A KICK IN THE BALLOTS (1996) Carlton pulled out all the stop (sic) for this political quiz, which went out at some ungodly hour and wasn't invited back for a series. Lib Dem Charles Kennedy was the presenter (which may account for the lack of any further shows, really) and although memory fails as to the other participants, they must have been political or current affairs types. Ken Livingstone, Tony Banks, that sort of thing. Anyone available. The set also escapes memory, but it's a fair guess it was some kind of giant model of the Houses of Parliament. Aside from the temporarily amusing title, it was quite dull.

COPPERFIELD'S COMEDY COMPANY (1984) Starring David Copperfield from THREE OF A KIND. It was shown with much pre-show ballyhoo in the summer (always the summer) of 1984. It was terrible, and he surfaced 18 months later on Children's BBC with LIFT OFF WITH COPPERS AND CO.

DEATH BY SPORT (Transmedia Productions, if memory serves 1998) Sports quiz with sudden death rounds and cheap mid-80s 'technofear' logo, presented by Brian Walden, quite clearly going through the motions for a large cheque. Although it was a pilot, they foolishly tried to make it seem like part of a series with a utterly fabricated past winners' hall of fame. The winner knocked the bottom name off the list, prompting Walden to a lovely barb blowing the whole artifice sky high: "So, you're in the hall of fame, knocking Peter Kavanagh off the board. Good. I never liked him anyway."

THE GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS (1975) - Not Castle territory, but, bizarrely enough, a comedy sci-fi dramatisation of the famous book, wherein aliens challenge the UN to a Guinness record-based Olympic Games. Written by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, this one actually came frighteningly close to being made.

THE HECKLERS (Witzend for BBC2, in theory 1992) Aimless audience participation improv show, hosted by Tony Slattery, with Mark Steel, Richard Morton and Steve Coogan. Intermittently funny, but not really what you'd call a winning format. Not really a format at all, in fact. Oh, Ned Sherrin and Lesley Joseph guested.

THE INCREDIBLE ROBERT BALDICK (1972) Supposed Dr Who beater had Robert Hardy as a Sherlock Holmes type with his own special steam train, complete with lab. See entry in Main Cream programme list.

MAINLY FOR MEN (1969) Awful, post-'swinging' ladfest from the BBC, delivered in stiff-shirted public school tones which belied the supposed tone of proto-laddism which was aimed for. "Hello, and welcome to Mainly For Men. And, as the title implies, this is a programme, fellas, just for you." No, it wasn't. The world had to wait 20 years before Jeremy Clarkson arrived, who was also an unconvincing public school pretend lad, but, crucially, unbuttoned his shirt.

OLD FLAMES (1992) Notorious Bank Holiday turkey from the less than dream team of Jimmy Tarbuck and Michael Hurll. Jimmy was struggling a bit at the time, what with Tarby's Frame Game becoming nothing more than a distant memory, so he must have been hoping for a Blind Date-style ratings-topper. Wasn't to be. Basically, contestants had to identify their spouse's former lover from a line-up. Celebrity interlude involving Andy Crane says it all, really.

OUT OF THE TREES (1976) More ChapAdams comedy (with Bernard McKenna), this time a very sub-Python sketch show. Sketch where Simon "Arthur Dent" Jones and Maria Aitken caused the destruction of the world by nicking a neighbour's flower presaged Adam's Hitch-Hiker's themes.

THE RINGO STARR SHOW (1970s) A proposed one-hour US TV special which may or may not have been finished, with the man Starkey as a chauffeur given Superman-style powers by aliens. Very much taking up from his role in The Magic Christian. Graham Chapman was involved in the writing.

SNOW SEVEN AND THE WHITE DWARFS (1975) Yet another Douglas Adams/John Lloyd script about two astronomers isolated from the world in a remote mountain observatory on top of Mount Everest. The idea was that with just one set and two cast members, cheapness alone could convince the curnudgeonly BBC Light Entertainment department to give it the go-ahead. They didn't, but later on they green-lighted the similar cheapo spacefest COME BACK, MRS NOAH! which cannot have been any worse than this effort.

STARWATCH (late 80s) This was to be a sci-fi show, starring Jon Pertwee and Robert Gillespie, created by Chris Leach. Leach apparently used to work for Gerry Anderson and whilst he was there he came up with a concept for a puppet show starring Pertwee and Patrick Troughton. It was to do with a sentinel that lived inside the Earth and regulated the weather, the tides and the seasons - all that stuff. The sentinel goes on the blink and so the Project Unicorn team are formed to travel the universe looking for some way to save the Earth. Yes, it had an obvious "green" subtext. Leach decided that the ideas were "too rich" (those aren't my words) to be wasted on a puppet show and elected to turn it into a live action, family-orientated drama instead. With the casting of Troughton and Pertwee it was fairly obvious he was trying to come up with a new "Doctor Who", however he didn't attempt to sell it to the BBC as he felt they would try and take control of the project. Troughton died and therefore Gillespie got the job of the mysterious Professor Caledon who was later to be revealed as an immortal. Leach approached a few ITV companies and apparently TVS were interested, offering him a budget comparable to Robin of Sherwood, but nothing ever came of it. All that remains are a promo video featuring Pertwee talking into camera (wearing a horrible jumper) and a few shots of some Thunderbirds style space-ships and a rather handsome brochure.