This is on of the best half hours you could spend in front of the telly. A fantastic darts based quiz captained 'Titanic style' by the legendary Jim Bowen with Tony Green as the reassuring rower on the lifeboats. Watching this in 2007 provides at least one laugh out loud moment per episode. Just yesterday I witnessed Bowen apologising to camera for a poor taste crack about giving one of the dart players a guidedog. Here is the secret to the show's success: the amateurish production values personified in Bowen. Marvel at his fifth rate stand up routine to 'warm up' the OAP studio audience. Witness Jim's clumsy attempts to direct contestants around and off the set as they couldn't afford a stage hand to do it. The average English speaker has a vocabulary of around 100,000 words - Bowen seems to have around 800. By the later series around 85% of what Bowen says is a catchphrase or stock response of some sort: Smashing, great, super...let's have a look at what you could have won...BFH...it'll take me 2 minutes to count this out...we have to say goodbye to...round of applause...'Faces' we'd like...I'm sure you'll wish them all the best....that's the gamble...pounds for points...the charity money- it's safe...non dart player to throw first...keep out of the black and in the red ,nothing for this game for 2 in a bed...listen to Tony... Even Tony got into the act with his mystical Indian mantra - "take your time" , but would then proceed to call out the score after every single dart, which anyone whose ever stood at the oche will tell you is incredibly distracting. Anyway, the format of the show: Three what Jim would amusingly always call "couples" despite them nearly always being mates from the pub.One dartplayer , one 'non dartplayer' After dying a death with his opening patter Jim would attempt some banter with them, usually with contestants with no personality/sense of humour. Firstly he'd try to enthuse about their invariably low wage unskilled jobs, then he'd throw in an few personal insults by the way of bad puns. If you were very tall or 'well built' Jim was sure to point it out for the amusement of the audience. Round one was them throwing darts at a special board in order to answer questions on topics such as 'Spelling', 'Affairs' 'Showbiz' and the rarely picked 'Books'. Any wrong answers would prompt an appearance by an animated 'Mooing' Bully. The questions were of the 'general knowledge' type with answers so obvious 20 years later they must have been lifted from the front page of that day's 'Sun'. Next, would be the 'traditonal matchplay' (or normal) dartboard. The teams would throw and whoever got the highest would answer a question to win that amount of money. The 2 lowest scoring teams would go out after 3 games of this with Jim pulling the prize money in a big wad of notes out of his pocket like a Northern Del Boy, and counting it out "during the break". A pro darts player would then throw 9 darts for charity, their score being doubled if they scored 301 or more. Strangely ,players you would see throwing a constant stream of 100s, 140s etc. at the Embassy World Championship would never do so well here - probably due to Tony calling every dart for the benefit of viewers who don't understand the layout of the dartboard. Next up , the immortal 'Bully's Prize Board', hitting the red sections of another adapted board to win up to 9 incredible prizes of the like of a decanter set, a pocket TV,a Walkman, a car power washer, a leather briefcase,a carriage clock, children's mountain bikes and 'Bully's Special Prize' for hitting the Bullseye - often a 'colour TV with remote control and teletext. As the players had to remember what numbers ,out of 1-8, represented the prizes they wanted to win,it was a "test of memory as well as skill" a mental feat which would have 'Krypton Factor' contestants trembling with fear. Finally, the couple could gamble the prizes and the money from earlier against a star prize hidden behind a curtain if they could throw 101 or more in 6 darts. If they'd "had a lovely day Jim" and declined it, the runners up would be given the chance, down to the 3rd placed couple. To be fair , this was quite difficult with the majority of couples failing. Probably due to the drumroll in the background and the fact that the only clever person the dart player knew was totally unable to hold, let alone throw a decent dart. The solution to the winning formula of: decent dart player + person with basic general knowledge who is also a reasonable dart player =... would have eluded Einstein.
The star prizes were also magnificent in their impracticality for two friends to win between them - they would presumably have to draw up a rota for the use of a car ,speedboat, caravan or most impractical of all - a three piece suite and dining table set. So there you go -that's 'Bullseye'. To paraphrase and update one of Bowen's great catchphrases for 2007: "Cheap freeview cable channels aren't cheap freeview cable channels without a bit of Bully!"
