Now You See It (UK game show)

Now You See It
Created by	Frank Wayne
Starring	Johnny Beattie (1981–4); Jack McLaughlin (1985–6); ; Marion KirkwoodContents Format ; Prizes ; Transmissions ; Original series ; Celebrity series ; Kids series ; Trivia ; References ; External links ; Grant Stott (Celebrity version); Fred MacAulay (Children's version)
Narrated by	Steve Hamilton
Country of origin	Scotland
Original language(s)	English
Production
Running time	30mins (inc. adverts)
Production company(s)	Goodson-Todman Productions
Distributor	FremantleMedia
Release
Original network	Scottish Television
Picture format	4:3
Original release	5 January 1981 – August 1995
Chronology
Related shows	Now You See It (U.S. version)

Last updated April 28, 2019

Now You See It was a Scottish television game show that aired mostly in Scotland throughout its run. It was shown to a lesser degree across some of the ITV Network. It was based upon the U.S. version of the show and used the US show's "halftime cue" as its theme music.

A game show is a type of radio, television, or stage show in which contestants, individually or as teams, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles, usually for money or prizes. Alternatively, a gameshow can be a demonstrative program about a game [while usually retaining the spirit of an awards ceremony]. In the former, contestants may be invited from a pool of public applicants. Game shows often reward players with prizes such as cash, trips and goods and services provided by the show's sponsor prize suppliers.

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Sharing a border with England to the southeast, Scotland is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, by the North Sea to the northeast and by the Irish Sea to the south. In addition to the mainland, situated on the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland has over 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.

Now You See It is an American television game show created by Frank Wayne for Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions. The object of Now You See It is to answer general knowledge trivia questions by finding the answers hidden in a grid, similar to a word search puzzle.

Format

The game was centred on four contestants competing in a word search game mixed with trivia. The host asked questions and contestants buzzed in and searched for the answer on the board. Contestants would guess the line where the correct answer appeared and then the position as well as the answer. Points were awarded for correct answers, based on the line number added or multiplied by the position number. Example: Line 3 + Position 7 = 10 points or Line 3 x Position 7 = 21 points.

When time was up, the three highest-scoring players entered the "Cryptic" round. In this round, the answers appeared one letter at a time and the contestants were given a clue to each word. The first two players with four correct answers would advance to round three, which had the same format as the first round except that points doubled after a player reached 50 points or more. Later, the points doubled for every other question.

By 1985, the winner won £500 and played a solo round in which all of the correct answers fit a given category. The player must correctly answer seven out of twelve questions in order to win a mystery star prize. The solo round was also played on the children's versions in the 1990s.

In 1993 the game would be played on the children's series Wemyss Bay 902101. Each game pitted a team of two stars of one programme against a team of two stars from another programme. The cryptic round would be played first, except that each correct answer scored two points. The second round would be played exactly like the Solo Rounds from 1985-86, except that each team took one turn circling answers for 60 seconds and each correct answer scored 5 points. The third round played exactly like the first and third round of the STV series.

The 1993 children's series would be played exactly like the celebrity series, with each team representing their own school. The four highest scoring teams of the series would go through to the semi-finals and the series winners would win a grand prize package and the runners-up in the final would win a lesser prize package.

On the 1994-1995 series, each game would consist of the cryptic round, in which each answer scored two points, and two Big Boards with the second Big Board being played for one minute and the point values being doubled during the last 30 seconds. One game pitted two boys and the other game pitted two girls. The two winners competed in the final game and the winner faced the Super Prize Board. The winner chose one of two star prizes and must find the answers to seven out of ten questions in 60 seconds.

Prizes

For first two series, the winner's prize was £100. In series 3, the prizes were increased to £400 for the winner and £100 for the runner up. By 1985, the winner won £500, the first runner-up won £100, and the player eliminated in the second round £50. All contestants were give an engraved crystal decanter and four glasses. For the celebrity and children's versions, prizes were awarded instead of money.

The pound sterling, commonly known as the pound and less commonly referred to as sterling, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the British Antarctic Territory, and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence. A number of nations that do not use sterling also have currencies called the pound.

Transmissions

Series 2 was broadcast to the rest of the ITV companies over the Summer Wednesday afternoons 1 July until 26 August. STV broadcast the episodes on Thursday evening around 19.00. The following seven series were only broadcast on Scottish Television, and continued to be very popular on Scottish television, with Two celebrity versions were also produced in 1985 and 1986.

Scottish Television is the ITV franchise for Central Scotland. The channel - the largest of the three ITV franchises in Scotland - has been in operation since 31 August 1957 and is the second oldest franchise holder still active.

The ITV network picked up the series again in 1985 with Series 10 and 12 being broadcast on Sunday teatime, or Friday afternoon slot at 17.15, Series 11 was only broadcast in the Scottish Television region. Scottish replaced Now You See It with Split Second in 1987 and Wheel of Fortune in 1988 with the later being Scottish Television's prime time game show for the ITV network, which lasted for a much longer run at a national level.

Wheel of Fortune was a British television game show based on the American show of the same name created by Merv Griffin. Contestants compete to solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes. The title refers to the show's giant carnival wheel that contestants spin throughout the course of the game to determine their cash and/or prizes. The programme aired between 19 July 1988 and 21 December 2001 and was produced by Scottish Television (STV) for the ITV network - having effectively replaced Now You See It as STV's prime time game show offering for the ITV network. It mostly follows the same general format from the original version of the programme from the United States, with a few minor differences.

Original series

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	5 January 1981	30 March 1981	13^[1]
2	2 July 1981	24 September 1981	13^[1]
3	14 January 1982	1 April 1982	12^[1]
4	16 September 1982	30 December 1982	16^[1]
5	17 May 1983	9 August 1983	13^[1]
6	27 September 1983	20 December 1983	13^[1]
7	12 January 1984	19 April 1984	14^[1]
8	26 July 1984	11 October 1984	12^[1]
9	2 January 1985	12 April 1985	15^[1]
10	28 April 1985	21 July 1985	13^[1]
11	1 January 1986	21 March 1986	10^[1]
12	13 April 1986	27 July 1986	13^[1]

Celebrity series

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	1993	1993	??

Kids series

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	11 July 1994	August 1995	??

Trivia

The original Now You See It studio set was also used for the celebrity panel show Funny You Should Say That – also hosted by McLaughlin – which aired between 1984 and 1985. The only difference being that the electronic game board was not used.

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References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "Evening Times" . Retrieved 15 October 2012.

External links

Now You See It at UKGameshows.com.

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[google-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "Evening Times" . Retrieved 15 October 2012.