Woodentop (The Bill) Woodentop (The Bill) "Woodentop" is an episode of the Thames Television series "Storyboard", which includes a series of one-off plays on different themes. The episode was originally broadcast on 16 August 1983. "Woodentop" became the forerunner to long-running British police television series "The Bill", which went on air 14 months later and continued for 26 years. The name "woodentop" is a colloquialism for beat policemen who traditionally wear helmets; the nickname is itself an allusion to the Children's TV series "The Woodentops". The episode documents PC Jim Carver's first day at Sun Hill Police Station, where he is partnered with
Lost television broadcast – game and variety shows, talk shows, and sports broadcasts (notably football, racing and wrestling). In the realm of so-called 'quality' programming, the ABC was far-and-away the biggest producer in this period – by June 1964, the ABC had produced 185 of the 212 plays, all 31 operas, and 90 of the 95 ballets shown on Australian TV in that period. The near-total 'colonisation' of Australian TV in this period was quantified by the 1963 Vincent Report on the Australian media, which found that 97% of television drama broadcast in Australia between 1956 and 1963 was sourced from the USA