The show didn't get off to a good start. The first contestant to whom host Leslie Crowther issued the invitation "Come on down", flatly refused to move from their seat. The presenter was heard to mutter under his breath: "My God, what have we let ourselves in for?".

This was only a temporary hiccup in the success story of The Price Is Right, the British version of an American game show first aired in 1956. It took nearly 30 years for the show to reach our screens. By 1987, it was the most popular light entertainment show on TV.

In recent years gameshows have fallen out of popularity, replaced by quiz shows like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and The Weakest Link. People want to win money, not household goods, and the presenter is just as much of a star as the contestants or the game itself.

One hundred people were asked who were the best people to host a revival of ITV gameshows and they replied: "Ant and Dec". The Geordie duo have been recruited, as part of ITV1's 50th anniversary celebrations, to celebrate the best of the bunch in Ant And Dec's Gameshow Marathon. They'll be reviving the old favourites and adding a little something of their own to the formats.

The Price Is Right kicks off the series tonight with Bullseye, Play Your Cards Right, Sale Of The Century and Family Fortunes following in coming weeks. The difference this time is that celebrities will be playing the game for charity.

Ant and Dec will be getting tips from some of the greatest gameshow hosts, while ITV's most popular faces will be recounting their favourite gameshow moments. And the critics will no doubt write that it's "super, smashing, great".

Ant says they used to watch shows like Bullseye and Play Your Cards Right growing up. "I remember sitting down at home to watch them with a can of coke and a packet of Revels," he says.

Dec's looking forward to yelling "Come on down" because when he used to watch The Price Is Right on the telly, it looked like the most exciting place in the world. "We looked back at how many fantastic gameshows there were and how many we don't see any more, so we thought it would be great to resurrect some of the best and celebrate them for ITV's 50th birthday."

Gameshows were part of the ITV schedule from the start. Take Your Pick with "your quiz inquisitor" Michael Miles was first shown on the day after the commerical channel began broadcasting. Double Your Money with Hughie Green was its big rival in those early days.

How simple and unsophisticated such shows were back then. No fancy computer graphics, just Alec Dane with a gong during the Yes/No interlude in which Miles asked contestants questions and they weren't allowed to reply using the words yes or no. Try it at home, it's more difficult than you think.

Double Your Money, which began on Radio Luxembourg before moving to TV, offered contestants the chance to win as much as £1,000. A sound-proofed booth - in which a contestant was confined at critical moments during the show - was as hi-tech as it got. A 1966 edition was recorded in Moscow, although the Communist Party banned cash prizes so a TV set was substituted instead.

Another early ITV show Criss Cross Quiz was noughts and crosses, although the idea was imported from the US where it was called Tic Tac Toe. The Golden Shot was a German concept, Countdown came from France and Play Your Cards Right derived from the US Card Sharks.

Bruce Forsyth, king of the gameshows, was the joker in the pack who presented Play Your Cards Right. He had a collection of glamorous girls known as Dolly Dealers to help him shuffle his cards. These were vital ingredients of early gameshows to help the host and point to the prizes. Then a combination of feminism and political correctness ruled them out of order.

The 1980s show reappeared in the mid-1990s as Bruce Forsyth's Play Your Cards Right, leaving no doubt who was in charge. Similarly when he took over The Price Is Right, the listings called it Brucie's Price Is Right.

Gameshows had the ability to promote catchphrases and sayings, whether it was "Come on down", "Can I have a P please, Bob" or "Up a bit, down a bit, left a bit, fire".

As audiences veered away from light entertainment and towards reality TV, gameshows began to look old-fashioned and viewers deserted them. They wanted bigger risks and bigger prizes, willing to take a chance and go home with nothing rather than the embarrassment of leaving the studio clutching a Dusty Bin as consolation prize.

In the glory days of The Price Is Right the contestant who won a set of garden furniture owned up to only having a window box at home. When a woman lost out on a holiday for two, the man who won promptly asked her to go with him. And what about this lovely prize: "A globe that floats. It's a floating globe of the world, detailed in every way. When plugged into the mains magnetic poles keep it afloat for hours and make it a real talking point."

Well, it beats a Blankety Blank cheque book and pen.

* Ant And Dec's Gameshow Marathon: tonight, ITV1, 6.10pm.