Also:
- It's Saturday Night
- 2. An autograph before you go
- 3. A new kind of game show
- 4. A rising exasperation with the quantity of dirt
- 5. The whole thing suddenly fell apart
- 6. Synthetic propensity
- 7. It was destined to be an anti-climax
- 8. This is your show now
- 9. The awesome scale of our wastefulness
- 10. Hands up those who couldn't care less
- 11. Together We’ll Be Ok
- 12. Decide the shape of ITV in the 1980s
- 13. Alan is too commercial
- 14. It worked like a dream
- 15. Older men, doing school boy tricks
- 16. Killing the Golden Goose
- 17. People love us to be sexy
- 18. The manure is worth more than the cattle
- 19. They were big in the States and we noted that
- 20. I’m still aggressive and I’m still handing out the insults
- 21. A new style of lunatic humour
- 22. The Habitat-bean-bag-hessian-wallpaper brigade
- 23. Thoroughly sinful
- 24. All carrots should be scraped, sliced and cooked
- 25. Back then it was radical stuff
- 26. Whatever they do, we can do it better
- 27. You'll have to take us as you find us
- 28. Entertainment that keeps on the move
- 29. It's the public that has to pay
- 30. The last we saw of either of them was their sad faces
- 31. Just shoot the bastard
- 32. Britain could clearly be facing its darkest hour
- 33. Any enthusiasm we may have had for continuing discussions is waning
- 34. It was considered by LWT and then put in a bottom drawer
- 35. Watch the redoubtable Terry take off
- 36. I thought it might be terrible and I wouldn’t enjoy it at all
- 37. Kamikaze Mastermind
- 38. We haven’t moved into luxury
- 39. We are investing in people
- 40. Delivered impeccably
- 41. He has to allow you to do your bit
- 42. All the anticipation of the great emotive point
- 43. If you want Russ Abbot to do it, then you have to accept me and my ideas
- 44. Let’s get straight into this
- 45. Unedifying Greed
- 46. We’ve got the fucking lot!
- 47. Scope for humour and danger
- 48. Pure Megablast
- 49. There’s lots of killing, but not much else
- 50. I wanted to make sure it was going to be disastrous
- 51. Oh dear – Auntie’s playing bingo!
- 52. A Shrivelled Little Thing
- 53. I shouldn’t have accepted it
- 54. We would be the spoilsports
- 55. The Most Sexless Person In Television
- 56. They’d have strung me up if I hadn’t chosen him
- 57. Is there some way to play with the internal constituent parts?
- 58. The most important entertainment programme of my time
- 59. The plumply pretty female duo
- 60. The audience just sort of started to freeze on him
- 61. More pilots than British Airways
- 62. There's going to come a time when you'll have to go to the BBC
- 63. A slightly pretentious manifesto
- 64. Things Look Very Precarious
- 65. It’s no good doing all the same old people all the time
- 66. That’s just not funny Bobby, it's corny - just don’t do that
- 67. Well bottom’s not funny
- 68. We Are The Funnymen
- 69. The powers that be listened to Denis
- 70. Stretchers never go up stairs
- 71. I was in obscurity until this series
- 72. I don’t care if he doesn’t like me
- 73. There’s such a passion for nostalgia right now
- 74. I Heard A Seat In The Stalls Go ‘Gerdonk!'
- 75. This is your show, folks, and I do mean you
- 76. There’s good news for perplexed fans of 3-2-1!
- 77. Taking on Blind Date would be a real challenge
- 78. You wanna bet on it?
- 79. The yarns worked their tried and tested magic
- 80. The Charge-And-Shout Brigade
- 81. I sat for a moment in silence, then turned in my chair and left the stage
- 82. We just weren't allowed into UK terrestrial television
- 83. Beadle’s A Prick
- 84. The interviewer always has to know when it's best to keep his or her mouth shut
- 85. Can you come up with a good solution for the Murder Weekend mystery?
- 86. He's not a goody- goody hero
- 87. The Sexism, The Dolly Birds, The Catchphrases
- 88. The feel of Saturday night
- 89. 1990 Who would employ an ex-alky with lowered self-esteem
- 90. It were a right smack in the face
- 91. Look Straight Into My Eyes And Everything Will Be Alright, That's A Promise
- 92. That's the last thing I was expecting, Jim
- 93. The characters and situations are real
- 94. Oh Man, There Go All My Women Fans
- 95. A Double Order of Talent
- 96. If there is an air of spontaneity about it, it’ll be genuine
- 97. NTV brings you ... empty rooms!
- 98. You’re BBC, you shouldn’t be here
- 99. If this doesn’t work out, we’re both snookered!
- 100. The humour of Beadle comes through humiliating people!
- 101. To allow such bilge on TV is an insult to the audience
- 102. Like a cup of cold sick
- 103. A litre of gin, ecstasy and crack cocaine
- 104. A reliable tent pole for Saturday evenings
- 105. It is in the cutlery drawer
- 106. Welcome to the new Saturday night
- 107. Congratulations, you have got the fucking Gen Game
- 108. The programme has done extremely badly and will be dropped after this series
- 109. Building the excitement and tension to a crescendo
- 110. He gives us our spirit of unity; we’d all like to strangle him
- 111. The worst programme currently on terrestrial television
- 112. I award the city state of Milton Keynes 100 credits!
- 113. There’s nothing that makes people scream, ‘Did you see that?’
- 114. It was of a standard frankly well below what the public would want
- 115. Waxing An Ape Is My Ambition
- 116. Don’t Get Mad, Get Even
- 117. The penalty shoot-out is the greatest ever endgame
- 118. 200 black boxes are strapped to the back of a cross-section of the nation
- 119. Better For You, Better For All Of Us
- 120. I mean who on earth thought that was a good idea?
- 121. I’m sure the tune was in there somewhere
- 122. This Time, You Decide
- 123. King of trash, that’s me
- 124. It’s about rejection now
- 125. They lost what Popstars was all about
- 126. Win the ads
- 127. A name in search of a series
- 128. Getting grief from the papers
- 129. I’m so pleased to be back on television
- 130. Saturday nights haven't been this interesting for 10 years
- 131. It’s the Usual Nonsense
- 132. The trip of a lifetime
- Epilogue: Why Haven't You Written a Series of Articles on Tuesday Night Telly?
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1987 would herald the departure of one of ITV’s longest running and most successful game shows. Produced by Yorkshire Television, and based on the Spanish game show Un, Dos, Tres, 3-2-1 had run very successfully since 1978. Unarguably a large part of the programme’s popularity was attributable to its likeable host, Ted Rogers. A former Red Coat and presenter of Sunday Night at the London Palladium, prior to 3-2-1Rogers had failed to secure a successful television programme of his very own. Yet from day one it seemed impossible to imagine the Yorkshire television series hosted by anyone else.
The programme’s earliest years were a bit ramshackle and the three part format (hence the title) overly complicated. However, Rogers along with trusty sidekick (and booby prize), Dusty Bin somehow managed to navigate the viewer through each edition. Each week, a number of contestants would have to compete in a quiz, before the victors got to sit through sketches and songs by performers such as Fascinating Aida, Frankie Howerd, Vince Hill and Stan Boardman; after which they had to attempt to decipher some of the most wilfully obscure cryptic clues ever seen on a television show. The object of this part of the game was to try and identify the clue associated with that week’s star prize. In addition, the contestants also had to weed out which cryptic quizzer was linked to Dusty Bin.
The production team continued to refine the format almost until the series’ demise and minor changes were made throughout the series’ long run. However, in 1985 a dramatic overhaul was on the cards. It was reported at the time that “there’s good news for perplexed fans of 3-2-1! The hugely popular game show is back, and it’s better than ever. Better, that is, if you are one of those who found the ITV game a little hard to follow. The show … has been streamlined for the new series … in such a way as to make it even easier to follow. The prizes will be revealed at the start of each show. Out go the sketches, to be replaced most weeks, by a variety bill with a theme … There will also be new sets and a new style quiz too.”
To the bemusement of Yorkshire Television (whose constant tinkering of the format betrayed a lack of trust in the series), 3-2-1consistently pulled in large ratings. The first series attracted up to 16.5 million viewers, and subsequent years never failed to peak at 12 million or above. 3-2-1’s final Christmas special (broadcast on 19 December 1987) attracted 12.5 million viewers, so why it was subsequently cancelled remains a mystery. Perhaps like Opportunity Knocks, the IBA felt that the show had run for long enough, or perhaps Yorkshire felt the series was becoming irrevocably outdated (which it undeniably was). Its demise was greeted by many with sadness. Ted Rogers himself found it difficult to find further television work and in 1992, he apparently lost his most of his savings during the recession. He did however continue to appear in numerous pantomimes right up until his death in 2001, doubtless making great play of his famous hand gesture that used to open each edition of 3-2-1.
Next Monday: 1988 – Taking on Blind Date would be a real challenge
richardpd
February 25, 2019 at 1:19 pm
I heard that 3-2-1 was a victim of ITV clearing out programming they felt was too old & working class, though I always thought it would be too Middle England to be working class.
Supposedly Ted Rogers wasn’t pleased, claiming that ITV had too many “university boys” running the channel.
Glenn Aylett
February 25, 2019 at 10:15 pm
I always wondered where 3-2-1 was as it was one of ITV’s few Saturday night hits in the late seventies and seemed to have a steady following on Saturdays until it was cancelled in 1987.
Perhaps 3-2-1 had run its course after nine years, and was facing serious competition from Casualty, but sadly did leave Ted Rogers with no other work and he lost everything for reasons mentioned above.