Game Show graphics

I'm pretty sure they used an Amiga to run the graphics. I know in the early years they were produced in America as there's a story often told about one studio recording where they ran out. The disk was being flown over from America and they had to wait for it to be biked over from the airport.

I do seem to remember seeing a clip of a late 80s episode of Catchphrase on YouTube where we saw the projected image on the screen and it didn't look very good at all. I wonder if it was intentional, or they forgot to superimpose the picture over it.

IIRC Electronic Arts were involved in the early days of Catchphrase (they certainly made the title sequence, and I'm guessing supplied their graphics packages if the Amiga was indeed used for the show), although the animations themselves were apparently done in-house at TVS by a chap called Tom Gilling for the first few series - unless Roy's story about them running out of animations was apocryphal they might have outsourced them to the States later on.

You can see a bit of the Carlton-era setup at the start of Roy's This Is Your Life - looks the same as the TVS one although (as is probably obvious, and has already been pointed out earlier in the thread) the big screen next to the contestants is no longer used to display anything:



(If anyone wants to see the actual episode as transmitted, it's here - judging by the score display the "Big Surprise" was done right at the beginning of filming.)

I always assumed the contestants were looking at the screen used for the Super Catchphrase whilst playing, so it was a bit of a surprise to learn they were looking at a normal telly!

Studio 7 at Nottingham- now used as a covid vaccination centre!

I suspect, actually, it may have been done right at the *end* of the filming session. If we take as read that Aspel really does, in real time, lead Walker off set and to a separate studio, then for it to happen at the start of the filming session would be unworkable. First off it would then necessitate the scrapping of the filming session and for the contestants to have to come back another day, and for the audience to miss out on a show.

Conversely, if we assume that the surprise *was* done at the start of filming, and then Aspel buggered off for a bit and Walker did the recording before attending his tribute, it would have been an incredible distraction to Roy and the contestants, as well as the studio audience, throughout the actual gameplay, which would have been unfair.

What I can envisage actually happening was that production / director invented a fake "pickup" - i.e. a re-shot section to help patch up a problem in the initial run through. I can imagine someone in the team saying, after all the real actual pickups were done, "Roy, we had a technical problem with the very first Catchphrase, we need to reshoot with a different one, however to keep continuity re scores etc we will pre-provide the answer to the contestant who got the original."

This would not only enable the relevant catchphrase to be used at that point, but also allow the two contestants, who having not long finished actually playing through the full game will know the outcome anyway and will have no other pressures, to be forewarned what is about to happen, and be in on it.

The studio audience isn't a great problem, This is Your Life will need an audience and I can't imagine them wanting to advertise for one.

I like the theory of them recording the whole show as normal then interrupting the pick up.

Remember the magic of television means they can just cut the gap! It's filmed in a different city and he's wearing different clothes...

I've actually been a 'sofa guest' on This Is Your Life, when it was filming at TVC.

The pick-up theory works with the clues you can find in the video.

Roy says "here's another catchphrase", so it's definitely not the very first one, despite neither contestant having a score displayed. Having the screens reset makes sense if it's being done as a pick-up.

The amount of money that Zoran gets is £125. This is the amount during the Ready Money Round - whilst the displays are blank before that catchphrase, it seems to be within the realms of possibility that the scoring system was set up for the last amount they were playing for.

Knocking this thread, briefly sideways if I may (and with appologies).
Here's another earlier TIYL. This time it's Mr Aspel himself, back in his Give Us A Clue Thames days. Again, special recording at the end of a regular edition for the 'hit'.

Notice that they used Studio 2 to record his 'life', and you can see the set men start to bring on the chairs to the set as Aspel is still taking it all in.

Not a gameshow, but Star Trek Enterprise used 16 G4 Macs running Macromedia Director for the computer displays on set:
https://www.imore.com/did-you-know-star-trek-enterprise-used-mac-g4-cubes-during-production-you-do-now



Two other photos not in the article:


Always seemed like an expensive way to do it, but it looks like it gave them quite a bit of flexibility. Also passive cooling with the G4 so no fan noise.

The scores being blank could have been a slight oversight for the realism / illusion of the "fake" pickup shot, perhaps it involved some convoluted process / computer routine not worth going to the effort for for something that wouldn't be part of the actual programme. Walker doesn't seem to notice it anyway.

I suppose it helps that the Give Us a Clue set is a similar sort of layout to TIYL and in a Thames studio.

TIYL was done a much smaller scale in those days compared with the much bigger staging seen for Roy Walkers. They did often pick up the person and just do it there and then. Lots were done at Thames Euston which had much smaller studios, they'd find an excuse to get the victim to be in the building. Easier in those days than doing the 'hit' on location. The excellent Big Red Book site has details of their filming locations
https://www.bigredbook.info/venues_and_sets.html

Of course having the studio and the 'hit' in the same location does make it a bit more difficult to hide the guests. I'm sure there's a story about someone bumping into a relative they hadn't seen for ages the day of their TIYL