Mike Smith

Sarah Green, her job is to be on location in the house for this live broadcast, right? It's a 90 minute broadcast live on Halloween on the BBC.

Her husband, Mike Smith, is also a TV host and he is in the studio manning the phones.

You know, you get a phone in and he's kind of talking about what's happening on the phones.

If any ghosts want to call in.

The idea then of Ghostwatch is that the BBC are going to do a, on Halloween, for shits and giggles basically, are going to do an outside broadcast and they are going to do a live one hour, one hour 30, you know, investigation into this house, what happens on Halloween.

So the outside broadcast trusts... roll up um everything's laid on you've got your your camera crew your sound man you've got your state-of-the-art technology you've got your heat um sensitive cameras very state-of-the-art in in 92 um you've got the your presenters in there so you've got um parky michael parkinson is in the studio so it links back to the studio where he sat with um you know the the specialist the um parapsychologist who has been working with this family and is a an expert in her field you've got Sarah Green as the sort of roving reporter so she's in the house in with the kids and the camera reporting back on what's going on there you've got her husband Mike Smith who's back in the studio with Parky and he's manning the phones.

So you've got a switchboard, classic thing back then, you know, BBC switchboard ringing, you know, you've got a bank of operators, you know, all answering phones and taking messages and writing them down and it's got these, you know, bits of paper with all this stuff written on it.

So, so high tech at the time, but, you know, completely... you know, obsolete now.

And so, you know, it's essentially that, it's just, you know, film this house for an hour, see what happens, and You know, and then all hell breaks loose and somewhere along the line, someone should have told me it wasn't real.

Yes.

Now, this is all part of the wider controversy because for the younger listeners, if there are any, and those not... those who are living outside of the UK, Michael Parkinson, Sarah Green, Mike Smith, Craig Charles were all genuine television personalities.

Craig Charles was an actor.

You can see the signs.

But obviously, you mentioned earlier on, they had Michael Parkinson, they had Sarah Green, they had Mike Smith on this thing.

Yeah.

they were well-respected BBC TV presenters.

I quite like the moment where he starts to interview the kids as trick-or-treaters, and obviously they have to pull away from it.

But, yeah, Sarah Green isn't an actor.

Mike Smith isn't an actor.

Michael Parkinson isn't an actor.

It's hosted in the studio by Michael Parkinson, Parkey himself.

On hand is Mike Smith, who was another big face on TV in the 90s.

He's at the phone lines.

It uses the genuine number of the old BBC TV centre that viewers can call in on 018118181, I remember from Swap Shop.

even

got a phony little title sequence at the beginning you know so you're just we've seen things like on the tv show called noel's house party when they do like outside broadcasts but this is a show that really uses that technology of those wires around the house and the little cameras they've got set up it actually uses them to make it part of the plot so and that's as i said earlier that's really one of the first times that that that kind of stuff is written into a plot to make it a found footage yeah which is what people are discovering it now as

And also I wish to mention Sarah Green and Mike Smith, but Sarah Green in particular was a staple of Saturday morning children's TV shows, etc.

So

Yeah, so it says here that Dr. Lynn Pascoe, a parapsychologist studying the phenomena, she's the one that is accompanying Parkinson and commenting on everything.

But I have to say, Mike Smith's part, so Mike Smith is the one going round those callers.

You know, they always have those callers, like, you know, making calls on, like, Saturday Superstore or

something.

He reminded me of Sidekick Simon, you know, from Alan Partridge's This Time.

Yeah.

But it made me think about Mike Smith because I remember thinking, oh, he died really young.

He did.

Utter beast.

Beast? I got it! Look at that twist on Mike Smith, is it?

Olha a máscara ali de Bazar Rejan.

Well, I had a bet with your husband that I could get a four-letter word like it on television.

Another soon leave us.

Go on.

I love you You need a smoker, Mike Smith.

You're in on this.

It's like, honestly, it was his decision and he came up with this idea and it's so smart.

So Michael Parkinson is the lead presenter and he was very well known to audiences at this time for like... decades he was known as the best chat show host in the business and in the studio with him was mike smith who was a breakfast presenter he'd also presented on top of the pops very like affable guy he also presented all the tv coverage of live aid so every time at live aid they cut back to the studio he'd be interviewing different pop stars um And he'd also been in a near fatal helicopter crash in the late 80s.

There was a huge news story at the time.

And seriously, Michael, Google Mike Smith, Sarah Green helicopter crash.

You will be amazed that they walked away from this alive.

Okay.

But Sarah Green, who was with him, She was very well known to the nation as a Blue Peter presenter, which is a kids BBC show.

She was known for presenting for kids, but adults knew her as well.

I mean, we have Michael Parkinson and Sarah Graves.

And then Sarah Green's partner, Mike Smith, was like, wait a minute, I would love to be a part of this.

So he gets a part in Ghostwatch.

Now he's going to play the guy that's taking all the phone calls because, yes, they had a phone number that viewers could call and they could talk about their own personal paranormal experiences