Some contestant calls I expect you will be interested in:
- Catchphrase is now looking for contestants, apply via our favourite audience site SRO. Ability to solve visual puzzles and not instinctively run away when Mr Chips comes up essential. Closing date November 25th.
- The Common Denominator might as well be described as Only Connect For Thickos, but there’s thousands at stake so who are the real thick ones, eh? Anyway Remarkable Television are looking for contestants and the show starts filming next month. Try and ignore their spelling of Colosseum. And actually what does connect swimming and Cocoon?
Also, you know every show that says “it’s not what you know, it’s how you think?” Almost all the time, it’s actually what you know.
Anyway friend of the Bar Vierkante O tweeted a link to new Dutch show Passie in De Polder (which I’m going to suggest probably doesn’t literally translate to Next Top Porn Producer). Unfortunately, “apparently” geoblocked.
However fear not, don’t forget that Victoria Coren off of Only Connect produced a porn film with Charlie Skelton and wrote a book about it, Once More with Feeling. It’s highly entertaining. And, er, Amazon are selling it used from £2.42.
Connection between swimming and cocoon….. butterfly… well that’s what my scrambled brain thinks
Ahhhhhhh, nice one. I was thinking Cocoon the film, what with it beginning with a capital letter and everything.
I’ll be honest, that’s what trapped me as well. That and as Paul and David said, the movie does feature a swimming pool so there’s lots of confusion there.
I am convinced that with the genius of the Million Pound Drop team behind it, these sorts of potential issues won’t make the final programme.
I’ve not actually watched Cocoon, I feel I should add.
I couldn’t get my head away from a Dan Peake level of awfulness cossy/cozy pun…
Haha! I would say that.
I’m fairly sure the movie Cocoon features swimming, but since that doesn’t lend itself to a neat one word answer I think you’re probably right.
The cocoons were in a swimming pool in the movie, so it makes sense, but butterfly is more common…I think we’re so attuned to Only Connect-type answers we’d overthink questions like this..
“Waiter! What are these cocoons doing in my swimming pool?”
And so on.
Ha ha, someone’s paying attention. They’ve changed the application.
So it’s normal folk then on Catchphrase.
From what we’re hearing about the pilot, they won’t be normal after an encounter with the new Mr Chips…
It turns out Raven is replacing porn stars in panto: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/showbiz/news/a433181/any-dream-will-do-star-axed-from-panto-due-to-porn-career.html
Interesting word, coliseum, which (like hieroglyph) I learned to spell during Codex. Basically, Vespasian’s famous amphitheatre at Rome is called ‘the Colosseum’ whereas any other general amphitheatre can (and is usually) spelt ‘coliseum’.
I’m intrigued, how were you spelling heiroglyph before?
Like this http://twitpic.com/b77mss
Wrongly, just like you did there.
Ha ha!
I always thought it was spelled ‘heiroglyph’ as well. Guess the old ‘i before e’ rule comes into it…
Really enjoyed that Richard Osman Guardian article that you tweeted a link to. Osman comes across very charmingly, but it’s slightly scary the extent to which he gets to do his trial-and-error on screen rather than in development. Wonder if he would be amenable to telling us about more of the misses on Fifty50, once he’s no longer Prize Islanding?
I think he’s back from PI – that article was, I believe, written a while back.
Indeed. I believe it was originally intended for the Pointless book, I was asked for suggestions.
You dark horse!
It wasn’t that exciting, I hate having to come up with lists on the spot, I sent a link to an article I wrote for Shouting At Cows and the index of all the Polls of the Year and left it at that.
So I read the Richard Osman piece (excellent, as ever) and proceeded to Google one of the gentlemen behind Shafted.
This led me to this podcast of an event that David Flynn did a few months ago on how to devise a game show: http://guru.bafta.org/ica-gameshow-masterclass-david-flynn-podcast
Two interesting things from the 15 minutes I’ve listened to so far:
1) Pointless was apparently specifically conceived as an outright rebuke to Weakest Link etc. – what if you made a game show that was just really friendly?
And the biggie: 2) He was outed as devising Shafted in the piece, but it would appear he also devised The Bank Job and Golden Balls. So it would appear that the incursion of prisoner’s dilemma formats which we hate so much was the responsibility of one person/team.
Another interesting thing: with The Bank Job, they did a run-through with civilians for the commissioners… but no pilot.