IF YOU really want to assess the state of any society, then tune in to its TV game shows.

And if this week's edition of ITV's Shafted is anything to go by, in 2001 we Brits have certainly turned into a nasty, greedy lot.

This is the programme hosted by Robert Kilroy Silk -- you know, impeccably dressed, normally sympathetic to single mothers and people with life-defying problems on his Kilroy programme but recently trained in the Anne Robinson school of throat-ripping.

The programme's main plank is for contestants to compete against others for large amounts of cash, and win either by sharing or shafting their companions.

On Monday night, Elaine Thorpe from Bolton could have agreed to share £217,000 with Ralph Short. Instead, she chose to try to con him out of the cash -- just as he was trying to con her.

The result, in a stunningly fitting finale, was that they BOTH lost the cash.

Contestants are encouraged on this programme to lie and cheat their way to a cash prize, discarding the competition along the way.

Yesterday, it was announced that Shafted was to be ditched, because its ratings (6.6 million viewers) was "damaging" the flagship drama which follows it, Cold Feet.

Good.

Sorry to gloat (must have been affected by it already), but I'm glad it has got the boot.

There have recently been a couple of quiz shows which just bring out the worst in people. Sometimes, like Anne Robinson on The Weakest Link, the presenter and the contestants can be equally unpleasant.

It really is all a far cry from those original quiz shows like Take Your Pick and Double Your Money which reflected a more innocent time when people left their back-door unlocked, and no-one marched in to ransack their home.

These two rivals for early TV audiences in the mid '50s may have fostered the competitive instinct, but they never went for the jugular like their modern counterparts.

It really took a genial New Zealander in Michael Miles and a goggle-eyed Canadian ex-actor in Hughie Green to show this country how to have fun on TV.

And it really was good, clean fun.

Both programmes graduated from Radio Luxembourg to television to capture the imagination of a jaded post-war public.

Take Your Pick involved contestants answering three general knowledge questions successfully to pick up a key to a numbered box. Each box contained details of a prize, although three were worthless, bearing items like a prune or a clothes peg.

Before contestants were allowed to discover their box's contents, Miles attempted to buy the key off them with cash bids.

"Take the money, or open the box?" Miles would ask the audience which -- in probably the first real TV audience participation -- had the usually restrained English audience yelling "Open the box!" or "Take the money!" until quiz-master or "quizz-ling" gave up.

Double Your Money gave participants the chance to win up to £1,000 by answering questions on a specialised subject, kicking off with a lowly £1 question and then "doubling" or "quitting" as they went along.

At £32, they were entitled to "go on the Treasure Trail, folks" leading to the jackpot prize.

Green's clowning around and over-the-top approach to contestants was as much a part of the entertainment as the quiz itself. And then there were the show's hostesses -- real personalities, like 77 year-old ex-charlady Alice Earrey and teen-weeny Cockney Monica Rose.

Even the quiz shows which followed these early pioneers were of the same gently competitive but basically entertaining variety.

Remember Bernie the Bolt on The Golden Shot?

With wise-cracking Bob Monkhouse in charge, the show was a great hit in the late '60s as watching viewers at home directed a blindfolded marksman in the studio with "Up a bit .... down a bit ... left a bit ... fire!" type instructions.

On one notable occasion, a viewer -- plainly not quite au fait with the whole concept of the show -- even rang in from a public 'phone box!

The 1970s brought us gems like 3-2-1, with finger-slicking Ted Rogers and Dusty Bin and a host of glamorous assistants.

Today's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? may be all about winning a huge amount of cash, but Chris Tarrant always appears to be on the contestant's side.

"How much can you afford to lose?" he often gently reminds window cleaners from Watford as they near the £32,000 that might change their lives.

Nobody is sold down the river by another contestant. Nobody is humiliated. Nobody is shafted.

OK. So there ARE some horrible people in the world today who would sell their own granny for a few quid.

But, do we have to see the worst elements of ourselves encouraged and displayed on prime-time TV as "entertainment"?

The late, lamented Mrs Mary Whitehouse would certainly have had a few words to say on the sheer nastiness of programmes like Shafted.

She would have flown in the face of popularity to brand it "unsavoury" and "unfit for family viewing."

And, sorry to sound prissy, but I absolutely agree.

It is definitely not PC to say it, but what is wrong with gentler entertainment?

Quizzes are about competition, not about which gladiator leaves the ring with all his limbs intact.

Let's have an end to the TV Nasties. Long live the nice guy ..... open the box, Michael.

What do YOU think? Write with your views to: Letters, The Editor, Bolton Evening News. Churchgate, Bolton BL1 1DE

or e-mail: akelly@lancashire.newsquest.co.uk