The Golden Shot (lost Christmas special episode of British game show; 1967)

The Golden Shot title card.

Status: Lost

The Golden Shot was a British game show primarily hosted by Bob Monkhouse that was produced by ATV and broadcast on ITV from July 1st, 1967 to April 13th, 1975. The programme was a remake of a German game show called Der goldene Schuß, and featured contestants (who primarily spoke over the phone or from an isolation booth) instructing a blindfolded camera operator where to aim a crossbow for it to properly hit a target in order to win prizes. The program was incredibly successful, particularly during Bob Monkhouse's era as host (reaching viewing figures of 16 million viewers per episode at its peak),^[1] with 366 episodes ultimately being produced over the course of 6 series. This included a Christmas special episode broadcast as part of the show's first series in 1967.

Christmas Special

The Christmas special in question was first broadcast in December of 1967, and was notable for being entirely themed around Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, a British sci-fi puppet TV series created by Thunderbirds creators Gerry and Sylvia Anderson that had begun broadcasting on ITV in September of that same year. This theming resulted in the cartoonish illustrations on which the targets were usually set being replaced with detailed paintings of various locations and vehicles from Captain Scarlet, including the Mysteron Lunar Complex, the Spectrum Helicopter, two Angel Interceptors, and a painting of two Angels sat at their launch seats in the Cloudbase amber room.

The Captain Scarlet theming went beyond the paintings as well, as Golden Shot hostesses Carol Dilworth, Andrea Lloyd and Anita Richardson appeared in the episode dressed as Angels (the name given to female pilots in Captain Scarlet), and the episode also featuring a musical guest in the form of The Spectrum, a British pop group who had previously performed the end credits theme to Captain Scarlet (with the band performing while dressed as members of the Spectrum Organisation from Scarlet for the occasion).

Most notable of all however was the guest star. The Golden Shot would frequently feature celebrity guests among its lineup of contestants (with these being referred to as "Golden Partners"), but rather than featuring a member of the cast or crew of Captain Scarlet in the episode, the episode instead featured Captain Scarlet himself as a special guest. Live footage would be filmed on the set of Colonel White's control room of the Captain Scarlet marionette firing a crossbow on the behalf of a contestant, with Scarlet's voice actor Francis Matthews providing live voice acting from off camera (with Francis later stating that “I supplied my voice as the show was being done, from the safe confines of a recording booth – well away from Bob!”).

Availability

The special was initially broadcast on ITV at 8:35PM on December 23rd, 1967, with a repeat airing taking place at 1:05PM on the following day. It is unknown if any more broadcasts of the episode took place after this date.^[2]

Ultimately, the episode would become yet another victim of the tape wiping policies that were commonplace throughout many British TV networks in the 1960s, in which videotapes of programmes that had already been broadcast would be frequently wiped of their contents in order for them to be reused, something which many executives saw as saving both money and space.^[3] The Golden Shot was no exception to this practice, with many of the shows earlier episodes being rendered completely lost due to this and the lack of home recording devices available at the time. The Christmas special was among these, with no footage or audio of the episode being known to exist, and production stills being all that survive from it.