Do you remember a little while (alright, quite a long time ago) Paul Brassey off of the telly asked us to do a survey asking what it was you wanted?
Well we’ve been given the results here. Thanks Paul.
There probably weren’t enough responses to make it truly worthwhile, regrettably, but feel free to have a look anyway.
Does anyone know what “Whew” is? (First table on page 9.) I’ve never heard of it.
It’s an old, American game show. Basically, one contestant placed blocks on a board, and then another player tried to go up the board by correcting mistakes in questions and avoiding the blocks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36IstaON-vs
And if you think the trippy set design is crazy here, look at the bonus round.
That’s just a consumate show from the Keynotes era. I’m still smiling.
Loads of bitter-sweet memories; I was lucky enough to meet Randy almost fifteen years ago.
*salutes*
Wish I would have noticed this originally. I would have put the link up. Could have gotten a few hundred more responses probably.
Man, it was linked to for weeks on the main menu bar an everything.
I apparently have tunnel vision and looked straight forward for a few weeks because I really did not notice this at all for some reason.
“Is there anyone on television who has never presented a game show, but who you would like to see do so?”
ADRIAN CHILES 1
Someone must’ve never heard of the Celador quiz Perfect Strangers.
Which probably should have got a second run.
Worse quizzes have.
Thank you for your labour of love, Paul; honour has been well and truly satisfied.
It’s a bit too flip and simplifies a little to excess to say “put eleven game show fans end to end and you’ll get fourteen different opinions”, but evidently there’s not a lot that we agree on.
Whoever voted for me in the “Who’s never presented a gameshow, but should” category, thank you. I was shocked and smiley at the same time 🙂
*double take* Tempting as it is to be skeptical about people on the Internet really being who they claim, I’ll just say “Cool! Thanks for dropping by”.
Changing the subject: were people after the challenge countdown music from You Bet!? Watch out for series 7, show 3, with Suzanne Dando, Eamonn Holmes, Geoff Capes and Nicola Stapleton, next time it comes round in the Challenge rotation, or you might be able to find it somewhere on t’Internet. There’s a glass-blowing challenge with very little noise, and no commentary – not even Matthew calling out the time remaining – over the music in full, or near enough full. I’d be very happy for Jonathan Sorrell to do the next BBC news countdown music next time there has to be a change.
Hi, CMD – I’m a HUGE gameshow fan, so I love this site – Was honoured to get a mention, I really was!
Trying my best to land a show somewhere at present – Been scarily quiet of late… Any producers reading this who want a host for a programme, pilot or run-through, do feel free to check out http://www.gregscott.tv
(I don’t miss a trick, me…)
Actually, even with 11 respondees I think the basic patterns are already established, although I would say just two things:
– Andrew Castle’s handling of Divided was pretty good, surely?
– Viewers think that it’s not important to get to know the contestants, but that’s one thing I think they’re wrong on. Even US shows with extreme time pressure (20 minutes of run time, including ‘packaged-in’ adverts) spend 2-3 minutes of contestant chat time. UK shows have got a lot better at cutting down the contestant chat to an acceptable level.
Interesting to see Push the Button getting a pasting. I’ll say it again – I think it’s a very, very weak show overall.
And I expect a flurry of Only Connect ripoffs based on these results, natch.
Andrew Castle’s handling of Divided was pretty good, surely?
The problem with Divided is that it didn’t need both Andrew hosting and Voiceoverwoman asking the questions. It’s not a slight against any of the hosts individually, but the way they were combined.
Viewers think that it’s not important to get to know the contestants, but that’s one thing I think they’re wrong on.
In the grand scheme of things, I think chatting to the contestants is less interesting than getting on with the game. The audience is hyped up for a big shiny game show, and the host is told to dissipate that energy by blethering on to the contestants for five minutes. Play Your Cards Right sticks in the memory as particularly egregious here; Family Fortunes got it right by splitting the same amount of chatter into little bits.
I expect a flurry of Only Connect ripoffs based on these results, natch.
Only Connect takes its name from EM Forster’s work Howard’s End. The rest is speculation.
Coming up on Channel 4, Live In Fragments No Longer, in which Bill Ormerod invites contestants to piece together a series of factual sentences from their constituent clauses. A bit like the traditional Consequences game to begin with, but the jackpot round seeks five, five-part statements from The Fragmatrix™.
On Pick Teevee, Only Connect USA, where Guy Smiley asks contestants to complete the sequence: 1, 2, 4 … and win one million dollahs!
And just after midnight on Channel 5 (or whatever they’re calling it this week), Wilcox at Howard’s End, at which point we draw a veil over proceedings.
I’m personally looking forward to Channel 5’s Finnegan’s Wake.
…Which will be an insensitively produced fly on the wall documentary about the funerals of various people called Finnegan, obviously, and will get complaints for adding an apostrophe before anyone starts reading the format details…
I would suspect that there is a difference between what you’re thinking of as ‘get to know the contestants’ and what the respondents are thinking of as ‘get to know the contestants’ – I would imagine you’re thinking of the ‘interesting fact about each contestant and quick question to each team’ of Only Connect, or the even more brief contestant introductions in The Crystal Maze and Fort Boyard where you get a stats screen with name, occupation, and hobbies (and, with FB, fears), while respondents who disliked it are thinking of ‘first section of show taken up by prolonged discussion with each contestant, possibly complete with ‘sob stories’, while the viewers are left yelling “Get on with it”‘
Basically, the difference between ‘get to know’ as in ‘introduced to’ and ‘get to know’ as in ‘hear the life story of’ – I mean, I do agree with your point if its that the anonymity huge teams requires (such as in 50/50) works to the detriment of the show, but you certainly don’t need any more information about contestants than Only Connect provides in the vast majority of formats, and some (University Challenge and Mastermind, for example) can get away with less.
…Actually, there’s something that’s possibly far too rarely done – Getting the contestant introductions while the first game/round/whatever is played – It worked quite well in that one season of Run The Risk they did it during, I thought, though obviously it would only really work with some formats and/or concepts. You occasionally see it, but you often get formats where it would work in which don’t.