Watch Soviet New Year's blue lights. Why was the “blue light” so popular in the USSR? The main characteristic feature of the “Blue Lights” was the relaxed atmosphere created with the help of serpentine, “Soviet champagne” and treats placed

Which one New Year without... TV? Even now, more than half a century after the blue screen illuminated Soviet apartments with joy, it remains an unchanged holiday attribute. For many years, on the evening of December 31, all citizens froze in front of a black and white TV in anticipation of a truly kind and sincere “Blue Light” with hospitable presenters, cheerful songs, confetti and streamers... This television program united a large country even in those years when its nothing united anymore. General secretaries and presidents replaced each other, but she remained. And it was she who was popularly elected - “Blue Light”. Actually, its history is the history of the USSR and Russia. And today I would like to remember those funny moments that, for various reasons, were not included in the New Year's broadcast or, on the contrary, made it unforgettable.

The version of how Ogonyok appeared is as follows: in 1962, the editor-in-chief of the music editorial office received a call from the CPSU Central Committee and was asked to come up with a musical and entertainment program. Then, in the early 60s, the authorities realized the importance of television. In 1960, the Central Committee issued a resolution "On further development Soviet television", in which this very television was proclaimed "an important means of communist education of the masses in the spirit of Marxist-Leninist ideology and morality, intransigence to bourgeois ideology."

Since it was necessary to come up with an entertaining program approximately in this spirit, no one could cope with it. Then someone, seeing the young screenwriter Alexei Gabrilovich in the Shabolovka corridor, asked him to think about it, and he agreed - however, he immediately forgot about it. A couple of weeks later he was called to the authorities. The screenwriter, who had celebrated something in a cafe the day before, came up with the idea of ​​a zucchini on the spot, where actors come after evening performances and tell funny stories......Home characteristic feature“Blue Lights” had a relaxed atmosphere created with the help of streamers, “Soviet champagne” and treats placed on the guests’ tables.

In the first year, “Blue Light” began to be released so actively that it was published weekly, but then the enthusiasm of the creators somewhat dried up, and other programs began to appear one after another. And “Blue Light” was assigned the role of the main entertainment program a country that created people’s mood for the whole year ahead on New Year’s Day. For the first time in New Year's Eve"Ogonyok" was released on December 31, 1962. During the first ten years of its existence, the creators of “Blue Light” invented and mastered everything that makes up today’s entertainment television. The only difference is in the technical execution, but the ideas and content remain the same. In what was shown in the New Year's “Ogonyki” forty-odd years ago, you can easily discern individual features and entire programs of today’s television.

I would also like to tell you about the appearance of such a strange name - “Blue Light”. The TV show owes them to black and white TV. By the early 60s, the huge wooden box with a small screen gradually became a thing of the past. The Aleksandrovsky Radio Plant began producing “Records”. Their kinescope was significantly different from its predecessors. From model to model, it increased in size, and its image, although it remained black and white, a bluish glow appeared on the screen. That is why the name appeared, incomprehensible to today’s youth.

The creators quite logically assumed that if the program is released at the end of the year, then it should sound best songs performed this year. The competition for a place in the lineup among the performers was such that in one of the first episodes even Lyudmila Zykina with the song “The Volga River Flows” was shown only in a small excerpt.

The first hosts of “Blue Light” were actor Mikhail Nozhkin and singer Elmira Uruzbaeva. It was with Elmira that an unexpected incident happened in one of the first episodes of the program. And it’s all to blame for the inability to work with a soundtrack. IN live"Blue Light" Uruzbaeva, performing a song, approached one of the tables of the music cafe. One of the invited guests handed her a glass of champagne. The singer, confused by surprise, took the glass in her hand, took a sip and, in addition, choked and coughed. While this action was taking place, the phonogram continued to sound. After the broadcast of the program, surprised viewers flooded television with letters. Not accustomed to the soundtrack, they kept asking the same question: “How can you drink and perform a song at the same time? Or is it not Uruzbaeva singing at all? If this is so, then what kind of singer is she?!” The genre layout was different: the audience was even treated to opera numbers, but even then the rare “Ogonyok” managed without Edita Piekha. And Joseph Kobzon, even in the 60s, was almost no different from his current self. He was everywhere and sang about everything. Although sometimes he still allowed himself to experiment: for example, in one of the “Ogonki”, performing the highly relevant song “Cuba is my love!”, Kobzon appeared... with a beard a la Che Guevara and a machine gun in his hands!

It was unthinkable to miss a transmission - they didn’t repeat it. Of course, “Ogonyok” would have remained a vague impression of childhood if not for the surviving records. I think film is the best invention of the bygone century, and those frames were left as a reproach to us - how low we, the present ones, have fallen!

Stars on the screen

Just like today, in the 60s the highlight of TV treats was the stars. True, the stars in those days were different, and they paved the way to glory for themselves differently. Not a single New Year's "Blue Light" was complete without cosmonauts, and Yuri Gagarin was the main character of television holidays until his death. Moreover, the astronauts did not just sit, but actively participated in the show. Thus, in 1965, Pavel Belyaev and Alexey Leonov, who had recently returned from orbit, portrayed television cameramen filming young Larisa Mondrus singing. And Yuri Gagarin walked around the studio with the most modern hand-held movie camera. Leonov also danced a twist with Mondrus to complete the plot. Watching “Ogonki” from the 60s today, you can even trace how he grew up to the rank of cosmonaut number one. First he appeared in a tunic with the shoulder straps of a major, then a lieutenant colonel, and then a colonel. Nowadays an astronaut is just one of the professions, but then they were looked at as heroes. If Gagarin or Titov said something, no one dared to move; everyone listened with their mouths open. Now there is no person who could compare in popular adoration with Gagarin in the 60s. Therefore, cosmonauts at the New Year's “Ogonyki” have always been welcome guests. And only 1969, the first year after the death of Yuri Alekseevich, was celebrated without cosmonauts.

Gradually, the “Blue Lights” become artificial, like many New Year trees. With the advent of recording, the program began to be filmed in parts: participants and guests sat at tables and clapped for the performer of the act as if they had just seen him, although the act was recorded on a different day. At first, there was real champagne (or at least real tea and coffee) and fresh fruit on the tables. Then they poured lemonade or colored water. And the fruits and sweets were already made of papier-mâché. After someone broke a tooth, participants in the Blue Light were warned not to try to bite off anything. In the 70s, the crowd in the hall corresponded to the times: for example, girls from the Ministry of Agriculture could sit at the tables. In the Blue Light the first clips appeared, although at that time no one suspected that it was called that. In the absence of the yellow press and gossip columns, people learned about events in the personal lives of their idols from Ogonki. Muslim Magomaev and Tamara Sinyavskaya got married in November 1974 and soon sang a duet in the New Year's “Ogonyok”. So the country realized that they had become husband and wife. In the 70s, the chairman of the USSR State Television and Radio was Sergei Lapin. Under him, it was forbidden for men to appear on screen in a leather jacket, jeans, without a tie, with a beard and mustache, and for women in lace-up dresses, trouser suits, with a neckline and with diamonds. Valery Leontyev in his tight suits was cut out of the programs. The rest were cut out for other reasons. Tap dancer Vladimir Kirsanov recalled how in the mid-70s he danced with his wife at Ogonyok to a song by Evgeniy Martynov. And when I turned on the TV, I saw myself dancing to a completely different tune. It turned out that the reason was the television management’s dislike for Martynov, and they explained to Kirsanov: “Tell me thank you for keeping you on the air.”

Comedians

Even then, comedians helped us celebrate the New Year in high spirits. The frontman of the genre was Arkady Raikin, a participant as obligatory as Ivan Urgant today. Two duets were extremely popular: Tarapunka and Shtepsel, who managed to “sneak through” bureaucracy on the New Year’s stage, and Mirov and Novitsky, whose jokes were not very sophisticated, but relevant. So, in 1964 they responded to the terribly fashionable topic “Cybernetics” For real veterans New Year's show- Edita Piekha, Joseph Kobzon, Alla Pugacheva, Muslim Magomayev, Sofia Rotaru - were allowed to perform two or even three songs in a row. Foreign hits were a novelty, and then only performed by domestic stars. It was impossible to imagine Ogonyok without humorous miniatures. Soviet comedians, such as Khazanov and his eternal student at the culinary college, were especially valued in the 70s.

The fashion of performing songs from favorite old films was also not born in our days. In “Ogonyok”, at a meeting in 1965 in honor of the 20th anniversary of the film “Heavenly Slugger”, Nikolai Kryuchkov, Vasily Neshchiplenko and Vasily Merkuryev, who played the main characters of the film, performed “First of all airplanes” right in the studio with great success, and even attracted real army generals to this . And a few years later, the trio Nikulin - Vitsin - Morgunov staged an eccentric performance on the set based on “Barbos the Dog and the Unusual Cross.”

Even then, Alexander Maslyakov was the face of youth humor, albeit a much younger face, although his intonations were the same as today. KVN's humor was less paradoxical and not at all avant-garde. And the popular today word “kaveenschik” had not yet been used, they said: “A song performed by KVN players.”

"Moment of glory"

Funny weirdos were always in demand, and even harsh Soviet television could do nothing about it. True, the freaks were still not as wild as those who are now participating in the “Minute of Fame”, but “with a cultural slant.” And they showed them, but treated them without enthusiasm. Thus, the presenter of “Blue Light” in 1966, young Yevgeny Leonov, spoke directly about the musician who played a bow on a saw: “Is he crazy, or what?”

But in the 90s, the Rossiya TV channel revived the tradition of “Blue Light” and already in 1997 a release dedicated to the 35th anniversary of the program was released. Nowadays, “Blue Light” has been replaced by a weekly program called “Saturday Evening” (in the role of TV presenter is Nikolai Baskov, and the duet of Mavrikievna and Nikitichna is now replaced by the duo of New Russian Grandmothers). The “evening” is broadcast on the same channel “Russia”, the main difference between the program and “Blue Light” is that the guests of the program are now exclusively stars of domestic showbiz. By the way, the “New Year’s Blue Light” was replaced by “Blue Light on Shabolovka”.

This is how it happens, the original past of the program has gone down in history and on Youtube with the words “Don’t remember it badly”... Now “Ogonyok”, as before, consists of songs and jokes. Its creators say that since the channel is state-owned, participants do not have the right to joke below the belt. However, we note that the belt itself has long since dropped. Low waist is in fashion. "Blue Lights" reflected the era. The milkmaids and cosmonauts at the tables were replaced by Sliska and Zhirinovsky, but no one replaced Pugacheva and Kobzon.

This is a unique publication - the Festive New Year's "Blue Light" of 1965 (more precisely, everything that, at the cost of incredible efforts, we managed to collect, compile and still release, using materials miraculously preserved in the State Television and Radio Fund). Familiar faces appear on the black and white film - the faces of famous actors, musicians, television presenters. Soviet cosmonauts (including Yuri Gagarin), heroes of war and labor, members of collectives folk art- all this is an integral component of the New Year festivities of that distant time. New Year's greetings from our foreign friends represent a certain charm (often with a touch of childish naivety). Magnificent interludes (Lev Mirov, Mark Novitsky, Oleg Popov, Arkady Raikin and many others), beautiful songs performed by the most famous pop artists, original production work - all this cannot but cause sincere admiration for what he saw... 01. Congratulations on the New Year year from actor Yuri Belov, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. 02. Larisa Mondrus - “My dear dreamer.” 03. Cheerful duet of Yuri Nikulin, Evgeny Morgunov, Georgy Vitsin, Pavel Rudakov, Stanislav Lavrov. 04. Sazonov Brothers - “Tap Dance”. 05. Arkady Raikin - Monologue “Interlude”. 06. Ensemble "Accord" - "Penguins". 07. Pavel Rudakov, Stanislav Lavrov - “New Year’s toasts” (ditties). 08. Joseph Kobzon - “The white light has converged on you like a wedge.” 09. Happy New Year from Georgy Vitsin. 10. Lyudmila Zykina - “Winter Path”. 11. Dean Reed - “Elizabeth” (Dean Reed - “Elizabeth”). 12. Jokes from Yuri Nikulin, Evgeny Morgunov, Georgy Vitsin. 13. Larisa Golubkina - “Note”. 14. Muslim Magomaev - “Intoxicated by the Sun.” 15. Oleg Popov - “Not at ease.” 16. Mireille Mathieu - “Nous on s aimera” (Mireille Mathieu - “Nous on s aimera”). 17. Maya Kristalinskaya - “Stork”. 18. Eduard Khil - “It was recently, it was a long time ago.” 19. Happy New Year from Sergo Zakariadze (სერგო ზაქარიაძე) (who played the main role in the film “Father of a Soldier”). 20. Mark Bernes - “Where the Motherland Begins.” 21. Veronica Kruglova - “I don’t see anything.” 22. Polad Bul-Bul Ogly - “Sheik”. 23. Klavdiya Shulzhenko - “Indian Summer”. 24. Nikolay Slichenko - “Dark Eyes”. 25. Irina Brzhevskaya - “This is so good.” 26. Yuri Timoshenko, Efim Berezin - “Speech by Tarapunka and Shtepsel.” 27. Lev Barashkov - “Hugging the sky.” In the episodes: German Titov, Nikolai Kryuchkov, Vasily Merkuryev, Vasily Neshchiplenko, Alexandra Pakhmutova and many others.

This television program united our country even in those years when nothing united it anymore. General secretaries and presidents replaced each other, but she remained. And it was she who was popularly elected - “Blue Light”. Actually, its history is the history of the USSR and Russia. And today I would like to remember those funny moments that, for various reasons, were not included in the New Year's broadcast or, on the contrary, made it unforgettable...

What would New Year be without... TV? Even now, more than half a century after the blue screen illuminated Soviet apartments with joy, it remains an unchanged holiday attribute. For many years, on the evening of December 31, all citizens of the Soviets froze in front of a black and white TV, waiting for a truly kind and sincere “Blue Light” with hospitable presenters, cheerful songs, confetti and streamers...

The version of how Ogonyok appeared is as follows:

In 1962, the editor-in-chief of the music editorial office received a call from the CPSU Central Committee and was asked to come up with a musical and entertainment program. It was then, in the early 60s, that the authorities began to understand and realize the full importance of television.

In 1960, the Central Committee issued a resolution “On the further development of Soviet television,” in which this very television was proclaimed “an important means of communist education of the masses in the spirit of Marxist-Leninist ideology and morality, and intransigence to bourgeois ideology.”

Since it was necessary to come up with an entertaining program approximately in this spirit, no one could cope with it. Then someone, seeing the young screenwriter Alexei Gabrilovich in the Shabolovka corridor, asked him to think about it, and he agreed - however, he immediately forgot about it. A couple of weeks later he was called to the authorities. The screenwriter, who had celebrated something in a cafe the day before, came up with the idea of ​​a zucchini on the spot, where actors come after evening performances and tell funny stories......

The main characteristic feature of “Blue Lights” was the relaxed atmosphere created with the help of serpentine, “Soviet champagne” and treats placed on the guests’ tables.

In the first year, “Blue Light” began to be released so actively that it was published weekly, but then the enthusiasm of the creators dried up somewhat, and other programs were not long in coming. Thus, “Blue Light” was assigned the role of the country’s main entertainment program, which on New Year’s Day created people’s mood for the whole year ahead.

For the first time on New Year's Eve, Ogonyok was released on December 31, 1962. During the first ten years of its existence, the creators of “Blue Light” invented and mastered everything that makes up today’s entertainment television. The only difference is in the technical execution, but the ideas and content remain the same. In what was shown in the New Year's “Ogonyki” forty-odd years ago, you can easily discern individual features and entire programs of today’s television.

I would also like to talk about the appearance of such a strange name - “Blue Light”. The TV show owes them to black and white TV.

By the early 60s, the huge wooden box with a small screen gradually became a thing of the past. The Aleksandrovsky Radio Plant began producing “Records”. Their kinescope was significantly different from its predecessors. From model to model, it increased in size, and its image, although it remained black and white, a bluish glow appeared on the screen. That is why the name appeared, incomprehensible to today’s youth.

About popularity

The creators quite logically assumed that if the program is released at the end of the year, then it should feature the best songs performed this year. The competition for a place in the lineup among the performers was such that in one of the first episodes even Lyudmila Zykina with the song “The Volga River Flows” was shown only in a small excerpt.

The first hosts of “Blue Light” were actor Mikhail Nozhkin and singer Elmira Uruzbaeva. It was with Elmira that an unexpected incident happened in one of the first episodes of the program. And it’s all to blame for the inability to work with a soundtrack.

On the live broadcast of “Blue Light,” Uruzbaeva, performing a song, approached one of the tables of the music cafe. One of the invited guests handed her a glass of champagne. The singer, confused by surprise, took the glass in her hand, took a sip and, in addition, choked and coughed.

While this action was taking place, the phonogram continued to sound. After the broadcast of the program, surprised viewers flooded television with letters. Not accustomed to the soundtrack, they kept asking the same question: “How can you drink and perform a song at the same time? Or is it not Uruzbaeva singing at all? If this is so, then what kind of singer is she?!”

The genre layout was different: the audience was even treated to opera numbers, but even then the rare “Ogonyok” managed without Edita Piekha. And Joseph Kobzon, even in the 60s, was almost no different from his current self. He was everywhere and sang about everything. Although sometimes he still allowed himself to experiment: for example, in one of the “Ogonki”, performing the highly relevant song “Cuba is my love!”, Kobzon appeared... with a beard a la Che Guevara and a machine gun in his hands!

It was unthinkable to miss a transmission - they didn’t repeat it. Of course, “Ogonyok” would have remained a vague impression of childhood if not for the surviving records.

Stars on the screen

Just like today, in the 60s the highlight of TV treats was the stars. True, the stars in those days were different, and they paved the way to glory for themselves differently.

Not a single New Year's "Blue Light" was complete without cosmonauts, and Yuri Gagarin was the main character of television holidays until his death. Moreover, the astronauts did not just sit, but actively participated in the show.

Thus, in 1965, Pavel Belyaev and Alexey Leonov, who had recently returned from orbit, portrayed television cameramen filming young Larisa Mondrus singing. And Yuri Gagarin walked around the studio with the most modern hand-held movie camera. Leonov also danced a twist with Mondrus to complete the plot.

Watching “Ogonki” from the 60s today, you can even trace how he grew up to the rank of cosmonaut number one. First he appeared in a tunic with the shoulder straps of a major, then a lieutenant colonel, and then a colonel. Nowadays an astronaut is just one of the professions, but then they were looked at as heroes. If Gagarin or Titov said something, no one dared to move; everyone listened with their mouths open.

Yuri Gagarin, New Year's toast (1963)

Now there is no person who could compare in popular adoration with Gagarin in the 60s. Therefore, cosmonauts at the New Year's “Ogonyki” have always been welcome guests. And only 1969, the first year after the death of Yuri Alekseevich, was celebrated without cosmonauts.

The crowd in the hall corresponded to the times: for example, girls from the Ministry of Agriculture could sit at the tables. The first videos appeared in the Blue Light, although no one suspected that it was called that. In the absence of the yellow press and gossip columns, people learned about events in the personal lives of the idols from Ogonki. Muslim Magomaev and Tamara Sinyavskaya got married in November 1974 and soon sang a duet in the New Year's “Ogonyok”. So the country realized that they had become husband and wife.

In the 70s, the chairman of the USSR State Television and Radio was Sergei Lapin. Under him, it was forbidden for men to appear on screen in a leather jacket, jeans, without a tie, with a beard and mustache, and for women in lace-up dresses, trouser suits, with a neckline and with diamonds.

Valery Leontyev in his tight suits was cut from the programs. The rest were cut out for other reasons.

Tap dancer Vladimir Kirsanov recalled how in the mid-70s he danced with his wife at Ogonyok to a song by Evgeniy Martynov. And when I turned on the TV, I saw myself dancing to a completely different tune. It turned out that the reason was the television management’s dislike for Martynov, and they explained to Kirsanov: “Tell me thank you for keeping you on the air.”

Comedians

Even then, comedians helped us celebrate the New Year in high spirits. The frontman of the genre was Arkady Raikin, a participant as obligatory as Ivan Urgant today.

Two duets were extremely popular: Tarapunka and Shtepsel, who managed to “sneak through” bureaucracy on the New Year’s stage, and Mirov and Novitsky, whose jokes were not very sophisticated, but relevant. So, in 1964 they responded to the terribly fashionable topic “Cybernetics”.

It was impossible to imagine Ogonyok without humorous miniatures. Soviet comedians, such as Khazanov and his eternal student at the culinary college, were especially valued in the 70s.

The fashion of performing songs from favorite old films was also not born in our days. In “Ogonyok”, at a meeting in 1965 in honor of the 20th anniversary of the film “Heavenly Slugger”, Nikolai Kryuchkov, Vasily Neshchiplenko and Vasily Merkuryev, who played the main characters of the film, performed “First of all airplanes” right in the studio with great success, and even attracted real army generals to this . And a few years later, the trio Nikulin - Vitsin - Morgunov staged an eccentric performance on the set based on “Barbos the Dog and the Unusual Cross.”

And of course KVN. Even then, Alexander Maslyakov was the face of youth humor. The KVN humor of that time was less paradoxical and not at all avant-garde. And the popular today word “kaveenschik” had not yet been used, they said: “A song performed by KVN players.”

What now?

At the end of the 90s, the Rossiya TV channel revived the Blue Light tradition and already in 1997 a release dedicated to the 35th anniversary of the program was published. Nowadays, the “Blue Light” has been replaced by a weekly program called “Saturday Evening,” and the “New Year’s Blue Light” has been replaced by “Blue Light on Shabolovka.”