Countdown - Calendar Countdown Pilot 2 - Never Before Seen on TV - Episode CCP2

This episode was kindly donated by Ed Byrne - Richard Whiteley hosts the second Calendar Countdown Pilot - This has never been shown on television - All copyright remains with Yorkshire Television & ITV Productions

[@alandunstan5485]

Evidently they started with anyone doing the numbers part, then realized they actually needed someone who could do math.

[@Cowman-bz4pe]

Indeed, particularly when they could not quickly spot an error like Joyce's

[@greggles2412]

WOW! For good AND bad reasons! :-)

[@JayGeeBee07]

hey greggles

[@glenncooney3959]

Thank goodness YTV polished the show up from this. The fact that they had the next contestant to support Ted is just priceless 😂

[@tkshots]

why didn't they keep the fart sound at the end of the countdown?

[@gregrowbrey7102]

This was absolutely dreadful, thank god the whole format was changed. Why did Richard Whiteley have to call out the letters, instead of the girl, and not even looking to the camera. Forty five seconds didn't make any sense either, this would never have lasted forty one year's lol🤣😂🤣

[@mclarenguy22]

I’m impressed that Joyce managed to spot 513 as a multiple of 9: the trick is being bothered to add the digits together. 5+1+3=9 which is a multiple of 3 and 9, so 513/9 = 57 and 513/3 = 171. There’s a simple multiply and subtract method as well; (25+50)*7-8-4, but being able to spot factors with division rule knowledge and do basic long division are resources often ignored even today.

[@fnhlgn]

She was a maths teacher at Leeds University

[@what-uc]

This was an Otley contested match

[@mercuryvapoury]

Absolute joy to see this. Knew the first pilot existed, but thought this had been destroyed... and some say it should have. Surprising how much "smoother" it ran compared to the first one (no stops in gameplay to explain the rules), yet still not quite finished. Where was the conundrum in the first one? Did they think it was too complicated? The audience at the end though. Were they going to randomly insert the audience playing along during the final edit to break up the montony? We will (probably) never know.

[@Cowman9791]

The way they did the conundrum was a mess which caused little more than confusion between the contestants, so they removed it

[@peopleddiagram2920]

Great pilot and the best GENUINE game show in history was born. Although it is sad to see how the letters in particular are stacked. Ever since the pilot, "s" seems to always appear.

[@joe_z]

It was born in France with Des Chiffres et des Lettres.

[@gordonbeattie4864]

WOW! Joyce was WELL out on the 2nd number game! She originally got 9994!!!

[@fnhlgn]

She was a statistician which is another term for a mathematician. Imagine having that job and fucking up that badly

[@Knappa22]

This is both fascinating and dreadful at the same time! That awful clock with the bulbs lighting up and HONK!!!! at the end. The woman in the boob tube who never once looks at camera, and not even allowed to announce the letters! The squashed up set. The awkward try-hard on the dictionary. 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ But then it did evolve into Countdown so it must have pleased someone!

[@97channel]

Hhmm, just not as strong an opening without "Stop and reset.". The great Whiteley missed a trick, on this occasion, in dropping that little catchphrase.

[@Unknown88768]

Pls give credits and green screen.

[@StarKid67]

What?

[@ukcountryball7962]

25:50

[@Arloyoutubechannel148]

27:51 it’s time for the behind Senses of come down

[@lewispringle4734]

Thank you so much for this, incredible to see!

[@Ravinder2220]

Amazing to see. By the way is this version of the theme tune available?

[@timelordgeek16]

Imagine if these Pilots didn’t go well we wouldn’t be here 40 Years later Celebrating the Anniversary of Countdown in November If Richard was still here, who knows if he’d still be presenting it with Carol.

[@MyFoodeater]

I wouldn’t have said they went ‘well’

[@timelordgeek16]

@@MyFoodeater Well eventually they did. Calendar Countdown got a series and then that became a bigger series

[@Steve.Dennis]

How the hell did they win the war? Lol

[@ColmMcD01]

Do a deal or no deal channel plz

[@einSteppenwolf]

513=4×(25-7)/8×(50+7)

[@einSteppenwolf]

994=(8+6)×(50+25-4)

[@ukcountryball7962]

0:00

[@benrichards399]

Who's the blonde doing the letters? Should have been her gig!

[@Cowman9791]

@Daniel Holmes Its Cathy Hytner, the one who stayed on the show until 1987

[@joshtherock223]

Honestly in the 1980s some people were miserable on TV

[@hannahpreece3651]

Glad they sorted the scoring out and decided to go with a more relaxed formula. Bit surprised neither got closer with the last numbers. I found two ways to 248 in the time. Going the 5*50 route 7*7 = 49 * 5 = 245. 10-8 +1 = 3 245+ 3= 248 Then going the 30*8 or 80*3 route 7-5 +1 = 3 7*3 = 21 21+10 = 31 31*8 = 248 Out of time using the same idea 5+1 = 6 7*6 = 42 - 10 = 32 *8 = 256 -7 = 249

[@cwn89015]

the hard way to do 513: 50x7=350, 25x the other 7=175, 350+175=525, 8+4=12, 525-12=513.

[@alicejayne9186]

Good thing they were able to find Carol Vorderman eventually. 12:30 994 can be done by first getting to 1000 and leaving the 6 for the end: 25x8x4=800; 50x4=200 800+200=1000; 1000-6=994

[@Steve.Dennis]

Didn’t know they started out with just 8 letters. In fact almost everything completely different.

[@gordonbeattie4864]

Clear to see that Richard didn't listen to what the contestants were telling him.

[@mikewhitcher6853]

Thank you for the video but the show was dreadful

[@Cowman9791]

It was a pilot after all, at least it has improved a tonne

[@tkshots]

what a mess...jesus,how did they get on screen?

[@KoichiFirst8092]

4:47 *TNETENNBA* but without A.

[@quizmaster85]

16:50 - I had GAPING for 6.

[@eitanbitan14]

Uncut and Edited

[@SimonSideburns]

Dreadfully awful. Makes Bullseye look like a well polished production.

[@Cowman9791]

This is only a 1981 pilot that probably has a low budget

[@SimonSideburns]

I'm so glad they tweaked it quite a bit before it did go live.

[@mistermet-coolguyandfriend8745]

amazing how we manage to get 3 E's and a Q (which was also at the end of the first pilot, which was suprisingly unreferenced in terms of the game that starts this pilot other than 860 still being on the fruit machine (left from the 2nd numbers game of the first game in that pilot) and Richard pointing out that everyone probably knows the rules.) Interesting coincidence.

[@mistermet-coolguyandfriend8745]

also correct me if I'm wrong, but the definition used for "prog" is the one for "prod". Unless prog was actually in the dictionary, the game should be 20-0 at the 2nd numbers game (I know slang is used in modern dictionaries, but I don't know how the early 80s were)

[@chimaamanambu6067]

This would become the first program to air on the then-new Channel 4 under the name "Countdown".

[@ebojfmdboojoh4023]

Technically not. There was actually an 8 episode series of Calendar Countdown Broadcast in 1981 before Countdown began in 1982.

[@jadenruanes1858]

45 secs not 30?

[@jimmygoodrich9590]

Group

[@PhilReynoldsLondonGeek]

My comments on this entire pair of pilots: very odd contestant changeovers and then snap endings. No tied scoring, drawer takes in a tie. Different numbers scoring. 45 second rounds were clearly much longer than needed, the 30 second rounds worked OK. The buzzer round in the first pilot was ridiculous, as was the first pilot's "pre-selected word"/conundrum - the first take was actually the most correct. Only 8 letters, though. Mechanical CECIL - basically, as Richard said, a "fruit machine". Having said all that, it was an experiment to see if it could be made to work, taking the original French version as its starting point. Only after trying these could they find the problems.