DIDN’T THEY DO WELL!
As the BBC announces the return of The Generation Game we look back at the heyday of the popular show
WITH its slapstick games, cheesy catchphrases and conveyor belt of endearingly naff prizes, who could forget The Generation Game as the compulsive family TV show of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s?
Now the best-loved game show in Britain’s TV history is set to return to our screens, hosted by former Great British Bake Off presenters Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins after Miranda Hart turned down the gig when the revamp was first mooted last year.
One of the most successful TV programmes of the decade, with viewing figures of more than 20 million at its peak, The Generation Game was an overnight hit when it launched in 1971.
Hosted by Bruce Forsyth and Anthea Redfern, his glamorous Girl Friday, the pair ended up marrying but later divorced.
When they took to the stage he’d ask her to “give us a twirl” and would gee the audience up every Saturday night by telling them, “Nice to see you, to see you – nice!”, both of them catchphrases that were bandied around school playgrounds and family dinner tables across the country.
Brucie also sang the show’s theme tune, Life Is The Name Of The Game. He hosted the show twice, first from 1971-77 and then again from 1990-1994, clocking up almost 200 episodes over 12 series, including various specials.
Each episode involved four pairs from different families who were a generation apart – typically mums and sons, dads and daughters, uncles and nieces – competing against one another in a series of challenges.
During one of the most popular rounds of the game they had to observe a skilled professional demonstrate something such as icing a cake, making the perfect Cornish pasty or performing a tricky song and dance routine before attempting to do the same themselves.
The more disastrous their efforts the better, for a huge part of the show’s charm was that it wasn’t about excelling at a task, but for contestants to be up for embroiling themselves in its trademark tomfoolery.
This meant they could fail spectacularly at a challenge yet still score highly from the judges simply for being entertaining or having a jolly good go.
Of course, the pièce-derésistance was the conveyor belt finale when the couple who’d scored the most points would win all the objects on it that they could memorise, including the famous cuddly toy.
BRUCIE defected to ITV in 1977. His replacement was the camp comic Larry Grayson – with his own Girl Friday, Isla St Clair.
Grayson soon had millions of kids – including my brother and I – driving their parents and teachers nuts by relentlessly copying his catchphrases “Shut that door” and “What a gay day”.
Part of his calamitous appeal was that he pretended not to know what he was doing, always making a comical hash of it when he tried out the games himself.
But the show was hit by a fall in ratings when ITV launched Game For A Laugh in 1981 in direct competition with The Generation Game. A year later, Grayson, who died in 1995, decided it was time to quit while the show was still popular and when Jimmy Tarbuck then turned down the BBC’s approach to replace him The Generation Game was no more.
That was until eight years later in 1990 when it was revived with Bruce Forsyth back at the helm and the old familiar theme tune blaring out once again.
His new glamorous sidekick was brunette Rosemarie Ford, who’d just finished a stint as the leading lady in the musical Cats.
There was rapturous applause from the studio audience when Bruce’s opening line on his first Generation Game show for 13 years was, “It’s nice to see you, to see you, nice!”
Bruce left for a second time in 1994 to present The Price Is Right on ITV, while comedian Jim Davidson took over The Generation Game with a steady succession of glamorous hostesses including Sally Meen and Melanie Stace.
After 124 episodes over seven series, the show was taken off air in 2002 when the BBC decided it wanted a new type of entertainment programme.
Fast forward 15 years however and it seems that cheese is, once again, the name of the game. The BBC claims the new version of the 1970s classic will be bigger and better than ever before with “a hilarious selection of brand new games and challenges for families of all ages to play in the studio and enjoy watching at home”.
In a bid to guarantee the same fun-factor that made the show famous, there will be no rehearsals for contestants and they will find out which game they’re playing only when Mel and Sue pluck them from their seats.
The show will initially return for four episodes – presumably to gauge audience response – and while it has not yet been confirmed when it will air, would-be contestants must get their applications in by August 25.
One thing’s for certain. The Beeb will be hoping that the overwhelming reaction to the new Generation Game – both from the adults who grew up with the show and their own kids watching it this time around – will be very much, “It’s nice to see you, to see you, nice!”