Celebrity Squares (UK)

1 9 7 5 – 1 9 7 9 (UK)
136 x 30 minute episodes
1 9 9 3 – 1 9 9 7 (UK)
50 x 30 minute episodes

Celebrity Squares – a copy of the popular American game show, Hollywood Squares – was the most expensive game of noughts and crosses in the world (the 18-foot high board cost £22,000).

Bob Monkhouse introduced a lineup of nine stars each Sunday afternoon.

For the first show, there were Leslie Crowther, Diana Dors, Hermione Gingold, Aimi McDonald (pictured below right), Alfred Marks, Arthur Mullard, Vincent Price, William Rushton and Terry Wogan.

People who thought Monkhouse was just a smiling face and a fast mouth changed their mind when Celebrity Squares became the game of the year when it was launched in 1975.

The show included an interlude in which general knowledge questions were fired at the host, and Bob, widely read with a brilliant memory, was able to answer most correctly, crack jokes if he couldn’t and win money for charities.

A multitude of “celebrities” (some more famous than others) guested on the show, including John Inman, Pat Coombs, Frank Carson, Ray Alan with Lord Charles, Michele Dotrice, Barbara Windsor, Larry Grayson, Charlie Drake, Kenny Everett, Arthur Askey, Dickie Davies, Nerys Hughes, David Nixon, Wendy Richard, Spike Milligan, Mike and Bernie Winters, June Whitfield, Dick Emery, Henry Cooper, Tony Blackburn, Dickie Henderson, Les Dawson, Windsor Davies, Little and Large, Warren Mitchell, Lionel Blair, Michael Bentine, Jon Pertwee, Anne Aston, Danny La Rue, Jack Douglas, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie, Barry Cryer, The Bachelors, Bernard Cribbins, Mollie Sugden, Jimmy Tarbuck, Fred Trueman, Nina Baden-Semper, Norman Wisdom, Hattie Jacques, Christopher Lee, Nicholas Parsons, Thora Hird, Irene Handl, Sally Thomsett, Derek Nimmo and Micky Dolenz of The Monkees.

The series was revived in the 1990s, once more with Monkhouse hosting.