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By Chris
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The Early Bit. This article is a retrospective, looking back to the 'Early Bit', Chris' first show on BBC Radio One. This post was written in 1998.

In late July 1997 Chris joined BBC Radio One from his previous station Capital FM, initially from 4.00am to 7.00am. He was the warm up guy for the 'Mark & Lard' breakfast show, relegating Clive Warren to the overnight slot (comedy moment - Clive used to end the Early show with a feature called 'The Show Stopper' where the listeners would call in to request the last song to be played each day. On his last day before Chris replaced him he chose his own 'Show Stopper' to be played, Radiohead's 'Creep' ... By accident or design he played the wrong version which has the word 'f@ck' all the way through it ... very funny !).

Initially Chris worked with Simon (the producer) and Jude (broadcast assistant) rather than the more familiar Producer Ben, and Comedy Dave. One of the highlights of the early days was when he made Jude cry.

Chris used to end the show by poking fun at Mark & Lard (which - with the exception of one time - they never referred to, this was probably due to the fact that a lot of the time he was actually quite rude about them). He often did impressions and sang them songs.

Producer Ben then joined the team (switching from Nicky Campbell's show), replacing Simon, who Chris never seemed to strike up much of a relationship with.

In time they decided to change the Breakfast Show and get a couple of new presenters in, and with a huge fanfare Zoe Ball and Kevin Greening were given the slot. At the same time the management snipped 30 minutes off Moyles' show giving it the more familiar timeslot of 4.00am to 6.30am.

It turns out that Clive, rather than being bitter about being replaced, often used to sit in with Chris on his show and join in the banter. One of the best bits (and it will be sadly missed) was when Chris would constantly try and convince Clive that he was gay (even though he has a girlfriend), hence Clive's comedy catchphrase 'I'm not gay !!'.

By this time Comedy Dave (so called 'cause he isn't very funny) joined the team, replacing Jude as the Broadcast Assistant, and so the team as we now know it was formed.

Over the 15 months there have been some classic games and features and it seems only right to remember those now. True or False is probably the most famous competition, a game in which callers have to guess if the answer to a question is True or False (unsurprisingly). If you get three in a row correct you win -- something which is impossible as the quiz is utterly fixed (except for one roadshow appearance when a young girl actually won it - I think he must have been drunk or something!). Some classic True or False moments were the time Chris had two girls who were in bed with each other on, one of the times when Chris' favourite caller 'Tree' was on, and the last time the legendary caller David the Photographer appeared.

The Six O'Clock Moment was a feature (which got dropped after a while) where Chris would play a classic 80's tune and his team would have to sing along to it.

What's the Word or Words was another comedy feature (which got dropped) where Chris played a snippet of someone speaking with a really obvious missing word. Callers then phoned in with something funny to fill the gap!

Viaduct was WtWOW's replacement, a quiz where contestants took it in turn answering questions, but had to give the previous answer. Often funny, occasionally not.

Friday 2nd October 1998 was the end of 'The Early Bit', the last minute is saved for posterity in the Sound Vault.

Lets hope the 'Afternoon Bit' is as much of a success.