When it comes to the topic of "lost media", a lot will go in your mind.
Maybe you're thinking about that live-action Backyardigans pilot that's being gatekept (probably for good reason). It could be something you don't remember entirely, like that one song you heard on Kerrang! with that really nasally voice and soppy lyrics. It could be a specific variant of something already publicly accessible. It might not even exist at all.
Lost media is a broad term to use, but as a topic, it's a bit of a dilemma. In some cases, the outcome would be that it just isn't publicly accessible. Someone leaks it. There, Bob's your uncle. But there's some matters in which due to the sheer obscurity of (insert thing here), you ask yourself: Does this still exist? Anywhere? We’ve seen PXG. We’ve seen Seven Days. Except we haven’t, really. I've had my own personal cases of stuff you could consider "lost media" and I've certainly seen some that have fascinated me. So have a list.
VEGAS VIRGINS (Challenge/CGTV Canada)
Multiple references of this show can be traced on the interwebs, but apparently not enough for an official release or for it to have notable traction. Vegas Virgins was made at the height of Challenge’s rather odd obsession with gambling. It’s a typical reality television show with the basis that you’ll be walking out with, as Harry Enfield would say: Loadsamoney! (It’s not loads because they were on a budget.)
The premise of the show isn’t hard to understand. Poker and reality TV clash together. Five people originating from the United Kingdom, and five people originating from the United States. They have absolutely no clue how gambling works. Doesn’t stop them spending two weeks taking a crash poker course in Las Vegas though. Day by day they are taught aspects of poker, whilst also competing in a series of Fear Factor/Survivor-esque tasks. Such tasks apparently include eating a duck embryo. It may sound out of the ordinary, but if you live in the Philippines, you’re used to it already.
The importance of these tasks link into a nightly no limit holdem poker tournament, which can affect how much chips the players receive based on how good they do. The winner of said tournament has the chance to evict another player. The catch is: Players from the same country cannot be eliminated on consecutive nights. This means if an American player gets eliminated one night, a British player will have to be selected the following night, to which the Americans will be immune from elimination. A piece of piss for the immune component, because they wouldn’t have to try at all.
At the end, the last player standing would win a check of $10,000 US dollars (which equals to about £6,000 here) and would have the chance to win even more money when they’re set aside with “seasoned poker professionals” for a final tournament. If you’re not within their community, you probably won’t recognise them at all. This was very different from Challenge’s usual output and is certainly a contrast from Takeshi’s Castle and Craig Charles being a twat. The decision for Challenge, an already-established niche game show channel, to come out with original commissions like this, and an entire programming block of schedules devoted to it, is very innovative in itself, and the Player block itself was pushed on the channel a lot. Ratings took a toll, however, and within a couple of years Challenge reverted back to primarily just game shows. They’d taken a few more experiments after that though, TNA Wrestling proving a huge success for them in the early 2010s. Nowadays though, you may as well consider it a living corpse.
Barely anything exists of this show online, despite best efforts. I barely even know the contestant names and who actually won. I’ve contacted loads of people I could find involved in working for this program or working at the Lion Television production company that produced the show (Some are no longer living) - all have, so far, been dead ends. The closest I’ve gotten to was a female contact, she was a participant on the show. She said she’s got some VHS tapes of the program but I’ve not gotten anywhere further than that, and I haven’t heard from her in a while. What I have found of the program is a single clip of a poker tournament, the beginning of an episode, and a promotional trailer. As well as a game on an archived version of the Challenge website, but I wouldn’t count that as anything because it just uses the name. This has been a passionate interest of mine for many years now, and whilst I’m running out of leads, I hope this program can surface in its entirety someday. What I’ve left below is some of the only clips I can find, as well as a promotional trailer of a similar original commission for Challenge TV.
THE MULLET MAN SHOW (SCUZZ)
“Justin Timberlake! You’re a crap dancer, I hate yer music, and I wish you were dead! Also, Justin’s a girl's name!!!”
Scuzz was launched in April 2003 on the Sky satellite platform on Channel 471, focusing on the rock and metal lifestyle as well as airing music videos. There were a handful of different original series and short films commissioned for Scuzz - one going by the name of “Cuddly Snuff”. If you can guess what that show is even about, I’ll give you a virtual cookie. Perhaps the most well known commission was “The Mullet Man Show”, running for an 8-part series, gaining a cult following of sorts. Even in 2025 it is still being talked about amongst communities revolving around Iron Maiden, Aerosmiiiiith!!! and Saxon.
The basis of this show as well isn’t hard to understand. Gross-out sketch comedy with music videos. Sounds about right. The show revolved around Mullet Man, played by actor Paul Hawkyard. Now known for CBeebies and for appearing in every British soap opera known to man. Alongside his friend Lucky Larry, played by Darren McFerren, who’s known for… well, he’s known for something. Other characters included Max Wheels (the goth vampire… not), Harry the Haemophiliac, a MINI Mullet Man, Terry the Ticket Tout, and former Page 3 model Jo Guest. So there were also some slags on the programme. The best of all worlds!
The skits would often feature Mullet Man tormenting his component Lucky Larry (..not so lucky there), Mullet Man in public (Merely the area of Brentford) tormenting people like Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden…and Justin Timberlake. On some occasions, if people accompanied with Mullet Man broke the “rule of the house”, they would be sent to the Room ‘o’ Death and be beaten to death with a pool cue. What would this rule be that could cost your life? Touching his Saxon record. Oh, and he also met Alice Cooper. AND he signed his breast.
Not a lot of this show, amongst other original commissions from Scuzz in this era, appear to exist online. The Mullet Man Show has had a handful of clips and advertisements uploaded through the years that all seem to originate from the same episode. A show so fondly remembered by people in its little subculture, yet very little seems to actually come from it. Some unsourced information said Mullet Man, Lucky Larry and Jo Guest would later present an awards show for Scuzz called “The Scuzzy’s”, next to none that exists online either. I would have loved to be a late 80s kid, growing up and experiencing for myself the absolute weirdness that is The Mullet Man Show. If you paid me any money to have me live with him though, I’d think you’re off your head.
If you’re interested in the history of Scuzz and its weird endeavours, Tyler LastName has created an article on this very site to do with Rock TV channels. Click here, It’s a great read :)
CUTTING EDGE: DADDY’S GIRL (Channel 4)
Something a little lesser-known now, and when I say this I mean it never aired at all. Lost in and of itself and the chances of Channel 4 continuing to hold this in their archive is up for debate. Cutting Edge was a long-running documentary series broadcast on Channel 4 that would touch on social and political issues that affect the world and our nation. Two documentaries were to be scheduled in the month of September in 1998, both entitled “Mummy’s Boy” and “Daddy’s Girl”. Daddy’s Girl in particular focused on the relationship of a “father and daughter”, Victoria Greetham (19) and “Marcus (39)”. Victoria was starting her “career” out as a “model”, whilst her “father”, “Marcus”, spoke about his “mixed feelings” about her “boyfriend”, “Stuart”. I think you can see where this is going.
The show’s production included Edmund Coulthard, one of the bigheads of Blast! Films, and in a filming session spanning four months, Daddy’s Girl was ready to be broadcast on Channel 4 on the 1st of September, 98. This was until the whole thing was revealed to be an elaborate hoax, and that the production team had been deceived. Promotional trails were broadcast of the program, which prompted Victoria’s real father, Geoff Greetham, to phone up Channel 4 and tell them that Marcus was not her father at all. The “father” in the program turned out to be her lover, Stuart Smith (29), notorious for scamming, money laundering, theft, and ripping people off of their money. Notably in recent years he had stolen almost the entire contents of a pub to sell them off in Cyprus.
So a waste of time. But you have to ask how were they duped for that long? Even now, it’s not quite clear. Maybe the production crew were just stupid. Victoria Greetham and Marcus Greetham (now under his real alias, Stuart Smith), however, were offered another chance of television publicity, but not for what they would’ve been gathered for. A Cutting Edge special “Who’s Been Framed?” (There is an obvious joke there.), broadcast on the 1st of February ‘99, goes in depth on the hoax and why exactly the dubious duo did it. Turns out, Victoria’s father was never really there for her and they both wanted publicity. It’s not rocket science, that’s for sure. The documentary also contains Stuart trying to phone up Channel 4 proposing another documentary bragging about his penis. I can’t take this seriously.
The documentary “Daddy’s Girl” itself is lost media. Although, after scouring through the net to find more information of this debacle (And funnily enough, whilst I was writing this article!) I've managed to find a copy of the Who’s Been Framed? special from 1999, which is attached below. Complete with fancy VT clocks! And a blue duck. Aside from the clips seen in the special, as well as exclusive footage of the people involved, that’s all that we know of. The chances of Channel 4 still having the documentary in its archive is next to unlikely, not helped by the fact that it never made it to transmission, and shelved at the last minute. So there goes the possibility of off-air recordings. But do yourself a favour, and go watch this documentary. It’s just as unreal as Marcus.
Now onto some honorable mentions of lost or obscure media that originates from the UK.
MYTV: HOMEGROWN (TROUBLE)
MyTV: Homegrown was a programme on Trouble where viewers could submit their clips, sketches and animations via mobile phones and computers. Probably notable from the fact that some of Shane Dawson’s earliest work was seen in this programme. Before he started shagging cats. Aside from a few clips here and there, not much of this programme has surfaced online.
TRAILER PARK (CNX)
Trailer Park was an hour-long magazine programme presented by Christian Stevenson and Ed Leigh. Not to be confused with the Trailer Park Boys. They would report on the latest in the world of gaming, sports, music, and reviewing movies, as well as interviewing people like The Cuban Brothers and Tony Hawk. It was broadcast on Turner’s flop-of-a-channel, CNX. Aside from a few promotional trailers hidden in continuity videos, nothing of this show exists online, and it’s possible that it doesn’t exist in Turner’s archives at all.
THE DEBBIE KING SHOW (ITV PLAY)
Hamma + Glamma Productions (their website is completely inaccessible) produced The Debbie King Show, which was a phone-in quiz on ITV Play providing a satirical look at the news and showbiz gossip from the UK and around the world. It was broadcast on the 5th of March 2007. The next day, ITV Play suspended transmissions and then shut off completely the following week, making The Debbie King Show the last commissioned programme for ITV Play and one of the last to be broadcast on the channel. As the programme was live and never lasted a second episode, it’s unlikely ITV will still hold this in their archive. The chances of it surfacing again online will have to be from off-air recordings, but the chances of that happening also are looking quite scarce.
If you’ve made it this far into the article, congratulations! I have finally shut up. Thank you Matt :)