Lucky Numbers (1)
Synopsis
Phone-in game vehicle for post-Swap Shop Edmonds. Main notes of memorability: cartoon sequence with lots of telephone lines buzzing and making the birds fly off the wires, and the comedy booby prize of a year's supply of bubble bath.
Segments included Guest the Audience, ABC quiz, Mystery Guest and the Ping Pong quiz.
After the series, Lucky Numbers was kept as a smaller segment within the Swappie itself.
Trivia
Two series of ten programmes were transmitted live from the same studio as Swap Shop. When the Shop closed at 12.10pm, the set was cleared for Lucky Numbers to go out live on the same Saturday evening. According to producer Clive Doig, the show "included magic, juggling, mime and musical acts from the contemporary pop scene". Mime was provided by Adrian Hedley, who would return the next year on Jigsaw.
The marvellously named Linzi Heritage writes to say...
I appeared on Lucky Numbers back in 1978 (I was part of an drama group on the show, we read out clues to our identity and the viewers had to phone in and guess what sort of group we represented). I am pretty sure though that the show went out live at around 5.00pm and not 7.00 as you have stated. We had Mary Tamm (Dr Who's sidekick at the time) and a pop group called Rags who sang a song called 'Promises Promises'. No one had ever heard of the pop group and as I was a child of 13 at the time, I remember being really miffed that we got Rags and the week before had the Boomtown Rats - never mind it was still good fun - and I got to kiss Noel Edmonds!
Ewwwww. We checked, and the first series (the one Linzi was on) actually went out at around 5.35 for 50 minutes(ish). Perhaps because of the studio-dressing requirements, the second run moved to Wednesdays at 6.45.
