Beadle's About
| Beadle's About! | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Comedy |
| Created by | Ralph Edwards |
| Presented by | Jeremy Beadle |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 10 |
| No. of episodes | 94 |
| Production | |
| Location(s) | The London Studios |
| Running time | 30 minutes (inc. adverts) |
| Production company(s) | LWT in association with Ralph Edwards Productions and Action Time |
| Distributor | ITV Studios |
| Release | |
| Original network | ITV |
| Picture format | 4:3, PAL 576i |
| Original release | 22 November 1986 – 21 September 1996 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Game for a Laugh |
Beadle's About! is a British television programme hosted by Jeremy Beadle, where members of the public became victims of practical jokes behind hidden cameras. It was produced by LWT for ITV, and ran on Saturday nights from 22 November 1986 to 21 September 1996.
An example of one of the practical jokes would involve someone's car or van secretly being swapped for an identical one, and then, having a disaster befall it, such as exploding, falling into the sea, or being dropped from a great height, as the owner of the vehicle looked on in horror. After a few minutes, Beadle would appear in disguise (typically, as a policeman or some other figure of authority, and often wearing a fake beard on top of his natural beard), and interact with the shell-shocked and/or irate victim. He would subtly drop more and more hints and would remove his disguise and point a stick microphone at the person. As the public were familiar with Beadle from the earlier show Game for a Laugh, they would then immediately realise they had been had, often with the words "I don't believe it!". A follow up series was entitled 'It's Beadle!' which followed a similar format.
One of the most notable pranks was where Dorset resident Janet Elford was convinced into believing that aliens had landed in her garden. Members of the public were set up by a resident team of Beadle's About! actors including: Pam Cole, Ricky Diamond, Tony McHale and Nicholas Young.
At its peak, the show attracted approximately 15 million viewers, making it one of ITV's most popular Saturday night programmes during that period.
The "Bleep!" or "Oops!" bubble used to block out offensive language was a well known feature from the show. The bubbles were simply clouds with either "Bleep!" or "Oops!" in them, the text being set in a font looking similar to the Balloon typeface. These were also used to cover up offensive hand gestures as well.
Jeremy once revealed in an interview that during editing, they deliberately inserted "bleeps" where there were no profanities as this made it funnier.
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