Weaver's Week 2024-08-25

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Our summer-long campaign to enumerate the game shows with the most episodes from 1924 to 2023, which will continue until something approximating summer arrives. We're giving write-ups to shows with at least 500 episodes, and/or at least 100 primetime episodes.

Contents 1 The game shows with the most episodes (part 10): J-LEA 1.1 Jacpot 1.2 Jeopardy! 1.3 Jet Set 1.4 Joker's Wild 1.5 Juke Box Jury 1.6 Just a Minute 1.7 The Krypton Factor 1.8 Laughlines 1.9 A League of Their Own 2 Scoreboards so far 2.1 All episodes 2.2 Primetime episodes 3 In other news 3.1 Quizzy Mondays 3.2 Quiz digest

The game shows with the most episodes (part 10): J-LEA

Last time, we had brown suits, wheelie luggage, giant leeks, and a guest appearance from Samantha. This time, we'll start am Cymraeg.

Jacpot

A panel of contestants ask questions in rhyme. A right answer puts money into a communal jackpot. One of the contestants has been randomly pre-selected as the Jackpot Holder; they could win literally hundreds of pounds.

Ran for five years in North America, where they have more channels than sense. Over here, broadcasters mostly thought they could find better shows, and weren't wrong. Jacpot ended up going out on Welsh-language channel S4C, where it was summer filler in the 7pm hour for most of the 1990s. There was also a thrice-weekly series in winter at the start of 1994.

Apparently cancelled at the start of 1997, Jacpot came back for a fling in summer '99. And again in 2012, when S4C also revived Siôn a Siân and concluded there was only room for one of them.

Approximately 223 primetime episodes; we're not sure if the episodes in early 1994 were repeats or new, and we've not been able to confirm the length of the revival series in 2012 – we've assumed 20 episodes.

Jazz Score was "a reminiscent quiz programme on the subject of jazz". Long-running jazz quiz, usually recorded at a jazz club like Ronnie Scott's or The 100 Club . Like My Music, the entertainment was not really so much in the contestants (all jazz luminaries) giving the correct answer but the stories and anecdotes they gave in relation to each piece of music. 194 episodes in 17 series, but as it's on Radio 2, no main list entry.

Jeopardy!

A simple game of answers and questions, which we reviewed at the start of the year. Our American friends know that Jeopardy! has had over 9000 episodes.

Somewhat fewer here: 130 primetime episodes on KYTV during 1995-6, plus 150 in daytime runs previously. Stephen Fry's revival is too recent for this exercise – the shows didn't transmit until 2024.

Jet Set

A show from the era when people went to the end of the earth to avoid talking to Eamonn Holmes. And when the BBC paid people to go to the end of the earth to avoid talking to Eamonn Holmes.

Winners on Jet Set got to live the dream life of a millionaire. Sandy beaches, expensive cocktails, luxury towels, private boxes at Justin Timberlake concerts, warm weather. Everything comes at a price: to continue this life of luxury, people had to talk to Eamonn Holmes, and win a quiz.

139 primetime episodes in the aughts.

Jigsaw (1) gave us Jigg, and Janet Ellis. And Pterry, Dot, Biggum, and made a star of Sylvester McCoy. But Mr. Noseybonk, and just 50 episodes.

Joker's Wild

Two teams of comics battle it out to make the audience laugh. Each comedian told jokes on categories written on oversized playing cards on Barry Cryer's desk – unless a joker came up which gave the comic free rein. Points could be scored by the other team if they could see where the joke was headed, buzz in, and complete it with their own punchline. There was also a speed test, making the audience laugh going in and out of the commercial break.

150 primetime episodes from 1969 to 1974. Who owns the rights to this, we're asking on behalf of UKTV's Dave channel and Comedy Centraal...

Juke Box Jury

Famous panel game which reviewed the latest records that had been released that week. For younger viewers, "records" were small circles of black plastic on which hit tunes had been engraved, and could be played on specialist equipment. "Released" because the records were sold in shops. "Shops" were places outside your house where you could spend money, buy things, and bring them back yourself.

Ahem. Juke Box Jury heard the latest "waxings" by stars of the day like Emile Ford, The Chiffons, and Cliff Richard. The panel would come to a conclusion about whether the song under review was a HIT or a MISS, perhaps involving three of the audience if the panel was tied. Also had the Potentially Embarrassing Bit, where one of the performers was waiting backstage to hear comments and confront the panel; it's all anyone remembers of Glenn Medeiros.

Ran on television from 1959 to 1967 under the suave chairmanship of David Jacobs. Revived in the late 1970s, where Noel Edmonds would lead a discussion on the works of Kate Bush, The Revillos, and Cliff Richard. Revived again at the end of the 1980s, with Jools Holland being ironic and sardonic about Sinitta, The River Detectives, and Cliff Richard. We're waiting for the contemporary revival, where Greg James asks for comments on works by Billie Eilish, David Guetta, and Cliff Richard.

461 primetime episodes. It's a hit.

The Jump asked minor celebrities to get injured for your entertainment. 35 episodes and about a million tiny bone fragments.

Jungle Run asked 99 teams to go in search of the Golden Monkey. Very few succeeded. One very adult episode was made, Naked Jungle went out on Channel 5 with Keith Chegwin hosting.

Just a Minute

Talk on this subject for one minute without hesitation, repetition, or deviation. If you think one of the other players has broken the rule, buzz in and challenge to take over the rest of the minute.

Controlled (!) from 1967 until 2019 by the inimitable Nicholas Parsons. Gave regular work to the character actor Derek Nimmo, to the fresh-voiced Peter Jones (1), to Clement Freud, and to the sarcastic Kenneth Williams. The show's moved with the times, evolving to include Paul Merton, Gyles Brandreth, Wendy Richard, Tony Hawks, Jenny Eclair, and the current host Sue Perkins.

If we've got our numbers precisely right, there have been 991 regular radio episodes to the end of 2023, plus two "Silver Minutes" compilations first released on cassette, one "Just a Minute Does Panto", and one "Golden Minutes" compilation carefully edited together across the years. And 12 Junior Just a Minute interludes, slotted into BBC7's The Four O'Clock Show. (We've had six more radio eps this year, so the next series will contain Episode One Thousand!)

There have been occasional efforts to bring Just a Minute to television. Pilots in 1969 and 1981 never made it to telly. ITV made a late-night version in the 1990s, introducing the brilliance of Julian Clary to the pastime; the BBC made versions in 1999 and 2012. A total of 58 television editions.

That makes a total of 1065 episodes.

Juvenile Competition Night was the first of all game shows. One episode in July 1924. Expect a revival.

Just Up Your Street, a show from BBC Wales. Owen Money looks for talented performers in your local area, performing in your local theatre. Feelgood Friday entertainment, made a bit naffer when they had to bring in eliminations and voting and a "grand final" in 2003.

Keynotes. Name that tune from the rhythm, and some notes. Very much of its time, and did the trick in ITV's cheap and cheerful 9.25am slot. 205 episodes, most featuring musical arrangements by Keith Chegwin, who made a habit of popping up most unexpectedly.

Kick Start, motor cycle agility against the clock. 73 episodes of this across the 80s and beyond. Surely there could be a revival, perhaps also using BMX bikes and skateboards...

Ooh, nasty. Knightmare was original, innovative, and exciting. Lose yourself in a fantasy world, rendered through cutting edge green-screen technology. Cast spells with care, sidestep left, and when in doubt go right. 112 episodes.

The Krypton Factor

Properly challenging, immensely popular and fondly remembered game show, in which legendary hell-raiser Gordon Burns put four contestants through "the ultimate mental and physical tests" to find out who was the United Kingdom Superperson of the year.

Challenge yourself by trying to understand the task in Mental Agility, still less play along at home! Try to land the plane in the Response round! Spot the deliberate continuity errors in the Observation round! Gawp as stockbrokers and teachers complete a proper army assault course! Ponder as they try to build a model of the Kremlin using Tetris pieces! And follow the chain from answer to question in General Knowledge!

And whoever wins has to come back and do it all over again. Immensely popular family viewing, and far more edifying than Wogan on the other side. A revamp in 1995 was all over the place, a revival in 2009-10 almost hit the mark.

Lots of special editions, featuring sports stars, entertainment people, mountaineers, and international champions; The Krypton Factor finished just before a Gladiators special would have made sense. And there was Young Krypton, hosted by Ross King in the CITV block.

Let's put those episodes straight into the scoreboard, where we see a Krypton Factor of 316 episodes, and 295 primetime episodes.

Last Commanders – a Knightmare for the modern age – managed 25 episodes last decade before the pandemic got in the way.

The Noel Edmonds Late Late Breakfast Show managed 83 episodes, full of Give Us a Whirl, The Hit Squad, Mr. Puniverse, and The Golden Egg Awards. Grew increasingly capricious with the safety of contributors, and the show came to a juddering halt following the death of Michael Lush; it had been commissioned up to episode 100.

Laughlines

Comedy game where the first half of a rhyming couplet was supplied and comedians were challenged to complete the other half. The last words had to rhyme. The two contestants had to guess what the very last word of the poem would be to win money.

Nicholas Parsons controlled (!) the show, alongside four cheap up-and-coming comedians. Made for BSB's Galaxy channel, which explains why absolutely nobody has seen it, or remembers it. 135 primetime episodes.

The Law Game had Shaw Taylor ask celebrities to do the job of judge and jury, and work out the finer points of the law in England and Wales. Ran on Radio 2 for over fifteen years, 168 episodes.

A League of Their Own

Always first to copy someone else's idea, KYTV came up with something suspiciously similar to BBC1's They Think It's All Over. James Cordon, Jamie Redknapp, and Freddie Flintoff try to be the most amusing people in the pub as they banter and bicker about sports stars old and new. Famous guests join them and we wonder, are the regulars trying that bit too hard?

Executive producer Danielle Lux said it would be "an Olympic standard comedy show for anyone who loves their sport and a fun-filled half-hour for those who don't." This column's never found it funny, or fun, or anything other than a chore to watch. Still, it's been the one programme to keep Jimmy Carr in work for the last fifteen years, and it's given Romesh Ranganathan some rare television exposure, and proves that women can do sport as well because there's usually at least one Smurfette on the panel.

146 episodes in the main series, plus 55 compilation and Christmas and other special episodes. We're not going to include A League Of Their Own Road Trip, as it's a travelogue with no real competition element.

201 primetime episodes.

Scoreboards so far

Covering shows beginning with numbers, or letters A-LEA.

All episodes

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
Just a Minute	1065
Four in a Bed	1058
Going for Gold / One to Win	1058
Call My Bluff	1047
Dickinson's Real Deal	1025
Antiques Road Trip	905
I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!	846
Fighting Talk	835
Great British Menu	741
Family Fortunes	717
The Brains Trust	691
Can't Cook, Won't Cook	685
ITV Play	650
Coach Trip	630
Have I Got News for You	613
Hold Your Plums	600
Games World	590
Catchphrase	583
Richard Osman's House of Games (3)	582
Going for a Song	569
Have a Go	567
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue	557
Criss Cross Quiz	508
Fame Academy	500

Just a Minute the only show we've added this week.

Primetime episodes

Show	Episodes
Big Brother	4173
I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!	816
Family Fortunes	647
Have I Got News for You	611
Call My Bluff	542
Catchphrase	531
Double Your Money	470
Great British Menu	469
The Apprentice	468
Juke Box Jury	461
Come Dancing	431
The Generation Game	425
Blind Date	416
The Brains Trust	416
Games World	390
Have a Go	390
Britain's Got Talent	383
Bullseye	369
The Great British Bake Off	368
Blockbusters	366
It's a Knockout / Jeux Sans Frontieres	340
The Golden Shot	339
ITV Play	321
Blankety Blank	320
The Krypton Factor	295
Celebrity Juice	271
Dragons' Den	269
Big Break	252
Fame Academy	251
Dinner Date	242
8 Out of 10 Cats	232
Jacpot	223
Ask the Family	221
Criss Cross Quiz	220
Celebrity Squares	210
A League of Their Own	201
What Do You Know?	200
Dancing on Ice	189
Artist of the Year	175
Going for a Song	175
In It to Win It	172
Face the Music	166
The Chase	163
Eggheads	160
Gladiators	160
8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown	157
3-2-1	154
Joker's Wild	150
BBC New Comedy Award	149
Every Second Counts	142
Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway	141
Cardiff Singer of the World	141
Jet Set	139
Britain's Next Top Model	138
The $64,000 Question	137
Laughlines	135
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral	131
Jeopardy!	130
Gamesmaster	129
The Crystal Maze	124
Flying Start	123
Do I Not Know That?	121
Bob's Full House	117
Eurovision Song Contest	112
Ask Me Another	109
Busman's Holiday	103

Of the shows we've covered this week, A League of Their Own is the only one certainly still in primetime production. We would be interested to see a few Celebrity! Jeopardy! episodes.

In other news

The third series of The Traitors is in the can, and is being edited to brighten our winter evenings. Series 4 has been commissioned. They're also going to make Celebrity The Traitors, we hope the cast will be wide and diverse.

Pointless asked for contestants in the first BBC and NBC series. How can everyone possibly forget Maddie? Or the other side's Cirie? Memory is a fickle beast.

Quizzy Mondays

Robin Dunford took orchids carefully, steadily, sensibly, and very well. He won Mastermind with a strong specialist subject, and kept going even when the questions weren't going his way. Ramona McKnight took Schitt's Creek and finished second.

Sprouters beat the Hopsters on Only Connect, with a quick burst of The Muppet Show theme, the grand old Duke of York and his ten thousand men, and a lovely sequence about +h, −cule, ×cale, ÷nd – try saying them out loud.

A one-starter shootout on University Challenge saw Open University beat UCL by 190-175. Josh Mandel the star buzzer for UCL with six starters, but Hector Payne won the buzzer race on the new South African flag to secure a win. Earlier, Josh had zigged with "Montréal" when they wanted "Quebec City": when your luck's out, your luck's out. We'll surely meet UCL again in the repêchage, possibly before Tony Livesey remembers there are repêchages outside the Olympics.

Quiz digest

• The Estonian language has no word for "doughnut". (Twelve Points from America)
• The percentage of 19-year-olds in the US with a driver's licence dropped from 87.3% in 1983 to 68.7% in 2022. (Wall Street Journal)
• Pope Lando reigned for about seven months (about four trusses) in 913-914. No documentation about his time in office has survived, and he is not believed to be any good behind the wheel of a racing car. (Only Connect)
• Marsh mallow is a kind of sedge, taking its name from fluffy white seed heads. (University Challenge)

Test the old grey matter with some familiar quizzes: BBC Brain starts its new series with Brain of Brains (Radio 4, Sun). Less prestige, more money on The Chase (ITV, from Mon). The Good, the Bad and the Unexpected returns (Radio Scotland, Fri).

Only Christmas and the Paralympics can take Countdown off air, so no episodes on Thursday or Friday, or the following week. Season's greetings to all readers!

It's all kicking off on ITV next Saturday night. Stephen Mulhern's Celebrity Catchphrase with Stephen Mulhern will please the Stephen Mulhern fan club. BBC The Voice of Holland welcomes Leann Rimes, Tom Fletcher, and Danny Jones to the Incredible Spinning Chairs. Stephen Mangan tries to find the Password. BBC1 has repeats.

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