Ben Justice’s Top 100 UK Gameshows Of All Time Part 3

By | March 22, 2019

It’s Friday, so Youtube copyright permitting it’s time to run down shows 80 to 71 of Actual Real TV Developer Ben Justice’s Top 100. Some quite brave surprising entrants in this one. Also some dodgy sound around one entry, don’t worry it passes.

In other news I’m looking to record another Bother’s Bar Plays Badly on Saturday night for going out on Sunday. If you’re going to be free from about 9pm until 10pm then hit me up.

11 thoughts on “Ben Justice’s Top 100 UK Gameshows Of All Time Part 3

  1. Simon

    I’m amazed I don’t think I’ve ever seen that prize reveal from Bullseye before.

    Reply
  2. David B

    Funniest one yet, and some lovely clips. With so many lambs slaughtered so early, it’s going to be interesting to see what’s in the upper half.

    Reply
      1. Simon F

        I could be picky and note that antidisestablishmentarianism (sp) couldn’t have been offered on Catchword as the first letter was always a consonant. Perhaps Ben couldn’t/didn’t want to pronounce the 2 Catchword favourites (which I won’t try and spell and can’t be bothered to cut and paste in here LOL)

        Reply
  3. TheLupineOne

    Alright, you got me, I was expecting Bully’s Star Prize to be a speedboat! And I was expecting Double Dare to get in over Run the Risk (but really, the best gungy game show is Dick and Dom in da Bungalow)

    Definite memories here, from Bullseye and Supermarket Sweep, to The Mole and the Weakest LInk (surely time to bring The Mole back given its success in the Netherlands and Belgium?), right through to 5 Gold Rings. Can’t wait for the next part!

    Reply
  4. Brandon

    Now that 2 that I thought were a shoo-in for the top 20 (Weakest Link and The Mole) are gone, I can’t guess at all how the rest of the list goes. I expected The Mole to be much higher up as every gameshow fan seems to love it,and it will be interesting to see where the other 2 out of the popular gameshow trifecta (Millionaire, Deal or No Deal and Weakest Link) place.

    Reply
  5. Mark Leete

    Why.
    Hasn’t.
    The Mole.
    Had.
    A.
    British.
    Reboot?

    Please! Seriously cannot believe we are all still waiting for this! Even Channel 5 must see the plus points for a reboot? Sigh!

    Reply
    1. Mark Leete

      As always happens after Ben’s videos, I’ve been doing a bit of YouTube trawling and found the episode of Catchword that he referenced – did each episode really always last an hour?

      Reply
      1. Mark Leete

        Scratch that – just seen that particular video was repeated twice – apologies, all!

        Reply
  6. Oliver R

    I don’t really mind that a lot of people’s favourites are quite low down on the list (or even not there at all, in at least one case). It’s just great to hear someone in the industry wax lyrical about 10 shows he loves every week.

    Oh my goodness, that Catchword clip!

    Not sure how so many people were expecting the British version of The Mole to be any higher than this. It was made clear at the start that the ranking wouldn’t be based on successful and long-running international versions of programmes.

    Is the sound effect used each time a number appears at the start of an entry taken from the Mega Drive Ultimate Collection, by any chance?

    Reply
  7. Des Elmes

    “Run the Risk is my favourite gungy game show.” Get Your Own Back joins Countdown in not making the list, then. 😉

    One of the Catchword clips on YouTube features Robert Teuton, who was runner-up in Series 22 of the ‘Down. Series 8 and Grand Slam champion Clive Spate did well on Catchword too, and no doubt there were plenty of others who sat next to the big clock in Leeds (or, indeed, Manchester or Salford) and faced Bryan in Glasgow. AFAIK, though, the likes of Michael Wylie, Mark Nyman and Damian Eadie didn’t do Catchword – Michael and Mark were runners-up in Series 1 and 3 of the ‘Down respectively, and both joined the production team not long afterwards, while I don’t think Damian appeared on any other game show prior to winning Series 28 (and he, too, joined the production team not long after).

    And if Susie had been a Catchword contestant, I’m sure we’d all know about it (just as we all know that Konnie Huq was a Blockbusters contestant). It’s fun to imagine her trying out the Four-Second Word Game for herself, though… 😉

    No-one can disagree that Raise the Roof had excellent presentation but a not-so-excellent game (see also primetime People Versus). As for Bob’s iPad thingy, Iain Weaver wrote back in 2012 that Bob would generally use it to hide a traditional file card, as wireless technology in 1995 wasn’t sufficiently advanced to reliably feed questions. I had no idea the contestants were treated badly, though (if indeed they were, then surely it was the producers who treated them like that, and not Bob?)

    Bullseye stopped giving away speedboats (and, indeed, almost every star prize that wasn’t a car or a holiday) around the same time that “BFH” entered into the show’s vocabulary, didn’t it? These changes happened a year or two before the abolition of the game show prize limit and the higher stakes this would result in, so I wonder if they were made in readiness for this – or was it simply that they were made in order to freshen things up, the show having been on for ten years by then?

    Finally, I agree that the question rounds on Supermarket Sweep didn’t work *quite* as well as the sweeps themselves – although without them, we wouldn’t have had “Pizza, Dale!” “Kitchen towel, Dale!” “£1.49, Dale!” et cetera et cetera. I’ve also always liked Dale’s “Ten seconds, chaaange…” during the round robin. 😉

    Reply

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