2 Pizzas

Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the launch of the famous BBC2 idents. These are much-loved and fondly remembered, and I’m sure we all have our favourites. (I know a few people used to be freaked out by them too, what with the background sounds.)

They were so popular at the time that they found their way onto the commerical channels, by way of this Pizza Hut advert.

https://youtu.be/FjAWQuNpRWw

I’d love to hear the story of how this advert was realised.

There must have been so many issues to address – such as ‘is it okay to literally have a BBC2 ident in the middle of an ITV show?’, and ‘what are the concerns about public service broadcasting?’.

The BBC must own the trademark on that 2, I don’t imagine Lambie-Nairn did.

I suppose there’s something of a nice coup knowing your channel’s identity is going to invade a rival channel, bittersweet as it is that it’s to flog pizza.

Does anyone have any more info on channels using other channel’s brands?

Anyway, that’s David Schneider in the advert of course, and also Harry Enfield’s voice.

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