Kick Start is a British motorcycle trials game show that aired on BBC1 from 6 August 1979 to 17 August 1992. It was originally hosted by Dave Lee Travis from 1979 to 1980 and then it was hosted by Peter Purves from 1981 to 1992.
Format Trials were run against the clock. Riders on off-road motorcycles were required to run over obstacles such as logs, oil drums, rockeries, water troughs, walls, steep banking, cliff-faces and often a VW Beetle. Time penalties were incurred for putting a foot on the ground while tackling an obstacle or touching or knocking over specified parts of an obstacle (such as the "bunny hop").
Transmissions Original Series Start date End date Episodes 1 6 August 1979 20 August 1979 3 2 4 August 1980 18 August 1980 3 3 17 August 1981 20 August 1981 4 4 3 August 1982 24 August 1982 4 5 6 September 1983 15 September 1983 4 6 28 August 1984 31 August 1984 4 7 27 August 1985 30 August 1985 4 8 1 September 1986 4 September 1986 4 9 5 April 1988 8 April 1988 4 Special 1 June 1988 1
Junior Series Start date End date Episodes Specials 29 December 1980 26 December 1981 2 1 26 December 1982 4 January 1983 4 2 5 July 1984 26 July 1984 4 3 24 December 1984 28 December 1984 4 4 23 December 1985 27 December 1985 4 5 22 December 1986 26 December 1986 4 6 30 May 1989 2 June 1989 4 7 29 May 1990 1 June 1990 4 8 2 April 1991 5 April 1991 4 9 10 August 1992 17 August 1992 4
Other Media A video-game inspired by the series called Kikstart was released for the Commodore 64 in 1985 by Mastertronic. It was also released for the Commodore 16 / Plus/4, and Atari 8-bit computers. According to the game's programmer, Shaun Southern, "The C64 version's name at least, was a shameless rip-off of the TV series."
Theme Tune The theme tune to the series was "Be My Boogie Woogie Baby", performed by Mr.Walkie Talkie, a pseudonym used by the German singer Drafi Deutscher.
Behind the Scenes Although Peter Purves presented the show for thirteen years he did very little work for it, claiming that each complete series was filmed in only one weekend.
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