Well five minutes after the last post, do you remember the Richard Osman classic gameshow curated BBC archive thing mentioned a few weeks ago?
Well it’s live now. It’s an eclectic mix featuring Friends Like These (2000), Ask the Family (1982), Weakest Link (2009), Big Break (2001), Bob’s Full House (1987), What’s My Line? (1974), Call My Bluff (1999), Quiz Ball (1966) and Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? (1954).
But alas no First Letter First.
Edit: Explanatory blog.
Friends Like These is a great shout! Not seen that in a while!
Disappointed Bob Monkhouse’s Wipeout didn’t make the cut though, bloody loved that show!
Oh crikey, as much as I enjoy Monkhouse, I really disliked the way he hosted Wipeout. Especially hinting if an answer was correct before the board did.
I agree, although he was already quite ill when he was doing that show. He didn’t cope with recording several shows a day – as he said in his published diaries, “I am Wiped-out”.
Have to admit, I was slightly disappointed with the cast list.
They are all a bit too ‘safe’ and maybe I was expecting a bit more. I mean, 7 of the 9 must have clips out there on You Tube
Given the Oz’s playful nature to celebrate not only the good, but the revel in the bad, I was hoping to see at least one from the shelf ‘Do not, repeat, not show this again’ in there.
The BBC must have come up with some right one series stinkers in the 70’s worthy of airing as a warning from history?
This was crying for an airing of Johnny Ball Games just for this reason.
I prefer ITV game shows but the reason I love Pointless is because it goes head-to-head with The Chase. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think the first BBC daytime game show (as opposed to primetime) to give away cash prizes on a regular basis was Weakest Link, wasn’t it?
There were others – not least in the “call in” period of telephone quizzes – but it was certainly the first that offered potentially five figures. IIRC, David Young convinced the BBC that it would be a huge worldwide hit and asked them to advance some of the money that they’d get from format sales to help bump up the budget.
And it certainly was a big hit around the world and we had a version here in the U.S. for a couple of years and we even had Anne as host of our primetime version on NBC.
And just curious, what others are you specifically referring to before Weakest Link? And do you mean that those others do not include the call-in period of telephone quizzes?
Weakest Link was definitely not the first. It is not hard to find counterexamples – e.g. the BBC2 version of Blockbusters.
To be honest, I wouldn’t count Blockbusters since that was just a revival of a game show that originally aired on ITV (despite being based on an American show). So my question now is this: were there any original BBC daytime game shows (as opposed to revivals) that gave away cash prizes on a regular basis before Weakest Link? Sorry if I’m confusing you but I’m just asking for better clarification, lol!
The weekly winner on Pass the Buck (1998) won £1000.
Okay, so to elaborate more on my question (again, sorry if I’m confusing you about what I’m asking but I have to ask every once in a while, lol!), were there any BBC daytime game shows that gave away cash prizes on every episode (as opposed to only at the end of the week which Pass the Buck did) before Weakest Link?
Bob Monkhouse’s Wipeout
Interesting to note that the credits to series 4 of Bob’s Full House says that the format was owned by “Puvanesan Kay”. I half remember someone telling me at lunch that there was a court case about this. (Originally, it was credited to David Moore and Terry Mardell).
If true, that means both of Mardell’s main formats – this and Big Break – were the subject of legal action.
How much money was there in format ownership on the eighties, because the bingo quiz format sold to a ton of countries, although most of them closer in looks and style to One to Win (such as Trump Card in the US and Sat 1 Bingo in Germany.
Is this not why the format got remade quite so many times, each ‘owner’ flogging their version?
BTW, looking up Puvanesan Kay seems to just bring up lawyers with that name, I wonder if it was an acquisition rather than a straight dispute?
No. When you adapt a format, any changes you make become the property of the original format owner.
Possibly stupid idea here, there was a lawsuit over Big Break in 1998, where the new owner was given a third share of all previous earnings and £100k. Could Terry have been forced to move his share of Bob’s full House to his lawyer as payment? I confess I don’t know much of the ins and outs, but those Bob’s Full House credits look like a modern day recreations rather than the original.
Yes, those credits do look reconstructed but if you’re going to do that, why was series 1 broadcast on Challenge without a similar reversion?
A very good point, it’s not that they haven’t done it in the past (the most recent rebroadcast of WWTBAM required reversioning in this manner). I imagine Challenge compliance is not as stringent, certainly they’ve apologised in the past for issues with edits for bought in programmes.
Reading that translated article about John De Mol and the German Utopia situation- seems like he’s backing the producers here, but he washed his hands of the US version after the first episode…just a bit strange..
This is what David’s referring to:
http://www.dwdl.de/nachrichten/50586/john_de_mol_ich_habe_montag_noch_fast_gelacht/
Short version of the story: drunk producer of Newtopia (Sat 1’s version of Utopia) comes in and makes “suggestions” to cast members, unfortunately this is all broadcast on the live feed by accident.
I think it’s not fair of John De Mol to claim that this producer who seems to have worked for that company (Schwartzkopff TV which has become Talpa Germany some months ago) quiet a long time is solely responsible for that. There were obviously enough people working behind cameras that could have stopped her (the entire incident took about an hour).
And something that is important about this interview: John De Mol talked to Bild (which is like the UK Sun) and Bild has some stakes in Talpa Germany. You couldn’t really expect much information or at least interesting questions from that interview.
I’d like to think of Richard Osman watching several different episodes of each of the shows mentioned and going “mmmm… that one. That one has more of the essence of Big Break than the others”.
Perhaps he has done – I haven’t watched them yet, but perhaps it’s a Big Break with a record-setting Red Hot, a particularly funny trick shot and a jackpot win, a Friends Like These with a particularly testing conclusion in the endgame, the episode of The Weakest Link with Brig on, and so on.
He chose a Friends Like These episode that didn’t have that levitating basketball game? Poor form, Mr. Osman.
I was a sucker for the laser cube, myself.
Ooh, that’s a fine choice as well
Quick thought, having gone back and watched that Friends Like These episode: was there ever an episode where there were people left behind and they *didn’t* gamble?
I mean, there was always the potential, but I’m not sure I ever saw it happen.
(Some of that show has aged well. Some of that show has… not.)
I think there was at least one, when the single eliminated player seemed to be quite happy for the others to go.
It did slightly grate that the Mr and Mrs bit was mostly useless each week.
I’m partial to a bit of Big Break myself.
Like Strike It Rich, nobody really cared about the actual game it was all about JD taking the mick out of JV and the snooker players as much as possible.