Not all TV game shows hit the target

PAV’S PATCH
I FOUND myself watching a repeat of “Bullseye” the other night. You know, the one with Jim Bowen where he kept saying “super, wonderful”.

It was his stock answer to everything, even when one of the contestants revealed that he had recently been made redundant.

I can’t claim to be the biggest fan of game shows — especially the tripe they trot out nowadays — but “Bullseye” was something of a Sunday teatime ritual.

Twenty-odd years ago, when there was only four channels, you took what you could get.
My parents watched any game show, even the truly appalling “Blind Date”.

So “Bullseye” was always on and I always watched it, if only to laugh at the way Jim Bowen would make people take a look at what they could have won. Bit cruel.

The former Mrs P couldn’t bear to watch “Love Boat” because that reminded her of tired Sundays at her mother’s.

Years ago, the Sunday ritual involved “The Golden Shot”. This was broadcast live from the heart of Birmingham. It involved people shooting at all manner of convoluted targets using a crossbow. It would climax in an attempt to hit a bull’s eye and cut a string, allowing a chest to open and gold coins to cascade out. Well, I think they were gold but we only had a black and white telly.

You could win as much as 900 guineas — that’s £945. You may scoff, but I can remember the days of “Take Your Pick” with Michael Miles. People would swoon over a treasure chest containing 50 quid.

Trouble was, it was by no means unknown for contestants to miss the target on “The Golden Shot” and the show would overrun and the big finish would have to be put off to the start of the following week’s show.

Another weird game show was “Three, Two, One” in which people had to work out clues so that they won a decent prize rather than Dusty Bin. Sounds fine but the clues were the sort of thing you needed a Bletchley code breaker to solve. When host Ted Rogers revealed the answer, you’d find yourself saying out loud “what?”

Then there was “Going for Gold” which was supposed to be a pan-European quiz. That didn’t quite work, and the winners were almost always from the UK or Republic of Ireland. Somehow, poor old Wolfgang from Austria would never press his buzzer.

But I found all these things infinitely preferable to “Deal or No Deal”. What’s all that hugging and crying about?