The Krypton Factor (UK TV series)

***The Krypton Factor*** is a British game show produced by Granada for broadcast on ITV. The show originally ran from September 7, 1977 to November 20, 1995, and was hosted by Gordon Burns and usually broadcast on the ITV network on Mondays at 7pm.

Contestants from across the United Kingdom and Ireland competed in a series of rounds that tested their physical stamina and mental attributes. The title of the show is a reference to Superman's home planet Krypton, the title perceiving that the contestants had strong superhuman "powers" for taking part in the challenges they were set. The contestants, from 1986 onwards, all had their own corresponding colour, either red, green, yellow or blue. They wore their own clothes, apart from the Physical Ability round where the contestants wore track suits which were, in early series, red, burgundy, orange, green, black, light blue and dark blue. From 1986 onwards, the tracksuits were red, green, yellow and blue, and varied in design over the series that followed. The track suits changed to black with a coloured stripe from 1990 to 1993. For their own clothes, the contestants either wore a shirt/blouse, tie or a neckscarf of their corresponding colour. The points contestants earned through the game were not referred to as their score, but as their "Krypton Factor", e.g. "The winner, with a Krypton Factor of 46, is the legal secretary from Kent, Mike Berry". The 1987 series won the prestigious Premio Ondas - Spanish Television Award for Entertainment.

During the original series, the rounds were usually in the same order as below, with exception of the 1995 series (see history). However, in the earlier series, there were only five rounds, as Response had yet to be introduced. In all rounds except the final round, 10 points were awarded to the winner, then 6 (8 in early series), 4 and 2 to the remaining contestants. In the event of a tie, all tied players would receive the score for the higher place — in an extreme case, if three contestants tied with the highest score, they would all receive 10 points, with just 2 points for the unlucky fourth contestant. In the Mental Agility and Observation rounds, the contestant who answered faster would sometimes be awarded the higher place; in other cases, a tiebreaker question was used. On rare occasions, an Observation round would have the players answer a five-part question, such as "Name the five continuity errors in the film clip," and players would receive 2 points for each correct answer.

* Personality (first series only), replaced by Mental Agility
* Response (1986 and 1987 only)
* Observation
* Physical Ability
* Intelligence
* General Knowledge
* Super Round, encompassing abilities from previous rounds (1995 only)

**Young Krypton**

A spin-off series was produced for children, *Young Krypton* (1988-1989), and was presented by Ross King. The series was based on a similar structure to the adult version, but with simpler intelligence tasks and a shorter obstacle course (located at The American Adventure Theme Park near Nottingham, owned by the Granada Group at the time) in place of the Physical Ability round. At the end of both series, Gordon Burns appeared to present the trophy to the winner. Also, in the 1988 Grand Final, Ross presented a special trophy to Phillip Westwick, who completed the adventure course in the fastest time.

**Champion of Champions**

The Krypton Factor had several Champion of Champions episodes; the first edition aired in December 1980, featuring the winners of the first four series. which was won by Philip Bradley (1980) and the trophy was presented by Ian Botham. This was followed by another Champion of Champions edition of the show in 1985, featuring the winners from the previous four years: John McAllister (1981), John Webley (1982), Chris Topham (1983) and Paul Smith (1984), with McAllister winning the game and trophy. The next Champion of Champions episode aired in May 1989, featuring four star contestants: Marian Chanter and Alison Heath (1987), David Lee (1988) and Andrew Gillam (1985). This match was won by Alison Heath.

In March 1988, an International special was broadcast in the UK, Australia and New Zealand as part of Australia's bi-centennial celebrations. Made in the UK and presented by Gordon Burns, the episode featured Marian Chanter and Alison Heath, winner and runner-up respectively of the UK Krypton Factor Grand Final 1987 and John Cargill and Christopher Connolly, winner and runner-up respectively of the Australia & New Zealand Krypton Factor 1987 final. The International title was won by Alison Heath, and the trophy was presented by Fatima Whitbread.

**Theme Tune**

During the original series of The Krypton Factor, five different theme tunes for the programme were used. The first three theme tunes (the first from 1977 to 1979, the second from 1980 to 1982 with a different ending to the first tune, and the third from 1983 to 1985) were written by Mike Moran. The theme tune used between 1986 and 1993 was performed by Art of Noise, and is perhaps the programme's best-known theme.

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