A St. Bernard and a year's supply of whisky

August 4, 2011 2:45 AM

"Little slices of glamour beamed directly into your home in half-hour chunks; a perky theme, flashy titles, charismatic host, inventive format, gags, quiz, games, raucous outro – the works! Incredibly plain people given a quick glimpse of the good life, to which the tanned, funny man in the nice suit held the door." The joys of the 1980s game show.

Don't have Challenge TV or remember 1980s ITV? This is what he's talking about: Bullseye, with some delightful star prizes. Blockbusters (which once featured Wheatley off of that Portal). Strike It Rich, with Michael Barrymore. Play Your Cards Right. 3-2-1, which was part quiz, part variety show. Not mentioned in the article, but as a child I rather enjoyed Catchphrase. All the UK Game Show info you could ever want. And the first site I ever read on the internet is there too if you want even more.

posted by mippy (4 comments total)

(And for non-Brits - 'Clips and Cunts' requires the explanation that 'cunt' isn't considered a particularly gendered swearword in the UK, and is applied equally to male and female buffoons. It's been discussed at length on the Blue and the Grey before, so wanted to avoid us having this discussion again. Carry on.)
posted by mippy at 2:48 AM on August 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Pretty much my childhood right there.

The viewer figures for those shows look astounding nowadays. A quarter of the nation watching Family Fortunes. I'm not sure what that means, but it can't be good.
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 3:37 AM on August 4, 2011

Paging That's Numberwang! to aisle 106176...
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:39 PM on August 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Now there's The Cube, which is pretty awesome, except I already have enough trouble with biting my nails.
posted by Wolfdog at 2:18 PM on August 4, 2011