Words: Chris Arnsby
13/04/1989
Mark Goodier: “Good evening. Welcome to Europe's top pop show. It's Top of the Pops and we've got a good one tonight with the brand new number one in the UK, plus you get the chance to see the U2 video, and first a band who just can't wait to get on, with Edwin Starr joining them, it's the Cookie Crew with Got To Keep On.”
[21] COOKIE CREW: got to keep on. Edwin Starr is not the same as Alvin Stardust. I'm not sure how I got the two confused.
Why
just Mark Goodier? He is the only presenter listed in the Radio Times so
the plan was always for him to go solo. Out of curiosity I went back to find
the last time there was only one host, it was 04/02/1988 and Mike Smith. While
I don't believe there was any serious interest in turning Mark Goodier into the
new Mike Smith, I started wondering about Goodier's television career outside
of Top of the Pops. It's basically a single episode of forgotten quiz Scruples
(“The game of moral dilemmas”) hosted by Simon Mayo (at the time much more of a
candidate to be the next Mike Smith). And an appearance on UP2U which
was the summer replacement for On The Waterfront, which was itself the
summer replacement for Going Live, but only ran up to the start of July
for some reason.
It
looks like solo hosted shows are coming back. It's presumably a good way to
spread out the presenting pool and also save a bit of cash.