Trivia / Catchphrase

• Adored by the Network: The series has always been popular in the United Kingdom and was heavily adored as much as Family Fortunes.
  • Challenge also frequently broadcast episodes of the series, occasionally taking it off. Nowadays as of 2024, this has been averted (see below)
• Edited for Syndication: The broadcast version of "Snake Charmer" episode edits the offending puzzle so Mr. Chips' right hand no longer moves, toning the moment down considerably (and making the laughter from the contestants, audience and host baffling to anyone)
  • Additionally, all the episodes that air on Challenge have been edited so that it omits the viewer catchphrase and the application message at the end of the show.
• Hey, It's That Sound!: The clock used in the Super Catchphrase in the TVS era was reused in the 1988-90 revival of Conentration, witha slightly altered time's-up sound. It makes sense, as the shows had similar concepts, were both produced by TVS, and the first series of the Concentration revival was hosted by Nick Jackson, who provided the voiceover on most of the TVS series.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Whilst Challenge TV shows all episodes from the Carlton-era series whilst Roy Walker was hosting, the original run by TVS (from 1986 to 1993) will likely never see the light of day again, as most all of the TVS library is currently in legal limbo, and the paperwork for the TVS archives is supposedly lost^note  It began when TVS decided to purchase MTM Enterprises (the creators of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, WKRP in Cincinnati, and others), and got heavily into debt, and as a result lost their broadcasting rights to Meridian, and it was then sold to International Family Entertainment, the holding company for what is now Freeform, spun off from Pat Robertson's CBN organization. When Fox Kids acquired what then became Fox Family, MTM came along, and when that got sold to Disney, MTM's library had already been absorbed into Fox. Throughout all these legal shenanigans, TVS' library got lost in the shuffle. The tapes from the TVS era were subsequently wiped by Disney in later years. However, several episodes from the TVS era do exist on YouTube to be watched at any time.
  • Meanwhile, the original American version is presumably held by Warner Bros. (they acquired the distributor, Telepictures, along with Lorimar in 1989), but hasn't been seen anywhere since the original run.
• Missing Episode: To go with the above mention of the TVS episodes never being aired on TV anymore, whilst episodes of the original British series are being uploaded to YouTube, some episodes are totally lost, though this would mainly be due to Challenge's original incarnation, The Family Channel, not airing certain episodes, mainly the original celebrity specials.
• No Budget: The final series saw the budget take a massive cut, leading to the stakes being lowered. For example, the players played for points instead of money, with the winner gaining a rather paltry prize of £250. The holiday for winning the bonus round could also only be in Europe, rather than anywhere in the world.
• Out of Order: The first aired show of the American version was actually the sixth taped, slightly edited to remove the references to the champ's previous winnings. The real first week of shows didn't air until December (likely because of the major rule changes that occurred).
  • Season 9's last episodes aired a month prior to the Carlton era starting. The whole season aired a year after TVS lost its ITV franchise and sold its assets to IFE.
  • Season 11 and 12 may have aired out of order, but it's unknown if that was true or not.
  • Season 14 (Nick Weir's first series) was presented far differently from how it was recorded in production. The first episode recorded just so happened to feature the infamous moment when Nick Weir tripped and broke his leg on the steps. The first episode that aired in broadcast was the seventh to be recorded, as that was the soonest to be recorded after Nick stopped wearing a foot plaster, and ITV didn't want to give him a bad first impression. Not that the incident helped matters. In fact, that aforementioned first episode actually aired as the eleventh!
  • Nick Weir couldn't take a break, and even Season 16 was this. It was produced in late 2001 but never officially aired until ITV burned it off as daytime filler between May 2003 and April 2004, with one episode airing in November 2002.
  • Series 17 aired in order from May-August 2002 up until the last three episodes which were burned off in December. The reason was to make room for the daytime version of Family Fortunes, which was similarly met with poor reception.
• Production Posse: Art James and Marty Pasetta had previously worked together on a late 1960s game show called Temptation (not to be confused with the Sale of the Century remake), although it was apparently a coincidence that this happened.
• Prop Recycling:
  • At least once in the first UK series, a Bonus Catchphrase was reused from the American version with only some minor colour differences.
  • The opening sequence to a Series 10 episode had the catchphrase "shooting stars", and the animation was actually taken from an episode of Family Catchphrase.
  • In the opening sequence to most Series 11 episodes, the catchphrases shown were previously seen in Series 10. Similarly, it wasn't uncommon to see catchphrases from Series 10 reappear as squares in the Super Catchphrase in Series 11 and 12.
  • During Mark Curry's stint as host, the show had suffered a massive budget cut. This was partially shown by a number of catchphrases being recycled directly from Roy Walker's and Nick Weir's own runs.
• Screwed by the Network: The US version suffered from the crowded syndication market that felled many other shows over the years; the then-new Lorimar-Telepictures had an "insurance policy" in place for stations, Perfect Match, hosted by Bob Goen.
  • And the UK version initially got screwed over by TVS' loss of broadcasting rights, only for Carlton (the replacement for Thames on London weekdays) to rescue it and run it until 2002 (though the move to daytime is where the series started slipping).
  • Even the more recent 2013 version isn't safe from this, as ITV now only produce one-off celebrity specials (although this is more understandable - this is as a result of Covid after all).
  • Challenge somewhat unceremoniously stopped broadcasting reruns in March 2024, partway through series 14.
    • The show was brought back to its airing schedule, this time on weekday mornings, in August of the same year, but only showing Series 12 to 15 for unknown reasons. Then the airing slot was adjusted to Sunday afternoons, but no episode was broadcast on New Year's Eve 2023, and the show was quietly dropped from the schedule.
    • Then in March 2024 came the most half-hearted attempt at showing reruns as once again only Series 12-15 would be shown, this time **once** a day, and only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This was deemed to be a flop, so, after only showing two episodes, Challenge quietly dropped it from their schedule once again after a week.
• Title Sequence: The 1986-1993 series' title sequence was created by a British company called Electronic Arts. Before anyone calls forward, that company has nothing to do with the game company Electronic Arts.
• What Could Have Been: Wink Martindale posted on Youtube a sizzle reel (and a full pilot) for a potential US revival series- it didn't get picked up, though. Todd Newton hosted. See the reel here and the pilot here.
  • Before that, Pasetta had tried to revive it in 1987 as Puzzle Roulette, and again in 1989 as The Puzzle Game. Jim Lange hosted these attempts; the former may have been intended as a replacement for another Lange series, The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime and possibly as Lorimar-Telepictures' "apology" for cancelling the original series so quickly.
  • Apparently, Pasetta originally pitched the US version for ABC's lineup; however, they turned it down, most likely because they were phasing game shows out of their daytime lineup by that point.