You Bet! - When Talent Shows Were 100% Dancing Dog Free

It's been over a month since the last post. Life has been busy, things have been hectic, and everything's been a bit bleh. But while I've got some free time in the office, I thought I'd look at the other show I liked maybe a little too much.

Everyone's got one unusual, maybe even weird skill that it could safely be assumed isn't all that common. No show took advantage of that quite like You Bet!. 

Based on the German language format "Wetten Dass?", You Bet! invited celebrity guests to bet on the outcome of a very wide range of weird and wonderful challenges taken on by members of the public and some of these challenges were the kind of feats you wouldn't really see anywhere else.

First hosted by Bruce Forsyth in 1988, followed by Matthew Kelly then Darren Day, You Bet! was a talent show that featured the bare minimum of singing, dancing and illusion. Instead, you could see feats such as a dutchman driving a flatbed truck up and over an arch without disturbing the dinner service set up on the back of the truck. Or if that doesn't take your interest, how about a teenager identifying makes and models of car just by looking at the shape of the rear lights. Or a driver cracking eggs using the teeth on the bucket of his digger, whilst blindfolded.

'You Bet!' was my second favourite show growing up. The two shows my gran would record for me to watch when I was round hers were 'The Crystal Maze' and 'You Bet!', and while there's a full complement of one of those shows online, 'You Bet!' episodes are few and far between. That's not to say there isn't any however, there's a couple of full episodes and plenty of clips.

I've found plenty of full episodes of the original 'Wetten Dass'. For example here's a bloke playing darts with completely unsuitable machinery And in that same episode, a young lad identifying hairdryers just by the noise they make. And much like with Fort Boyard in France, it was such a big show it garnered a 2hr+ broadcast, at times approaching 3 hours. The Euro version didn't skimp on the guests either. While we had Matthew Kelly asking for opinions from Timmy Mallett and Michaela Strachan, since Wetten Dass was such a big show across german-speaking Europe they were getting stars from the higher echelons such as Madonna and Cher. The host, Thomas Gottschalk, also hosted the German version of Noel's House Party "Gottschalk's Hausparty". A show from which I will never be able to erase the image of The Undertaker's manager Paul Bearer dancing around The Deadman as some electro-dance group performs live in the studio.

There's a couple of instances, whilst having a gander through what is available, where I've found some challengers who would later go on to be a bit more well known. For example, here's Bernard Cribbins and Mr Motivator betting on a challenge featuring Alexander Armstrong from one of Matt Smith's Doctor Who Christmas episodes and Ben Miller from 'The Parole Officer' alongside Tony Gardner from 'My Parents Are Aliens'.

In the later series after Darren Day took over from Matthew Kelly, there was a skateboarding challenge which included a lad by the name of Matt Pritchard. Unfamiliar to most but if you've ever seen MTV's 'Dirty Sanchez', or remember the Pain Men from Channel 4's 'Balls of Steel' then you've seen this bloke in various states of, occasionally self-inflicted, agony.

In more recent years he's hosted vegan cookery on TV and YouTube, and takes part in marathons, ironman triathlons, and the kinds of ultra-long races where I'd rather just take a train.

You Bet! is one of the shows that I'd love to see make a return simply because you never get the same thing twice. Britains Got Talent: there will be a good singer, a bad singer, a so-so impressionist, some old bloke who thinks he's hilarious while the camera cuts to the audience (remember them) looking asleep and a drag artist having a strop as they storm off stage. Whilst YB! at least would be unpredictable week to week and with a much grander scale rather than being limited to the stage. Here's a bloke doing a wheelie across a couple of balance beams in a digger. Enjoy!