Now You See It (British game show)

Did You Know?

• All contestants were given an engraved crystal decanter and four glasses.
• For the celebrity and children's versions, prizes were awarded instead of money.

Format

Four contestants competed in a game that combined a word search with trivia. The host asked questions, and players buzzed in to search a board for the answer. They had to identify both the line where the correct answer appeared and its position within that line. Points were calculated by either adding or multiplying the line number and the position number. For instance, an answer on line 3 at position 7 could earn 10 points (3+7) or 21 points (3x7). After time expired, the three players with the highest scores moved to the "Cryptic" round. There, answers were revealed one letter at a time, accompanied by a clue. The first two contestants to get four correct answers advanced to round three. That round followed the same format as the first, but points doubled once a player reached 50 or more points. Later in the game, points doubled for every other question.

By 1985, the winner received £500 and played a solo round where all correct answers belonged to a single category. The player needed to answer seven out of twelve questions correctly to win a mystery star prize. This solo round also appeared on children's versions in the 1990s.

In 1993, the game was featured on the children's series Wemyss Bay 902101. Each match pitted a team of two stars from one show against a team of two stars from another. The cryptic round was played first, with each correct answer worth two points. The second round worked like the solo rounds from 1985–86, except each team had one 60-second turn to circle answers, and each correct answer scored five points. The third round matched the format of the first and third rounds of the STV series. The 1993 children's series followed the same rules as the celebrity version, with each team representing their own school. The four highest-scoring teams advanced to the semi-finals. The series winners received a grand prize package, while the runners-up in the final got a smaller prize.

Transmissions

The first series of this game show aired exclusively on Scottish Television. The second series, however, was picked up by the ITV network, broadcasting on Wednesday afternoons from 1 July to 26 August, while Scottish Television aired it on Thursday evenings at 19.00. Series three through ten remained solely on Scottish Television, where they proved very popular, and two celebrity editions were produced in 1985 and 1986. In 1985, ITV brought the show back for series 11 and 13, scheduling them either for Sunday teatime or Friday afternoons at 17.15; series 12 was only shown in the Scottish Television region. Scottish Television replaced the programme with Split Second in 1987 and then Wheel of Fortune in 1988, the latter becoming a prime-time hit for the network on a national level and enjoying a much longer run. The show returned in 1993 as a children’s series, initially lasting about ten minutes and airing as part of Wemyss Bay 902101 on Sunday mornings. Occasional celebrity specials were also produced throughout its run. Grant Stott hosted the first children’s and celebrity series. For the second and third series in 1994 and 1995, the programme moved to a weekday morning slot during the school summer holidays, with a new theme tune, a new studio, and Fred MacAulay as host; the timeslot was extended to 30 minutes. These children’s and celebrity series were repeated overnight on Scottish Television in 1997.