Bullseye

The staple diet of anybody's Sunday evening in the 1980s and early 1990s. A show defined by Jim Bowen himself as "crap" but maintaining enough viewers to allow it to continue for a decade and build up a huge cult following. The tacky show revolved around darts; though that was purely incidental to the catchphrases, mascots, presentation and prizes. You see, that was what made Bullseye the gameshow it is now remembered to be. Who can forget the bendy bully, the tankard (or silver goblet for female contestants); the midi hi-fi prizes, Bully's Special Prize, a speedboat or caravan (often a kitchen, which posed the question how a team of 2 strangers ...  Read the complete review

What can you say about a programme that was so bad it was brilliant. Bullseye was the ultimate in naffness, so uncool it had a cult following. The reasons for this were in my opinion two-fold. Firstly there was the whole concept of the programme and secondly there was the compere, the inimitable Jim Bowen. The first part of show saw Jim introducing the hapless contestants who it has to be said were not the brightest stars in the constellation. They were usually appallingly dressed, ugly and overweight (always a winning combination) and seemed terminally sentenced to have a bad haircut and glasses as thick as bottle bottoms. Jim tortuously interviewed these ...  Read the complete review

This darts based gameshow was hosted by Jim Bowen. By his own admission Jim Bowen was awful as a host, making the contestants nervous and fluffing his lines however this was what made it such cult Sunday afternoon viewing. If you want to catch it now then you need to watch Challenge TV which shows game shows all the time. He was so bad and the show was so popular that it has apppeared in the live act of both Peter Kay and Frank Skinner where the send the whole show up. It was based upon darts and a series of challenges the general knowledge and darting ability of three teams of two. At the end the winning finalits could risk the prizes they had won ...  Read the complete review

I like naff TV, and TV doesn't get much more naff than bullseye. Firstly, there is no good reason why Bullseye should be a TV show. The premise is awful (think big break with darts instead of snooker) and the prizes that can be won are, on the whole, pretty useless. But it works, it has the x factor that many modern quiz shows lack despite all the big money that can be won. This is mainly down to Jim Bowen, his comedic skills make the programme watchable and he was pretty risque for a 70's/80's game show host. Bullseye starts off with three teams of two (one dart-player (dartist?) and one member to answer the questions) and one team is eliminated ...  Read the complete review

To my mind Bullseye’ is the best game show of all time. Forget the modern fad of high tension and big prizes what really counts is watchability and a tight balance between winning and losing. 'Bullseye' had both although the losers generally outnumbered the winners. Made by Central Television in the 1980's the show ran for dozen or more seasons with a format that barely changed throughout. Always hosted by dour faced Jim Bowen ably assisted by scorer Tony Green the show regularly attracted audiences of 18 million - well according to Jim anyway. I always remember enjoying the show on Sunday afternoons and am now delighted to see it on ...  Read the complete review