Gourt Home::Gourt :: Call My Bluff
Call My Bluff is a long-running British game show (adapted for BBC television by Philip Hindin from a short-lived US Goodson-Todman show of the same title) between two teams of three contestants, who are celebrities. The point of the game is for the teams to take it in turn to provide three definitions of an obscure word, only one of which is correct. The other team then has to guess which is the correct definition, the other two being "bluffs".
Examples of words used in Call my Bluff (taken from a book published in connexion with the show in 1972) are Queach, Strongle, Ablewhacket, Hickboo, Jargoon, Zurf, Morepork and Jirble. Queach, for instance, was defined as 'a malicious caricature,' or 'a cross between a quince and a peach,' or 'a mini-jungle of mixed vegetation.' The first and second of those particular definitions are bluffs.
The show ran on BBC 2 from 1965 to 1988. The original host was Robin Ray, later succeeded by Joe Melia, Peter Wheeler and finally Robert Robinson. Robert Morley and Frank Muir captained the teams. Morley was succeeded by Patrick Campbell, who was in turn succeeded by Arthur Marshall. The show was resurrected in 1996 after an 8-year rest (apart from one special edition in 1994). Alan Coren and Sandi Toksvig became the team captains, and Bob Holness replaced Robinson as chairman.
In 2003, Toksvig was replaced by the journalist Rod Liddle, and newsreader Fiona Bruce took the chair.
There is a similar gameshow in Finland called Kuutamolla, except with fewer celebrities and a focus on anecdotes in the lives of the celebrities, rather than word etymologies.
Book
Call my Bluff by Frank Muir and Patrick Campbell, published by Eyre Methuen, London, 1972.
External links
"Call My Bluff"