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+--- Thread: 30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party (/showthread.php?tid=819)
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - Hatton Cross - 28-11-2021
And, there is exactly one of the questions I would be hope answered in any documentary.
Mr Bobby, was a fake terrible Children's TV character invented as a Gotcha 'snare device'.
But, was he created, just for that, and then became a breakout from audience reaction.
Or..
Was the character created both as a Gotcha vehicle, and, off the expected reaction, a lucrative merchandising opportunity in the run up to Christmas for Unique and BBC Worldwide.
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - James2001 - 28-11-2021
I think so many people have forgotten that Mr Blobby was originally Noel inside a costume, and wasn't always a character by himself.
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - Inspector Sands - 28-11-2021
James2001 post_id=55760 time= user_id=956 Wrote:I think so many people have forgotten that Mr Blobby was originally Noel inside a costume, and wasn't always a character by himself.Yep, originally he was often seen with his head open and either Barry Killerby or Noel inside, then suddenly it became a big mystery about who was inside and a big wow moment the few times the person was seen inside
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - deejay - 28-11-2021
I imagine the Gotchas are the bit that will be most difficult to clear for broadcast re-use.
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - Inspector Sands - 29-11-2021
deejay post_id=55788 time= user_id=880 Wrote:I imagine the Gotchas are the bit that will be most difficult to clear for broadcast re-use.I wouldn't have thought there'd be much of a problem with them, a lot were repeated in compilations a few times. I wonder how many were blocked by their 'victims'
The early ones, mainly Roadshow era ones, have to have any references to Oscar removed of course.
I had a quick look at some early Roadshows the other day and was surprised to see that there was a Gotcha Oscar in the first episode (and the pilot) but they didn't seem to do it again for weeks. Instead there was an outtakes format called Clown Court.
One thing I remember about Roadshow, and it happened in the later days of NHP, and that's items and formats being tried out for a couple of weeks and then never heard of again, particularly games. Only a few items worked and lasted - Get Your Own Back and the Gotchas being the longest, they appeared in episode 1 of Roadshow. As did the gunge tank but in a different format, that too changed its quiz format changed after the first few weeks
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - Neil Jones - 29-11-2021
Hatton Cross post_id=55757 time= user_id=1471 Wrote:And, there is exactly one of the questions I would be hope answered in any documentary.
Mr Bobby, was a fake terrible Children's TV character invented as a Gotcha 'snare device'.
But, was he created, just for that, and then became a breakout from audience reaction.
Or..
Was the character created both as a Gotcha vehicle, and, off the expected reaction, a lucrative merchandising opportunity in the run up to Christmas for Unique and BBC Worldwide.
Blobby was originally a fake character in the Gotcha charade, but of course once they'd aired those, the joke was out there so they couldn't use him again as a Gotcha device in ones made after the first airing (probably safe to say the first batch with Blobby were block-recorded, I think that was the whole first series maybe or a good chunk of it?).
I suspect his tendency of trashing the place came "home" as it were (to Crinkley Bottom), they wanted to keep him and of course somebody trashing the joint on live TV was always an attractive proposition for something to go wrong. I dare say if he'd only been seen in the original Gotcha segments and never appeared again on the House Party in any guise he wouldn't have become a major breakout "star".
But of course he did, the audience loved it (and him) and so you could probably see the £ signs in the eyes of Noel Edmonds. In some ways he was bigger than the show he started on. Most breakout characters are like that. Ultimately though Blobby was a one trick pony, culminating in trashing Hyacinth Bucket 's(sorry, Bouquet
) Royal Doulton cups (with the hand painted periwinkles).
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - Steve Williams - 29-11-2021
Inspector Sands post_id=55838 time= user_id=1003 Wrote:The early ones, mainly Roadshow era ones, have to have any references to Oscar removed of course.
I had a quick look at some early Roadshows the other day and was surprised to see that there was a Gotcha Oscar in the first episode (and the pilot) but they didn't seem to do it again for weeks. Instead there was an outtakes format called Clown Court.
One thing I remember about Roadshow, and it happened in the later days of NHP, and that's items and formats being tried out for a couple of weeks and then never heard of again, particularly games. Only a few items worked and lasted - Get Your Own Back and the Gotchas being the longest, they appeared in episode 1 of Roadshow. As did the gunge tank but in a different format, that too changed its quiz format changed after the first few weeks
As the credits to the Roadshow pointed out, quite a lot of the features on Saturday Roadshow, including the quiz around the gunge tank, were licenced formats. As the blog mentions, presumably one reason why they replaced The Lyric Game with Open The Cupboard in series two is because The Lyric Game was an acquired format and they wanted to replace it with a similar game that they owned the rights to themselves.
I remember they did one of the Gotcha Hall of Fame repeats, of which there were several, around 1995 which included a load of Saturday Roadshow Gotchas, which seemed absolutely ancient at the time, I seem to remember the Pip Schofield one was one of them.
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - Inspector Sands - 29-11-2021
Steve Williams post_id=55846 time= user_id=1326 Wrote:I remember they did one of the Gotcha Hall of Fame repeats, of which there were several, around 1995 which included a load of Saturday Roadshow Gotchas, which seemed absolutely ancient at the time, I seem to remember the Pip Schofield one was one of them.The first one (used on the pilot an episode 1) was on Gloria Hunniford and is a very different style with really just one gag. Also of course when she was 'got' she wouldn't have known what a Gotcha Oscar was but she seems to understand. As I say they didn't seem to do it for a few weeks afterwards
https://youtu.be/81jKzRPLIgY
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - buster - 29-11-2021
There was an interview with Mike Leggo recently when he says one of the things they did when they launched House Party was make the Gotchas every week, and it was a huge amount of work but it really made it the flagship part of the show. One of the reasons they came up with Blobby was because they needed a format to spin out for a few Gotchas - and they did that again in subsequent years with a number of setups that could be repeated a few times.
Other than the weird gunge fetish accounts there wasn't much of the Roadshow online till recently, and having been a little young for it at the time it's really not the "House Party" on location that it is often claimed, at least in the early days. There's a lot of very talky games, some wafer-thin quiz segments in the early says, and the writing of the fictional bits is often a bit shaky. House Party was also such a reliable format week in week out (at least for the first four years) it's really odd to see so many bits that come and go as the weeks go by. They really did work out what was working for the NHP relaunch and it just put rocket fuel under it, it completely took off once it was free of the roadshow premise.
I actually thought the Lyric Game was a bit rubbish, like many of the Roadshow games there wasn't a lot to it, and compared to what they were increasingly doing with the rest of the show "shouting along to songs" didn't really cut it anymore. By the time it had become The Panel Game in 1993/4 the "game" part was an absolute minimum and it was mainly an opportunity for more celeb cameos and gags, which suited the show much better.
Not seen reference to a Saturday Roadshow pilot before, is it online anywhere?
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - buster - 29-11-2021
Inspector Sands post_id=55857 time= user_id=1003 Wrote:Steve Williams post_id=55846 time= user_id=1326 Wrote:I remember they did one of the Gotcha Hall of Fame repeats, of which there were several, around 1995 which included a load of Saturday Roadshow Gotchas, which seemed absolutely ancient at the time, I seem to remember the Pip Schofield one was one of them.The first one (used on the pilot an episode 1) was on Gloria Hunniford and is a very different style with really just one gag. Also of course when she was 'got' she wouldn't have known what a Gotcha Oscar was but she seems to understand. As I say they didn't seem to do it for a few weeks afterwards
https://youtu.be/81jKzRPLIgY
In the unblurred version the statue also looks quite primitive unsurprisingly.
I think the idea was quite similar to the Hit Squad on the Late Late Breakfast Show, where Noel would often appear at the end, just using celebrities instead.
This is a (fairly slight) LLBS celebrity "hit" on none other than DLT. There's even a mention of "Gotcha" some 5 years early:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mLfLeIDSMM
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - Robertclark125 - 30-11-2021
During its run, if house party had taken a break for a year, and then returned, could that have helped it stay fresh?
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - VMPhil - 30-11-2021
Robertclark125 post_id=56018 time= user_id=1163 Wrote:During its run, if house party had taken a break for a year, and then returned, could that have helped it stay fresh?I know people say this because Ant and Dec did it, but Ant and Dec also had two other huge shows in I’m a Celeb and BGT, whereas Noel only had Telly Addicts which I don’t think was nearly as big?
I think he may have felt vulnerable to being axed sooner if he took a break.
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - Steve Williams - 30-11-2021
VMPhil post_id=56035 time= user_id=1043 Wrote:I know people say this because Ant and Dec did it, but Ant and Dec also had two other huge shows in I’m a Celeb and BGT, whereas Noel only had Telly Addicts which I don’t think was nearly as big?
I think he may have felt vulnerable to being axed sooner if he took a break.
Well, 1998 was a terrible year for Noel, because House Party was in a state and Telly Addicts was axed as well. He certainly had plenty of other irons in the fire in terms of his business interests so he could certainly have coped with going off air for a bit - but I think it's worth pointing out that regardless of what Noel thought, the Beeb would have been loathe to do that because they would have lost 26 weeks of a ratings banker. I know the quality of the show was dipping, but it was still doing OK in the ratings and its opposition was Blind Date which was declining at a similar rate anyway.
I think also as well it's a different era in that light entertainment shows didn't really get "rested" - they were either on and they came back every year, or they were axed. It's not like today where pretty much the entire production team would be freelance, most of them would be BBC staff so they'd all have to be deployed on something else which would be pretty much the same thing. Easier just to keep making House Party and try and revitalise that.
Of course while Takeaway was off air Ant and Dec were still making light entertainment shows, and Push The Button ended up being very similar to Takeaway towards the end. I always thought it was a bit of a risk bringing back Takeaway as it could have looked a bit desperate and that all their other attempts at a replacement had flopped so they'd gone crawling back to the old format. What I assumed they'd end up doing was a show very much like Takeaway but under a different name, like The Ant and Dec Show, just so it felt like a new thing. It's like how Graham Norton tried various shows on the Beeb but nothing really worked out so they just revived the old So Graham Norton format - but they didn't call it that, because it would have looked like a backward step, so it became The Graham Norton Show.
I suppose you can say it's similar to how the House Party began, because that was a major reboot of the Saturday Roadshow, which had rather run its course. You could argue that circa 1996 they could have done another major reboot, dropped the House Party branding and called it something else to try and revitalise it a bit. That's sort of what they did on Saturday mornings, the same show but with a new name and setting every few years.
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - Steve Williams - 30-11-2021
buster post_id=55892 time= user_id=1358 Wrote:This is a (fairly slight) LLBS celebrity "hit" on none other than DLT. There's even a mention of "Gotcha" some 5 years early:
Of course, the Late Late had its roots in a show called Gotcha, which was devised by Jeremy Beadle and produced by Michael Hurll, but the Beeb turned down the pilot because it was too vulgar. So Beadle took the format (via the US) to LWT and it became Game For A Laugh, but the various stunts from the Gotcha pilot were later recycled on the first series of the Late Late, which was very much intended as the Beeb's equivalent to Game For A Laugh which was a big hit. As Beadle pointed out, in one of them he actually briefly appeared in shot so he actually appeared on both shows at the same time.
30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party - Johnr - 30-11-2021
Funny how Deal Or No Deal had a similar journey as House Party, was must watch TV for the first few years then started to decline with an extension to an hour, Box 23 and then the pointless 'offer button' (if the game was exciting enough naturally the banker would be guaranteed to ring up with an extra offer anyway!)
It was a shame they never tried more than the initial run of live shows, if you've got Noel Edmonds at your disposal then you're in safe hands with live TV! The 'on tour' idea was quite good too I thought even if it was just a way to give the final few contestants a consolation prize
Although if Noel hadn't departed for New Zealand I suspect Channel 4 would be keen to bring it back in some form by now as they have never really found a replacement that makes a dent in the daytime schedules
They did try some projects with him after Deal of course which flopped, Cheap Cheap Cheap and Sell Or Swap Live the latter of which was probably more remembered for how completely manic it was! (and Noel almost getting taken out by the rotating stage at one point!!!
)