Guest Panellists: Dave Lee Travis, June Whitfield, Phillip Schofield, Gordon the Gopher, Debbie Greenwood, Henry Cooper and Jan Leeming.
The final appearance of June Whitfield on the original run of the series. What's strange about June's involvement is that although she'd been there right from the start - her first episode was aired seventh, back in 1979 - she was actually more involved with the revival series. When the show came back in 1997 with Lily Savage, June appeared eight times, half on the BBC, and the other half when it crossed over to ITV. In comparison, she just did three Wogans and this was her fourth with Les.
June was honest in her assessment of why actors would take part in the show, noting in her 2000 autobiography ... And June Whitfield: "Probably the most common habitat for thesps who aren’t actually thesping is the game show. As the television schedules encroached further into the daylight hours during the Seventies, there was a demand for more programmes, particularly those that could be produced more cheaply than the costly comedies and dramas. Part of the solution was game shows. I appeared at least once on The Golden Shot, several times on Celebrity Squares, The Generation Game and later Blankety Blank, as well as the more relaxed panel games such as Looks Familiar, Jokers Wild, Call My Bluff and That’s Showbusiness."
This is also the final appearance of Debbie Greenwood and Jan Leeming. But the biggest attraction here is a contestant, Stuart Hughes, pictured above, who dresses in a really eccentric outfit and endears himself to the audience.
Guest Panellists: Doc Cox, Rustie Lee, Paul Coia, Louise Jameson, Brian Blessed and Carmen Silvera.
This was the first week where Blankety Blank began to pull itself out of a ratings rut. After Episode 12.2, the series went on a two-week hiatus in favour of Olympic coverage, during which time ITV began broadcasting the final series of Richard O'Sullivan sitcom Me and My Girl.
By the time Blankety Blank returned, the popular sitcom had already had a two-week head lead in, and, during the five weeks it was screened directly opposite Blankety Blank, its average audience was 11.2 million/22nd in the charts. During this time, Blankety Blank Episodes 12.3-12.7 fell to an average of 7.74m/57th place.
What makes this all worse is that, as indicated by the ratings above, while Me and My Girl attracted the kind of viewing figures that would top the charts in 2023, wasn't an especially big hit for the time. The very first episode back in 1984 had made fifth place in the charts, but was one of just three episodes (out of 52) that made the national Top 10. Not only that, but it was also a foe that Blankety Blank had effortlessly seen off in the past - nine episodes of Me and My Girl were scheduled directly opposite Les's quiz in 1985, with Les winning out on all nine occasions. Could there be any greater indication that Blankety Blank's popularity with the public was on the wane than it getting beaten by a Top 25 show that it had easily beaten in the past?
With this episode, ITV had a new challenger in the form of the less-popular A Kind of Living. While viewers didn't immediately come back to Blankety Blank on the first week of non-Girl competition, they did rise by half a million for this edition, then saw the quiz gradually return to the Top 30. The average ratings for episodes 12.9-12.11 were 9.57 million/37th place. Although an improvement, it still was far from the show's glory days with the public, and when Blankety Blank returned the following year it had lost its Friday night slot.
Discussion in these articles has often included which new panellists became "regulars", but we're now so far into the show's original lifespan that it's impossible to say. Louise Jameson, by this time a Bergerac regular, joins here and came back the following year, but with the show axed afterwards, there was never the opportunity to find out if she'd have been a regular or not. The signs are promising, as she did come back for an edition of the Lily Savage revival version. The same could also be said to have applied to Brian Blessed, who appears here for the only time in the original run, but did come back for a couple of Lily shows.
There are some surprising moments here and there in this edition. One is that Les's act, now approaching the 1990s, has been greatly toned down from the more old-fashioned "anything goes" humour of yesteryear, so that his acknowledgement that Rustie Lee has a great restaurant - "They eat one another there" - gets a laugh of shock from Louise Jameson.
But perhaps the biggest surprise is that not only can the studio contain Brian Blessed, but he hardly says a word - just 18, in fact. Although this is the Blessed who was post-Flash Gordon and only two years after being completely over-the-top in Doctor Who, he's quiet and happy just to laugh at Les's gags. And real laughs too, his lovable - yet always slightly manufactured - professional personality seemingly yet to develop. It perhaps doesn't help that he isn't chosen by contestants for any of the games, having to watch goings on as other give their guesses for Supermatches and Head To Heads.
Lastly, this episode features the sole appearance of Paul Coia, the answer to a trivia question about "Who was the first voice heard on Channel 4?" but, perhaps more impressively, the husband of Debbie Greenwood.
Guest Panellists: Vince Hill, Claire Rayner, Bill Wiggins, Linda Lusardi, Mike Reid and Caron Keating.
One thing that does tie a lot of this period of Blankety Blank to its own time is the increase in guests who were tabloid fodder. Cynthia Payne had appeared in the previous run, and here Bill Wiggins occupies a chair. His presence in 2023, certainly on the internet, is that of an almost completely forgotten man, but back in 1987 Fleet Street would never stop writing about him as he dated Joan Collins.
A property tycoon who was often broke, he became known as "Bungalow" Bill not because of his work background, but because he allegedly had a large penis - such was the tabloid press of the 1980s. In fact, it was so notorious at the time that Joan Collins even confirmed it in her 2013 autobiography Passion For Life: "[...] we had buckets of fun. I also then discovered what the 'Bungalow' nickname signified. Not much on top but all below! Since I was now totally disinterested in any kind of commitment, having been so badly burned by Peter Holm, Bill Wiggins was the perfect man for me at the time."
Finding a timeline for Bill is difficult, as, while some of the press were reporting that they'd split by September 1988 (after months of tabloid-selling speculation) Joan said that they were still seeing each other off and on sometime later. Yet what is quite significant is that when this episode was recorded on 22nd May 1988 having the boyfriend of Joan Collins on the panel would have been a headline-grabbing scoop... when it aired on 25th November having her ex on the show wasn't quite as big a draw.
Also on the show is Mike Reid, appearing not as a comedian, ("Now he's an actor") but as the guy who played Frank Butcher in EastEnders, and, making her first appearance, Caron Keating, then a Blue Peter presenter. Those who watched Blue Peter at the time may have thought there was a slightly frosty atmosphere between her and co-presenter Yvette Fielding on occasion, particularly when she gave an audible "ah-HEM!" to Yvette pulling back her hair for a closer look at her new earrings made out of Sellotape and tinfoil. But such things may have just been the way television can distort events, as I somewhat distastefully asked Yvette Fielding on Twitter if they'd not got on (Caron sadly died in 2014): "No. I loved her! We were great mates x"
It's perhaps hard to believe today, but when Keating (the daughter of Gloria Hunniford) joined Blue Peter in November 1986, letters of complaint were sent to Points of View over the BBC employing someone with a Northern Irish accent. The show also contains the series' first disabled contestant (or clearly disabled contestant) as the first female participant is in a wheelchair. Les helps her off after she - spoiler - loses the competition, so she doesn't have to take part in the revolving stage.
Perhaps the most distinctive element of this edition is that there's an extremely vocal - possibly drunk - contingent in the studio audience. Les makes a joke about it right at the start, but looks thrown when his "tell corny jokes which fall flat" routines suddenly get big laughs. His usual hand dog expressions and admonishments about "you got in for free" have nowhere to go, as a bawdy crowd are suddenly appreciating it. Later Les remarks: "Least we've got an audience that's alive for a change."
It's difficult to pin down why these members of the audience are there. Their response would seem to suggest that they're supporters of a slightly campy, baseball hat-bedecked contestant, government worker Kevin Sibley.
Guest Panellists: William Gaunt, Sheila Steafel, Tom Pepper, Suzanne Dando, Frank Carson and Rachel Bell.
Sheila Steafel returns to the show for one last time, after a previous appearance in the final Terry Wogan series. Steafel had worked with Les in episodes of The Dawson Watch and praised him in her 2013 book When Harry met Sheila: A Memoir: "Les Dawson proved to be surprisingly different from his persona as a comic. He was genial, highly intelligent and engaging, and was one of the nicest people I have worked with."
Also appearing is Rachel Bell (probably best known at that particular time for Dear John...., though five days later she was in Doctor Who as part of The Happiness Patrol) and it's the final show for semi-regular Suzanne Dando, along with comedian Tom Pepper. Perhaps the oddest moment occurs when Tom says he's disappointed at not getting answers right, and is feeling down because he'd just recently been to a friend's funeral - as Les cuts him off, it's not clear if it was a lead up to a joke, or he was genuinely treating the quiz as a counselling session.
Recorded on the same night as the previous entry, it has the same rowdy audience, except this time with added Frank Carson. Despite their mock-combative relationship on screen, Frank was a visitor to Les's bedside when he had his heart attack later in the year, with Les recalling in No Tears For The Clown: "I lay in that hospital bed with wires poking out of my chest and machines going bleep and I felt depressed and useless. I couldn't believe a heart attack had happened to me - I wasn't old enough, surely - cardiac arrests were something that occurred in old men who wore panama hats... but here I was. The artistes dutifully trooped to my bedside and Mo, from the Roly Polys, played merry hell with me for overdoing it and worrying; so did Russ Abbot, and Frank Carson, whose voice could warn shipping in the Solent, told me a stream of old Irish jokes at which I laughed loudly, hoping by doing so to get rid of the old ham."
(Les also ruefully noted of his forcibly abandoned stage dates: "The Krankies had come in to replace me in the Opera House, and from all accounts were doing better business ... and that information didn't cheer me up one iota.")
Guest Panellists: Peter Goodwright, Jean Boht, John Craven, Jane Marie Osborne, Stan Boardman and Aimi MacDonald.
The last episode of the twelfth series, and the decrease in episode count really does help. A dozen episodes is a nice figure, especially when not bolstered by inter-series repeats.
The belief that this run of Blankety Blank was due to be 22 episodes as had become the norm is purely speculative at this stage. There's no confirmation that this was the case, but the fact that it went without a Christmas Special and the following series was back to 22 episodes (well, 21...) does suggest that this was the plan.
Yet Les's September heart attack occurred during a stage tour, not directly during a recording period of Blankety Blank, so we can only assume that he would have returned for another recording block had his health not taken a downturn. The episodes present were recorded from 30th April-22nd May, giving plenty of time for a summer reprise, and, while previous runs had seen Les delivering shows sometimes just a week before broadcast, such matters were long gone at this stage.
On this final show is Stan Boardman, now no longer an up-and-coming/established comedian occupying the top left seat, but something of a light entertainment rebel, two years on from his infamous appearance on a live, pre-watershed edition of Des O'Connor Tonight where he did a routine about the Focke-Wulf German airplane.
Saying the word "Focke" nine times with almost no distinction at all between it and a popular swearword, while Stan wasn't exactly blacklisted on television, the appearances did dip somewhat thereafter, and it was over 12 years before Des invited him back. Here he has a very good rapport with Les, enjoying Les's corny-yet-amusing quips, and has a suspect moment when an answercard involving "horse" sees it written as "hores".
While Stan would be far from the first panellist to make spelling mistakes, the coincidence might possibly be too great, particularly as his answer for the next round is a correctly-spelled horse. What is clear is that he had written down another, ruder, answer that gets big laughs from the studio audience but isn't shown onscreen. It's the only slightly distracting element of a pretty funny show, as it causes all involved to dry tears from their eyes, but without the viewers ever knowing why.
Also on the panel is Peter Goodwright, making his fourth and final appearance, and the debuts of John Craven and Jane Marie Osborne, a singer from Opportunity Knocks. Then there's the sole appearance of Jean Boht, one of the stars of Bread. In retrospect, a somewhat mean-spirited sitcom by Carla Lane, depicting a family of Scousers who claim unemployment benefit despite all working various scams, it helped cement a negative stereotype of those who claimed the dole that wasn't there in the early '80s with mass unemployment. Despite this, and the fact that it's now something of a forgotten sitcom, it was absolutely massive at the time. Five days earlier 21 million had tuned in to an episode which was second in the charts, and 18 million would watch the Boswell family on Christmas Day.
Talking of ratings, then this episode wasn't listed in the Top 100 chart for that week. However, rather than being a massive plummet in viewers, this would possibly appear to be an error in the way BARB ratings were reported. The show that followed, a Two Ronnies highlights package, had 10 million tuning in, whereas the 100th-rated programme for the week was Knightmare with 4.5 million. If Blankety Blank didn't make the Top 100 for the week, it would have to be assumed that the BBC1 audience not only grew by at least 5.6 million after it finished, but also that the ratings were over 4 million lower than the rest of the Series 12 average. So it's this site's belief that the show did very much chart in the Top 100, and it was an accident that it was omitted - but where? And with how many tuning in? An unresolved mystery for now...
Guest Panellists: Joe Brown, Lynda Baron, Greg Rogers, Bonnie Langford, Eddie Edwards and Rose Marie.
Not much has been said about Bonnie Langford in these articles, simply because there's never enough room to include everything. As her first appearance on the show was in the classic 5.10 where Frank Carson caused chaos, then she's been repeatedly overshadowed in terms of things to discuss.
But one thing that should be noted about Bonnie, often forgotten, is how young she was. By this stage she'd been in the business for around 18 years, and was still just 23 when this episode was recorded. The stresses such a life must have put on a young girl must have been enormous, and for her earliest Blankety Blank appearance she didn't receive a cheer like the rest of the panellists, and had a self-depreciating/deflated look on her face as a result - an experience she had to go through when she was still just a teenager.
The main issue with Bonnie for people of the '70s generation was that she'd appeared as the obnoxious Violet Elizabeth Bott in an adaptation of Just William (1977-1978). As a result she drew some ire when going for more grown-up roles, such as part as a Doctor Who companion from 1986-1987. Yet while Bonnie has improved as her voice has dropped a few octaves - she was in over 350 episodes of EastEnders from 2015-2018 - she should actually be praised for creating such an unforgettable character when she was just a child.
The idea that millions of people would look at Bonnie, and - over a decade later - instantly think "I'll skweam and skweam and skweam until I'm sick" whenever they saw her, shows just what an unforgettable character she helped created on screen, and how much it lodged itself in the consciousness of a generation. Even Les sums her up in his introduction as "Play School's answer to Vera Lynn".
Bonnie was regularly on television - just six days before broadcast she'd appeared as a judge on ITV's New Faces - and growing up not only in public, but also with some derision must have been tough on such a young girl. Bonnie was briefly featured in a 2007 edition of ITV's Gameshow Marathon, affectionately saying of Les that: "It was sort of the anti-gameshow, because... he, he loved the fact that he couldn't be bothered to learn any of the rules."
Another person who took derision and rose above it was Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, making his sole appearance here. Eddie was famous for going to the Olympics to represent Britain at ski jumping and... well, failing. Yet his spirit and character endeared him to people, and, unlike other '80's minor celebrities of the day whose time has come and gone, Eddie has remained in the public consciousness so much that he even had a biopic made about him in 2016.
Ranking quite highly on the "Hasn't she been on it before?" list has to be Rose Marie, an Irish singer with a bassy voice who gets digs off Les and throws herself into the fun. It's clear that Rose Marie would have been a great regular, and, indeed, she came back twice the following year, but by then the show was coming to an end.
One striking thing about television is how the decades aren't rigidly defined on screen as they might be in our minds. Watch episodes of Did You See..? even up to the mid-1980s, for example, and you'll see a brown set with people wearing brown clothes, only the fact that they're discussing programmes that didn't air in the early 1970s betraying the era. By this stage in Blankety Blank we're nearly up to the 1990s, but the '80s look of contestants is still only just coming through. Here for the first time we have a late-era punk, who gets some customary ribbing from Les, starting with a Native American war dance.
What makes this one top the ranking is just how pleasant it all is. Les starts the show by claiming a viewer has said his jokes are old-fashioned - then proceeds to tell jokes all episode that have been heard at least once, sometimes even several times before. Most charmingly of all, the punk contestant tries to help his fellow competitor in the competition, and Les takes a fatherly shine to him. It's all really rather sweet.