You Bet!
(Adding a new section for Matthew Kelly tenure on the show. Will be adding Darren Day's section soon.) |
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== Synopsis == | == Synopsis == | ||
| - | Well made and sometimes stunning stunt show | + | Well made and sometimes stunning stunt show. |
<div class="image">[[File:Youbet-screen01.jpg]]''ToDAY's panel are a double act and her from EastEnders.''</div> | <div class="image">[[File:Youbet-screen01.jpg]]''ToDAY's panel are a double act and her from EastEnders.''</div> | ||
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<div class="image">[[File:Youbet-screen02.jpg]]''The odds are looking...decent.''</div> | <div class="image">[[File:Youbet-screen02.jpg]]''The odds are looking...decent.''</div> | ||
| - | The challenges on the show can be categorized into stunts (doing a wheelie in a truck for 1 mile), memory tests (identifying a Madonna song from 5 seconds of the backing track), and skill games (scoring 50 basketball hoops while riding on a motorcycle). The reward for a successful challenge was awarded a trophy (called the "Betsy" in early series | + | The challenges on the show can be categorized into stunts (doing a wheelie in a truck for 1 mile), memory tests (identifying a Madonna song from 5 seconds of the backing track), and skill games (scoring 50 basketball hoops while riding on a motorcycle). The reward for a successful challenge was awarded a trophy (called the "Betsy" in early series). The outside challenges were filmed during the summer months and slotted in, everyone involved in the filming having sworn on their grandmother's grave that they wouldn't say the result. |
<div class="image">[[File:Youbet-screen03.jpg]]''Now we know why series 19 of [[The Krypton Factor]] didn't go ahead.''</div> | <div class="image">[[File:Youbet-screen03.jpg]]''Now we know why series 19 of [[The Krypton Factor]] didn't go ahead.''</div> | ||
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=== Bruce's Big Bet === | === Bruce's Big Bet === | ||
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As always with Bruce at the helm, he had to have a female co-host with him and her name is Ellis Ward. Ellis was hired to host the pre-recorded outdoor challenges on location whenever a challenge too big to do in the studio and she did a really fine job doing it. | As always with Bruce at the helm, he had to have a female co-host with him and her name is Ellis Ward. Ellis was hired to host the pre-recorded outdoor challenges on location whenever a challenge too big to do in the studio and she did a really fine job doing it. | ||
| - | When the year 1990 came, Bruce was called by the BBC to host the revival of [[The Generation Game]], which was filmed around the same time as ''You Bet!'' meaning he would no longer host the show. | + | When the year 1990 came, Bruce was called by the BBC to host the revival of ''[[The Generation Game]]'', which was filmed around the same time as ''You Bet!'' meaning he would no longer host the show. |
=== The Kelly Years === | === The Kelly Years === | ||
| - | Perhaps the host that many viewers associate with the show is Mr. [[Game for a Laugh]] himself [[Matthew Kelly]]. | + | Perhaps the host that many viewers associate with the show is Mr. ''[[Game for a Laugh]]'' himself [[Matthew Kelly]]. |
The show went through a number of changes when Matthew took over hosting: | The show went through a number of changes when Matthew took over hosting: | ||
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Sadly, the Autumn 1991 series would be the last series we see Ellis Ward co-hosting as the following series in 1992, the celebrity guest panel was increased from three to four and the forfeits were now held by six chosen members of the studio audience and they would have to read out what the celebrity guest or Matthew would have to do for their forfeit. Also, every challenger from now on got a medal no matter what outcome of the challenge was. | Sadly, the Autumn 1991 series would be the last series we see Ellis Ward co-hosting as the following series in 1992, the celebrity guest panel was increased from three to four and the forfeits were now held by six chosen members of the studio audience and they would have to read out what the celebrity guest or Matthew would have to do for their forfeit. Also, every challenger from now on got a medal no matter what outcome of the challenge was. | ||
| - | The 1993 series was given a bumper commission of sixteen episodes due to how popular the show was becoming and the amount of challengers wanting to show of their unique skills and talents. The forfeits was now concealed in six envelopes guarded by Matthew himself and they all have the letters Y-O-U-B-E-T printed on them. The 1993 series was originally supposed to have a continuous from September up until Christmas Eve where the Celebrity Special would be shown, but was taken off the schedules after the seventh episode and was replaced by a new series of ''Beadle's About''. During that time, Matthew was hosting another ITV show but this time from Granada called [[Stars in Their Eyes]]. He was initially hired as a caretaker for [[Leslie Crowther]] who had a car accident the year before, we'll get back to that later. The remaining episodes of the 1993 series were shown during the spring of 1994 back on Saturday nights and for some reason were sponsored by the Daily Mirror. | + | The 1993 series was given a bumper commission of sixteen episodes due to how popular the show was becoming and the amount of challengers wanting to show of their unique skills and talents. The forfeits was now concealed in six envelopes guarded by Matthew himself and they all have the letters Y-O-U-B-E-T printed on them. The 1993 series was originally supposed to have a continuous from September up until Christmas Eve where the Celebrity Special would be shown, but was taken off the schedules after the seventh episode and was replaced by a new series of ''Beadle's About''. During that time, Matthew was hosting another ITV show but this time from Granada called ''[[Stars in Their Eyes]]''. He was initially hired as a caretaker for [[Leslie Crowther]] who had a car accident the year before, we'll get back to that later. The remaining episodes of the 1993 series were shown during the spring of 1994 back on Saturday nights and for some reason were sponsored by the Daily Mirror. |
The 1994 series was filmed during the Autumn and shown during Spring 1995. This series had a couple of massive changes to the format, the first big change was that the celebrity guests and Matthew would no longer be backing challenges they were sponsoring, which meant that there are "no more forfeits", instead the celebrity guest that scored the lowest on the panel would have to do a challenge themselves and the outcome would be shown the following week, the second big change is that during the celebrity challenge, there would be a phone-in vote for viewers at home to predict whether the celebrity would succeed or fail their challenge and one lucky winner picked at random would be donating £1,000, by the production team, for the charity of their choice. And for this series only, the challenger(s) that succeeded were given a special trophy called "The Kelly", which is a silver model of Matthew Kelly on a black podium with the ''You Bet!'' logo below it. | The 1994 series was filmed during the Autumn and shown during Spring 1995. This series had a couple of massive changes to the format, the first big change was that the celebrity guests and Matthew would no longer be backing challenges they were sponsoring, which meant that there are "no more forfeits", instead the celebrity guest that scored the lowest on the panel would have to do a challenge themselves and the outcome would be shown the following week, the second big change is that during the celebrity challenge, there would be a phone-in vote for viewers at home to predict whether the celebrity would succeed or fail their challenge and one lucky winner picked at random would be donating £1,000, by the production team, for the charity of their choice. And for this series only, the challenger(s) that succeeded were given a special trophy called "The Kelly", which is a silver model of Matthew Kelly on a black podium with the ''You Bet!'' logo below it. | ||
| - | But sadly after the completion of filming for series 8, [[Leslie Crowther]] announced that he would be retiring from showbusiness and Matthew was made a full-time host of [[Stars in Their Eyes]], meaning that the eighth series of ''You Bet!'' would be his last, which is quite sad because Matthew was really dedicated to hosting the show both in the studio and on location, he was very entertaining to watch as host and he was always fascinated about the challengers backstories on their skills and talents, especially with challengers who were children because he asked them questions the same way as he did with the adults. | + | But sadly after the completion of filming for series 8, [[Leslie Crowther]] announced that he would be retiring from showbusiness and Matthew was made a full-time host of ''[[Stars in Their Eyes]]'', meaning that the eighth series of ''You Bet!'' would be his last, which is quite sad because Matthew was really dedicated to hosting the show both in the studio and on location, he was very entertaining to watch as host and he was always fascinated about the challengers backstories on their skills and talents, especially with challengers who were children because he asked them questions the same way as he did with the adults. |
"What do you mean?" you ask? We'll explain. Let's have a look at how Bruce chatted to the kids, he would always ask them questions where they would always give them a one word answer (which is "Yes" or "No"), which is quite off-putting because we know that there are some children out there who are smart and are on the same level as adults, which is where Matthew did a better job in chatting to the kids than Bruce did where he would ask them questions where they would have to answer in a sentence because Matthew's very open-minded and interested in what the kids were saying as well as adults. | "What do you mean?" you ask? We'll explain. Let's have a look at how Bruce chatted to the kids, he would always ask them questions where they would always give them a one word answer (which is "Yes" or "No"), which is quite off-putting because we know that there are some children out there who are smart and are on the same level as adults, which is where Matthew did a better job in chatting to the kids than Bruce did where he would ask them questions where they would have to answer in a sentence because Matthew's very open-minded and interested in what the kids were saying as well as adults. | ||
Viewers would often call the Kelly years the defining era for the show and we agree on that, which is more than we can say for his successor the next year. | Viewers would often call the Kelly years the defining era for the show and we agree on that, which is more than we can say for his successor the next year. | ||
| - | -- | + | |
| + | === Darren's Bad Day === | ||
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| + | After Matthew left for full-time duties on ''[[Stars in Their Eyes]]'', West End actor and singer [[Darren Day]] filled in his shoes, and to follow on from Matthew...they were pretty big to fill. | ||
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| + | The ninth series was pretty much back to where we started when Bruce hosted it. In other words, we've come full circle. | ||
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| + | The celebrity guest panel was decreased from four to three, the forfeits returned but this time they were chosen by the production team for the lowest scoring celebrity guest to perform at the end of the show, and the addition of a co-host was reinstated to film the outdoor challenges, which were this time carried out by former [[Gladiators]] star [[Diane Youdale]] (a.k.a. - Jet). Oh, and the scroll was discontinued from this series onwards for any failed challenger(s), which meant that they would get just a medal. | ||
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| + | Nothing much to say about this series, it's pretty much the same show as usual but with different host...actually, that's the main problem with this series, the host himself. Darren, apart from a dodgy 90s haircut, wasn't really the right choice to host an extravaganza of a show like this. Darren did take an interest in the challengers backstories, but he very frequently was very deadpan about it and just sounded like he was memorizing a script to get a quick pay check, which did put a massive dent in the ratings. | ||
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| + | But unfortunately, Darren was called back to host another series, which would evidentially be the show's last. To use whatever steam the show had left, a new co-host was introduced for the final series, who was [[Sarah Matravers]]. Viewers will recognise Sarah as one of [[Des O'Connor]]'s gong girls from ''[[Take Your Pick]]'' and yes, she did the majority of the location work for this series. The celebrity challenge also returned from the eighth series, but this time, the audience had to choose from two cryptic clues on the screen chosen by the production team and the one with the highest percentage would be the challenge the celebrity with the losing score would have to perform. And the last addition to this series was for the celebrity guests and it was called the "Bonus Card", which means if the celebrity correctly guessed the outcome of the challenge, the corresponding audience percentage they score will be doubled, however, they can only play it once. | ||
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| + | And that appears to be it for the show as a whole as the following year, it was replaced by a new show called ''[[Don't Try This at Home!]]'', which was more extreme than ''You Bet!'' and went on for a few series. [[Darren Day]] was transferred to host the show alongside [[Davina McCall]], but he only last one series. | ||
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| + | === What's the lesson we've all learnt? === | ||
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| + | Choose the right host for a show with such calibre and niche. Bruce gave it a good game, but viewers were at the point of seeing through his Brucieness. Matthew defined a golden era for the show with his Lancashire charm, even when the production team were getting rid of the winning formula during his final series. Darren just killed it...off. | ||
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== Key moments == | == Key moments == | ||
Revision as of 18:25, 1 September 2023
Contents |
Host
Bruce Forsyth (1988-90)
Matthew Kelly (1991-95)
Darren Day (1996-97)
Co-hosts
Ellis Ward (1988-91)
Diane Youdale (1996)
Sarah Matravers (1997)
Announcer:
Bobby Bragg (1996-97)
Broadcast
LWT for ITV, 20 February 1988 to 12 April 1997 (101 episodes in 10 series + 4 specials)
Synopsis
Well made and sometimes stunning stunt show.
ToDAY's panel are a double act and her from EastEnders.Members of the public bet they can do a particularly whacky, impressive or just plain dangerous feat. 100 members of the audience bet on whether they think they can do it, as do a panel of celebrities. The celebs try to guess the correct outcome, thus earning points, which are later turned into pounds for charity, mate.
The odds are looking...decent.The challenges on the show can be categorized into stunts (doing a wheelie in a truck for 1 mile), memory tests (identifying a Madonna song from 5 seconds of the backing track), and skill games (scoring 50 basketball hoops while riding on a motorcycle). The reward for a successful challenge was awarded a trophy (called the "Betsy" in early series). The outside challenges were filmed during the summer months and slotted in, everyone involved in the filming having sworn on their grandmother's grave that they wouldn't say the result.
Now we know why series 19 of The Krypton Factor didn't go ahead.
