Influence
The programme hosted many seminal acts of the era, including the first British TV performance of Bob Marley and the Wailers as well as then little-known acts of whom any early footage is now considered precious, such as Billy Joel, Judas Priest with a long haired Rob Halford, Judee Sill, Heart, and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
The Whistle Test most notably was the British television debut of the American glam punk band New York Dolls, which although host Bob Harris derided the group as "mock rock," comparing them unfavorably to The Rolling Stones, their performance influenced the following Punk Rock scene such as the Sex Pistols and The Clash as well as alternative bands like R.E.M. and The Smiths and the Glam metal scene of the 80s.
The show become the template for many successive "serious" British music programmes, such as The Tube, Later with Jools Holland and From the Basement.
In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, The Old Grey Whistle Test was placed 33rd.
A parody of the show as part of Rutland Weekend Television in 1975, featuring Eric Idle as Harris, is the first known mention of fictional band, Toad The Wet Sprocket - a later reference on a Monty Python album gave rise to the band of the same name. The parody also featured "all-dead" musician Stan Fitch, whose silent, motionless performance was treated with quick zooms, closeups, and other visual effects typical of shows like Whistle Test.
The show was parodied on an episode of "The Benny Hill Show", originally aired on 24 September 1975, being called "Old Grey Whistle Tester".
The show's title was parodied in the comedy series Father Ted, in the episode "The Old Grey Whistle Theft".
The series was also parodied on The Fast Show, with Jazz Club, hosted by the eccentric (but quiet) Louis Balfour (a play on Bob Harris).
In 2006, the series was parodied in the sketch comedy show Snuff Box. The host was played by Richard Ayoade.
The Jon Holmes radio show on BBC Radio 6 Music has a feature called the Old Gay Whistle Test, a parody where a homosexual pensioner whistles a tune for the listeners to guess.
Read more about this topic: The Old Grey Whistle Test
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“The purifying, healing influence of literature, the dissipating of passions by knowledge and the written word, literature as the path to understanding, forgiveness and love, the redeeming might of the word, the literary spirit as the noblest manifestation of the spirit of man, the writer as perfected type, as saint.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“I am not sure but I should betake myself in extremities to the liberal divinities of Greece, rather than to my country’s God. Jehovah, though with us he has acquired new attributes, is more absolute and unapproachable, but hardly more divine, than Jove. He is not so much of a gentleman, not so gracious and catholic, he does not exert so intimate and genial an influence on nature, as many a god of the Greeks.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... even I am growing accustomed to slavery; so much so that I cease to think of its accursed influence and calmly eat from the hands of the bondman without being mindful that he is such. O, Slavery, hateful thing that thou art thus to blunt the keen edge of conscience!”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1907)