BBC Breakfast Time

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TVARK

Breakfast Time

1st Intro (January 17, 1983-January 19, 1986)

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Visuals: It starts off with shots of Britain at dawn, with the camera either fading between or zooming out. After the tune finishes building up, a white outline trails up from the bottom of the screen, eventually revealing itself as the light blue text "BBC" as it stops, with a white outline. Another trail rises up as well, revealing itself as "Breakfast Time" as the background fades to black. "BBC" fades out as parts of an abstract sunrise drop down and squash themselves into shape in various shades of yellow. "Breakfast Time" then fades out as more of the sunrise moves into place, forming a full sun with a red-yellow gradient to it as the background slowly fades to sky blue. Each piece then revolve around twice, reversing the color order in the process, before it flips up from the bottom, revealing half of the sunrise with a more notable yellow-orange graident to it. Finally, "Breakfast Time" flashes in below, though without its gradient at first, and then the scene transitions to the studio.

Variants:

• The shots used, as well as the timing of it fading out, changes with each intro. Sometimes it may be on a specific location depending on the story, like on April 18th, 1984, the cameras are focused on the Libyan People's Bureau, in order to report on the siege
• Over the course of its run, the intro has seen several unique intro variants over certain periods. Here's all of the ones known so far:
  • Christmas 1983: The opening shot shows a slow zoom out from a snow-covered village with lights in the windows, before it reveals itself to be actually a painting within a window. The intro then continues normally until the sky blue background fades in, where snow starts to fall. The sun then turns white and flashes, spinning and zooming out as the scene zooms out to reveal it in a frame with 2 different shades of green repeating in a pattern, as well as dark green and gold streamers dropping down from the top, all on a different sky blue-black gradient background. The text "CHRISTMAS" then wipes in a ornate serif font as a white outline first, before it flashes in its colors, followed by "with Breakfast Time" stacked below flashing in, along with 2 mistletoe plants flanking the sides of "with", as snow visibly clumps up at the bottom of the border. The text here also have a 3D effect to them.
  • 1984 Summer Olympics: The opening shots show helicopter and drive-by shots of Los Angeles at night, and eventually daybreak, before it then fades to an overhead shot of the Los Angeles Memorial Colosseum and the intro continues as normal until the text is revealed. Instead of the usual text, the serif text "OLYMPIC BREAKFAST TIME" zooms out in its place.
  • Christmas 1984: The shots show off various parts of a snow-covered fur forest, including a horse pulling a sleigh, before it ends with Father Christmas walking through the forest with his sack of gifts over his shoulder. The animation also starts off differently, with the "BBC Breakfast Time" text zooming out from the bottom of the screen as outlines, and without trails as well, before filling with color. The rest of the animation plays out similarly, albeit on a brighter background and with a visible black drop shadow on all of the pieces, until it starts flipping. Instead of showing half of the sun, the full sun appears after flipping around, before flashing and turning into a 3D object as it tilts to face upwards. The face of it flashes as the "CHRISTMAS with Breakfast Time" text from before, including the mistletoe, flashes in and borders the top and bottom portions of it, sparkling wildly with bright lights.
  • Easter 1985: Most of the intro is the same, although the shots include flowers and sheep, and at the end, a cheaply-inserted Easter egg flashes in at the top of the sunrise icon.
  • Christmas 1985: The shots show various parts of Britain frozen over by ice and snow, as well as various activities happening throughout as well. The "BBC Breakfast Time" zoom out like in the Christmas 1984 variant, but with the colors already present, before the logo forms up as usual. The background is also the same as the Christmas 1983 variant, and the sun zooms out like how it did in that variant as well, but instead rises to the top of the screen and reverts back to normal as "Christmas" appears in an ornate white script. 4 curvy lines, 2 on each side, then draw out into fancy decorations that flank the white word "FROM", which fades in later. "Breakfast Time" then fades in below with a 3D effect, and then the text sparkles with little white lights as "Breakfast Time" flashes.

Technique: Live-action and backlit animation.

Audio: A whimsical-sounding flute tune as a 4-note bell tune plays throughout the beginning, building up as it adds more instruments to the line up like a trumpet and guitar. It then segues into a more upbeat and dramatic orchestral tune, still with a whimsical tone and in-sync with the animation, before finishing with a 5-note chime tune.

2nd Intro (January 20-November 7, 1986)

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Visuals: It starts with the same set of clips from the later days of the previous intro play out, which shows various shots of night life from late night to dawn, as well as various shots of Britain's workers being put into action. Then, it fades to a shot of the sun over a dead tree, where the semi-transparent text "BBC Breakfast Time" rises up and settles underneath the sun in a stacked form. It then fades to an abstract blue space with time-lapse cloudy skies playing over a blue grid, where the pieces of the Breakfast Time sun fly in and settle one by one. The pieces are transparent and colorless at first, rotating and spinning around piece-by-piece as they face the screen. The sun then flips around slowly, each piece rotating, and in the middle of the second flip, the colors fade back in before it flips over to the classic logo as "Breakfast Time" rises back up underneath the logo.

Technique: Live action and CGI.

Audio: Same as before.

BBC Breakfast Time

Intro (November 10, 1986-September 28, 1989)

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Visuals: On a blue background, violet/pink-tinted clouds are seen rolling across the sky, reflected over a purple floor. The clouds then start to move away as a yellow sun starts to rise up from over the horizon, which slowly turns white. As it rises up about halfway, the camera suddenly eases back a far distance to make room for large glass letters, shining with violet and pink colors, as they settle onto the floor. The camera then eases back and rotates up to reveal itself as the stacked words as shown:

BBC
BREAKFAST
TIME

The floor behind them fades out as they move up into the upper right corner of the screen, either fading to a black background or into the set via chroma-keyed effects, and the text turns deep blue.

Technique: CGI by Tim Goodchild and Mark Hobbins.

Audio: A serious, although still uplifting, orchestral fanfare led by brass instruments. Composed by George Fenton.

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