Challenge - June 2016 onwards

Not really his sort of gig, it was another one of those "Bob Monkhouse makes it look so easy" things as well, but then that was Monkhouse's style, everything he did looked so slick, effortless and easy, even when he was on The Golden Shot. Others followed and struggled with that.

Bygraves was better known as a variety performer, singer and actor, presenting game shows wasn't his forte. Family Fortunes was probably the only gameshow he presented in his life, though his IMDb page suggests he appeared on copious other shows as guests, but the bulk of his record is in variety. As Bruce Forysth found out, its easy to get pigeon-holed as a gameshow host if you're not careful.

I think his episodes, although not as polished as Bob Monkhouse or Les Dennis, certainly are an enjoyable watch and Max does a sterling job!! It's great that they're now being shown regularly!!

I hope Challenge show some more classic retro shows soon now that the recent Blankety Blank reruns on Saturdays have ended. Ones which haven't been shown on Challenge for a while, if at all.

At the time there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the papers because Bob was quoted as saying he wasn't sure Max was quite right for it, although Max later admitted that he probably was the wrong choice, because it was a slick, fast-moving show and at odds with his more relaxed approach as a performer, and he couldn't keep up.

The reason Bob left, as he mentions in his autobiography, is because they did a party to celebrate the hundredth episode, attended by Central's new Head of Light Entertainment Jon Scoffield, and Bob casually said to him "well, here's to a hundred more, eh?", and Scoffield said, "Oh, I doubt it, I think four series is probably enough for this sort of show", and when Bob expressed his surprise that he wasn't even prepared to say there'd be any more shows, Scoffield told him not to "tout for work" as it was "undignified". So Bob asked his agent to look for opportunities elsewhere.

The return of Max also saw the return of William G Stewart as producer, as he'd brought over the format and produced the first series and got a clause in the contract which said he would have first refusal to produce any subsequent series. But he fell out with Bob, who asked for another producer, so it got to the stage where William G was being paid not to produce it. He said this carried on for many years, long after he'd left Central, with every series Central produced they had to offer it to Willam G first or pay him off, until they eventually renegotiated the rights. Apparently his agent phoned up Central every year to say "Anything in this for Bill?".

I've noticed that there is no longer any "new" Challenge content on Sky catch up, after the last episode of the only content which was on there (Pointless) expired.

Challenge are showing "New" episodes of Wheel of Fortune Series 15 right now with Paul Hendy as host - I think these are the daytime versions? It has an updated set, wheel and graphics and I sense canned applause.

The final series of WoH with Terri Seymour as the letter spinner, ex-partner of Simon Cowell.

Definitely shown at daytime as it’s probably the lowest budget series out of the whole run.
John Leslie had left by this point to go host This Morning, which for obvious reasons didn’t last long.

This was first shown on ITV1 at the end of 2001 and got repeated now and again right the way up into 2004.

Didn't manage to catch today's 'New' wheel of fortune but do remember the Paul/Terri version for being very purple....titles, set, prize guy in purple shirts.

Just found a clip to confirm this:



I see this purple look/branding was also used with John/Terri too. How long was this purple look used for?
Was it when Jenny Powel left, Terri arrive with the new look? Don't remember Terri ever being on the 'old set'...the one with the car on stage.

Challenge have never shown the John/Terri era eps before these current Paul/Terri ones.

Heres a look at a John/Terri episode with the purple look.

It *must* have happened that Nicky, Bradders, John and/or Paul landed on Bankrupt, right? (Or, indeed, Lose A Turn or Free Spin.)



What certainly did happen was that, rather like Family Fortunes, WoF held on to its sounds and score displays right to the very end. Seven-segment displays were falling out of fashion in 2001 (notably, Fifteen-to-One went over to monitors for the contestants' numbers and finalists' scores in September of that year), and WoF's demise pretty much left Countdown and HIGNFY as the only shows still using them. (Family Fortunes, of course, clung on to its dot-matrix board and dot-matrix score and family name displays.) As for the sounds, it's probably not unfair to say that the Bankrupt one, in particular, sounded fairly dated by '01 (whereas FF's "uh-uhhh" will forever remain timeless).

Finally, that John/Terri episode aired as ITV were starting to apply their smoky generic end credits of the time to every show (not just select ones like Corrie and Emmerdale). Might it be that it wasn't a coincidence that the non-generic credits here rolled on the right side of the screen?

Notice though that our version of WoF for the final spin used the middle contestant's arrow, and not the one that happened to be closer to the host, as that would have solved the entire problem, as in both cases in that clip the middle row ended up on a monetary figure. I wouldn't be surprised if there was the occasional landing on Bankrupt/Lose A turn/Free Spin over here for the final spin, but that's what retakes/editing is for.

Of course in our version of the show the values on the wheel weren't cash, so you never got the over-the-top reaction to winning a round you see there. Winning the car (or later the money) would provoke a reaction, but never on the scale of going practically nuts as you see in American gameshows. Of course it looks good on paper until the IRS come knocking...

It looks like the "purple look" Wheel Of Fortune actually came in during the week of Coronation Street's 40th birthday, where they had Tracy Shaw (Maxine Peacock) doing the letters.

Something interesting I was reading about John Leslie earlier in one of the articles around his recent court case (now found not guilty) - he was paid £2,000 per episode of Wheel Of Fortune

What does a presenter earn these days for presenting a similar type of show? Back then it was a rather relaxed schedule of filming 3 episodes a week compared to shows these days where they've got 3 episodes in the can by lunchtime!

I assume he was paid less once it went daytime (IIRC he did both a primetime run and a daytime series). £2000 for a 100 episode run would be £200k, perhaps for 25 days work at 4 episodes a day. I suspect Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman get less, and Bradley Walsh and possibly Ben Shepherd get more.

We know in 2008/9 Carol Vorderman was on around £1m for Countdown, and then the budget was slashed to £100k when Rachel Riley came in, and that's for around 240 episodes a year.