With the recent death of celebrated Spanish TV screenwriter, director and actor Narciso "Chicho" Ibáñez Serrador at the age of 83, it is as good a time as ever to take stock of one of Iberia's most famous exports to the United Kingdom after Don Quixote, sangria, flamenco, bullfighting, paella and "el vino collapso".
While Ibáñez Serrador may have obtained notoriety on with international fans of his influential 70s cult horror classic "Who Can Kill A Child?" - also re-named as "The Island of the Damned" - in Britain the his name may ring a bell with the over-forties who tuned into ITV in the late '70s and most of the '80s to watch a game show like no other before or after.
Spaniards reading this will be well aware that Ibáñez Serrador made a name for himself in Franco's Spain firstly with the chilling Historias para no dormir series on the national television network and then with a curious multi-sectioned game show crossed with a themed variety show that seemed to go on forever.
Its equally curious name was Un, dos, tres responda otra vez or "1, 2, 3 Answer One More Time", which lacks the Spanish rhyme in my off-the-cuff English translation but whatever. One of the most fondly remembered features of Un, dos, tres was a collection of eye-catching "secretaries" wearing bizarre outsized fake glasses (whose number included future "Almodóvar girl" Victoria Abril ) and a booby prize of an anthropomorphic pumpkin who went by the name of Ruperta and doubled up as the show's mascot.
The show's unconventional format turned out to be a hit with Spanish viewers and later became the first Spanish game show to be adapted for other international markets and in the summer of 1978 a British version of Un, dos, tres appeared, re-titled 3-2-1... with Ruperta the Pumpkin replaced by a robot rubbish bin with a big red nose called Dusty Bin.
It was shown on ITV, the same channel that produced Spanish post-Franco favourites Man About The House and its arguably more successful spin-off George And Mildred .
Amusingly, although the six seasons of Man About The House were originally aired in the UK between 1973 and 1976, Spain had to wait until 1978 - the year 3-2-1 made its debut on British TV - to see any of it, presumably because the Caudillo probably wouldn't have approved of the "modern" living arrangements of the three main characters.
Whether a deal was struck between ITV and TVE involving a cultural exchange of programmes in 1978 is as yet unknown, but Ibáñez Serrador managed to get his name on the opening credits (see below) and the animation style of said credits would not have looked out of place alongside that of Mortadelo y Filamón (now exported as Mort and Phil) or Zipi y Zape (or Zip and Zap to English-speakers).
However, with the passing of time 3-2-1, despite its great popularity during its ten-year run on British television, memories of chirpy but sarcastic host Ted Rodgers (who died in 2001) and the "lovable" Dusty Bin were often overshadowed by viewers recollections of being constantly frustrated by the clues and obscure references used in the show.
Here is but one example:
Would you have thought it was the car? Or the bin? Or something else?
Why not enjoy an entire episode of 3-2-1?
