First watched : Uncertain
Now we come to Anglia's most memorable contribution to the ITV network introduced with the phrase "And now, from Norwich, it's the quiz of the week" which unfortunately was much used for mockery by metrapolitan snobs. Granada was quite slow to pick this up, only broadcasting it from September 1974 when it was already three years old.
The show was hosted by Nicholas Parsons, supposedly a man we loved to hate for his smarminess and a regular target for The Goodies ( he was actually a good friend of Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor who regularly appeared on his radio show Just A Minute ) but actually a really nice bloke and a very skilful presenter. He was assisted Golden Shot-style by various "lovelies" and the off screen announcer John Benson whose fame was amplified by confusion with a footballer of the same name who played for Norwich City during the show's run.
We actually started watching this on the recommendation of my gran who'd seen it first. I liked it because the questions were much easier than those on Mastermind and I could "beat" some of the adult contestants. The three contestants had to buzz in to answer the questions and won or lost £5 depending on their answer. The money could be spent at Instant Sales where they competed with each other or an Open Sale of smaller items where they raced the clock ( this was later dropped ). Whoever had the highest total when the buzzer went after 25 minutes got the chance to win a car.
It ran till 1983 but has twice been revived on satellite channels since. Sky likes to claim that its 1989 version had the first TV appearance by Simon Cowell - he didn't do very well - but that's rubbish. He'd appeared on the BBC to promote the Wonderdog single back in 1982 and also Channel 4's Right To Reply since then.
Nicholas Parsons appears to be indestructible. At the age of 91 he's still doing Just A Minute on Radio 4 after 48 years and a comedy chat show slot at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
No comments:
Post a Comment