Noel's House Party

Wasn't Whiteley's Gotcha (and at least one other) released on video?

Well, they did do several compilation programmes of Gotchas and I'm pretty sure one of them was released on video, but I don't think Whiteley's would have been if only because it was in the final series when you'd have had a job shifting House Party spin-offs.

appropriate that whiteley gotcha upload because today is the 10th anniversary of his death

The thing I remember about the start of Noels House Party is that it seemed like a total surprise. Because his shows had been a staple of that sort of timeslot for years (apart from a little unplanned break) they never had much promotion at the start of a series. House Party seemed to just creep on air essentially as a new series of Saturday Roadshow

Hmm, there was quite a lot of publicity about the first series of the House Party, I think, because there was a big feature about it in the Radio Times and that struck me as quite big because you never used to get much about the Saturday Roadshow in the Radio Times, I remember reading more about it in Fast Forward, it seemed a bit of a kids' show. The fact the Radio Times were now covering it in depth suggested to me it was a bigger deal. Even if it inherited most of its features from the Saturday Roadshow, of course, and I've actually got a Radio Times from earlier in 1991 when they're soliciting participants for a new series of Saturday Roadshow. Wonder when they decided to change it.

Seems the perfect opportunity to share this spectacular image:

What a fantastic set that was. Saying that most sets seemed to be spectacular around that time compared to todays style of lights and screens everywhere. Would that screen be above the cameras and so never seen on screen?

That set was 5 stars. You could see the cheapness with Series 7 and how awful the big house was, mind you that looks like Series 5/6 to me since the Front door was moved forward to be in line with the stairs.

That's a later revised set, as the first episode is on YouTube and it doesn't have the stepped area on the right hand side, nor does it stick out as far as it does there. In fact the entire set in the first episode looks far smaller than it did later:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYq0q2HKOCM (look at 12:39 for a wide(ish) shot)

Of course the other key element of the first episode highlights the dullness of the filming of the initial grab-a-grand segment, until they started adding flashing lights, crane shots and everything for a bit of visual interest.

But yes, set wise - brilliant. Loved it. Will we see anything as great in anything ever again? Probably not. BGT and X-Factor may be bigger but at the end of the day, as you say, they're just giant screens, lights and the odd staircase.

Thankful grab a grand changes were done within months.

Great video, always wanted to see the first episode. It must have been a set designers dream to be so creative with a 'proper' built set as opposed to a shiny black floor and video walls. Holds up well today too. What used to impress me was that sometimes Noel would seem to race around a large part of the upstairs area at the start. How did that work? Was it just high up and around the side of the rest of the studio? The area we saw underneath (lyric game etc.) never seemed that big in comparison.

Would love the BBC to do a TFI and bring it back for a nostalgic special. It's 25 years since it started next year

What's also notable is how such a big massive show was just 50 mins long. In fact quite a lot of BBC programmes from that era tended to be 50 mins.

These days it'd be an hour at least, and probably pushing 1 hr 15 mins.