Call My Bluff

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This article is about the game show. For the dice game also known by this name, see Liar's dice.

Call My Bluff
Genre	Game show
Running time	30 minutes
Starring	Robin Ray Frank Muir Robert Morley Joe Melia Peter Wheeler Patrick Campbell Robert Robinson Arthur Marshall Bob Holness Alan Coren Sandy Toksvig Fiona Bruce Rod Liddle
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original channel	BBC2, BBC1 (from 1996)
Original run	1965–1988, 1994, 1996-2005

Call My Bluff is a long-running British game show (adapted for BBC television by Philip Hindin from a short-lived US Goodson-Todman show of the same title) between two teams of three contestants, who are celebrities. The point of the game is for the teams to take it in turn to provide three definitions of an obscure word, only one of which is correct. The other team then has to guess which is the correct definition, the other two being "bluffs". It was brought back to BBC TV by producer Richard Lewis

Examples of words used in Call my Bluff (taken from a book published in connection with the show in 1972) are Queach, Strongle, Ablewhacket, Hickboo, Jargoon, Zurf, Morepork and Jirble. Queach, for instance, was defined as 'a malicious caricature,' or 'a cross between a quince and a peach,' or 'a mini-jungle of mixed vegetation.' The first and second of those particular definitions are bluffs.

The U.S. version ran for 13 weeks in 1965, broadcast over NBC. Bill Leyden was the host; Johnny Olson the announcer. Despite its short run, Milton Bradley issued a home version (board game) during the summer of that year.

The show ran on BBC 2 from 1965 to 1988. The original host was Robin Ray, later succeeded by Joe Melia, Peter Wheeler and finally Robert Robinson. Robert Morley and Frank Muir captained the teams. Morley was succeeded by Patrick Campbell, who was in turn succeeded by Arthur Marshall.

The show was resurrected in 1996 after an 8-year rest (apart from one special edition in 1994). Alan Coren and Sandi Toksvig became the team captains, and Bob Holness replaced Robinson as chairman.

In 2003, Toksvig was replaced by the journalist Rod Liddle, and newsreader Fiona Bruce took the chair.

A similar gameshow ran on MTV3 in Finland between 2001 and 2003, called Kuutamolla ("In the moonlight"), except with fewer celebrities and a focus on anecdotes about the lives of the guests, rather than on word meanings.