A behemoth of children's programming, for nearly three decades Crackerjack pretty much marked the start of the weekend with its mixture of sketches, pop performances and of course its games. Countless different games were played down the years - there were any number of straightforward on-the-buzzer quizzes, alongside other games like the jigsaw-based Jig-Jak and Hangman variant Take A Letter, but the show's signature game was Double Or Drop, devised by original host Eamonn Andrews, in which kids had to answer questions while holding on to an ever-increasing pile of prizes (with cabbages added to the heap for wrong answers). Win or lose, everyone went home with the coveted "Crackerjack pencil" (later replaced by the "Crackerjack pen").
In the Stu Francis era, the final two contestants would both be teamed up with a celebrity, one male and one female, to play first 'Take A Letter', then a gunge-based game, 'Take A Chance'. (The celebs were mostly kids' presenters, sports stars and, from 1983 onwards, 'Breakfast Time' personalities, breakfast television being a new concept at the time). Each celebrity would compete against Stu to answer a question correctly, and whoever failed to do so would be gunged - although Stu and the male celebrity were always gunged anyway - the ladies usually (but not always) got away scot-free.
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