election.

10:33 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: We must plug-hole this loop-hole

10:56 ALRIGHT 5 ONLY: STUDIO - Denis: Backref

Denis comments on the last clip. For some reason this isn’t present in Christmas Night, saving just over 7 seconds. 

11:04 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Intro: ‘Facilitate’ 

11:18 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: ‘Facilitate’ 

Alright 5 seems to be six frames tighter in the cut between the studio and the clip. That’s unusual as so far it seems to have been the other way around.

13:20 CHRISTMAS ONLY: STUDIO - Denis: Eating and Drinking

"All up and down the country people are saying to each other, ‘facilitate’, ‘facilitate’… Anyway, pa— part of what makes Christmas Day such a heart-warmingly family occasion is the food. After all, what other holiday permits all three generations to get indigestion together? Which is why we’re now turning over a whole sub-section to eating and drinking scenes."

13:47 ALRIGHT 5 ONLY: STUDIO - Denis: Cook-ups

"All up and down the country people are saying to each other, ‘facilitate’, ‘facilitate’… Well anyway, contrary to popular belief, most of the food on TV programmes is the real thing. Something not always true of the canteen! But because TV eating and drinking have inspired some of our most satisfying out-takes, here’s a small batch of what I suppose you could call ‘cook-ups’. "

This is the only other difference in-studio between the versions, but quite a nice one. And isn’t “Cook-ups” just the most wildly BETTER title than ‘Eating and drinking scenes’ ? 

14:09 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Easy as pie

14:22 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Duty Free

15:08 CHRISTMAS ONLY: Clip: Snacky Apples

15:24 CHRISTMAS ONLY: Clip: Prunes

Two clips which are not obviously Christmassy, but didn’t make it into Alright 5.

15:43 CHRISTMAS AND ALRIGHT 1988 ONLY: Sweet potatoes

Another Japanese clip which didn’t make it into the 1991 repeat of Alright On The Night 5, which therefore ended up with only 3 clips in this section, compared to 4 in Alright 5 and 6 in Christmas Night.

16:02 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Dr Pepper dribble

16:12 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO: Denis - Backref & intro next clip

16:36 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: War song

Alright 5 seems to shave 8 frames off the start of this clip (assuming that their absence is not down to a recording error on the original VHS, naturally.)

16:55 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Newsreader obscured by graphic

17:07 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Danny Baker - When a man is tired of London

17:30 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Newsreader off camera

17:44 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Passing airplane

17:51 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: It’s just stopped

18:01 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Le Train de Grande Vitesse

18:36 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: John McCrirrick - the hat’s gone

18:59 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Backref and intro Weather clips

19:21 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Reporter sprayed by passing car

19:33 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Woman’s skirt blown up by wind

19:49 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Cliff Richard - Some People (fog)

20:21 ALL VERSIONS: Into & out of break

The 1991 recording drops out here temporarily but that appears to have been done by whoever recorded it, and not part of the broadcast.

20:34 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Would you please shut up?

20:47 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Mattress commercial

21:02 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Jim Davidson - Forgot his name

21:15 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Man falls over wall

21:32 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Church service (fire)

21:49 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: The secret of a good lay is a firm bottom

22:08 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Backref & intro Awkward Interviewees

22:36 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: The most expensive garage in Lewisham

22:45 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Mike Gatting

23:04 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Does it worry you, being so close to Sizewell?

23:19 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Is your name Kathy?

23:28 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: False teeth

23:49 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Died in a heroic act

24:00 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Police 5 - Isn’t it that one over there?

24:28 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Backref & Intro buildup clips

25:00 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Angry wrestler kicks away seat

Christmas Night comes into the wrestling clip slightly later than Alright 5, saving exactly 26 frames.

25:15 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: The top gymnasts in Oklahoma right now

25:28 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: TV-AM - Kay Burley - Royal Wedding (‘Let’s see the crowds.’)

Alright 5 comes out of this clip a little earlier, saving 10 frames (at the expense of having to use a different DVE move)

25:39 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: I’m Not Coleman (nor is he Cynthia)

25:11 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Come to Scarborough (bullshit)

That’s surprisingly fruity language to be left unbleeped, isn’t it? The same in all 3 versions. 

26:13 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Bob Hope Center

26:37 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: In an effort to keep people from falling through the ice…

26:44 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Roger Whittaker

Of interest here is that the Christmas Night version of this clip is 11 seconds longer, as its appearance in Alright 5 trims off Roger’s explanation that the song is from “A movie that I made in Kenya called A Musical Safari of Kenya… It was very successful, it’s shown all over America, and we’re going to make another one.” - This is unusual as generally Alright 55 is the longest presentation of each clip, and Christmas Night cuts them slightly, so this is the reverse of that - although the Alright 5 version does still feature an extra three seconds at the end where Roger has his head in his hands, having forgotten the words to his song.

27:20 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Backref & intro Soap Opera clips

Interestingly in Alright 5 a few seconds is saved by hearing Denis say ‘Roger Whittaker’ over the wide shot of him sitting, whereas in Christmas Night you see this straight to camera. That again is unusual compared to the rest of the show.

27:49 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: I’m gonna live through this

Christmas Night loses just over a second (34 frames) of silence from the start of this clip - or alternatively you could take the view that Alright 5 lengthens the clip by 34 meaningless frames just to pad out the programme. But that's unlikely to have been the process.

28:14 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Come to, Baby

28:58 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Knots Landing - with maggots

29:18 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: It is wrong to sleep with another man’s husband

29:33 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Emmerdale - Forgetful Seth

29:56 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: It’s not loaded!

30:09 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Take the High Road - What happened?

30:23 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: His name’s Todd

30:41 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Interruptions, Distractions and Intruders

31:05 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Bees

31:23 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Ecstasy at the Courthouse

31:38 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Ontario Cow

31:53 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Excuse me sir but get the **** out of the way

31:02 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Austin Mitchell - Wristwatch

32:17 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Monkey bites reporter’s bottom

32:48 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Mosquitoes up my dress

32:56 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Hypertension

33:18 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Reporter worried by bee

33:35 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Richard Digance - f**k off

There’s a reference to Christmas Crackers in his song, but that would be tenuous at best.

33:54 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Anti cock-up insurance

34:19 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Robin of Sherwood - Arrow

34:33 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Paul Nicholas - Bust

34:55 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Stone Bust (German)

Spot the ITV cue dot top right - interestingly not present on the other two transmissions. 

35:21 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Angsty song causes microphone droop

35:35 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Jeremy Hands, ITN, in Putney

35:46 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Sign language

35:55 ALL VERSIONS: Into and out of break

Off to the break we go. And we’re back! The 1991 Alright 5 recording misses out the first clip after the break but it’s hard to say if that’s due to a lax use of the unpause button after the adverts or if it’s another of the missing Japanese clips removed in the 1991 repeat. 

36:11 ALL VERSIONS (MAYBE - POSSIBLY NOT IN 1991): Clip: Singer falls over

The clip used in the Christmas Night version is 4 seconds longer than the 1988 version of Alright 5. (Unusual.)

36:21 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Magic box breaks

36:34 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Policemen locked out of their own car

36:49 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Marching band

37:07 CHRISTMAS & ALRIGHT 5 1988 ONLY: Clip: Japanese presenter falls in water

37:26 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Jim Benneman hit by prop

37:37 CHRISTMAS & ALRIGHT 5 1988 ONLY: Clip: Japanese performer crotch incident

37:44 CHRISTMAS & ALRIGHT 5 1988 ONLY: STUDIO - Denis: Backref

Referencing the Japanese clip (not present in the 1991 repeat) Denis comments “It’s more or less what they did to our car industry”. The 1991 repeat picks up from after this line. 

37:50 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Introducing Prop clips

38:12 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: DIY show

38:28 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Man rips trousers and gets stuck

39:01 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Man catches cane on door handle

39:11 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Game show - no click

39:48 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Taggart - Lighter

40:12 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: TV-AM - Jesus (upside down)

40:28 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: 50s TV infomercial - Salamander pans

40:46 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Piano shuts on pianist’s fingers

40:56 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Backref & Intro next clips

41:19 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Leanne Cock

41:26 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: News 11 at 6 - string of pearls

41:39 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Police 5 - Stuck Autocue

Christmas Night comes out of this clip one second earlier - Alright 5 holds on it for a second longer.

41:52 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: News 4 Oklahoma

42:00 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: News - Sloane Brown Fell Down

42:09 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: ABC News - Squeaky Good Evening (Tylenol)

OK, now this clip was interesting before, when we identified the differences between the 1988 and 1991 showings of Alright 5. The Christmas Night version makes it even more interesting again, as the ‘Tylenol Scare’ headline image is obscured completely by an overlay of the ‘ABC News Brief’ title card seen before the cut to the presenter. Thus across the 3 versions of the show, we have three different treatments of this one out-take. 

Given that the clip was messed about with (in two different ways) in Christmas 1987 and the 1991 repeat, and that someone clearly felt that going to that trouble was necessary, it looks like its unfiltered appearance in the 1988 version may have been a mistake or an oversight of some kind. This also lends possible weight to the idea that Alright 5 is the initial edit version of this show (even though it transmitted later) and that Christmas night is a derivative from it, which would certainly explain extra nips and tucks here in the Christmas version.

If this is the only real difference of importance that we take away from this investigation, it will all have been worth it. Maybe. 

All the different versions of the Tylenol clip mean each version goes out of sync by a few frames, (remember a separately-edited DVE move is needed for each as the obscured images are all different in some way) but we can pull them all back together for the next item.

42:19 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Canada AM - Good Morning, Craig

42:40 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Ice hockey cameraman falls over

42:49 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: 7 Newsbrief - Good morning… how are you?

42:58 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Blind Date - Contestant falls down

43:25 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Backref & Intro Tight Closeup 

43:53 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Not One Thing

Christmas Night shaves a second off the start of this clip, but stays with it for 3 seconds longer at the end, just time for another “not one thing”.

45:13 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Backref & Intro Love Scenes

45:31 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: I didn’t taste it

45:41 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: In Loving Memory - bed collapse

45:59 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Newcastle have scored

46:34 ALL VERSIONS: STUDIO - Denis: Backref, thanks & intro children clips

47:32 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Unhappy child

Christmas Night brings this clip in about 3 seconds earlier, under Denis’s narration, but shaves 18 frames off the end of the establishing shot before the cut to the wide shot

47:51 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: Child throws frisbee at father’s head

This clip seems a little out of place as, unlike everything else in the show, it’s clearly from a home video rather than a professional film or television production. Now, fair enough, it would be another three years before You’ve Been Framed came along to soak up that more plentiful source of amusing moments. Unlike You’ve Been Framed, however, who tend to blur out such unwanted information, here you can clearly see the vintage of the clip thanks to the camcorder’s burnt-in date on the recording - ’11.05.86’. Might this be the first “home video blooper” seen on British TV?

47:59 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: She’s in jail! 

48:20 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: BTQ7 Wombat - Brooke vs Agro 

Christmas Night comes out of this clip just under 3 seconds earlier than Alright 5, freezing on an end shot of Brooke rather than Carolyn. This kind of edit, either to save time or to keep the pace up, seems quite common in the Christmas Night version.

48:57 ALL VERSIONS: Clip: When I grow up, I’m moving up to Canyon Ford

49:50 ALL VERSIONS: End credits

Some differences here. Christmas Night does a nice DVE move from the last clip before mixing through to the title card, whereas Alright 5 just does a hard cut. Both credit sequences impart exactly the same information, although the Christmas Night credits are of course on the Christmas Tree background which has been used throughout the show. 

The recording of the 1991 Alright 5 repeat drops out temporarily but returns after six seconds, and the rest of the credits stay pretty much in sync until the final producer credit. And let's take a moment here to pay respects to Graham Sisson, who has been your videotape editor and appears to have put up with all this nonsense for every one of these three versions. 

So far, so good, until 50:29 where the 1991 repeat has some extra small print added underneath the producer credit, indicating a copyright for LWT in the year of our lord, MCMXCI. Why is this here? Probably because by this point, all programmes have now changed from the old style ITV end boards which would previously show the responsible region and a copyright date, to more unified boards which identify only the region and the fact that the programme has been, in this instance, ‘AN LWT PRODUCTION FOR ITV’ - a board which, crucially, shows no copyright date, which now must therefore be shown somewhere else in the programme. So on the producer credit is where that copyright date will go. But there’s more…

At 50:33 we get a small part of an answer to the question that has been unanswered since this case first opened some months ago. Proof that the ‘Christmas is a wonderful thing… I think they should have it every year’ closing clip was indeed from the Christmas Night version. Why it’s on the 1991 version is anyone’s guess because by now it seems clear that it will have taken special trouble to do that - you have to cut it in at exactly the right point in the DVE ‘page-turn’ effect, which is not difficult but is obviously not the kind of thing that happens by accident. The clip is also 5 seconds longer than the original ‘David… In real life, there is no take two’ from Alright 5. That may or may not have been a bad thing, as the removal of the Japanese clips from the 1991 repeat could have left the show a bit light time-wise - even so, adding 5 seconds by bringing in a different clip would not seem to save the day at all. 

Maybe the ‘no take two’ clip could not be cleared for further use in 1991 and this was the easiest way out. It doesn’t seem likely - but either way, this edit remains weird, adding Christmas graphics into the dying seconds of an otherwise wholly un-christmassy repeat, with the added bonus of a ‘Merry Christmas’ clapperboard which would definitely be wrong for any screening outside of December. Not necessarily what you want in a re-version of a show which otherwise could have played all year round - but, again, it’s easy to remember that for a channel the size of ITV, repeatedly re-editing and re-versioning programmes even for a single transmission is more than worth the trouble considering the number of people who will be watching. Certainly at that time, they will have faced little pressure to make something ‘evergreen’ when they could confidently just edit the programme yet again if other repeats were planned. After all, ITV had exactly one television channel in 1991, and endless year-round repeats on outlets like ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, etc, were still decades away. 

But even so - if you wanted something to show on Christmas 1991, why not start from the 1987 Christmas Night version and just cut any clips that couldn’t be used? Why re-cut the 1988 version and jam 20 seconds of Christmas material in right at the end? It still makes no sense. And maybe it never will. Maybe it really was a mistake. Maybe there was a reason. 

However, if nothing else, we know a fair bit more about how Christmas Night and Alright 5 differ. 

- Five extra clips (but only two Christmas ones)

- Two different studio links (one of which only adds the word 'seasonal' into a sentence)

- And some graphics of a Christmas tree. 

The different graphics will probably have made the whole edit far more of a slog than it might otherwise have been - since the Christmas Tree was visible on the reverse side of each DVE transition back to the studio, that will have needed every single one of them (sixteen in total) to be made and edited separately. 

So as we close this case once more until any further evidence comes along, it seems perhaps only appropriate to spend a moment to think about and appreciate those who go the extra mile in the name of Christmas television. It's often the case that when a job is done well, nobody even notices it, and it's true to say that each of the versions we've been comparing all look absolutely great in themselves - there's nothing in any of them that would make you realise that something had been added, altered, or removed. Certainly it's only the availability of modern technology that makes it easy to inflict this level of scrutiny, right down to each individual frame, upon a production, something which would have required a professional four-machine edit suite in the early 1990s, at the very least.

Things are easier today. But that doesn't make the past any less interesting. So here's to the next curiosity, wherever it may be...