It’s September and from this month, in a bid to get things going here I am focusing on one subject each month. So I’m kicking off by going right back to my preschool years with one of the first TV shows I remember watching – Rainbow.
Although I’m fairly sure any preschooler today would be totally unenthusiastic if they were sat in front of Bungle, Zippy and George in a way the show set the standard for almost everything that airs on CBeebies.
So coming up over the next few weeks are my memories of the show, the trio mentioned above and another trio that spawned from the show.
Next time you’re at the supermarket and you hear the beep… think of the fun you could be having on Supermarket Sweep! – the famous closing words uttered by Dale Winton at the end of each daytime trolley dash. After a decade of working in supermarkets I think I can now say Supermarket Sweep may well have been fun but the real world of retail much less so.
Still some bright spark came up with the idea of a TV gameshow based in a supermarket, or should that be grocery store? because that bright spark was a guy called Al Howard who invented the format for American television. That first series was actually made in real supermarkets across the country – way back in the 1960s when such things must have been technically challenging. Later versions used a purpose built set, as did the show when it finally reached our screens in the 1990s.1
Dale’s Supermarket
In actual fact that was probably about the only time such a show could work in this country. A lot of changes to the regulation of broadcasting in the UK had happened and TV had been given more commercial freedom, taken a turn down-market and in the opinions of some, downright crass. Supermarket Sweep was an amalgamation of all of the above which a smattering of extra cheese for good measure.
The format was straight forward with three teams consisting of two players each. The first part of the programme was a straight forward quiz, with the contestants standing in front of the supermarket shelves behind buzzers cunningly disguised like shopping baskets. The game play was simple quiz questions, usually with a pricing game thrown in to keep up with the theming.
I’ve recently been able to rematch the first ever episode thanks to a combination of Challenge TV airing repeats and somebody uploading it to YouTube illicitly. The very opening moments featured a grand opening of the supermarket by none other than Ken Morely from Coronation Street who’s character Reg was the Supermarket manger at Firmans Freezers – if I remember correctly. He literally only appeared as a star name to open the show at the beginning as Dale Winton himself was far from being a celebrity at the time.
Actually, recently, me and Mrs. Ben have gotten into a routine of watching old episodes just before we go to sleep because, well we’re a bit weird basically. One thing I’ve realised by time jumping through the various series though is that questions got recycled quite a bit and those that weren’t were often just basic questions about soap characters which even now you’d only need a little knowledge to get right, “who is married to Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street?”2
Correct answers added time rather than points for the all important part of the show, the trolley dash – the Supermaket Sweep. The exception was the first question where the winning contestant got to run the ‘mini-sweep’ where they would run around the six or seven aisles looking for a specific item and usually not finding it. Still as a viewer this was a great warm up for the second half of the show, which really was the only bit we really wanted to see – the actual trolley dash.
Straight after the adverts the sweep got underway where one half of each team got to push a trolley round filling it with whatever they felt like, high value items like frozen turkeys always seemed to go in, as well as ironing boards – which seems a bit impractical. Extra points could be earned for collecting specific items from a shopping list, weighing sweets or finding a can with your teams colour stuck on it – not forgetting those all important bouncy bonuses. My local fruit and veg shop (remember those?) used to have an inflatable banana and always wondered…
Inflatable Bouncy Bonus
There were a couple of rules for the sweep, like a limit on how many items could go in a trolley and during the episodes from the first series I’ve been able to catch up on a very specific point about not taking out any cameramen. Perhaps they had some bad experiences during the pilot recording.
Only the one member from each team got to push the trolley round the supermarket, despite them all doing at least one pit stop to swap out the trollies, I always used to think this was unfair for the team mate who had nothing to do other than shout and cheer random aisle numbers at the top of their voice.
I recently saw one episode where the trolley pusher went a bit nuts and was ripping stuff off the shelves left right and centre, he nearly tipped his trolley. His team mate didn’t look best pleased when the scores came in at the end – possibly because everything he chucked around the place was deducted from the score and put into a big cardboard box at the end. They had been in the lead at the start of the sweep but came firmly last.
The guy on the right was really not happy.
I only saw that happen the once. But then I was a child in the 1990s so I only really saw Supermarket Sweep when I was off school sick where it was the only option worth watching, even then I only watched for the trolley dash at the end.
I’ve got this far and I haven’t even discussed the host, Dale Winton3. Much like the show Dale’s career could only really have existed in the 90s. He was camp, but he was down to earth. He spoke of how he knew he had to host the show, how it would be perfect for him and he was right. His career rocketed once it began, hosting more TV cheese like Pets Win Prizes and becoming one of the hosts of the National Lottery along the way.
Watching back over the series its clear to see where Dale’s star was in the ascent. First the pastel blazers went to be replaced by trendier shirts, then the show became ‘Dale’s Supermarket Sweep’ but fair play to him. He hosted a ridiculously camp and over the top gameshow set in a supermarket and did it with a totally straight face.
Also while time-hopping through past episodes it’s worth noting that the synatsised saxophone music used during the various sweep rounds often borrowed from pop songs but usually only a few seconds worth – possibly enough to avoid paying any royalties.
The show ran for exactly eight years, running from September 6th 1993 to September 6th 2001 and then finished – the last of those cheesy daytime gameshows of old, the cheesiest too probably. By the end Dale was tucked into the early afternoon slot, his morning opening hours being occupied by Trisha.
With product placement becoming a thing, advertising restrictions being relaxed (the original show was careful not to give undue prominence to any brands, not easy to do when you literally have a fully stocked supermarket as a set) you’d imagine it would be perfect for a revival, and they tried. With Rylan Clark hosting and Tesco stocking the shelves,4 but it doesn’t seem to have done that well. I can’t confess to having watched a whole episode but from what I’ve seen, it tried way too hard to be cheesy and camp rather than playing it straight in the way Dale and Co managed in the 90s.
Even Dale himself failed to revive the show seven years after the original run ended. It was all a bit more polished, you could even see cars in the car park behind Dale,5 the music was less camp. There were far more references to Mr. Winton too (Dale’s Daily, Dale’s Deals… etc.) and frankly Dale himself looked tired and less interesred than he had in the original.
But that original lives on, endlessly cycled on Challenge TV and in randomly uploaded episodes on the internet that me and Mrs. Ben like to watch just before bed because it requires minimal investment or brain power.
It was definitely a product of its time – and even then it was probably on special offer.
1. That set was built in the studios of Central TV in Nottingham for those that wanted to know.
2. Jack Duckworth
3. I should really mention Bobby Bragg, long-standing TV warm up man who commentated on the sweep and was an integral part to the personality of the show.
4. Various supermarkets supplied the goods for the original show including Asda and Sommerfield but this was only acknowledged during the closing credits and who reads them anyway.
5. At the time I thought this was impressive and pulled off well but having watched back its really obvious that it is just a photo blow-up. Less convincing than the painted backdrops you’d see whenever a front door was opened on an old sitcom. Just goes to show that the memory plays tricks.
6. Shalamar Night to Remember being one which seemed to repeat the ‘make this a night to remember bit on a loop’ and The Jacolksons, Blame it on the Boogie which seemed to borrow only the key bit once then not replace it at all.
When is a memory not a memory? So back in the early 90s Walls introduced their Walls Bangers which were Sausages in breadcrumbs. Because not only were Walls a well known ice cream brand they also did Sausages, still do.
Now I’m certain I will have had these but I have no recollection of them, I remember the advert but not the product itself.
It’s all so beige!
What this memory actually concerns is a different product. Round, coated in breadcrumbs but fish-based. The reason I recall it was because it was absolutely disgusting. They used Pollock, which is your go-to fish for non cod/haddock products.
They were vile and the memory has always stayed with me and I have always stayed away from fish products bar the occasional battered haddock at the fish and chip shop.
I’ve had plenty of foods I didn’t like but I think the reason I was so revilled by the round fish finger was that I had been expecting them to taste just like the round breaded Sausages did.
Also can we just take a moment to appreciate that Walls advert which was so beige just to match how the product looked on the plate. I dunno why that looked so appetising as a kid.
In many ways this was ITV’s answer to top of the pops or perhaps a way of capturing the MTV experience in an hour on Saturday Mornings.
The programme featured music videos from the various chart toppers if the week. There was on screen information alongside which when I was younger only the animations were of interest but as I grew older the information contained within was somewhat of interest.
The on screen graphics and information from the mid-90s straight from an Amiga computer.
The programme was a constant throughout my childhood as my Dad was a big music fan and missing it was probably unthinkable. Even as I got older and watched Live and Kicking it was rare I ever got to see the phone-in at the end of the programme.
The chart show is the kind of programme I would probably appreciate more now than I did then only with the same songs they used to play. As a child music was not so important to me, least of all chart music.
As well as the main singles chart – it was the Saturday Chart and therefore often differed from the main chart on Sunday, there were other charts like the Indie Chart and Album Chart.
The graphics would often change but the format was stellar. Top of the Pops 2 owes a lot to the programme. Eventually it was Ant and Dec and a live music programme, CD:UK that would see the programme end.
Just incase you couldn’t tell with the Twix logo all over the title sequence.
Bonus points for the well integrated Twix sponsorship at the start.
In the nineties Casualty didn’t air all year long and there was a drama shaped hole in the Saturday night schedule. Bugs was one of the shows made to plug the gap.
It was about a secret team of law-enforcers. They weren’t police and weren’t MI5 but somewhere in between. They used technology to crack down on various bad guys.
The series was probably one of the first to use ‘modern’ technology as the main plot device and perhaps the first recognise cyber crime as being the future for criminals.
There was a pretty strong cast although they all came from soap(ish) series. Jay Griffiths previously in the Bill played Ros, Jessie Birdsall previously in Eldorado played Beckett and Craig MacClaughlan who had been in neighbours played Ed.
As a general rule Beckett was the one who took charge and only got his hands dirty when it really called for it. Ed was the dare-devil who took on various stunts and Ros was the computer nerd who generally used technical knowledge to hack systems and crack codes.
At the time it all seemed fast-paced and cutting edge but if you get the chance to see it now.. as I did when London Live started repeating in – random programming choice!
It doesn’t really hold up. The 90s computers running pre-Windows operating systems is fine but in one scene they were trying to crack a code on a Speak and Spell – ET had one of those in the early 80s! Spraying it silver did not disguise the fact!
Aside from the dodgy technology the programme struggled to gain the audience it needed for a Saturday night. A cliff hanger at the end of the second series was enough to get it a third but the same trick didn’t work for series 4.
Bugs will mostly be remembered for… well it probably won’t be remembered by most at all.
The notion of there even being a room for smoking in a workplace is now nothing but a memory. This sitcom came just a couple of years before smoking indoors at work was outlawed.
The Smoking Room was a weird lounge with yellow walls and old files in an office building, the exact nature of the business was never really revealed but its staff gave glimpses of the world beyond the smoking room, we never saw outside of its four walls for the whole series.
The cast were the smokers. Robert Webb played Robin. He was the only character to remain in the Smoking Room for almost the entire time, exactly what his job was isnt clear but he obviously didn’t spend much time doing it, although he would often state that he would finish off his cigarette then he really must go back to work.
There was also one more thing about Robin. He was (probably) gay, in the closet and obsessed with Ben from the Post Room. He’ll try and drop him into conversations but usually gets little response. Everyone else in the smoking room is pretty much clear on the reality when it comes to Robin.
So who else was in the smoking room? There was Sally who could be sarcastic but probably the most down to earth of the lot. Her friend was Annie who was over dramatic about everything and Barry who was your typical loser, he was always struggling with a crossword.
Annie are you okay? Are you ok Annie? Annie are you okay? Are you ok Annie?
Also popping in were Clint the handyman, who was fairly hapless at fixing things and Len the security guard. He tended to leave most of the work to his junior Ranjit, who is never seen. In season two Heidi popped in, she wasn’t a smoker and was definitely weird.
Occasionally popping in for a fag was Sharon, the manager of the business – nobody liked her but she tried small talk because she had been on courses suggesting she should. Her assistant Janet had no confidence and would often talk about standing up to Sharon, but never did.
The Smoking Room could easily have been a radio comedy as there is very little visual humour and everything takes place in one room. It is also set in real time and while episodes have some threads running through them most are self-contained.
I don’t think you could call it laugh out loud funny but there are enough jokes in there. The bulk of the humour comes from the scenario and pictures painted by the cast.
The series came to an end with a Christmas episode set during the office party. It concludes with an excited Robin being greeted by Ben from the postroom. There were no further episodes made, partly as Smoking Rooms became outlawed.
Being tucked away on BBC Choice this programme probably didn’t get the audience it deserved. It was well observed and full of dry wit and I really enjoyed it. Coming out around the same time as the Office it probably deserved more recognition as there haven’t been many sitcoms set in a single location.
A few extra useless details I remember from the BBC website of the time, the theme tune was Close to Me by The Cure. Also the majority of the cast were non-smokers and so low-tar cigarettes were used which apparently smelt worse than normal ones.
I’ve already covered the Beano and described how, for a brief time it was my comic of choice as a kid. Naturally when it’s cover star was made into an animated series I was all over that.
The characters were straight from the Dennis and Gnasher strip, Dennis was the rebel kid, Gnasher was in on it but spoke only in ‘Gnash Gnash’. Mum was slightly mad (just like my own mum) and Walter was as soppy as ever.
Most episodes were standard Dennis fare, he would come up with some sort of rebellious plan and eventually pull it off.
One episode that sticks in my mind particularly was the one featuring the then presenters of Blue Peter Katy Hill and Stuart Miles. The making of was also featured on the programme itself.
This episode sticks in my head particularly because they used a previous Blue Peter theme tune, probably as the dustbin lids of stomp would have jarred a bit amongst the cartoon music.
The series stands up well and the more recent animated series probably owes a lot to this one, personally I think traditional animation suits Dennis best but then he is straight out of a comic book.
The BBC didn’t own the series and it was often repeated on the Fox Kids channel, to the point where it was almost the only thing on the Fox Kids channel. Thesedays all episodes are avaliable on YouTube.
Ben remembers... 