First viewed : 26 September 1981
This became one of the great success stories of the early eighties despite having one of the most charmless presenting line-ups ever.
It was the brainchild of Jeremy Beadle who developed it with US producer Michael Hill after the BBC rejected the pilot for a similar show. It was the first practical joke show since the demise of Candid Camera but it was also influenced by Crackerjack and Tiswas in the studio-based sections. Beadle himself , a malevolent gnome-like figure, presented it assisted by the appalling Matthew Kelly ( initially with a broken leg sustained in a parachute jump which sadly didn't finish him off ) , the equally odious Henry Kelly who came across as an Irish used car salesman and most incongruously, the frumpy Sarah Kennedy who seemed more suited to a BBC 2 arts programme than something as stridently lowbrow as this. Perhaps Beadle saw her presence as a trick in itself .
Some of the set-ups were quite funny and for me were the only bits worth watching in a show that ran at a frantic pace so I never loved it.
It ran for four years but as it relied so much on surprise, it had a built in obsolescence factor and all three of Beadle's co-presenters recognised this and got out while the going was good, After one season with a new team featuring the supremely annoying Rustie Lee the show was put to bed in 1985.
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