Genre Panel show Original language(s) English | Country of origin United Kingdom No. of series 25 (BBC2)
?? (BBC1) | |
Presented by Robin Ray (1965–66)
Joe Melia (1966–67)
Peter Wheeler (1967–68)
Robert Robinson (1969–88, 1994)
Bob Holness (1996–2003)
Fiona Bruce (2003–05)
Angus Deayton (2011) Starring Team captains
Frank Muir (1965–66, 1969–88 & 1994)
Robert Morley (1965–66)
Alan Melville (1966–67)
Michael Flanders (1966–67)
Drusilla Beyfus (1967–68)
Kenneth Horne (1967–68)
Patrick Campbell (1969–80)
Arthur Marshall (1980–88)
Joanna Lumley (1994)
Alan Coren (1996–2005)
Sandi Toksvig (1996–2003)
Rod Liddle (2003–05) | ||
Call My Bluff is a long-running British game show between two teams of three celebrity contestants. The point of the game is for the teams to take it in turn to provide three definitions of an obscure word, only one of which is correct. The other team then has to guess which is the correct definition, the other two being "bluffs". It was brought back to BBC TV by producer Richard L. Lewis.
Contents
Examples of words used in Call My Bluff, taken from a book published in connection with the show in 1972, are Queach, Strongle, Ablewhacket, Hickboo, Jargoon, Zurf, Morepork, and Jirble. "Queach", for instance, was defined as "a malicious caricature", "a cross between a quince and a peach", or "a mini-jungle of mixed vegetation". The first and second of those particular definitions are bluffs.
The theme music for the show was Ciccolino by Norrie Paramor.
Broadcast history
Call My Bluff originally aired on BBC2 from 17 October 1965 to 22 December 1988. The original host was Robin Ray, later succeeded by Robert Robinson (from 1967).
Robert Morley and Frank Muir captained the teams. Morley was later succeeded by Patrick Campbell, and Arthur Marshall took over upon 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.
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 17 July 2005.
Call My Bluff returned for a special during the BBC's 24 Hour Panel People in aid for Comic Relief 2011, with Alex Horne, Roisin Conaty, Russell Tovey, Tim Key, Sarah Cawood and David Walliams participating. The host was Angus Deayton.
BBC2
Almost every single one of the first 263 episodes from Series 1–8 have been wiped from the BBC archives. The episodes that survived in the archives are Episode 3 of Series 2, Episodes 5 & 38 of Series 4, Episodes 3–4 of Series 5 and Episodes 15–16 of Series 8.