Kenneth Clarke’s Civilization. Attenborough’s Planet Earth. Epic documentary series both.
And now there’s a new landmark documentary to add to the list, Ben Justice’s Top 100 UK Gameshows of All Time. Justice is a little different from your average punter, he actually works in development (with shows to his name including last year’s best-selling format All Together Now, Richard Osman’s House of Games and Benchmark) and may have a different viewpoint to the audience. Will you agree with his choices?
As it starts, so it shall end, here’s the final Top 10 of Actual Real TV Developer Ben Justice’s Top 100 UK Gameshows Of All Time. There are over 4,000 shows to choose from. What’s made the cut?
I’d like to thank Ben for all his efforts – I had precisely zero input into it, and it turned out quite a bit more entertaining than I think I was expecting when he first pitched the idea to me months ago, but I saw the enthusiasm on show in the first cut of the first episode and was pretty much sold there and then.
There have been calls for a Top 100 Worst Gameshows Of All Time but I know Ben doesn’t want to do it because understandably he doesn’t want to upset too many people in his line of business. I on the other hand have no such qualms, however I’m wary of descending into “best gameshows with Y in the title” style video list content. We’ll see. Letterbox would probably win anyway.
Some things I disagree with, although I think Ben is largely correct in this top ten:
Pokerface > Duel
I think Only Connect is a top 20 show, but I couldn’t put it that high.
Obviously Ben is wrong about Aztec.
Number 8, I never lost faith
It’s a triumph! Thank you, Ben, for all your hard and passionate work on this series… and I’m glad that your tastes are sufficiently close to mine that I can continue to talk to you. (Even if you did laugh at my football team, just because we eventually beat yours…) By the end, I was cheering every show as it appeared, because the shows I had in my head as possibles – and I’ve always been pretty open about what I thought you might be thinking – were ones where I was prepared to believe both that they might be very near the top of your list or outside your top ton altogether. (I would have been well prepared to believe that, say, Tipping Point might pop up at any moment.)
I salute you!
Fun bonus: work out who connects 3 of the top 4 shows.
Pity about Codex, though.
Nailed on for 101st.
I admit I don’t necessarily agree with most of this countdown, but I think (#8 not withstanding) he got the top 10 spot on!
And yes, I totally predicted #1!
The Cube is something you really missed out on if you never made a trip to Fountain Studios to be in the audience, absolutely fascinating to watch it without all the ‘telly magic’ as Schofield described it!
In fact as I was directly behind the friends and family area you can see me jump out of my seat in celebration when the contestant completes the £20,000 game on their last life (I think she was called Sophie, and was unique in the fact she only had one hand to take on The Cube!)
Plus they gave all the audience a Tunnock caramel wafer which is an instant win!
What was it like being in the audience for the Cube? How long did it take to set up the more complicated games?
While there is a lot I like about Only Connect number 2 is a bit high and something I didn’t see coming.
It’s interesting to see some of the shows that didn’t make the list…
Countdown, Family Fortunes and Tipping Point being major absentees.
Not sure if it’s been mentioned, but Challenge are showing Anthony Davis’ 1-series gameshow Stake Out in the mornings.
To tie that in to the Top 100, too, I’d quite like to see a top 10 of one-series wonders. Duel’s absolutely a given, of course, but what else? I was going to nominate one I was personally fond of – The Waiting Game – but no, two series
On style points alone, I reckon The Exit List makes it.
Admittedly it probably wouldn’t have sustained more than one series *anyway*, but I badly want to put Fluke in there somewhere.
Of all the Best Show of the Year award winners on the UKGameshows Poll, only Five Minutes to a Fortune and Duel were the ones to get just one series. Although there were a lot of 2-3 series then out.
Is there a list anywhere?
Just want to extend a huge thank you here for all the comments on Bothers Bar that have been informative, loving and helpful. Thank you so much. If you don’t have an audience you don’t have a purpose so its great I could rely on one throughout. Other than the first video, viewership has barely dropped throughout all ten videos of me rambling about gameshows and occasionally stroking a cat, and we are nearly at 1,000 views for the first ep.
If you wanna keep in touch with what I’m doing as I try and negotiate the labyrinth of gameshow, you can follow me on @RoarJustice where I’ll be sure to tweet any developments. In the meanwhile, I hope you you look forward to the next run of House Of Games which I developed many new games for as a games producer, alongside some fantastic games from others. Look out for the weirdest game to date and one game that just ‘pops’ right out.
Also keep your eyes out for The Wall and Alan Carr’s Epic Gameshow which both have lots of great people working on them.
Enough time has now passed, and as I just finished a list – here it is for you!
1 The Crystal Maze
2 Only Connect
3 Catchphrase
4 The Krypton Factor
5 Knightmare
6 Gladiators
7 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
8 Duel
9 The Cube
10 Robot Wars
11 The Moment Of Truth
12 Friends Like These
13 Take It Or Leave It
14 Turnabout
15 Wipeout
16 Deal Or No Deal
17 Five Minutes To A Fortune
18 Survivor
19 Sell Me The Answer
20 Blockbusters
21 Pointless
22 PokerFace
23 The Vault
24 All Clued Up
25 Trapped!
26 The Million Pound Drop
27 1 vs 100
28 Odd One Out
29 The People Versus
30 Going For Gold
31 The Code
32 Small Talk
33 Dog Eat Dog
34 Gamesmaster
35 Big Fat Quiz Of The Year/Everything
36 Blankety Blank
37 Keynotes
38 The Chase
39 Every Second Counts
40 Chain Letters
41 Bruce’s Price Is Right
42 Goldenballs
43 Tarby’s Frame Game
44 You Bet!
45 Wild Things
46 Eliminator
47 Take Your Pick
48 Strike It Lucky
49 Perfection
50 4 Square
51 Winning Lines
52 Incredible Games
53 Tenable
54 Runway
55 Scrapheap Challenge
56 HeadJam
57 Release The Hounds
58 Treasure Hunt
59 Body Heat
60 Incognito
61 1000 Heartbeats
62 Finders Keepers
63= Fluke
63= Whittle
65 Big Break
66 Jungle Run
67 The Movie Game
68 Wheel of Fortune
69 Eggheads
70 Lingo
71 The Mole
72 5 Gold Rings
73 Supermarket Sweep
74 Bullseye
75 The Weakest Link
76 Raise The Roof
77 Catchword
78 Impossible?
79 The Shiny Show
80 Run The Risk
81 Fifteen-to-One
82 Concentration
83 Scavengers
84 Lucky Ladders
85 Who Dares Wins
86 Cross Wits
87 To Me… To You…
88 Play Your Cards Right
89 Don’t Forget The Lyrics!
90 Fun House
91 The Almost Impossible Gameshow
92 !mpossible
93 Hive Minds
94 Beg, Borrow or Steal
95 Cyberzone
96 The Button
97 The $64,000 Question
98 In It To Win It
99 Terror Towers
100 Go Getters
With the possible exceptions of “The Almost Impossible Gameshow” and “Impossible?” (the latter mainly due to its flawed format and insistence that “if I can’t do this, then nobody could ever do this”), I think I would happily have every one of these 100 shows back on British TV (if they are not currently still in production).
Though upon further reflection, there’s a good number of these shows that were defined by their hosts, and probably wouldn’t work without them; which in some cases puts paid to the very thought.