keith chegwin hosted his own kids game show for 9 years chiggers plays pop

Cheggers Plays Pop, 1978

Cheggers Plays Pop, 1978

By 1978, thanks to Multi Coloured Swap Shop Keith Chegwin, or Cheggers as he’s become known, was a household name, particularly to younger viewers.

Cheggers Plays Pop was a gameshow aimed at younger viewers providing a combination of mental and physical challenges with pop music.

The teams comprised of school children.  For the most part the participating schools were from the North West area of the UK due to the choice of studio (BBC Manchester).

It was must see TV in the day and clocked up an impressive 77 episodes over 9 series.

Summary

In the show two teams of children representing their respective schools compete in a series of physical and mental challenges.  This would be combined with studio performances by pop music acts of the time.

There were two teams. Reds and Yellows. Team captains were popular based celebrities of the time.

Games involving balls and inflatables were played by the teams and a pop quiz too. Each episode also had a current chart single being performed in it.

The beginning game was always quite eyecatching. For a while the first game was called Space Invaders. At the end of the show, Cheggers would always blow his whistle and jump onto the inflatable that the final game had been played on; he led the children who all jumped on it in mayhem style to end the show.

Clips

 

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Hosted By

Keith Chegwin

Details

Channel: BBC1
Produced By: BBC Manchester
Original Transmission Dates: 10th April 1978 – 7th November 1988