Bamboozle
Encyclopedia
Bamboozle! was a quiz game featured on Channel 4
Teletext
in the United Kingdom
. It was originally part of Teletext's "Fun & Games" category, though the rest of the category had been discontinued for some years before Bamboozle! ended (due to the general discontinuation of all Teletext news and editorial content in December 2009). The last edition, themed around ends and lasts, appeared on Monday 14 December 2009. The Boozler 'family' appeared one last time on Tuesday 15 December 2009 [pictured right] saying farewell to the Teletext
audience.
On 9th August 2010 Bamboozle! was given a new home by Teletext
on the iPhone
complete with all the retro graphics.
As Of September 2010, Bamboozle returned to Teletext.
Bamboozle! was originally intended as a real-time game that could be played in conjunction with a broadcast TV programme using a similar multiple choice format as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
. The decision by the new broadcast teletext franchise holders (Teletext UK) in 1993 to opt for X.25
packet switching meant that it was impossible to adequately synchronise the broadcast of teletext content in the context of a TV programme. The format thus fell back to the form it had operated in largely unchanged since 1993.
host, Bamber Gascoigne
. Bamber Boozler's appearance was constrained by the limitations of the Level 1 World System Teletext
alpha mosaic display format. From 1993-2005, Teletext competitions editor Julian Edwards assumed the role of Bamber. In later years, journalists Charlie Ghagan and, latterly, Roger Wilkinson oversaw the quiz. Roger Wilkinson also provides content for the Teletext
iPhone
app.
A new set of questions was originally given each week, but this soon became more regular, eventually becoming daily. Each game originally had 25 questions, later reduced to 20, then 15 and eventually 12. The player was required to answer all questions correctly in order to complete the quiz, but was allowed multiple attempts to do so. Initially, if a question was answered incorrectly, the player would have to start again from Question 1, However this was later amended so that a maximum of three questions would need to be answered again. After completing the quiz, there was a score table with themed responses, for example:
according to how many questions were answered correctly at the first attempt.
featured related questions and images of skeletons and spiders, whilst Guy Fawkes Night
featured firework based questions, as well as numerous Christmas
based versions. There were also special "name the picture / person" graphical editions.
Other Boozler family members were introduced over the game's first few years - Bamber's wife, Bambette, who normally appeared when a question was answered incorrectly; and Saturday's quizzes were presented by Bamber's son, Buster, and were generally easier than the weekday editions. Bamber also had a daughter, Bonnie, who filled Bambette's role when Buster presented the quiz. At one point in the quiz's history the red, yellow and green keys were sensible answers and the blue was mostly reserved for a stupid response although this was sometimes the correct one. This was later generally stopped and all the keys would usually have sensible answers.
The quiz started off at 20 questions, then it went down to 15 and then 12. On very few special occasions it was 30, however one question wrong and contestants had to start from the very beginning.
The "Bad Luck" pages appeared when questions were answered incorrectly, they used to feature little trivial messages at first and then mainly birthday announcements. This was scrapped to introduce "Bambette's Bonus" (or Bonnie's Bonus in Junior Bamboozle!) where contestants could score again with a question from her. This was not a multiple choice question and contestants could get the answer by pressing the reveal button.
20 WHSmith gift voucher. Even before this, viewer-submitted questions were used in various forms ever since the early days of the quiz.
". Viewers had to use the fastext keys to navigate their way through the quest.
"Ten to One", was a sports version of Bamboozle! with the host Brian Boozler. The quiz was so called because it presented ten sports questions and players had to get from the ten down to one. It is a double meaning as Ten to One also relates to bookies popular odds on betting in many sports.
This quiz ran concurrently with Bamboozle! for sometime until late 1998 where Brian said "I'm putting down the mic for a bit, I'm back in 1999...", however it never returned. He was during the period the quiz was "rested", a guest quizmaster on Bamboozle! asking the contestants sports questions like before, with Bamber saying at the end "Thanks Brian..... check your score below!".
Junior Bamboozle! was a version run on Saturdays for children. It was hosted by Buster Boozler and the bad luck pages were hosted by Bonnie Boozler.
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
Teletext
Teletext
Teletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. It was originally part of Teletext's "Fun & Games" category, though the rest of the category had been discontinued for some years before Bamboozle! ended (due to the general discontinuation of all Teletext news and editorial content in December 2009). The last edition, themed around ends and lasts, appeared on Monday 14 December 2009. The Boozler 'family' appeared one last time on Tuesday 15 December 2009 [pictured right] saying farewell to the Teletext
Teletext
Teletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
audience.
On 9th August 2010 Bamboozle! was given a new home by Teletext
Teletext
Teletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
on the iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
complete with all the retro graphics.
As Of September 2010, Bamboozle returned to Teletext.
Bamboozle! was originally intended as a real-time game that could be played in conjunction with a broadcast TV programme using a similar multiple choice format as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a television game show which offers large cash prizes for correctly answering a series of multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty. The format is owned and licensed by Sony Pictures Television International. The maximum cash prize is one million pounds...
. The decision by the new broadcast teletext franchise holders (Teletext UK) in 1993 to opt for X.25
X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet switched wide area network communication. An X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange nodes as the networking hardware, and leased lines, Plain old telephone service connections or ISDN connections as physical links...
packet switching meant that it was impossible to adequately synchronise the broadcast of teletext content in the context of a TV programme. The format thus fell back to the form it had operated in largely unchanged since 1993.
The game
The game used Fastext keys (different coloured buttons on the TV remote control) to select the desired answer from a choice of four, and was "presented" by virtual host Bamber Boozler, who derived his name from the word "bamboozle" and the name of University ChallengeUniversity Challenge
University Challenge is a British quiz programme that has aired since 1962. The format is based on the American show College Bowl, which ran on NBC radio from 1953 to 1957, and on NBC television from 1959 to 1970....
host, Bamber Gascoigne
Bamber Gascoigne
Bamber Gascoigne, FRSL is a British television presenter and author, most known for being the original quizmaster on University Challenge.-Biography:...
. Bamber Boozler's appearance was constrained by the limitations of the Level 1 World System Teletext
World System Teletext
World System Teletext is the name of a standard for encoding and displaying teletext information, which is used as the standard for teletext throughout Europe today....
alpha mosaic display format. From 1993-2005, Teletext competitions editor Julian Edwards assumed the role of Bamber. In later years, journalists Charlie Ghagan and, latterly, Roger Wilkinson oversaw the quiz. Roger Wilkinson also provides content for the Teletext
Teletext
Teletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
app.
A new set of questions was originally given each week, but this soon became more regular, eventually becoming daily. Each game originally had 25 questions, later reduced to 20, then 15 and eventually 12. The player was required to answer all questions correctly in order to complete the quiz, but was allowed multiple attempts to do so. Initially, if a question was answered incorrectly, the player would have to start again from Question 1, However this was later amended so that a maximum of three questions would need to be answered again. After completing the quiz, there was a score table with themed responses, for example:
| 12 | Super star |
| 10-11 | Martian master |
| 8-9 | Clever comet |
| 6-7 | Middling meteor |
| 3-5 | Plodding Pluto |
| 0-2 | Total eclipse |
according to how many questions were answered correctly at the first attempt.
Themes
On particular dates the quiz was themed, for example HalloweenHalloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
featured related questions and images of skeletons and spiders, whilst Guy Fawkes Night
Guy Fawkes Night
Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night and Firework Night, is an annual commemoration observed on 5 November, primarily in England. Its history begins with the events of 5 November 1605, when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding...
featured firework based questions, as well as numerous Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
based versions. There were also special "name the picture / person" graphical editions.
Other Boozler family members were introduced over the game's first few years - Bamber's wife, Bambette, who normally appeared when a question was answered incorrectly; and Saturday's quizzes were presented by Bamber's son, Buster, and were generally easier than the weekday editions. Bamber also had a daughter, Bonnie, who filled Bambette's role when Buster presented the quiz. At one point in the quiz's history the red, yellow and green keys were sensible answers and the blue was mostly reserved for a stupid response although this was sometimes the correct one. This was later generally stopped and all the keys would usually have sensible answers.
The quiz started off at 20 questions, then it went down to 15 and then 12. On very few special occasions it was 30, however one question wrong and contestants had to start from the very beginning.
The "Bad Luck" pages appeared when questions were answered incorrectly, they used to feature little trivial messages at first and then mainly birthday announcements. This was scrapped to introduce "Bambette's Bonus" (or Bonnie's Bonus in Junior Bamboozle!) where contestants could score again with a question from her. This was not a multiple choice question and contestants could get the answer by pressing the reveal button.
Weekly competition
The makers of Bamboozle! introduced a weekly competition whereby a viewer could contribute the questions to Bamboozle! As well as having their questions used, names mentioned and their image appear on screen (the viewer could supply a photograph, which was converted to a Teletext-style cartoon); the winning contributors also received a £Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
20 WHSmith gift voucher. Even before this, viewer-submitted questions were used in various forms ever since the early days of the quiz.
Spin offs
Back in the early days of Bamboozle!, on a number of occasions the quiz would be put on hold and in its place was an adventure game (a different one each time), based on the popular children's fantasy programme "KnightmareKnightmare
Knightmare is an English television program for children, produced by Broadsword Productions for Anglia Television and was broadcast on ITV from 7 September 1987 to 11 November 1994...
". Viewers had to use the fastext keys to navigate their way through the quest.
"Ten to One", was a sports version of Bamboozle! with the host Brian Boozler. The quiz was so called because it presented ten sports questions and players had to get from the ten down to one. It is a double meaning as Ten to One also relates to bookies popular odds on betting in many sports.
This quiz ran concurrently with Bamboozle! for sometime until late 1998 where Brian said "I'm putting down the mic for a bit, I'm back in 1999...", however it never returned. He was during the period the quiz was "rested", a guest quizmaster on Bamboozle! asking the contestants sports questions like before, with Bamber saying at the end "Thanks Brian..... check your score below!".
Junior Bamboozle! was a version run on Saturdays for children. It was hosted by Buster Boozler and the bad luck pages were hosted by Bonnie Boozler.
Trivia
- Bamber occasionally made reference to the different people that have written the quiz over the years, referring to "the different people that have played me".
- Bamber proved to be so popular with Bamboozle! that he was also used for a brief period to host a few of the other games on the "Fun and Games" menu before they were all discontinued.
- Bamboozle was mentioned in Peter Kay's stand up act (at the Comedy Store), when he quipped that you know your relationship is failing when you're playing Bamboozle together in bed.