Looking back at The Adventure Game
Set phasers to nostalgia as we revisit eighties children's TV classic, The Adventure Game...
Take three 80s TV stars, a generous dash of Dungeons & Dragons and a healthy sprinkling of brain-numbing tasks and you have a game show recipe that left guests mystified, mortified and all-too-often vaporised, thanks to transmorphic dragons, green cheese rolls and the Vortex. Yep, we've finally got around to talking about The Adventure Game.
It’s funny how you never seemed to question TV concepts when you were little, especially if it was the BBC. That’s why, from mid-way through 1980 up until 1986, no one asked why the likes of Keith Chegwin, Sarah Greene, and Noel Edmonds would suddenly become celebrity time travellers, heading ‘many light years away to the far side of the galaxy’ to pay an unwelcome visit to the dragon-like Argons, the polite but mischievous inhabitants of the planet Arg.
Irritated by the constant invasion of B-list celebs, the Argons would steal the vital crystal time lock from the time machine the travellers arrived on. Not before courteously changing into human (or aspidistra – more on that later) form so not to alarm their guests, of course. Only after completing a series of mental tasks would the celebs win back the crystal and be able to speed their way home on their ship, or else begin the long walk home back to Earth.
Back Home
The Adventure Game began life in May 1980 and ran for a mere 22 episodes until the lights went down on Arg for the final time in February 1986. It was one of those rare TV phenomena that not only attracted a healthy audience of kids but also won a huge adult following. This meant that the whole family would sit down and enjoy watching a mix of kids' TV presenters, weather presenters and world Rubik's Cube champions stumble their way through a series of puzzles, tasks and catastrophes in order to win the coveted crystal and the means to get back home.
The series was devised by Patrick Dowling, a 25-year veteran of the BBC who had worked his way up to Senior Producer in the children's TV department. This was the man who brought us classic teatime telly such as Vision On, Take Hart and Why Don’t You?
Dowling needed an educational programme for kids to replace Vision On, a show which he had been working on for the previous ten years. The birth of The Adventure Game was the result of a mix of popular cultural elements that were prominent during the late 70s and early 80s.
In 1977, Dowling had been impressed by a computer game called Adventure, which was one of the first text adventure games for main frame computers (you know the sort: > You’re in a room. There is a chest > Open the chest > The chest is empty! > $@%*!).
In the computer game players progressed through different areas by solving tasks and deciphering clues. This was to be a huge influence to the dynamics (and seemingly the name) of The Adventure Game. At the time Dowling was also a Dungeons & Dragons player, and this obviously had a bearing on the show. Another big influence was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio show, created by Douglas Adams. Dowling had heard Hitchhiker's and was amazed by it. So much so that he even approached Adams with the basic idea for The Adventure Game in the hope that he would write it.
Unfortunately, although liking the idea, Adams had just agreed to write the TV version of Hitchhiker’s for the BBC and was unable to do it. Dowling decided to write it himself, combining all the elements described. In a nutshell The Adventure Game was devised by a computer-gaming D&D player who liked to listen to HitchHiker's… Patrick Dowling is, ladies and gentlemen, a fifth Dan geek.
Doogy Rev
The concept for the show was simple; drop three celebrity contestants into a surreal set of situations with mind-boggling puzzles to solve, and let them figure their way out. Helping (and often hindering) them on their way was a series of regular Argon characters, each with their own larger than life quirks and mannerisms. And, as quick witted viewers soon pointed out, with a name that was an anagram of Dragon.
There was Gandor the Butler, who played Chris Leaver in the show (the dragons were credited as playing humans in the end scroll). You may remember he used an ear trumpet to help him see, and wore glasses to help him hear. Gandor would referee many of the games, as well as give the contestant helpful little prods in the right direction when flummoxed celebs were eating into valuable filming time.
In the first series Darong was played by actress Moira Stuart, who, of course, later became a BBC newsreader (being a transmorphic alien probably explains why she never seemed to age). Then there was Rongad (who played Bill Homewood). He could only communicate by talking backwards and could only understand contestants when they did the same. His cry of "Doogy rev!" when contestants got things right was a catchphrase for the show, and talking backwards was a big playground fad for a good while.
Lesley Judd, who was a contestant in the first series returned in series two onwards as The Mole. It was her job to infiltrate the team as another contestant but would be actually working against them. The first person the contestants would meet was Gnoard (series one to three), who was played Charmian Gradwell in the show. She would help contestants get underway, which usually meant herding them off to the Drogna Game
Drogna
The Drogna Game was a floor puzzle task where contestants competed against the Red Salamander (an Argon who refused to take human form, obviously). The game featured a series of shaped and coloured tiles. Rules were set as to how contestants could move around the tiles (such as you could only move to an adjacent tile of the same shape or colour) and the goal was to reach the stolen crystal in the middle of the grid before the Salamander did.
The Drogna was also the currency of Arg. Its value was determined by multiplying the number of sides of the shape by the position of its colour in the rainbow (and you thought your holiday Euros were confusing). Drogna were needed to continue through to other games and not least to appease the Rangdo, the grand leader of Arg, referred to as Uncle by the other Argons. In series one he appeared in the human form of Ian Messiter, but in later series he became (amongst other things) an aspidistra plant, controlled by Kenny Baker, fresh from playing R2 D2 in Star Wars. It was Baker who would cause the Rangdo to shake angrily if the contestants upset him in some way, such as not using the socially correct greeting of Gronda, Gronda. Manners, eh?
The Vortex
As well as the Drogna game, contestants had to face other mind numbing tasks, winning Drognas, and in the case of ‘How many Argons around the pond?’ a green cheese roll, which was very useful for the final task, the Vortex. It’s the Vortex that everyone remembers about the show, even though it only appeared from the second series onwards.
This was the last task contestants had to face before they could get to their ship and head home. Each player had to make their way across a grid (complete with the best deep space blue-screen backdrop the BBC could muster) to get to the other side. It might look daft now, but at the time? It was different, exciting and surprisingly tense.
On the other side of the grid stood Gandor, who would control the movements of the invisible (to the contestants but not to viewers) vortex. If the player moved into the spot occupied by the Vortex, the player was evaporated. This was where the green cheese roll would come in handy, as players could use it to check to see if a stop was clear or not. Evaporation meant a long walk along the intergalactic highway back to Earth, with several smirking Argons waving you off.
Once upon a time, we spoke to one-time contestant Keith Chegwin about his time on the show. He told us that "It was a really, really odd show to do. It was ahead of its time. It was all done with colour separation overlay and effects, er, but yes, I remember going through nearly every maze I could think of, and trying to solve every problem there was, and not being very successful at all! It was one of those shows where I thought dammit, I wish I’d never done this because I look thick!"
The show ended in 1986 after only 22 episodes in the bag. And while it may well be over 20 years since the Argons blessed our screens, in the wise words of Rongad, it’s ‘enog tub ton nettogrof’
Trivia
- Ian Oliver, who directed and later produced the series after Patrick Dowling retired, saw Bill Homewood (Rongad) sing a backwards version of Puff the Magic Dragon on the very first episode of Swap Shop and wanted him on the show.
- One of the final episodes of The Adventure Game had to be bumped back two weeks for coverage of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster on 28th January 1986
- In 1983 a game called Drogna, based on the game from the show, was released by Acornsoft for the BBC Micro computer.
- On the pilot episode, one of the tasks involved using salt water to conduct electricity. This was dropped as Patrick Dowling and Ian Oliver decided that it was not something they should probably do on a children's programme.
- Because there was no script and contestants were free to do more or less anything they wanted, nearly two hours of footage was shot for each programme.
- Back in 2001, The Adventure Game reached number 39 in Channel 4’s 100 Greatest Kids' TV Shows. We demand a recount.
- Out of all of the episodes made, four episodes no longer exist - two from the first season and two from the second season.
Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
Disqus - noscript
It was Christopher Leaver not Lever. Pedanticman awaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!
I have such fond memories of this show. It had a strangeness about it that is difficult to define.
To this day, if I pass an Aspidistra-type pot plant I'll often give it a shake and say 'gronda gronda.' Amazing how many people will know what it means, but anyone under 30 looks at me like I'm mental.
Gronda Gronda!!!
Brings it all back! I remember the Rangdo but not the necessary greeting, which will hopefully come in handy now.
My brain has melted from this deeply buried memory.
Great article. Nice to know the space this show takes up in my head is shared by others. Doogy Rev.
I seem to remember the Aspidistra made a sort of "wibble wobble growl" noise when angry. I still do it when wobbling unaware potted plants. If this sound wasn't on the show, I may need to be sectioned.
I used to love this series. Thanks for the reminder!! As kids the vortex was amazing. We used to use the twister mat as the walkway with a moveable vortex diagram for the controller. Anyway, 25 years later....
You should do a look back at The Crystal Maze - man I loved that show - especially when it was hosted by Richard O'Brien
I can't believe no mention of the Dogran in the Dogran hole...
I loved The Adventure Game when I was a kid, I'm just amazed that so few episodes were produced, I thought it was hundreds not just 22.
"Many light years away on the far side of the galaxy in a region often visited by time travellers lies Arg. A small planet of little consequence. The Argon's, a polite race, never the less have a regrettable sense of humour and enjoy testing the wit and perspicacity of any visitors." :)
My favourite show when I was a nipper.
ITV's The Cube just doesn't compare... I reckon that show was created by two drunken ITV execs sat in the pub trying to remember how TAG/The Crystal Maze worked and writing it on the back of a fag packet.
It's probably just as well TAG ended when it did. I remember being excited by the Crystal maze but the longer it went the over-familiarity and dafter challenges put me off it.
If it had ended after the second or third series it might well be fondly remembered.
I loved this show as a kid. In fact I seem to remember my Dad watching as well, and he wasn't a massive fan of things flippant. It amazes me that shows from the 80's were still being lost.
Meant to add, when was the last time you heard the word "perspicacity" on a children's programme?
I was about to say the same - on any programme, much less kids TV.
Imagine the slack-jawed looks if Paddy McGuinness used it on Take Me Out.
Agreed. There are so many gameshows which deserve a look - from The Crystal Maze (including Tudor Pole's stint) to Fort Boyard, etc.
Missing or incomplete episodes for programme THE ADVENTURE GAME.
Series 1
31.05.80 Episode 2 (missing)
21.06.80 Episode 5
The only known complete copy is on a domestic video format (e.g. VHS, Beta, Philips 1500).
Series 2
09.11.81 Episode 2
The only known complete copy is on a domestic video format (e.g. VHS, Beta, Philips 1500).
23.11.81 Episode 4 (missing)
Out of an original total of 22 episodes, 2 episodes are missing and 2 others exist on formats inferior to the original.
I've been looking for years to remember what this programme was, I've always remembered my show being postponed for challenger. The priorities of a small child...
This is what I am always talking about. About the BBC and the Fee and how utterly rubbish and predictable the BBCs output has become. This is and was a SUPERB series. It was groundbreaking, it was clever, it was funny, it was witty, it was educational and it was entertaining.
Its Tv from the Era of the BBC that actually tried to make different and thought provoking shows and not endless soap operas, and talent shows. Can you ever imagine them making something like it now? There is not a chance. And even if they did by some miracle do something like it, then it would be so dumbed down and brain dead it would be pointless watching it.
The whole thing that made this series so magical was the fact that the contestants were star names at the BBC at the time. So you got to see various people that you liked as characters, actually being themselves for once. Blakes 7s Avon turned up as Paul Darrow in the first season and was brilliant and it was fantastic to see him in something like this, struggling with puzzles that Avon would have worked out in seconds....
It should be released on DVD at once. I have bought other classic stuff like this on DvD, such as Grange Hill, and the Wombles and this should get a release too. I cant even get hold of it on any torrent sites either. Another show along this sort of clever thoughful line was The Great Egg Race...also from the BBC of this era. Nothing like that is being made now either.
We can all look forward to more crap like the Voice that will be returning to our TV sets soon, along with more boring soap operas and police dramas.
Question for you all -
Do you think that the reason no Television like this is made now, is because so many of the great minds at the BBC are now either retired or dead.
Or do you think its because the BBC Management have the talent in house, but are too short sighted and dont want to take any risks with new ideas, because they have all grown too fat and lazy on their massive salarys?
Either way we are losing out.
The Arg - "value was determined by multiplying the number of sides of the shape by the position of its colour in the rainbow " What the fu...? No wonder I could never get it
Awesome article, thank you. Loved this show - only 22 episodes...seemed to run forever.
My best mates patio area became our Vortex game, we even had a tape recorder playing the sound as recorded from the tv speakers.
A phenomenal show. Graham Garden was an absolute genius on the show. Anyone remember "nepo emases"? Ah yes and the bbc micro buggy. Happy days.
The horse is dead, leave it alone
I know it is. Well and truly dead. Trouble is everyone still has to pay to feed it, clean up after it and house it. Do you get it? Heheheh peace!
Not really, BBC is producing more output I care about these days than it ever has. Dr Who, Sherlock, Luther, Russel Howard, QI, HIGNFY and dozens of one shot 6 parter serials. I don't know what you enjoyed in their past, but for me it wasn't much that isn't still around.
I used to enjoy - Blakes 7, Classic Doctor Who, The Adventure Game, Grange Hill, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, Swapshop, Saturday Superstore, Going Live, BluePeter when it was BluePeter, The Great Egg Race, Tomorrows World, The Goodies, Only Fools and Horses, Open all Hours, The Two Ronnies, Morcambe and Wise, The Generation Game, Basil Brush, Jim will Fix it ( Whoops was that ever a mistake eh?) Wings, Top of the Pops...I could go on for hours here but I will stop there...
All stuff from the 70s / 80s and only bits from the modern era. Out of that list all thats left are Blue Peter, which is typical left wing politically correct rubbish now. I am outside of the age range for it anyway, then there is Doctor Who, but its now nothing like it was in the classic era, plus for the last two years its hardly been on, and then there is my other favourite Top Gear which I still watch. Sadly tonight is the last episode for a while. After the run of Doctor Who in March that will be it for me until either Top Gear is back on or Doctor Who. Saturday night is a desert. I cant stand The Voice / lottery / Casualty bore fest and there is no more sci fi output from the BBC at the moment. Not a lot on for me is there? Everyone I know in my age range - 30s to 40s complains about the BBC and the Saturday night crap fest. We are passed the stage of going out to pubs and getting smashed, and most of us are married with kids and stay in Saturday nights.
At the moment I am rewatching Battlestar Galactica. I am currently in the middle of Season 3 of Spartacus and the Walking Dead and I am looking forward to getting Game of Thrones season three when it starts. I will have to download that one though as its never available in the UK until about a year after its broadcast in the States. I am also watching a lot of Tom Baker Doctor Who, and Logans Run from the 70s, and the Bionic Man. My wife loves the Two Ronnies so I have built up a collection of those. We are also watching the entire Crystal Maze run with Richard O Brien... I should just go back in time to the 70s and 80s again. Heheheheh
Ps...Sherlock is great, I watch that when its on, but three episodes every couple of years is hardly going to keep me entertained....
'Blue Peter- typical left wing politically correct rubbish now'.
What exactly do you mean by this? What exactly does anyone actually mean by statements like this?
Ok 1) You realise those didn't air at anything LIKE the same time right? Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes are compatively recent (and stuff like Grange Hill and Basical Brush makes me so jealous of kids of this generation, I would have killed for something like the Sarah Jane Adventures rather than that unimaginative ****)., add Blue Peter to that list and you honestly have my list of what *was* wrong with British TV. My only enduring complaint would be that we still have to put up with Ant and Dec to this day.
One of my earliest memories is of The Vortex game. I found it strangely terrifying.
Think about it. Never mind...it does not matter really. Unless you grew up with John Noakes and Peter Purves and Lesley Judd you would not get it. Back in the 70s it was on BBC1 twice a week and was umissible. Now its on Childrens BBC Ch once a week and is just brain dead. The way they frame articles and talk down to kids is unreal. Harry Potter books were such a success because they did not sugar coat things too much or talk down to children. That was part of my point. But the left have won and I surrender. All the brainwashing has worked. If only people could see it.
Anyway, carry on , dont mind me. Its just me being me. Peace.
I know they did not air at the same time. Part of my problem is that I grew up and watched childrens Tv and then Adult Tv during the golden age of the BBC back in the 70s and 80s. Only two channels and no videos that anyone could afford until about 1985. So you had to watch it live, there and then and because there were less channels the stuff that was on was often of better quality, rather than utter crap and repeats spread over four channels like today.
I liked the Sarah Jane Adventures. I was there when she joined the Doctor first time around you know. Everyone loved her and its terribly sad she is gone.
But leave Basil Brush alone! He was funny and brilliant and I used to laugh until I cried. I was a KID. A young kid, and at the time there was nothing else like it. So to me it was wonderful. Basil was on Tv on a Saturday tea time, then Tom Baker would follow as the Doctor, and then you would get Bruce on the Generation game. It was Tv that I watched with my parents and brother and we loved it. It was safe, smut free, cosy and entertaining. I am talking about proper Basil Brush not the stuff thats on now. The original chap playing him has sadly died. I found it so touching that he would never appear with the puppet as to him it was magical and he did not want to spoil it for the children by showing who was behind it all. To this day I still dont know what he looked like, to me he was and always will be Basil Brush. Sad aren't I?
Grange Hill was great in the early years. Tucker Jenkins! "OI TUCKER...." and so on. Phil Redmond was cutting edge back then and the show got into trouble for being so ..."ahem" bad for children! Heaven forbid that we watch some kids getting into trouble and being cheeky on the BBC....how DARE THEY! Did you ever see an episode of the Young Ones with a Tv sketch in it about Grange Hill? The teacher called "Mr Liberal" was complaining about the kids attitudes in the show etc and one kid, as played by Ben Elton said -
"Oh but come on Sir!!! We are the only school in the country where the kids dont say F**K!"
EXACTLY!
Happy days...sigh...thats my problem you know. I am getting old. And falling into the classic trap of going around saying things like...."It was not like that in my day when I was a kid...." The thing is...I used to laugh at people like that when I was young. Now I am "older" I realise that they were probably right and I can see their point of view.
I have just fallen out of love with the BBC, for many reasons. Last night I sat through Shetland with my wife on BBC1. You know the show? Shetland, the CRIME DRAMA! Another one. I dont know why the BBC does not just buy shares in the Police Force. Do you think the managers there are all ex police officers or something? Anyway as for Ant and Dec, the less said the better. At least they are over on ITV and we dont have to pay for them.
My point is simply this, in all of the things I say. Yes you are right the BBC did and do make some good things still. BUT there is so much waste, so much pointless mid management, move to Salford costs and so on it just makes me very angry. If it was ITV I could not care less as we dont pay for it. But because we HAVE TO thats what makes me mad. All the corruption, scandal, sexism, Jimmy Savile etc is just sickening. But hey...the MPS do it too and people keep voting for them. I just give up. I wish I was a kid and it was 1974 again.....I was happy back then.....