Set in a large house in the fictional village of Crinkley Bottom, leading to much innuendo, it ran from 23 November 1991 to 20 March 1999 on BBC One and was broadcast live on Saturday evenings for eight series.

[2] In 2010, Noel's House Party was voted the best Saturday night TV show of all time.

The show had many celebrity guests posing as residents of Crinkley Bottom, including Frank Thornton and Vicki Michelle.

I hope your memory will be very kind to us after 169 [episodes]... bye.He was then playfully attacked with a fire extinguisher by Freddie Starr.

The closing credits were followed by a brief comic skit of Edmonds' 1970s children's show Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, in which a seemingly young Noel wakes from a dream in the Swap Shop studio—recounting the events to Keith Chegwin and John Craven of a typical House Party episode, suggesting that the entire run of House Party never really happened—until Mr Blobby appears in the Swap Shop studio.

History will prove that House Party was one of the most successful entertainment shows of all time.He partly blamed the Ronan Keating talent show Get Your Act Together broadcast in early 1999, for poor ratings leading into House Party, which improved when the BBC made Big Break the lead in towards the end of its run.

Originally called the 'Gotcha Oscars' until the threat of legal action from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (which also prompted a redesign of the award[citation needed]), where hidden camera practical jokes were played on celebrities (these were pre-recorded during the months the show was off air).

Notable victims were Barbara Windsor, Carol Vorderman, Jill Dando, Kriss Akabusi, Lionel Blair, Dave Lee Travis, Richard Whiteley, Eddie Large, Samantha Janus, Yvette Fielding, Status Quo, and the Queens Park Rangers football club.

In the final episode of series 5, Dale Winton turned the tables on Edmonds with a surprise challenge that ended with a gunging.

This complete segment was pre-recorded some months before each series of the show began, and originated in The Noel Edmonds Saturday Roadshow.

A phone-in competition where a viewer chose from three currencies (aiming to select the greatest value of money: £1,000 in the first two episodes), and a celebrity (usually a sports star like Graham Gooch, Frank Bruno, Kathy Tayler, Kriss Akabusi, Nick Gillingham, Henry Cooper, Stephen Hendry, Steve Davis, David Gower, Gary Lineker, John Regis, Paul Gascoigne, John Barnes, Lennox Lewis, and others) would climb into a perspex box containing a fan and a large quantity of banknotes selected by the call-in contestant.

Before the game starts, a chosen player is picked from the call in contestants who got a question correct during the show or from a previous week's show to be picked, there would be three different bundles of money, usually two known countries and one bundle known as the "Crinkley Bottom Groats" which was pegged to a generally random country, all valued within £1,000, sometimes more or sometimes less.

A few quirks were also added in, including some modified moments: balloons inside the box, the walls falling down, allowing audience members to help, the door jammed, cheating, the machine broken, being flipped for Number Cruncher and inside a woman's house when NTV happened.

Series 2 introduced foam (often coloured) which would rise up from the bottom and cover the victim prior to the gunging.

Series 3 introduced the 'Car Wash', where the individual was carried along a lengthier tank getting covered in foam then going through a set of brushes designed to soak the victim, then having the gunge descend from above before being spun out of the contraption.

A regular feature for series 4 and 5, where a phone box modified to contain a gunge tank and a TV screen was placed somewhere in Britain.

One of the main features on series 5, in which two neighbours would run round to each other's house and, in one minute, grab as many belongings as they wanted.

The first part of the game would be a qualifying question or clue this would be supplied by the professor (Portrayed by Brian Blessed).

This involved small school children being faced with puppets that start talking to them (one voiced by Noel and another by Barry Killerby).

In the final series, a similar idea to Bernie the Bolt in The Golden Shot, a viewer at home would attempt to score goals by directing a machine to fire a huge football.

In 1992, during series 2 of House Party, the character Mr Blobby was introduced as a way for Noel Edmonds to play practical jokes on celebrities.

[citation needed] Mr Blobby was dropped from the show after series 7, but made a surprise reappearance in the final ever episode.

The first, based at Cricket St Thomas in Somerset, featured many Mr Blobby attractions and was due to include a replica of the Great House from the series.

A two-year investigation by the district auditor was started due to the investment of £2 million by Lancaster City Council.

[14] It resulted in both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats withdrawing from the cabinet, leaving four councillors from Morecambe Bay Independents and the Green Party running the authority.