Now You See It (UK game show)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

References

External links

• Now You See It at UKGameshows.com.