BULLY FOR YOU
Secrets of Bullseye revealed including serial killer contestant, how Bowen was fifth choice & why speedboats were prizes
Modest host Jim revealed why he thought Bullseye was such a success
AS one of the millions who grew up watching Bullseye, new host Freddie Flintoff knows he has big shoes to fill when he reboots the gameshow this weekend.
Under former presenter Jim Bowen — famous for his clumsy old-school gags and catchphrases including “super, smashing, great” — the programme was brilliant . . . if sometimes bizarre.
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The ITV show’s history includes a serial killer, some sly backstage dealings, and more than a few disastrous moments such as a wheelchair user winning a ski trip.
But in the Eighties, up to 18 MILLION people tuned in to the darts-themed series each week because of this peculiar charm.
In an interview, Jim once recalled: “The working classes in particular took to Bullseye and I had great fun making the programme.
“The show had a certain naivety.
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I was a worse darts player than I was a compere — but that lack of sophistication was in my favour. Audiences realised I was fallible. It made the show accessible
Jim Bowen
“When I look back at one or two of the early contestants, they didn’t know who came second in the last war.
“I was a worse darts player than I was a compere but that lack of sophistication was in my favour.
“Audiences realised I was fallible and it made the show accessible.”
Thanks to that accessibility, the show didn’t just enjoy huge viewing figures, at its peak more than 12,000 people a year applied to be contestants and there was a five-year waiting list to be in the audience.
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If a fraction of that success can be repeated under former cricketer Freddie, 47, there will be jubilation among bosses at ITV, who have yet to confirm this Sunday’s one-off festive special will be turned into a full series.
Chequered history
Though they probably won’t want to see a repeat of some of the events that make up Bullseye’s somewhat chequered history, the most infamous being its brush with a murderer.
On May 28, 1989, psychopath John Cooper competed on the show and unwittingly handed police the perfect means of identifying him as they investigated him for horrific crimes, including two double killings.
Darts ace Luke Littler will be the guest player on the Bullseye reboot with Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff
In 1985, farm labourer Cooper had shot dead siblings Richard and Helen Thomas during a burglary at their three-storey farmhouse near Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire.
Four years later, just weeks after competing on Bullseye, Cooper killed Oxfordshire couple Peter and Gwenda Dixon as they walked along a coastal path while on holiday in his native Wales.
He went on to rob, rape and assault for almost a decade until some drawings from witness descriptions were cross referenced with footage from his time on Bullseye.
He was convicted in 2011 of the two double murders, plus a 1996 rape and sexual assault and five robbery bids, and given four life sentences.
ITV journalist Jonathan Hill, who was working on a programme about the unsolved murders, unearthed the archived footage.
He recalls: “I could not believe my eyes.
“There was John Cooper as bold as brass.
“He plays the game and they even bring him back at the end, where he gambles to win the star prize.
“Of course he was a gambler, it was in his nature but he lost everything on this occasion.
“Suddenly this recording was gold dust to the police as they had an image of him at the time of the murders, within a month of the murders.”
The man who led the police case was DCS Steve Wilkins, who recalls: “Jonathan did some work with his team to freeze the Bullseye footage in the same position as the artist’s impression.
“He sent it to me and I remember looking at it.
“It was one of those jaw-dropping moments.”
The show’s prize selections also raised eyebrows.
As well as rather lame offerings, in the form of teasmaids and rollerskates, there was Bully’s Star Prize — a holiday, car, caravan or, notoriously, the Bullseye speedboat.
The director brokered a deal where he could
Jim Bowen
get speedboats cheap. It was a nice prize, even though it wasn’t very good if you lived in Wolverhampton
Many of the boats were given away as a top prize, even if the two winners both lived in landlocked towns and cities, after show director Peter Harris struck a discount.
Jim said: “Harris scouted around to try to get the best possible deals he could for prizes.
“He found a speedboat manufacturer called Fletcher.
“He managed to broker a deal where he could get them cheaper.
“It was a nice prize, though not very good if you lived in Wolverhampton.”
But it wasn’t clear why Peter, who was from the Isle of Wight and went on to live in Dorset, specifically struck a deal with a speedboat firm.
Even Jim noticed the disproportionate number, once joking: “They gave away the odd car along with 500 speedboats.”
In a nod to its heyday, a speedboat does proudly feature in the upcoming show and has been used to promote it in TV trailers featuring Freddie.
But under its new host the show is likely to have jettisoned some of the more uncomfortable jokes that made Jim famous after its 1981 launch.
When one poor chap from Yorkshire appeared as a contestant, Lancastrian Jim said: “This will be new to you then, carpets and electricity.”
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Another woman revealed she had been on a sponsored slim.
Jim asked: “How much do you owe them?”
Then there was his slightly blundering interview technique, including the time he asked a contestant what he did for a living, only to be told he’d been on the dole for two years.
Jim replied: “Smashing!” Occasionally a contestant got their own back.
One cheeky chap, asked by Jim what his wife called him as a nickname, replied: “Super sperm”.
Jim said: “That’s not on the bloody card! We’ll cut this bit. Bo****ks!”
‘A demented shepherd’
Originally airing on Monday nights between Crossroads and Coronation Street, Bullseye moved to “The God Spot” of Sunday teatimes for series two.
It turned out to be its sweet spot.
Modest Jim insists the show’s success, and his appeal, was partly due to there being little choice back then.
He said: “I was on 26 weeks a year for 15 years with Bullseye, but for ten of them there were only four channels.
“People had to watch me.”
And his first attempts at hosting were dreadful, he revealed, once saying: “I must have set light entertainment back 20 years I was that bad.
“I was looking for lights on cameras like a demented shepherd but thank God they stuck with me and I got a little bit better.”
Jim, who was the fifth person producers asked to host the show, wasn’t the only problem though.
Since darts was rooted in working men’s clubs, the first attempt at migrating the game into a TV show simply produced an hour-long session filled with swearing and smoking, which was too vulgar to air.
Then when the show did start, the budget was so low it could only afford three electronically displayed digits on top of contestant’s desks to display their winning total.
So when someone won over £1,000, the floor manager had to hurriedly write the number “1” on a piece of card and stick it in front of the existing digits.
Jim recalled another faux-pas: “We had a guy on who won the main prize by spelling ‘gauge’.
“But after the show an audience member said the contestant has spelt ‘guard’ instead.
“Everyone had gone home and each show cost about £23,000 to make so there was no way we could burn it.
“So we had to go back to the tape, physically cut each letter out from the footage and sellotape it back together in the right order.
“It went out and I don’t think anybody noticed.”
But the lack of sophistication was all part of its appeal, and was never more evident than when Jim was filmed presenting while a coach party of pals in the audience behind him were seen passing a box of sandwiches around.
Jim, who started emptying dustbins in his native Burnley for £3 a week, ended up earning the modern-day equivalent of £2million a year.
After his time on Bullseye ended with the ITV show in 1995, it gave him, and his wife Phyllis, a good quality of life right up to his death in 2018, aged 80.
He said: “The repeats of Bullseye keep us in the style we wish to aspire to.
“When it was first repeated, we used to get 17 per cent of the original fee.
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“But little cheques still float through the door that bring a smile to our faces.”
- Bullseye Christmas Special is on ITV1 on Sunday at 6pm.
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