Now You See It (Australian game show)
Now You See It was an Australian children's game show that aired on the Seven Network from 1985–1993. It is based on the US show of the same title and was originally hosted by Mike Meade from 1985 and 1990 and "co-hosted" by a robot named "Melvin", who was a Tomy Omnibot toy, and pitted individual children against each other. Melvin's uncle Morton (another Omnibot) had his own segment on the show entitled "Morton's Mouldy Movies", in which Morton would narrate stories in a grandfatherly voice accompanied by footage from silent film shorts.
| Now You See It | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Game Show |
| Presented by | Mike Meade (1985-1990) Sofie Formica (1991-1993) Scott MacRae (1998-2000) |
| Narrated by | Gary Clare (1985-1993) Lisa Barry (1998-2000) |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 12 |
| No. of episodes | 780 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Bill Davidson (1998-2000) |
| Producer | Tony Ryan (1998-2000) |
| Production locations | Brisbane, Queensland |
| Running time | 24 minutes |
| Production companies | All American Fremantle International (1998-2000) Becker Entertainment (1998-2000) |
| Release | |
| Original network | Seven Network (1985-1993) Nine Network (1998-2000) |
| Picture format | 4:3 PAL |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Original release | 20 May 1985 – 24 September 1993 15 June 1998 – 11 February 2000 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | Download (game show) |
From 1991, the show was hosted by Sofie Formica, and ran as a week-long competition between two primary schools. The winning students in each episode would win individual prizes, and the overall winning school would win a larger prize, typically valued at around $2,000.
In 1998, Becker Entertainment, along with Fremantle Ltd. (then known as FremantleMedia), revived the show. Broadcast on the Nine Network, it was hosted by Scott MacRae and produced by Tony Ryan, with Bill Davidson as Executive Producer. In 2000, the show was replaced with another game show, titled Download, which was also hosted by MacRae.
Free games
The host read a clue, and the answer was revealed one letter at a time, sometimes using one or more letters of the previous word. Letters were revealed until someone buzzed in and gave the correct answer and score, or if only one letter was left in the word. Each subsequent word uses one or more letters of the previous word until that line is filled. The first player to guess five words correctly (seven in the 1998 revival) won the round and a prize package.
Two line games are played, and the winners of the line game play the Big Board round.
Big Board
The host read a question, and the first player to buzz in guesses the line number. If correct, he/she then gives the position number and the word. Players score based on the line number and position of the first letter. In the 1998 revival, points are doubled for the final 60 seconds of the game. The player with the most points when time runs out wins the game.
Solo Round
The solo round player needs to find seven words in 60 seconds with the help of the clues read by the host.
Products
A board game was released by Crown and Andrews in 1993.