Yep - July 3rd was shown a few years back - it is a bit washed out as it was recovered from a domestic recording, only in VHS format.

Great to see all these old 70s shows - they have been all shown before but not for a fairly long time so getting upgraded copies would be a very good idea

Pity I am in Melbourne and cant record any of these. Looks like one episode playing from 1975 right now and the remainder tonight. Hopefully I can get copies sorted of all these!!

An unexpected surprise that I only found out about yesterday, pity it took the death of Michael Shrimpton for these to be unearthed again.

Just watching 31/08/75 now - geez so much was totally erased from the 1970s, what remains is priceless - but this is really the show from its halcyon days. Even though many of us love the 80s episodes they dont have the level of excitement of the 70s as the promo films really took over and studio performances declined.

The 23 Jan 1977 show was titled on screen as the 5 Dec 1976 show, and vice versa. So who was right - rage titlers, or the runsheet archives?

And yes, the 3 July 1977 show was definitely a VHS transfer. That Alice Cooper clip is extremely rare, shame the quality was not very good.

The episode from 5 Dec 1976 which rage titled on screen as 23rd January 1977 is the episode from 5th December, 1976 as Molly kept asking Bay City Rollers what will come after X Mas and saying in Humdrum, that certain bands will be big next year. All these references to the end of the year and beginning of next year kept coming up which is why when I saw them putt the date of 1977, it didn't make much sense.

I haven't watched this properly yet, but when I fast forwarded through, it looked to be the same episode that the ABC had wiped, but someone had a home recording of. From memory, this was first shown during retro month 2009 (or maybe 2010). I remember keeping the Thelma Houston video from it. And yes, it's not the best quality. I wonder why they chose to re-air this episode?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the 1 March '75 episode hosted by John Farnham had some serious tape damage during Daryl Braithwaite's 'You're My World'. Is that new or was it the same when they aired this episode in the 90's? Anyone know, or do I have to pull out my VHS recording to compare. I seriously hope the master tape hasn't deteriorated over 20 years.

I haven't watched this yet (70s Countdowns don't really interest me), but theoretically they should have a digitised copy of this in their library/archives from when it was first aired on rage - unless this was before, say, 2001, before digital TV existed in Australia.

They had re-encoded the Christmas 1986 episode of Countdown when it repeated (first airing on rage in 2009) a year or two ago (in the newer encoding method with the larger/blurrier rage logo and text font), suggesting they didn't have (or couldn't find) the digitised copy they aired just a few years ago.

Jason, Love your insight and dedication to Countdown. Long time collector. Upset to learn about this Saturday night special as I only caught wind of it later. Managed to digitally tape the repeats on ABC and ABCMe through the week but missed out on Mar 1, 1975, Jul 3 1977 and Jan23, 1977. Is there any way I can get hold of them ? I'm in the process of digitising my entire collection so happy to share with you. Cheers. Anthony.

Noticed this last night when I watched the special for the first time. Will dig out my old copy and see if there's damage to the Daryl Braithwaite clip on that one as well.

The 1st March 1975 is also a home recording folks - which is why tape damage is evident in places including Daryl Braithwaite. It was an extremely good quality U-Matic which has been cleaned up considerably since its first repeat on Rage around 93/94. Those of us who recall seeing it back then would remember what poor quality it was back then. No Master tape exists as such other than the digital remaster of the U-Matic dub.

Never knew the March 1 1975 episode was a home recording or that home video recorders were even around in 1975. In light of that it's now in pretty good shape with the exception of a small section of the DB clip.