The Krypton Factor

The Krypton Factor was a British game show produced by Granada for broadcast on ITV. The show originally ran from 7 September 1977 to 20 November 1995, and was hosted by Gordon Burns and usually broadcast on the ITV network on Mondays at 19:00.

Contestants from across the United Kingdom and Ireland competed in a series of rounds that tested their physical stamina and mental attributes. The title of the show is a reference to Superman’s home planet Krypton, the title perceiving that the contestants had strong superhuman “powers” for taking part in the challenges they were set. The contestants all had their own corresponding colour, either red, green, yellow or blue. They wore their own clothes, apart from the Physical Ability round where the contestants wore track suits which were red, green, yellow or blue until 1989. The track suits changed to black with a coloured stripe. For their own clothes, the contestants either wore a shirt/blouse, tie or a neckscarf of their corresponding colour. The points contestants earned through the game were not referred to as their score, but as their “Krypton Factor”, e.g. “The winner, with a Krypton Factor of 46, is the legal secretary from Kent, Mike Berry”. The 1987 series won the prestigious Premio Ondas – Spanish Television Award for Entertainment.