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Whatever Next!

NOEL’S Blue Jam-style post-Whirly Wheelgate ‘soft launch’ reinvention with a low-key top-of-the-week start-of-the-evening game show based on… well, nobody was quite sure really. Some kind of ‘Stop The Film’ conceit based on proto-Bungalow comedy larks in public places, intermingled with… something about stuff hidden inside a wall? No, us neither. Chiefly remembered for razzle-dazzly madcap brass section theme tune antics and of-its-time title sequencage involving Noel ‘teleporting’ in and out of clips, including one where he appeared to be fleeing some bloke at high speed in a market whilst wielding a novelty oversized match. They really don’t make ’em like that any more.

9 Comments

9 Comments

  1. David Smith

    February 10, 2015 at 12:28 am

    As I recall this show boasted (if that’s tge word) one of those theme tunes that was an implied singalong of the title (see also Family For-tunes, How-ard’s Way and my personal favourite of the genre – which must have a name – Death of an Ex-pert Wit-ness), the last shot of the opening credits featuring Noel popping up jauntily and mouthing “Whatever Next” in time with the music. But no, whatever did come next, I similarly have scant recollection.

  2. Richard16378

    February 10, 2015 at 1:16 pm

    I remember one feature was getting people to pick a £20 note from the bottom of a tank of maggots.

  3. Mick B

    March 3, 2015 at 1:19 am

    Referenced rather smartly on the Question Of Spit sketch for Comic Relief – back when comics made the effort to genuinely entertain in exchange for we viewers saving Africa.

    It’s on Youtube, so give Spitting Image a watch.

  4. Rob J

    December 6, 2016 at 7:52 pm

    The teams on this show were bizarre partnerships. Bloke and his bank manager, woman and her milkman. As for the content…no idea.

  5. Jonathan

    February 13, 2019 at 11:08 pm

    It wasn’t a “novelty oversized match”, it was a rose wrapped in paper.

    I remember one episode where Noel ended up linking arms with a police officer and skipping down a street with him. No idea why.

    • MartS

      May 7, 2019 at 1:39 pm

      I can answer the question posed above. It (apart from the aformentioned mouthing of the show title in the titles by Mr E was) was the only thing I can remember from the show – as well as watching one episode in a Little Chef Travelodge on the A34 at Sutton Scotney.

      That sequence Johnathan can remember came from the rip-off ‘what happens next?’ round from a QoS.
      So the set up was, Noel was conducting filmed interviews – Dame Esther style – and was interrupted by a policeman asking what he was doing. Noel said something about filming, and the policeman asked to see the ‘permit to film’. Film stops, back in the studio to contestants, what happens next?

      When the film restarts, Noel says he doesn’t have a permit, and the policeman says in that case he’ll have to accompany down to the station. At which point Noel produces a harmonica, and arm in arm, plays a tune whilst skipping arm in arm with the PC into the near distance.

      Why, this bit of the show remains beached on my memory sandbanks is a totally mystery. It’s not even a decent joke.

      • Jonathan

        July 2, 2019 at 11:40 pm

        I’d forgotten all about the harmonica bit until you reminded me. What a load of rubbish.

        Believe it or not, I can remember the contestant was a woman called Gaye (Noel laughed at her name, it was the 1980s after all) and she even told him that it was a stupid scene. How was anyone supposed to guess that?

        I remember Noel asking a “vicar” on a bike if he’d leap frog over a post box, as well.

        It’d be great if Challenge repeated it, just so I could get angry watching it again.

  6. Glenn Aylett

    May 9, 2019 at 12:28 pm

    Can’t have been any worse than Deal Or No Deal, probably the most pointless game show ever, involving absolutely no skill or intelligence whatsoever, that Noel presided over for 11 tedious years. Yet can’t remember Whatever Next and its short run and bizarre challenges probably explain why.

  7. Jonathan

    July 2, 2019 at 11:41 pm

    I’d forgotten all about the harmonica bit until you reminded me. What a load of rubbish.

    Believe it or not, I can remember the contestant was a woman called Gaye (Noel laughed at her name, it was the 1980s after all) and she even told him that it was a stupid scene. How was anyone supposed to guess that?

    I remember Noel asking a “vicar” on a bike if he’d leap frog over a post box, as well.

    It’d be great if Challenge repeated it, just so I could get angry watching it again.

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