14 November 1991
“What do you get if you cross Zig and Zag?” asked the flustered young phone-caller to The Den, struggling to come up with a joke to tell. “Zigzag!” Kindly uncle Iano, then still the host, gave a hearty laugh and a sincere ‘well done’. It stuck in my small child brain because of the cringe factor, though I would have been similarly overwhelmed to be talking to any people from Dublin on the phone, let alone TV personalities. But it turns out I was doing that nervous pre-teen caller a disservice, because the makers obviously squirrelled away that line for future use.
If you had wondered what could be less imaginatively named than Zig and Zag’s 1990 Christmas single ‘Christmas No. 1’, here’s your answer. The track itself is equally light on creativity: the same landfill-Madchester drumbeat as on The Saw Doctors’ recent number one ‘Hay Wrap’; agonisingly laboured and drawn-out verses; a chorus that rhymes ‘around’ with ‘around’. As with The Simpsons’ two number ones earlier this same year, analysing ‘Zigzaggin” as a pop record is ultimately futile. It’s just turn-a-buck merch for fans of The Den.
The following year Zig and Zag took the emigrant boat to London, laboured on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast, and were signed by Simon Cowell to a record deal which gave them a UK top five hit with a reggae pastiche called ‘Them Girls Them Girls’. That single only reached number four in Ireland, so I am spared a re-listen to a track we can euphemistically say would not be made today. As for ‘Zigzaggin”, even at the height of The Den’s popularity I can’t imagine anyone bothering to listen to it twice.
