Just a Minute of the show, all created by Messiter, include a 1952 version on South African radio, and a television version on the DuMont network in the United States. The pilot for the show was recorded in 1967, featuring Clement Freud, Derek Nimmo, Beryl Reid and Wilma Ewart as panellists. The chairman was originally planned to be Jimmy Edwards but he was unavailable on Sundays, the proposed recording dates, and was replaced by Nicholas Parsons who was originally supposed to be a panel member. Parsons did not want the job and only reluctantly took it, just for the pilot episode. After the
Just a Minute significant historical events. He also often wins points by challenging just before the whistle or for humorous challenges, another technique being to say the same word in the singular and the plural, for inexperienced panellists to challenge falsely. Over the 50-year history of the show, there have been many other panellists. Those to have appeared frequently, more than 20 times each, are Pam Ayres, Gyles Brandreth, Marcus Brigstocke, Julian Clary, Alun Cochrane, Charles Collingwood, Barry Cryer, Jenny Eclair, Stephen Fry, Sheila Hancock, Tony Hawks, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Josie Lawrence, Aimi MacDonald, Andree Melly, Chris Neill, Ross Noble, Graham Norton, Sue Perkins,