Donny Osmond has been revealed as the, heh, ideniny of the US Secret Fortune pilot. So here’s a clip of Donny fronting The Pyramid Game:
The UK version was slightly bafflingly Donny-centric. When I went and saw it being filmed, I was one of the few non menopausal-women in the audience. And even if you applied to be a contestant, the form was all about how excited you would be to meet Donny Osmond. Baffling.
I remember the Sky EPG giving 3/4 different names for the show. It was called Pyramid Game, The Pyramid Game, Donny’s Pyramid Game etc…
It looks like Sky are digging out the episodes as they’re going to repeat them in August at 2am.
Louisa, Terry and Moon all seem to be spammers, you may need to fix something.
Yep, I’m getting a few of those through at the moment, the spam messages have changed their tactics a bit. Askimet will catch-up I’m sure.
In fairness, Challenge were probably beside themselves with joy Donny’d agreed to host their version…quite a coup for them, really, when they’re used to attracting Richard Arnold types.
This may be a bit of a tenuous link, but I remember aaages ago when Gloria Hunniford used to have a chat show on 5, Donny was on it and said that his childhood dream was to present a game show. So maybe he did it in the US, loved it, and wanted to do more, I ‘unno.
(Also I can’t believe that out of all the things I did when I was 9, this is one that I still remember seeing.)
Talking of Richard Arnold hosting Take It or Leave It, Barrymore was originally penciled in to do it but the powers that be deemed it too risky to give him the gig, shame they didn’t as I’m sure “Michael Barrymore’s Take It or Leave It” would have been an even bigger ratings hit just with people watching out of curiosity and that fact he must still bring in the punters as Strike it Richy still brings in the punters as it’s still shown in decent positions from time to time.
I’m not surprised Challenge made a big thing of having a big international celebrity to host a game show on that channel, I was surprised when they landed Eamonn Holmes for the final series of TV Scrabble.
Given it was a co-production between Challenge and Sony Television (producers of the 2002/2003 revival of Pyramid, also with Donny Osmond). I suspect they were half way there to secure him. I think it was a bigger coup for the BBC to get him for Identity.
you mean “ideniny” right, with its irreplaceable catchphrase “IS. THAT. YOUR. IDENINY?”
I think people would have been more surprised to see him Challenge than BBC Two.
Bit disappointed with Fool Us tonight. The quick change act wasn’t going to fool anyone (there’s only really two techniques in quick change) and the ‘winners’ fooled P&T by doing a deliberately fishy move that makes the trick worse than it really is. That’s two weeks in a row that’s happened.
Yes, I was watching the show myself and thought about how badly they’d done the switch at the end. You’d think the adjudicator (The Great Tomsoni, if you’re interested) might want to crack down on stuff like that.
I’m frantically searching on Youtube, but there was a clip of Penn and Teller doing some sort of documentary looking for other magicians, with Teller falling for the exact same thing and admitting it – unfortunately my recollection is so bad I can’t find it. Interestingly enough, I remember Teller actually speaking in it, which you would think would make it easier to find.
Wait a minute… 7 in :30, clever-but-not-too-punny categories, difficulty with a category full of names…
THIS IS HOW YOU PLAY (the) ($x,000) PYRAMID (game)!!!!!!!!!! (insert appropriate modifiers based on country and time period)
NOT THAT 6 IN :20 RUBBISH!
Um… Sorry. I got a little excited there. If you saw the travesty that is “Donnymid”, you know why. If you haven’t, I envy you.
I didn’t think it was that bad a show.
I have just watched NBC’s new gameshow ‘It’s Worth What?’. It was excellent, far better than what I was expecting and on a different league to shows like ‘Price is Right’. I predict this will be a hit and would be HUGE over here.
I’ll hold you to that.
Meamwhile, tickets for Worth a Fortune which seems to be a pretty similar idea for ITV are avaliable on SRO.
Us Brits have a fascination for antiques and valuing items. There is a big gap in the market for this kind of gameshow. From what I saw of It’s Worth What, it takes this type of gameshow to another level in terms of production values and prices of objects. Very polished show.
As you might know, Joe, It’s Worth What debuted with 6.7m (3.9/7) with 1.9/6 among adults 18-49. So not a “hit” just yet, then. Let’s see what happens.
On a related note, I see 101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow is flopping in the States.
101 Ways To Leave a Gameshow isn’t flopping. Its last episode had a respectable 1.5 A18-49, which aint bad at this time of the year with a low lead-in.
Weeeeeeeell, IWW has lost a quarter of last week’s key demographic audience to 1.5, 101 Ways is down a tenth to 1.4.
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/07/27/tv-ratings-tuesday-its-worth-what-talent-tumble-but-nbc-still-wins-hells-kitchen-masterchef-rise
It isn’t as spectacular a flop as it was on BBC1… is it?
Worth a Fortune is Applause Store, my bad.
I’ve seen this now. It’s basically sound. Nice set.
I’ve probably not been looking hard enough but so far the usual places have not provided me a proper description of how the game is played. Can anyone point me to one, please, or provide a link to the show that is UK-accessible?
Unrelatedly: someone please turn IAssociate into a bonus round of a word game. Create a nicely interconnected word/phrase map with, perhaps, fifteen prompts, three known to start with, twelve to guess, perhaps only six of the twelve to guess shown at the start. A contestant ought to be able to shout out the other twelve in a minute or so, particularly if you show letters correctly guessed in incomplete words.
IT’s basically sort of The Price is Right with collectables and antiques – a couple play a number of games for increasing amounts of money and can risk it on the end game to win 10x their bank.
Actually watched it, end game is mildly interesting – you get four items. You are then shown the House’s four items. You match up your items against the house’s, making sure your items are the most valuable of each pairing. Then you decide the order they will face off. One win wins your bank, two wins wins 2x the bank, three wins is 4x and correctly winning all four face offs earns 10x the bank. You can stop at any time, because if you play and you’ve picked an item that is less valuable than the House’s item, you leave with 25% of your initial bank.
The most irritating thing about the show is the standing ovations given b the audience at every opportunity.
Also ignore IAssociate, Word Up is beginning this afternoon!
I trust you’ve played Funny Farm? http://shygypsy.com/farm/p.cgi