An archive of blog entries about UK TV programmes and production.
Classic TV
Weird old title sequences: The Great Egg Race (1979-1986)
You know, sometimes I think I have psychic powers. Only last Thursday, I was thinking to myself “Ooh. I know what I should do for next week’s Lost Gems: The Great Egg Race. Everyone loved that.” What should happen within about two hours? The BBC only went and stuck vast chunks of it up on the BBC Archive, that’s what, which makes things a whole lot easier, if less impressive now.
The Great Egg Race, for those too young, too American or not nerdy enough to be watching BBC science programmes during the early to mid-1980s, was a fabulous homage to British boffins and inventors, a predecessor for things like Robot Wars and Scrapheap Challenge, and firmly in the tradition of the outwards bounds courses et al that led to Now Get Out of That at the same time. In it, teams of inventive and engineering-minded British people would be set seemingly simple challenges and armed only with their ingenuity, a small workshop and a whole array of kitchen-equipment and random objects, they would have to construct a mind-blowing gizmo or series of gizmos that would solve the challenge better than the other teams – preferably in as Heath-Robinson a way as possible.
Originally presented by Play School/Play Away host Brian Cant, the show got its name from the main challenge of the first series, in which teams from around the country tried to build machines that could propel an egg as far as possible, powered only by elastic bands. This episode includes the show’s famous theme tune, as well as its first weird old title sequence. More after the jump…
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