I’m not a big fan of Saturday night telly, but last weekend I watched “Catchphrase”, originally hosted by Roy “That’s a good answer…but it’s not right!” Walker and currently by magician Stephen “Will the middle solve the riddle?” Mulhern.

I’ve also seen the ‘celebrity’ version with the extra round… “Any idea who these celebrities are?”

Halfway through the regular show I realised the pictures giving clues to each ‘catchphrase’, were proverbs, metaphors, adages and even song titles.

They weren’t catchphrases that comedians and entertainers, used like “You are awful…but I like you!” and “Hello playmates!”*

*No prizes for guessing whose catchphrases they were.

Now a whole generation thinks a ‘wet blanket’ or a ‘night owl’ are catchphrases when they’re metaphors.

Young comedians today don’t have catchphrases, possibly because they associate them with flat-capped, northern, working-class comics with dressing rooms full of whippets.

Which is such a tired cliché.

They had racing pigeons, not whippets.

The always immaculately turned-out southern entertainer Bruce Forsyth found a catchphrase by accident when a contestant on the “Beat The Clock” game show segment on “Sunday Night At The London Palladium” started behaving awkwardly.

Bruce jokily told him “I’m in charge!” and the following day as Bruce walked through London, dozens of people came up to him, saying “I’m in charge!”
Bruce realised he’d struck catchphrase gold.

His Palladium successor, Norman Vaughan’s catchphrase was “Swinging!” (accompanied by a thumbs-up) and “Dodgy!” (accompanied by a thumbs-down).

Having a popular catchphrase gave the extremely nervous Norman confidence, but his Palladium gig eventually got the thumbs down from TV bosses.

However, he went on to co-create the game show “Bullseye!” on which Jim Bowen had a famous catchphrase.

It’s not easy hosting a game show, remembering the rules, scores and camera positions while putting the contestants at ease when you’re almost as nervous as them.

In the first series, the inexperienced Jim asked a contestant what he did for a living and his reply was “I’m out of work!”

Without thinking, a frazzled Jim automatically replied…
“Super, smashing, great!”

The amiable Jim told that story against himself for years afterwards.