I was wondering if anyone knew the answer to this. When audience members got gunged on BBC programming, like Noel's House Party, did they have to leave with messy clothes or did the show clean up their clothes before they left? Always wondered what a gunged audience member's experience was after the show.
On shows like WWYD or the Family Challenge, Marc Summers or Michael Berger might say something like "Go see" *assistant's name* "backstage, they'll get you cleaned up."
I'm guessing they'd be given a shower and change of clothes, probably a cheap jogging suit, to go home in, never really thought about whether they'd have their gunged clothes washed for them or not. Presumably anyone who went on such a show would have signed a disclaimer in advance agreeing that they could be gunged - the TV station would want to protect themselves against someone wearing something vintage / ultra expensive / unwashable then suing them for damages caused. So anyone who got gunged, including in the audience, would have known it was coming, and hence dressed accordingly. I imagine lots of people would have happily sacrificed a cheap outfit for the chance to be on national TV. Or the TV company could just collect their messy clothes while they were showering, laundered them, and had them couriered back to the audience member a couple of days later - the costs would be negligible in TV production budget terms.
I think I remember Marc Summers saying they did not provide changes of clothes to audience members. I'm guessing they took them in the back and let them shower up but they had to go home wet. Or they had a clothes dryer?
I was reading a Youtube comment recently (sorry, can't remember which video) where somebody said they'd attended a recording and nobody was given waivers to sign.
I'm pretty sure it's also been stated in the past that victims were given boiler suits to wear, which wasn't great because visits to a tv recording would form part of a night out, and the rest of the night would be spent with one person dressed very differently to everybody else, in a bar or something.
Finally, there's one lost clip of a woman gunged at work (on a supermarket till), I think because she tried to persuade her husband to exaggerate the cost of clothes damaged from a NHP prank. So presumably the tv producers were paying to replace outfits.
This has been talked about frequently and fascinated me since the programmes originally aired. The producers of the show clearly wanted to maintain some mystique about it and evidently bonded participants with non-disclosure.
Piecing together the evidence down the years, however, I think I've formed a fairly clear picture for myself from rumours and tittle-tattle to quotations in articles and celebrity autobiographies and even on rare occasions apparent comments on YouTube posts by the gunge victims themselves - bemused to find so much interest in their 15 minutes of fame 30 years ago - and as Iain suggests - a lot is revealed here and there during the show itself if you listen carefully.
It's clear that what happened afterwards would entirely depend on the circumstances of the set up and that the producers and researchers probably muddled along from episode to episode.
They all certainly got a shower and one way or another negotiations were made and courtesy offered to ensure nobody went away with anything to complain about. The majority were set up by friends and family members who would have been involved in pre-planning and could ensure their 'victim' had something to wear. For the genuine surprise victims (the tickets were free and for certain seats were known to have clearly stated that being wet or messy was a strong possibility) there would have been some reasonable ad hoc redress given the resources available at BBC TV centre had the individuals not had the good sense to prepare a contingency for themselves (an NTV item on the show even berates the victim - set up by some friends she'd had gunged on a previous show - for making a fraudulent claim at the time for compensation for damaged clothing that was duly paid by the BBC) They would have certainly been cleaned up and very likely gone home dry in some borrowed clothes.
Noel Edmonds himself revealed in a more recent interview/q and a (reported by a member here) that no audience member's clothes were damaged and cited only one incident of a pair of suede shoes which were duly replaced. The celebrities were all dressed by wardrobe without exception.
But this mystique was all about what made it tantalising in the first place, surely?
(Note: my lengthy post crossed with Maxoverdrive's)
I can confirm that one part of Richard's post is correct as I had it confirmed by one of the presenters.
I can no longer mention the programme (due to the new forum rules) but the person nominated would have no idea but the person who did the nominating would ensure that they brought a change of clothes/shoes etc
Shower of course but I don't know what happened to the gunged clothes if the BBC cleaned them or they took them home messy
People seem to keep over-reading this. What's banned is posting or linking to or describing how to search for photos or videos of kid-centric material. It's clearly stated in the rules that discussing historical stuff in a reasonable context, like this thread, is completely allowed. I've discussed the shows I watched as a teenager as have others, all within the rules. I'm guessing the show in question here must be Get Your Own Back.
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