1970: John NOAKES and the Magic of BLUE SCREEN | Blue Peter | Retro Tech | BBC Archive

John Noakes demonstrates some of the mind-boggling visual effects that have been made possible using the Colour-Separation Overlay (CSO) technique. Marvel as Peter Purves loses his head and bounces John Noakes' noggin like a basketball - all while Patch the Blue Peter dog does his best to spoil the illusion.
Only the BBC calls it Colour Separation Overlay, by the way - feel free to call it chroma key or blue screen / green screen like the rest of the world.
Originally broadcast 28 September, 1970.
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[@AtheistOrphan]

The legend that was Noakes.

[@markbumford8076]

Such a lovely soul dear John Noakes, gone but not forgotten

[@davewalker7126]

Green is the new blue!

[@Nooely]

Not quite true

[@JemTheWire]

Absolutely irreplaceable, John Noakes was a genius. RIP.

[@JiminyCricket8899]

Yeah sure Peter Purves always had the grooviest flares and Paisley kipper ties but you knew you could always depend on good old John.😀👍

[@michaelwhiles5282]

John - such quality we will never see on BBC kids tv ever again 😎 God bless John

[@johnrider5701]

God bless you John Noakes .

[@matthewlawrenson3628]

A week after this was recorded, director/producer Barry Letts was in this very building pushing CSO to its plausible (and frequently implausible) limits on Doctor Who : Terror Of The Autons.

[@recall2880]

Was that the one with Jon Pertwee

[@eloqi]

@@recall2880 Yep, it was Pertwee's second time tackling the Autons!

[@recall2880]

@@eloqi I loved Jon Pertwee. Apparently he was an all round smashing bloke!

[@bojack40]

I remember us using that acronym, i had all but forgotten CSO! I would never forget John Noakes.

[@mikusguitarius]

Chromakey by another name 😊

[@Allthingsradio]

Quite funny when you listen to him back in 1970 speaking a bit posh BBC style then after a few years on when he had his own TV show remember go with noakes he went all northern lol

[@gerardtom5722]

Brilliant 👍

[@Daracdor]

Patch & Petra !

[@MrAsBBB]

Ah That made my night. It was such fun in those days. Do you think we taught a bit more like adults than children but children want to be adults now days?

[@hilaryepstein6013]

Clever BBC engineers. I never knew how "blue screen" actually worked. I was more of a Magpie girl so regret my lost Blue Peter education.

[@garryleeks4848]

Tiswas or multi coloured swap shop

[@Trigger_000]

" I was more of a Magpie girl " *Fascist!*

[@daedalus7677]

@hilaryepstein6013 :- One for Sorrow, Two for Joy, Three for a Girl and Four for a Boy. Five for Silver, Six for Gold, Seven for a Secret never to be told, Eight's a Wish and Nine's a Kiss. Ten is a Bird you must not miss. M A G P I E !!!!!!!! (and I didn't need to Google that!) 📺

[@bojack40]

Shocking the way the BBC neglected him after BP.

[@scottishwildcat]

He was on BBC programmes in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, so they can't have neglected him that much. He just hated Biddy Baxter and there's not much they could do about that.

[@therealobanir]

Not sure how they neglected him, they gave him his own show Go With Noakes. I can only think of one other BP presenter who was given his own show to front and that was the other daredevil "I'm up for anything" presenter, Peter Duncan.

[@garryleeks4848]

Get down shep 🙄

[@PlanetImo]

Brilliant! I was minus 5 then. This has given me an interesting idea…

[@andydixon2980]

I was - 4. Whats the idea?

[@PlanetImo]

@@andydixon2980 ha ha ha! I can’t for the life of me remember. 😆 oh no!

[@PlanetImo]

Oh yes.. I remember. My other half refuses to appear in my vlogs - but this gave me an idea to dress him in green against a green screen with only his violin visible. I know. Random!!

[@lezbriddon]

I WOULD love to see the one where he showed the world his bruises from when he fell off the bob sled, its a true classic, but the current world is probably scared of bruises.

[@traceya9615]

Yes, I'd love to see it too.I remember watching the programme and thinking he was very brave. Looking at other comments, it shows how beloved he was.

[@maxmaxy7542]

That's not true. A lot of people watch terrifyer 2

[@lezbriddon]

@@maxmaxy7542 what? your reply makes no sense

[@kevinnorfolk1710]

Didn't he wear his wife's underwear because it was softer on the skin 🤔

[@lezbriddon]

@@kevinnorfolk1710 I don't know if he did but it usually is........

[@ChubbyChecker182]

I Wonder how Val got on with the Mexican Cowboys.

[@what-uc]

But due to the unique way the BBC is funded they kept using the biggest studio in Europe with all the cost decorating it twice a week :)

[@benjaminclasper9355]

It’s basically green screen.

[@lezbriddon]

What year was this, so who was first with blue instead of green, ILM or BBC, because i'm sure lucas/ILM claim to be the the first to use blue on starwars

[@simonrussell4986]

After a bit of digging: The only time 1st October was on a Thursday (mentioned by Valerie near the end) was 1970. Valerie Singleton presented until 1972, so this aligns with the Valerie Singleton, Peter Purves and John Noakes lineup. Seems early to me, but there you go. Especially when Blue Peter started transmitting in colour in September 1970.

[@stepheng8779]

Could always try reading the title? Just an idea 🤷

[@simonrussell4986]

@@stepheng8779 Ha ha! There's always that, yes. It's also mentioned in the description (which I don't think it was when I watched, but it is a Monday.

[@lezbriddon]

@@stepheng8779 doh! So that answers it, it wasn't ILM.... Typical Americans next they will try to say their telephones and lightbulbs where first

[@petergivenbless900]

The history of Bluescreen dates back to the days of Technicolor when film was recorded on 3 strips of film (1 for red, 1 for green, and 1 for blue) and then combined by a process called colour dye matrix transfer to create the Technicolor print that was projected in cinemas. It was noticed that the blue record produced near silhouettes of skin tone (due to the relative absence of that colour) and could be used to print high contrast Black and White "mattes" (french for "mask") which could then be used to separate images of people (or anything that isn't primarily blue in colour) from a saturated blue background. One of the first films to use the technique was 'The Theif of Baghdad' where you may notice the blue fringing around elements in shots that use the process (due to the high contrast matte over-covering the subject and leaving some of the blue background showing around the edges). The technique was refined in the '60s by Petro Vlahos and called the colour difference process involving making Black and White colour separation prints which were then rephotographed through colour filters in an optical printer to create higher quality Bluescreen mattes, which is the technique that 'Star Wars' used. The television version demonstrated here is also commonly known as Chromakey and involves the blue channel of the video signal being clipped (the highest chromatic value being electronically gated) and the resulting signal being used as a "key" (like a "matte", it is used as a signal switch between the two images being combined) to mask out the saturated blue areas of the video signal and overlay it over another video signal. The same effect can also be achieved with green (and even red, although this is rarely used because skin tone has a high red component in it so faces would become transparent) and modern single CCD colour cameras use a mosaic of red, green, and blue sensors to capture colour information in which the green component has a higher spatial resolution than red or blue (due to their relative perceptual "brightness") so green is now more commonly used (whereas, on film, modern integral tripack colour film - which combines the three colour sensitive layers onto one strip of film - the blue sensitive layer is the highest resolution due to the relative photosensitvity of filmstock to blue light). A better version of Chromakey (or colour separation overlay) was developed by Petro Vlahos, again, called Ultimatte which used a more sophisticated system of vision mixing and signal mathematics to produce cleaner mattes with semi-transparancy for things like shadows on the blue blacking and smoke etc. An example of Ultimatte was the '70s TV show 'The Invisible Man' starring David McCullum.

[@johnking5174]

It all feels so awfully middle class on Blue Peter back then. Very stilted and staid. Imagine in 1970 Blue Peter hiring an openly gay presenter, it would simply not happen. However in 1994 they did have a gay presenter in Stuart Miles and later from 2020 to 2022 Adam Beales. 1970 seems like a different world to me. A world where I would get lost in.

[@scottishwildcat]

​@@JohnSmith-it6hj Most were terrified of being identified as gay because doing "what they liked to do" was illegal even in the privacy of their own home right up until 1967.

[@traceya9615]

I appreciate your comments; but John Noakes was never staid or anything but a brilliant presenter, with real warmth and humour.

[@johnking5174]

@@traceya9615 I never said John was staid. I felt the format of the show back then was staid.

[@paulhease1007]

Who cares if they are gay or straight? What are you missing the mannerisms and speech patterns of a gay presenter? Why should bedroom practices make any difference to a kids program??

[@MrDannyDetail]

I didn't realise Adam was gay. Also hasn't Stuart denied being gay? He does a transvestite comedy act, but I'm sure he said he wasn't actually gay. As far as I know the only Blue Presenter who has ever publically confirmed they are gay is Mark Curry, although his immediate predecessor, Michael Sundin, was said to have been gay according to the papers at the time.

[@spider-ham7140]

Haha xD brilliant Great presenters they where