17 years ago today, Janelle was chosen after 12 shows to play, and what followed was one of the strangest atmospheres in the history of the show, with a lack of chemistry between Noel, Janelle and the other contestants, and Janelle not saying much and coming across as quite moody at times throughout the show (having seen finally seen her game in the flesh, I honestly didn't find Janelle as loathsome or unlikeable as I thought I would, I honestly just found her more odd than anything else)!

In fact, this was THE game that brought about the idea that someone playing early meant that the others didn't like them, though this wasn't always the case, as some legends from the early days played after a handful of shows such as Dazzling Daz, Francesca and Cocky Bill......Hell, just a week before Janelle, Shirley played after a handful of shows and seemed well-liked by everyone

The comment from Niquiyah where she says "Janelle's difficult to work out. She knows what she wants she'll get it in the end." may have been a dig at her...

10 years ago today, A certain 18 year old lad called Paddy Roberts from Wigan finally did what many on this forum thought was never gonna happen, he became the first male to win £250,000 and in the process, finally stop Noel waffling on about "When is it finally going to happen?!" And if you just so happen to be reading this Paddy, massive massive congrats again lad! Hope you spent the money wisely or indeed if you still have any of it left!

16 years ago was £35k Rossano's game, the season 3 opener! The beginning of a season that started great, but things would start to dramatically change from about the halfway point of the season. By the end of the season a year later, things would be looking seriously bleak and DoND would be like a completely different show to what it was like in its first 2 years!

I remember it well - I began that season as an avid DoND aficionado, but eight or nine months later, I couldn't have told you who any of the contestants were. So I joined the outgoing tide and left the Dream Factory in the past, never to return.

On the subject pf Paddy, maybe just maybe that was the death knell for the show, as a male quarter-millionaire was the best big remaining milestone to achieve (apart from maybe a first-round deal which wasn't realistically ever going to happen). Might have been that which triggered Box 23 coming into play (so there was the tiniest remote possibility of a half-millionaire)!

I think there were really only 2 big "milestone" events after Paddy - £170k Pat beating Jennifer as the highest deal of all time, and £5k Jean taking out the power 5 in the first 5 boxes!

Maybe not a *major* milestone but there was also someone who removed 8 reds from the beginning of the episode, the inverse of the perennially famous episode from 2006 (Matt). They even managed to take another red out at the start of the 3rd round, making it nine in a row.

This would been in the last year or two before the show ended and as such it's entirely forgotten. Would have been King Tier (in)famous if it'd happened in 2006/7.

Today is 15 years since the first game of Season 4 opener played by Brian. The show was at a real low point at this time, and the early weeks of the fourth season was perhaps the "darkest before dawn" stage of the 2008 "unlucky era", as the first 3 weeks of S4 were absolutely riddled with blue wins (most of which were unavoidable due to banker stinginess - not to mention the banker constantly trying to cover his tracks with RIDICULOUS post-game handouts ), and the only a significant-ish win during this run was a third offer deal that the player was absolutely castigated for! In fact, Brian's game may be in my top 5 worst games of all time. Seeing it again on YouTube more recently made me realise how bad it was - it featured a full checklist of the forum's "2008 annoyances", and then some!:


- Pointless, cringe-inducing gimmick to re-introduce the contestants back from the summer break (the "Rocky" theme)
- Contestant with multiple sob-stories and a modest target for sentimental reasons
- Low win to kick off the new season
- Unhappy-looking group of contestants, with hardly any characters on the wings, and everyone being reduced to tears when the game collapsed
- A stupid handout at the end, which rendered the whole game pointless
- Plus a lot of people weren't too keen on Brian either. He didn't exactly do anything to fill me with laughter either, though the editing team may have been to blame for this, according to comments on here from some of Brian's fellow contestants at the time

I do remember said Brian being on Pointless and he was a much happier character on there so maybe the editing department has to take some blame. The DonD producers must have thought they'd struck gold with the sob stories but not to us on here!

Pointless didn't start for exactly 52 weeks after that so you might be confusing it with another show

15 years ago today, one of the biggest IDIOTS in the history of the show played, with some of the WORST offers in the history of the show, one of the WORST deals ever, one of the WORST rejections of the banker's gamble in the history of the show, and one of the most desperate and pathetic "waaaah I was bullied in school and got my head cracked open" sob-stories in the history of the show

He's living a better life than you, evidently.

Same would apply to most of you lot tbh.

Really hope the revival doesn't bring back some of the absolute pricks that were active in more recent years of the show.

I've learned there'll always be online abuse for anything whatever channel you go on, so if it doesn't happen here it's bound to on Facebook or Digital Spy.

I wouldn't go on a game show to share the gruesome details about my schoolyard trauma, let alone just do it to elicit viewer rubbernecking instead having a compelling reason for wanting to win big

Anyway…

Today is 18 years since the airing of Irene’s show - you know, that depressing trainwreck that was obscured by Nick’s famous 1p win the following day…well, ‘day’, didn’t they record three shows a day at that time? So it may well have been the same afternoon!

I don’t know much about Irene or where life took her after Deal or No Deal, but I do know some details of her game - it was obliterated from the first box and never properly recovered…£250,000 went first, swiftly followed by £50,000, then £10,000 to remove what would’ve been a healthy backup, and finally £35,000 and £75,000. Glenn was in generous mood - he offered £1,700.

An all-blue second round nudged the offer up to £2,400 but the £20,000 going in round three was a colossal hit in the circumstances, and £2,000 only was the tariff under consideration at 11-box.

Irene chose to go on, and found the penny, the tenner, and £5,000, the latter quite alright as the business end of the game approached. The £100,000 remained on the board, replete with £15,000 for backup and £3,000 for insurance, and a much-improved offer from the banker surely ensued.
For reasons known only to himself, however, Mr Hugill instead opted to insult Irene.

He said he’d pay her £4,700.

It was well-pitched, of that there could be no doubt - far enough above the insurance figure that it had to be considered seriously - but it certainly didn’t reflect the trajectory the game had taken since that awful start.
Irene went on, probably correct statistically to do so, but soon regretted it. First went the £100,000, then £750, and then of course the £15,000. As Noel would later say in another show - that’s it, it’s over.

£800 was offered and declined; there followed the removal of the two highest amounts left, £3,000 and £500, in quick succession, and lastly with £50 disappearing the ordeal was almost over.

So said Glenn, ‘£100’ - so said Irene, ‘No Deal’, the swap was offered and the swap was accepted, box 17 left the table and box 15 replaced it, and Noel opened that box to reveal five pounds.

To paraphrase Ol’ Blue Eyes, though, the worst was yet to come…

Here we are, the SEVENTEENTH anniversary of young Laura Pearce from Monmouthshire (The first of two young ladies from Monmouth to pull off the feat in fact ) becoming DoND's very first jackpot winner!

I've actually grown more appreciative of Laura's game after seeing the January 2007 games again recently, as I used to think that the derisory £45k offer at 2-box put a slight dampener on things and made Laura's jackpot win feel like "the landmark game that served it's purpose". But watching episodes from around that time made me realize just how happy everyone seemed on the show at the time - Notice how Noel didn't drag out the box opening for 6 eternities like he did with future jackpot winners?

I still recall how truly abysmal the weather was that day. It's a tough competition to win, but the afternoon walk I embarked on somewhere near Portsmouth (family visit) is right at the top of the list for the bleakest, wintry, rain lashed outings of all time. I wish I could remember where exactly it was, we just called it ''the tundra''. Even if we had a camera, we'd have barely been able to use it.

And I also recall a Channel 4 show was premiering that same day, Ugly Betty. We travelled to the south on the Friday and it was being billboarded all across London.

I remember all that detritus, but no real memories of watching her show at all. Had it not been the £250k ''must see!'', I probably wouldn't have watched it at all. There were better things to be doing.

I seem to remember the £45k offer was quite controversial at the time due to being so low, but then along came Alice's Banker's Gamble just over two years later...