A school reunion of 40 years for this classic ’80s kids gameshow. Here are some important study notes on Beat The Teacher…
What Was Beat The Teacher?
What a great idea. Your chance to take revenge on smart-arse teachers in a battle of wills on live telly!
Clive Doig, the man responsible for Beat The Teacher, was on a winning streak by 1984. He’d already come up with the phenomenally popular Jigsaw and Puzzle Trail, and this mainstay of 1980s kids’ telly was another feather in his cap.
Schools from around the country were represented by either a pupil or a teacher. The teachers especially were putting their reputations on the line, since the prospect of losing the game would inevitably result in scornful laughter, followed by mass humiliation in class, followed most likely by a swift change of career to cleaning out the dustbins.
How Did It All Begin?
Two theme tunes and sets of titles. The first was a kind of pan pipey instrumental from Mike Batt, the man behind The Wombles. This was set against an unobtrusive computer-generated simulation of noughts and crosses.
The second version was the work of Martin Cook, who came up with something along the lines of his second farty Jigsaw theme – again it sounds like an explosion in a whoopee cushion factory. To accompany this fart-fest was a more raucous title sequence in which a stuffy mortar boarded teacher runs away in horror from some spoddy looking kids against a crude CSO backdrop of what looks like spilled paint. Props to the teacher actor for a decent Kenneth Williams impersonation.
Who Were The Hosts?
Three in all. The first series was chaired by Howard Stableford, who had previously co-hosted the 1983 run of Puzzle Trail. Stableford quickly moved up the ranks of the BBC to become one of the longest-serving presenters of Tomorrow’s World.
The next host was something of a wildcard choice, in the form of Manfred Mann main man Paul Jones. Actually, Jones had branched out from singing and had moved into acting – a few years down the line, he’d become a familiar face on CBBC, starring as Uncle Jack in the early 1990s.
In 1987, DJ Bruno Brookes took over, and would stay with the series until it finished the following year.
What Was The Premise?
Kids’ programmes at the time were good at taking classic games and putting a modern spin on them. So for example, you had Finders Keepers, which was based on the game of Battleships. While in the case of Beat The Teacher, it was the simple game of Noughts And Crosses.
The game featured a mechanical revolving board – most probably worked offscreen by a sweaty stage hand and a crank handle – in which a nought would revolve to a blank square, which in turn, would revolve to a cross, and then another blank square.
In order to get control of the board, contestants had to answer a series of fiendishly tricky questions. If they were successful, they would then suss out the best chance of getting a row of either noughts or crosses, with each line giving 10 points.
Beat The Teacher did get a bit sneaky though. Either contestant had the chance to pull a flanker in the form of a Joker card. If they answered a question right, they could turn noughts into crosses and vice versa, thus earning themselves lots of points. The opponent couldn’t pull the same trick until the sands of time had run out in an hourglass, putting them at something of a disadvantage. As well as this, sometimes the board would be randomised to equal the chances a bit.
How Tricky Were The Questions?
Variable. Later series would add an extra challenge along the lines of The Krypton Factor by testing contestants’ manual dexterity. Actually, it was putting circles of variable size in the right order on a stick – I had one of these when I was two years old, so no great shakes for a teenager and a grown adult.
There were also blurry pictures of celebrities to guess, anagrams, number puzzles, riddles, and word games such as this one. If Steve can be made from 17, and Gene from 18, then what name can be made from 12 (the answer’s below)?
Were The Pupils Brighter Than The Teachers?
Generally both sides were on an even keel. I remember that there were certain names who kept winning. One was a Mr Champion, another was a fiendishly clever whizzkid called Jonathan – he can actually be seen in action on the Tube Of You. He has a mascot called Monty and there’s one kid behind him who looks like she’s plotting to dunk his head down the loo the following day.
Were The Prizes Any Good?
Not bad actually. Unless you were the loser, in which case, blundering incompetence would be rewarded with two things. One was a Beat The Teacher mug which had FAILURE on one side – just to rub salt in the wounds. Another was a bizarre novelty hat in the shape of a hand delivering a hammer blow to the bonce.
Beat The Teacher was a good opportunity for schools to try and get some extra cash. Whatever points were accumulated would be turned into pounds, which would then be put towards things like new computers, new buses, residential trips, that kind of thing.
However, the contestants didn’t go short by any means. As well as collectable Beat The Teacher pens, they could also win prizes such as portable TVs (which by today’s standards would still require extensive weight training to lug them around), holidays to Florida, ghetto blasters, cameras, radio-controlled cars, microscopes – and let’s not forget a day out at Alton Towers!
(Screengrabs credited to BBC)
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