Call My Bluff

This article is about the UK game show. For the US game show, see Call My Bluff (American game show). For the dice game, see Liar's dice.

Call My Bluff
GenrePanel game show
Created byMark Goodson
Bill Todman
Presented byRobin Ray (1965–66)
Joe Melia (1966–67)
Peter Wheeler (1967)
Robert Robinson (1967–88, 1994)
Bob Holness (1996–2002)
Fiona Bruce (2003–04)
Angus Deayton (2011)
Theme music composerNorrie Paramor
Opening theme"Ciccolino"
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series25 (BBC2)
12 (BBC1)
No. of episodes542 (BBC2)
469 (BBC1)
Production
Production locationPebble Mill Studios (1996–2004)[1]
Running time30 minutes
Production companyBBC Pebble Mill (1996–2004)
Original release
NetworkBBC Two (1965–94)
BBC One (1996–2004)
Release17 October 1965 (1965-10-17) –
18 June 2004 (2004-06-18)

Call My Bluff is a British panel game show based on the short-lived US version of the same name. It was originally hosted by Robin Ray and later, most notably, by Robert Robinson. Its most prominent panellist was Frank Muir. The theme music for the show was "Ciccolino" by Norrie Paramor.[2]

Format

The game comprised two teams of three (a captain and two guests) who would compete to earn points by identifying the correct definitions of obscure words. The teams took turns to give three definitions, one true and two bluffs, while the other team attempted to determine which was correct. If the correct choice was made the team earned one point, if not, the bluffing team earned one point. Both teams took turns bluffing and determining definitions.

Examples of words used in the show, taken from a 1972 book published in connection with it, include queach, strongle, ablewhacket, hickboo, jargoon, zurf, morepork, and jirble. The word queach was defined by the contestants as "a malicious caricature", "a cross between a quince and a peach" and "a mini-jungle of mixed vegetation" (with the last definition being the true one).

Broadcast history

Call My Bluff originally aired on BBC2 from 17 October 1965 to 22 December 1988.

Robert Morley and Frank Muir captained the teams. Morley was later succeeded by Patrick Campbell, and Arthur Marshall took over in 1981 following Campbell's death. Various celebrities also stood in as team captains, including Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams and Alan Melville. The original series finished after Marshall's death, although a general change in the tone and atmosphere of broadcasting at the time may also have affected its temporary demise. For the majority of this run (from 1967 onwards) the host was Robert Robinson.

The show was resurrected in 1996 after an eight-year rest (apart from one special edition on 16 April 1994 for BBC Two's thirtieth birthday, which still featured Robert Robinson, but this time with Joanna Lumley as a team captain opposite Frank Muir), now as a daytime series on BBC1. It began airing on 13 May 1996 with Alan Coren and Sandi Toksvig as the team captains and Bob Holness replacing Robinson as chairman.

In 2003, Toksvig was replaced by the journalist Rod Liddle, and newsreader Fiona Bruce took the chair. The series finished again on 18 June 2004.

Call My Bluff returned for a special during the BBC's 24 Hour Panel People in aid of Comic Relief 2011, with Alex Horne, Roisin Conaty, Russell Tovey, Tim Key, Sarah Cawood and David Walliams participating. The host was Angus Deayton.

Transmissions

BBC2

Series Start date End date Episodes
1 17 October 1965[3] 29 June 1966[4] 37
2 2 October 1966[5] 14 April 1967[6] 26
3 1 October 1967[7] 7 July 1968[8] 39
4 24 April 1969[9] 28 May 1970[10] 59
5 14 September 1970[11] 25 January 1971[12] 20
6 14 June 1971[13] 7 February 1972[14] 34
7 13 November 1972[15] 7 May 1973[16] 26
8 3 September 1973[17] 28 January 1974[18] 22
9 30 September 1974[19] 24 March 1975[20] 26
10 29 April 1976[21] 12 August 1976[22] 16
11 29 April 1977[23] 12 August 1977[24] 16
12 22 March 1978[25] 2 August 1978[26] 18
13 2 January 1979[27] 15 May 1979[28] 20
14 13 January 1980[29] 30 March 1980[30] 12
15 3 July 1980[31] 4 September 1980[32] 10
16 13 February 1981[33] 26 July 1981[34] 20
17 28 January 1982[35] 17 June 1982[36] 20
18 11 April 1983[37] 4 September 1983[38] 20
19 23 January 1984[39] 20 August 1984[40] 29
20 19 October 1984[41] 21 December 1984[42] 10
21 29 October 1985[43] 31 December 1985[44] 10
22 8 January 1987[45] 28 May 1987[46] 20
23 10 September 1987[47] 10 December 1987[48] 14
24 14 April 1988[49] 16 June 1988[50] 9
25 26 October 1988[51] 22 December 1988[52] 8
One-off 16 April 1994[53] 1

BBC1

Series Start date End date Episodes
1 13 May 1996[54] 31 May 1996[55] 14
2 2 September 1996[56] 10 January 1997[57] 80
3 1 April 1997[58] 17 July 1997[59] 58
4 1 September 1997[60] 3 April 1998[61] 143
5 4 January 1999[62] 1 April 1999[63] 64
6 6 September 1999[64] 17 December 1999[65] 75
7 22 May 2000[66] 12 July 2000[67] 20
8 4 September 2000[68] 14 September 2000[69] 9
9 3 January 2001[70] 19 January 2001[71] 13
10 4 February 2002[72] 31 May 2002[73] 40
11 19 May 2003[74] 1 July 2003[75] 30
12 1 June 2004[76] 18 June 2004[77] 9

Book

References in other works

  • An episode of the early-1980s LWT sketch-comedy series End of Part One parodied the show as Scrape My Barrel, where panelists had to figure out the meaning of the word working class.
  • The show (and in particular its host, Robert Robinson) was the subject of a sketch by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in the second series of A Bit of Fry and Laurie.
  • In the "Europe" episode of QI (series E), a segment was featured entitled "Call My Euro Bluff", featuring stories about laws in the EU. The panel then had to decide whether each story was true or a "bløff" (Stephen Fry pronounced it "blerff"). Fry frequently drops into the impersonation of Robinson that he used in the sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie.
  • In the Doctor Who episode "Bad Wolf" Call My Bluff is mentioned as one of the games hosted in the game station.
  • In May 2014 the quirks of the show were lampooned by Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse in BBC Two's satirical Harry and Paul's Story of the Twos, where the show was given the name "Speech Impediment" and the word chosen for the panel was paedophile.[78]

References

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