Teatime Teaser

The '''Teatime Teaser''' is an anagram presented for the viewers to solve during each commercial break.

This feature was introduced at the beginning of [[Series 46]] along with the [[15-round format]].  Initially, seven-letter anagrams were used; from 8 December 2003 to 30 November 2016, the anagrams were eight letters long; and from 1 December 2016 to 17 November 2020, Teatime Teasers are nine-letter anagrams (except on ''[[8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown]]'', where they remained at eight letters), before reverting to eight letters from 18 November 2020. When the presenter introduces the commercial break, he reads out the teatime teaser and a clue for it.  The puzzle then appears on the Countdown logo screen; at the end of the commercial break, the solution is displayed.

Before the name "Teatime Teaser" was decided, this feature was known at different times by the names "Granagram", "Intergram" (from "interval") and "Telegram".  It was also briefly renamed the "Santagram" during at least one Christmas season, and “Tinsel Teasers” for [[Episode S47]], [[Episode S48|S48]], and [[Episode S49|S49]]. They were initially clue-less, but clues became standardised at some point during [[Series 47]].

A forerunner to the Teatime Teaser was used from [[Series 40]] through [[Series 42|42]], when Countdown was [[Sponsors|sponsored]] by Seven Seas Cod Liver Oil, whose sponsorship screen presented an anagram, between five and nine letters in length, for viewers to solve during the [[9 round format]]'s single commercial break. Despite its having appeared in more than 300 episodes, only about 100 distinct Seven Seas Teasers were ever used, with many scrambles having been repeated up to four times over the course of the feature's history.

Unlike [[conundrum]]s, Teatime Teasers can have more than one solution, for example {{word|NUDEMAN}} could give {{word|MUNDANE}} or {{word|UNNAMED}}. The clue would most likely indicate that one is more acceptable than the other.

On ''[[Letters and Numbers]]'', the Australian adaptation of ''Countdown'', Teatime Teasers were known as ''Word Mixes''. They were eight letters in length and there were two per game, one at each advert break.

[[Category:Terminology]]