Countdown Classic Episodes

[James Robinson]

In case you haven't seen, Challenge have just announced that they'll be showing classic episodes of Countdown for the first time next month.

They say they have 60 episodes from 1991-2, so that's around the Series 21-24 area. https://www.facebook.com/ChallengeTV/ph ... 90/?type=1

WHO ISN'T EXCITED ABOUT THAT

[Johnny Canuck]

Are there any "recap gaps"* that might be able to be filled in by these transmissions?

*also a valid conundrum scramble

[James Robinson]

Are there any "recap gaps"* that might be able to be filled in by these transmissions?

*also a valid conundrum scramble

Just a tiny bit of stuff needed on Episodes 1176 & 1177.

It would be much better if we had stuff from Series 1, 2 & 7.

[Gavin Chipper]

Are there any "recap gaps"* that might be able to be filled in by these transmissions?

*also a valid conundrum scramble

There's likely to be interesting stuff in games that got missed out of the historical recaps, so it will always be worth comparing the game against the recap.

[Graeme Cole]

This is pretty cool. I don't think old episodes of Countdown have ever been repeated before, except for rare one-offs like the very first episode, and a handful of episodes in place of rained-off cricket over a decade ago.

If they're saying "60 episodes from 1991/92" my guess is that they're going to show Series 23. It would make sense for them to show an entire series rather than 60 randomly selected episodes from those two years. Series 23 was 65 episodes long though, so maybe 60 is approximate, or they've had to leave out five episodes for some reason.

If this hunch is correct, then we might see Glen Webb's original run.

[Jack Worsley]

Graeme, are there any contestants from that era who have also appeared in recent years (or have a namesake who has)? If so, it may be worth checking to see if they are the same person, as I don't think the wiki is entirely accurate in that respect. I'll probably remember the appearances of most 2011-14 contestants, while Robbo will have a good idea too.

[Graeme Cole]

Graeme, are there any contestants from that era who have also appeared in recent years (or have a namesake who has)? If so, it may be worth checking to see if they are the same person, as I don't think the wiki is entirely accurate in that respect. I'll probably remember the appearances of most 2011-14 contestants, while Robbo will have a good idea too.

If we look at contestants who appeared in 1991-92 with the same name as contestants who appeared in 2010 onwards, there are some that we already know are the same person, according to the wiki: Eileen Taylor, Eric Emslie, Glen Webb, Gweni Sorokin, John Taylor, Peter Etherington, Simon Gillam and Terry Stapleton. In some of these cases we already know they were returning contestants, but I'm not sure how we know in the case of, say, John Taylor.

Barry Grossman, David Webb and Jackie McLeod all appeared in 1991-92 and then in the 30th Birthday Championship.

Contestants who appeared in 1991-92 with the same name as contestants from 2010 onwards who the wiki does not say are the same person (and hence have different player IDs in the database so are treated as separate people) are Bill Donaldson, David Smith (two of these since 2010) and Peter Wilson. In the case of unusual names like Gweni Sorokin we might decide "yeah, this is probably the same person" in the absence of any other information, but we can't really do the same with these very common names, which is why I'm wondering whether someone had extra knowledge about John Taylor to decide he was a repeat contestant.

An obvious limitation of this sort of analysis is that a contestant could have changed their name since their first appearance, for marriage or other reasons, in which case we might never realise they've appeared before. There are almost certainly unknown cases of this on the wiki, where the same person is recorded as two differently-named players, but there's not much we can do about it except correct it as and when someone in the know points it out.

[Edward Byrne]

Im so exited about this, it's getting late now, I hope I am not dreaming

[Mark Deeks]

Graeme, are there any contestants from that era who have also appeared in recent years (or have a namesake who has)? If so, it may be worth checking to see if they are the same person, as I don't think the wiki is entirely accurate in that respect. I'll probably remember the appearances of most 2011-14 contestants, while Robbo will have a good idea too.

If we look at contestants who appeared in 1991-92 with the same name as contestants who appeared in 2010 onwards, there are some that we already know are the same person, according to the wiki: Eileen Taylor, Eric Emslie, Glen Webb, Gweni Sorokin, John Taylor, Peter Etherington, Simon Gillam and Terry Stapleton. In some of these cases we already know they were returning contestants, but I'm not sure how we know in the case of, say, John Taylor.

Barry Grossman, David Webb and Jackie McLeod all appeared in 1991-92 and then in the 30th Birthday Championship.

Contestants who appeared in 1991-92 with the same name as contestants from 2010 onwards who the wiki does not say are the same person (and hence have different player IDs in the database so are treated as separate people) are Bill Donaldson, David Smith (two of these since 2010) and Peter Wilson. In the case of unusual names like Gweni Sorokin we might decide "yeah, this is probably the same person" in the absence of any other information, but we can't really do the same with these very common names, which is why I'm wondering whether someone had extra knowledge about John Taylor to decide he was a repeat contestant.

An obvious limitation of this sort of analysis is that a contestant could have changed their name since their first appearance, for marriage or other reasons, in which case we might never realise they've appeared before. There are almost certainly unknown cases of this on the wiki, where the same person is recorded as two differently-named players, but there's not much we can do about it except correct it as and when someone in the know points it out.

So if I change my name I might be able to sneak back on? Awesome. Please refer to me only as Horatio Swank from now on.

[James Robinson]

Has now been confirmed that "Classic Countdown" will be commence airing on Challenge on Monday 14 September at 7pm.

2 episodes a day will be shown, with them being repeated at noon the following day.

[Gavin Chipper]

Are they on consecutively?

[James Robinson]

Are they on consecutively?

Yes, 7-8pm is the Countdown Zone!!

Still don't know where they're exactly starting from yet, but my guess is somewhere in Series 22....

[Nick Deller]

The trailer shows Richard Stilgoe holding up a card with a jocular 9 letter nonword, which fits perfectly with the details we know about July 3rd 1991 (Season 22 Ep 3).

[Tracey Anne Mills]

Looking forward to seeing these classic episodes

[James Robinson]

The trailer shows Richard Stilgoe holding up a card with a jocular 9 letter nonword, which fits perfectly with the details we know about July 3rd 1991 (Season 22 Ep 3).

Yeah, based on the fact that they also said they had about 60-odd episodes, and Series 22 is 65 episodes long, it suggests to me that it's just that whole series that Challenge has.....

[Philip Wilson]

There's a "Countdown 2 days to go" teaser on screen on challenge today.

[James Robinson]

There's a "Countdown 2 days to go" teaser on screen on challenge today.

There was a "Countdown 3 days to go" teaser on screen on Challenge yesterday.

[Philip Wilson]

There's a "Countdown 2 days to go" teaser on screen on challenge today.

There was a "Countdown 3 days to go" teaser on screen on Challenge yesterday.

Ha ha I have a pretty good idea what it will say tomorrow then!

[Philip Wilson]

Are we having spoilers and recaps for these matches?

[Gavin Chipper]

Are we having spoilers and recaps for these matches?

We certainly should do - at least with spoilers. Spoiler threads can be started by anyone but with the recaps we could just post extra details in the existing historic recaps if we pick anything up.

[James Robinson]

Are we having spoilers and recaps for these matches?

We certainly should do - at least with spoilers. Spoiler threads can be started by anyone but with the recaps we could just post extra details in the existing historic recaps if we pick anything up.

We already have the recaps, or have you forgotten about the work that I mostly did to recap them a few years ago...

Or in other words, go to the Historical Recaps section...

[Gavin Chipper]

Are we having spoilers and recaps for these matches?

We certainly should do - at least with spoilers. Spoiler threads can be started by anyone but with the recaps we could just post extra details in the existing historic recaps if we pick anything up.

We already have the recaps, or have you forgotten about the work that I mostly did to recap them a few years ago...

Or in other words, go to the Historical Recaps section...

Yeah, that's what I said.

[Philip Wilson]

We certainly should do - at least with spoilers. Spoiler threads can be started by anyone but with the recaps we could just post extra details in the existing historic recaps if we pick anything up.

We already have the recaps, or have you forgotten about the work that I mostly did to recap them a few years ago...

Or in other words, go to the Historical Recaps section...

Yeah, that's what I said.

Sorry, didn't mean to start a fight

[Philip Wilson]

So this was the first series to use the pencam and it also saw the introduction of the second conundrum in the event of a tie instead of a rematch which happened before.
It was also legal to pick only 2 vowels at this time. The champion sat next to the host and the challenger had first pick.
Er endings to one syllable adjectives were allowed if not specified too.
Don't think any of this counts as a spoiler

[Rhys Benjamin]

Er endings to one syllable adjectives were allowed if not specified too.

Isn't this still the case?

[Philip Wilson]

Er endings to one syllable adjectives were allowed if not specified too.

Isn't this still the case?

Yep sorry, I made it sound like it was different to now. I just mentioned it because I didn't think it was always the case but it was then. Or has it always been the case?

[Gavin Chipper]

What happened to today's episodes?

[James Robinson]

What happened to today's episodes?

Did you not see they moved it to 4pm now

[Gavin Chipper]

What happened to today's episodes?

Did you not see they moved it to 4pm now

Where was I supposed to see that? Radio Times says 7 and they didn't mention immediately before or after last week's shows that they were changing times for this week. I don't check the Challenge website every day to make sure they aren't going to arbitrarily change their schedule so I'd have no reason to know. Where did you hear?

Are the repeats still on from 11am?

[James Robinson]

What happened to today's episodes?

Did you not see they moved it to 4pm now

Where was I supposed to see that? Radio Times says 7 and they didn't mention immediately before or after last week's shows that they were changing times for this week. I don't check the Challenge website every day to make sure they aren't going to arbitrarily change their schedule so I'd have no reason to know. Where did you hear?

Are the repeats still on from 11am?

I heard on Facebook, first from Challenge's own page, then Michael Cullen mentioned it, and the adverts have now changed the time from 7pm to 4pm.

And yes, the repeats are still at 11am.

[Philip Wilson]

Series link works it out by itself, luckily, as I've got behind being away. I noticed my box recording something at 4 o/c on Monday, which was how I found out they'd changed it.

[James Robinson]

It's just been mentioned on Facebook that the last 5 episodes of this series have now been found, and they're being shown from Friday at 7:30am.

[James Robinson]

Just finding old episodes on YouTube is fun...

Just came across this episode which was shown a month before my very first show, which was also the debut of Alison Heard in DC, plus featured a future murder suspect in the audience...

https://youtu.be/eAfOdIHRnEo

[James Robinson]

Another classic Countdown episode here.

This is from January 2001 in Series 44, and the introduction piece from Richard gave an interesting insight on what was about to happen in the near future...

[James Robinson]

A few more episodes have suddenly appeared from the 9R/15R transition period in 2001, including one of the rare episodes when a certain Series Producer was in the celebrity guest chair....