Game for a Laugh

The reason 'Game For A Laugh' wasn't called 'Candid Camera' was that someone else owned the title. Otherwise it was the same show, consisting of pranks played on unsuspecting members of the general public. The main difference were the 'look at me, aren't I funny' presenters - Jeremy Beadle, Henry Kelly, Sarah Kennedy and Matthew Kelly. Celebrities were occasionally roped in, such as Duncan Goodhew, Kenny Everett, and Windsor Davies. Personally, I could have done without the annoying presenters and over-the-top laughter track. Some of the pranks were very funny, though, such as the man in the nightclub unexpectedly watching his wife doing a sexy cabaret number. The close-ups of his astonished face had me in hysterics.

'Game For A Laugh' was so popular it wiped the floor with its B.B.C.-1 rival - 'Larry Grayson's Generation Game'. It was the creation of Alan Boyd, an ex-B.B.C. producer who'd defected to L.W.T. where he'd, somewhat ironically, produced 'The Generation Game'.

'Not The Nine O'Clock News' did a funny take-off of 'Laugh' featuring an audience shrieking as though in pain and a prank in which a man comes home from work to find his wife decapitated.

Matthew Kelly, Henry Kelly and Sarah Kennedy left at about the same time and were replaced by Debbie Rix ( later Rusty Lee ), Martin P.Daniels and Lee Peck, and the revamped show was moved from Saturday nights to Sundays. But viewers were not happy, and it was eventually cancelled. However, it was reincarnated as 'Beadle's About'.

I am going to partially disagree with the original review of this show. This was NOT a remake of "Candid Camera" which had its more disturbing & more thought provoking moments, this was purely a fun show. And fun it most certainly was for the first two series, with pleasant presenters and some interesting and amusing ideas, involving unsuspecting members of the public getting involved in bizarre but believable situations. And yes it did easily triumph in the ratings war over the BBC's outdated "Generation Game".

The problem was that there are only so many scenarios that can be used before the show either repeats itself, or just becomes too extreme. And that is what happened here, I suggest watching the first two series but not the subsequent three when the show became a parody of itself.

And as for a parody, in 1982 Not the Nine O Clock News featured a bad taste spoof of "Game For a Laugh". Considered amusing at the time, in retrospect the same is seen as smug middle class pseudo intellectuals mocking the simpler tastes of the proletariat. Its probably fair to say that in the new twenties "Game For a Laugh" is the more fondly remembered.