Alright, quiet news period so let’s break out the Youtuberandomclipometer and see what comes up:
Why! It’s Jorge Garcia aka Hurley from Lost on brill Gunnar Wetterberg show Russian Roulette, the show High Stakes should probably have taken a bit more inspiration from.
We liked US Russian Roulette for its questions, music, unpredictability, strategy and comedy in no particular order. It is also unusual in that the US version of it is probably the best one. Where’s Rhona Cameron these days, eh?
(Will this do? – Ed)
The Spanish version had an interesting take on the endgame, I remember.
Fun fact: High Stakes was consulted on the side by someone who was a head producer for Russian Roulette.
Fun Fact: High Stakes was then produced by a former GSN executive who made the not-that-bad Catch 21 and the pretty good US version of High Stakes
Which is why I’m stunned at how poorly thought out everything is and I’d love to know what other influences came into it, since I know this crew and they wouldn’t let this fly.
Since Fort Boyards facebook group has been liberally posting online; and if you’re not watching Disney XD by some means you have a while to wait to see it; I can talk about new Fort Boyard – hurrah – they still haven’t shown the trailer I’ve seen – boo!
Lots of challenges which haven’t been seen in the UK version before face the teams on Fort Boyard including some of my favourites, also competitive caterpillar seen here
http://fortboyard.tumblr.com/post/11401586125/check-out-this-exclusive-sneek-peek-of-the-premier
and Precipice Exterieur on another video. Honestly is there nothing these young people aren’t prepared to do. I bet they’d crawl through any pipe count to any number just to take part. Of course Laura Hamilton’s interview gives away far more than I’d be prepared to – what exactly is a ‘cable kayak’ anyway?
Cable Kayak is the game where you kayak to buoys in the sea collecting keys, then attach them to a cable for the rest of the team to pull in to unlock the box on the wall.
It looks very much like this will have a very similar structure to the recent Dutch show, although with half the running time I’m very intrigued to see how it turns out.
Geno Segers has an epically low register.
Here we are look: L’Esquif
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THhxeqOPgzA
I’d be surprised if that wasn’t it at any rate. Cable Kayak is a rubbish name, but it does get across what the game involves quite well (i.e. a kayak and a cable).
Incidentally, Fortboyard.net’s retrospective series (currently covering 1990 to 2002) is well worth a Google Translate: http://www.fortboyard.net/rubrique75.html
We do rather lack the romance of some of the French names – although it might have been Laura trying to name games with no English name. When I said to my programme strategy person that there were FB games that young people couldn’t possibly play he said ‘I think you’ll be surprised’ when I saw the trailer, I really was. Gino’s voice does take some getting used to – I tend to close my eyes and pretend it’s Barry White.
Other games noted on the trailers that are usually placed in a corner of the screen (just above the scrunched-up credit crawl) include “Stirrups” and “Swan Dive”. How they are going to get this into a thirty-minute time slot remains to be seen.
Geno Segers appears to be on the fast track to what Disney hopes will be stardom. Up to now, his biggest thing in this country has been a supporting role in a Disney XD sitcom, “Pair of Kings”. According to his Wikipedia listing, Disney was looking for someone who sounded like James Earl Jones and looked like The Rock. He appears to fit the bill.
I will be watching. . .
I believe I have a tape with two episodes of British Russian Roulette somewhere, the ‘pilot’ and the first episode of the first ‘series’