Invent your own TV shows from the past

[George White]

Sluts
A few years ago, I pitched this idea. It was basically a spoof of 80s miniseries, especially 1984's Lace. It went through different permutations. It was about four girls at a Swiss boarding school, which was possibly Castle Frankenstein and renamed Schloss Clerval. Four girls, Angelia Terwilliger, the daughter of an IrishAmerican Bruce Boa-type politician/industrialist, the Anglo-South African Lady Ambrosia Van Der Smythem, the blacked-up/browned-up supposedly half-Chinese/half-Scottish Virginity Delano Shanghai, and Satané Dubreq, princess of the Ruritanian Duchy of Cor Du Roi, who are involved in a murder of their lairy Spanish master, Mr. Caruso. Then, I realised that Pretty Little Liars was essentially this but even more ridiculous (teenagers only slightly younger than the IRL  mid-30s stars of Lace, random transgender sister, backlot London with one of the Orelly men as a professor!), and realised what was a spoof had become all too real.

Also, more detailed.
I used to write my own fake Halliwell's guides as mentioned here - soundcloud.com/george-white-70.


Sherlock Holmes (Univrersal, ABC, 1973-1975)
After the unconvincing Victorian atmosphere of the genuine 1972 Hound of the Baskervilles TVM, Stewart Gragner and Bernard Fox reprised their roles as Holmes and Watson as international agents in this modern-day revamp more in spirit of the WW2-era Rathbone-Bruce films. 6 TVMs were made, The Sign of 4, The Spider, the Final Problem, Mystery in Naples, the Gaelic Question and The Thing in the Shadows. Co-starring was Juliet Mills as WPC Mary Morstan, Watson's love interest, Beryl Reid as Mrs. Hudson (although in an earlier cut, actress Diana Chesney was supposed to play the role. Universal producers, having seen the Killing of Sister George wanted Reid and Chesney eventually got a role in the Gaelic Question as the secretary of Harry Clifton) , and the reprising Alan Caillou as Lestrade, who also wrote The Sign of 4 and The Gaelic Question. All of the films were made at Universal Studios, its backlot used to double up as London, Wales, Ireland, Switzerland, Italy, South Africa, France and Spain.

The Sign of 4 only very loosely adapts the story. Mary Morstan's father Carter Morstan (John Mills) is a famed explorer, searching for gold off the coast of South Africa. However, his drilling ship, the Great Mogul goes missing, attacked by Tonga, here incarnated as a snow-suited midget assassin played by Felix Silla. The villain is Anglo-South African attaché John Sholto (David McCallum) who lusts after the Great Mogul,to drain the water away to remove the gold. Holmes travels to South Africa, assisted by a great white hunter, Steyner (Robert Quarry) and a rebellious native, Mercer (Rockne Tarkington) travel to an underground canal, while Watson romances Morstan in London. The end features Steyner and Sholto wrestling each other, in the engine room of the Grand Mogul, as it sails to London, only for both to be ejected into the sea, both drowning. Sholto and Holmes are on board, Mercer having stayed in Africa, to help the people enslaved by Sholto. However, Tonga escapes, Long Beach badly doubling as Thames-side dock, only to be run over by a taxi.

The Spider was a loose reworking of the 1944 Rathbone film The Spider Woman with Barbara Steele as Irene Adler, not Adrea Spedding. In it, jewel thief and ex-Holmes flame Adler has broken into Buckingham Palace/The Huntingdon Library to steal a royal scroll , hijacking a radio mast to proclaim on the BBC that the Saxe-Coburg scroll is destroyed. Holmes confronts her in a London alleyway. Her manservant, Cockney wideboy Lenny Burridge (Don Knight) informs Watson and his date, Mary that Irene is taking Holmes to New York, using a poison-injecting spider, the Titania Cyanida to poison the US representative Carlson (Special Guest Star John Vernon) and the UK representative Sir Geoffrey Scott (David Frankham). Watson and the hi-kicking Emma Peel-esque Mary must stop Holmes from becoming a criminal. Eventually, Holmes realises that he must stop Irene. As they escape down a long hallway to the main area of the UN, she falls, and left hanging, the spider cradled in her hand. She lets the spider go, telling it to kill Holmes. Holmes escapes, dodging the stairs and meeting Watson below. The terrified Adler drops to her death, realising the fall is easier than the lethal injection. A solemn Holmes returns to London, enlivened by Mrs. Hudson, but otherwise pained by the outcome.

The Gaelic Question (alias the Gaelic Connection) was made third, but shown last, being the most controversial but destroying continuity by introducing a character seen in earlier shown episodes, the maid Rosie. In the English town of Haystock, there is a large working-class Irish population working in a car factory run by unscrupulous business Harry Clifton (Byron Webster) . When a bomb is found in a half-built car, suspicion turns to everyone of the 260 workers of Irish origin, suspected to be members of an unnamed "Irish Republican Association". One of the workers, Horace Casey (Sean McClory) mysteriously returns to Ireland. Holmes and Watson are sent by Lestrade to find Casey. in his hometown of Kilkeddie, on the border of Northern Ireland. The wealthy local MP, Brian Townsend (Dan O'Herlihy) urges emergency evacuation of the village, but Holmes realises that his mother was Esmeralda Kenny, a Countess Markievicz-type aristocratic Republican, and realises that Casey is a patsy and Townsend being the real culprit. Townsend arms local Catholic peasants with guns and orders a village siege to kill Sherlock Holmes. Holmes, disguised in a duster coat and flat cap hides in a pub, pouring out drinks to Watson. They escape in a cattle truck having found in the pub bathroom a young Irish girl, Rosie Delaney (Pamela Franklin) from across the border. She travels with them to London, while British troops led by Colonel Wright (Michael Pate) are escorted by Holmes into Killkeddie. The three escape in a plane from a local airfield, arriving in Haystock, where the Irish workers are engaged in a war (genuine stock footage of the Troubles). Eventually, Holmes arrives, a figure of peace. He tells them that they are on a planet where all are equal. Rosie agrees to travel to Baker Street. This episode did not feature Reid or Mills.

The Final Problem, the last made has Holmes and Watson meeting Moriarty, Holmes' ex-WW2 chum played by Patrick Macnee, who blames Holmes for the death of Moriarty's wartime wife, as well as the Irish revolution, Moriarty having Irish ancestry. His plot is to destroy the newly-built Reichenbach Dam at the backlot village in Reichenbach, Switzerland, therefore flooding the village, and causing the Swiss Army to lose its neutrality, stating war on Moriarty and therefore the Irish, ending the revolution. Moriarty and Holmes are whisked into the flood, battling each other. At the end, Watson is weeping in the office, Mary comforting him, then a familiar deerstalked silhouette appears. Rosie does not appear.

Mystery in Naples involves the 'Mob' (no ref to the Mafia) led by Cameron Mitchell as Don Vitttorius plotting a New Roman Empire via a mob-funded satellite aimed at Naples. Mary is briefly seen in the office, asking Mrs. Hudson, teaching her how to clean where Holmes and Watson are. "In Naples, fighting crime, of course, no holiday for them!" chortles Mrs. Hudson. A British diplomat, Hawking (Edward Mulhare) and a Canadian mob assassin, Healey (John Colicos) help Holmes and Watson break into the underground Roman catacombs turned into a satellite radio control unit, with a dish filling a coliseum (portrayed via Al Whitlock matte). Eventually, the coliseum dish explodes and the satellite lands in France, whereby Holmes and Watson await, as it squashes the mob limousine.

The Thing in The Shadows is an attempt at Baskerville-type intrigue. In the village of Llanwill, Wales, a wealthy miser/aristocrat, Jefcott (SpecialGuest Star Ray MIlland) dies of a mysterious illness. His devious English cousin, Aubrey Daniell (Alan Napier) arrives to control the estate. Milkman/trade unionist Reg "The Milk"Evans (John Alderson) hails Daniell as a new hope, but within days, people are dying of the same illness. Rosie travels up to Llanwill to serve as the new maid opposite the mysterious butler, Clarence (Hedley Mattingly). She believes that Clarence is responsible. However, a local excavation team headed by American archaeologist Professor Bernheim (Patrick O'Neal) find traces of the black death coming from the local mine. The plague grains are removed, but suddenly a mysterious hooded leper appears to kill off the villagers including miner Jasper (Ivor Barry). Holmes and Watson travel to the village and find that the black death seems to have taken elements of the Titania Cyanida's venom. The leper is actually Irene Adler (Barbara Steele) who has become almost an albino after being induced with the spider venom, which helped save her. She has retreated to Wales, and become a victim, reviving the BLACK DEATH in the believe it could kill the venom. Clarence plots to exploit her, and has tricked Daniell into approving a hunt. Watson is sure he can save Adler. He creates an antidote. As she drinks it, Clarence leads the hunt. Adler leaves on the train station, despite Holmes warning her that the bridge has been meddled with by locals.

Plans for a weekly TV series (to be made in coproduction with the BBC at the time of the BBC-Universal deal with Colditz) made in Britain were curtailed due to tax problems with the US-based Granger, Caillou, Fox and Mills being sent over to UK. Caillou was eventually replaced, although he stayed as a writer, replaced by Lawrence Naismith as Chief Inspector Richard Emerson. Two episodes were made, and recut into a TV movie - "House of Lies", starring Ronald Lacey, Gordon Jackson and Burrt Kwouk as a Russian composer, a RAF squadron leader threatened by a Chinese curse from colonial family tradition and as the villainous Chinaman was shown in both US and UK, but the BBC wanted complete script approval and wanted a 'less US-flavoured image', also asking it to be filmed on video. The series was never completed.

The Adventures of Thea K Jirrepp (Telefunk Ruritania, 1979-80)
Central European children's serial.
A Victorian orphanage in London, 1888 - a baby girl, her name scribbled on some fish and chip wrapping paper is adopted by King Rollo Langhorne, alleged monarch of a band of scruffy-faced tinkers who take the girl in as a member of their travelling circus. However,as Thea grows up, the other girls tease her for her settled roots, and only King Rollo and his troupe give her comfort. Bidding a fond farewell to King Rollo, Thea rides off on her pony, Twink and goes off in search of her parents. She fights off pirates headed by Captain Eldritch Mudie, and then makes her way to London after a series of adventures, and discovers there are no Jirrepps - her name being an anagram of the alias of her true father, otherwise British royal Prince Adrian Salverich-Jones. She is then reunited with her mother, a Dutch "common woman".


Ridley (Yorkshire, 1983)
Another vehicle for Bill Maynard, who this time stars as Frank Ridley, a sheepskin-coated private eye, who works as compere at a working men's club when he's not doing the detective work and manages to use bizarre methods, in a controversial yet popular series. Known for a peculiar nude scene in which pervy Frank 'interrogates' a stripper (Sherrie Hewson) in her dressing room, accusing her of stealing sausages from the butcher's shop, when he is actually trying to find the details of her affair with the married butcher who is apparently smuggling in drugged pigs. Other moments included Maynard in an inflatable coat floating down a lake in order to stop a crook played by David Daker in a speedboat from getting away with stealing from the garden of a wealthy Gary Glitter-esque pop star, and getting involved in an anti-IRA plot conducted by British Army nut BRIAN BLESSED to assassinate a traditional Irish folk band whom he accuses of being a front for terrorism, resulting in an on-stage wrestling bout between Maynard and Blessed. The series was often violent for a sitcom and dour, having no laugh-track and being made on film. Yorkshire found it too expensive after seven episodes and canned it.

Inspector Ridley (Euston, 1984-1986)
A sort-of-second series for Ridley as played by Bill Maynard, this time it was done by Euston. Now, Ridley was working for the police force, after Euston felt that his independent ramblings were too similar to Minder. Originally called Ridley's Doings, after the Christmas special for 1984, it was changed when the series premiered in March 1985. Now, Maynard was living in London, as opposed to the North, and had a hapless sidekick in PC Pearson (Martin Clunes) which removed the absurdity of the first series, though there were still moments of inventiveness. Ridley became more verbally insulting, when Euston primed the series for a family slot, so this gave Ridley a chance to do his 'comedian act' in the office, often teasing 'the miserable git Pearson', and more slapstick was introduced, with Ridley driving a comedy police car, often donning disguises and playing the violin badly to annoy his colleagues. After six episodes of family-friendly fun, viewers got tired, so for the quickly-commissioned second series, Ridley was moved back to a later timeslot, and the verbal insulting became ruder and swear-charged. Pearson went missing, and this led to Ridley going back to his old ways, driving into the dockside base of London gangster Eddie Kidney (the reprising David Daker) in a beer van before accidentally drowning Kidney. The series ended with Ridley demoted, Pearson rescued and replacing his superior who promptly returns up North to be greeted with a hero's welcome.

[George White]

The Lost World (1969-71)
Irwin Allen TV series adapted from the 1960 movie, using footage from it, but with a new cast, Torin Thatcher as Challenger, Stewart Granger as Roxton, John Williams as Summerlee, John Saxon as Malone, Francine York as the cave-girl...

Rising Damp In Australia (1979)
Leonard Rossiter reprises his role as Rigsby in this Aussie spinoff. Rigsby, jilted by Miss Jones travels to Australia to make a new life of himself, and to join the permissive society, running a youth hostel in Sydney. You can take the landlord out of the boarding house but you can't take the boarding house out of the landlord...
Co-starring David Gulpilil as Mike, the local Aborigine youth and trade unionist.


Grace & Flavour - Are You Being Served? In New Zealand (1995-1997)
After the relative failure of Grace & Favour, the Are You Being Served? gang returned when David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd struck a deal with TVNZ to have a reunion series in New Zealand. Unlike Favour, this has Trevor Bannister as Mr. Lucas, who has since moved to Wellington, to open a supermarket. While visiting, Mr. Rumbold sets about to reunite the gang. Wendy Richard only appears in the first episode, in sequences filmed in London, as she was too busy with EastEnders. In it, Ms. Brahms is too busy dealing with the hotel seen in Grace And Favour, but Captain Peacock decides to see "foreign service", while Mrs. Slocombe has become a crazy cat lady with "45 PUSSIES", and hears of good cat grooming services in Wellington. Humphries happens to be on holiday, having become terrified of women, after some kind of unpleasant experience with his mother. They all come together to run a supermarket, the second series shakes it up , with them running a Savoy-style grill in downtown Wellington.

[George White]

Edward Woodward and the Mystery-Squad in the Bermuda Triangle (1980-81). It involved Woodward's plane crashing en route to Miami after filming "Breaker" Morant in Australia, and sharing a flight with a gang of multi-national Mystery Inc-ripoffs (Hans, the Scandinavian Fred, Ranjit, the not-at-all-racist turban-wearing Indian snake-charmer mystic with the Punjabi Shaggy voice, Irika, a Russo-Japanese Velma, Felicity, a British Daphne (and apparently Woodward's niece), and their pet goat Shaffer, named after Anthony Shaffer (the goat being the same goat above Woowah in the Wicker Man, given to Felicity after the film ended). Woody and the Mystery-Squad salvage a wing from the broken plane and use it as a raft, eventually reaching a crashed spaceship, known as the Observatorium, where an alien intelligence known as the Observatron lives who needs Woody and the Squad as agents to find the time holes among the Triangle, which is populated by various ghosts of historical figures and so on, so everyone can be returned to their place.
The final episode was a kind of two-sided affair. In the episode, "The Diabolical Dr. Hess", the gang meet a white supremacist with a Germanic-South African accent called Hess, clearly both a representation of Rudolf Hess and also a metaphor for the Apartheid. Hess is from another dimension, Zeos and attempts to trap Irika and Ranjt on a carnival paddle steamer as it goes beyond the Triangle, thus freeing them from the Triangle. Woody traps Hess in the Observatron, teleporting him back to Zeos, to the day of his execution. The Observatron rewards Edward and Felicity and Hans by freeing them, as the time holes can be easily closed now that the dimensional interference is gone. However, while back in Miami, Woodward, meeting up with his cartoon wife who looks only a bit like Michele Dotrice discovers that a time hole is blocking a NASSA (sic) mission. Effectively ending the series, but in case of a second series, a cliffhanger which was never answered, when the series failed to get shown on American networks, effectively dumped in a syndicated slot, though plans for a revamp, the New Adventures of Edward Woodward and the Mystery Squad only came to a pilot, spurred by Woodward's newfound fame in the Equalizer, as the Equalizer, though that series did lead to reruns of the Mystery-Squad.

The theme tune was sung by Woodward too.

The 11 episodes were
The Mysterious Journey (a nod perhaps to the TV show the Fantastic Journey, which the cartoon ripped off)
The Land of Slime (Ranjit bathes in a slime bath in a swamp, only to age rapidly. Woodward finds the slime to be from a quickly dying kingdom that only be saved by tears, its death because it is a land with only happiness, and it needs negative emotion).
The Hole In The Wall (A time hole in a local farmhouse is pouring out water. Sent by Father Parseg, the Squad discover a flooded planet, and a way to freeze the planet to erase the hole).
The Tele-Monsters (Woodward is finally recognised, by a bunch of Time Hole-guarding alien squid-men called Squirdeen who live on television transmissions, as they have no mouths only loud shouty telepathic voices).
The Witch-Finders (The gang land in Medieval Europe, in "Fraunz, 1190", where Irika is about to be burnt as a witch by the evil Witchfinder General in another historically dubious adventure).
The Victorians (The gang encounter Jack the Ripper, and discover he came from through a Time Hole, and are sent to catch "him", in fact an evil Felicity, hypnotised by the evil Chinese Wizard Wongu the Wicked).
Callan Saves The Day (Woodward is mistaken by tourists as his TV counterpart when he is sent back to the present day on a special mission, and meets his wife who is confused about if it is her husband or a lookalike).
The Viking Prince (Hans meets his titular teenage ancestor, and they swap lives to stop an assassination of a Persian King).
The House of the Haunted (The gang travel to Cajun lands to stop voodoo priest Ramjam Kananga).
The Evil of Frankenstein (The gang find themselves in Olde Worlde Europe, and meet the mad scientist making his monster).
The Diabolical Dr. Hess  (A green-skinned white supremacist appears and hijacks a carnival steamer full of minstrels, claiming to be from a world where black people never existed.)

[Mr Brightside]

VAMPIRES VS WEREWOLVES (1878)

[Mr Brightside]

WEREWOLVES VS VAMPIRES (SECOND LEG) (1878)

[Sebastian Cobb]

Quantum Married With Children - Dr Sam Beckett leaps into a young Al Bundy and stops him having the broken leg that set him on the fictional course that resulted in that shit for cunt TV program.

[Lemming]

Saturday Morning Mayhem (1972 - 1979)

Saturday morning kid's show, featuring fun trivia and games. Every single presenter, all 14 of them, exposed decades later by Operation Yewtree

Wankers (2009)

BBC3 comedy series about a group of young adults sharing a flat in London. One of them talks exclusively about wanking.

The Cunt's Vault (1982 - 1985)

Show that airs old B-movies with a fun framing device, like MST3k or Elvira's Movie Macabre. The framing device is just an unnamed balding man, referred to only as The Cunt, putting in a VHS tape, allegedly from his "vault". He does not introduce the movie, the movie is not interrupted by any commentary or host segments, and at the end he just silently ejects the tape.

Rats! (1992)

American animated series. Ostensibly for kids, it's actually just a bunch of anthropomorphic rats making extremely unfunny jokes which rely entirely on sexual innuendo. Had a resurgence in popularity in recent years when Buzzfeed ran about 60 articles about it with titles like "YOU WONT BELIEVE WHAT THEY GOT AWAY WITH IN THE 90s", "YOUR CHILDHOOD WAS SEXIER THAN YOU THOUGHT" and "NO WAY WAS THIS MADE FOR KIDS".

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

BIG BANTER with Buck Garton

[Glebe]

Take Y'Pick!

Stu Francis invited contestants to "take y'flipping pick, ooh!" for three series during 1983-4 on BBC2.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Following an intensive course of Gamblers Anonymous meetings, Willie Thorne reconnects with God.

Thorne Again Christian - 1987 (not available in Ireland).

[Glebe]

Jason's People.

This Sky One chat show that ran for one series in 2000 saw David Jason switch roles and become the interrogator. It was a fascinating experiment. Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards revealed he had a love of rosebushes, whilst Derek Jameson told the erstwhile Del Boy he had a large collection of old newspapers.

[Tikwid]

Adam Hart-Davis' Fred Dibnah and Fred Dibnah's Adam Hart-Davis. Two seperately commissioned ten-part documentaries featuring each provincial TV personality following in the other's footsteps, looking back at their memories and recollections of the other host. The two retrospectives got wind of each other just a few episodes in, and the rest of each series consisted mostly of petty cat-and-mouse violence from each presenter. Memorable moments include the tit-for-tat brick throwing scene in episode 4, which left Hart-Davis with a broken epidermis and some really saucy ventricles, and the disastrous toon physics steamroller attempt (failed) in episode 7. The infamous series finale for each show was aired totally bodaciously (due to an unforeseen technical fault at Broadcasting House), and featured the two attempting to sacrifice each other to the ancient Babylonian death god Ereshkigal, by filling a chimneystack in Wigan up to the brim with sulphuric weed. All surviving master tapes of each show: W.I.P.E.D., baby!!!

[Glebe]

Jim Davidson's Ripe Tomatoes.

There's laughter, chat and tomatoes with racist, sexist, homophobic thug Davidson, not to mention a bumper crop of lovely tomatoes - ripe for the judging!

[Sebastian Cobb]

Quantum Diagnosis

Barry Van Dyke travels through time to put right what once went wrong, but he's really bad at his job, so he keeps having to visit the hospital his dad works at and trick him into doing his job for him.

[Glebe]

Thas Grand, Then!

Broadcast on ITV West Country for two series from 1993-95, this sideways look at rural life saw comedian Jethro trawl the highways and byways of such hotspots as Devon and Dorset, looking at sheep dips and talking to farm folk.

[Rocket Surgery]

Josie & Her Invisible Lawrence

Dave Benson Phillips is ritually cloned and murdered every Saturday lunchtime for reasons everyone has forgotten.

[Rocket Surgery]

Draw Sally James From Memory

Dave Benson Phillips gets his own back live from prison in this extraordinarily inappropriate sado-fest aimed at people far too young to remember Tiswas.

Acid baths provided by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea Council, music by Dissection.

[Glebe]

Tell Us About the Bran Flakes.

In 2011, for three 50-minute specials on Channel 4, Gordon Kaye took to his special 'storytellers stool' and regaled a specially-picked audience with showbiz tales or yore.

[Glebe]

Keep 'em Guessing!

Just who is the mysterious guest kept in shadow 'til the end of the show? Roy Walker keeps on stringin' 'em along, as only he knows how!

[spamwangler]

Sports Direct Tycoon Vomited Into Fireplace At Pub Meeting

[spamwangler]

A Question of Nonce

it was a different time back then

[spamwangler]

Suffocating in a Duct: LIVE!

[spamwangler]

christ id get a telly if glebe was commisioner

[Glebe]

Take a Crack at Prizes.

Les Dennis is your host for the evening, with fun, laughter and chat and prizes and prizes.

[DistressedArea]

Booted

Booted is a popular BBC sitcom that was originally broadcast over 65 episodes between 1985 and 1990.

Tom Rentkiss, the area manager of a stoke based logistics company (Peter Davidson) is kidnapped by unseen assailants (voiced by Norman Pace and Ian McShane) and locked in the boot of a car for seven years.  Alone, and unable to see or move, Tom invents a hilarious fantasy life to while away the hours of his captivity.

The series was created by Carl Humbel, who would later go on to write a number of successful dramas including 'the wind has stopped, for the time being' and 'Bodkin's ditch', which explored similar themes of inactivity and tedium.

The show was famous for introducing a number of actors who would later become major television and film stars in their own right, including Burt Shafernakker, who played Petrol Can, Polly Tilbury, who played Carrier Bag, and PK Foster, who played the robot 'bleeblex 5000'.

The show averaged 18M viewers during its run, and over 24 million viewers tuned in to see the final Christmas Day episode in which Tom escapes from the boot only to find that the population of stoke has been destroyed by a gas.

[Glebe]

Making Bread with Clive James.

Join Clive for a lively round of baking, laughter, laughter, chat, song, baking, baking.

[cptspalding]

And the answer is?
This was meant to be the UK remake of Jeopardy! where the answer is given and the contestants must come up with the question. Unfortunately the team that were assigned to the show were not the brightest bunch to start with and it didn't help that they spent most of the budget on narcotics and gin.

The first show went out live in 1982 and had been hyped in all of the newspapers for weeks before. The producers did not want rival companies stealing the concept and so on-set secrecy was strictly enforced. Even the host was kept in the dark about the format of the show.

Most of the nation sat down to watch this new show on a balmy August Saturday evening and were surprised to be greeted by Terry Wogan who was lowered to the stage clutching a giant question mark.

The contestants were introduced and round one, the "question round", began.

"And the answer is?", read Terry from the card. The contestants looked puzzled. "Shall I repeat the question?", asked Terry. The contestant nodded, with a frown. "And the answer is?".  The contestants exchanged glances. Was this some kind of trick question? Was Terry pulling their leg? "I'll have to hurry ya up", warned Terry.

"Is it...peaches?". The contestant blurted out, aware that they were being watched by most of the country.

"'Fraid not this time, though I do like a good peach!", chuckled Terry,. "Right, onwards and upwards". Terry picked up the next game card from the stack in front of him and addressed the next contestant.

"And the answer is?".

Wogan spent the rest of his career in local radio, eventually taking early retirement to devote more time to his goose farm.

No quiz show was ever broadcast live after 1982.

[Bazooka]

Guilty Until Proven Guilty

A panel of guests must decide from a line up of shifty looking buggers, who is guilty of menial crimes such as stealing a string of sausages from a farmers market.

[Neville Chamberlain]

Victorian Big Brother

10:15 pm, 19th March 1874. Eliza Frazer has consumed an entire bottle of absinthe and is now threatening to insert it into her quim; potty-mouthed Augustus Baxter stuns viewers by candidly referring to his unmentionables as "trousers"; after an evening of alcohol-sodden antics, Audrey Blanche has wet her linen; Arthur Franklin and Lily Weathers engage in a romantic tryst on a garden swing that quickly descends into X-rated degeneracy when Arthur's gaze falls upon Lily's exposed ankle; Clifford Gray is resting in his chamber perusing a copy of The Iliad when he becomes distracted and aroused by the sight of a gently curved table leg; and Grover Aspley shocks viewers by referring to fellow housemate Elsie Featherstonehaugh as a pigeon-livered dollymop.

[Glebe]

Pop That Kettle On!

Paul Daniels has the starter's gun. The relay racers are all lined up. On your marks...