Runaround was produced by Southern Television

Southern Television

Southern Television was the first ITV broadcasting licence holder for the south and south-east of England from 30 August 1958 until the night of 31 December 1981. The company was launched as Southern Television Limited and the title Southern Television was consistently used on-air throughout its life...

 for ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 between 2 September 1975 and 7 September 1981. It was much more successful than the American original

Runaround (game show)

Runaround was a children's television game show produced by Heatter-Quigley Productions. The program was hosted by Paul Winchell, airing Saturday mornings on NBC from September 9, 1972 to September 1, 1973...

. The original host was comedian Mike Reid

Mike Reid (entertainer)

Michael Reid was an English comedian, actor, author and occasional television presenter from Hackney in east London, who is best remembered for playing the role of Frank Butcher in EastEnders and hosting the popular children's TV show Runaround...

, who later starred in EastEnders

EastEnders

EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...

as Frank Butcher

Frank Butcher

Francis Aloysius "Frank" Butcher is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by the late Mike Reid. Frank made his first appearance on-screen as a guest character in 1987 but, due to a positive viewer reception, he was reintroduced in 1988 as a regular. Reid took a long...

. In 1977 his place was taken by Leslie Crowther

Leslie Crowther

Leslie Crowther, CBE was an English comedian, actor and gameshow host.-Biography:Crowther was born in West Bridgford in Nottinghamshire. At the end of 1944 he moved to London with his parents, but was evacuated for a few months to Bute until just after the war ended.His father, Leslie Frederick...

 and Stan Boardman

Stan Boardman

Stan Boardman is an English comedian.- Early life :Boardman was evacuated with his family to Wrexham during World War II, and after the family returned to their Merseyside home mistakenly thinking the area had escaped the German bombs, his elder brother Tommy was killed in a bombing raid.He had...

, before Reid returned in 1978. The ball in tube scoring was copied from the US version but with two colours; yellow worth one point for a correct answer and red worth 2 points for being the only contestant to choose the right answer. Metal Mickey

Metal Mickey

thumb|Metal Mickey, a robot character on UK children's television in the 1980sMetal Mickey was a five-foot-tall fictional robot, which was created, controlled and voiced by Johnny Edward. A modernised vision of a 1950s space toy, Metal Mickey first appeared on British television in the ITV...

 made his screen debut on the British version of the show after being discovered by the show's in-vision researcher, Tim Edmunds. The series ended when Southern were stripped of their broadcasting franchise at the end of 1981, although the format returned in 1985, now produced by Central Independent Television

Central Independent Television

Central Independent Television, more commonly known as Central is the Independent Television contractor for the Midlands, created following the restructuring of ATV and commencing broadcast on 1 January 1982. The station is owned and operated by ITV plc, under the licensee of ITV Broadcasting...

 as "Poparound", with questions centred around pop music. The presenter this time round was disc jockey Gary Crowley

Gary Crowley

Gary Crowley is an English broadcaster and DJ.When he was at school in the late Seventies Crowley started a punk fanzine titled The Modern World, interviewing some of the most important bands of the day including the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Jam.After leaving school he took up a junior...

. In 1978, the game was incorporated into Southern TV's Saturday morning programme Saturday Banana

Saturday Banana

The Saturday Banana was a Saturday morning children's television show produced by Southern Television for ITV and presented by Goodies star Bill Oddie. Oddie also wrote and sang the theme tune...

, hosted by Bill Oddie

Bill Oddie

William "Bill" Edgar Oddie OBE is an English author, actor, comedian, artist, naturalist and musician, who became famous as one of The Goodies....

.

Surviving episodes

Few copies of the British version of the show survive due to a policy of wiping

Wiping

Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...

master-tapes of contemporary shows that were deemed to have little or no commercial value, in order to save costs.

Four surviving episodes, two of which are Christmas specials, are listed by the BFI as extant, although private collectors are thought to have other recordings of the programme; certainly, a clip of Metal Mickey co-hosting the show is a popular item on the collector's circuit.

Original series

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	2 September 1975	7 October 1975	6
2	13 January 1976	24 February 1976	7
3	31 March 1976	5 May 1976	6
4	18 August 1976	29 September 1976	7
5	12 April 1977	12 July 1977	13
6	23 November 1977	4 January 1978	7
7	28 March 1978	2 May 1978	5
8	4 August 1978	8 September 1978	6
9	22 May 1979	31 July 1979	10
10	13 June 1980	19 September 1980	13
11	24 December 1980	25 March 1981	14
12	27 July 1981	7 September 1981	6

Specials

Date	Entitle
26 December 1975	Christmas Special
27 December 1976	Christmas Special
24 December 1979	Christmas Special

Poparound

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	19 June 1985	24 July 1985	6
2	30 April 1986	4 June 1986	6