Fun House

Host

Linda Lusardi (non-broadcast pilot)

Co-hosts

Two cheerleading twins called Melanie and Martina Grant

Broadcast

Scottish in association with Lorimar Teleproductions and Action Time for ITV, 24 February to 26 May 1989 (13 episodes in 1 series)

Scottish in association with Action Time for ITV, 23 February 1990 to 29 December 1999 (134 episodes in 10 series)

Synopsis

Gunge = Good?

IT'S WACKY!, IT'S FUN!, IT'S CRAZY!, IT'S OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!

Gunge, inevitably

Two teams of two play three gungy games to win points. After each game they are asked a question worth more points. After the third game it's the Fun Kart grand prix, a race around the studio where they can earn lots and lots of bonus points. This section would be good, were it not for the fact that the karts go at around 2mph, seemingly. (Maybe Health and Safety rules were kicking in rather too much even then - mind you, such rules were tightened up in the early 1990s anyway). Also, if there was any way of balancing the distance given that the red kart always had the inside lane all the way round other then a foot-and-a-half disadvantage at the start, we'd love to know what it was.

The infamous kart race

Fun House = Fun?

At this point the winners go into the Funhouse, by far the best bit of the show, where they can win some fabulous prizes, which can include cameras, sports equipment, cinema passes, skateboards and mystery tours, among other things. They have two minutes in order to collect the fifteen prize tags hidden around the various obstacles. Each person can only collect three tags before they have to come out, tag the other player and they do the same.

Everybody likes a slide

One of the prize tags is the Power Prize: the contestants know that they've got it if they hear a 'cock-a-doodle-do' sound. Picking the Power Prize means that Sharp asks the contestants a question which has multiple answers. They have up to 10 seconds to confer and give 3 correct answers, and he can only accept their first answers. If they're correct, they win a distinctly good prize, usually an action holiday, or alternatively something like a video camera or TV and video recorder. If not, at least they still have a goodly number of lesser prizes.

The animated clucking chicken whenever he gets grabbed by one of the kiddies.

It's better-than-average ITV kiddie fare. Usually quite entertaining and the Funhouse was very cool.

The kiddies confer by nearly headbutting.

Key moments

In the final jackpot question, one pair of kids were asked "Name three kinds of emergency service". The children replied: "Police, Ambulance... and the A.A". No, they aren't really the fourth emergency service.

In a 1996 christmas episode, Pat asked a question "The game we just played was set on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day is tomorrow, what's the day after Christmas Day?". The contestant replied "Easter".

One jackpot question that seemed quite hard (at least for the contestants' age-group) was, "Name 3 American states beginning with M". Not surprisingly, the contestants did not win the jackpot in this case. In fairness, though, said jackpot was won on a number of occasions and the balance between those who won and those who didn't was pretty fair - after all, like all other shows, they couldn't very well have contestants win every time.

Sharp would often make quite an entrance, usually on a bike, a scooter, a skateboard or a pair of rollerblades, or seemingly anything else that came to hand (or foot). And, of course, his hairstyle was always eye-catching - in most cases, it was the oh-so-80s mullet.

Catchphrases

Pat Sharp: "Here's the Fun House!", "Good luck to all of our players on the Fun House today!", "Re-run the Fun!", "You're going in the Fun House!" and, to the audience, just before the endgame, "Come and join us!"

Melanie & Martina Grant: "I have (male contestant name) and (female contestant name) from (place of birth) and they attend (name of school/college they attend) YAAAAY!

Voice-over: "It's time for Fun House! Wacky contestants, messy games, the fun kart grand prix race and a crazy chase to win lots of prizes! Now, here's the guy who puts the fun into Fun House...Pat Sharp!"

Inventor

Credited as (deep breath): Based upon the USA TV series "Fun House" produced by Stone Television in association with Lorimar Television and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic TV distribution. Phew!

Theme music

By David Pringle and Bob Heatlie.

It's wacky! It's fun! It's cr-a-a-a-zy! It's outrageous!
Fun House... it's a whole lot of fun, prizes to be won,
It's a real crazy show where anything can go.
Fun House... it's a quiz, it's a race, a real wacky place,
Use your body and your brain if you wanna play the game!"

The Fun House theme music.

Trivia

Brilliantly, a pilot for an adult-orientated version hosted by ex-Page three stunna Linda Lusardi was filmed. One of the contestants was none other than Carol Smillie, presumably filmed just before she started on Wheel of Fortune.

Sam Nixon made his TV debut as a contestant on a 1998 edition. Meanwhile on the other side of the world, future Liverpool FC striker Luis Suarez was a contestant on the Uruguayan version of the show.

It took 11 minutes for the production team to reset the Fun House for another show. Pretty quick, really, when you think of the considerable mess that the show normally created.

Already smelling a huge hit on its hands, Scottish Television went into partnership with S4C and Comataidh Telebhisein Gaidhlig (the Gaelic Television Committee) in 1991 to produce Welsh and Gaelic versions of the show from Glasgow. Neither version materialised.