Runaround was a children's game show produced by Southern Television for the ITV network between 2 September 1975 and 7 September 1981. It was much more successful than the original American version.
| Runaround | |
|---|---|
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| Also known as | Poparound (1985–86) |
| Genre | Children's game show |
| Created by | Merrill Heatter & Bob Quigley |
| Presented by | Mike Reid (1975-6, 1978–81) Leslie Crowther (1977) Stan Boardman (1977–78) Gary Crowley (Poparound) |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 12 (Runaround) 2 (Poparound) |
| No. of episodes | 100 (inc. 3 specials) (Runaround) 12 (Poparound) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes (inc. adverts) |
| Production companies | Southern Television (Runaround) Central (Poparound) |
| Original release | |
| Network | ITV |
| Release | 2 September 1975 – 7 September 1981 (Runaround) |
| Release | 19 June 1985 – 4 June 1986 (Poparound) |
| Related | |
| Runaround | |
The original host was comedian Mike Reid. In 1977 his place was taken by Leslie Crowther and Stan Boardman, before Reid returned in 1978. The ball in tube scoring was copied from the US version but with two colours; red worth one point for a correct answer and yellow worth two points for being the only contestant to choose the right answer (this was reversed in later series). Metal Mickey made his screen debut on the British version of the show after being discovered by the show's in-vision researcher, Tim Edmunds.
The series ended when Southern Television's franchise ended at the end of 1981. The game was also incorporated into the two seasons of the short-lived ITV Saturday morning show Saturday Banana hosted by Bill Oddie from 1978.
A spin-off entitled Poparound was produced by Central and aired between 19 June 1985 and 4 June 1986 with Gary Crowley as the host.
Transmissions
editRunaround
edit| Series | Start date | End date | Episodes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 September 1975 | 7 October 1975 | 6 |
| CS1 | 26 December 1975 | 1 | |
| 2 | 13 January 1976 | 24 February 1976 | 7 |
| 3 | 31 March 1976 | 5 May 1976 | 6 |
| 4 | 18 August 1976 | 29 September 1976 | 7 |
| CS2 | 27 December 1976 | 1 | |
| 5 | 12 April 1977 | 12 July 1977 | 13 |
| 6 | 23 November 1977 | 4 January 1978 | 7 |
| 7 | 28 March 1978 | 2 May 1978 | 5 |
| 8 | 4 August 1978 | 8 September 1978 | 6 |
| 9 | 22 May 1979 | 31 July 1979 | 10 |
| CS3 | 24 December 1979 | 1 | |
| 10 | 13 June 1980 | 19 September 1980 | 13 |
| 11 | 25 December 1980 | 25 March 1981 | 14 |
| 12 | 27 July 1981 | 7 September 1981 | 6 |
Out of 103 episodes from 12 series that were made during its 6-year run, 33 survived from the archives, which included Episode 4 of Series 8, Episodes 5 & 9 of Series 9, The 1979 Christmas Special, Episodes 1, 3–5, 7–8 & 10–13 of Series 10, Episodes 1–7 & 9–14 of Series 11 and all 6 episodes of Series 12.[1]
Poparound
edit| Series | Start date | End date | Episodes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 19 June 1985 | 24 July 1985 | 6 |
| 2 | 30 April 1986 | 4 June 1986 | 6 |