Hearts of Gold was a BBC television programme devised and presented by Esther Rantzen, with Michael Groth, Mike Smith and Carol Smillie as co-presenters.
They would usually be tricked into appearing on the show using a practical joke, a device which some critics (such as The Independent's Geraldine Bedell) compared to Beadle's About.
[9] Journalist Bedell explains that participants "are inviegled into the studio under false pretences and presented with gold hearts on blue ribbons while they wonder where to put themselves.
(There is also a sub-Beadle segment in which Esther and chums dress up as folk in distress and wait for passers-by to come to their aid).
[10] The 1988 theme song was written by Lynsey de Paul[11][12] and released as a single by Gold on the CBS record label in 1988.