The Noddy was a camera system used for generating idents for the BBC One and BBC Two television channels from late 1963 to February 1985. The Noddy video camera was controlled by a servomotor to pan and tilt (or 'nod', hence the name Noddy) across a set of pre-arranged physical objects or captions. The camera recorded in black-and-white, with colour electronically added to its output. This system eliminated the delay associated with swapping graphics upon a conventional copy stand. It also allowed clearance for more substantial objects such as a clock or globe.
History The BBC first employed the system in the 1960s, before the advent of colour. The system's remote operation allowed the operator to control it with ease, and allowed the idents to be of no fixed length as the clock symbols could continue for many minutes at a time. A smaller black and white camera was introduced as camera technology progressed and, from 1969, a process was introduced to add colour signals to the camera output. This electronic addition of colour was convenient and made the networks' rebrands easy to perform.
BBC One mirror globes The most famous idents captured by the Noddy system were the BBC One mirror globes used between 1969 and 1985, albeit with minor colour changes. The system consisted of an internally lit, rotating globe in front of a concave mirror. The oceans were painted onto the globe in metallic black paint, leaving the land masses as unpainted patches.
1969–1974
The original globe ident, introduced at midnight on 15 November 1969, featured blue continents and logo against a black background. The logo included the word 'COLOUR' after the BBC One (then BBC 1) corporate logo, to identify the new programme format and act as an advertisement to the vast majority of viewers who were still watching in black and white (as the colour version of the television licence, which financed the BBC, was much more expensive). Full colour broadcasts across the UK did not become available until 1976. The colours of blue and black were chosen because they were still easily distinguishable to those with black-and-white televisions. Another version of the globe without the 'COLOUR' logo was used before black-and-white programmes, of which there were still many in the BBC One schedule in the early 70s. The globe ident was modified sometime in 1971 to include a new BBC logo with rounded corners and 'COLOUR' in a slightly thinner typeface, and then again a few months later to include an italic serif font for the 'COLOUR' legend and wider gaps in the BBC 1 logo.
1974–1981
The second of three major revisions to the mirror globe appeared shortly after Christmas 1974, with yellow continents over a dark blue background and the term 'COLOUR' removed. The legend 'BBC 1' was rendered in white, using a heavy weight of the Futura typeface. The physical globe model itself remained the same one in use since 1969, however, and would only be replaced in late February 1976; further modifications were made until stabilising in c. September 1977.
1981–1985
The third and final major revision of the ident appeared at 5.10 pm on 5 September 1981. It incorporated the double-striped BBC 1 logo, which had already been in use on slides and promotions for several years by that point, and initially sported a duller, darker colour scheme than its predecessor; this was modified the following Monday to a brighter blue background and lime green continents, which remained until February 1985. Further changes to this version of the mirror globe (which included reducing the size of the BBC 1 logo and repainting the globe) occurred over the course of a year, stabilising in August 1982. The globe model in the machinery was altered over the years as it had to be frequently re-painted. This led to a number of odd variations: the tip of South Africa, the Cape Fold Mountains, was pointed in the August 1982 model, and the Pacific islands were more pronounced in others. In 2007, BBC 1 aired the second series of Life on Mars, set in 1973. As part of the presentation, the series trailed with a computer recreation of the 1973-era mirrored globe ident. BBC Wales, who produced the show, was able to use its original globe model to recreate the ident more faithfully, also including period appropriate dual language branding and continuity announcers from that era. In 2014, the mirrored globe was added to the BBC's A History of the World object collection. On 13 November 2017, the 1981 globe returned for BBC Children in Need Rocks the Eighties.
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