Noel's House Party

Grab - A - Grand was the part of the show that enabled one viewer, and sometimes one house guest, the chance to win a lot of money. Noel would set a competition question early in the show for people to phone in with the correct answer. These were usually topical or related in some way to the show, such as "What was the colour of the gunge?", but just sometimes they were completely obscure. One memorable one for me was at the start of a new series when Noel asked "How many of the house guests have real beards?". Someone would then be telephoned back by Noel and asked three questions to determine how long they got out of the full minute. Noel would then welcome on a celebrity or someone chosen from the audience, who would then be placed into a wind swept booth and the money would be added. In the early shows, there was a choice of currency with some complicated exchange rates being shown on screen in an attempt to allow the person to get the most money possible, but most of them just went for the village's currency known as Crinkley Bottom Groats. The person would then be taken out and the money would be weighed in the scales, which would then be computed into the money the person was awarded. Never quite worked out how those scales worked out the amount so quickly. The game was changed towards the end of its life to include the whole audience grabbing the money which was blown around the studio by two industrial fans disguised as an aeroplane which would inevitably crash through the front door each week and some stuff would fall from the roof over Noel. Other variations included "witty" play-on words, such as Grab - A - Gran, Grab - A - Grand National and Grab - A - Grand Piano. The last person to play Grab - A - Grand was Frank Bruno on the 100th show.

Cash For Questions was Grab - A - Grand's replacement. The Professor was drafted in for this part of the show, using a piece of technology known as an endoscope used in a more pleasant way than was used on me and he would place it somewhere, which the viewers at home would have to identify in order to get through to the studio. The endoscope would be placed in something fairly recognisable, such as a vaccum cleaner tube or box of cereal. However, the fact that Noel asked the person what it was led to some bizarre answers, such as one poor lady thinking that a cheese grater was in fact a hole. Someone from the audience would be chosen and strapped to the wheel and Noel would set the thing spinning, a bit like that thing at Southport Fun House if it's still there. Someone who correctly identified the object would be put through to the main line and would be asked a series of questions, as in GAG, to see if they got the full minute down in the cellar. A celebrity would be welcomed on, taken upstairs to a slide, which they would then slide down in order to get into the cellar. There was no light in the cellar and this was proved on more than one occasion. The celebrity would have to grab bags worth £100 or golden bags worth £500. These would then be added up by Noel at the end of the segment. However, because this competition was normally just before the end of the show, there were a few unresolved HPs as the celebrity was really lost in the cellar. The production team got round this by switching the light on so that the celeb could find their way out, but this inevitably led to them grabbing a few extra bags on their way out, so after the end of the time, we were just left with a shot of Noel holding the trapdoor open.It is at this point that I should perhaps ask "am I going into too much detail?" lol

Big Pork Pie was a genius idea. Someone would be plucked at random from the audience who had been nominated by a friend of theirs. They would usually be picked out by a large finger pointing down at them and a cloud of white smoke. Subtle lol. They would then be taken down to the main stage and sat in, oddly enough, a big pork pie. This used lie detector equipment before any of the daytime TV got in on the act to find out embarrasing things about the person. If they managed to beat the lie detector equipment, they won a trophy which was, oddly enough, a big pork pie, although not a real one, I hasten to add! lol On the last in series show, Noel was put through this with Bob Monkhouse filling Noel's role asking the questions. The segment reappeared on the later series, however, they had thrown the technology away and went for jurors who nearly always got it right because the audience were told beforehand what the secret was and so laughed hysterically when it was read out. Therefore,  they had to ditch it.

I think everyone knows about Gotchas since they seem to have gone down in TV history now, and quite rightly, so I won't say much about them here. However, the basic idea was that a carefully planned trick would be played on a celebrity, Noel would usually turn up and reveal it was a Gotcha by presenting them with a golden trophy, but sometimes he didn't, such as in the case of poor Sandra Dickinson! The celebrity would then usually come on in a few months' time to the show in order for the Gotcha to be shown and were then presented with the trophy. A memorable celeb who refused to come on the show was Sit Trevor McDonald. Also, an interesting bit of trivia is that the Gotchas went platinum for the 100th show when Noel got some of the people from the past 99 shows again.

A segment of the show that I didn't like was the Hot House. Two sporting celebs were invited into the room to compete against each other in some sporting way, such as on an exercise bike or a rowing machine. They would have to illuminate a certain number of bars in order to win. Twists were put on this as the audience was split into two supporting each celeb. The supporters of whichever celeb lost would then go for a shower, which would involve water being sprayed from an overhead shower device. Foam was sometimes used. I suppose it was to keep up with the trend of home exercise that everyone seemed to be getting into at the time, but I didn't think that it fitted in with what House Party was all about.

My Little Friend was a good feature of HP, but one that again I didn't think fitted in with the theme. It involved the people in the studio doing less work while live on Saturday night and instead a simple clip tape being shown. However, it was very effective in what it tried to do. An object would be placed in an infant classroom and a small group of children would be asked to draw it. There'd be no adult supervision while they were doing this. The object would then appear to talk to the children, which of course, threw them completely at first, but most of them talked back, giving some very humorous comments to some of the questions that were put to them. However, when the children tried to show their teacher that the object could talk, it would go very quiet. I suppose it was the replacement for Wait Till I Get You Home, which I believe was dropped after the 100th party as well, but I could be wrong there.

NTV was really what made HP. Never before on live television had someone been set up by members of the public. It was like Candid Camera, but instead of something happening to the person and then being revealed, Noel would simply click his fingers and the target would be beamed into the living rooms of millions. Noel would then chat to the target, who may have had something strange happen to them during the week, and then he'd show a clip tape of the incident. Either that or they'd be made to perform some stunt or the photos you'd rather people didn't see would be shown to the nation. NTV - You're On Your Own was a silly twist on a brilliant format, as it took the concept of NTV and turned it into something that didn't particularly appeal to my sense of humour. Instead of the target finding themselves on TV for five mintues or so, they would be sent off to a remote location, such as living on a life raft or in the Arctic. The person would then spend a week in this location, before
> >  being given a chance to come home by taking part in a competition where they would be asked a series of questions. If they got a certain number right, they could come home and the week's star of NTV would have to go somewhere, but if they failed to answer the questions then they would spend another week somewhere else. Yes, you're quite right, it was complicated! lol
Open The Cupboard was a very early came in HP. Celebs would be placed in a cupboard and members of the audience who were chosen would have to guess who the celeb was by listening to them sing. I suppose this was the forerunner to Who's In The Wardrobe? which filled about three microseconds of TV primetime in later series by Noel running up some stairs and opening a cupboard to see which celeb had been placed in it. Yes, this one really was that simple! Often wondered how much they had to pay the celeb to stand in a wardrobe and be on TV for literally seconds, but still. It was the BBC budget.The Panel Game was another early NHP game. The contestants would be introduced and questions would be set by Noel and celebs who would pop out of the panels behind the contestants. Sometimes, as is the fun you can have with live TV, there would be a person behind the celeb trying to throw a bucket of water or something over Noel. Sadly often missed.

Now, I have left one thing out of all of my above comments. Something that Noel claimed led to the downfall of HP, but I always regarded as being very funny. Yes, that's right. Gunge. Practically no programme on TV since House Party has contained gunge, which is a shame. In the very early series, the gunge tank was very simple. It was a chair in a tank that someone would sit on, either a celeb or an unsuspecting member of the public. Noel would then ring a bell and gunge would fall. This tank was then modified to include extra jets of gunge being squirted in and then foam rising from the bottom of the tank and the gunge falling. Sometimes, if the victim was particularly short, the foam would go over them and sometimes spill out over the door of the tank.

The tank then changed to a car wash type which was one of my personal favourites. Noel would ring the bell and the bar would revolve, revealing the tank. The celeb or member of the public would be placed on a chair at the start. Noel would then go round to the other side and spin the wheel. The chair would move into the tank and through the car wash brushes with water squirting in. The chair would then stop under the tank of gunge and the inevitable happened. The chair would come out of the tank, the audience would applaud and the tank would turn round. Things didn't always go to plan though, such as when Noel had performed a dance routine and went to gunge one of the Roly Polies, who instead of sitting on the chair was stood on a platform. The platform moved into the tank, but unfortunately the Roly Poly member couldn't get through the brushes! The platform tipped back, sending the poor woman back to where she came from, but she eventually got to the end and was gunged. Noel also  had a taste of his own medicine on the last in series show, where he got gunged in this.

The Trip Around the Great House was perhaps the definitive gunge tank on television. During the time the show was off-air, the set was extended to incorporate what Noel called the "west wing". A cart was placed at the top of the stairs and a handle placed by the side. Noel would either get a celebrity or member of the public to go on the trip, either by coming to the door, being chosen out of the audience or by taking part in a phone vote. They would then be taken upstairs and placed in the cart. Noel would pull the handle and sparks would fly out. The cart would then move all through the house with different things being thrown down from the roof, such as confetti and gunge. The cart would eventually arrive under the fireplace where there would be another handle. Noel (or the person that nominated the target or won the phone vote) would pull the handle and the gunge would fall. Noel got this treatment himself at the end of the series at the hands of Richard Wilson and Andi Peters  with Gotcha victims coming on stage at the end to watch him being gunged. Interestingly, Noel didn't go on a trip on the 100th show (he just got foamed), so the last person with that dubious honour was Jenny Hull on show 99.