Criss Cross Quiz

Synopsis

Noughts-and-crosses with questions chosen from 98 different categories. Every right answer earned you £10 (worth about £150 in today's money). If the game was drawn then in the second round the challenger went first and the questions then went up to £20.

There was also Junior Criss Cross Quiz, which ran alongside the main show for the whole run.

Key moments

One contestant walked away with £2,360. Not surprisingly, they put a limit on the number of times you could win shortly after. In fact, Simon Lewis tells us:

I appeared on Criss Cross Quiz in (I think) early 1960. My final winning score was £1080, but I was only allowed to take £1000. I was told that the reason for this shortfall was that as a result of the quiz show scandals in the States which occurred in the late 1950s (the excellent film directed by Robert Redford came out in 1994), the UK producers had been told to reduce the temptation to cheat by reducing potential winnings.

Inventor

Based on Jack Berry and Dan Enright's US format Tic Tac Dough.

Trivia

The final two contestants were Anthony Douglas from London and Rennie McGowan from Liverpool. On the very last programme, because the game was unfinished and there was obviously no way of continuing the game, both contestants were awarded £10 for each score they'd made on the board. And that was that.

Our thanks to Roz O'Hanlon who helped out with the details and adds:

I was a contestant on this show in 1966 when Barbara Kelly was the question master. Unfortunately I only got £10 which was a premium bond and not cash. I still have it today and as yet have still not won anything on ERNIE.

Merchandise

A board game was produced.

Pictures

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