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November 2008

29th November 2008

Clip Boyard

Phew, our Weekend of Content is almost done, here's this week's Fort Boyard clip. It's from Quebec - it begins with Pere Fouras' clue riddle but in a more unusual setting than you are perhaps used to, and it's follwed by 'marches' (steps), a new adventure introduced in 1999.

Intriguingly, this is now the best place on the entire internet for information on a US non-phenomenon. It is time... for Knights and WARR-iors!

28th November 2008

Mildly interesting geeky thing (for a Friday Night)

As you know, we went and saw Spin Star being filmed a few months ago and those episodes have been showing this week. That was the day of Lian's £36,000 big win. That was the first show filmed that the morning, but because "they had to sort the computer problems out" it put the rest of the day two hours behind. Computer problems after a big win, eh? HMM, THAT'S NOT HUGELY SUSPICIOUS IS IT, GANG? (Watch it. - Endemol's solicitors) No! No of course it isn't.

So bearing this in mind we thought we'd have a quick look at the Moneyspinner and the odds on maximizing your win. If the show gets a second series, maybe you reading this will get on it and rob Endemol of all their money. We've used Alison's game today as our example episode, with a bit of the previous day thrown in for good measure.

We put this up here, I'll let you correct the working then I'll stick it up as a feature for potential future reference. Please note that right here and now it's a work in progress.

The Category Reel:

• For the Speed Spins (spins 1-3) there are 15 different categories. When a category is used up it is replaced. Categories not used remain on the reel until they come up. Interestingly the order of the unused categories at the end of each show changes for the next show.
• For spins 4-6 two Brain Busters are added to the reel in addition to the 15 other categories. The two Brain Busters stay on the reel for these spins regardless of whether they come up or not. The odds on hitting a Brain Buster is therefore 2 in 17, or about 11.76%.
• Each category is rated 1-3 stars for easy, medium and tough difficulty. Now I'm afraid we haven't worked out the rhyme and reason for balancing the difficulties on the reel - if a two star category gets used there's absolutely no guarantee it will get replaced by a two star category. Presumably this is at the producer's discretion. The example episode pans out as follows:
  

• * In Spin 5 a Brain Buster was hit so no new categories were added.
• In conclusion then, we reckon anything Easy or Medium should be kept when given the chance to respin, seeing as the reel tends to be weighted against you. Provided the category isn't too odd you'll do alright.

The Player Reels:

• Each player has an equal 20% chance of appearing on the win line.
• If the same player appears three times across the win line it's a Jackpot and all the cash is doubled.
• The odds of spinning a jackpot cold for a specific person is 1 in 125. However, the odds of spinning a jackpot for anyone cold (a natural triple, if you like) is only 1 in 25.
• Getting two out of three happens more often than you probably think. By our reckoning, the odds on getting two out of three are 48%. That's almost half! Blimey.

The Money Reel:

• Alright, the fun bit. The numbers are in a different order from day to day, but the actual make up of the reels is the same. In fact here comes an exciting table:

• OK, we've made an assumption when it comes to coming up with the mean values, that the Bank Busters are worth 0. In fact they carry a negative expectation seeing as it wipes the bank if the question is answered incorrectly.
• As you can see, fifteen slots on the reels again plus two Bank Busters for the second half. Your odds on hitting a Bank Buster once again are about 11.76% - 15 times out of 17 you escape.
• So how do you maximise your winnings? I think it's quite simple - if you spin anything that's on the median or below you must respin it. You will probably not hit a Bank Buster and in the likelihood that cash comes up you're either going to lose a little (that's the chance you take, and the odds are actually against it), hit 2000 again or stand to make an absolute killing. Positive EV all over the shop!

So how would we play?

• Alright, you have no real control over the first three spins, it's all about the round two respins. I reckon you want to try and place as much emphasis as possible on the two people you think will answer the most questions correctly and just let everyone else mop up - if they drop in then leave them and spin everyone else. As if you want to respin you must spin two or more reels, we'd have no problem at all spinning the cash reel if it's showing £2,000 or below or the category reel if it's showing a hard category. If bad things happen then that's the chance you take, but in poker terms you're getting Aces vs Ace-King that you aren't going to wipe out - you HAVE to take the bet! And if a Bank Buster does turn up, there's a decent chance they'll get it right anyway.
• If you spin the Bank Buster off the bat then you should get your two bigguns out of the way pretty sharp. If either of them are in the win line anywhere you should spin them out, with the category reel if necessary. If you've got one of the mop ups as a double then leave them there, you're risking one less person's bank.
• If a Jackpot opportunity for anyone crops up, you should probably take it. Again, cash reel should get priority over category wheel, unless it's an awful category.

Following that, I reckon if the Moneyspinner behaves itself during the final round there's a very good chance you'll be going home with a lot of money. Thoughts?

Golden Balls on the Wii scores a massive 8% in this month's edition on NGamer. Who'd have thought a game about shouting over each other for real money would lose its appeal without the shouting or real money? Certainly not me.

27th November 2008

I thought you could do with a new comment box but actually I don't think this one is filled quite enough yet.

Anyway there's quite a busy weekend coming up on Bother's Bar - Fantasy X Factor, Clip Boyard, a feature on Knights and WARR-iors and we've decided to do fairly geeky technical analysis on something modern that's likely to take all afternoon and be of no real interest to anyone. It'll be like being in 2005 again. And what's more it'll be time to bring out the Bother's Bar Christmas Decorations! So exciting I've capitalised it.

No, do at least try to look interested.

You know the bit on The €100,000 Show from Holland from 2006 when they're deliberating over which code to pick? They've nicked that bit of music from, of all places, The Waiting Game.

We point out these bits of minutae so you don't have to. But you can use these facts to be really popular at parties.

We're very tempted to do a feature on Knights and Warriors this weekend.

25th November 2008

The Clipton Factor - Call My Bluff

For no discernable reason, here's the first ten minutes of the Call My Bluff revival from 1996, hosted by Bob Holness, fresh from not doing the saxophone on Baker Street, and with team captains Alan Coren, most famous for being Vicki's dad (*) and Danish pastry Sandi Toksvig. It looks like John Nettles is going through a bit of a mid-life crisis.

(*) Don't worry, we know. 

In other news, thanks to David for pointing out this pic of the new Gladiators on The Sun's website. THIS IS SPARTA! The proper press release is out tomorrow.

23rd November 2008

It's the all new exciting Fantasy X Factor chart!

Meanwhile, if you only watch one episode of Spin Star this week, Monday would be a good one. And if you only watch two, watch Thursday's to see what it's like with barely half a studio audience. The "feel" has got better over the last week, so perhaps we can put the first week down to it being a new production. We're surprised they're bothering with a music bed though seeing as it's so faint you have to turn your telly up quite a lot to hear it.

22nd November 2008

Clip Boyard

This week it's Surplomb. There were two versions of this game, the second and more familiar involved pulling yourself along using a chain, unlocking padlocks and opening a box at the end. This first version from 1996 is noticeably easier.

Also Gladiators starts filming today I think, so if anyone hears anything about new stuff...

19th November 2008

Quiche Lorraine

Cha$e episode two is a bit harder to pin down than episode one right now, but seeing as you've filled out the old comment box and with Estate of Panic to come, you can have a new one.

18th November 2008

The Clipton Factor - Cram

There's not much of this about on Youtube, whether that's lack of interest or the production company crack down on that sort of thing I don't know, but we'll risk it because for our money this was one of Game Show Network's very best originals from 2002. We've heavily edited an episode down to a ten minute highlight package. Hosted by Graham Elwood and assisted by Icey off of Cha$e, Two teams of two spend 24 hours cramming on lots of material without sleeping then come to the studio to play some wacky games. The first game we've edited out, it's a Talkabout style game where contestants riff on one of the given articles they will have read trying to hit upon key words for points. The rest of the rounds you can see for yourselves.

Good episodes of Spin Star and Deal or No Deal today, well done. 

17th November 2008

Thank God for that.

16th November 2008

Every desicion could cost cold, hard cash now or it could win you loads... it's the latest Fantasy X Factor results!

15th November 2008

Clip Boyard

Busy week this week. Anyway, today we have Spéléo as played between 2003 and 2005, the Fort's only attempt at a game based around spelunking.

Estate of Panic, then

Sorry, we're not actually quite so drunk this evening as it turns out and a bit less tired then we thought so I'm afraid it's going to be more coherent then usual.

• Seven contestants go to some house in Argentina and try to find money in rooms. Each room has many thousands of dollars in bills lying around. However, if you collect the least money in each room you're eliminated. But if you get too greedy and you're the last to leave, you're also eliminated by being locked-in (some rooms have several exits but each one locks after a certain amount of people have escaped through it). This is a really good mechanic. We came up with something similar ourselves some time ago.
• The challenges faced aren't really anything you've not seen before (water, snakes, nasty creatures, electricity, shrinking rooms, sometimes a combination) but you won't have seen them without some of the genuinely impressive special effects and settings. They've gone to town in getting everything to feel like a creepy mansion. They've spent money on this, you can tell.
• Steve Valentine is perfect, just perfect as the schlocky lord of the manor - Riff Raff and Frank N Furter all rolled into one slightly menacing and also slightly camp package. He's better introducing the games than giving commentary asides during it, though. And the butler is called Ralph. Someone's been watching The Crystal Maze. Except he isn't, he's called Rupert. Don't mind me.
• To be honest, the biggest thing we find fault with is the end game everyone else seems to like so much. The winning player wins all the cash everyone had accumulated throughout the show and gets a chance to increase it some more in The Vault (SECRET BOOKCASE AHOY). In the Vault are 200 safety deposit boxes filled with cash, objects and some nasty surprises. Unfortunately the player has a foot chained to the floor. The idea is to escape before the Vault locks, which happens after the tenth ball has dropped through the timing mechanism - if he does this he gets to keep all the cash from the entire show. Get locked in and lose the lot. If he's worried he's going to get locked in, he can push a panic button and get help to escape at the cost of half the total winnings. It's mildly clever, but this is actually less interesting than I thought it was going to be - open up all the boxes as fast as you can until you find something to free you, then grab what you can and get out. The idea is that you try and keep an eye on the clock at the same time and not to get too greedy, except you're rather helpfully warned when time is running out by flashing red lights and a big siren.
• We've no moral objections to watching people putting themselves through it, and if it wasn't for the end game it might have got the ULTIMATE ACCOLADE from the Jim Bowen Great-o-meter. Also we wonder how many different scenarios they've got in store - it looks like a big mansion, hopefully they've got the imagination to do it justice. It feels like it could be the ultimate distillation of the facing your fears format.

13th November 2008

Spin Star then, again

I'll be honest with you, chaps, I've been playing poker and drinking this evening, more so than I expected so I apologise in advance for any typing errors or anything, but what you're getting is going to be FULL, UNFLINCHING HONESTY. You don't get THIS on UKGameshows.com.

• First of all, we said we eally like the format and we totally do. If there was a board game version of it, we'v buy it like a shot. People lose sometijmes, we're not wet, we can deal with it.
• Right, now the bad bits. It's really, really badly edited, there's no flow to it at all, and Bradley's retakes are really obviously added in. Deal or No Deal doesn't have this problem.
• The whole thing should be happy, exciting and Vegasy. So why then does it sometimes feel liek it's set in a neon mortuary? The audience sweetening is terrible, it should be mixed better or it should have a bigger audience. Now in fairness, I think this is soemthig they're trying to address or been trying to address with the whole "encourage them to go ooooOOOOOh!" thing, the problem is the reels spin far too long for this to work. What it needs is some sort of hint that the reels are about to stop to encourage a Pavlovian response - a drum roll, perhaps? Then, don't wait half an hour for all the reels to stop, just do it quite quickly.
• Slot machines normally have coins drop out when people win. How hard can it be to have something tangible like confetti go off when someone winss quite big?
• We'd have Bradley introduce the Moneyspinner by spinning it. Have cash amounts from £0-£2,000 on it and whatever it lands on spot the players with. REACT. That is what Americans or William G Stewart would do.
• Given that returning personalities is one of the main hooks of the show, why aren't we given the chance to learn about the contestants a bit more? It's not often I'd advocate slowing the game down a bit, but in this case I think it's just about justifyible. Ley's be honest, the awesom Sital is the only one who's been allowed to show some personality so far.
• And we've already mentioned that we think it could do with a bit more of a sense of progression. It'sd uqite difficult to get excited about the prospect of winning £500 when there's £20ki already in the bank. I'm not sure of the best way to get round this though.

Otherwise we like it. The problem is I'm not convinced it's travelling as well to TV as thought it might.

Anon(n)ymous comment:

• Hi there! Thank you for your recent message. SCIFI UK has no current plans to screen Estate of Panic or Cha$e in the near future.  Your comments have been passed onto the relevant departments for discussion in their next meeting as our schedule is constantly being reviewed. In the meantime we hope that you continue to enjoy our other programmes on SCI FI UK. Kind Regards Duty Officer SCI FI UK

Well we haven't written to SCIFI UK, so god knows what that was all about. I hope someone's not writing on our behalf.

12th November 2008

Cha$e, then.

OK, you probably know what it's about by now (it's sort of a bit like a real life video game version of tag, although we reckon there's more than a touch of Pacman in there as well) so what's it actually like?

• As a Brit who quite enjoyed Loves Like a Dog (and not forgetting also having a stint hosting Live and Bloody Kicking) it's quite difficult to take Trey Farley seriously as a sort of menacing cool host character.
• The phones are an almost completely unneccessary device - especially if the video messages are all edited in afterwards, what's wrong with just telling the contestants things through an earpiece?
• In fact unneccessary devices seem to be the show's watchword - the money clock is completely pointless. If you win, you win the $25,000 on offer regardless of when you make the exit.
• There are 25 yellow Chase flags throughout the vicinity worth a thousand dollars each if you survive. But there may as well have not been for all the difference it seemed to make to the proceedings.
• OK, the good news. Because and despite of the fact there is so much going on, they've managed to edit together a narrative quite well. There's very little in terms of wasted airtime, either someone's about to get caught, there's going to be a near miss or there is a mission to concentrate on. It manages to keep up a decent pace throughout the hour, and you don't really feel lost at any point.
• We liked the ferry. More special features please!
• The graphics were a bit mundane, in honesty, but they were adequate in conveying information. David Darling probably thinks they're "ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!!!"
• We didn't like the idea of just phoning back to buy out. We really really think they should have some sort of exit point for buying out and just make surviving the hour the main event. "AMAZING PLAYABILITY!"
• The Hunters actually do a brilliant job with playing along with all the devices actually, it must be quite hard to pretend someone's not actually there in the heat of the moment. Icey off of Cram is one of them. They are quite cool.
• Some sort of map scale would be nice. We don't actually know how big the area is!
• Anyway, there's an entertaining show here that could do with some tweaks to become a really brilliant one.

If it's good enough for everyone else...

I'm a Celeb line-up:

• Esther Rantzen
• Robert Kilroy-Silk
• Simon Webbe
• Carly Zucker
• Martina Navratalova
• Dani Behr
• Joe Swash
• Brain Paddick
• Nicola McLean
• George Takei. Obviously.

Predict Paddick or Takei to leave first, Kilroy to get Bushtucker trials every day, Rantzen's my surprise pick to win.

Looks like they've got a new logo too. The show begins on Sunday.

10th November 2008

The Clipton Factor - The Big Breakfast

Well it's Spin Star week so what relevant thematic clip could we come up with? Well we've already done Cannon and Ball's Casino, so you've got the last ever Star Turn from the last ever Big Breakfast from 2002, hosted by political commentator Richard Bacon, Amanda Byram and Lisa Rogers. Do you see?

9th November 2008

I hope this is a mock-up and not the actual logo:

"...and coming up next on GMTV..."

Meanwhile in other news, some people misunderstand how The X Factor works.

Spin Star, then

Enjoyed it, but then I think it's quite a fun format. It's quite a quick 45 minutes, isn't it? A few reservations that come across in the edit, though:

• There's something a bit off with the direction and I can't quite put my finger on what it is. The audience mixing, perhaps?
• I think the reel values towards the end of the game could do with being a bit more middle-weighted, it looks like lots of low amounts plus the top value, really those final couple of spins should have more £3,000-£5,000 values on it whereas it looked more like £500-£3,000 with a £10,000 on it somewhere. This is just the gameshow law of natural progression, really.
• Something else I noticed at the time but I don't think anyone's really mentioned - it's massively old-skool, isn't it? I don't think this is going to appeal to the Golden Balls demographic.

Things we have just this minute discovered by accident:

• Lee Stafford from Celebrity Scissorhands is Dermot O' Leary in twenty years time.

8th November 2008

New Fantasy X Factor scores! How are you doing, managers?

Clip Boyard

As doubtless you've gathered by now, if there's been some sort of underlying theme to the Bar during a week, we'll try and find a Fort Boyard clip that sort of fits the theme. What's been this week's theme? Undoubtably it's been (元¥$€ (we'll probably just revert to calling it Chase in future, as it happens). In it, some people dressed as Agent Smith from rubbish film trilogy The Matrix chase after some people. A matrix is like a grid. Perches also involves a grid. You can't learn to be this clever, really you can't, it's just innate.

Of course they play this game today (Although this clip comes from 2005), but for those who haven't seen it the idea is for a group of three to find the secret line of three in a three by three grid and to then to simultaeously keep the buttons pressed until a fuse blows releasing the key.

Don't forget Spin Star starts on Monday on ITV1 at 3:15pm. We enjoyed the recording of it, hopefully it will come across well on telly. Unless you're in Scotland where it's on at 2pm, because you have to different, don't you?

6th November 2008

The OFFICIAL Bother's Bar SPOILERS! Oh. Bill of Rights

Buy your own puppy. We are a UK site.

• If a show has gone out in the UK, it's fair game. If you had taped to watch later, that's your perogative, avoid the newest comment box.
• If it's going/gone out in Europe, chances are you can watch it live online or probably not watch it at all. It's fair game.
• If it's a show that has gone out in the US or The Rest of the World on one of the main networks, please wait until the next evening after broadcast before discussing so that people in the UK can have a chance to watch without knowing what's about to happen.
• The grey area - US shows not on a main network. If it's a new show, go ahead and talk about it for the first episode although try not to discuss actual results. If it doesn't look like it's turning up anywhere then you can speak freely. If it's otherwise viewable then please wait a day after broadcast.
• The same rules apply to any special sidebars I put up.

So basically, I have no problem with people detailing the first episodes of (元¥$€ or Estate of Panic (although try not to name names), but if you could hold off episode two until we know if they're going to be avaliable or not, that would be awesome. Thanks!

5th November 2008

UNPRECEDENTED INTERNATIONAL EXCITEMENT.

It's a European special on Going for Gold on Friday. Now, is this European as in "we've been advertising in Europe" or more likely, European as in "has moved to the UK recently"? And will the winner get crowned European TV Quiz Champion? The excitement is too much to bear.

EDIT: It's people who have moved to the UK recently.

Also, what happens if John Suchet needs some time off? Five's other live quizzes used to have two or more hosts on rotation. What odds Keith Chegwin is the stand-in?

4th November 2008

The Clipton Factor - Blankety Blank

We were going to do Kenny Everett's legendary wand bending, but that's already on Youtube in several forms (oh no, it wasn't a one off by any means). So from 1979 here's that most seventies of TV things, the "surprise" celebrity guest cross-promotional plug thing. What a gay day!

In other news, it looks like Caroline Flack is the new co-host of Gladiators which is a choice we are completely ambivilent about, and that the "revamped Eliminator" is going to have a "surprise new element". We're voting for spikes. Seriously, though we hope by revamped they're not going to make it completely unworkable like the US show. By accident or design, the smaller UK studio worked in its favour in this regard, although we suspect they'll get rid of the entirely pontless cotton reels.

2nd November 2008

Ooh dear, a bit of a shock on The X Factor this evening. How has it affected the scores?

1st November 2008

Spooky Clip Boyard

We've uploaded it to Youtube twice now, but nothing seems to be appearing. So we'll keep checking and put it up if and when it finally goes up.

Phew, it's here now. We were politely asked if we could include some of the "saynettes" (sketches) that the show used, so here's the one from the Halloween 1997 special. What was special about it? They made some of the games a bit creepier, basically. This week's clip is Tayau Transparent - a game they've been playing for almost 20 years now, see if you can spot what's different about it...

In the meantime, here's a new comment box. It's Schlag den Raab this evening for €1m.

Ooh! Also we got this anon(n)ymous comment:

• Mole on Mode: Grant Bowler, host of Aussie Mole I-IV turned up on "Ugly Betty" Thursday.

And he was on Lost! Truly, the Alan Dale of our generation.