[2] The American series, which was televised, aired from 1953 to 1959 and was hosted by Peter Potter, Suzanne Alexander, Jean Moorhead, and Lisa Davis.
[3] The series featured celebrity showbusiness guests on a rotating weekly panel who were asked to judge the hit potential of recent record releases.
Juke Box Jury took a format where a guest panel reviewed new record releases in a 25-minute programme, extended to an hour for some Christmas shows.
[5] Host David Jacobs each week asked four celebrities (the 'Jurors') to judge newly released records on his jukebox (a Rock-Ola Tempo II) and forecast which would be declared a "hit" or a "miss" – the decision accompanied by either a bell for a 'hit' or a hooter for a 'miss'.
Jimmy Savile, Simon Dee, Alan Freeman and Pete Murray sat in judgement for all these programmes, having first appeared together on 3 December 1966.
From 25 February until 1 April, the foursome continued as regular panelists, but alternating in pairs each week, with Savile and Murray appearing together, followed by Freeman and Dee.
Among the diverse others from the world of entertainment who appeared were Thora Hird, Alfred Hitchcock, Spike Milligan, Lonnie Donegan,[10] Johnny Mathis,[11] Roy Orbison and David McCallum.
[8] On 7 December 1963, the panel was the four Beatles,[13][14] while George Harrison and Ringo Starr both appeared separately later, as did their manager Brian Epstein, who was twice a panellist.
In fact, by the time of the article, the BBC had already cut seven minutes from the 7 January 1967 programme because of drug references in one of that week's chosen songs, "The Addicted Man" by the Game, which had resulted in universal disapproval by the Jurors during an extended discussion.
[21] This was part of a new policy for the programme during its last year of broadcast, when a regular panel of four disc jockeys was introduced, with a more detailed discussion of each song.
At the end of 1967, Juke Box Jury was dropped from the BBC schedule because of its falling ratings, and the last broadcast was on 27 December 1967, with original Jurors Pete Murray and Susan Stranks appearing once more.
[23] Frequent jurors from the original run Katie Boyle & Lulu both returned for the Jools Holland era, which also included impressionist Steve Nallon on the panel impersonating the sitting Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
The 1979 series was most notable for a panel containing Johnny Rotten (John Lydon), who gave a characteristically acerbic performance before walking out before the end of 30 June 1979 programme.
Dusty Springfield was on the final panel, joining Alan Freeman who appeared on 30 September 1990, as the only personalities to feature as jurors in all three eras of the television run.
In 2001, during a year-long drive to find lost archive material, the BBC announced that an audio recording of the Beatles' appearance in December 1963 had re-surfaced,[29] a tape taken directly from the television broadcast.
[30] The programme's producer Russell Turner then replaced the theme with another instrumental, "Hit and Miss", performed by the John Barry Seven Plus Four, which remained the title music from 1960 to 1967.
The British comedy duo French and Saunders, who appeared on the programme in 1989, referred to Juke Box Jury in their parody of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Hosted by David Jacobs, it also featured Juke Box Jury regulars Pete Murray and Dusty Springfield, with Phil Collins and Sarah Jane Morris making up the rest of the team.