Eurovision 1984: Do I hear a boo? | Super-cut with animated scoreboard

An edited down version of the 1984 Eurovision Song Contest in Luxembourg (in a theater with multiple names) with a scoreboard using today’s technology. Nothing but a fun lockdown project.
This edit will give a flavour of the evening (5th May) with Terry Wogan’s UK commentary. Special edit goes to song 19, a lovely number from Portugal which I edited with the interval act.
You might think a tiny country like Luxembourg would struggle to host a show this size - but RTL is a major broadcasting player, operating in many countries today, and actually owns shows like The X Factor. How come? Well commercial TV and radio was allowed a lot earlier in Luxembourg than their neighbours (even many UK radio presenters started in Luxembourg) and this allowed them to boom in the industry and become a large multinational.
Their 1984 production is a triumph. The stage design is versatile and inspiring, despite being locked down to a traditional theater space. The presenter, a 19-year-old polyglot, swerved effortlessly through multiple languages and significantly sped up the sclerotic voting sequence seen in 1983. This is how to do multilingualism, ARD! The songs...well, meh. The fact there was no clear favourite going into the contest led to four countries dominating the scoreboard, at one point there was a 30 point gap between fourth and fifth. Wogan’s favourite fact about the Swedish band was that they lived on the west coast of America - I just get the sense that this was both an observation, and a criticism. I’ve kept the first postcard in this edit to show the first real use of computer graphics in the contest, and it’s worth noting the (two) computers at Frank Naef’s desk...they weren’t there in 1980.
I’ve also kept the booing of the UK entry in, just to show that we weren’t that popular in the 1980s either. Perhaps Luxembourg is picky with it’s American imports and they strongly dislike Motown - or they wanted to show their disgust at English football hooligans trashing the city in November 1983. And in 1977. Eek.
*DESIGN AND THE BOARD*
The strongest part of the design this year was two fold - the stage and the logo font. The stage comprises large geometric shapes that have a unique layout for each performance. The angular shapes make an excellent ‘84’ at the beginning (although only an inspired designer would reduce an ‘8’ down to a single quadrilateral) and it’s a nice touch to reorganise it to a ‘1’ for the winning performance. Stay tuned for the credit sequence too for more of the Luxembourg winners orchestral mix! The visual design reminded me of Channel 4’s (UK) iconic...icon - and I used that for inspiration for my motion design.
The display typeface, Yagi (Robert Trogman, early 1970s) has no official digitisation and was unlikely to be seen on anything requiring a computer, so I used Gus Thessalos’s (2010) version which has double lines but achieves the spirit of the look. You might recognise it’s other style, Yagi Double - it’s the CNN logo font!. For the on screen captions, Serif Gothic (ITC, 1972) is used for a geometric feel and this is what I’ve gone for as my main typeface. Seen it before? It’s the font on the Star Wars logo (The Force Awakens).
The scoreboard this year is most likely lifted from Munich - the leading country’s score ‘twinkles’ in the same way. For TV viewers, the board went blue at some point during the voting, after appearing in its physical form (black). I believe, although I am not certain, it was intended to be blue by using a form of chroma-key technique that would make it look more like a computer generated board but this must have failed at the beginning of the sequence.
*TRANSFER NEWS* (source: Wiki)
OUT: Greece, who decided that the show wasn’t good enough for Greek TV. Israel also didn’t compete, after coming second in Munich, because of a clash with it’s memorial day (Yom HaZikaron).
BACK: Ireland had sorted out it’s industrial disputes at RTÉ and also brought back Johnny Logan - as a writer. They meant business! Two out, one back, makes 19.
*INTERVAL ACT - cut with song 19*
Prague Theatre of Illuminated Drawing. A great performance of a ropey looking horse, set to piano music in a silent movie style, I edited some along with song 19 - although it doesn’t fit you get the jist!
*CREDITS*
JUGOVIZIJA for the higher quality vision
Nicolas Baus for Wogan’s commentary
Intermedium-Bremen for uploading so many of the old contests originally (including this one)
www.countryflags.com/en/ for all the free to use images of flags
Yugoslav flag by Đorđe Andrejević-Kun,commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20854121
All Copyright goes to RTL, BBC.
00:00 Intro
03:19 Song Supercut
17:40 Song 19 with Interval act
19:02 Voting Intro
20:32 The reorder board 84
56:01 Recap and reprise
1:00:01 Closing Credits

[@fujservcolqwerty-litaliano8574]

Italian song:absolutely a masterpiece. I remember this song when i was a child. :*(

[@luukjoling1]

Terry hated the song, it's one of my favourites!

[@mariomunozcarrero3610]

i treni di tozeur a masterpiece

[@fujservcolqwerty-litaliano8574]

@@mariomunozcarrero3610 💝🫂

[@kulera]

I just fell in love with it and my parents loved it also.

[@MrPartridge37]

"This is how our Directors see Sweden - a yellow submarine in a sardine can!!" Wogan at his very best. I thought that the presenter was excellent considering she was so young. She didn't ever get flustered and looked stunning.

[@terrybaker8156]

The start of the years of slightly more relaxed presentations

[@lucaswallo8127]

@@terrybaker8156 wdym

[@enricatab]

This Eurovision will be remembered in the history of music because it had the honor of having hosted on its stage one of the greatest composers, musical researchers, authors, philosopher, poet of the contemporary era, Maestro Battiato and the magnificent pianist Alice who, by class, elegance, vocal skills has no equal in that context that understands little or nothing about art and music. My 96-year-old grandmother, looking at these events, said with an air of compassion that the juries were birds that did not know how to recognize the seeds, and peace to her soul she was right!

[@jordicamps7379]

Eurovision didn`t deserve such a talent like maestro Franco Battiato...I understand that Italy left the ESC during many years...the winning song was pure shit.

[@irondasgr]

I don;'t know if this is a pulled-from-the-hair comment of yours, still Italy is my clear and undoubted 12 points of the night.

[@moramento22]

The presenter is amazing, a stark contrast to the disaster that was Marlene Charell's "multilinguality"

[@sebastiancasale-gn8gp]

I thought she was kinda cringe

[@acmenipponair]

@@sebastiancasale-gn8gp you better not look up her vita in that time...

[@sebastiancasale-gn8gp]

@@acmenipponair what do you mean

[@acmenipponair]

@@sebastiancasale-gn8gp Well, she made movies like "Der Fan" in that time and was in a relationship with her 24 year older manager

[@humournoir7316]

@@acmenipponair omggggggg noooo she was so anal about the languages jesus

[@luukjoling1]

The Dutch entry is one of those songs where no one in the Netherlands knows it was a Eurovision entry! The overtures with past Luxembourg hits are amazing. They really had some great winners!!

[@nalandatendar4212]

Ridiculous Dutch jury (I am Dutch), giving NO points to Italy. Even though the staging is boring, the song is my ever number 1 Eurovision song. It is too beautiful.

[@georgedc1981]

To add some extra information: the entire stage, lightning and a team of technicians were flew in from The Netherlands (Dutch NOB). The designer of the stage is Roland de Groot who also designed the stages of the contests held in The Netherlands in 1970, 1976 and 1980

[@TheNathanj2009]

His stage designs were great way ahead of their time

[@surprisedadrianlol]

Oh, I really loved the concept of the changing backgrounds, but I didn't know that all of them was designed by the same person. He really needs to design another eurovision stage in the future.

[@j.t.5178]

Roland de Groot's stage designs were amazing. Definitely one of the best stage designers of the pre-LED screen era of Eurovision. He even managed to make a very good stage design for the 1980 contest on a very tight budget. I would love to have him design one more stage, but he's in his 80s and stage design for Eurovision has evolved significantly since then. Although, it would be cool to maybe have someone else design a future Eurovision stage in his style.

[@missylissy200]

20:00 "he can do almost everything with me" wtf 😂

[@JeSuisRene]

The _almost_ is what gets me 😹

[@mariomunozcarrero3610]

all the votes for I treni di tozeur!!!!! with the diva a lice and master professor battiato!!!!

[@Speeder76]

My first Euro Song Contest. I was 7, and watched it on my grandparents B&W television. It was fun to see it all - the music, the scoring board - and I'm glad that you let the portuguese song to go almost in full. Here's an anedctote: on the the night of the portuguese song contest, the musicians decided to make a strike - yes, you heard well, a strike! - and all the songs were sing "a capella". Except for one, the Maria Guinot, because of the piano. Guess who won?

[@beandrag9019]

The hostess is gorgeous, she looks a little bit like my mom did in the 80’s actually

[@juanmajd]

All of your reorder boards are amazing, but this one is the very best! 👏🏼❤️🙌🏼

[@thereorderboard]

Thank you so much! (I love this one too)

[@tariqkhader6196]

This is my favourite too. I'm a huge fan

[@francescofilippi2824]

Portugal and Italy

[@joaquimcaeiro2982]

Thanks for the time the time you let the portuguese entry play. It's a lovely song with amazing lyrics. A true great poem!

[@thereorderboard]

It really struck me when I was editing it - it deserved many points than it got!

[@joaquimcaeiro2982]

@@thereorderboard amazingly time showed us it was a timeless song :). It's still listened today in Portugal

[@TheNathanj2009]

Portugal are so often underrated 1984,85 , 86 are good examples

[@dramaticScar]

@@thereorderboard especially not to be behind by one point by one of the most mediocre and off key songs of eurovision history.

[@jayamber4448]

Absolutely adore the backing music at the very beginning, a medley of the melodies of Nous les Amoreux, Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son and Dann Kamst Du.

[@SonOfFurzehatt]

The Reorder Board, you've done a great job on all of these, but this is the best. 1984 was a very stylish year, and this matches perfectly.

[@thereorderboard]

Thank you!

[@losvizzero6176]

Thank you once more for the splendid work!

[@kjellhl1975]

1984 is one of the best eurovision ever.

[@ponyclub3198]

Definitely the worst of the 80s

[@kjellhl1975]

@@ponyclub3198 I think 1980 is the worst. The winning song is boring, and to quote John Lennon's expression about boring ballads. Granny music.

[@antidoto1980]

Some fantastic graphics there. Congrats!

[@Pedro_GS]

Congratulations on all your videos that I have discovered recently! Your editing and design are wonderful! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻😀 Greetings from Spain!

[@thereorderboard]

Thanks for watching Pedro!!

[@terrybaker8156]

Just wow, I’m in awe

[@Pawhlen]

The only time in ESC-history so far that we were NOT among the favorites prior to the contest and still won. In fact many of the chefs on SVT didn´t even watched the broadcast on the evening but they did switch channel when the telephones started to rang with journalists asking about the arrangement of the contest 1985

[@thereorderboard]

Great fact!

[@lindakristinekjrlibraten5759]

The oposite what happened in 1985 in Norway when the boss watched the Eurovision and hardy understood what happened and wondered how on earth we could host this the following year!

[@glenup69]

Fantastic concept here AND execution! Brilliant! A comment about the booing after the UK entry... I understood it was connected to the UK's off stage backing singers who were supposedly (and allegedly, of course!) providing ALL the vocals for the singers on stage. Some delegations (Scaninavian, I heard) protested to no avail and showed their contempt by booing the performance... I don't know if this is 100% true... shrouded in the mists of time no doubt.

[@DeeJay_78]

I listened to a podcast with the songwriter Paul Curtis recently. He said it was members of the press in the audience due to the football hooliganism. He could be wrong of course. He denied there being any offstage backing vocals. Whatever the reason, the booing was totally out of order. Don’t take hard feelings out on the performers, they did great!

[@dedomenici]

I’ve recently found some visual evidence of the offstage backing singers. Perhaps they were booing both them and the hooliganism!

[@mrjdsworld80]

I’ve noticed the theatre name changing constantly as well - the closing credits and the official records refer to the venue as the “Théâtre Municipal ” Desiree calls it the “New Theatre” and Terry refers to it as the “Kirchberg Theatre” (Kirchberg is where it’s located.) It now seems to be called the Grand Théâtre. Helga in ‘73 also refers to it as the “New Theatre” so I assume this is a colloquial name.

[@thereorderboard]

Yes I remember this caused me a few headaches! I even checked the website and got to some obscure history website, written in Luxembourgish.

[@acmenipponair]

The Reason is: ItÄs all of them. Theatre munipical just means it's the city theater, Desiree calls it new theater because there is an older one and the location of the theater is the Kirchberg area.

[@KarlDowney]

Watching the voting, it's really hard to believe 🇸🇪Sweden won this contest when they were struggling in the voting & didn't take their first clear lead until 10 countries into the voting.

[@JeSuisRene]

My top 10 for 1984 (points) 1p 🇳🇴 Norway 2p 🇪🇸 Spain 3p 🇩🇪 Germany 4p 🇸🇪 Sweden 5p 🇵🇹 Portugal 6p 🇩🇰 Denmark 7p 🇳🇱 Netherlands 8p 🇮🇹 Italy 10p 🇬🇧 United Kingdom 12p 🇮🇪 Ireland

[@MiroHeinonen]

Cities where the points were awarded from and languages this year Sweden: Stockholm (English) Luxembourg: Luxembourg (French) France: Paris (French) Spain: Madrid (English) Norway: Oslo (English) United Kingdom: London (English) Cyprus: Nicosia (English) Belgium: Brussels (French) Ireland: Dublin (English) Denmark: Copenhagen (English) Netherlands: Hilversum (English) Yugoslavia: Skopje (French) Austria: Vienna (English) Germany: Munich (French) Turkey: Ankara (English) Finland: Helsinki (English) Switzerland: Bern (French) Italy: Rome (French) Portugal: Lisbon (French)

[@dimivall]

Desiree is the best presenter ever in the Eurovision

[@kaitlinbilous4605]

For her age she was quite talented

[@dimivall]

Sure

[@GRAHAM2109]

She was amazing.

[@garethbowen9894]

Where is she now 2022???

[@dimivall]

@@garethbowen9894 unfortunately I don't know

[@Dim4323]

Their was some controversy For Uk act Some were booing cause of the song was a rip off The supremes or they had some backing singers. But it did have a happy ending were the singer who did love game sued and won her case

[@kieranedmunds2936]

Very spread out voting in 1984 with only Austria getting below 26 points

[@inezfeytons3676]

Belgium entry love it Avanti la vie amazing song. and love diggi loo diggi ley amazing winner

[@user-ht8pn6dv9j]

0:29:18 London (Colin Berry, BBC) 0:34:16 Dublin (???, RTÉ)

[@joy60torino]

l'italia con Battiato - Alice doveva stravincere...mezzo mondo è d'accordo

[@rudiknol3912]

My top 10 for 1984 including and with out my own country. It is about the song you love not the country. One of the few of our own entries I love and has become a classic in our own country: 12 points Portugal! 10 points Belgium 8 points Netherlands 7/8 points Finland 6/7 points Italy 5/6 points Denmark 4/5 points Norway 3/4 points Spain 2/3 points Sweden 1/2 points France 0/1 point Germany

[@dramaticScar]

Thanks for loving our song

[@samuelsm.c.8733]

Set list cronologia con minutaje participantes pais y las canciones completas joder!

[@angelogoncalves4516]

Sem duvidas Portugal merecia ganhar 🇵🇹

[@inkhwon]

mistake at 12:23, its "ciao", not "caio" ahaha

[@esczaman1299]

My absolute favourite is 🇹🇷 Turkey! Halay is a melody that deserves more points in my opinion. Only reason why the juries did not award them as much is because they don’t know the beautiful poetic verses done by the acclaimed Turkish singers.

[@wessexfox5197]

A dull contest but I love the presenter.

[@SuperJNG18]

These are all so great. The only thing is that you keep using the modern Cypriot flag, which they've only been using since 2006, but that's a nitpick.

[@thereorderboard]

Ha ha! That's a great spot. I guess this is the year where I use the flags large enough for them not to be crunched by the video quality restrictions so much you can't spot the pantone colour shift and the change in olive branches! I'm due to update my flag library soon anyway, with new countries appearing in the 1990s, so I'll make the change then!

[@crossingfrederic]

AMAZING! what program did you do that with?

[@thereorderboard]

Hi - this is done in Viz Artist from VizRT. It's a programme that broadcasters use for things like this, amongst other things! It's a programme I use in my day job, but you can download a free version from their website. There's a fair bit of coding within it to create this but it's a good programme to get to grips with if you're interested in broadcast design. I know there's lots of fans who recreate on After Effects, and that must be very time consuming!

[@humournoir7316]

Honestly, the design of the scoreboard is perfect, it captures the visuals very well, the theater looks lush and verrry 80's, but Swedes winning? Hmmm... It should've been Linda Martin's year or the Italian year, cause these two were the most remembered by me. I also liked the Portugese song, it kinda has that timeless factor that felt current in 2023 even. No interval act? Hmmm... I do have to say those short vids were very cool tho, probably they ate the budget the most, but that's not the creme the la creme... The girl. My god, she's beautiful but jesus lady, we get it, you're a polyglot, we don't need to hear it every 10 seconds! The best (?) bit came in 19:54, what in the daddy issues is going on??? Aren't you 19 or something? She is an upgrade from last year's polyglot but my god, she so anal about it it's sucking all the fun

[@JuvatVivere]

Such a great year, and what a mediocre winner!

[@terrybaker8156]

I think this might have been the only year that the Yugoslav jury was based in Skopje

[@mrjdsworld80]

No, the jury in 1968 was there as well.

[@mrjdsworld80]

As we have literally just seen!

[@terrybaker8156]

@@mrjdsworld80 what have we just seen?

[@mrjdsworld80]

@@terrybaker8156 Eurovision 1968!

[@terrybaker8156]

@@mrjdsworld80 was it on replay or something?

[@EuroGeeksUK]

Great work! Can I ask how you created this?

[@thereorderboard]

Hi Euro Geeks! (I love your insta)...I use broadcast technology, but I'm looking to get it done via HTLM/CSS/Javascript and a decent animation library in future. I've a how-to video on the channel, which gives a bit of an insight.

[@EuroGeeksUK]

@@thereorderboard Thanks. That's very kind of you :)

[@turvis94]

15:20 Kirka saatana 😂

[@nikosnikolaoss2509]

1.🇮🇪Ιρλανδία 2.🇹🇷Τουρκία 3.🇧🇻Νορβηγία 4.🇫🇮Φινλανδία 5.🇳🇱Ολλανδία 6.🇱🇺Λουξεμβούργο 7.🇬🇧Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο 8.🇫🇷Γαλλία 9.🇨🇾Κύπρος 10.🇩🇰Δανία

[@fryede]

Has anyone pointed out that it's "ciao" and not "caio"?

[@thankcrunchiefriday]

I'd like to be one of the 'Trendi' di Tozeur

[@meskbren]

Lovely presentation thank you. I feel that Terminal 3 was robbed this year - DiggiLoo was one of the worst ever winners. Anyway my points (and I can't vote for my own country Ireland obviously) for 1984 are: 1p Austria 2p Germany 3p Yugoslavia 4p Luxembourg (but not the live performance!) 5p Spain 6p Finland 7p Belgium 8p Portugal 10p Netherlands 12p Italy - who should have won. It is OK for Terminal 3 to finish second to I Treni di Tozeur.

[@thereorderboard]

I agree about Terminal 3! If only Linda Martin had won then, she wouldn't go on to steal it away from Michael Ball in 92!

[@meskbren]

@@thereorderboard Sorry but Why Me was the best in 92 (well, maybe Italy that year too) and it was my first ever Irish Eurovision winner so I have to disagree. I will give my points when you upload that year.

[@JeSuisRene]

thereorderboard : Eurovision Terminal 3 should have won in 1984, I really don’t like Why Me. Even then, One Step out of Time is my 10th of 1992. The win in 1992 should have been Italy imo.

[@kaitlinbilous4605]

@@JeSuisRene best Italian entry in my opinion

[@CJBR1966]

I never understoos the Swedish victory, a bad copy of ABBA....

[@ponyclub3198]

The 1984 Eurovision didn't have a single winning song, including the Swedish one. But it wasn't as bad as the other songs, and that's the best thing I can say about it:)

[@Dim4323]

Yeah Uk got Booed

[@ponyclub3198]

And rightfully so. It was terrible

[@michaeljohn5085]

They were not living on the West Coast, but in Ohio.

[@imrustyokay]

It seems like RTL was inspired by Channel 4 in the UK.

[@mrjdsworld80]

Has the Jugovizija channel been removed?

[@eurovisionrussianfan8472]

Sadly yes, I opened youtube mobile version in browser and here is the message that Jugovizija channel shows: "This account has been terminated because we received multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement regarding material the user posted." That channel was great, so many unique videos missing now.

[@mrjdsworld80]

Eurovision Russian Fan oh no, that’s not good. I hope this isn’t a purge of those channels which have uploaded old Eurovision clips. They’re really important for those pre-2004 contests.

[@thereorderboard]

This is bad news! Makes me think I should grab what I need for future videos whilst I can...I used that channel a lot, it was a great resource! I'm hoping the fact these videos are chopped up and straight reproductions mean I covered under the fail dealing defence, which allows review and commentary on copyrighted material. To be honest I find it so odd to think that they think it's harming anything - we're just enjoying the content and KZbin are great at identifying and pointing out who owns the copyright!

[@mrjdsworld80]

thereorderboard : Eurovision me too! I’m frantically getting screenshots of some older contests

[@stefanoorru3097]

Per l'Italia 0 punti da Svezia, Francia, Regno Unito, Cipro, Belgio, Irlanda, Danimarca, Paesi Bassi, Jugoslavia. Uno scandalo

[@pierremorgat4713]

Linda Martin has been robbed...

[@ponyclub3198]

She got more that she deserved in 1992.

[@JeSuisRene]

Agreed. I feel that she should have won here in 1984 and certainly not in 1992!

[@mfi_7419]

12 Cyprus 10 Yugoslavia 8 France 7 Spain 6 Denmark 5 Austria 4 Luxembourg 3 Finland 2 Belgium 1 UK

[@ponyclub3198]

Probably the worst contest of the 80s. In fact it's so 80s it hurts the eye. Most songs are awful, but I'd single out Both Turkey and Sweden as the best of the evening.

[@sebahattinkose4784]

Also , Spain is one of the bests.

[@ponyclub3198]

​@@sebahattinkose4784 I kinda disagree on that:) It's just a year that needed to be skipped altogether

[@preivul100]

Wenn man glaubt, es kann nicht schlimmer kommen, wird es noch schlimmer. Sorry, ich sehe den ESC seit 1977 live, aber dieser war abgesehen vom Italienischen Betrag der schwächste

[@pierremorgat4713]

Norway was better than Sweden...

[@wessexfox5197]

The last place song from Austria was better than the rubbish that won in 84.

[@joanlluismartinezferrer326]

Horrible

[@jordicamps7379]

Spain, Italy and Germany were very good, but the ridicoulous swedish song won...

[@lindelund9452]

Spain, Italy and Germany had been robbed very often!

[@KJJ3DS]

The Dancing Deodorants FTW