Play Your Cards Right

[Richard1978]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

And Corbett would always wear those "Rupert Bear" trousers when out on the golf course, making him look like an Open University presenter from 1973.

Probably with a Pringle pullover, like the ones he would often wear for his chair monologues in the 2 Ronnies.

[George 1978]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

Ronnie Corbett was another of the celebrity golfing set, even if he was mostly on BBC shows from the mid 1970s onwards.

And Corbett would always wear those "Rupert Bear" trousers when out on the golf course, making him look like an Open University presenter from 1973.

[George 1978]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

That's true - from my memories, Give us a Clue is where the 'has been' celebrities washed up, when they were not doing the seasonal panto circuit. I can remember seeing the likes of Keith Baron, Su Pollard, Christopher Biggins, Bonnie Langford and Kenneth Williams. Williams especially must have felt like he had hit bottom at that point, what with Give us a Clue and Willo the Wisp.

I wonder if they were only able to get the 'big' names due to contracts that Thames and LWT offered? Lucrative, but a big name also had to do X number of game shows and other appearances a year?

Give us a Clue. Another great game show concept that we will never see again these days...

Stubbs would probably have Felicity Kendal, Tracey Ullman and Maggie Moone on her team, while Blair would have Bernard Cribbins, Willie Rushton and Nicholas Parsons on his. I tell you, Brucie made at least one appearance on there.

As I mentioned on the Drama Lessons thread, we did Give us a Clue in Drama and we took turns to be "Lionel Blair" without the "sitting in other people's seats" thing that goes on.

Even if you look at the panto list each year - it's almost the same as 30 years ago - the same names such as Chris Biggins, Bonnie Langford, Wayne Sleep, etc. I nearly got all the autographs of Blue in 2015 because they were scattered around the country in panto - cue my autograph book making a whistle-stop tour of the theatres around the country courtesy of Royal Mail.

[Richard1978]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

Ronnie Corbett was another of the celebrity golfing set, even if he was mostly on BBC shows from the mid 1970s onwards.

[Disco_Puppy]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

I am certain that Brucie made an appearance on Lionel Blair's team on Give us a Clue circa 1982-1983 which I think was a Christmas special - I thought that he was too famous for that show.

That's true - from my memories, Give us a Clue is where the 'has been' celebrities washed up, when they were not doing the seasonal panto circuit. I can remember seeing the likes of Keith Baron, Su Pollard, Christopher Biggins, Bonnie Langford and Kenneth Williams. Williams especially must have felt like he had hit bottom at that point, what with Give us a Clue and Willo the Wisp.

I wonder if they were only able to get the 'big' names due to contracts that Thames and LWT offered? Lucrative, but a big name also had to do X number of game shows and other appearances a year?

Give us a Clue. Another great game show concept that we will never see again these days...

[George 1978]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

Yes, Pro-Celebrity Golf - Forsyth v Faldo or Tarby v Trevino or someone like that. It never occurred to me until recently that Brucie used to wear a baseball cap because of his hair wasn't quite ready to be seen by the public if you know what I mean.

I am certain that Brucie made an appearance on Lionel Blair's team on Give us a Clue circa 1982-1983 which I think was a Christmas special - I thought that he was too famous for that show.

Nevertheless, it has been exactly two years to this day since Brucie died - a very sad day.

[Disco_Puppy]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

There is no such phrase as "play your cards correctly", is there? - I have always associated that phrase with the game show.

I think that nearly everything on TV in the 1980s was magical to someone who was young at the time such as myself - as I mentioned in the 1980s Celebrities thread, it was a magical, community spirited world where all celebrities seem to know each other and would appear on each other's shows and so on. And Christmases were even more magical - perhaps it did so for me as a 1980s child?

That's actually a very good point - it really did feel like a 'family' of sorts. I remember, for some reason, watching the celebrity golf back in the 1980s, with Brucie, Tarby and the like on the green, and it all seemed natural and not feigned for the cameras. And Christmas was also a blast, as well. The Christmas specials were often where the good old boys would crop up on each others' specials, and part of the appeal of it all was seeing (and trying to guess) which familiar face you would see next.

[George 1978]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

News reader Reginald Bosenquet was another wig wearer, not because of baldness as such, but apparently had problems with an inflamed scalp which meant he had to shave his hair very short. Being a middle aged skinhead wouldn't have done his chances of appearing on TV much good!

We could also add Frankie Howerd to the list.

Gordon Honeycombe hardly had any hair and he had success working for ITN and then TV-am - ironic for someone with "comb" in their name.

[George 1978]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

There is no such phrase as "play your cards correctly", is there? - I have always associated that phrase with the game show.

I think that nearly everything on TV in the 1980s was magical to someone who was young at the time such as myself - as I mentioned in the 1980s Celebrities thread, it was a magical, community spirited world where all celebrities seem to know each other and would appear on each other's shows and so on. And Christmases were even more magical - perhaps it did so for me as a 1980s child?

Michael Barrymore was probably a bit like a 1960s version of Forsyth - the "alright" catchphrase he did with audience participation obviously has similarities with Brucie's "nice to see you" when he did it at the start of each show, not to mention the banter with the contestants they both had prior to the game starting. I believe that Barrymore was influenced by Forsyth.

[Disco_Puppy]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

At risk of angering the ghost of Brucie, technically 'Play Your Cards Right' is grammatically incorrect. It should have been something like 'Play Your Cards Correctly'. Stll, I know that 'play your cards right' is a common phrase, so I'll let that one stand. You got off lightly, LWT.

Thinking about PYCR, it makes a lot of modern game shows seem generic and stale. It seems that most weekend entertainment these days is noisy talent shows or noisy reality shows or noisy bland game shows. Do we have to have a screaming audience in everything these days? Watching the modern hosts run their opening repertee with the audience just feels flat and slate to me. Brucie was a natural with the crowd and it felt far more natural. Hell, Jim Bowen had more charisma with the audience that most modern hosts.

The opening banter with the guests was also magical. Partly scripted, of course, but you can see Brucie run with it where the guests took him. It was always respectful, whereas I always found the likes of Micheal Barrymore in the Strike it Lucky era to be more insulting to the guests in his attempts to be funny.

When I watched it as a kid, I got genuinely excited about the cards, and guessing 'HIGHER!' or 'LOWER!'. I used to guess and yell at the TV with my parents, always feeling slightly smug when I was right and the contestants guessed incorrectly.

Good prizes, too. A 1982 showroom new Ford Fiesta? Nice!

And let's not forget Brucie's traditional sign off: 'It's not too late to still be a big night if you play your cards right...'

I only watched it during the '80s, but I had forgotten how long PYCR ran for. It popped up occasionally in the '90s and even in the early 2000s.

[Richard1978]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

News reader Reginald Bosenquet was another wig wearer, not because of baldness as such, but apparently had problems with an inflamed scalp which meant he had to shave his hair very short. Being a middle aged skinhead wouldn't have done his chances of appearing on TV much good!

We could also add Frankie Howerd to the list.

[George 1978]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

Now that you have set my memory off, Leslie Crowther seems suspect, in retrospect. His 'COME ON DOWN!' hair was always a little too perfect and laquered. Perhaps Ted Rogers as well? It could be that the stress of learning that elaborate '3-2-1' finger gesture gave him hair loss?

Quite possibly Julian Pettifer, from Busman's Holiday. Which was a magnificent idea for a game show. Three butchers vs. three traffic wardens vs. three shop assistants. Winning a holiday where they basically go overseas and do their job. Nice work, Granada!

Richard Whiteley also springs to mind - "one from the top" could have been a reference to his syrup and not the numbers combination; Ernie "you can't see the join" Wise; Bob Monkhouse, etc...

Back on topic: A PYCR question could be something like: "we asked 100 men who wore wigs - if a woman complimented you on your new hairstyle, would you be suspicious?" If would be over 50 (the number of people, rather than age of the person), and the other contestant would say, "higher!"

[catflap]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

Nice memories guys - enjoyed reading all of these, but George's post was as good as seeing an episode!

Never forget that we were lucky to have seen these shows when we did - no-one re-watching the repeats will ever get the nostalgia and appreciate them like we did and I seriously doubt we will ever see anything half as good on TV again.

[Disco_Puppy]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

Now that you have set my memory off, Leslie Crowther seems suspect, in retrospect. His 'COME ON DOWN!' hair was always a little too perfect and laquered. Perhaps Ted Rogers as well? It could be that the stress of learning that elaborate '3-2-1' finger gesture gave him hair loss?

Quite possibly Julian Pettifer, from Busman's Holiday. Which was a magnificent idea for a game show. Three butchers vs. three traffic wardens vs. three shop assistants. Winning a holiday where they basically go overseas and do their job. Nice work, Granada!

[George 1978]

Re: Play Your Cards Right

I don't know about Tarby, but Lennie Bennett (with his Kevin Keagan perm if you watch old episodes of Punchlines) and Russ Abbot also springs to mind. And of course, Wogan was the king of them all.

I wondered why Paul Daniels went "bald" all of a sudden in the mid 1980s as back then I wasn't too aware of wigs and toupees and all that.