Get Your Own Back

Get Your Own Back is a British children's television game show created by Brian Marshall. Each episode staged a contest between teams of children – attempting to score as many points as possible – and their respective adults – attempting to make tasks as difficult as possible for their child contestants – playing a variety of games. The winning child earns a right to get revenge on the adult by ejecting them into a tank of gunge; adult contestants in the show are somewhat embarrassing, for a variety of reasons, to their child counterparts.

Get Your Own Back
GenreChildren's game show
Created byBrian Marshall
Presented by
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original language(s)English
No. of series14
No. of episodes190
Production
Running time15 minutes (1991–93)
25 minutes (1994–2003)
Release
Original networkBBC1
CBBC
Picture format4:3 (SDTV) (1991–99)
16:9 (SDTV) (2000–03)
Original release26 September 1991 (1991-09-26) –
1 January 2004 (2004-01-01)

Airing on BBC One's children's television block, it ran from 26 September 1991 to 1 January 2004, and was hosted by Dave Benson Phillips. Lisa Brockwell also presented the final three series of the show alongside Phillips, and Peter Simon served the role of voice over in 1995.

Format

The show consisted of two teams (the first series had three), each comprising one child contestant and a parent/relative/older sibling/teacher/celebrity who in the child's eyes had committed some sort of crime that they wanted to seek revenge for. These 'crimes' were usually trivial, such as singing badly or asking the child to tidy their room.

Dave and the audience always showed bias against the adults by booing the oppressed as much as possible. The games were always designed to make things difficult or unpleasant for the adults. They often had them dressed in embarrassing costumes.

Throughout every series the final round was called the "Gunk Dunk", where the losing adult was always thrown into a pool of colourful, messy gunge.

History

1991

The first series theme and studio was that of a basic cartoony house. This is also the only series with three teams (red, blue and green), and it was also the only series with a green team.

In round 1, called "Brain Box", the adults played a game where they scored points by answering questions from a topic the child chose using a carnival game. Round 2 was called "Chumps Challenge", where the remaining adults played another game (either a video game, an obstacle race with the child, or a karaoke performance). The loser of this round (scores did not carry over from the Brain Box round) went to the final round, the Gunk Dunk.

In the Gunk Dunk, the theme was a small cartoony dungeon with a yellow and black colour scheme, and the adult and child sat over a bubbling cauldron. The adult would get the child dunked into the cauldron if they answered five correct answers in under 45 seconds without using answers beginning with a particular letter (which all questions had obvious answers to). Failure (or eventually otherwise, despite Dave's assurance that winning would spare them) resulted in the adult being dropped in.

1992-1994

The 1992 series was the first of the fairground themed shows, The number of teams was reduced to two (red and yellow). Brain Box was played again as the first round, with the Chumps Challenge round always being an obstacle race. This time the adult's scores in the rounds were added together. The winning adult got the "key to freedom" and left clean, with the loser being sent to the Gunk Dunk.

The Gunk Dunk in this era had a darker ghost train theme, and had the same game as the original, but the child got gunged in the booth where the lever was rather the gunk dunk itself. The adult sat over a gunge tank, and would be thrown in regardless of whether they won or not, despite Dave stating otherwise.

In series 4, a third puzzle round called "Puzzle Time" (either a maze or 3-D jigsaw) was played as well, where the adult and child in opposite colours played together to win points for the adult. This series had 2 "knock-down bonus" rounds added after the first 2 rounds, where the child played games to deduct the adult's scores.

1995

In 1995, the teams were changed to red and blue. There was also a change where the child with the highest score (instead of the adult like previously) got to put the adult into the Gunk Dunk. This time, the Gunk Dunk matched the lighter fairground theme and was no longer hidden in another part of the studio.

The Gunk Dunk game also changed in 1995 as the grown up would be asked three questions, with a different colour of slime being poured over them for each wrong answer. However, they were always thrown into the tank regardless.

1996-2000

In 1996 the show received a complete makeover and had a production upgrade as the show was pulling in successful ratings for CBBC. The fairground theme used since 1992 was replaced with a stadium theme along with new music and logo to match the "Cool Britannia" era of the 1990s. This series also changed the colours of the teams to yellow and blue.

Five rounds were played before the Gunk Dunk, with round 5 usually being a double points round. The Gunk Dunk was changed so adults were moved further from the gunge for each answer they got wrong, making their drop feature more tense.

In 2000, the winning child was given an opportunity to win a grand prize by picking between two switches, with the other releasing gunge on them and not receiving the prize.

Prior to filming of Series 9, the show held a contest where children submitted games ideas to be used on the show. One winning game idea was chosen for each episode of the series to be played. The child with the winning selection was invited into the studio to explain their game idea to Dave, who also awarded each contest winner a small bonus prize. Dave would also select some honourable mentions each episode and explain their game ideas.

2001-2003

Lisa Brockwell was introduced as a co-host. The number of rounds before the Gunk Dunk was reduced to four, but changed back to five rounds in the final series.

The Gunk Dunk was changed so that both adults sat above the gunge tank with the winning child from the games being given a one notch head start (or, if the winning margin was 60 points or more, a two notch head start). If the scores were tied, no head start was awarded. Dave would ask the children some questions on the buzzer and every question that was answered correctly allowed the child to move their adult up one notch. The first child who got their adult to the fifth and highest notch got to gunge their adult by pulling a lever next to them and win a get your own back trophy both children would win a get your own back goody bag with a mug a pen a watch and a sweatshirt.

Transmissions
SeriesStart dateEnd dateEpisodes
126 September 1991[1]19 December 1991[2]13
224 September 1992[3]17 December 1992[4]13
330 September 1993[5]23 December 1993[6]13
430 September 1994[7]23 December 1994[8]13
527 September 1995[9]20 December 1995[10]13
611 September 1996[11]18 December 1996[12]15
710 September 1997[13]17 December 1997[14]15
87 January 1998[15]1 April 1998[16]13
916 September 1998[17]23 December 1998[18]15
109 April 1999[19]10 September 1999[20]13
115 April 2000[21]28 June 2000[22]13
1229 June 2001[23]21 September 2001[24]13
139 April 2002[25]9 July 2002[26]13
1415 October 2003[27]1 January 2004[28]15
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References
  1. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 26 September 1991". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  2. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 19 December 1991". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  3. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 24 September 1992". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  4. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 17 December 1992". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  5. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 30 September 1993". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  6. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 23 December 1993". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  7. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 30 September 1994". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  8. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 23 December 1994". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  9. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 27 September 1995". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  10. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 20 December 1995". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  11. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 11 September 1996". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  12. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 18 December 1996". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  13. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 10 September 1997". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  14. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 17 December 1997". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  15. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 7 January 1998". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  16. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 1 April 1998". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  17. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 16 September 1998". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  18. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 23 December 1998". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  19. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 9 April 1999". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  20. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 10 September 1999". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  21. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 5 April 2000". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  22. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 28 June 2000". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  23. "Get Your Own Back - BBC Two England - 29 June 2001". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  24. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 21 September 2001". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  25. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 9 April 2002". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  26. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 9 July 2002". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  27. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 15 October 2003". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  28. "Get Your Own Back - BBC One London - 1 January 2004". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
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