Treasure Hunt
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This page is about Treasure Hunt, a UK game show. A treasure hunt is also the name of a popular garden game or outdoor activity involving the solving of clues to find buried treasures (such as sweets, trinkets etc.)
Treasure Hunt was a popular UK game show, based on a French format called La Chasse Au Trésor, and appeared on Channel 4 between 1983 and 1989 and was revived by BBC 2 in 2002 and 2003.
A team of two studio contestants had to use maps and reference materials in a studio to solve up to five clues, and communicating instructions via a radio link to a skyrunner who had the use of a helicopter. The contestants were given the first clue for free, the solving of which would lead to the location of the second clue and so on until a trinket or other significant object was found at the end of the route. The contestants won a higher cash prize each time they solved a clue correctly.
In the original version, the presenter was newsreader Kenneth Kendall and the skyrunners were broadcaster Anneka Rice (1983-8) and tennis player Annabel Croft (1989). Wincey Willis acted as adjudicator and provided additional information about the locations visited. In the 2002-3 edition, newsreader Dermot Murnaghan presented and the skyrunner was Suzi Perry. There was no adjudicator. Keith Thompson was the usual helicopter pilot in both versions, though for overseas editions a local pilot was often used.
For all the UK series, the programme was a Chatsworth Television independent production.
An eponymous board game based on the show was published in the UK. It involved moving about a map of England and Wales.
In the US, the original version, different from the UK game of the same name, was hosted by Jan Murray, involved contestants playing a quiz, with the winner going on a "treasure hunt" with a select number of treasure chests with prizes including a grand prize that ran in the 1950's. Another version, produced by Chuck Barris, had nothing to do with the original concept. This show had women looking for a grand prize check in one of 30 (1970s) or 66 (1980s) boxes. In the 1970s, the grand prize was $25,000, a record for a 1970s game show. In the 1980s, the grand prize started at $20,000 and rose by $1,000 each time until won, or hit $50,000, at which point, it froze until someone won it. Because security on this version was so tight, host Geoff Edwards had to remember a number of skits to be used in the show. Typical skits involved Pierre Robair (host of the "French" version of the program), and Professor Klunk, who was in charge of the "klunks" (a word invented by Edwards), which were very similar to Let's Make a Deal's "zonks". When someone won the grand prize, no skit was involved, but, confetti and balloons dropped from the ceiling. This show ran from 1973 to 1977 and again from 1981 to 1982.
External links
- UK Gameshows Page: Treasure Hunt (http://www.ukgameshows.com/index.php/Treasure_Hunt_2)
- Treasure Hunt (http://fp.martinunderwood.f9.co.uk/Treasure%20Hunt/) Personal website
- La Chasse Au trésor (http://membres.lycos.fr/chassetresor/index.php) Personal website (some parts in English)
- Wikipedia-France-La Chasse Au Trésor (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Chasse_aux_tr%C3%A9sors) Wikipedia in French
- Rätselflug (http://www.wunschliste.de/links.pl?p=1&s=0921) German Forum upon the German version of "Treasure Hunt"