Hey, gaming’s back and it’s not just for dweebs any more!!!
Yesterday’s big news is that genuinely iconic 90s show GamesMaster is coming back on E4 as a celebrity gaming challenge show, where five celebs will battle it out in “a gaming odyssey… over three episodes” to win the coveted Golden Joystick.
90s GamesMaster was basically a proto-New Top Gear which got away with a lot of silliness and smutty gags in an early-evening timeslot, and also appeared at a time where it could showcase things you wouldn’t have seen before. I’m struggling to see who this is going to be for in 2021 – people who remember the original? But we don’t think Dominik Diamond’s involved and Patrick Moore certainly won’t be. Young people? Already watching served many times over for gaming stuff on Youtube/Twitch. Celebrity fans? It’s not like Go 8 Bit is still a thing.
Still, good news for bald celebrity Tom Allen who’s agent is probably getting the call to be cast to be the next GM as we speak.
Anybody know if the GamesMaster Magazine is still a thing? I know it outlived the show by several years!
As for bringing the show back… Eh, I don’t think a show like this would work in this day and age, especially with hundreds, if not thousands of lets play and commentary channels devoted to video games on YouTube, as well as loads and loads of streamers on Twitch.
The only reason I tuned into Go 8-Bit was to see if they were playing a Sonic game on that particular episode. I didn’t really care much for Dara O’Brien or the z-list celebs taking part. At least Tails actually got a mention on British television, even if it was only Dave…
I read that GM mag published its last issue on November 1st, 2018.
I trust that Bother’s Bar would be an ideal Brand Partner for the revived show, surely?
He’s started, now he’ll finish: John Humphrys will step down as Mastermind host at the end of the current series.
With Nick Hewer leaving Countdown as well, this means that – unless I’m mistaken – Russell Davies will become the oldest current game show host (75 this April), while Jeremy Paxman will become the oldest on television (71 this May). And no obvious indications that Paxo will leave Uni Chal in the near future (although it’s clear that he’s not asking the questions as quickly as he used to – one of the factors in scores of 200 or more becoming less frequent over the last few years), or indeed that Russell will step down from BoB.
The first anniversary of Nicholas Parsons’ departure was a week and a half ago. How long will it be before we have another nonagenarian game show host on TV or radio?
(No ageism intended at any point in this post, of course.)
The weird thing about this is the brand surely has little recognition amongst the E4 demographic. I’m at the older end of the demo (if not older) and I don’t have any memory of the show. Fair enough if they’re not going to reference the old show at all but if it is going to have a lot of nostalgic references then it’s going to be lost on their target viewers.
Are Hewland International even still in business? Wonder who now owns the rights if they dont?
I’ll throw a name out there for Gamesmaster – Brian Blessed would be awsome in the role..
Rights held by Future Publishing (I assume they did the magazine?), currently optioned by Alaska TV, both according to Broadcast.
Yep, magazine outlasted the show by about twenty years.