Noel's House Party
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| Noel's House Party | |
|---|---|
 Original Logo (1991-1996) |
|
| Format | Live entertainment |
| Starring | Noel Edmonds |
| Country of origin |  United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 8 |
| No. of episodes | 169 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | BBC1 |
| Picture format | 4:3 |
| Original run | 23 November 1991 – 20 March 1999 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | Noel's Saturday Roadshow |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
Noel's House Party was a BBC television light entertainment show hosted by Noel Edmonds that was broadcast live on Saturday evenings throughout the 1990s. It was set in a large house in the fictional village of Crinkley Bottom, leading to much innuendo. The show was broadcast during the autumn-spring season (October/November - March).
The show had many regular guests posing as fictional villagers, including Frank Thornton and Vicki Michelle. The show gave birth to Mr. Blobby in the Gotcha segment. The character became well known, ruining the premise of the segment, but Blobby still made appearances. There was also a contrived rivalry between Noel and Tony Blackburn.
It won a Bronze Rose of Montreux in 1994.
Contents |
[edit] Regular features
[edit] Gotcha
Originally called the "Gotcha Oscars" until the threat of legal action from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, hidden camera practical jokes were played on celebrities. Notable victims were Dave Lee Travis, Richard Whiteley, Eddie Large and the Queens Park Rangers football club, although in the final series Dale Winton turned the tables on Edmonds with a surprise challenge which ended with a gunging.
[edit] Wait 'til I Get You Home
Parents watch pre-recorded footage of their children being interviewed by Noel, where they try to guess the answers they gave. A similar slot, The Secret World of the Teenager, replaced Wait 'til I Get You Home in later series.
[edit] Grab a Grand
A phone-in competition where a viewer would choose from three currencies (aiming to select the highest), and a celebrity (usually a sports star) would collect as many notes as possible from a clear booth pumped with air. Changed in later series to 'Grab A Gran' whereby a celebrity would collect as many notes as possible from senior citizens suspended from above by bungee chords.
[edit] Cash for Questions
Similar to Grab a Grand, a celebrity goes into the pitch black 'basement', and the winning caller would direct the celebrity to the bags of money with help of an infrared camera. Named after a political scandal: Cash-for-questions affair.
[edit] NTV
A camera would be hidden in the home of a member of the public, so that they would be on-air at the specified moment. Famously on one occasion viewers were told that the feature could not run due to technical difficulties. In fact the live feed from the unsuspecting victim's sitting room could not be broadcast because the subject was masturbating.[citation needed]
[edit] Sofa Soccer
A similar idea to Bernie the Bolt in The Golden Shot, a viewer from home would attempt to score goals by manoeuvring the machine firing the huge football ("left", "right", "shoot"). The jingle music to this game was based on Crazy Horses by The Osmonds.
[edit] The Big Pork Pie
A member of the studio audience has their embarrassing secrets revealed. Seated in a large prop pork pie, the victim would be connected to a lie detector machine (although in reality, this too was a prop). The victim had been set up by their friends or family who had provided the secrets.
[edit] The Gunge Tank
This was put to various uses, usually gunging celebrities. The gunge tank got progressively more sophisticated as the years went on - initially the gunge tank stunt took the form of a simple phone-in vote where the voting public would decide which of two celebrities would be gunged. In later seasons, it was developed into the "Trip Around The Great House", where the victim would be placed on a miniature railway that journeyed through the studio set, finishing up in the Giant Fireplace where the gunge would finally be released. For the final seasons, a selected member of the audience would be gunged by a retracting chair which would lower into the "basement" of the house, gunge the victim and then elevate back up into the audience position. Noel was himself usually gunged once a series - usually in the final episode of the season.
[edit] Number Cruncher
A modified phonebox (with gungetank and LCD screen) was placed somewhere in Britain. The number to get into the box was given, and the first person to get into the box got to play the game. Once in, they had 45 seconds to rearrange the code given on the LCD screen to get out. Towards the end people kept on pressing '9' to try and earn a lot of money, and people had to bring a stupid object.
[edit] Beat Your Neighbour
Neighbours would choose what prizes they wanted from each other's house, for every question answered, they were put on a tray. Then each family were asked questions alternately, if the question was right the belongings were pushed to their side. Controversial because of the two-second delay in the video link.
[edit] My Little Friend
Children from the public of Primary school age were led into a room with hidden cameras and two puppets set up to initially appear dormant in the room, one voiced by Edmonds. The puppets would 'awaken' and hold improvised conversations with the children.
[edit] Practical jokes
A regular feature at the end of each series was that a practical joke would be played on Noel (although exactly how contrived these were is unknown).
One of the most notable was based on a recurring sketch where Noel would attempt to sing, only to be interrupted by the doorbell. During the final show of that series, a caption appeared informing the audience that the doorbell "isn't going to ring." He was then 'forced' to sing You Don't Bring Me Flowers in its entirety.
The 1992 series finale saw the programme running order changed to one which was entirely different from that in Edmonds' script, causing him to repeatedly introduce the wrong items.
[edit] Mr Blobby
Mr Blobby started as a tool for Noel Edmonds to play Gotcha practical jokes on celebrities, but soon became popular and made appearances in many shows.
[edit] Demise
After several changes, the show's initially huge popularity declined. The theme tune changed in 1996, and set redesigns followed. Noel pulled the show in 1998 after apparent disagreements with the BBC producers and claiming it wasn't good enough. He returned for one final series.
| “ | It's an overworked expression when people say it's the end of an era but for BBC Television, the Entertainment Department, for me and possibly you, it really is the end of an era. After 169 [shows]...goodbye. | ” |
- Noel Edmonds final words on the last ever House Party (1999).
[edit] Trivia
 |
Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- On 6 March 1993, the studio was evacuated shortly before transmission due to an IRA bomb threat. Edmonds appeared in the Children's BBC 'The Broom Cupboard' studio to explain why there would be no episode that night, and introduced the replacement of a Tom and Jerry cartoon and Noel's Christmas Presents from 1991.
- Writers included Andy Parsons, Henry Naylor and Richard Lewis.
- The show had a couple of spin-off books, one of which was Noel giving tips on how to host a house party.
- In 1995 the character 'Chalkie Edmonds' (Noel's devious Nephew) was introduced to the show. The part was played by young actor John 'Chalkie' Adams who was previously a resident performer on Barrymore for LWT.
- Trevor McDonald was the subject of a Gotcha during the show's final series. The newsreader failed to see the joke and did not appear on the show to collect his trophy.[1]
- Uri Geller appeared in 1996 in a Gotcha section. During the footage Geller can be seen doing tricks twice. He peeks trough his fingers and bends a spoon with his hand. The makers of the show did not notice these parts or ignored them, Geller later claimed that he knew about the security cameras.
[edit] Transmissions
| Series | Start date | End date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 23 November, 1991 | 28 March, 1992 |
| 2 | 24 October, 1992 | 13 March, 1993 |
| 3 | 23 October, 1993 | 26 March, 1994 |
| 4 | 22 October, 1994 | 25 March, 1995 |
| 5 | 21 October, 1995 | 30 March, 1996 |
| 6 | 19 October, 1996 | 29 March, 1997 |
| 7 | 18 October, 1997 | 21 March, 1998 |
| 8 | 17 October, 1998 | 20 March, 1999 |
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Noel's House Party at the Internet Movie Database
- Noel's House Party at UKGameshows.com
- Noel's House Party at TV & Radio Bits
