The sad news is that Sky One is being axed, to be replaced by Sky Showcase and Sky Max (“same taste, no sugar”). What gameshow legacy does it leave behind?
- Bob Mills fronted Games World. Classic.
- The Rose of Montreux winning Wild Things. Great.
- A League Of Their Own.
- The New Price Is Right
- Sale of the Century
- Love At First Sight
- Er.
- That safe breaking thing with Ben Shepherd.
- Little Monsters?
Farewell.
Edit: Of course, we can’t forget (although I did) Liza Tarbuck’s Blockbusters. Like all reboots of Blockbusters, it’s not on any more.
Lest we forget the Gethin Jones classic ‘Sell Me The Answer’ and Jerry Springer’s ‘Nothing But The Truth’!
“I’m Jerry Springer!”
Don’t Forget, Don’t forget the lyrics
Don’t forget “Don’t forget the lyrics”
Also Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old, Gladiators reboot and Circ Du Celebrity – all around the time it really was trying to be a proper channel and not the fragmented mess that it has become today
Fragmented mess is the sad truth, isn’t it? I wonder what non-terrestrial channels have got closest to reaching ‘proper channel’ status in the recent past, Dave maybe?
Also just remembered the UK version of ‘Jeopardy!’ was Sky, wasn’t it? And everyone’s favourite darts-based-quiz-show, ‘One Hundred And Eighty’!
*A* UK version of Jeopardy certainly.
And actually Glads was OK and 180 had some fun ideas in trying to differentiate it from Bullseye, quite clever end game.
I would like to see Cirque du Celebrity revived soon but on ITV or Channel 4 as they will be likely to pick it up and put it on Saturday nights in the summer (Not whilst the BBC has something bigger on)
How have we all forgotten Britain’s Hardest, with Phil Mitchell?
Fear Factor UK was…actually alright.
One show that always pops up in my mind for whatever reason is Beat the Crusher with Freddie Starr and Melinda Messenger
That was on Sky One?! I remember seeing that as a kid, I thought it was a fever dream!
It was! I wonder how much of it was real and how much of it was put on, it’s one thing when it’s you putting your own stuff on the line, there seemed to be several “surprise” segments where people were set up.
“It’s time to play… Dirty Money… and the clock… is ticking.”
Marcus posted about that show on his Insta just last week, in fact.
Naturally, Davina follows him – and, of course, she hosted Got to Dance.
Spellbound with Paul Coia…you got a gamecard with Sky’s TV-Times-style magazine they sent to subscribers each month, and you could win a prize playing along at home. The show was recorded, I think, with live links inserted into the show to allow the home players to phone in and win. I used to try and spot the continuity errors – for example Paul would wear the same outfit he wore for the recording, but his lapel mic would jump about…and he’d always do a bit of business like “while they’re getting ready for the final…” and look into the distance while we saw footage of the contestants being herded into place by a floor manager…
Yes very much so, I saw an episode of Spellbound on YT quite recently having not seen it since it originally went out and the links are extremely obvious now in a way a less media-savvy person might not have spotted in the mid-90s.
There was also The Heist which I found to be quite an enjoyable watch, even if it was staged.
There was Revolution a couple of years ago as well which I really enjoyed but practically nobody watched, because it was on Sky One.
There was a dull quiz with Carol Vorderman that was based around sudoku to try and cash in on sudoku briefly being really big. But the sudoku puzzles they used were so painfully easy there was no tension whatsoever.
And not a quiz but they had a show centred around debating that was called ‘Kings and Queens of Speech’. It took me years to realise that was meant to be a pun on ‘The King’s Speech’, presumably a commissioner freaking out that the title might be sexist whilst completely making the connection unclear.
Yeah that’s amazing, you read that and go “is that a pun on something?”
I’m trying to remember what US gameshows were shown on Sky One. I’m sure there was Classic Concentration for a while, at least, and I *think* it was in a double-bill with something else, but I’m not sure what the other was.
Certainly late eighties, early nineties they had something called “Panel Pot Pourri” every morning, which was three US shows – Classic Concentration was definitely there, as was $100,000 Pyramid, can’t remember what else was there.
Lifestyle was the other place that showed quite a lot of US shows – Joker’s Wild, Tic Tac Dough, Now You See It, probably more.