The Big Question That Hangs Over the Famous 'Countdown' Clock
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An absolutely huge horological dilemma hit the culture podcast The Rest Is Entertainment this week, the regular “questions and answers” episode of which contained this enquiry from a listener, vis-à-vis TV’s most famous clock, on Channel 4’s longest-running game show.
“Does the Countdown clock only do the 30 seconds,” the listener asked. “Or can it do the full 60-second rotation?”
To find out the answer hosts Marina Hyde and Richard Osman went to the source: Countdown host Colin Murray.
“Can the Countdown clock rotate the full minute?” Murray said, via a recorded message. “I don’t think it can. It’s a mock-up of a clock. It’s not your grandfather’s clock, or a wristwatch. Why would they light up the other 30 seconds, if it’s not needed?”
Back in the studio Osman deepened the mystery, having dug out YouTube footage of the 1982 pilot episode, when the show was filmed in Yorkshire and known as Calendar Countdown, where the clock ticks round not 30, but 45 seconds.
“It’s done it before,” noted Osman. “So it could do it again.”
But it was back to Colin Murray for the real head-scrambler.
“Let me leave you with this,” he said. “Why is Countdown called Countdown? That’s the question you should be asking. It goes from 0 to 30 seconds. If it was truly living up to its name, the clock would start at the bottom, at 30 seconds, and count down to 0.
"It should be called Countup.”
Woah.
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