Test Card F is a
test card
A test card, also known as a test pattern or start-up/closedown test, is a television test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast (often at sign-on and sign-off).
Used since the ear ...
that was created by the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
and used on television in the United Kingdom and in countries elsewhere in the world for more than four decades. Like other test cards, it was usually shown while no programmes were being
broadcast
Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...
. It was the first to be transmitted in colour in the UK and the first to feature a person, and has become an iconic British image regularly subject to
parody
A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...
.
The central image on the card shows
Carole Hersee playing
noughts and crosses with a clown doll, Bubbles the Clown, surrounded by various
greyscales and colour test signals used to assess the quality of the transmitted picture. It was first broadcast on 2 July 1967 (the day after the first colour pictures appeared to the public on television) on
BBC2
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matter, incorporating genres such as comedy, drama and ...
.
The card was developed by BBC
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...
George Hersee (1924–2001), the father of the girl in the central image. It was frequently broadcast during daytime downtime on
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It p ...
until 29 April 1983, when it was replaced with broadcasts of
Ceefax
Ceefax () was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST (11:32 PM BST) on 23 October ...
pages. It continued to be seen for around 7.5 minutes each day before the start of Ceefax broadcasts but it would also be shown on days when the Ceefax generator was not working. It was further phased out from
BBC1
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and Flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includ ...
in November 1997 when the station began to air 24 hours a day, followed by BBC2 in January 1999 when its overnight downtime was replaced entirely by ''
Pages from Ceefax''. After then it was only seen during engineering work, and was last seen in this role in 2011. The card was also seen on
ITV in the 1970s, occasionally used in conjunction with
Test Card G
The following is a list of test cards used by the BBC at various points in broadcasting.
Tuning Signals
The first "Interval signal, Tuning Signals" test card was broadcast by the BBC in 1934. It was a simple line and circle broadcast using Joh ...
.
In the digital age, Test Card F and its variants are very infrequently broadcast, as downtime hours in schedules have largely been discontinued. Several variations of TCF have been screened, among them Test Card J (digitally enhanced), Test Card W (widescreen) and its
high definition variant, which is sometimes erroneously referred to as Test Card X.
Up until the UK's
digital switchover
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Businesses
*Digital bank, a form of financial institution
*Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company
*Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...
in 2010–2012, the test card made an appearance during the annual RBS (rebroadcast standby) Test Transmissions and, until 2013, during the
BBC HD
BBC HD was a high-definition television channel owned by the BBC. The channel was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007 before its discontinuation on 25 March 2013. It broadcast only during ...
preview loop, which used Test Card W.
Technical information
Virtually all the designs and patterns on the card have some significance. Along the top (see above) are 95%
saturation
Saturation, saturated, unsaturation or unsaturated may refer to:
Chemistry
*Saturated and unsaturated compounds, a classification of compounds related to their ability to resist addition reactions
** Degree of unsaturation
**Saturated fat or satu ...
colour bars in descending order of
luminance
Luminance is a photometric measure of the luminous intensity per unit area of light travelling in a given direction. It describes the amount of light that passes through, is emitted from, or is reflected from a particular area, and falls wit ...
—
white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
,
yellow
Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...
,
cyan
Cyan () is the color between blue and green on the visible spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a predominant wavelength between 500 and 520 nm, between the wavelengths of green and blue.
In the subtractive color system, or CMYK c ...
,
green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...
,
magenta
Magenta () is a purple-red color. On color wheels of the RGB color model, RGB (additive) and subtractive color, CMY (subtractive) color models, it is located precisely midway between blue and red. It is one of the four colors of ink used in colo ...
,
red
Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...
,
blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...
and
black
Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
.
There are triangles on each of the four sides of the card to check for correct
overscan
Overscan is a behaviour in certain television sets in which part of the input picture is cut off by the visible bounds of the screen. It exists because cathode-ray tube (CRT) television sets from the 1930s to the early 2000s were highly variable ...
ning of the picture. Standard greyscale and
frequency response
In signal processing and electronics, the frequency response of a system is the quantitative measure of the magnitude and Phase (waves), phase of the output as a function of input frequency. The frequency response is widely used in the design and ...
(1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4, 4.5 and 5.25 MHz) tests are found on the left and right respectively of the central picture.
On the updated version known as Test Card J (including widescreen and HD versions), the X on the
noughts-and-crosses board is an indicator for aligning the centre of the screen.
The blocks of colour on the sides would cause the picture to tear horizontally if the
sync circuits were not adjusted properly.
The closely spaced lines in various parts of the screen allowed focus to be checked from centre to edge; mistuning would also blur the lines. All parts of the
greyscale
In digital photography, computer-generated imagery, and colorimetry, a greyscale (more common in Commonwealth English) or grayscale (more common in American English) image is one in which the value of each pixel is a single sample repres ...
would not be distinct if contrast and brightness (both internal preset settings and user adjustments) were not set correctly. The black bar on a white background revealed
ringing
Ringing may mean:
Vibrations
* Ringing (signal), unwanted oscillation of a signal, leading to ringing artifacts
* Vibration of a harmonic oscillator
** Bell ringing
* Ringing (telephony), the sound of a telephone bell
* Ringing (medicine), a ri ...
and signal reflections.
The castellations along the top and bottom also revealed possible setup problems.
In the centre image, a child was depicted so that wrong skin colour would be obvious and not subject to changing
make-up
Cosmetics are substances that are intended for application to the body for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness, or altering appearance. They are mixtures of chemical compounds derived from either natural sources or created syn ...
fashions. The juxtaposed garish colours of the clown were such that a common
transmission
Transmission or transmit may refer to:
Science and technology
* Power transmission
** Electric power transmission
** Transmission (mechanical device), technology that allows controlled application of power
*** Automatic transmission
*** Manual tra ...
error called chrominance/luminance delay inequality would make the clown's yellow
buttons
A button is a fastener that joins two pieces of fabric together by slipping through a loop or by sliding through a buttonhole.
In modern clothing and fashion design, buttons are commonly made of plastic but also may be made of metal, wood, o ...
turn white. Use of centre images in test cards were however not a new idea;
RTF and
ORTF in France used the
Marly Horses as the central motif of its
monochrome
A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, mon ...
819-line
819-line was an Analog television, analog monochrome television, TV system developed and used in France as television broadcast resumed after World War II. Transmissions started in 1949 and were active up to 1985, although limited to France, Bel ...
test card which was used on
TF1
TF1 (; standing for ''Télévision Française 1'') is a French commercial television network owned by TF1 Group, controlled by the Bouygues conglomerate. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network.
TF1 is part ...
between 1953 and 1983, and the first French colour test card featuring a centre image of colourful roses was used on
France 2
France 2 () is a French free-to-air public television channel. The flagship channel of France Télévisions, it broadcasts generalist programming including news, entertainment (such as dramas, films, and game shows), factual programmes, and sp ...
from 1967 until sometime around the mid-1970s.
SVT in Sweden was also later inspired by Test Card F to develop its own colour test card, based on its earlier monochrome test cards,
with a girl holding a doll in the centre image.
Modern circuitry using
large-scale integration
An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...
is much less susceptible to most of these problems. Some of them are also associated with
cathode-ray tube
A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms on an oscilloscope, a ...
s; modern screens use
liquid crystal display
A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other Electro-optic modulator, electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liq ...
s (LCDs) that are not scanned at high speed. The test card was a vital tool in its day, but has become far less important.
The name of the broadcasting channel usually appeared in the space underneath the letter F—a
sans-serif
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif (), gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than ...
F denoting an original optical version of the test card.
Originally, Test Card F was a
photographic slide
In photography, reversal film or slide film is a type of photographic film that produces a Positive (photography), positive image on a Transparency (optics), transparent base. Instead of negative (photography), negatives and photographic printin ...
made up of two transparencies in perfect registration—one containing the colour information (
chrominance
Chrominance (''chroma'' or ''C'' for short) is the signal used in video systems to convey the color information of the picture (see YUV color model), separately from the accompanying Luma (video), luma signal (or Y' for short). Chrominance is usu ...
) and the other the monochrome background (
luminance
Luminance is a photometric measure of the luminous intensity per unit area of light travelling in a given direction. It describes the amount of light that passes through, is emitted from, or is reflected from a particular area, and falls wit ...
). The card was converted to electronic form in 1984 when electronic storage became possible.
Audio accompaniment
A sound of some kind is usually transmitted in the background. It is either music, usually a composition commissioned by the station itself or "royalty-free"
stock music
Production music (also known as stock music or library music) is recorded music that can be licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media. Often, the music is produced and owned by production music libraries.
Backgrou ...
, or a steady tone. Composers whose music has been used include
Roger Roger,
Johnny Pearson
John Valmore Pearson (18 June 1925 – 20 March 2011) was a British composer, orchestra leader and pianist. He led the ''Top of the Pops'' orchestra for sixteen years, wrote a catalogue of library music, and had many of his pieces used as the ...
,
Neil Richardson,
Frank Chacksfield
Francis Charles Chacksfield (9 May 1914 – 9 June 1995) was an English pianist, organist, composer, arranger, and conductor of popular light orchestral easy listening music, who had great success in Britain and internationally in the 1950s and ...
,
Syd Dale
Syd Dale (20 May 1924 – 15 August 1994) was an English self-taught composer and arranger of big band, easy listening and library music. His themes and underscore music played an important role on television, radio and advertising media of the ...
,
John Cameron,
Brian Bennett
Brian Laurence Bennett (born 9 February 1940) is an English drummer, pianist, composer and producer of popular music. He is best known as the drummer of the UK rock and roll group the Shadows. He is the father of musician and Shadows band memb ...
,
Keith Mansfield
Keith Mansfield (born 1940 in Slough, England) is a British composer and arranger known for his creation of prominent television theme tunes, including the ''Grandstand'' theme for the BBC.
Career
Mansfield's other works include "The Young S ...
, and
Alan Hawkshaw
William Alan Hawkshaw (27 March 1937 – 16 October 2021) was a British composer and performer, particularly of library music used as themes for films and television programs. Hawkshaw worked extensively for the KPM production music company i ...
.
In recent years, the Test Card is only shown during engineering tests on the BBC and is accompanied by a steady tone of various pitches accompanied by a
female talking clock. Test Card music had ceased to be frequently heard with the test card by the end of the 1980s, although it continued to be played over
Pages from Ceefax until the termination of that service on 22 October 2012.
Bubbles the Clown
Along with his Test Card F co-star Carole Hersee, Bubbles has appeared for an estimated total of 70,000 hours
on television, equivalent to nearly eight whole years. Carole still owns Bubbles.
Colour
Bubbles's original body colour was
blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...
and
white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, but the BBC engineers decided that
green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...
was also needed within the scene
as the other two television
primary colours
Primary colors are colorants or colored lights that can be mixed in varying amounts to produce a gamut of colors. This is the essential method used to create the perception of a broad range of colors in, e.g., electronic displays, color printin ...
,
red
Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...
and
blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...
, were already shown. A green wrap was made to cover his body and this can be seen in Test Card J and Test Card W, along with more of his body shown in the photograph
— revealing the fact that he is actually holding a piece of
chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...
, which was not previously visible.
However, the shade of green material chosen was too subtle for the engineers' liking and so Bubbles' body colour in Test Card F was
retouched (this can be seen from the edges of his image) to make it more
saturated and also to give it a higher
luminance
Luminance is a photometric measure of the luminous intensity per unit area of light travelling in a given direction. It describes the amount of light that passes through, is emitted from, or is reflected from a particular area, and falls wit ...
value on screen.
[
]
Overseas usage
Test Card F was also used in approximately 30 countries outside the UK. Notable overseas users included:
* Bahrain Radio and Television Corporation
Bahrain Radio and Television Corporation (BRTC; ) is a public broadcaster in Bahrain with headquarters in Manama. The BRTC is owned by the government of Bahrain, and under the control of the Information Affairs Authority.
History
BRTC was set ...
in Bahrain
* DR in Denmark (Replaced along with Philips PM5552 by the Philips circle pattern in 1970)
* NRK
The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (), commonly known by its initialism NRK, is a Norwegian state-run, government-influenced radio and television public broadcasting company.
The NRK broadcasts three national TV channels and thirteen nat ...
in Norway, briefly in the 1970s
* SVT in Sweden, briefly in the 1970s
* STW-9
STW is an Australian television station owned by the Nine Network that is based in Perth, Western Australia.
''STW'' broadcasts from a shared facility transmitter mast located in Carmel. The station callsign, ''STW'', is an acronym of Swan Tel ...
in Perth, Australia
* TCN-9
TCN is the flagship television station of the Nine Network in Australia. The station is currently located at 1 Denison Street, North Sydney. The licence, issued to a company named Television Corporation Ltd headed by Frank Packer, was one of the ...
and TEN-10 in Sydney, Australia
* NBN-3 in Newcastle, Australia
* Radio Television Singapore (RTS)/Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), albeit with the original centre image replaced with another slide featuring a puppet resembling Bubbles the Clown and four girls, one of each of the four official races of Singapore. This particular test card was introduced in 1974 upon the introduction of colour television in Singapore, replacing a modified 625-line version of Test Card C, but was later replaced by the Philips circle pattern which had likely previously been used internally.
* New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (NZBC) briefly used a modified version of TCF until its dissolution in 1975, replacing its common monochrome test card design dating back to the non-networked-AKTV2/CHTV3/WNTV1/DNTV2
DNTV2 was a television station in Dunedin, New Zealand established by the then New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation in 1962. Its base, and studio complex operated from the historic Garrison Hall in Dowling Street. Until 2010 Garrison Hall wa ...
era. It was first introduced at the beginning of colour television broadcasts in 1973. One of the two successors of NZBC (South Pacific Television
South Pacific Television (SPTV) was a television channel in New Zealand, which operated between 1976 and 1980.
History
The channel, then known as TV2, first went to air on 30 June 1975. It was the second national government television channe ...
; now TVNZ 2
TVNZ 2 () is the second New Zealand television channel owned and operated by the state-owned broadcaster Television New Zealand (TVNZ). It targets a younger audience than its sister channel, TVNZ 1. TVNZ 2's line up consists of dramas, comedie ...
) also occasionally used TCF and another TCF-inspired test card called T1 up until approximately 1980. Upon renaming to TVNZ
Television New Zealand (, "Te Reo Tātaki" meaning "The Leading Voice"),
more commonly referred to as TVNZ, is a New Zealand state-owned media company and Crown entity. The company operates a television network, streaming service, and news se ...
it subsequently replaced TCF and its variants with the Philips circle pattern which was used well into the 1990s.
Variants and updated versions
Unlettered BBC Widescreen test card
A 16:9 (1.78:1) widescreen
Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratio (image), aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ...
predecessor to Test Card W without an identifying letter first appeared in March 1998 as part of digital tests on the Astra 1D
Astra 1D is a geostationary communications satellite launched in 1994 by the Société Européenne des Satellites ( SES). , the craft remains in service for occasional use.
Astra 1D was the fourth, and under original plans, last Astra communic ...
satellite, and was notably broadcast to the public on 6 November 1998 as part of a joke on ''Have I Got News For You
''Have I Got News for You'' (''HIGNFY'') is a British television panel show, produced by Hat Trick Productions for the BBC, which premiered on 28 September 1990.
The programme focuses on two teams, one usually captained by Ian Hislop and one ...
'' to censor then-host Angus Deayton
Gordon Angus Deayton (; born 6 January 1956) is an English actor, writer, musician, comedian and broadcaster.
Deayton was the original presenter of two successful British comedy panel shows, ''Have I Got News for You'' (1990–2002) and ''Woul ...
about discussing Peter Mandelson
Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, (born 21 October 1953) is a British politician, lobbyist and diplomat who has served as British Ambassador to the United States since February 2025.
A member of the Labour Party, Mandelson serve ...
's life.
Test Card J
Test Card J is an updated version of Test Card F, and first appeared in November 1999. It includes the following changes relative to its predecessor:
* A newly added green square at the top of the screen is used to facilitate easier observation of chrominance to luminance delay.
* The negative black squares in the left hand step pattern should flash on and off at 1 Hz. This is to aid in the detection of frozen digital links.
* The central image is based on the same source photograph, but with some minor adjustments:
** It has been rescanned from the original transparency for improved colour accuracy.
** The image has been re-aligned within Test Card J such that the cross on the noughts and crosses board is at the exact centre of the screen, as some believe was originally intended.
** It is less tightly cropped, resulting in more edge detail from the original photograph being visible.
Test Card W
Test Card W is an updated 16:9 (1.78:1) widescreen version of Test Card F. It first appeared in November 1999 alongside Test Card J, with which it bears some similarities.
The colour-bars on the top and right of the image are the full 100 per cent saturation version, unlike Test Cards F and J which use the 95 per cent type. Extra mirrored arrow-heads on the central axis at the sides mark the positions of the middle 4:3 and 14:9 sections of the image.
On Freeview Freeview may refer to:
*Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia
*Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand
*Freeview (UK), a ...
in the United Kingdom, Test Card W can be viewed at any time on most Freeview boxes using the MHEG-5 multimedia standard.
BBC HD channel variant ("Test Card X")
A 1080 line variant of Test Card W (sometimes referred to unofficially as Test Card X) was used on the now-defunct BBC HD channel. It could be viewed every two hours as part of the BBC HD preview slot. When viewed, it was enhanced with 5.1 surround sound tests. A BLITS Blits or BLITS may refer to:
* BLITS, a Russian satellite launched in 2009
* Black & Lane's Ident Tones for Surround
* Jan Blits (born 1943), American educational researcher
See also
* Blit (disambiguation)
* Blitz (disambiguation)
* Blists ...
tone is played alongside, which plays test tones at different frequencies from each of the different surround sound speakers, with markers (such as L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs) appearing inside some of the grey boxes of the testcard. BBC HD closed in March 2013; therefore Test Card X is no longer regularly broadcast. Test Card X did however make an appearance on the lunchtime edition of ''Sportsday'' on the BBC News channel
The BBC News channel is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel owned and operated by the BBC. The channel is based at and broadcasts from Broadcasting House in the West End of London from which it is anchored during ...
on 18 January 2023, in place of a slide intended to show the BBC Sport
BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC BBC Television, television, BBC Radio, radio and BBC Online, online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadc ...
website.
BBC Two variant (2016)
From August 2016 until July 2019, the latest iteration of the widescreen testcard could be seen briefly each morning at 7:00 am on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. At the centre bottom of the test card is an animated grey bar with graduations corresponding to 1/12 of a second. The animation is accompanied by a 'pip' that occurs when the animated bar reaches the centre mark (indicated by a 0), which together can be used to determine whether the digital audio and video signals are synchronised.
Recent years
In May 1983, trade test transmissions of the test card ended when Ceefax pages began to be shown during all daytime intervals. This meant that Test Card F was only seen for a few minutes early in the morning.
1992 was the last year that Test Card F was seen daily with music; 1995 was the last year it was seen with music, although it was seen until 1999 with just tone output, and Ceefax was broadcast either with tone or music. However, since the closure of Ceefax, the shutdown of analogue television transmissions, and the imposition of budgetary constraints, a new revision of the testcard can be seen daily on BBC Two and BBC Two HD at the end of the "This is BBC Two" transmission. Each morning, as the segment concludes, the testcard is broadcast for approximately one minute.
Since the late 1990s, Bubbles has only very rarely appeared on television, as Test Card F has been discontinued, and Test Cards J and W are very seldom shown, due to the advent of digital television
Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using Digital signal, digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an ...
and 24-hour programming.[
For the fortieth anniversary of Test Card F, there was some renewed interest in Bubbles in the media; in a 2007 interview, Hersee mentioned that she took Bubbles into school with her to prove to her ]headmaster
A headmaster/headmistress, head teacher, head, school administrator, principal or school director (sometimes another title is used) is the staff member of a school with the greatest responsibility for the management of the school.
Role
While s ...
that she really was the girl in the picture.
The BBC website previously featured Bubbles next to a blackboard with " 404" inscribed on it when a user visited a page that did not exist; however, some time between July 2017 and May 2020, this was replaced with an image of two "clangers" (animated puppets) from the BBC television show ''Clangers
''Clangers'' (usually referred to as ''The Clangers'') is a British stop motion, stop-motion Animated series, animated children's television series, consisting of short films about a family of mouse, mouse-like creatures who live on, and inside ...
''. Similarly, in 2015 the BBC website's "500 500 may refer to:
* 500 (number)
* 500 BC
* AD 500
Buildings and places
* 500 Boylston Street in Boston
* 500 Brickell in Miami
* 500 Capitol Mall in Sacramento
* 500 Fifth Avenue
* 500 Renaissance Center, one of seven buildings in the GM ...
" Internal Error page featured a cross-eyed Bubbles appearing in front of a blackboard with a background of fire; however, this has since been replaced with the same error message seen on the 404 page.
Prior to the relaunch of BBC Three
BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes for a 16 to 34-year-old target aud ...
in 2022, Test Card F aired for periods of 20 minutes.
In popular culture
Variations and parodies of Test Card F are common in British broadcasting, Internet sites, and games. Some prominent examples include:
*The TV series ''Life on Mars
The possibility of life on Mars is a subject of interest in astrobiology due to the planet's proximity and similarities to Earth. To date, no conclusive evidence of past or present life has been found on Mars. Cumulative evidence suggests that ...
'' features a Test Card Girl based on Test Card F, who teases and torments the lead character, Sam Tyler.
*Parodies have been used in promotional material or videos for many songs (often with band members' faces), including Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...
's 2000 album ''Kid A
''Kid A'' is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 2 October 2000 by Parlophone. It was recorded with their producer, Nigel Godrich, in Paris, Copenhagen, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. Departing from their ...
'', " (Waiting For) The Ghost Train" by Madness, and the Gorillaz
Gorillaz are an English virtual band created by musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett in London, England in 1998. The band primarily consists of four fictional members: (vocals, keyboards), Murdoc Niccals (bass guitar), Noodle (gui ...
music video " Hallelujah Money."
*The test card has also been used in the '' Numberblocks'' episode "Tween Scenes," with Ten replacing Carole Hersee and Three replacing Bubbles the Clown.
*'' Dave Allen At Large'' included a parody of Test Card F where a hand came out and completed the game of noughts and crosses.
*The '' Animaniacs reboot's'' segment "The Flawed Couple" featured a parody of Test Card F with Pinky in place of Carole Hersee and the Brain wearing clown makeup in place of Bubbles.
* RuPaul's Drag Race UK contestant Cheddar Gorgeous wore a runway look inspired by Test Card F for the season four runway "Keeping it 100!", which was held in honour of the BBC's 100th anniversary.
*The trailers of the video game Worms W.M.D parodies the Test Card F where Carole and Bubbles are replaced by worms looking like them. Also, the grid on the blackboard is replaced by a drawing of a grenade, an emblematic weapon of the game franchise.
See also
* List of BBC test cards
References
External links
BBC links
Test card special
(BBC News, 19 April 2001)
Down-loadable test card wallpaper from the BBC
Interviews
Carole Hersee interview marking the 40th anniversary of test card F
Others
The Test Card Circle
Fan group site includes history of the BBC and ITA Test Cards, the music, and details about the Trade Test Colour Films shown from the late fifties to 1973.
Carole Hersee Biography on Youtube
{{standard test item
BBC test cards
1967 establishments in the United Kingdom
Television shows about clowns
Telecommunications-related introductions in 1967
Tic-tac-toe
British inventions