Let’s go through your ANONYGOSS and try and see if there’s anything juicy/truthful.
- Studio Lambert where attempting but unable to lock down Alex/Kate to play again in series 2 of The Circle. They were going to get him to catfish as someone else. (Ahh, Studio Lambert, redefining the catfish genre. I’m a bit worried about The Circle actually, will people be a bit “so what?” this time round about the catfish element if basically everybody is going to be at it? I also feel sorry for Maya Jama and Alice Levine, as much as I like Emma Willis. Worth reiterating: for all the social media buzz the first series created, it didn’t actually rate all that, so it will be interesting to see if this Does A Love Island or not.)
- HQ Trivia had a TV show in the works until HQ dropped off the face of the Earth. (Hey! Do remember when everyone was like “heeey, this is the future!” and I went “no it isn’t” and then it wasn’t and it turns out the youth have no critical faculties? Great days. Is that German show based on Quiz Up still a thing? Is Quiz Up still a thing?)
- I saw Richard Osman getting out of a lift the other day. (Bluff. He’s so tall he doesn’t need lifts.)
- The masked singer will have Joel Dommett at the helm with the panellists being Jonathan Ross, Rita Ora & the weirdest choice of the 4 being Davina McCall. The 4th panellist is a carryover from the US edition, Ken Jeong. The company doing the translation to UK shores is a newcomer but is Scottish owned. They are Bandicoot who are behind BBC’s chase the case & Test Drive. (Old news, except the bit about Ken Jeong. Thanks anyway. Tickets SRO.)
- Heard reports that the host of Crystal Maze US is Adam Conover, of Adam Ruins Everything fame. (Ooh. Not really aware of his ouevre. I hope Adam Conover has a combover – it could be his thing, like Ayoade’s hand on a stick)
- During the taskmaster studio records, Katy wix unfortunately got sick so for episode 5 and 6 she will be replaced by kerry godliman and Katherine Ryan, respectively. That means they will be doing the prize task and the live task and providing the banter, not the pre recorded tasks. (Now that is interesting, although given the series is recorded quite quickly that’d suggest Katherine Ryan and Kerry Godliman are on some sort of speed dial. Intrigued to see if this is correct.)
- One from the archives: In 1990, NBC relaunched Let’s Make a Deal in the 90’s taking advantage of the recently opened Disney MGM Studios theme park (now Disney’s Hollywood Studios) for its soundstage, and the park crowd for the audience. They didn’t tape every day, but left the sets up for the studio tours between their sessions. However, Disney management were short of content for the park, and were keen to make the park look more heavily used as a taping destination. As a consequence, park staff put together entire fake taping sessions of the show using the standing set and props and some very simple (read: cheap) prizes. I always wonder if the audience were told that there was never a chance of them appearing on TV… (That *is* interesting! It’s like a low-cunning low-stakes version of the TV phone-in scandal.)
- IT’S A CHALLENGE BRIG ROLLOVER: get a famous game show person (as discussed last month) to take part in a live Ask Me Anything interview on the Bar by the end of September and it’s worth £150 to the UK charity of your choice. Challenge Brig will not rollover again after this unless somebody else wants to fund it. (Nah, nobody will want to ruin their career by coming on. We’re like Eurovision.)
- Strictly: It Takes Two starting 23rd Sept from 5:15 to 6:30; this time slot for 2 weeks. I see BBC are making attempts to get rid of Pointless. I’ve thought it should since the beginning of this year. Unlike The Chase, the show never evolves. This stops it from being good anymore. (Bit harsh. They’re currently recording more Pointless, it’s not about to go anywhere, it still rates too well (and apparently they were trying out a new end game, although I don’t know if they’ll use it) I have been told it’s largely to do with the World Athletics Championships taking over BBC2.)
- The Circle is being more realistic year and will feature fake news stories for reactions (Not sure I believe this.)
- Rylan to host a revival of Don’t Scare the Hare. (Bluff.)
- Rylan to host a revival of Red or Black. (Bluff.)
- Rylan to host a revival of Only Fools on Horses. (Bluff. I know this because he’s too busy being lined up as the skyrunner for Treasure Hunt.)
- I can confirm the identity of the new American Maze Master will be unveiled when nickelodeon will publish their press statement the week commencing 7th October 2019. The date of transmission is expecting to be a 2020 release for their winter slate. (Is it Adam Conover, with a combover?)
IN OTHER NEWS, The I-Land is now on Netflix and I hope to start watching it in the next few days. The blurb makes it sound like the sort of drama Bother’s Bar viewers would like, we’ll see.
The Ken Jeong one was confirmed by Ken Jeong himself on Twitter over the weekend. There is also an official UK account for the show that said the same but doesn’t have many followers at the mo
well that and the fact ITV have pushed a press statement 2 days later. So wether Ken let the cat out of the bag early and they reacted to make it more official rather than slipup. In regards to CMUSA i havent really heard of Adam, but i guess he is well known in the states. I would of honestly gone with someone who is big both here and abroad so makes international sales stronger. i going to guess C4 will buy this version either way and then will be a factor of wether they put it on E4 or run it on all4 as a boxset.
here is the press statement. https://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/itv-announces-host-and-panel-new-itv-show-masked-singer
Both Ken and Jonathan Ross seemed to be retweeting the official account that was posting the info on Saturday so probably a lack of co-ordination by ITV
On my last trip to Los Angeles, Adam’s face was everywhere. Billboards, posters, all that.
So maybe LA cares more about him than average.
Huh, Adam Conover is an interesting choice that I could see working.
He’s a very… hmm… how to put this…. “straight camp”? But it’s all in a very natural, good-faith kind of way if that makes sense. Could definitely see him fitting the format in a way where his character would be able to do that “be true to the format” but still take the appropriate level of piss. Only maybe caution is he’s almost a little too upbeat for it?
RE Adam Conover: Well it is possible- nothing on his twitter can contradict it in the timeframe…
RE Let’s Make a Deal- there’s actually a highlight film of this (it was shown at a Xmas Party for the production):
https://youtu.be/34Ei5kzFhHo
Also would fit the social media influncers as it he did start and still make appearances on college humor, though not sure what the cross demographic of that and nickelodeon is.
Also, is that a combover?
Bandicoot is a very odd choice to be doing something of the scale and ambition of The Masked Singer,so far they’ve only done cheap stuff.
My understanding is that they were the ones that optioned the UK rights. So, when it became a hit elsewhere, they are the only game in town that UK broadcasters can go to. Even though it is two steps up from what they’ve done so far, they have enough knowledge to handle a show of that size.
In regards to taskmaster i wonder if Alex can confirm this fact as it doesn’t give away any results. At least if confirmed true we now know what the scenario would be if the contestant is unwell or confirmed to be unfit for the studio task. i’ll tweet him and see if his press advisors approve him to reply back.
Two bits of added gossip which hasn’t been mentioned. 23rd September (Monday) recording of the masked singer will have Donny Osmond as guest judge. I presume this might be the finale episode?
Also the following day The circle will launch (Tuesday 24th September) All this additional info supplied by SRO Audiences.
Have they learned nothing from Strictly. Strange signing for a show you’d think they’d want to trend young, though ITV probably need it to go big ratings wise rather than just do well in the demos.
It seems the taskmaster thing is true according to the press release https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/taskmaster/episodes/9/5/
Re: The Circle. Bringing back last years winner would have been interesting.
Agree re: Emma Willis. Seems strange to bring in someone so strongly associated with what when she was hosting it was a failing reality brand, especially over someone very up and coming like Maya Jama.
My first thought about taskmaster was “will they put the substitutes in Katy’s chair, or will they reorder them to preserve the alphabetical order?”.
Then I thought about it some more. (d’oh)
I’d say there’s a not insignificant chance that that’s *exactly* why these two were picked.
Speaking of Eurovision, Josh Dubovie (who got saddled with a terribad C-side from the reheated remains of Stock Aitken Waterman in 2010) resurfaced a couple of weeks ago and did a 45-minute Q&A on Youtube about how badly the BBC handles Eurovision. Really really interesting stuff, and explains why nobody with a career is interested in representing the UK.
Aww, the one time I thought I finally uncovered some hot goss, I guess it was already pretty common knowledge and it didn’t make the post. Oh well!
I’ve just noticed something that ended up in the spam. Sorry!
Big fan of Adam ruins everything and I think if true Adam will actually make a pretty good host. Will the USA show do fourth wall breaking that we are accustomed to though?
Looks like Adam Conover is FACT, so well done whoever left that.
EDIT h/t Dan Peake:
https://nickalive.blogspot.com/2019/09/nickelodeon-names-adam-conover-as-maze.html#.XXrkoMKlA04.twitter
Also for anyone wondering what Adam’s take will be and can’t be bothered to look at the link.
“Adam’s take has been like Willy Wonka in his chocolate factory – it’s his maze, he’s created all the games and he’s thrilled somebody has come to play with him for the day. Like Willy Wonka, there’s also a mischievous side to it, a bit of an edge – sometimes the kids lose, sometimes they get locked in.”
I can totally picture Adam playing it like that, and doing a really fine job of it, too.
Yes, this all feels like A Good Idea. Hope it works out.
In regards to the circle. I’m actually glad that they didn’t get Alex back, I don’t think it would have worked.
Although they could go full meta and have Alex catfish as someone from the first series such as Dan or sian.
An extra bit of goss, but not Stool Pigeon-worthy. The show that was originally titled ‘Number 1’ that’s recording later this month has had a change of name and a presenter reveal. The show will now be titled ‘Sitting On A Fortune’ and it’ll be hosted by Gary Lineker. Don’t know what to make of that, a BBC host fronting an ITV show.
Do we know if it’s related to the Brian Dowling hosted Irish show?
Yes we do and no it isn’t, we’ve been following this on Twitter last week.
Enough ITV hosts have been doing BBC shows of late, so maybe this is the other half of the cultural exchange.
THE I-LAND UPDATE:
5/7 episodes in it’s… not great. An interesting concept to be sure, and well shot, but the writing and acting lets it down rather. It takes ages before you give a toss about any of the characters.