Weaver's Week 2024-07-21

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The latest instalment of our countdown of which game shows have made the most episodes, with nods to Broken TV for the original idea, and a UKGS editor for "unique episodes" spin. We're going from A to Z, in reasonably strict alphabetical order. Qualification for a full write-up is 500 episodes, or 100 primetime episodes, and we only count episodes aired before the end of 2023.

Last time, Countdown came straight in at number one, and must surely be favourite for the overall title. This time, a show that probably doesn't count, one that bookended Rediffusion's time on air, and our one trip to Arg.

Contents 1 The game shows with the most episodes (part 6 of a summer-long series) (assuming we ever get a summer) 1.1 Do I Not Know That? 1.2 Does the Team Think? 1.3 Double Your Money 1.4 Dragons' Den 1.5 Eggheads 1.6 Eurovision Song Contest 1.7 Every Second Counts 2 Top show tables 2.1 Overall 2.2 Primetime shows 3 In other news

The game shows with the most episodes (part 6 of a summer-long series) (assuming we ever get a summer)

Do I Not Know That?

Who expected the ITV Sport channel to turn up in this roundup? Simon O'Brien hosted a cheap schedule filler, inviting fans of pretty much every football team to test their knowledge against each other. A game played by three teams at once, unlike the football on which it's based.

Nine groups of nine teams played a round robin (12 matches in each group), then top three in each group progressed to a knockout final. Our editors at the time reckoned this was well worth its time, and could come back in a general knowledge form – if someone's prepared to commission episodes for half a year. 121 primetime episodes, neatly ending just as the channel came off air.

Does the Team Think?

What happens if you take The Brains Trust, and take away the panel's brains? Something something BBC1 Question Time doe ho ho ho ho ho ho ho.

Chairman MacDonald Hobley invited members of the audience to ask moderately serious questions, about which the panel had no prior knowledge. The comedians would respond with improvised jokes, one-liners, and anything to keep up the flow of laughs, but always ensuring that their responses were factual. Another guest would join the show about halfway through proceedings, and ask a question of their own. The chair would award points on a capricious basis, and declare an almost arbitrary winner.

Radio historian Paul Donovan pointed out how the show was cheap to make, because off-the-cuff improvisations meant there was no scriptwriter to pay. It dotted about the schedule – Tuesday evenings, Sunday lunchtimes, even a repeat at 8.30am – in the Light Programme from 1958 to 1976. Jimmy Edwards, who devised it, was nearly always on the panel, along with Ted Ray, Tommy Trinder, and Arthur Askey.

Does the Team Think? began as a Sunday evening show in the Light Programme (41 prime time episodes by the end of 1959, when we've arbitrarily decided that radio no longer counts as prime time). We're unclear what happened between 1970 and 1973, when episodes appear to have been produced for both Radio 2 and Radio 4; we could be double-counting up to 60 episodes if Radio 4 was repeating shows heard previously on Radio 2. The original radio run came to an end in September 1976, after 446 episodes.

There was a revival on Radio 2 in the late aughts, 16 episodes there. Does the Team Think? also transferred to television, without much success – 8 episodes on the Beeb in 1961, 14 eps on Thames in the early 1980s. That's a total of 484 episodes.

Paul Donovan argues that the show was resurrected in Pull the Other One during the late 1980s; although Pull the Other One credited a different inventor, Edward Taylor produced both series, and both were described as "a radio happening". 54 episodes from 1988 to 1993, for an ultimate possible total of 538 episodes, of which 63 prime time.

So, does this column think that Does the Team Think? deserves a place in the top countdown? We're not convinced on two grounds. Were there distinct series produced for Radio 2 and Radio 4 in the early 1970s? It seems unlikely; there was substantial crossover between the networks well into the 1980s, but always one network repeating a series from the other. And was Pull the Other One really a revival of Does the Team Think?, but substituting news for random questions? We're not sufficiently convinced by either claim, and both need to be true otherwise the show's short of our 500 ep cut-off.

For now, we're not including Does the Team Think? in the overall count. We're open to hear evidence rebutting our position.

"We didn't learn much, but it was fun trying." The Fabulous Iain Stirling hosted comedy panel show The Dog Ate My Homework on the CBBC channel for absolutely years. 99 episodes, and it'll be fun to find out what young Iain is doing these days.

Don't Forget Your Toothbrush was Chris Evans' big show. Massively influential, ate ideas like it was a starving man at a buffet, copied and imitated and plagarised by everybody for about five years, and lasted just 26 episodes.

Back in the 1950s, television drew inspiration from puzzles in newspapers. Fill in the crossword, complete the wordsearch, and do the dot-to-dot puzzle. Dotto managed 79 primetime episodes with its pointillist art. We don't expect a revival.

Double Dare has defied our research. The show featured Peter Simon, loads of gunge, a slippery floor, silliness, and the undeniable law of gravity afflicting any host who slips over. But how many episodes were there? As a segment in Going Live!, Genome only lists some episodes; while it wasn't on every week, we hand-wavingly reckon 100 episodes across five series.

Double Your Money

BBC television opened its game show account with Spelling Bee. ITV got off to a more familiar start, Double Your Money ran from 1955 to 1968, and is a direct ancestor of Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

Contestants were given a free choice from different categories of questions which were the same for each series but evolved in variety and number over time. For the first correct answer they won £1, and thereafter the could double their money with further correct answers up to a maximum of £32. A wrong answer meant they lost everything: the safety net, at this early date, had yet to be invented. The contestant was on their own; lifelines, at this early date, had also yet to be invented. The most successful contestants came back to play the Treasure Trail of up to £1000.

Gave an early break to Maggie Smith, later the dowager duchess of Downton Abbey, here employed as a hostess to introduce contestants to compère Hughie Green. Also "discovered" Monica Rose, one of the first people famous for being famous.

Massively popular when it started, Double Your Money ran until Rediffusion were forcibly merged into Thames and decided they didn't want anything so hackneyed. Shown for many years across the ITV network, usually on Thursday nights at 8. Towards the end of its run, different ITV contractors showed Double Your Money at different times of the week – London aired on Monday, ATV in the Midlands on Wednesday.

We make the total 470 primetime episodes. We're slightly uncertain about whether there was usually an episode on the Thursday before Easter, and we may have miscounted some episodes around Christmas; if there's an error, we've erred on the high side. This column acknowledges wholly unsourced infomation added in the past couple of days to another wiki that anyone can edit, it does not alter our findings.

Dragons' Den

Five venture capitalists (the "dragons" of the title) are placed in a room, would-be entrepreneurs pitch their ideas, and if the dragons are impressed, they may make an investment. Or not. That's pretty much all there is to it, but it is tremendously popular.

Made a star out of Peter Jones (3), and gave him enough confidence to front ITV's Tycoon (6 episodes). Gave a public profile to Duncan Bannatyne and Theo Paphitis, though seems not to have made a star out of host Evan Davis.

Up to the end of 2023, there had been 225 main series episodes. And lots of spin-offs. Where Are They Now? yielded 13 eps, Outside the Den 7 shows. There had been 6 compilation episodes with new material, 5 Dragons' Den On Tour, 4 editions of Pitches to Riches, 3 Christmas specials, no calling birds, and 6 online webcasts they never showed on tv.

By our calculations, that's 269 primetime episodes.

Twelve episodes in early 2008 for the best Nick Hancock show. They should bring back Duel.

Eggheads

Five amateur quizzers take on a panel of five quiz experts. Building from an article in The Guardian in 2002, production company 12 Yard chose great quiz players with a twinkle of entertainment value.

The format is the T20 of quizzes: the Quiz Lords usually wins their battles, but there's no room for mistakes, and the quiz equivalent of Lower Bubblington Second XI can occasionally pull off a shock victory. And they'll take £1000 for each game the Eggheads previously won – that led to a jackpot of £75,000 on one occasion.

After a couple of series on BBC1 lunchtimes, Eggheads found a home on BBC2 teatime schedules. But it was squeezed out by Richard Osman and his House of Games (3), and snatched up by Channel 5.

2020 civilian episodes, and 102 celebrity eps. The Channel 5 series went out in primetime, and had a Channel 5 primetime budget, so we count 160 primetime episodes. (That a 2022 Channel 5 primetime budget is indistinguishable from a 2003 BBC1 daytime budget is interesting, but we'll have that discussion some other time.)

And there's more. Eggheads occasionally refreshed itself, in Are You an Egghead? (87 episodes), a serious quiz for serious quizzers. Revenge of the Egghead (30 episodes) was commissioned to re-integrate CJ de Mooi into the show. That makes a grand total of 2239 episodes.

We've covered 8 Out of 10 Cats in the numbers section of part one.

Escape from Scorpion Island was CBBC's big adventure show from 2008 to 2011. Thrills and spills, fears and emotions, teamwork and a little learning shown by example. Mostly co-produced with ABC Australia. 128 episodes.

Eurovision Song Contest

Lots of singing, lots of dancing, oodles of points, and the entry from Sweden always wins.

There have been 67 finals, 4 semi-finals from the years when they had a single semi, 32 qualifiers from more recent years when they had two semi-finals. (And more in 2024, but we cut our count off at the end of 2023.)

Was there anything else? Of course. Liquid Eurovision Party ran for 8 episodes from 2002-05, with an alternative commentary on the 2002 show, and after-show parties the following years. The 2023 final was also interpreted in sign language, we'll count that as a separate production. And there were preview shows, airing clips of the competing songs in the weeks beforehand – these ran from 1971 to 1994, with 48 episodes of Terry Wogan / Gloria Hunniford / Ken Bruce sitting on a BBC sofa and burbling about the entries.

On radio, there have been 64 final transmissions, semi-finals in 2014, 2015, and 2023. Radio 2 Eurovision popped up in those first two years, with wraparound coverage from the contest: we have to draw the line somewhere, and these spin-off shows fall just the wrong side. (Of note: Naked Eurovision, which went behind the scenes of the 1998 contest, was a revelation and it's a shame they didn't do something similar in Liverpool last year).

We're not including the BBC's selection programmes, Wogan Says Ding a Dong a Bing a Bang a Bong a Boom (or whatever they're calling it this year): 70 episodes in total, 62 primetime editions.

Eurovision's final score: 112 primetime episodes, and after adding the televote 230 episodes in total.

Every Second Counts

One of three great Paul Daniels quizzes, this one asked contestants to classify things into categories. Is this a breed of horse, or pig? Neigh if it's a horse, grunt if it's a pig. Surprisingly moreish fun from 1986 to 1993, then they just stopped making it. 142 primetime episodes.

We thought Everybody's Equal ran for years. It didn't, there were just 17 primetime editions of Chris Tarrant's quiz. But we'll come back to this show under "W".

And with the letter "F" fetching fame and fighting friends, we'll call a halt for this week.

Top show tables

Shows beginning with numbers, or A-E

Overall

Show	Episodes
Countdown	8732
Bamboozle	5900
Big Brother	4183
Deal or No Deal	3011
Fifteen-to-One	2683
Come Dine with Me	2432
The Chase	2247
Eggheads	2239
Bargain Hunt	2085
The Big Quiz (1)	2000
Brain of Britain / What Do You Know	1592
Blockbusters	1586
100%	1546
Brainteaser	1200
Call My Bluff	1047
Dickinson's Real Deal	1025
Antiques Road Trip	905
The Brains Trust	691
Can't Cook, Won't Cook	685
Coach Trip	630
Catchphrase	583
Criss Cross Quiz	508

Eggheads the only entry this week, overtaken by The Chase in the week before Christmas 2023.

Primetime shows

Show	Episodes
Big Brother	4173
Call My Bluff	542
Catchphrase	531
Double Your Money	470
The Apprentice	468
Come Dancing	431
Blind Date	416
The Brains Trust	416
Britain's Got Talent	383
Bullseye	369
Blockbusters	366
Blankety Blank	320
Celebrity Juice	271
Dragons' Den	269
Big Break	252
Dinner Date	242
8 Out of 10 Cats	232
Ask the Family	221
Criss Cross Quiz	220
Celebrity Squares	210
What Do You Know?	200
Dancing on Ice	189
Artist of the Year	175
The Chase	163
Eggheads	160
8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown	157
3-2-1	154
BBC New Comedy Award	149
Every Second Counts	142
Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway	141
Cardiff Singer of the World	141
Britain's Next Top Model	138
The $64,000 Question	137
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral	131
The Crystal Maze	124
Do I Not Know That?	121
Bob's Full House	117
Eurovision Song Contest	112
Ask Me Another	109
Busman's Holiday	103

Double Your Money slots in neatly behind Catchphrase. We'll see in coming weeks if it's ITV's most-made primetime show.

In other news

Sorry to hear that Ray Reardon has died. Six-time world snooker champion, he also won the first series of television's Pot Black, and entertained on early series of Big Break. Ray Reardon compiled a break of 91 years.

Some ridiculously good news, Riddiculous is coming back! Everyone's favourite mixture of general knowledge quiz and wordplay stumper will return for a third series. Ranvir Singh has the questions, Henry Lewis continues to build up his part as the new Brian Blessed. Filming in Salford in September, for ITV daytime.

Strictly Come Dancing is taking additional steps to ensure contestants' welfare is put first. Someone from the production team will be present during all training sessions, and at rehearsals away from the studio. Two additional people will be employed in "welfare support" positions, one for the celebs and one for the professionals. These changes come in the wake of complaints of misconduct and inappropriate behaviour during rehearsals; two professional dancers have not been re-engaged for the upcoming series.

Astute readers will note that there's a clear emphasis on making sure everyone is kept safe, and how there's an identified person for celebs to report misbehaviour, and how that person isn't also looking after the professionals. This is how a well-run show learns from its mistakes and demonstrates that it is doing the best for everyone.

Parents' Evening is coming to ITV. Romesh Ranganathan hosts, and produces through his Ranga Bee Productions company. Parents will determine what their (grown-up) children know, with right predictions netting money. Sample names taking part include Alison Hammond and her son Aidan, Joel Dommett and mum Penny, Jonathan Ross and daughter Honey, Richard Madeley and daughter Chloe. Three one-hour episodes coming later in the year.

Bad Penny Blues Not returning to Saturday night telly: Stephen Mulhern's In for a Penny with Stephen Mulhern. The Stephen Mulhern travelling show has not been recommissioned, because star Stephen Mulhern is too busy making Stephen Mulhern's Deal or No Deal. The show featured silly games where members of the public could win Stephen Mulhern's massive prizes, sometimes taking as much as £2.

In better news for the Stephen Mulhern fan club, Stephen Mulhern's Celebrity Catchphrase comes to the Challenge channel. The series final for Sewing Bee (BBC1, Wed). DIY show The Great House Giveaway returns to Channel 4 (weekdays).

With BBC1 showing Mme. Hidalgo's Semaines Sportif, the Saturday night entertainment shows slip over to BBC4: next week has The Generation Game from 1972, Blankety Blank from 1979, and Bob's Full House from 1984.

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