More Golden Gotchas

Even more laughs have been present in Flat 16D as I dug out an old VHS containing more of Noel's Gotchas from over the years.

Most of them were taken from the 1995-96 series of the House Party considering it was pretty close to when the video was released but there were a few classic stunts including the legendary Gotcha with Dave Lee Travis.

I've talked about that on the site several times, but some of the others were just as funny including one where Cannon and Ball were asked to make a promotional film for the British Tomato Growers society.

This was more than just a personal appearance as the Gotcha followed them from an initial meeting which involved a taste test, and the recording of the vocals for a song that they would perform for the short itself before heading off to the Colliseum in Rome to do the shoot itself dressed in tomato costumes.

Always suspicious of being caught out by Tidybeard, the duo doubted any hints from their family or colleagues that Noel could be behind this as they didn't believe that he would spend so much money on a stunt that would take the victims overseas.

However they turned out to be proved wrong when Noel emerged dressed up as a tomato towards the end of the shoot.

This was the first of quite a few Gotchas that took place abroad with another involving Gary Bushell who got sent to Los Angeles to interview Teri Hatcher only to find that she had a beard.

On her face I meant.

The international based Gotchas worked OK, but it was when they started springing them on American celebrities that it didn't work as they had no idea what it was all about or who Noel even was.

There was also another one from 1993 with Brian Conley, where Noel got his old mate John Craven to present a bogus fishing programme along with British Champion Bob Nudd and Brian was the guest who had never done any fishing before.

To make things more complicated the lake they were filming at didn't have any fish, so they used decoy fish made out of plastic and would film cutaway shots of real fish at Bob's own house.
Even worse was that Brian was put into a boat that had a hole in it and it resulted in chaos as you would expect.

The final Gotcha was one of my favourites where Dale Winton was caught out in 1996 when taking part in a test drive for Top Gear magazine.

The open top car they were in spotted a car that had broken down which was meant to take a bride to her wedding and when they arrived they were told that the vicar had to cut the service short as the bishop would soon be arriving.

Even worse was that there was no best man or witness present so Dale ended up filling that role and the service itself was a disaster, just really badly rushed and very funny actually.

When they came out of the church they found that the car had been stolen and then the bishop arrived on a motorbike and offered to take Dale back to the Top Gear Magazine office and this resulted in a brilliant sequence with Dale sat in the sidecar next to the motorcycling bishop.

The video however didn't have "Born To Be Wild" playing like it did on TV as they couldn't clear it which kind of ruined things slightly but the sight itself is very funny if a bit toe curling.

When Dale got back to the office Noel happened to be present although he said that it wasn't a wind up and said goodbye leaving Dale feeling even more nervous.
Just as Dale was about to leave Edmonds jumped up with the golden fist and the Pets Win Prizes host was more than relieved.

It would have made sense for Edmonds to be in the building as years ago he used to present the Top Gear TV show when it started in the late 70s.

Overall it's a testament to some of the funniest wind ups on television that have been very hard to follow.