Call My Bluff (UK game show)

This article is about the game show. For the dice game also known by this name, see Liar's dice.

Call My Bluff
Format	Panel game show
Created by	Philip Hindin (based on a format created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman)
Presented by	Robin Ray (1965-66) Robert Robinson (1967-1988) Bob Holness (1996–2003) Fiona Bruce (2003–2005)
Starring	BBC2 series: Frank Muir Robert Morley Patrick Campbell Arthur Marshall BBC1 series: Alan Coren Sandi Toksvig Rod Liddle
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC2 (17 October 1965 - 22 December 1988) BBC1 (13 May 1996 - 17 July 2005)
Original run	17 October 1965 (1965-10-17) – 17 July 2005 (2005-07-17)

Call My Bluff was a long-running British game show between two teams of three celebrity contestants. The point of the game is for the teams to take it in turn to provide three definitions of an obscure word, only one of which is correct. The other team then has to guess which is the correct definition, the other two being "bluffs". It was brought back to BBC TV by producer Richard Lewis.

Examples of words used in Call my Bluff, taken from a book published in connection with the show in 1972, are Queach, Strongle, Ablewhacket, Hickboo, Jargoon, Zurf, Morepork, and Jirble. "Queach", for instance, was defined as "a malicious caricature", "a cross between a quince and a peach", or "a mini-jungle of mixed vegetation". The first and second of those particular definitions are bluffs.

Broadcast history

Call My Bluff originally aired on BBC2 from 17 October 1965 to 22 December 1988. The original host was Robin Ray, later succeeded Robert Robinson.

Robert Morley and Frank Muir captained the teams. Morley was succeeded by Patrick Campbell, who was in turn succeeded by Arthur Marshall.

The original series finished after Marshall's death, although a general change in the tone and atmosphere of broadcasting at the time may also have affected its temporary demise.

The show was resurrected in 1996 after an eight-year rest (apart from one special edition on 16 April 1994 for BBC Two's thirtieth birthday, which still featured Robert Robinson, but this time with Joanna Lumley as a team captain opposite Frank Muir), now as a daytime series on BBC1. It began airing on 13 May 1996 with Alan Coren and Sandi Toksvig as the team captains and Bob Holness replacing Robinson as chairman.

In 2003, Toksvig was replaced by the journalist Rod Liddle, and newsreader Fiona Bruce took the chair. The series finished again on 17 July 2005.

Call My Bluff returned for a special during the BBC's 24 Hour Panel People in aid for Comic Relief 2011, with Alex Horne, Roisin Conaty, Russell Tovey, Tim Key, Sarah Cawood and David Walliams participating.

Theme Tune

Ciccolino by Norrie Paramor.

Book

• Call my Bluff by Frank Muir and Patrick Campbell, published by Eyre Methuen, London, 1972.

Foreign versions

• The original United States version of Call My Bluff aired on NBC daytime from March 29 to September 24, 1965. The Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Production was hosted by Bill Leyden with Johnny Olson and Wayne Howell as announcers. Despite its short run, Milton Bradley issued a board game version of the US version during the Summer of 1965.
• A similar gameshow ran on MTV3 in Finland between 2001 and 2003, called Kuutamolla ("In the Moonlight"), except with fewer celebrities and a focus on anecdotes about the lives of the guests, rather than on word meanings.
• A Danish version called Fup eller Fakta ("Fraud or Fact") ran on Danmarks Radio from 1966 to 1991.

References in other works

• On the musical episode of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Donna Henshaw and Janet Keogh (played by Natalie Casey and Sheridan Smith) Sang:

Smith: "Skankarific's not a word!"

Casey: "It means terrifically skankified, it was on Call My Bluff"

• An episode of the early-'80s LWT sketch-comedy series End of Part One parodied the show as Scrape My Barrel, where panelists had to figure out the meaning of the word working class.
• In the "Europe" episode of QI, Series E, a segment was featured entitled "Call My Euro Bluff", featuring stories about laws in the EU. The panel then had to decide whether each story was true or a "bløff" (Stephen Fry pronounced it "blerff").
• The show (and in particular its host, Robert Robinson) was the subject of a sketch by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in the second series of A Bit of Fry and Laurie.
• Comedy Playhouse episode #105, Elementary, My Dear Watson (18 Jan 1973) featured in one part the cast of Call My Bluff under Robert Robinson when they had to identify a dead solicitor slumped over his desk with a knife in his back. In the spirit of comedy, many strange ideas came forth, including one end of a washing line.
• A game has been based on the television programme.

See also

• False or True
• Balderdash (game)
• Wordplay (a US game show that aired on NBC from 1986–1987)

External links

• Call My Bluff (1965-1988) at the Internet Movie Database
• Call My Bluff (1996-2005) at the Internet Movie Database
• Call My Bluff at BFI
• Call My Bluff at UKGameshows.com