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TV: T is for...

Telly Addicts

AH, MONDAY NIGHTS IN THE ’80S, and NOEL EDMONDS bringing us the very definition of redoubtable family fare with his relaxed and beige TV-related quiz. Nothing less than a low-powered glory, you don’t need us to sketch in the format, do you? Two families battle it out over thirty minutes to prove they know most about TV. Now cue the clips. But, really, it’s all in the details with this show: the air raid siren; the “hoofer-doofer”; Noel throwing a question to the studio audience with a cry of “telly addicts?”; blanked out Radio Times billings; Sing the Sig; the USS Enterprise zapping the TARDIS in the titles (and prompting an angry letter to Dreamwatch Bulletin); “The NME – is that still going?”; stars setting questions in pre-recorded cutaways piped in to appear live (“I’m very well Noel, now, team…”); the Aches vs the Pains; “Let’s go… on the box!”; “This has never happened before in the modern history of Telly Addicts!” and so on. Total teatime viewing until a minor revamp in 1994, which saw the addition of novelty scorer Charles, and the families axed to make way for darts teams and book groups with names like ‘Swords and Daggers’ and, of course, ‘Warrior’s Gate’. Come 1998, though, and things got catastrophic: out went the sofas to make way for wine bar stools, pointless running about…and shrieking. Spawned a couple of board games (one of which included the question “Which series does Sheena McDonald present?” – but no answer) and, more recently, a nifty play-at-home DVD. PLEASE keep it moving through the Spotlight round.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Lee James Turnock

    May 4, 2010 at 3:05 pm

    I used to watch this series purely for the archive footage. It’s easy to forget that back in the eighties, and a large part of the nineties, we didn’t have YouTube or any of that fancy stuff, so the only way you were likely to see a bit of the Goodies, Rutland Weekend Television or Spike Milligan on telly was either to build yourself a time machine, or to watch Telly Addicts or Windmill and hope for the best…

  2. Richardpd

    October 23, 2021 at 10:27 pm

    I also used to like watching this too for the rare clips, for the same reasons as Lee mentioned.

    Over the years it jumped around the schedules, going from midweek to Saturdays in 1987 when Noel was in big Sautrday night show exile, to eventually settle for Monday nights for a few years.

    The Krypton Factor, followed by a switch to BBC1 for Watchdog & Telly Addicts was the backbone of my Autumn Monday nights TV for many years.

    I can remember the Payne family winning lots of times one series, which lead to the challenge format being replaced by a knock-out format.

    Over the years they tried a lot of gimmicks, like the teams cosplaying their favourite TV characters at the start of the show, the testcard joker card, & mascot Knobby popping up randomly in a clip later on.

    Occasionally Noel had to consult an off-screen adjudicator to verify and answer that wasn’t on the cards.

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