Take Your Pick!

History

The first version of the television show was produced by Associated-Rediffusion (later Rediffusion London), while the revival was made by Thames Television (whose arrival as the new London weekday ITV company had led to the original show's demise).

During gameplay, contestants would answer a series of questions without using the words 'yes' or 'no' in what was known as the "Yes-No Interlude". If they failed to answer all the questions, they would subsequently be gonged off the stage. If successful, however, contestants would answer more questions to win modest monetary prizes. At the climax of the show, contestants would be offered the choice of whether to "take the money" (take all money they had earned so far) or "open the box" (opening a box that could contain good prizes, such as a holiday or a washing machine, but could also contain booby prizes such as a mousetrap or a bag of sweets.

The first version was hosted by Michael Miles (after its demise, Miles hosted a similar show for Southern Television called Wheel of Fortune, not to be confused with the later Wheel of Fortune of the same title). Bob Danvers-Walker, the voice of Pathé News from 1940 until its demise in 1970, was the show's announcer, and Alec Dane was on hand to bang the gong. At the electronic organ was Harold Smart.

Des O'Connor became the host for the second version in the 1990s. His future wife Jodie Wilson was one of the hostesses; she would later be replaced by Neighbours twins Gayle and Gillian Blakeney.

The show was again revived for one night as part of Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon in 2005, a series of the Geordie duo presenting classic ITV gameshows as part of the channel's 50th anniversary in their own style.

A similar formula was used for Pot of Gold, another game show hosted by O'Connor.

The game was played during the ninth series of Britain's Got More Talent.

Yes/No interlude

In this opening game, the host asked the contestant a series of questions in a 60-second span. The contestant could not say yes, no, nod or shake their heads. If they did, the co-host would bang the gong and the contestant would be eliminated (unless other contestants did the same).

Box numbers and the prizes

There were 10 boxes numbered from 1 to 10 and an additional Box 13. Of the former, there were 3 boxes containing booby prizes, 1 containing a star prize (e.g. a small car) and 6 containing other prizes (of which 1 was a "treasure chest" of cash). One box also included the option to choose Box 13. The host offered an alternative prize of up to about £50 (or, in the revival, a number of hundreds of pounds) in cash and the contestant had to choose between "taking the money" and "opening the box".

In this game, the contestant must answer 3 out of 4 questions correctly before choosing from boxes 1 to 10 and activating box 13 within the 10 boxes like cinema tickets, baby food, cowboy hats or pork pies which relates to a prize, but also with larger prizes containing such as television sets, video players, cash, karaoke machines, double beds, music vouchers and sofas, or booby prizes containing nose hair trimmers, last night's cold food, a box of chocolates, breakfast cereals, rotten tomatoes, cat food and dog food and the star prizes containing kitchen appliances, cars, motorbikes, jet skis, hotels, computers and holidays.

Associated-Rediffusion

Only 6 out of the 494 episodes from the Associated-Rediffusion era survived from the archives including Episode 2 of Series 1, Episode 39 of Series 10, Episodes 1-2 of Series 12 and Episodes 18 & 44 of Series 13.