Fair Play

By | April 8, 2020

Here’s something fun that turned up on Youtube last night, a full episode of the rather unpolished first series of BBC daytime favourite Turnabout.

(Do subscribe to Chris Toone’s channel, there’s loads of really interesting stuff on there.)

Apart from obvious format differences, here were the things I picked up on:

  • How tiny is that set?
  • Having red and orange as similar colours is a bit unfortunate.
  • The clock noises are a choice.
  • It’s quite odd having the contestants take so long to make their moves at the sphere board. Curling has to prompt them quite a lot.
  • You’re not allowed to answer questions if you’ve got no spheres on the board seems like one of those rules which seems clever at the time but really is just kicking a losing contestant when they’re down.

5 thoughts on “Fair Play

  1. Josh Woo

    This show seems somewhat similar to the long-running Japanese quiz, Panel Quiz Attack 25, which just celebrated its 45th anniversary earlier this week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NniaWLa_UYI

    The show that I linked aired pretty much right on the anniversary (April 6, 1975–this show aired April 5, 2020), and features contestants who were born in 1975. Of particular note is a question asking about how many episodes have been transmitted over the 45 years, which includes a picture of original host Kiyoshi Kodama (who passed away in 2011).

    Reply
  2. Chris M. Dickson

    I watched this when you posted the link to it and ever since then I have had the electronic ding-rattle of the buzzers going through my head from time to time. Of all the many potential earworms from this show, that was a most unexpected one.

    Someone energetic might choose to do a video that just compiles the most iconic and distinctive buzzer noises from UK game shows at some point. Beeeeyoiiiiingggg…

    Reply
  3. Des Elmes

    A fairly basic title sequence, and hard-to-read Courier font for the Star Game words (plus a digital countdown clock, rather than the more familiar calibrated colour-changing bar).

    And not a drop of water on the floor…

    Only twelve episodes in this first series, too – the rest running for between 25 and 40.

    Reply

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