Dale Winton
They don’t make gameshow hosts like him any more
Dale Winton may be easily dismissed in some quarters as a genial but trivial light entertainer. But to many of us aged between 35 and 50, he was a hero evocative of an entire era. And it’s all thanks to one cheap ’n’ cheerful game show. “Next time you’re at the checkout and you hear the beep, think of all the fun you could be having on Supermarket Sweep.” It might not be the snappiest of catchphrases but it’s one that chimed with a generation of daytime television viewers. It’s this generation who will be mourning Winton’s death at the age of 62.
As host of unashamedly naff Nineties quiz Supermarket Sweep, Winton became a soothing presence in the background of many a student hangover – including my own.
No matter what had happened the night before or how many essays you had to write, just hearing that jaunty theme tune with its refrain of “Check it out!” meant that all was right with the world. Supermarket Sweep was a restorative guilty pleasure. And yes, I admit it: Winton’s show was the cause of many a missed lecture.
My housemates and I would watch in rapt amusement as two-person teams in neon sweatshirts answered easy trivia questions to accumulate seconds on the clock. This would determine how long they had to dash like headless chickens around a studio mock-up of a supermarket, collecting groceries in a demented trolley dash – or going “wild in the aisles”, as Winton put it.
“Forget the little stuff!” we would find ourselves shouting at the screen. “Not the tinned peas! Go for the big cuts of meat!” It was inane. We can’t have been the only viewers who idly dreamt of going on the show ourselves and spent many a happy hour honing our strategy and fantasising about how we’d spend the £2,000 jackpot.
Based on a fiendishly compelling US format created by Al Howard, who also devised Sale of the Century, Supermarket Sweep spawned 13 international versions, a board game and even a spin-off pop single.
Over all the grocery-themed goings-on presided Winton, a game show host straight from central casting. He had been told to play Supermarket Sweep straight for the first series and it was, by his own admission, terrible. He begged ITV to let him camp it up. When they agreed, the show took off.
Many won’t quite grasp the appeal and frankly, I don’t blame them. To the uninitiated or snobbish, Winton was a perma-grinning, orange-tanned cheeseball whose work – not just Supermarket Sweep but also Pets Win Prizes, In It to Win It, Touch the Truck and Hole in the Wall – was unlikely to trouble the Bafta judges.
A cross between Larry Grayson and Bob Monkhouse, Winton was a throwback to the golden age of light entertainment. He was superb at dealing with the general public, with the generous charm and mischievous chit-chat of an old friend.
Being a game show host was his major career ambition, and one he was refreshingly honest about. As his friend Vanessa Feltz said yesterday: “Dale wanted the suit, the catchphrases, the studio audience, the lot – and he got them all.”
Yet there was always a twinkle of self-awareness or an eyebrow arched in amusement. Indeed, Winton added to his quintessentially Nineties CV a string of self-mocking cameos. He sent up his gameshow persona in Danny Boyle’s 1996 film Trainspotting, donning a pink lamé jacket to play the game show host who appears to hallucinating junkie Ewan Mcgregor.
He was a guest on post-pub “yoof TV” favourite The Word, where the studio audience gave him a hero’s welcome. He popped up in sitcom
Gimme Gimme Gimme, appearing alongside Kathy Burke in a saucy dream sequence. Just to boost his Britpop credibility, he starred in Sleeper’s Inbetweener video and compèred a St Etienne gig. He became the poster boy for knowingly ironic kitsch, beloved by teenagers, housewives and pensioners alike. Daytime game shows nowadays can still become cult hits – see current favourites Pointless, Tipping Point and
The Chase – but they’re much slicker affairs, all moody lighting and tensionbuilding tricks.
They don’t make shows like
Supermarket Sweep or hosts like Dale Winton any more, more’s the pity. As he once said: “I’ll never be David Frost. But if I’m going to be a quiz show host – and I’m good for nothing else – then I’ll do it properly.” Next time you’re at the checkout and hear the beep, spare a thought for dear old Dale. I hope he’s going wild in heaven’s aisles.
My friends and I would watch in rapt amusment. ‘Forget the little stuff!’ we would shout at the screen