Challenge TV launched on Freeview!

Just a question here about the Blockbusters titles, the ones used on the episodes Challenge is airing at the moment.

These episodes were made in 1991/2 I think, IIRC from the credits. This would be a good few years after the 1988 abolishment of ITV front-caps. I noticed that the titles focus on the Earth for quite a long time before the zoom effect happens, and wondered whether that was to allow for the long fades channels used to do between the ident and the programme.

But then I stumbled across this video on YouTube, of the Blockbusters titles used on the Gameshow Marathon.



This features the 1985 Central animation, which I can presume was the front-cap used. But am I right in thinking these titles were introduced in 1987/8? So the Central frontcap would only have been seen for a short time, meaning that the long pause on the 'Earth' became redundant very quickly.

Yes your bang on the money there, in 1987 these new titles were introduced, and with the central moon fading into the earth. I believe someone made a mock up of this.

The Gameshow Marathon openings used were pretty much all wrong in one way or another, most commonly using the wrong music for a particular era of a show (such as using what later became the Challenge 2006 Bullseye theme over the "Bully Drives a Bus" opening titles for Bullseye, which were introduced in 1986 and lasted until the "Bully Trashes The Set" titles replaced them in 1995, though the music didn't change in 1995).

The example you mention, the best known example of the opening of Blockbusters, wasn't introduced until 1987, and front-caps had pretty much been phased out by that time anyway, I think they'd stopped using them by 1986. Gameshow Marathon wasn't particularly accurate in many areas and I wouldn't rely on it to any great degree as an example of how an opening sequence would have looked originally, because the Blockbusters one is bogus for a start.

Using a 1985 front-cap, this is what should have followed it, because it was used from 1983-1987:

Didn't they get the 'Price Is Right' one wrong on Gameshow Marathon ISTR?

YTV intro, but Central era titles?

Yes, but that must have been intentional.

Another contestant disqualified in tonight's Krypton Factor!? That's 2 already! How many were disqualified in the original series??

Are they showing the episodes in the correct order today?

Yes, heats 2 and 3 in Group B.

The titles to Blockbusters are fantastic, but incomprehensible - what do they have to do with the show? The zoom around wrapping paper city bit particularly?!


I know, especially since it was the equipment not actually doing what it's supposed to!

AFAIK, those were the only 2 disqualifications in the 1995 series.

It's a late-80s futuristic Bladerunneresque extrapolation of the idea of the hexagon -- the three glowing hexagons fly through the city on a journey to their destination - a church-like hexagon-revering temple with a hallway filled with images of holidays, adventures and, for some reason (which I never noticed until I started watching on Challenge this week) a potted plant. The hexagons then burst through the game board revealing the field of battle, and Zeus presiding over the scene.

It doesn't have to mean anything, but it was cool, fashionable, and visually interesting. One could wonder what magical flying buses with ejector seats have to do with darts

To be far, she was cheating though pulling them out before the lights came on. Wonder why they didnt let her climb to the top of krypton mountain and then tell her she had been disqualified, like the one last week! So cruel!