After two Red Nose days in a row in '88 and '89, Richard Curtis and the Comic Relief organizers decided they needed a year off to properly spend all the money raised, and so began the bi-annual tradition of Red Nose day (as opposed to the yearly Children in Need marathon). As usual, the show could not begin until ratings giant (and Children In Need presenter) Terry Wogan had finished his talk-show. There were some special activities during Children's BBC in the afternoon, though, including a special, improvised "Jackanory" story by the team from "Who's Line is it Anyway" and guests from 'Bread'. There was also a charity song performed by characters from nearly every puppet show ever made, aptly titled 'A Helping Hand'. This edition's sketch comedy marathon starring everybody and anything (even Bill Wyman was in it) was called 'Star Crazy!' It would be the last comic relief sketch-athon in Red Nose history. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (or Hero Turtles as they were known on the BBC) filmed a special message, Chris Tarrant brought along another collection of funny home videos from all over the world while Julan Clary (no longer the head of the Joan Collins Fan Club, apparently) headed the celebrity phone line. Tony Robinson presented some Cartoon Hits in the Early night to coincide with his "Stay Tooned" show and in one of the serious bits, made a report on refugees from Malawi.
For this years charity single, Hale and Pace invented the dance craze "The Stonk", which sold 200,000 singles and raised 100.000. Apparently, to 'stonk' is to do something rather naughty around Yorkshire. Helping out on the single were band members from Queen, Jools Holland, and of course, Mr. Bean on drums. In another part of the show, Bean appeared in his first of several Comic Relief specials, celebrating Red Nose day in his own sad way. Other specials included Sharon and Tracy (Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson) meeting Sharon and Tracy (French and Sounders) in a special edition of "Birds of a Feather". This, and a performance by Jen and Dawn with their usual musical partners Raw Sex as Abba, proved once more that their humor would go nowhere without the use of all that great makeup and wigs. Also, one of the two Ronnies (Corbett) performed one of his patented sit down routines and Melvyn Braggs traces the extraordinary career of Postman Pat
The A-Z of comedy started with A for Aristrocratic Twit and B for Basil Fawlty. There were more musical interludes than ever, as Bad News, a Spinal Tap-like metal band mostly made up of members from the Young Ones, reunited. Victorya Wood sang her Smile Song and Harry Enfield interrupted Paul Young's performance with his 'You don't want to do that' routine. While Griff Rhys Jones reported on the need for clean water among the Masai in Kenya, Smashie and Nicey (Paul Whitehouse and the ubiquitous Harry Enfield) offered their own poptabulous take on Red Nose day from Radio FAB FM. The Barry Awards also returned: this time round Barry Norman picked his all time film comedians out of Bob Hope, Peter Seller,s Groucho Marx, Steve Martin, Woody Allen, W.C. Fields and John Cleese. After that, up and coming comedy duo Reeves and Mortimer showed us what to do with your leftovers from Red Nose day.
French and Sunders took over presenting duties for an hour of female laughter (from Rita Rudner to the Golden Girls). This was the beginning of a trend that had Lenny, Griff and Jonathan giving away more and more airtime each year, until finally the entire night is split up between a host of presenters, some of whom were barely out of diapers when the first Red Nose day was held. In the most recent shows, it has all become so slick that it seems none of them break a sweat presenting all night anymore. But such things were all in the future at this point, for after the girls hour, Lenny returned as Theophilis P. Wildebeeste for the classic Battle of the Sex Gods. Theo had challenged Tom Jones to see who was the biggest Sex Bomb. Both arrived decked out in tight leather pants, studded jackets, Big T. medallions, stubble and a glowing Red Nose as a codpiece. Sining "I can't get enough of your love", Tom naturally beat the pants off of Theo by 25.000 votes. The so called Wildebeeste had to give up half way through the song. Their collective butt wiggling was later voted by Radio Times readers and Daytime television watchers as the best bit of Red Nose night 3. To round things of, at 1.30, a comedy cavalcade of all time classic sketches was strung together deep into the night
8 red noses with hands on the side
