Masterteam (1)

Current revision as of 19:53, 2 December 2024

Synopsis

Teatime teams competition version of Mastermind hosted by a newsreader who danced with Morecambe and Wise.

Angela Rippon in front of an audience. Literally.

Rounds included:

Team Challenge - basically, questions on the buzzer, which commenced on Angela's instruction, "Let's play!" Contestants had to beware of incorrect interruptions, as that meant a bonus point went to the opposing team, together with the full question for a further point. This system was also used a decade later in the virtually identical The Great British Quiz.

The set with the screen reminding us what round this is.

Spotlight - Teams choose a member of the opposition to answer questions on their own from a list of specialist subjects, including the Pot Pourri category ("a tough general knowledge", Angela would always remind us). It is worth noting here that, as Angela sometimes pointed out, the teams were not allowed to watch each other playing, so new teams did not get to find out which members of the surviving teams were particularly good in that round. Only the initial "Team Challenge" round could give an indication - and of course not necessarily a true one at that. There were also stories of losing contestants tipping off future teams regarding the abilities of certain winning contestants in certain subjects, thus meaning that the experts concerned were not chosen to be put in the spotlight in their subsequent games.

Categories galore.

In A Spin - Teams had to make the longest word from three given letters, supposedly selected at random, starting with the first and including the others in order within the word declared. Essentially Catchword before its time, and the game was also later used by Brainteaser in its 'Trio' round.

Volkswagen GTI?

It's All Yours - This only happened from quarter-final onwards. Each team in turn was allowed to confer for answers.

Lights down, huddle up and answer those questions.

Teams who have won two, three or four consecutive games were given bronze, silver and gold positions on the leaderboard and the top eight teams who scored the highest amount of points in grand total depending of how many games they've won consecutively go through to the quarter-finals. Teams who have won three or four games in a row were awarded silver or gold medals and a definite place in the quarter-finals, teams who won two games in a row did not get this treatment and they just have to pray that they don't get knocked off the leaderboard.

Angela congrats a gold position team.

A really enjoyable show, helped along by Angela's pleasant and professional style of hosting and the show had fitted very neatly into its 5.35pm timeslot after children's programming and before the Six O'clock News.

From January 1988, the BBC moved its repeat showing of Australian soap Neighbours to teatime, so that younger viewers at school or college could watch it. The move proved extremely popular, Neighbours stayed there for the next two decades - but it left Masterteam without a spot in the schedules, which is a real shame because we could've seen a possible fourth series in the Going for Gold slot at 1.50pm, but alas, it was not to be.

Champions

Key moments

The team names were often memorable, one of the best being "The Peripatetic Pedagogues" - "just to confuse me!" declared Angela! Others included "The Triple Connection", "The Garbologists" (apparently a term for people who study communities by analysing their waste), "The Master Cutlers from Sheffield", "The Blackpool Illuminaries", "The Galloway Grannies", one of whom was in her eighties, "Ron's Raiders" and "The Magic Roundabout from Hemel Hempstead", (apparently named after a well-known roundabout in that town, rather than a certain children's programme). Teams also quite often appeared in uniform/work gear - these included "The Fulham Firemen", "The Harpenden Ventures" (Venture Scouts) and "The Micklebarrow Morris Men". (Ron's Raiders, incidentally, were an all-female team - Ron himself was apparently unwell and thus cheering the team on from his sick-bed).

In the last-ever edition of the show, the above-mentioned team 'The Garbologists' was in the final and one of them was a dustman. His final 'Spotlight' round question was, appropriately enough, "Who had a hit with the song 'My Old Man's A Dustman'? and he got it right, amid much amusement from all concerned - the answer being 'Lonnie Donegan'.

For the team rounds, the answers always had to be given by the person in the middle seat, although, bizarrely, this person was never actually referred to as 'the captain'. When there were two men and one woman playing, the woman would always fulfil said role, and likewise, when (less frequently) there were two women and one man, the man would fulfil the role.

Occasionally, there were celebrity teams - these included "Lightning Strikes" (BBC weathermen, including Michael Fish and the late Ian McCaskill), "The Honourable Members" (3 MPs, including Austin Mitchell) and "The Boffins", a team that consisted of Johnny Ball and the late Patrick Moore and Johnny Morris. (Morris, incidentally, scored very impressively on the subject of 'Classical Music' in the Spotlight Round, which may have seemed surprising for one better known for being a wildlife expert, but he had, in fact, originally trained as a musician). The inclusion of celebrity contestants generally seemed unnecessary and it could detract from the enjoyment of watching everyday contestants fighting for places in the semi-finals - perhaps the celebrities only took part because there were not enough members of the public taking part? Either way, the "Honourable Members" team proved highly irritating, although they did display some decent knowledge, since they managed to get as far as the bronze medal stage.

The finals of 1986 and 1987 included In a Spin rounds with curious selections of letters. In 1986, one selection was the letters JIM. The Antrim Coasters could only declare JIM; their opponents (Good Guessers) came up with JURIMETRICS. In 1987, there was the more obscure selection of EKU. Neither team could come up with anything, and Angela proudly declared that their computer spellchecker could only come up with three ('Elkhound' and 'Elkhounds' being two of them, incidentally).

One member of the Warrington Sports Club team was a rather elderly lady called Olive. She became something of a star in the first series. The show's most memorable moment of all came in an open round, when Angela asked the question "Who is the lead singer of Motorhead?", to which Olive confidently replied "Lemmy"! She had done a lot of research into pop music, which was not otherwise a specialist subject.

One member of the Antrim Coasters was asked in his 'Spotlight' round, 'In which children's television series does the character Hazel The McWitch appear?' He clearly didn't know and thus made a very wild guess, which was "Masterteam". Angela said afterwards, "I'm sure he didn't mean me!" (The correct answer, by the way, was 'Rentaghost').

The "Team Challenge" round always ended with a strangely tinkly jingle, which Angela once rightly described as sounding like something from "The Magic Roundabout".

Catchphrases

(When cueing the contestants in to introduce themselves): "Let's meet them - they are:"

"Let's play!"

(Following an incorrect interruption in the 'Team Challenge' round): "No - incorrect challenge - a bonus point to the opposition and the full question."

(Before the 'Spotlight' round): "If you pass, I'll give you the answer within your allotted time - and you may not interrupt the question".

"It's still yours..."

"I must have an answer!"

(Before the 'In A Spin' round): "A (or whatever) is the first letter in the sequence and must be the first letter of your word..."

"For one minute, team - it's all yours!"

Theme music

Theme and incidental music specially composed by Graham Preskett on a Yamaha DX5.

Trivia

Recorded at The Greenwood Theatre, London.

To coincide Angela Rippon's 80th birthday, BBC Four repeated the very first episode on 12 October 2024.

Web links

Wikipedia entry

Opening titles from 1985 and 1987 in the BBC Motion Graphics Archive

See also

Masterteam is also the title of a Radio 4 general knowledge quiz, presented by Peter Snow.

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