Challenge

[Neil Jones]

Technically the first episode that aired in 1981 and not the first episode they made (the first two episodes were infamously scrapped as they were - allegedly - crapper than what actually went out. Apparently cost ATV a fortune as a car had been won in one of them)

[AaronLancs]

Technically the first episode that aired in 1981 and not the first episode they made (the first two episodes were infamously scrapped as they were - allegedly - crapper than what actually went out. Apparently cost ATV a fortune as a car had been won in one of them)

Oops. I guess that was a big deal back then. These days the underwriters or whomever they use would write it off as "incidental" or "small fry".

Underwriter (these days): "Seeing as we have a decent amount of money or - in this case - goods in the pot we don't mind, relatively speaking. Based on lose to win ratio out of ten. (7/8 times for a team to lose- 2/3 times for a team to win)"*

Underwriter (back then): Sweating buckets profusely thinking of the P45 that said production company may hand him.

But wow.

*or am I oversimplifying matters.

[Neil Jones]

Must be remembered Bullseye was an original format. Not like dragging Celebrity Squares over from America where the legwork's been done for you in terms of the format and all you have to do is butcher it to fit your culture, your regulations and your timescale.

And of course the format in the first series was crap compared to the later series - a significant chunk of it went out the window from series 2 onwards, and didn't really settle down to any great degree for quite a few years afterwards (it was more polished in later years but that's experience for you). If you consider what crap was left in the format for the show's first series then you can only imagine what those two scrapped shows looked like.

[JAS84]

What's interesting is that not only do you get the Central ident at the start of the show, they also introduced the contestants with the name of their region... leading to one on the episode airing now being "from Television South".

[CameronYoung]

What's interesting is that not only do you get the Central ident at the start of the show, they also introduced the contestants with the name of their region... leading to one on the episode airing now being "from Television South".

Yeah, that was in series 2 and 3 (series 2 announcing the region by OV, series 3 Jim did it - IMO sounded a bit more natural). To me it sounds like they actually work for the television companies, IMO only really works for STV, YTV and UTV.

By the way - did they announce the third couple as being from Westward or TSW? To me, it just sounded like the OV made a generic strange noise.

[RyoG]

"Boxing Day: Bullseye"? It appears to be series 1 (Jim's doing the scoring), possibly the very first episode.

It was indeed the first ever episode:

https://tv24.co.uk/b/qs8t40-gtd

Kaleidoscope has the first episode with that original air date (along with the second) listed as missing. Bobby George was the celebrity darts player.

I know I did see a very early episode a few years ago where Jim Bowen was explaining everything in the way you would in a "first episode".

[JAS84]

What's interesting is that not only do you get the Central ident at the start of the show, they also introduced the contestants with the name of their region... leading to one on the episode airing now being "from Television South".

Yeah, that was in series 2 and 3 (series 2 announcing the region by OV, series 3 Jim did it - IMO sounded a bit more natural). To me it sounds like they actually work for the television companies, IMO only really works for STV, YTV and UTV.

By the way - did they announce the third couple as being from Westward or TSW? To me, it just sounded like the OV made a generic strange noise.

I couldn't make that out either. It should be Television South West (considering they called TVS "Television South"), but that's too long for the muffled sound... maybe they said Westward by mistake and tried to effectively bleep it out for being out of date?

I don't think it works well for STV, YTV and UTV actually. Scottish sounds weird in that context, when people might be confused that they didn't say Scotland. Yorkshire implies they're from north of the Humber estuary when they could in fact be from Lincolnshire. And Ulster is just one province in Northern Ireland. There's a reason the company officially ditched it's full name in 1993 and became just UTV.

[nwtv2003]

What's interesting is that not only do you get the Central ident at the start of the show, they also introduced the contestants with the name of their region... leading to one on the episode airing now being "from Television South".

And Jim being the Lancastrian he is, always said Granadaland for those contestants from the North West. I’m sure he always referred to Thames for those contestants from London, despite the fact by that time Bullseye was shown on LWT.

[what]

Interesting series of Family Fortunes on Challenge at the moment - the rare one where the black and yellow board is replaced with an LCD screen. Still has the Central frontcaps and endcaps too.

[Neil Jones]

Interesting series of Family Fortunes on Challenge at the moment - the rare one where the black and yellow board is replaced with an LCD screen. Still has the Central frontcaps and endcaps too.

That was Les Dennis' first series:
https://youtu.be/c4f7SDHm9Sw?t=139

The (ugly IMO) colour screen was later replaced with a dot matrix one they stuck with for the rest of that era. Mr Babbage it was called I believe but I don't think it was 100% the same they had before in the Monkhouse/Bygrave years. The make up of some of the characters and numbers was different for a start between the two eras.

[XIII]

I can see why they wanted a colour screen but the technology wasn’t quite there yet at the time. The dot matrix screen was iconic but it would look very dated now.

[Neil Jones]

I can see why they wanted a colour screen but the technology wasn’t quite there yet at the time. The dot matrix screen was iconic but it would look very dated now.

Of course dot matrix style screens were still around well into the 21st century, Wimbledon still had one, maybe two, on Centre and Number 1 court as late as 2008. Wouldn't be surprised if there's many old school style dot matrix displays of some sort floating around somewhere. possibly in train stations?

[CameronYoung]

Wouldn't be surprised if there's many old school style dot matrix displays of some sort floating around somewhere. possibly in train stations?

Rail stations tend to have TFTs or LEDs. There's plenty of buses however still have the older style dot matrixes like this though: https://www.flickr.com/photos/apt358/503...otostream/

[OldSkoollCITV]

When Sky took over Challenge, they gave the new lease of life after Virgin Media gave up investment around 2009/10. They starting buying more classic shows, got new and exclusive content like TNA and the social media side were friendly with replies. Then around 2015/16, Sky’s support for Challenge started to decline with endless repeats of The Chase and they scaled back on social media before giving up, their +1 channel went last year.

Challenge is looking like a sore thumb, Sky exited the gambling business a few years ago and Sky One has retreated from pre-watershed light entertainment shows. I wouldn't be surprised if Sky sold it to Great! TV in the near future.

[harshy]

Challenge looks nothing like the 1995 channel it’s pants now.