Classic Shows on Challenge Discussion Thread

Thought i'd set up this thread to talk about the classic shows being shown on Challenge at the moment.

First off, Family Fortunes. Fantastic show with Bob Monkhouse. Even though it was made by Central like Bullseye was, any idea why it didn't have a Central frontcap? And isn't it funny how the sound effects didn't change throughout the entire run of the series!?

Also, i was watching Bullseye today, and would you believe some of the things they got away with in those days! They were introducing the contestants, and Jim Bowen introduces one of them, then asks his hobby, he says he cycles. He then asks if he has a wife or is engaged, he says no. Jim then said "Do you like Girls at all"? He then said "Yeah they're alright" and then Jim said "oh good, so you don't own a fairy cycle then!"

WoW, Ofcom would shut down Central if that would of been said today!

There's an episode of Bullseye from 1984 which Challenge showed, where basically Jim asks a black man in the audience if he travelled far. The man replied that he was local, but then Jim repeated what he said with a Jamacian accent. Now you can't get away with that, I'm surprised they got away with showing it!

I think the Family Fortunes series currenly playing on Challenge is from 1983 (although it has a 1982 copyright date on the end-cap). I would guess that this series did have Central's ident when originally shown.

The series shown in early 1982 still had ATV front- and end-caps, and the Central idents and captions were added 'live', sometimes meaning we caught a glimpse of the ATV ones - and on one occasion they cut back to the Central in-vision announcer during the opening titles! Bob also used to refer to ATV during the show.

One thing that i noticed was that the Family Fortunes set was very big and quite technological (for the time)

Any particular reason why that set was so big and brilliant yet the Bullseye one started off tiny and cheesy. Was Family Fortunes more of a flagship show for Central at the time?

Settle down Children - History lesson.

There is another connection to Family Fortunes and Bullseye, that most people don't know. Family Fortunes hosted by Monkhouse and Bullseye appearing on screen was all down to The Golden Shot finishing.

Family Fortunes started off as an ATV production, being made at the studios in Elstree - before Central continued production of it, first at Elstree then at Nottingham. Bob had sugessted that ATV buy the format to the American quiz show Family Feuds, as he felt the show which he came back to present the final series of (taking over from Norman Vaughan - remember his name for later...) the legendary Golden Shot was near its natual end.

Interestingly, Bob claimed that he was never the first choice to host the show. ATV wanted Bruce Forsyth to do the show, but LWT had brought the rights to Card Sharks (which became Play Your Cards Right), and Micheal Grade had stood his ground with ATV over the choice of presenter.

But what of Bullseye? - well going back to the Golden Shot, and it's host before Bob took over (again) Norman Vaughan was 'relived' of presenting the last series in 1979 (or around then) however, his agent later claimed ATV signed him up to a two series deal.
ATV not wanting to get into a legal scuffle, tried to find him another show to present (F.F was off limits as that was Monkhouse's turf) so instead, he devised the format to Bullseye, and sold it to ATV/Central.

So, Central was left with a format based on darts, and stuck the first series out at 7pm on a Monday evening.

I guess the cheapness of the show all came down to the fact that Monkhouse was the star attraction for Family Fortunes, so naturally ATV/Central gave it a bigger budget, rather than Bullsye - which umm... didn't and looked like it didn't on screen!

Does anyone remember the year that Family Fortunes went multicolour. I think it was around 1988 and basically the question board had every colour under the sun and a Family Fortunes logo that you just make out. It was garish enough to make you sick if you watched it long enough. Fortunately it didn't last long and they went back to the board we know all to well.

I've heard about it, but i've never seen it. Any screenshots available?

Yup, 1987 that was- Les Dennis' first series. There's a clip of the opening titles on TV Whirl:
http://www.tvwhirl.co.uk/quizshowindex.html

I wonder why they got rid of that. Sure the logo was rubbish, but it was actually a full colour screen, as it had Les Dennis' face on it. They could of adapted the logo to make it look better on the screen. Perhaps it broke down a lot.

Bullseye! Quality show, so 1980s though. You're right about the stuff Jim Bowen got away with though.

Correct me if I'm wrong(after a bit of research on the Off The Telly site ISTR), but didn't Monkhouse take over from Charlie Williams in 74/75, as the final Shot presenter, & made the first series of Celebrity Squares more or less the same time as finishing the Shot, which involved him shuttling back & forth between Elstree & Birmingham.

As far as I remember, I never saw Norman Vaughan present anything from the late 70's onwards, he was always a guest on other people's shows. (I've only ever seen him presenting, on archive stuff & I don't remember his Cadbury Roses ad either, but it's probably at Cadbury World, like b***dy Cilla Black's!)

What does ISTR mean?