Rather wonderfully, Chris (well worth a Youtube follow for this sort of thing) has uploaded the first ever episode of CBBC’s Get Your Own Back.
A few things of note, thirty years on:
- I always really liked the Brain Box bit – good music, fun physical element, but it really needed to be either a) a bit longer or b) needed some other element as there’s not enough score variance in it really. This is less of an issue when the show stopped being eliminatory.
- Has any other show used the “obvious correct answers beginning with a letter which yours cannot” mechanic, from the Gunk Dunk? I always thought this was a mechanic that’d work pretty well in a more comedy-based quiz and I don’t think I’ve seen it used anywhere.
I also highly recommend Jack’s Throwback Attack’s interview with Dave Benson-Philips.
I used to watch a lot of GYOB as a child. I started watching on and off about series 3-5. It wasn’t until series 6 (when the show transitioned from the “fairground” era to the “stadium” era (series 6-11) as I call it, that I started to watch it religiously.
So many memories from this show, the Gunk Dunk of course, Memorable contestants (I remember one grown up who turned up driving a milk float!), iconic games, such as Squeal on the Wheel, Toast Terror, Bounce Back etc.
And of course, who can forget Dave Benson Phillips’es excitable presenting. You can tell that he really loved every second of hosting this show (Except for the occasions when he himself got gunged!). Dave, along with Noel Edmunds and Pat Sharp, seemed to have an Oligopoly on the UK’s supply of gunge!
What strikes me is how much the show changed and evolved over the years. You could show an episode from 1991 and 2001 back to back and they seem like completely different shows, the Gunk Dunk being the only thing they have in common, and even then, they kept changing that too! I don’t think I can think of any other tv game show that has changed so much over the years!
I would love to see GYOB return, even DBP himself has said he is ready and able just in case CBBC (or presumably another broadcaster) decides to bring it back.
I could totally see this as a one-off “Ant vs Dec” challenge on Saturday Night Takeaway; maybe have an Undercover victim (or even a member of the public) try to get their own back on Ant and/or Dec.
Any ideas as to how this show should be revived? (And no, “Fewer games to bring out the contestant’s personalities” doesn’t count!)