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February 2009 26th February 2009 God, so much to do, so little time.Come back after midnight for the answers to Brig Bother's Pathetic Phonetic Challenge (but not the results as they involve TABULATION), and hopefully before I go to bed I've got to try and fit in tonight's K-Fac and Dazza and Gazza's Accumulate! (ha ha, that's so sticking). In fact there is going to be no "proper" update until Sunday where we'll reveal the winners, put up Clip Boyard and win the second stage of the BSoP. But I think I know what you're interested in... Will you start the fans, please?I am not a theatre critic.
I am not a theatre critic. Also I've had this Anon(n)ymous comment:
Hmm indeed! 24th February 2009 The Clipton Factor: Tokyo Friend Park IILook, you're just going to have to trust us that we're spectacularly busy at the weekend, but we'll try very hard to do a little feature on this the weekend after. Sorry it isn't brilliant quality, I've been experimenting with Youtube file formats.
23rd February 2009 Well ladies and gents, lets be clear. ITV backed the black with The Colour of Money, and it seems to have come up green. Lime. Emerald. Chartreuse. Tropical Rain Forest. Whatever. The fact remains on the basis on episode one, it is Not a Hit. But I do think it can sell, and I think it will be Not a Hit in several different countries. And selling, rather sadly, is what ITV seem to be more interested in then producing something properly killer for, you know, your normal viewers in your domestic country. Now with my background as a working class ITV sort of man, this upsets me just a little and I think it's time for ACTION. So I've given it some (some) thought and have decided to start a new irregular feature where I give some killer programme ideas for you to take up. I know you're reading ITV Press Office. My fees are very reasonable, but the following you can have for free in a new feature called... Let's Make ITV Programme Ideas Help Help Get!!!
Don't forget that Brig Bother's Pathetic Phonetic Challenge ends Thursday. Some of you have even got some answers right! So best get skates on if you want a shot at £20. And it's BSoP Night on Sunday. Chips get! 21st February 2009 The Colour of Money, thenRight, I'm not entirely sure where to begin with this. So I guess I'll start at the very beginning:
Basically, the show isn't awful but I suspect the show is going to be a victim of its own hype. I was quite surprised when it finished after two players, I was expecting three for some reason. And the show underran the timeslot fairly spectacularly. Not convinced we need a post show breakdown or shots of some people looking tense for next week, it all felt a bit "press red for a director's commentary". It's the new The Big Call, isn't it? The Colour of Money is on this evening, ITV, 6:35pmIf 70 minutes of people shouting "stop!" sounds appealing, I've provided a new comment box for you. I'm out this evening playing the most stressful game not on television (poker) but have it on record, so you'll get the OFFICIAL correct opinion late Saturday or Sunday sometime. Clip BoyardBad news I'm afraid Ladies and Gents, I've cross-referenced all the games I've put up with all the games there have ever been, and I'm afraid there are only about 129 editions of Clip Boyard left :( So what better way to cheer ourselves up as we prepare ourselves for the sad end of a long running feature with the debut of the fort's most wacky, fun, crazy AND outrageous character ever, Jaba the Pirate? Here's the very first playing of Escrime from 1995, the idea is for the contestant to hit the buckle on Jaba's chest which opens the compartment releasing the key, and making him dive into a bucket of shame.
Three wins to the contestants and two losses, if you're keeping score. I was convinced I had put up this game already, but a search on Youtube suggests otherwise. So there we are. For all my kvetching about it a few days ago, SOTI actually has some fairly interesting twists in it towards the end. So I don't love it, but I far from hate it really. 20th February 2009 And don't forget!Our Happy Hour competition closes next Thursday. We've not been, er, inundated with entries so far (er, two) so you've probably got a decent chance of winning. This could be the easiest £20 you'll ever make! And Sunday week is the second stage of the Bother Series of Poker. Don't forget to join in the fun We'll have a new comment box for The Colour of Money and stuff tomorrow. 19th February 2009 Will anybody stop The Almighty Colfer?Excellent first semi-final on K-Fac this evening. It looks like they've listened regarding fairering (someone call the OED) up Mental Agility, we're just not massive fans of the 'two highest scoring losers across both semis go through to the final' system, mainly because if someone dominates their show they're going to eat all the points away from everyone else, and if the other show is more balanced their scores are likely to be generally higher but the calibre of contestant might not be. Does that make sense? Is it even right? Who knows. Shortland StreetDo you know what we're doing right now? Well we're writing something, but do you know what series I was sent recently I'm watching right now? Correct! It is, of course, Superstars of Treasure Island. You might know Treasure Island, Five showed the Aussie version some time ago, there was also a few Irish seasons and it's been going on in its native New Zealand for approximately 6,000 seasons. It is, fairly basically, a Survivor rip-off - some people survive on a desert island, people get eliminated, there's a winner. But the original show had a rather neat voice of its own - each week the two tribes hunt for pieces of a treasure map which when put together at the end reveal a tough riddle to solve which reveals the location of the buried treasure. To find these pieces, the tribes must crack codes and solve puzzles around the island based on messages in bottles that wash-up from the old pirate that used to live there X hundred years ago forming a fairly compelling narrative. At the end of each episode everyone takes a computer questionaire (We preferred the Aussie version which didn't break the atmosphere by getting people to mark locations on a map with a quill) which determined who stays and who goes, the last people left race to find the treasure. It was quite good. So what Superstars of TI did was the rather brilliant idea of getting all the best players from all the international versions of the show together for a game. But disappointingly, somewhere between the original show and this one the game's changed to basically become Survivor, the two tribes compete against each other for challenges (based on the island legend) for food and luxuries and the tribe chief chooses someone to be eliminated at the end of each episode, with the chance for anyone else to overthrow the current chief in a vote after each elimination. How massively disappointing! I wonder what led to the changes. Survivor: Tocantins and The Amazing Race 14 both began very recently. 17th February 2009 The Clipton Factor: My Kind of TownWell we did Chris Tarrant yesterday so here's current Capital breakfast show host Johnny Vaughan with 2005 Michael Davies and W-i-i-ill Macdonald (you'd never guess) produced Stateside flop (cancelled after four episodes!) My Kind of Town. Featuring a man burning some sandals without a context and a giant robot! Don't forget to sing along if you know the words.
The high-tension endgame involved one person being asked to put one of ten names to six faces met throughout the show in a game called "Name Your Neighbours" in order to win the whole 200-strong audience a nice prize. Although even if they're wrong, everyone won a smaller prize anyway. 16th February 2009 Dear Chris Tarrant,If you'd rather people didn't think of you as a 'gameshow host' (spit), stop saying yes to every bloody format that is suggested to you. Regards! In lieu of news, let's have a nonny comment round-up:
Good clip tomorrow. 14th February 2009 Clip BoyardHappy Valentine's Day! Because today is all about love, and because we love our fans or something, here's the first ten minutes of the very first ever edition of La Cles de Fort Boyard from 1990, with introduction by Olivier Minne and everything. The game featured at the end of it is Côton-tiges which is a bit like Duel from Gladiators. I'm going to have to draw a list of all the games I have and haven't done by next week, I think. Anyway, enjoy.
In other news, we've been having a discussion over Krypton Factor assault course times and how big the headstart for females should be in order to make it competitive and exciting. On the current course in the current series it stands at 45 seconds and has provided no winners. We present the times from the heats for you now to peruse, the female times are in square brackets, you will need to add 45 seconds to the time to get their true figure. Heat 1: 5:38, 6:43, 9:06, [10:17] 12th February 2009 Sorry everyone, we're basically really busy an' that. And not much interesting is happening anyway. Why not enter our "genius" competition? And can you believe it's ONLY (goes and checks) SEVENTEEN days until the next stage of the Bother Series of Poker? Amazing. It's the Crystal Maze: The Musical webpage! Get a ticket before Tuesday and get a cheap ticket to the launch party at hilarious nightclub Bellare. Filth Avenue. Or if you're a "student", Sindies, despite the fact it's not been called that for about 20 years, before most of them were even born. Ah, local references there. It's the last K-Fac heat this evening! At least four people are calling it that on a regular basis now, so we're going to keep doing it until EVERYONE IN BRITAIN HAS JUMPED ON THE K-FAC BANDWAGON. 10th February 2009 The Clipton Factor: Bare NecessitiesBefore we officially relaunch as 'The Ed Hall Wry Fan Page' next Monday, here's a clip of some sheep-shearing and cheating from great BBC outward bound survival show Bare Necessities, with bonus Hugh McManners.
9th February 2009 It's the competition that EVERYBODY will be talking about!Finally! Our first proper competition in about 18 months that isn't a Fantasy one, and all you've got to do is play the most complex game of Name That Tune you'll ever play. You could win £20! It's time for Brig Bother's Pathetic Phonetic Challenge. 7th February 2009 Clip BoyardWe're back in 1990's Germany this week for 'Balançoire'. Being played fairly badly.
New Happy Hour compo on Monday! 6th February 2009
So there we are. Clip Boyard tomorrow. 5th February 2009 It's wacky! It's fun! It's ker-a-a-zy! IT'S OUTRAGEOUS!It is of course Dick and Dom's Ask the Family. Meanwhile here's an anon(n)ymous comment:
4th February 2009 Would you like to appear on Only Connect?Because I'm the most important person in Gameshowland, I was sent this on Facebook earlier: "The second series of ‘Only Connect’ is returning to BBC Four, and we’re looking for teams of three to take part. In David's contestant call down in the comment box beneath this one, he also adds you need to be avaliable for filming March 9th-11th and that you should all have some kind of common link. Or connection, if you will. So there we are. In other news, Gordon Burns has been talking about the new K-Fac in his North West Tonight newsletter and someone has put it up on TV Forum. It makes for interesting reading, especially the story behind the 1995 series where they almost got rid of the assault course! Amazing. Of course there is nothing wrong per se with target times (it's just the old age and gender headstarts but flipped to apply at the end) but yes it means it's quite difficult to commentate on it as a meaningful race. 3rd February 2009 The Clipton Factor: Dick and Dom's Ask the FamilyWell I thought it was funny. In honour of Da Dick 'n' Dom Dairies currently running on weekeday mornings, here's spectacular 2005 flop Ask the Family starring Dick, Dom, and Dave Chapman.
Ha ha! Rubbish. I can't believe they managed to fit a reference to donkey punching in at 6pm. 2nd February 2009 A warning, tomorrow's Clipton Factor is likely to be a bit late. But I can promise it will almost certainly be a Good Game Good Gamey Gamey Game Game. What do we do with a pair? Also: I think there might be a new Happy Hour competition in the works that *gasp* isn't a Fantasy Competition. Fancy that! Is this the end of Big Brother?Probably not, seeing as they're contracted to, I think, 11. As I've said many times over the past years, freshening the format is not the problem. Putting it on for an hour a day for three months is the problem. Also the show is skewing older. And yet filling it with young T4-esque people with trendy haircuts people doesn't draw the viewers in, it just irritates the ones who are already watching. Hmm. 1st February 2009 Dear Sky OneIt is normally easier to hide the fact you've hidden a slightly substandard first-to-be-filmed edition of Gladiators mid-series if you tell Ian Wright not go on about it being a new series in his intro. Just a thought, A Bother's DozenIt started with 12, 169 hands later Ian Robertson claims all the chips, the lifechanging $30 payday and the all-important CRUCIAL 11 BSoP points in the first round of the Bother Series of Poker. Greg Lowe finished 2nd claiming 8 points and $18, and yours truly managed a valiant 3rd place after getting jammily knocked out when his pocket overpair lost to a very loose call hitting two pair on the river. It was a great game, thanks to everyone who took part. It was certainly one of the most intense games online I've ever played - after one hour only one person had been knocked out (and that took 44 minutes...), and a big blind of 150 doesn't go too far when the average stack size is just over 1,600... The standard was much higher than I was expecting. Round two happens on March 1st. If you like gambling and fun (but not necessarily in equal measure) and you've got $5.50 going spare then you can register for it right now! It's the first league standings!
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