30th Anniversary of Noel's House Party

[Jon]

I do wonder if a key factor of getting rid of the Crinkley Bottom name was the fact by this time all the theme parks had failed so they wanted people to move on from that brand.

I think those parks would have been disappointing because as far as I know, there was no mock up version of the Great House set in them.

[Neil Jones]

I do wonder if a key factor of getting rid of the Crinkley Bottom name was the fact by this time all the theme parks had failed so they wanted people to move on from that brand.

I think those parks would have been disappointing because as far as I know, there was no mock up version of the Great House set in them.

The parks were more based around Mr Blobby than the whole Great House thing I believe. As the obvious breakout character in the whole series, it was a bit of a no-brainer to build it around him. Not exclusively though, I believe they had other things too, but Mr Blobby was a key element.

Somebody went wandering around the site of the park in Somerset a few years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSx47zAZkCc

Of course Blobby gradually drifted away from the Great House (not exclusively, but mostly) and seemed to end up at Live & Kicking of all places.

[Steve Williams]

A bit of continuity from 1994:

I remember these Superman competitions, this was the first series and it was just taking off, so Noel would pop up before it to plug the House Party and do a phone-in competition. I always thought that was quite a nice way to bring together the various programmes, and from today's perspective I assume it was also of some benefit to cover the fact that some episodes of Superman ran a bit shorter than others when stuff was removed for a teatime audience.

One thing I'd love to see resurface at one point are the links Cilla did between all the programmes on ITV on the night of the first lottery in November 1994, linking Gladiators, Blind Date and a Princess Diana doc. I assume they were all pre-recorded, rather than Cilla having to give up her Saturday night to sit in a broom cupboard at LWT.

[Inspector Sands]

The parks were more based around Mr Blobby than the whole Great House thing I believe. As the obvious breakout character in the whole series, it was a bit of a no-brainer to build it around him. Not exclusively though, I believe they had other things too, but Mr Blobby was a key element.

The main ones had Crinkly Bottom in their name so it might have been a factor in it stopping being used, that and the fact it was a tired joke.

There's a good summary of the NHP parks here, including Gotchaland which was deliberately bad as a Gotcha but everyone just hated it
https://www.mrblobbycollection.com/themeparks

[Hatton Cross]

I have a hazy memory that the Cilla first lottery night spolier links were done on the 'post date interview' sofas on the Blind Date set.

[Robertclark125]

I have a hazy memory that the Cilla first lottery night spolier links were done on the 'post date interview' sofas on the Blind Date set.

And your hazy memory was correct! She did indeed do it from the blind date sofa.

[buster]

I do wonder if a key factor of getting rid of the Crinkley Bottom name was the fact by this time all the theme parks had failed so they wanted people to move on from that brand.

I think those parks would have been disappointing because as far as I know, there was no mock up version of the Great House set in them.

I've seen a picture somewhere of a truncated mockup of the original set, so I think there was. I thought it was on the Blobby Collection site but can't find it now.

The Gotchaland idea has the same issue as the series 5 "we're out of time" gags...the audience isn't going to laugh at its own misfortune.

[sjames]

[Brekkie]

Stumbled across this clip the other day and wondered where it might have been filmed. Could it have been at this theme park?

[Keith]

[quote=Brekkie post_id=63009 time= user_id=976]
Stumbled across this clip the other day and wondered where it might have been filmed. Could it have been at this theme park?

[Jon]

The ‘A Decade at Crinkley Bottom’ programme seems to have disappeared from from Andy Pearman’s YouTube channel. Strange considering he’s thanks in the credits and all the other episodes are on there.

It’s still on the BBC website though.

[VMPhil]

The unexpected return of Mr Blobby (sort of) and references to Noel and his House Party on Would I Lie to You last night, courtesy of forum favourite Stephen Mulhern* (from 1:32 in)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...-episode-8

(*actually contrary to forum opinion, I've always liked Stephen Mulhern and thought he came across well in this, not to mention an expert Blobby impressionist)

[Inspector Sands]

I thought it was true as he correctly named the person who was regularly inside Blobby - 'Barry' as in Bart Killerby. So he was either involved or knew that off the top of his head

[buster]

I’d have been duped if he had been a theme park Blobby, it seems right up his street given his background. But I think Blobby was always Barry Killerby on the actual BBC show without fail…you’d have known if it wasn’t as he used to put so much into it. Now he’s not doing it anymore you really know..that clip of Mr B coming into BBC News at Christmas to promote his panto is so low energy and the voice is clearly wrong.

[Johnr]

The unexpected return of Mr Blobby (sort of) and references to Noel and his House Party on Would I Lie to You last night, courtesy of forum favourite Stephen Mulhern* (from 1:32 in)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...-episode-8

(*actually contrary to forum opinion, I've always liked Stephen Mulhern and thought he came across well in this, not to mention an expert Blobby impressionist)

The problem with Stephen being on WILTY of course is he is...UNBELIEVABLE