Okay, I'm back from the summer school so now there's time to get started on the TV shows that I used to watch when I was in England (1990-1993). Warning: I was between the age of 5 and 9, so this contains a lot of awful stuff. First off: (Game)shows.
- Perhaps the weirdest gameshow that I can remember was Channel 4's crystal maze. A bunch of contestants would run around a large set and complete quests/puzzles in rooms created on set in order to win crystals. For each crystal collected time was earned in the crystal dome, a transparent chamber with high wind speeds that kept a bunch of banknotes flying around. Any money that was caught could be kept. Random compilation clip here.
- A more traditional gameshow was ITV's Blockbusters, in which the object is to build a bridge (as far as I can remember) across a field of hexagons by answering a question correctly for each hexagon. The intro is up on youtube here.
- Though I can't find a clip of it to show how bad it was, I did occasionally watch Bob's your uncle, which is a gameshow in which newly weds would compete against each other. Probably it was popular because of Bob Monkhouse. Some info about the format is here.
- I also watched the Generation Game (which restarted in 1990 and ran until 2002, though started in 1971-1982) with the at that time popular Bruce Forsyth. Apparently the concept is Dutch, or so Wikipedia says here. The idea is that someone shows something (usually requiring training) and then unprepared contestants try to do the same. Also had some shows in between, such as this example here.
- And then there's Noel's houseparty, which showed al kinds of things, but will be remembered most for the creation of Mr. Blobby. Example from the show here. They even managed to get a Christmas No.1 hit with this terrible thing here.
