Whodunnit?

Host

Shaw Taylor (pilot)

Edward Woodward (1973)

Jon Pertwee (1974-8)

Co-hosts

Frequent panellists included: Anouska Hempel, Patrick Mower

Broadcast

Thames for ITV, 15 August 1972 to 26 June 1978 (50 episodes in 6 series)

Synopsis

Original host, the Equalizer.

A typical panel of 'amateur celebrities', as the End of Part One spoof would have you believe.

Worzel Gummidge puts on his clever head for this early bash at Cluedo on TV.

As far as we could tell, no other show would offer Avon off Blake's 7 to appear like this.

Which one of these suspects "Dunnit"?

A murder is committed at the beginning of the show, and up pops the graphic of the title: WHODUNNIT? Four panellists are tasked at finding out. A 15-minute TV play is shown in which clues are planted, usually containing some manner of flashback and differing points of view.

The suspects sit and wait for their sentencing.

A true 70s flashback with true special effects.

The panellists go through a multi-step process where they can ask questions to the eight-or-so assembled cast members (those still living, in any case), and ask for a piece of film to be shown again. At the end of the deduction process, they have to write down who they think Dun It along with the clues they've spotted. (The studio audience also gets the opportunity to do this, with the winner receiving the fabulous Whodunnit trophy, although originally they won a choice of one of the more glamourous items from the play.) The panellists then say out loud the name of their accused and the main clue that gave it away.

Barbara Windsor asks a suspect a question.

Here's my card, call me.

The host then asks the guilty party, or parties, to stand up in the style of Tell the Truth. The host decides a nominal winner based on who spotted the most correct clues. In the early series the panellist who was deemed to have done best won £25 for the charity of their choice. Disappointingly, the solution was described in a rather rushed manner at the end of the show, and there are usually only two or three small things that you were supposed to have spotted. The nature of the solutions were fairly typical paperback affairs, such as left/right handedness, or "how could that innocent person point out the exact location of the murder if he wasn't there?"

The audience attempt to follow the plot.

And one person figures it out in the end.

Catchphrases

"Only the murderer can lie"

Inventor

Created and written by Jeremy Lloyd and Lance Percival.

Theme music

Tony Hatch

Trivia

In later series, the "prize" for the panel was to take a piece of the set home with them, preceding Trivial Pursuit's second incarnation by a couple of decades.

A US version of five shows, hosted by Ed McMahon, was broadcast in 1979.