Take Your Pick ! - Wikipedia Take Your Pick ! This article is about the game show. For the album, see Take Your Pick ( album ). hide This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. ( Learn how and when to remove these template messages ) This article relies too much on references to primary sources. Please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources. ( January 2014 ) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( January 2014 ) Take Your Pick ! Genre Game show Created by Michael Miles Presented by Michael Miles ( 1955 -- 1968 ) Des O'Connor ( 1992 -- 1999 ) Voices of Bob Danvers - Walker ( 1955 -- 1968 ) John Sachs ( 1992 ) Steve Jones ( 1994 -- 1999 ) Country of origin United Kingdom Original language ( s ) English No. of series 13 ( Associated - Rediffusion ) 5 ( Thames ) No. of episodes 494 ( Associated - Rediffusion ) 74 ( Thames ) Production Running time 30 minutes ( inc. adverts ) Production company ( s ) Associated - Rediffusion ( 1955 -- 1968 ) Thames Television ( 1992 -- 1999 ) Distributor FremantleMedia Release Original network ITV Picture format 4 : 3 Original release 23 September 1955 ( 1955 - 09 - 23 ) -- 23 December 1999 ( 1999 - 12 - 23 ) Take Your Pick ! was a United Kingdom game show originally broadcast by Radio Luxembourg in the early 1950s. The show was moved to television in 1955 with the launch of ITV, where it continued until 1968. As it was the first game show broadcast on commercial television in the UK ( and the BBC ), monetary prizes were not offered to its participants. It was also, by default, the first British game show to offer cash prizes. The programme was later revived from 24 February 1992 to 23 December 1999. The show featured female assistants to accompany Des O ' Connor. They were Jodie Wilson in the first two of the revived series, then Gillian Blakeney and Gayle Blakeney in 1994, followed by Sarah Matravers ( 1996 ) and Sasha Lawrence in 1998. Contents 1 History 2 Gameplay 2.1 Yes - No interlude 2.2 Box numbers and the prizes 3 Cultural references 4 Transmissions 4.1 Associated - Rediffusion 4.2 Thames 5 References 6 External links History Take Your Pick ! host Michael Miles. The first version of the television show was produced by Associated - Rediffusion ( later Rediffusion London ), while the revival was made by Thames Television, whose arrival as the new London weekday ITV company had led to the demise of the original show. During the gameplay, contestants would answer a series of questions without using the words yes or no in what was known as the `` Yes - No Interlude ''. If they failed to answer all the questions, they would subsequently be gonged off the stage. If successful, however, contestants would answer more questions to win modest monetary prizes. At the climax of the show, contestants would be offered the choice of whether to `` take the money '' ( take all money they had earned so far ) or `` open the box '', which could contain good prizes such as a holiday or a washing machine. It could also contain booby prizes such as a mousetrap or a bag of sweets. The first version was hosted by Michael Miles. After its demise, Miles hosted a similar show for Southern Television called Wheel of Fortune, not to be confused with the later Wheel of Fortune of the same title. Bob Danvers - Walker, who was the voice of Pathé News from 1940 until its demise in 1970, was the show 's announcer. Alec Dane was on hand to bang the gong. Harold Smart was at the electronic organ. Singer and TV presenter Des O'Connor became the host for the second version, which aired from 1992 to 1999. His future wife, Australian born Jodie Wilson, was one of the hostesses ; she would later be replaced by former Neighbours twins Gayle and Gillian Blakeney, also from Australia. The show was again revived for one night as part of Ant & Dec 's Gameshow Marathon in 2005. This was a series presented of the Geordie duo, who presented classic ITV gameshows as part of the channel 's 50th anniversary in their own style. A similar formula was used for Pot of Gold, another game show hosted by O'Connor. The game was played during the ninth series of Britain 's Got More Talent. Gameplay Yes - No Interlude In this opening game, the host asked the contestant a series of questions in a 60 - second span. The contestant could not say `` yes '' or `` no '', nor could they nod or shake their heads. If they did, the co-host would bang the gong and the contestant would be eliminated ( unless other contestants did the same ). Box numbers and the prizes There were 10 boxes numbered from 1 to 10. Three of them would contain booby prizes, one would contain a card awarding a star prize ( e.g., a small car or vacation package ), and six would contain cards announcing other prizes ( e.g., appliances, furniture, or a `` treasure chest '' of cash ). No - one, including the host, knew what each box contained. Contestants would be asked general - knowledge questions. If they answered three out of four questions correctly, they picked a key from a set of ten, corresponding to one of the first ten boxes. The host would then try to buy back the key with increasing amounts of cash, up to about £ 50 ( or, in the revival, a number of hundreds of pounds ). One box also included a key to box 13, which would trigger another round of bidding while the contestant had to choose between their first prize, cash, or box 13 which could have an expensive household item or a booby prize. Cultural references A sketch in Monty Python 's Flying Circus ( called `` Spot the Brain Cell '' in a later audio version ) has John Cleese playing an `` evil '' game show host, hitting contestants over the head with a giant hammer, which is clearly a wildly exaggerated version of Michael Miles ( the game he is hosting is a parody of the `` Yes - No Interlude '' ). An early version of this sketch appeared in At Last the 1948 Show. For a time, after Miles ' death, the sketch was not shown by the BBC, but it has since been reinstated. Also, in the Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook sketch in Monty Python 's Flying Circus, a prosecutor ( played by Eric Idle ) plays the game with Alexander Yalt ( played by Michael Palin ). The prosecutor manages to gong Yalt `` out '' for answering a question with `` yes '' ( although Yalt was probably unaware of playing the game in the first place ). A sketch in the BBC Radio comedy series The Burkiss Way featured a `` Dinosaur - Cheese Interlude '', in which contestants were required to answer questions without mentioning any species of dinosaur or any variety of cheese ( besides Edam, which was `` made '' backwards ). Naturally, all the contestants did accidentally mention them. A fifth - season episode of the radio show Hancock 's Half Hour ( broadcast May 1958 ) had Tony Hancock appear on the ( unnamed ) show and win £ 4,000. The British progressive rock band Hatfield and the North named one of their songs `` The Yes No Interlude ''. It is included in their second LP, The Rotters ' Club. The 1970s radio programme I 'm Sorry, I 'll Read That Again made frequent references to Take Your Pick ! with phrases such as ( in this case, apropos of a vampire rabbit and its coffin ) : `` Stake the bunny ! '' `` Hop in the box ! '' Transmissions Associated - Rediffusion Series Start date End date Episodes 23 September 1955 1 June 1956 36 21 September 1956 14 June 1957 39 20 September 1957 13 June 1958 39 19 September 1958 26 June 1959 41 5 18 September 1959 10 June 1960 39 6 16 September 1960 23 June 1961 41 7 15 September 1961 8 June 1962 39 8 14 September 1962 7 June 1963 39 9 13 September 1963 5 June 1964 39 10 18 September 1964 11 June 1965 39 11 24 September 1965 18 March 1966 26 12 30 September 1966 12 May 1967 33 13 29 September 1967 26 July 1968 44 Only 6 out of the 494 episodes from the Associated - Rediffusion era survived from the archives including episode 2 of series 1, episode 39 of series 10, episodes 1 -- 2 of series 12 and episodes 18 and 44 of series 13. Thames Series Start date End date Episodes 24 February 1992 11 May 1992 10 8 July 1992 24 December 1992 12 12 July 1994 23 November 1994 20 13 May 1996 26 August 1996 16 5 5 June 1998 23 December 1999 16 References Jump up ^ http://www.tv.com/shows/take-your-pick/ Jump up ^ http://www.lostshows.com/default.aspx?programme=ca5058dc-12d1-4d99-a714-150248187869 External links Take Your Pick ! ( 1955 -- 1968 ) on IMDb Take Your Pick ! ( 1992 -- 1999 ) on IMDb Take Your Pick ! ( 1955 -- 1968 ) at British Film Institute Take Your Pick ! ( 1992 -- 1999 ) at British Film Institute Take Your Pick ! at UKGameshows.com. Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Take_Your_Pick!&oldid=838718280 '' Categories : 1950s British television series 1960s British television series 1990s British television series 1955 British television programme debuts 1999 British television programme endings British game shows English - language television programs ITV game shows Television series by FremantleMedia Television programmes produced by Associated - Rediffusion Television programmes produced by Thames Television Hidden categories : Articles lacking reliable references from January 2014 All articles lacking reliable references Articles needing additional references from January 2014 All articles needing additional references Articles with multiple maintenance issues Use dmy dates from September 2010 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Add links This page was last edited on 28 April 2018, at 21 : 34. 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Question: who hit the gong on take your pick
Answer: Alec Dane