Christmas - TV Live

Section compiled by John Lester

The BBC Christmas idents are extremely popular with the public. In this section, we look at those Christmas idents.

1975

A glimpse into the future? This christmas globe had hints of the COW ident, that would appear on BBC1 10 years later...

1977

The globe becomes a Christmas pudding. Very nicely done!

1982

It's a rotating mechanical snowflake for their christmas ident in 1982. The BBC1 logo cleverly hides the motor that powered the snowflake.

2 robins are the centerpiece of the BBC1 Christmas ident in 1985.

1986

Christmas 2004

The second Christmas ident in 2004 also had a red background, with the children dressed in red and bouncing on Space Hoppers that looked like Christmas puddings. This was designed by a young viewer of the children's programme Blue Peter, as part of a competition.

Snowball (2006 Christmas Ident)

The 2006 Christmas ident, a community in an alternate setting come together to build a giant snowball. This was filmed using various sized polystyrene snowballs: the largest was 19 feet (6 m) high. The ident first aired on Saturday 16 December at around 6.00pm. The ident finished on New Year's Day after BBC Breakfast when the original idents were restored. This ident was revived for Christmas 2007 to run alongside the Penguins which also debuted on Saturday 15 December. In 2008, this ident was last shown into 'weatherview' on New Years Eve around 2am.

Penguins (2007 Christmas Ident)

This sequence was shot at an ice-rink in Romford, with the playful penguins created in 3D animation. The ident first aired on Saturday 15 December at 6.10pm. 'Penguins' was last aired before linking into BBC News 24 on New Years Eve at 2.25am.

Wallace and Gromit (2008 Christmas Ident)

Created by Aardman Animations featuring Wallace and Gromit, this ident involves Gromit pushing Wallace on a sled to the top of a hill, Wallace then slides down the other side of the hill which is a circled shape and hosts the BBC One logo. Wallace comes off the sled in mid air and lands head deep in the snow, whilst Gromit takes his place and jumps onto the sled performing tricks.This is the third BBC Christmas ident that Aardman Animations have created after BBC Two's Christmas ident in 1995 and BBC One's Christmas ident in 2001.

2009 Christmas Ident

Video

Christmas 2009 drew to a close David Tennant's tenure as the lead role in hit BBC sci-fi show, Doctor Who. To mark the event, BBC One's 2009 Christmas ident featured the Doctor himself. The ident sees Tennant's character enjoying a stroll through a snowy forest only to discover his beloved TARDIS buried in the snow. The wiley Doctor notices a herd of CGI reindeer standing nearby and quickly sets about regenerating the TARDIS into a Santa's sleigh of his own. In keeping with recent tradition, the ident was first aired at 18:45 on Saturday 12th December prior to Strictly Come Dancing.