Noel on Strike

The broadcast schedule was normally finalised about six months before the start of each respective (flat / jump) season, but the big meetings, the ones which disrupt the weekday schedule, would be known about long in advance of that. The idea that Channel 4 themselves didn't know what days they'd paid for Channel 4 Racing to air is a nonsense.

Is it fair to say that Noel has a habit of presenting shows that go on a bit too long? House Party, DOND, even the Late Late Breakfast Show had seen better days at the time of the Lush incident.

I was a huge fan of DOND for its first three years - yet even then I considered its natural lifespan to be six years at most. Sure enough, I consider 2011 to be the show's last good year, with the third and fourth £250k winners but also the extension from 45 minutes to 60 (which I think everyone can agree was not really necessary, and ultimately did more harm than good). Of course, 2011 was also the year when Xander, Richard, Bradders and the Chasers put their feet down and told everyone they weren't going *anywhere* - soon to be followed by Ben and his coin-pushing machine.

I'd even say now that had DOND ended in 2009, at the end of its fourth season, it wouldn't have been obviously too soon. True, if the show had ended then, there would have been no male £250k winners, the £100k/£250k "dream finish" wouldn't been achieved in live play, and there wouldn't have been a second-round deal - but there weren't many other things relating to the gameplay that hadn't yet taken place when the fourth season ended.

In the end, DOND ran for around 3,000 episodes. In terms of UK game shows, only Countdown has had more (it'll reach its 7,000th early next year), and Hollyoaks is the only other Channel 4 non-news programme with more episodes (very close now to its 5,000th).

Unless I'm very much mistaken, as Murray Walker so often said. (Noel's a big motor racing fan, too.)

Whenever I tuned into DOND in the latter years it just seemed to be the contestants dressed in silly costumes and chanting like we were watching the going-ons of some wierd cult.

At least we have reached the point were a member in the Audience is using his mobile for grab a grand 23 years I remember it..

https://youtu.be/yqNgZdR_wq8?t=1135

That is clearly a stunt.

You could tell theres an eye movement from Noel before he walks into the audience to see if the person in the audience is ready.

The ending on that show though. What a complete and utter shambles.

You can tell they were in such a rush that they played prerecorded segments in any random order so it made no sense at all. Canon and Ball looked to be both outside and inside the house at the same time. And to add to that the music failed to play too.

You can really tell the show was really starting to become a mess at this point.

Yet apart from that ending it was on of the best episodes. Why did House party get moved from Studio 3 to Studio 1 for Series 6? especially since there was budget cuts ?

Well, Studio 3 is 8,000 Sq Ft and is now used by Good Morning Britain and This Morning, whereas Studio 1 is 10,800 Sq Ft, so it would seem moving from Studio 3 to the vast Studio 1 would mean not a decrease in budget, but an increase, as they would be using the big space, thus bigger sets. Remember from the autumn of 1996, the Great House could an extensive rebuild, especially in 1997, and thus a bigger studio space would be required, so Studio 1 would be well suited.

TV studios often look bigger on screen than they are - compare how big TC7 looked when it was the home of Going Live and Live and Kicking compared to when it was used by News.

Budgets were cut ?

They were in TC4, not 3, for the first 5 series.
The move to TC1 will not come as a surprise as series 5 unfolds - the camera work becomes more frenetic, the audience more involved and we’ve already seen the not entirely successful “money hurricane” version of Grab a Grand. The show does feel a little constrained by 1996 as it has changed a lot from the very static sitcom-style setup of the early years. Also, even if they did have a budget cut, it’s up to them how they spend their budget and a bigger studio might have been a priority. A very noticeable change in series 5 has been the almost complete loss of the regular guest stars that would pop up (often doing very little) for the first four years, so they probably saved a lot by losing those appearance fees.

And the end of show 6 - take a look at the end of show 5 for how it should have looked. They completely ran out of time and tried to fit the bits that were supposed to run under the credits at the same time as the daft stunt that was clearly supposed to lead into the credits. The end of the show was often chaos in the “money hurricane” era as the audience got in such a state by it.