Countdown (game show)

After watching the programme, Belgian record executive Marcel Stellman brought the format to Britain on the belief it could be popular overseas and proposed his concept for the British version to several networks.The concept was purchased in the early 1980s by Yorkshire Television, which commissioned a series of eight shows under the title Calendar Countdown, which were broadcast between April and June 1982.[11] Amongst these who have appeared on the programme are Nigel Rees, Jo Brand, Martin Jarvis, Richard Digance, Geoffrey Durham, Ken Bruce, Magnus Magnusson, Pam Ayres, Paul Zenon, Jenny Eclair, Al Murray, John Sergeant and Gyles Brandreth.Over time, the additional hostesses on the programme were dropped by production staff who retained Vorderman and assigned her primarily to handle the selection of letter and number tiles, as well as verifying contestant calculations.The programme frequently rotated between various lexicographers, including Richard Samson and Alison Heard, for each series, until in 2003, the role was permanently given to Susie Dent, after her debut on Countdown in 1992.[15] Channel 4 proposed reducing his travelling by moving filming from Leeds to a site closer to his residence in Worthing, West Sussex, but viewers reacted angrily to the idea[15] and Lynam decided it would cause considerable disruption for many of the programme's camera crew.[21] At the same time there was speculation that several prominent women, including Anthea Turner, Ulrika Jonsson and Myleene Klass were strong candidates to take over Carol Vorderman's job,[22] but Channel 4 revealed that the role was to be assigned to a previously unknown male or female arithmetician with "charm and charisma".[28] In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced that Colin Murray (a frequent Dictionary Corner guest) would fill in for Nick Hewer while he spent a period of time in isolation during the UK's second lockdown.[33] On each episode, the prize for defeating the reigning champion (or for claiming the championship when two new contestants compete) is a teapot that is styled to resemble the renowned clock used in each round.[35] David Acton (winner of Series 31) opted for a CD-ROM version of the dictionaries, not wanting to accept leather-bound books owing to his strict veganism, and donated the monetary difference in the prices to charity.For example, David Acton and Kenneth Michie returned for a rematch of their Series 31 final, while brothers and former contestants Sanjay and Sandeep Mazumder played off against each other on 20 December 2004.If neither contestant can solve it, the presenter asks whether anyone in the audience knows the answer and if so, chooses someone to call it out (this practice was stopped temporarily in 2009 to avoid difficulties with camera angles after the studio layout was changed).Executive producer John Meade once commissioned Alan Hawkshaw to revise the music for extra intensity to introduce at the start of Series 31 in January 1996; after hundreds of complaints from viewers, the old tune was reinstated after just 12 shows.Six years later, in January 2009, the set received another redesign with a numerical blue theme and the letters and numbers boards mounted on opposite sides of a single display stand.New modern displays for the scores and the numbers round came in January 2013 while the set received a slight redesign in July 2017 while retaining the blue background which has been used to up to the most recent series.The change to the present format was made on 25 March 2013, three weeks into the second section of Series 68, to comply with Channel 4's decision to increase the amount of advertising and to alter the times when they occur during the programme, therefore reducing Countdown's actual show length from 36 to 35 minutes.[65] On Christmas Day 1987, Nic Brown set the highest score difference ever achieved in a standard 14-round game, beating Joel Salkin 108–36, a margin of 72 points.[67] In April 2013, Giles Hutchings, a student at Royal Grammar School, Guildford broke the record for the highest octochamp score, amassing 965 points over 8 games.[72] Contestants who have or had become notable for other reasons include Nuts magazine editor-at-large Pete Cashmore, rugby player Ayoola Erinle, footballers Neil MacKenzie, Clarke Carlisle and Matt Le Tissier, musicians Jon Marsh and Nick Saloman, comedian Alex Horne, noted Irish playwright Peter Sheridan and professional darts referee Kirk Bevins, who won Series 60 and was a quarter-finalist in the 30th Birthday Championship.Countdown was referenced again in a later series in "Last of the Time Lords" (2007), where Professor Docherty expresses a keen fondness for the show and how it "hasn't been the same since Des took over—both Deses".[75] On 2 February 2017, the board for the letters round was "M T H I A E D H S", and with both players offering sevens, Dictionary Corner found the word "shithead", which was bleeped out in the audio and censored on-screen with the poo emoji.[77] In a sketch "Countdown to Hell" from the comedy show A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Stephen Fry lampooned Richard Whiteley's punning style and Hugh Laurie played one of the contestants, while Gyles Brandreth (played by Steve Steen), presented with the letters "bollocsk", got the (non-)word "sloblock" (supposedly meaning exactly the same as "bollocks").[78] The show also has a fleeting reference in British sitcom The Office when Chris 'Finchy' Finch attempts to insult temporary worker Ricky when he explains he had a job to pay for his studies.In 1999, when Whiteley was a guest, the numbers game was copied along with the clock music and at the end of the show was a conundrum, "PHANIOILS", to which the answer was Ian Hislop.Whiteley did not uncover the joke until House Party presenter Noel Edmonds appeared on the set, having revealed the unusually short conundrum of HOGCAT to be "gotcha" at the end of the programme.Moss stuns everyone, including Jeff Stelling and Rachel Riley (both playing themselves), by declaring that the 9 letter string TNETENNBA is in fact a word.Later, Moss becomes an octochamp and is consequently invited into an underground club named "8+", where he competes in a game of "Street Countdown" as part of a spoof of Boogie Town.[80] In an episode from spring 2011, the Blackpool-supporting producer of the show arranged the conundrum PNECRISIS ("priciness"), poking fun at their local rivals Preston North End's relegation from the Championship in the 2010–11 season.[81] The game has also been played on a number of different programmes, notably as the first challenge in "What's Next" on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, featuring the pair versus one of the duo's old head teachers.In 2010, it was played as a shopping task on the final Channel 4 series of Celebrity Big Brother, with a team of housemates competing in the house against the then current champion, Chris Davies, in the Countdown studio via satellite.