Buk initially left the show due to a family bereavement. Obviously it would've put a huge emotional strain on him and his family (something that can take many years - if ever - to recover from emotionally. I know this all too well having lost my stepfather - who i had a pretty turbulent relationship with - nearly 3 years ago) , which explains his prolonged absence from the show.

I still sometimes wonder what became of Mike, the old fella who left halfway through his debut show in October 2010. He seemed fine at first, but after the second break....Gone! Nowhere to be seen, never to be heard from again, he didn't even get to open his box. The fact that he was ill and it being so soon after Frank left the show due to his deteriorating health and sadly met his end not long after, definitely raised some concerns for Mike at the time too

We're only human after all...and this is something I think game shows like Deal or No Deal really distort, albeit in a harmless way - the contestants are usually ordinary Joes like you and me, but they're elevated, for a brief period of time, to a superhuman status, as the carriers of the hopes and aspirations of all the other ordinary Joes watching at home, who live vicariously through those contestants.
This is why we felt the same euphoria as players who won big, the same gentle endorphin rush when they beat the banker and took home a tidy wad of cash to enjoy their lives with...and why we felt so heartbroken when the player squandered the lot, and, much worse, why we felt a sense of unjust denial when the game was a trainwreck from start to finish and they never even had the chance to make a life-affecting decision. Deal or No Deal, at least as we came to interpret it, was a way of playing out our own dreams and fantasies without ever having to take the crushing losses ourselves.

I think basicasic wrote about that a few months ago in greater depth, or wakey in his essay on the origins of Wakeyism. Or maybe no-one's mentioned it until now, in which case I'll happily take the credit...

Talking of Clive, he did 6 shows, but his name was still on the board in Simon's game when selecting the player, although his last appearance for a few games before it.

In £1 Gary's game, where £1 Raj was replaced by Bearded James for 1 show, the board still showed Raj's name when it drew the day's player. I seem to remember someone on here saying that there was a game in November 2006 where the name "Hilary" came up on the board at the start (presumably referring to Hilary, who won £50,000 In April 2006), despite the fact that there were no contestants named Hilary around that time!

If the board selected a player who wasn’t there, it would be one for the out-takes compilation show…