Thursday 9 August 2018

Thank Your Lucky Stars episode discovered

Ringo Starr, Esq, opens the Lucky Stars Special with his band mates attending.
Saturday 14 November 1964: The Beatles rehearsed and recorded their contribution to the television show Thank Your Lucky Stars at Teddington Studios on this day. It was screened on ITV the following Saturday, 21 November 1964, from 5.50pm.
The group mimed to four songs: I Feel Fine, She's A Woman, I'm A Loser and Rock And Roll Music. There was no studio audience present.

Despite their numerous previous appearances on the show, by November 1964 The Beatles were so famous that it was a coup for the producers to have them even mime for an edition. In recognition of this, the show was renamed Lucky Stars Special.

The footage of the Beatles singing has existed for many years and has been used on many lookback shows. However, the in between stuff has been thought lost. Apple have never revealed if more existed but some years ago a brief moment was shown, of Brian Epstein introducing Sounds Incorporated which suggested that more of the show might exist.


Recently, the non-profit group Kaleidoscope, dedicated to recover old television footage previously though lost have recently been sent a DVC Pro tape from the USA and discovered it contained the studio recording for this 1964 Thank Your Lucky Stars show. There are the ABC time-clocks for separate studio sessions and the Beatles are fooling around in the studio with Brian.

We are happy that the entire program now is preserved, and hope that it will receive a future screening.

8 comments:

  1. A great find. Let's hope Apple/Universal put this out in some shape or form officially. Because if the BBC ever show it they will ruin it by putting their irritating and garish captions full of 'info' all over it. And Steve Wright or Mark Radcliffe will talk crap over the end moments....

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  2. Is this not on the new h m c beatles unseen coming out ?

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  3. Alun burns: Yes. It will be on the upcoming H M C DVD..

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  4. Well I'm confused. What the people from H M C has is the edited for broadcast episode? Is this tape different showing the raw videotape? I'm glad the folks at Kaleidoscope are preserving this material (and probably handing over the material to their owners, thus unfortunately probably not going to be shared freely, or "bootlegged". I do admire the group for unearthing rare tapes.

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  5. It's coming out (expected in September) on the new TMOQ Gazette bootleg 'Rare, Unseen, Unheard!

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  7. Kaleidoscope is not an "internet group" but a non-profit organisation that recovers and stores classic television programmes in their archive.

    In the past they've been responsible for the recovery of lost epiosdes of The Avengers, The Likely Lads, Out of the Unknown and Z Cars, amongst others.

    This weekend (Saturday 11th August) sees another of their Missing believed Wiped events which is once again being held at the BFI (British Film Institute) on London's Southbank.

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