A little Christmas present for you all... A bit of That's My Dog...

Hello and Merry Christmas to you all, here as a Christmas Present to you is an as yet unpublished bit of TV Nostalgia from the feature I write for... My take on that cream of game shows... That's My Dog... Be sure to look back in the next couple of days when I look at Eric Sykes and his silent films...

Some shows can claim to be award winners, while others cannot but for the lack of them, they can be a lot of fun. That's My Dog can be said to be the latter, a game show where the main contestants were canine! Where Norwich was famous for Sale of the Century, Plymouth was famous for this.

Backed up by their owners, they would both try and eventually win a top prize of £500 in the end game where the dog sniff out the money which had been covered in their owners own scent. Before that, the canines would go through a maze to see who did it in the quickest time to gain points as well as the human owners answering doggy based general knowledge questions both about breeds and when the show's vet came on about medical questions on their pet.

University Challenge it may not have been, but it amused viewers for almost five years between 1984 and 1988 as ex-New Faces host Derek Hobson and his hostess or as the programme called her a 'Kennelmistress'. The first series, had the family's surnames they had the dog's name on the front of their podiums, any viewer tuning in might have been confused as to why a family's surname would be called 'Rex' and that was half the fun of this strange, confusing show. That's My Dog, a show ready to roll over and have its belly tickled!

TV Nostalgia - Chain Letters

Here is the latest TV nostalgia column printed in the Portsmouth News on Saturday 16th June on Chain Letters... Enjoy!

"Change a letter, do it again and that's how you play Chain Letters.." An easy enough explaination of a gameshow, but this daytime show was a lot more then that. First broadcast in 1987 with Jeremy Beadle as host, it seemed like a cut price version of the letters round in Countdown.

Contestants were individually given words, and they must change one letter at a time to make new words. Though its never what it seems, from a simple four letter word, they would usual change it to what viewer at home was thinking about, usually leading to them using a different kind of four letter word instead!

Various hosts each had a go at presenting duties. From Jeremy's replacement, Andrew O'Connor to Dave or as he was billed back in 1997, David Spikey. Affable and genial, seem the words to describe him , at times though it did seem like he looked like he was caught in headlights! But he had needn't have worried as one of his main writers on the show was none other then a pre-Phoenix Nights Peter Kay, supplying the jokes for him. Though some good must have come out of it for Spikey and Kay, as they employed former host and warm up man for the show Ted Robbins and Spikey, made that version of himself into the character Jerry 'The Saint' Sinclair. 

Now who said that presenting gameshow wasn't good for the career, especially when you can get great material for future projects from them!

TV Nostalgia - Record Breakers

"What is the tallest building in the world?" or "Who holds the record for putting the most number of underpants on in a minute?" Questions, questions... All vital and sometimes amusing, though from a simple idea of putting the Guiness Book of Records on television came Record Breakers. 


The host Roy Castle would muck in himself, literally. The phrase jack of all trades is understated for Roy, an song and dance man, he transformed himself into a superman by setting three world records himself including wingwalking on a aeroplane across the channel! 


The weird and wonderful nature of the show allowed people to set record by balancing milk crates on their head, making it certainly a very unique way of delivering milk. The set piece record attempts, such as the biggest dance troupe in the world, which was so iconic that it was voted one of the most favourite TV moments of all time, when perfomed  it was so big that it filled the whole courtyard of BBC TV Centre full of tapping feet leaving Castle the only place to perform was a platform on the fountain in the middle, almost literally singing in the rain!


As always though the end theme tune said it all, dedication's all you need. The dedication of the viewers was enough to make sure that Record Breakers was a hit even after Roy Castle's death in 1994. As Roy would have surely said himself "How's about that for blowing your own trumpet, eh?"