I seem to recall Khanny getting the only £20k opening offer in a standard game. May be wrong though.

You never see players sitting down on the 'crazy chair' all the way through anymore, they always did that!

You never see a player just walking down the aisle at the start of their game, they always do that inane bowing that really gets my goat! Who was the first person to do that?

Think Natalie was the first person to open their own box, now totally not allowed.

I really miss the show as it was in the first couple of years :-(

I know Matt got one after an all-blue, did Khanny really get £20k or was it just short of it? I remember an £18k with the £75k gone, for a player (Howard IIRC) who wasn't even that well-off and took his eventual blue win badly - that was his only dealable offer of the game too, what a story that would have been...

You were right, checked the stats and Khanny got £16k after an ABR, his 2nd offer was £28k after taking out £35k, £500 and 1p, no way would we see an offer that high at Round 2 now, he then got £30k in Round 3 after taking out £15k, £50k and £20k - that round would probably now have halved the offer. He peaked at £48k and then ended up with £5k after swapping his box!

Halcyon days for the show, IMO

Take a look at the stats for Trevor's game in Season 1 and tell me that he would get that offer at 5 box with £250k and peanuts on the board now, particularly when he took out both his backups, he still saw his offer increase by £30k!

No wonder he dealt!

I doubt we'll ever see someone play on their first game again.

That only happened on 31 October 2005.

Exactly I don't think there will ever be as many newbies as there was on that show either.

Not unless DoND was to get cancelled, only to re-emerge some years later totally revamped?

That's a more forward-thinking idea than it sounds.
DoND must be in need of a break now - I reckon its appeal has gone down quite a bit in the last few years. Maybe it'll have a year or two more, without break, and never come back. That'd be a shame as the show's always been riveting when broadcast properly IMO.

I'll take a potshot as I haven't watched for 3 years...would there still be offers of almost 100% of the mean - like Jennifer who won £120,000?

Not on a finish like that. Obviously on something like £15k/£20k you have no choice. And we have still had an AMO or two...

Offer patterns have changed, but not as much as we think after the first couple of years. Wonder if we could get new rolling offer benchmarks relative to the mean/FD, like we used to have?

Lynn opened her box on the very first show.

This isn't really one that happened on the show as such, but for a while in 2007, they showed repeats of classic shows every Sunday, and you could vote on the Channel 4 website for which show you wanted to be repeated (from a list of possible options). They suddenly stopped doing it so I assume it wasn't that popular - therefore I can't see it returning.

The same can be said for how they repeated the Friday shows on Sundays (for a while in early 2007, prior to them showing classic shows on Sundays).

And also, they showed repeats of old shows (starting with show #1) every weekday in the summer break of 2006, on More4. They then had a weekly Sunday repeat slot on More4, where they picked up from where they'd left off at the end of the summer break repeats, and continued repeating the old shows in order (with one show every Sunday). I think it stopped at the start of 2007, and they'd got up to about show #50 or something. I can't see them repeating very old shows again (not yet, anyway).

I'd love that to start again, and they can go back to December 2005 where they left off!!!

(After all they have repeated Friends ad nauseum from the mid '90s.......)

Couple of things stick out from early seasons. Im not sure I'm correct but was it on twice a day for a special week or something similar leading to 'Dond overload'? I'm sure it was on 7 days a week too in the eary days. Of course I remember the blue chanting which is slightly missed, that was always brilliant when the chanting was loud and frenzied to be quickly silenced with a power5, a few seconds pause then a lone shout of "come on!" We rarely got silly gimmicks in the early years and as has been said the offers were a lot higher on a strong board.

My biggest sadness is the loss of the constant Dond Speak that Noel used to talk in the first couple of seasons. Perhaps it comes with maturity of the show and format but the neglection of the Dondictionary is something of a shame. In fact I remember him mentioning with amusement on the show that some fans had been collating the Dondictionary online. Was that before the days of daily commentary and before twitter was just a pipe dream?

Of course there are a few special prhases that Noel still uses but a lot of the language is almost forgotton as if it never existed. I'm not even sure if Noel talks about the Pound table anymore. Curse of the newbie is a pretty recent invention - post 2008(think that took over from the Terminator and Black Widow). I think 'spanking the banker' is a recent invention too.

The special week you're referring to was 'Double Deal Week' when the show was indeed on twice a day. The show was on 7 days a week at the end of season 2 when the extra episode was a repeat of a 'classic' game voted for by viewers on C4's website.

There was a phase in season 1 when the players would drum on the wings rather than clap, rarely done nowadays.

What do I miss from the early days? 6 phone calls, 6 offers, simple...

Thanks!I thought I wasn't going mad by thinking it was on twice a day. I can't remember the timings of the shows but I'm pretty sure they weren't back to back.

Btw if anyone has forgotton some of the shocking differences we had with the early games;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlAKE1HCCyc
1. Different telephone!
2. Noel with much shorter, less bouffant hair.
3. Definitely pre 'box school' Look at the way they don't lay a hand on the boxes and pull the tabs. Also no 'show' of the box value after what is the now obligatory hug etc etc.
4. Heckling from the audience telling her to deal at £14,000.
5. No coloured numbers in the boxes.]
6. No build up of the incidental music to the 'deal or no deal'
7. No 'bongs' or 'whooshes' when the person opens their box and the value removed from board.
7. Contestants opening their own boxes. I had completely forgotton about that! Takes away a lot of the fake build up which Noel now imposes on openings which I presume is why they changed it?

What *is* the same.
1. Same incidental music during the thinking processes.
2. Stage/set. Other than the graphics, the furniture looks identical. Wonder if theres any graffiti on the benches such as 'shazza wuz ere'

I think the 'bongs' and 'whooshes' are in that clip, although not quite as audible (particularly with the 'bongs' as the studio is now usually silenced just before a box is opened). You're right about everything else though. I think the contestants didn't lean on the boxes because they were sealed differently back then - contestants are pulling the seal down rather than up in the clip. I think a few months later they were using magnetic seals which were pulld outwards, before they began using the seals we have now.

Etched into the wood in my wing position was "Lucy x".

£14,000 with £35k and £10? I bet the offer now would be half that!

hah. You didn't do that did you Was she the player who was on for 50 shows then went home with a low blue?

Brick your right. I didn't think the bongs and whooshes were there because of the audience noise - just look at that clip when the £100 is revealed - lots of shouting and the whoosh is barely audible! Seems like the studio was very zoo-like and uncontrolled in the early days. Was it like that during your game H? They appear to rule the studio with an iron fist now by all accounts! In the early days there was none of the "would you break the seal on your box" nonsense.

Does anyone else think that Noel sounds differently in that clip? Also his reaction at 2m48 is something I've not seen in recent years! Almost makes you wonder if he was on the happy pills that day

Also I'd agree with James that the phone-in is slightly missed. You'd think it was long enough after the phonegate scandals that we could have that back - it might also bump up the offers with a bigger pot for the prize fund? IIRC the format was that Noel announced the premium rate number before the start of the adbreak. There were 3 boxes on podiums with varying amounts of money - were they always the same amounts? At the end of the show someone from the audience would be picked to choose a box number. Noel opened the box and said "congratulations to you" with the winners name flashed up on the screen.