“Blankety Blank was very _______”

Several words you could fit in that blank, but it was up to the contestants to try and match their answers to the ones given by the celebrity panel. Yes! This was Blankety Blank!

The show started with *that* theme tune, the one that went “Blankety Blank, Blankety Blank (Boom Boom), Blankety Blank, Blankety Blank (Boom Boom!)

The host introduced us to the celebrities and then we met the players. The player who won the toss got to pick from one of two questions. The host read the statement out and then the six celebrities wrote down the answer that they think would fit the blanks. There was usually a tenuous clue within the statement for the celebs and players to pick up on.

Once all the celebs had written something, the player gave their answer. The host then went into the celebs and read out what they put. If the answers matched, the player scored a point, and the celeb got a little mark indicating that they’d matched with that player. The other player then got a go.

If after this first round a player had matched with all six celebs they won the game. If not, the player with the lowest score went first in round two, but they only played with the people with whom they didn’t match with in round one.

The loser didn’t go away empty handed because they won… a legendary Blankety Blank Chequebook and Pen!

The winner went through to the Supermatch Game (with the appropriate “Supermatch Game” theme tune, which was nearly as inane as the “Blankety Blank” one). They were then shown a two word phrase with one word blanked out.

Before the show, the whole audience were polled as to what word should fill in the blank of the Supermatch phrase, and the three most popular answers were hidden away on the board. The winning player was allowed to ask three of the celebs what they thought the most popular filler was and afterwards the player was allowed to take one of their words or come up with one of their own. The words on the board were worth 50, 100 and 150 Blanks depending on popularity and more blanks meant better prizes.

And that’s it really, apart from the hosts. First, there was Terry Wogan, then the late Les Dawson. When he died, Blankety Blank left the screens for a while, only to be revived in 1998 with Lily Savage (Paul O’Grady) as the host. The show was later renamed “Lily Savage’s Blankety Blank.”

ITV1 Network Saturday 21 April 6:20 PM to 7:25 PM