Alright first things first – it’s a new Happy Hour competition! Word Up! offers up to £50 for the winner, go and have a look.
Otherwise there’s not much to get excited about this week – Amazing Race Australia nears its climax, Fort Boyard 2010 is on TV5 on Monday although seeing as this is episode 8 of a 7 episode series I don’t know what it is they will be showing. Fort Boyard 2011 goes from strength to strength on Saturday – who would have thought painting some doors and knocking ten minutes off the running time would have been so successful?
So here’s a clip of one of my favourite new old things, Pied Marin:
Seems like french-speaking Belgium is gonna air sometime soon Minute To Win It :
http://www.rtltvi.be/emission/60-secondes-chrono/138.aspx
Your mandatory money tree :
100.000€
75.000€
50.000€
25.000€
10.000€
7.500€ (Safe)
5.000€
2.500€
1.000€
500€
I’m not really sure why anyone would still like to risk their winnings after the €50K level, especially on some luck-based stunts…
Also – look, it’s Belgian 1 VS… errr, 70 !
http://www.rtltvi.be/video/340823.aspx
Interesting find, thanks. By my limited understanding, the contestant gets to select the questions but to win the money has to eliminate all the 70 within 10 questions. If they get the question wrong, no money is added to the pot and one eliminated contestant chosen at random comes back into the game. The 1 still wins the money if they get the last question wrong provided everyone left in the crowd gets it wrong.
It’s not big money. No Endemol credit either.
No Endemol credit as it’s based on a different format (“Beat The Crowd”, see there : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymjvysEW0sY ) – sharing some points with 1 Vs 100.
You are correct about how it works – contestant win if there’s no one standing at the end of the 10th question (or ninth one as there’s no reinteger for a wrong answer in Q10), else contestant loses (but still pockets €10 for each knockout) and pot gets split between survivors.
It’s low budget as RTL-TVI , like all French-speaking broadcasters in Belgium have quite a limited budget and programming power (the channel aired some years ago something like six to eight hours of call-in-and-lose programs everyday !) – but it’s popular since it breaked the 2000 episodes mark this year in April, according to Wikipedia.
See also: the Week of 7 January 2007, where I suggested might make a decent little filler for ITV.
Northern Ireland versus Tyneside on this week’s Uni Chal: Queen’s University Belfast v Newcastle.
The Troubles were still very much going when Queen’s won the 1981 series – but as they make their seventh appearance in the Paxman Era and first since 2004/5 (when they scored only 40 against Jesus Cambridge), Ian Paisley has pretty much withdrawn from public life, and tourism in the Six Counties is booming.
Newcastle, meanwhile, has always been a generally peaceful place, but the university hasn’t produced a series-winning team. Its PE record doesn’t make good reading, either – quarter-finals 1995/6, 1999/2000 and 2001/2, second round 2002/3 and 2004/5, first round 2006/7, 2007/8 and 2010/11. And when they’ve lost, they’ve done so fairly heavily… 😕
The big new talent show this autumn on not-Freeview-so-who-cares channel Sky 1 is 101 Ways To Leave Let Me Entertain You.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/25/sky1-autumn-hidden-camera-show
DOND are doing School’s Out specials over this week by the look of things, and Noel’s dressed as a school headmistress. If you see it, you WILL need Brain Bleach!
Maybe if this works here, BBC America will get the sense to bring QI over…
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/07/25/bbc-america-announces-two-original-unscripted-series-and-its-first-development-slate/98765/
I’m lead to believe the reason BBCA doesn’t have QI is a licensing problem with the images they use in the backgrounds. Not a clue if that’s accurate or not, though.
It appears to be the main stumbling block, and it’s very short-sighted of them. If you sweet-talk most copyright holders, they’ll do World rights for the same price as Europe.
As for why they don’t remake more UK panel games in the US, producers say it’s because the US doesn’t have enough comedians who can cope with witty banter, to use a phrase.
For those following, episode 8 of 7 of Fort Boyard on TV5 is the 2009 Best of.
INCIDENTALLY! Frank Skinner mentions Richard O’ Brien, Crystal MAze and Fort Boyard on his podcast this week.
Broadcast today said:
Optomen in fact already have several entries on UKGS, mostly involving pro chefs, but also a driving quiz on Bravo. Studio Lambert have three entries, all in the “reality” category.
Worth a Fortune tickets here: http://www.applausestore.com/applausestore-book-show.php?id=965&bid=1
This sounds just a little bit like Come And Have A Go If You Think You’re Smart Enough, doesn’t it? But with one really big team.
Wasn’t the Wisdom Of Crowds Derren Brown’s supposed way he broke the lottery?
I still think the biggest game show ever was Test The Nation: The National Testy Test, with at least 50,000 people contributing data so that Phillip Schofield could wax lyrical about the most minute and utterly insignificant differences. That or Big Brother, an unstructured social / anthropological experiment in surveillance culture and the role of celebrity, now in its twelfth year.
“If we’re to believe Derren Brown…” then realised there’s no way that sentence can end without a contradiction.
Ah yes Test The Nation.
Ignoring the crash zooms and wrong camera cuts, the off mic and bad sound mixing, and Anne Robinson trying at times to remember none of the players in the studio were the weakest link in the last round.. it wasn’t that bad. As a twice a year treat, I looked forward to the end of the year quiz that hovered around the airwaves near Christmas.
Any reason why it was canned by BBC One? Budget? Licencing cost of the format? Apathy from the 6th floor of TVC?
Oh yeah, and I always thought for the roving 2nd presenter bit, they should have used a steadycam rather than an at times motion sickness inducing PSC handheld chappie.
Could have been because of its budget – but as it says on its UKGameshows.com page, it was discontinued at just the right moment.
Here I go taking the part of the gormless Yank again–but what is going on in this “Pied Marin” game on “Fort Boyard”?
It looks as elaborate as some of the “Crystal Maze” games, which makes sense, all things considered. But between the French language (which I understand very little) and the photography, I can make neither heads nor tails of what the fellow is doing, or what he is trying to accomplish.
At one end of the rope is a locked box with the key inside, at the other end of the rope is the key to the locked box. The player has to pull the box along the rope’s course so it can reach the key (Same idea as the underwater game with the wrench).
Is it just me, or is there not NEARLY enough time given for this game?
I’d assume they test these things out, as such it’s difficult to know whether it’s genuinely a tough challenge for the time limit or the contestants aren’t up to scratch. It does seem to take a little while for the contestants to cotton on to what they need to do.
The original Pied Marin, of course, was basically Finders Keepers in a simulated rocking boat.
Incidentally, “menotte” games seem to be the fort’s speciality, I can think of four games being played at the moment that use it as an mechanic – La Menotte, Pied Marin, the underwater wrench game AND the shrinking room (you’ll note a smooth transition from French to English here).
Plus Mannequin from two years ago, in a way.
Just seems like very little time, since two people barely started by the time they figured out what the point was, and the one person who DID figure it out quickly still didn’t even get really close to the end.
Mmm, good call on Mannequin.
I would hope someone beats Pied Marin at some point before the end of the series to prove it can be done – I’ve suspected for a while the producers try and manipulate certain things to guarantee a prisoner or two (consider tight time limits for the balls de cotton and the external corniche) so make the intermediate bit worth doing, but Pied Marin is one of the more elaborately setted games it would be a shame not to get the most out of it. I would hope the producers have enough confidence in their own game to have some sort of back up plan for the Hall of Judgement if the team would manage to blitz the keys.
This is currently my fave series since 2005.
Also it appears there’s a bit more editing in some places, even so much as in the games themselves. I’ve only felt it in places, but a couple of times I have noticed time being a bit shorter than it should be.
Yes, this is certainly the case in games where progress can be quite difficult like the barrel of powder, for example, where it’s easy to do some elision. You’ll note if you watch it online, the 45 minutes is more like 40. You’ll note they’ve cut the time limit on most of the adventures as well.
Too right, I don’t think ANY have been 3 minutes this year.
In particular, Taquin marin with only 1 person and a 90 second time limit is borderline impossible.
I thought that was doable actually, if he hadn’t spent time not quite putting one in place to let another one move he could have done it.
One nice retro thing is in the Equilbre et deux where the contestants actually got a cartouche without having to do a silly combination lock. I can accept codes to open boxes for some games but I think generally speaking four figure combinations do not have the same televisual payoff as someone grabbing a cartridge hanging in the air.
Dirty secret – on some Crystal Maze games, the on-screen clock is sped up if a game is boring.
Yep, you’ve mentioned this before. They did it very well though, I’d never have known.
The thought came to me–in one of those unlikely places where thoughts can come to a person–that “Pied Marin” must mean “Sea Legs”–which explains the rocking.
I like what I’ve seen of “Fort Boyard” on YT, especially the UK versions. I might find the French version of some interest, except that I don’t know how I’d handle the language barrier. Seems like they’ve come up with a lot of games over the years.
Disney XD here is supposed to be running a kids’ version of “Fort Boyard” this autumn. I look forward to it.
I think you’d quite like it – it’s the show that spawned Crystal Maze after all. Whatsmore, the challenges tend to be physical in nature (certainly in the first half of the show) so the langauge barrier isn’t a massive issue, although obviously you’ll miss out on the riddles and solving the codeword.
This page will not win any awards for design but it does have links to entire episodes from each of the show’s 22 seasons, and also foreign versions:
http://fort-boyard-lerepertoire.e-monsite.com/
In fact, here’s a good episode for you. From 1997, European boy band World’s Apart take on the Fort, and the whole show is done mainly in English: http://fort-boyard-lerepertoire.e-monsite.com/rubrique,12-worlds-apart,577450.html
As the challenges are more physical, it’s worth knowing (especially if you’re used to the The Crystal Maze), that the main challenge of the games on Fort Boyard isn’t actually understanding what you have to do, it’s doing it.
This is why things like Bonneteau are popular and last for a long time, and things like Pivot 2004 don’t.
Thanks to that site I’ve just watched the first 1990 episode in disgust, not at the format you understand, but the intelligence of the contestants – I’ve never shouted at the screen so much before. Interesting to see the newly redecorated ‘jungle gym’ was in the first series.
Yep, ‘salle de tortue’ – the torture chamber. I read on fortboyard.net it was Pere Fouras’ gym! Old games have been making a comeback in recent years, usually in a remixed form. This was originally played up until (off the top of my head) 1994.
I think the first episode is the one where Patrice Laffont (at this stage running around with the contestants still) gets particularly annoyed with a contestant in The Alchemist, and the voiceover points out that it’s particularly difficult for the first team because they won’t have seen the games before.
I have often wondered how much briefing contestants are given these days about the games they’ll face. Especially with the live animals, they all seem curiously good at knowing the best way to deal with them. In these days of the internet I would hope anyone visiting the fort would do their own research (This appeared to be the case in a few of the Challenge episodes) but there are always new games being added.
I think with the show being over 20 years old you probably have some idea of what might be asked of you – although this year is slightly different because of the large refresh of all the adventures that’s happened. I know the games that come up are largely determined by what they learn about you at dinner the night before.
If you watched this week you’d note Cyril Feraud was a contestant. Not only does he host the French version of Pointless, but it also turns out he was a Fort Boyard staffer about ten years ago – this is fun interview and worth putting through Google Translate: http://www.fortboyard.net/article754.html
That site you recommend for “Fort Boyard” does not work for me.
I tried to take a gander at that episode you recommended, and instead got shunted onto something else entirely–some kind of chat room.
I do not want to be shunted, especially if I don’t know the whys and the wherefores of where it is that I’m being shunted to!
Interesting, it works fine here, albeit after an advert.
Tried that site again–still could not access the program you recommend. This time, I got an advert that could not be escaped without giving up my e-mail address. I am NOT going to be deluged with junk e-mails from a chain of sandwich shops! (Petula Clark says: “Don’t sleep there”!)
I’d like to think that I can recognize a scam when I see it!
Well I’m sorry to hear that but it’s working fine here. As long as you click on the Play symbol in the middle of the advert, the show should play without you needing to fill in anything.
Hit the red play button and a new window with and advert should open. Allow it to load then close it and return to the first window. The play button should now be green. Press it to play the video. Hope that’s helpful.
Managed to get it to working. Sometime when I’ve got a couple of hours to kill, I’ll give it a closer look.
Subtitles might help in some spots–but if this is a French site, one should not expect them to figure out that a non-Francophone would want to see it! Hopefully, I can figure it out. If not, I’ll get back with some questions.
That’s the UK vs US children’s competitive format that there was a contestant call on ukgameshows a couple of months back, isn’t it?
I’ll give it a chance, but I’m not anticipating it being as good as proper (or even British flavoured) Boyard.
It looks like the Duel idea is erroneous as it turns out. We still don’t actually know the format.
Someone must know someone who worked on the show.
I have seen pics from the filming (thanks Lee) which show the two containers for collecting boyards in the treasure room as per the duel format.
Can’t find online where said pic is, but it exists.
Just looking on Twitter tonight and it seems as though contestants were filming for four days, is this normal or does it mean it’s going to be reality type show with the same contestants for the whole of the series?
Not that I know anything, despite badgering the the CITV programme planner for the last fortnight – but that would suggest to me that teams might appear in more than one episode yes, but as I noted elsewhere, it’s been a long time since CITV did a roll-over game show.
I can see it on CITV, but would that work for Disney? It would certainly make sense in so much that 30 minutes doesn’t really allow for very much to happen in terms of the show structures we all know.
Incidentally there was meant to be a French kids version of the show in 2009 called Operation Fort Boyard, although for whatever reason it fell through. I would suggest the ratings collapse led to it, but I think they would have finished filming at the fort by the time the 2009 eds went out.
That was me incidentally, wasn’t paying attention to the boxes I was filling in!
I worked that out myself 🙂
I’ve been doing some asking on Twitter and had a direct message which went something like this “it’s a series tournament, they play for keys and go to the treasure room at the end.”
Whether they mean at the end of each show or whole series I have no idea.
I would presume at the end of the episode.
Above Jon
In preparation for the new series on August 15th, BBC Four are repeating a couple of Only Connect specials on the next two Mondays starting with the UC/Guttenplan one.
Found a little something on YouTube. Since we’re fans of Japanese shows like Run For Money and Dasshutsu Game DERO!, I thought you all might like this one too. I only JUST found it, so I’ve no idea how it works or anything like that, but it’s called Time Shock 21. There’s a number of episodes on this channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/kerochonpa
Enjoy!
Ooh, Time Shock. From what I’ve seen it’s been going on since the 80s (with that set with the raised seat and the racetrack timer done with a load of fairground ride lamps).
Still no idea what’s going on though.
Ha ha, well all I can say is that it’s Japanese.
I’m sat watching the first episode on the list and a round involves the teams recognising objects, starting off completely unrecognisable then slowly coming clearer. One of them has a group of spaceships flying around and shooting at a giant drawing pin! It’s visually impressive, mind.
Mmm! Thanks for this, I know there’s some really old Time Shock on Youtube, which was basically “answer as many questions as you can in a minute for cash”. Obviously they’ve tarted it up a bit since then.
I hope we’re all doing the TIME! SHOCK! movements at the relevant points.
Time Shock from (I think) 1978!
http://youtu.be/WUYv-MwFxl0
Cool, thanks for that, Brig.
According to Wiki, that first version of the show ran from 1969-1986 lasting 888 episodes, there was a revival in 1989-1990 with 22 episodes, and the version I saw (Time Shock 21) ran from 2000-2002 with 65 episodes and 9 specials. You’ll no doubt have recognised Chairman Kaga from Iron Chef hosting TS21.
I’m currently watching the one labelled episode 8. It looks like there are two teams of five and several visual puzzles. Every point the winning team gets means an attempt at Final Time Shock where they must amass 10000000 yen in order to win it. Fun show.
The other thing to note is that all questions are on a sort of tape, questions get asked at five second intervals regardless of whether you answer or not.
Not getting enough questions right means the TORNADO SPIN!
And during the team quiz, getting it wrong means the individual has to sit out the rest of the question.
EPIC SPIN! #only10daystoolatetoriskbeingfunny
And another set of clips there are from 2008 w/ an elimination- style format..the last bit is pretty intense, with the final two players having to go through rounds with increasing minimum correct answer requirements..
Told you I’d have some questions after seeing it–or rather, after seeing the seventy-two minutes allotted on that site.
Some of the games were ones I’ve seen before on “Fort Boyard”, including that “rotating cylinders” game and the “treadmill and buckets” game. Some–like one that got used twice in the same episode (!)–I could no make heads nor tails of. Ditto that “rowing machine” game–what was the point? And what were some of what one might call “Boyard’s games” that led up to the 72-minute mark?
There’s been some more of the UK show that is on YT that wasn’t there before. I’m going to be looking it up from time to time.
The only game I can think of that is used twice in that episode (I’ve not watched it for a number of years) is Father Fouras’ riddles in the watchtower which is actually played three times – twice for keys and once for a clue.
The idea of the rowing game is to push the mechanism enough so that the lantern fully drops, pushing the key out the top of it.
I think you may be referring to the Council – between the tests and the adventures the team earn time in the treasure room by duelling the masked Maitres d’Jeu – Gamesmasters – in various games.
Actually I’ve just realised it might be something else – La Sauvageonne’s game. La Sauvageonne (Savage Woman) was introduced to the Fort the previous year. Sometimes she would handcuff an unlucky contestant to the boiler pipes for the test of la Menotte, sometimes she would play a bonus game with them. This year, she just drags people off to her lair to play the bonus game.
The game is very simple – pick a coin. If it’s got a gold back then you win bonus Boyards to add to the pot at the end. Stop any time you like, but if you find the one with the white back then the game is over and you lose everything accumulated. If you go all the way to the end you win the equivilent of 25,000 Francs for the team.
As a sort of comparison, 100k Francs was generally considered the benchmark for a very successful adventure. It’s never revealed what a single Boyard is worth (except in the German version where 1 Boyard = 30DM = about £10). The modern equivilent is probably €20,000.
XE.com says it’s about €15,000, which is pretty much what many teams get about now. Particularly as it appears that this year the value of one Boyard has increased significantly.
Now I think about it, maybe that’s why they have on average less time in the treasure room…
Not trying to be a constant pimp but you’ve been very supportive thus far so I wanted to go into detail here first. Our legal woes are over and we’re allowed to go back to podcasts. We will pick upnDouble Cross again but our network issues dampened that so we need a break from even thinking of it
Our new one is called War of the Words. It’s The Cube meets a word game tournament. Best of all it’s our most ambitious: any English speaking person can play and through the tournament we promise someone will win up to $500. We’ve done a few run throughs and we’re constantly tweaking. We changed more from last night’s demo. Reception has been great and I don’t thinkwe’ve been as excited about a show before. We’ve got a few dozen exchangeable word games so you’ll never know what will come up.
We’ve got a perfect 3 for 3 record for turning podcasts and flash games into TV shows so we would not go forward unless it met our huge standards. We’re inviting back the entire old crew from PinPoint and hopefully most come back. Waiting to hear on that. We’re debuting in September for at least one tournament and hopefully you all like it. You’ll be some of the first to know of contestant calls.
It’s great going back to indie. We can go back to doing what we want and it’s much more exciting going for cash. Our new top prize equals 500,000 oodles so we’ve got a 2000 percent prize increase. Awesome for us. Thanks for putting up with me.