Oh Boy! was the first teenage all-music show on British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 TV airing in 1958 and 1959. It was produced by Jack Good

Jack Good (producer)

Jack Good is a pioneering former TV television producer, musical theatre producer, record producer, musician and painter of icons.-Career:...

 for ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

.

Good had previously produced 6.5 Special for the BBC Television

BBC Television

BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...

, but wanted to drop the sport and public-service content from this show, and concentrate on the music. The BBC would not accept this, so Good resigned.

ABC

Associated British Corporation

Associated British Corporation was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences.In this...

 allowed Good to make two pilot all-music shows, which were only broadcast in the Midlands

English Midlands

The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...

. These pilots were successful, so the programme was given a national ITV slot on Saturday evenings, from 6.00 – 6.30 PM, in direct competition with 6.5 Special, but starting slightly earlier.

The hosts were Tony Hall, a jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 record producer and critic, and Jimmy Henney, and the artists covered a broad spectrum of music including ballads, jazz, skiffle and rock and roll. The show was broadcast live from the Hackney Empire

Hackney Empire

The Hackney Empire is a theatre on Mare Street, in the London Borough of Hackney, built in 1901 as a music hall.-History:Hackney Empire is a grade II* listed building...

.

Each week Oh Boy! featured resident artists plus a selection of special guests. The residents included Cuddly Dudley

Cuddly Dudley (singer)

Cuddly Dudley was an English rock & roll singer, and actor, who came to fame on the Oh Boy! TV series, and is noted for being “Britain's first black rock & roller”.-Early career:...

, who sang on 21 shows, Cliff Richard

Cliff Richard

Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....

 (20 shows), The Drifters (Later to become The Shadows

The Shadows

The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...

) (17 shows) and Marty Wilde

Marty Wilde

Marty Wilde is an English singer and songwriter. He was among the first generation of British pop stars to emulate American rock and roll, and is the father of pop singers Ricky Wilde, Kim Wilde and Roxanne Wilde.-Career:Wilde was performing under the name Reg Patterson at London's Condor Club in...

 (17 shows). Guests included Billy Fury

Billy Fury

Billy Fury, born Ronald William Wycherley , was an internationally successful English singer from the late-1950s to the mid-1960s, and remained an active songwriter until the 1980s. Rheumatic fever, which he first contracted as a child, damaged his heart and ultimately contributed to his death...

, Tony Sheridan

Tony Sheridan

Tony Sheridan , is an English rock and roll singer-songwriter and guitarist...

, Shirley Bassey

Shirley Bassey

Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...

 and Lonnie Donegan

Lonnie Donegan

Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...

; with occasional US

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 stars

Celebrity

A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...

, such as The Inkspots, Conway Twitty

Conway Twitty

Conway Twitty , born Harold Lloyd Jenkins, was an American country music artist. He also had success in early rock and roll, R&B, and pop music. He held the record for the most number one singles of any act with 55 No. 1 Billboard country hits until George Strait broke the record in 2006...

 and Brenda Lee

Brenda Lee

Brenda Mae Tarpley , known as Brenda Lee, is an American performer who sang rockabilly, pop and country music, and had 37 US chart hits during the 1960s, a number surpassed only by Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Ray Charles and Connie Francis...

. The solo artists were supported by a specially created house band Lord Rockingham's XI

Lord Rockingham's XI

Lord Rockingham's XI was a group of British session musicians, led by Harry Robinson , who had a #1 hit on the UK Singles Chart in 1958 with "Hoots Mon"....

, who went on to have hits in their own right, including a No 1 single "Hoots Mon

Hoots mon

"Hoots Mon" is a song written by Harry Robinson and performed by Lord Rockingham's XI. It was a number-one hit single for three weeks in 1958 on the UK Singles Chart...

". Performers were also supported by the singing and dancing of The Vernons Girls

The Vernons Girls

The Vernons Girls were an English musical ensemble of female vocalists. They were formed at the Vernons football pools company in the 1950s in Liverpool, settling down to a sixteen strong choir and recorded an album of standards.-Career:...

, the Dallas Boys and Neville Taylor's Cutters

Eight episodes were re-broadcast in the US, but only two of the 38 shows (or 40 shows including the two pilots) still exist. The last of these original shows was broadcast on 30 May 1959. The slot was soon taken by another music show produced by Good, Boy Meets Girls

Boy Meets Girls

Boy Meets Girls was a UK popular music TV show which was launched in September 1959 replacing the earlier show Oh Boy!.The show was presented and produced by Jack Good. Marty Wilde was the principal resident male artist and The Vernons Girls were the female residents. Joe Brown made regular...

, which starred Marty Wilde and started on 12 September 1959.

The show was revived in 1979 for the retro rock and roll stars of the day, this time the show included, Shakin' Stevens

Shakin' Stevens

Shakin' Stevens, also known as "Shaky" is a platinum selling Welsh rock and roll singer and songwriter who holds the distinction of being the UK's biggest-selling singles artist of the 1980s . His recording and performing career began in the late 1960s, although it was not until 1980 that he saw...

, Alvin Stardust

Alvin Stardust

Alvin Stardust is an English pop singer and stage actor.-Career:...

, Joe Brown

Joe Brown (singer)

Joe Brown, MBE is an English entertainer.He has worked as a rock and roll singer and guitarist for more than five decades. He was a stage and television performer in the late 1950s and a UK recording star in the early 1960s...

, Lulu

Lulu (singer)

Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, OBE , best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business from the 1960s through to the present day...

, Bogdan Kominowski

Mr. Lee Grant

Bogdan Kominowski, , as Mr. Lee Grant, was a popular and influential early New Zealand pop star. Under his birth name he later had a successful singing and acting career - starring in stage shows such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Elvis the Musical, TV shows and the James Bond movie "A View To A...

, Freddie "Fingers" Lee, Les Gray

Les Gray

Thomas Leslie "Les" Gray was an English singer best known for his work with the band Mud. Gray was also known for his distinctive vocal impersonation of Elvis Presley.-Early life and career:...

, Johnny Storm (now performing with The Johnny Storm Band), The Shades and Fumble

Fumble (band)

Fumble were an English rock and roll revival group, that formed in 1967 and disbanded in 1982. They had specialised in covering rock and roll classics...

. Joe Brown was the only one of the artists who was performing across the UK in the 1950s to appear on the 1970s Oh Boy! show. Alvin Stardust first emerged on the 1950s scene as Shane Fenton and the Fentones. The presenter of the show was "GBH", alias Scottish actor Billy Hartman

Billy Hartman

Billy Hartman is a Scottish actor, well known for playing the part of Terry Woods on ITV's Emmerdale from 1995 until his character was killed off in 2011.He also played a small role in the film Highlander...

.

Following the Oh Boy TV show, a similar series, Let's Rock, was created also by Good. The shows were broadcast across Europe and in the US in the early 1980s.