As Big Brother is set to return, what are your stand-out memories?

[TellingBone]

The 'civilian' version was my favourite telly show ever, especially the early series before the invasion of the wannabes. Not so keen on the celeb versions; those people are always 'on'. Loved the first season when it was all raw. Sada doing her goddess chant every bedtime. The chickens. Nichola naked body painting the wall. Nasty Nick's downfall.

My favourite contestant was Science in BB6, and he was in my favourite task - the box task. 'Shut up' 'No you shut up'.

Top evictions:
Maxwell being evicted when he totally thought it would be Science.
Big-head Sezer visibly shocked that he was evicted.
Grace getting the boot and chucking water over Susie she was so mad.
Kathreya [Happy House!] getting chucked out in her dressing gown to no crowd.

This thread is brilliant. Early Big Brother was such amazing telly, and weirdly innocent looking back, compared with the likes of Love Island.

I can still hear “Be careful Sandy!” but I can’t remember Sandy at all.

I think I saw a bit of season 5 and all of 6. I liked Derek the posh tory whose conflict resolution skills consisted f shouting CHAMPAGNE and trying to distract everyone.

I remember watching the hair dresser who was in love with Anthony and recognising a lot of myself in him.

Season 6 was fun. Does anyone remember Dermot O'Leary presenting a program called big brothers big brain? It was fascinating. Consisted of psychologists explaining various aspects of human behaviour and showing how it manifested in the house.

So many early memories, lots alreadybeen mentioned - but one more for Helen... I like blinking, I do...

And Glyn's egg song, Bubble falling over the chair, Alex's performance behind the door while Jade (?) went around shouting his name, and many more!!

I know it won't happen but I'd love to see "normal" people again, not "wannabes"

Lionel Blair shouting am I your boss and hanging up the phone after saying go fuck yourself…. and Jackie Stallone “Yeah Brackie”

God I remember so many of these!

Wasn't Dermot fairly new to tv when he did bblb? I remember he had a little gerbil that used to quote from the show - after nasty nick it said "you live by the sword you die by the sword" with a little plastic sword near its paw.

Agree that Kate was sneaky to jade and I seem to remember PJ was pretty shitty to her too, after the BJ.

The Shilpa Shetty scandal became an international incident! Politicians got involved and everything.

Craig confessing his love for Anthony while wearing a lopsided Myra Hindley wig and some kind of demented blouse.

Paulclark living the life of an international pop star. Him and Helen got married didn't they? Although they have split up now

Agree that the first few series were golden

They all stood outside the front door of the house waving each other off as they got evicted. Very low key

@Justdontforgethelegofrog Chantelle’s song! I’d forgotten that!

i agree about Kate Lawler boring as f

Jackie , yeah Jackie
David is dead !

I remember Sada.

It was a great show until people figured out you'd get famous on it.

Tracey the old cheesy quaver raver, suffixed nearly every word with -age.
Loved her.
And Anna doing her lunges.

Most hilarious scene ever. That, and Boot Camp when.she threw her flip-flop at the sergeant.

Best series out of all of them. LOVED it …

The silent disco and Nikki ranting in the diary room “ big brother I can’t get my MP3 player to work!”.

Also the rich and poor side .

And Alex! I loved him!

🩷

Nothing tops this for me, absolute TV gold!

Oh and memorable, but for the wrong reasons, were contestants Alexandra De-Gale who was just a hideous character and had to be removed if I remember rightly. Also smug James Jordan and his bullying of Gary Busey, made me furious that one.

There was one quote from Dermot during an intro (unless it was Russell but I remember it being Dermot) that got stuck in my head for years.

He had a WWJD bracelet on and I remember him saying "What would Jesus do? He certainly wouldn't be sick, that's for sure!"

I can never ever see a WWJD sign now without telling myself that Jesus certainly wouldn't be sick!

Absolute gold 🤣

That was definitely tv Gold

I couldn't stand Nikki Graham, Jade Goody, Michelle (what on earth did Stu see in her), Salli Axl, and many more. Odd to think that I watched every single one of every episode.

Me neither, she was sly.

The early ones were great real people from all walks of life and all ages. It went downhill in last few when we had so many wannabe reality stars. I hope this new series goes back to basics.

I loved Johnny the geordie fireman, was he in the series with Brian Dowling? It was one of the early series anyway so the show was still in its ‘social experiment’ phase rather than everyone trying to be a big drama. I remember on an episode of Graeme Norton where the guests were doing a BB sketch and Dustin Hoffman was Johnny, wearing a firefighters helmet and doing the worst geordie accent you’ve ever heard while in the diary room, clearly having a blast (and possibly a bit tipsy) despite having no clue what the hell this sketch was about.

When Sandy escaped by climbing over a wall, BB3. I was invigilating in an exam hall and another member of staff came in to whisper the news to me! That’s how big the show was early 2000s.

Kate, Alison, Jade and Adele (radio 1) were all series 3.

Rich house, poor house was fun. I don't know if it'll work with modern social media though.

I also ended up working with Steph Caldicott from BB4 about three years after her appearance. She was lovely.

Leo sayer breaking out the house in a huff over not having clean pants, never knew he was such a diva !!