The New Look04.10.1997 The new corporate BBC logo launched on Saturday 4th October, and almost every station or service got a makeover. Not so on BBC2, where the much-loved idents lived on. With a shiny new BBC TWO legend of course. There were also four new 2s - this one, Aerial, was the first. Your announcer is Mark "Chappers" Chapman.
BBC2 Christmas1997
A snow globe theme for BBC2 this year - but how did Vic, Bob and Ulrika get in there? One of the first examples of a celebrity ident before the concept became popular.
BBC2 Christmas Closedown26.12.1997 Michaela Saunders shutting up shop on Boxing Day, followed by the final showing of the BBC2 Christmas symbol.
Red Dwarf Night - 1998
So you thought "personality 2s" were a new phenomenon? Well they've always been there in some form, a perfect illustration of this is the idents commissioned to mark 10 years of Red Dwarf in early 1998. Five idents show the 2 fall in love with a Scutter (one of those robotic creatures from the show), get married, and eventually have babies! Unfortunately I missed the first ident, so if you have any footage of it please get in touch.
Evolution Weekend1998 In May 1998 BBC2 treated viewers to the Evolution Weekend - full of David Attenborough documentaries and similar. In between programmes the 2 was upstaged by - what exactly?!
Monster Night1998 It's coming...it's big...and it's monstrous! Poor old Fluffy Dog gets scared witless in this special ident for "Monster Night" in June 1998. The ident itself consisted of just the pictured sequence, but our clip is of the accompanying trail which helps put things into context.
BBC2 goes Widescreen
There would be no new 2s now for quite a while. However, the launch of digital TV in October 1998 enabled viewers to see the idents in widescreen for the first time.
BBC2 Christmas1998 When ideas run out, place the 2 on top of a Christmas tree! And that's what BBC2 did for two years running. Here an avant-garde fairy yells at the screen before zooming into thin air.
BBC2 Christmas1999 For the last Christmas of the century, a flying "2" hovers around the tree and kicks the startled fairy off the top before taking her place. The illuminated 2 was made by Alchemy 3D Creations, which also provided the Ice Mountain 2 used in 2000.
Excalibur2000 New millennium - new 2s! What better way to welcome in Y2K than to unleash some more wacky idents. Some, such as "Excalibur", were reminiscent of the original designs while others like "Predator" and "Kebab" had real bite (!) The sequences were produced in-house at BBC Media Arc.
Scary2000 "It's Scary Out There" was a season of late-night films, designed to give us extra chills on those cold winter nights. A special ident got you in the mood - this graveyard certainly isn't quiet!
I Love The Seventies2000 BBC2 celebrates its series I Love The Seventies with this lava lamp symbol. Great idea but unfortunately not well executed, since the 2 isn't its usual shape.
Simpsons Night24.06.2000 Themed nights on BBC2 were not the frequent affair they once were in 2000; special idents to accompany them were even less common. But it wouldn't have felt right dedicating an evening to America's best-loved animated family, The Simpsons, without special continuity. Enter the voice of Zoe Ball - and a 2 which pays tribute to that famous opening sequence.
Wave Night2000 The final regular 2 in this legendary package was a night-time version of Wave. Who said "wave goodbye"?!
BBC2 Christmas2000
BBC2's festive offering differed from its predecessors, because the "2" - a huge snow-covered mountain - was shown at an angle. Smaller 2s ski-jumped off the top into the freezing ground.
On Boxing Day, the ident played out in full due to technical problems with the preceding trail. Only after the ident finishes does Jumoke Fashola come in with her announcement - as you can see on the right.
I Love The Eighties2001
Kicking off 2001 was "I Love The Eighties", the follow-up to I Love The Seventies last year. But rather than commission a special design for the accompanying ident, BBC2 adapted one of their stings to show the 2 dancing away to The Human League. The first announcer is Stuart Goddard - better known as Adam Ant.
Star Trek Night16.09.2001 The last of BBC2's special idents was aired during an evening of programmes celebrating 35 years of Star Trek. Unfortunately, a new policy had just been introduced stipulating that from now on, idents would be shown in the same aspect ratio as the programme that followed. So having troubled themselves to produce an ident for Star Trek Night, BBC2 were only able to screen it in 4:3.