Des O'Connor would slate this first show in his 2001 autobiography "Bananas can't fly!", heavily criticising his own performance.
Des observed: "One critic wrote of my very first talk show: 'He will never be a talk-show host as long as he has a hole in his head.' Twenty-four years later it would be easy to thumb my nose at that lady, but she was telling it as she saw it on that night, and on the basis of that first show she had every justification for coming to such a damning conclusion. I've seen a tape of my very first talk show, and she was right: I was absolutely awful."
Des observed: "One critic wrote of my very first talk show: 'He will never be a talk-show host as long as he has a hole in his head.' Twenty-four years later it would be easy to thumb my nose at that lady, but she was telling it as she saw it on that night, and on the basis of that first show she had every justification for coming to such a damning conclusion. I've seen a tape of my very first talk show, and she was right: I was absolutely awful."
At this stage TV ratings were published with only the Network Top 20, meaning programmes on the minority channel of BBC2 were extremely unlikely to feature. The release of Top 10s per channel began in 1981.