The son of a recently deceased former BBC executive has discovered several previously unseen episodes of Jim’ll Touch It from 1975 hidden in a box in his late father’s shed.
The popular Saturday night programme saw members of the public being ushered into a dark room at the BBC Television Centre, while producers and TV executives looked the other way.
What happened in the room was never made clear, as hardly any contestants wanted to talk about it afterwards. However they all left with the much cherished ‘Jim Touched It For Me’ medal and a haunted look in their eye.
Very few copies of Jim’ll Touch It survive, due to the BBC’s former policy of recording over previously used tapes to save vital costs and ensure all incriminating evidence was properly covered up.
Head of BBC archives Colin Wimblington said “The discovery of these missing episodes is a rare and wonderful opportunity to relive one of the most popular scandals in the BBC’s long and illustrious history of scandals.”
A special gala night of viewing is being planned, as BBC2 will show these episodes for the first time. Other treats on offer will include clips of some of the best controversial BBC moments, such as Martin Bashir’s 1995 interview with Princess Diana, a 30 minute montage of Fiona Bruce’s rampant Hitlerian rhetoric, that thing with Cliff Richard and the helicopters, and worst of all BBC scandals, fly on the wall footage of the meeting in which someone decided to give Michael McIntyre his own TV show.
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