Rock ‘n’ Rollergames

By | August 1, 2020

Two posts in one day? Blimey. However I was alerted to the existence of one-year wonder 1990 roller derby show Rollergames by US gameshow fandom legend @lambertman on Twitter, and looking it up on Youtube I love it, and also feel no real need to watch any more than an episode of it.

I only have a basic understanding of what’s going on, you get points for getting high up the banked wall and jumping over the jump and your frontman lapping your opponents (the Wikipedia article is here), basically it’s an excuse for lots of drama and fighting. As such the central conceit doesn’t hold up all that well, but it’s worth watching one episode of for the theatrics.

15 thoughts on “Rock ‘n’ Rollergames

  1. Chris M. Dickson

    Man, if you like that, you should try watching real roller derby!

    I’m going to suggest that the problem with this was that the quality of the purported roller derby was actually pretty low, or at least rather slower and less exciting than real roller derby can be, and the fighting was not particularly exciting either. (The women’s sections had better roller derby than the men’s, oddly enough.) Compare pro wrestling to MMA; while Sturgeon’s Law well and truly applies, the best pro wrestling can be visually interesting, elaborate and spectacular in a way that… it takes an MMA afficionado to appreciate. I’m tempted to wonder if it would have been more successful if they had attempted to teach accomplished non-scripted roller derby athletes to (pseudo-)wrestle than apparently the other way around, though I don’t think that non-scripted roller derby was nearly as strong in 1990 as it is now.

    I’m tempted to wonder whether we’re going to see marble racing as the next big sports entertainment phenomenon adopted by major league content producers, or whether Jelle’s Marble Races has just caught lightning in a bottle through its wholesomeness and purity. An experienced marketing company could do much more with the branding of a marble racing league – though I don’t think Marbula E or the Cravendale Cup have properly cracked it yet with their tries – but I really don’t imagine an experienced marketing company would go so far as to build an extended marble racing universe as Jelle (and company) has done purely for his own entertainment, that other people happen to have latched onto.

    I’ve long been tempted to wonder there could be modern-day quizzing as sports entertainment – specifically, quizzes with predetermined outcomes, but done in a really visually interesting way. (Imagine, say, sixty-second speed rounds with exciting last-second comebacks.) The experience of the ’50s showed that it could be made to work back then when people knew no better, but I don’t know whether it would be possible to do today… or whether people would, in practice, enjoy a really good product and not care about its predetermined nature. A lot of sports entertainment does tend to focus around the storylines and non-competitive surrounding bobbins, and I don’t imagine that there would be much crossover between fans of hardcore visually interesting quizzing action and fans of silly storylines, but I believe it could be done. In fact, if it turned out that – say – Celebrity Juice (or, at the other end of the spectrum, HIGNFY?) turned out to be predetermined, I imagine nobody would care for too long.

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      It’s an interesting idea, I suspect you’d probably have to do a reality show take off first to test the water and then progress. The interesting question is how much you point out it’s scripted.

      Reply
      1. Brig Bother Post author

        My gut re: Marble racing is that Jelle caught lightning in a bottle – I’ve watched other streams and don’t really get on with them. Extremely fortunate to find Greg Woods, he is to marble racing as Jesse May is/was to poker. It’s quite hard to commentate on physics and make it sound effortless.

        I think I enjoyed Rollergames because it clearly had its tongue very very firmly in its cheek, I was never big into wrestling so I can’t compare on a decent level.

        Reply
        1. Chris M. Dickson

          Mmmm-mmm. I tended to consider Greg Woods very middle-of-the-road and neutral in his understatement until I heard him commentating alongside Jack Nicholls on the E, when Greg demonstrated his strengths. (The commentator on Fubeca’s Circuits is worse still.) A part of me wonders if part of the appeal is wondering whether, with practice, you could be a better commentator than the one on the videos…

          Back to the original topic: the roller derby action is clearly better on the 1999 not-actually-all-that-gritty reboot RollerJam. The episode I link to may be the first of the series as the first half-hour is about the history of the sport, but there is an abbreviated match towards the end and it shows you just what you’re missing with RollerGames.

          Reply
      2. Brandon

        In terms of scripted shows that are themed around game shows but still with a bit of unscripted stuff, Rock Rivals and Peter Kay’s parody of the Andrew Lloyd Webber casting shows fit that.

        Reply
    2. Matt Clemson

      Is there an argument that we might *have* ‘the spirit of “scripted quizzing as sports entertainment” in the likes of some kids’ shows such as Kerwhizz and The Shiny Show? Maths Mansion would fit the bill as well.

      Reply
    3. Alex McMillan

      For my money, I do believe there is something in “Quiz Professional Wrestling”, although I’m not sure what exactly.

      I think the issue you run into is to do something physically scripted still requires you to be an athletic person, but an act of mental prowess that is scripted is a lot easier to fake. Quizzes should definitely have championship belts, though.

      Reply
      1. Chris M. Dickson

        Paging Mark Labbett, who (I would bet very good money at very short odds, though he may well have better things to do) would be able to tell us at considerable length and from a position of unparalleled expertise what the role of being a Chaser has learnt from the tradition of pro wrestling villains. (Is there more that could be done with it? Like you, I suspect so…)

        I rather like the championship belt ceremony in Lip Sync Battle, and there was a series of pop-culture-focused quiz bowl tournaments for a while that used a championship belt as a prize.

        Reply
  2. David

    Rollergames and American Gladiators both premiered at the same time- interestingly Rollergames had better ratings early on (they were both syndicated- for example where I lived I remember AG airing on Saturday mornings while Rollergames aired after Saturday Night Live) but Rollergames only got the 1 season because the production company had financial issues…Though the arcade game they made based on the show is pretty good..

    https://youtu.be/LpLiGti1O4I

    In other news, Australia and their Chasers will be doing Beat the Chasers….

    https://tvblackbox.com.au/page/2020/08/03/how-to-apply-to-be-on-beat-the-chasers-as-seven-brings-the-high-stakes-show-to-primetime/

    Reply
    1. Danny Kerner

      Not sure if it will go ahead at this moment, what with their spike of cases recently.

      Reply
  3. Chris B

    Mildly “interesting” is that BBC One are about to start a repeat run of Celebrity Eggheads in the afternoons. Is this the first time the show has been back on One since it became a teatime staple on Two *checks notes…* fifteen years ago? (RIP the lunchtime quiz slot on One)

    Also oddly sort of mirrors The Weakest Link who ended up with repeats back on its “home” channel of Two as it was winding down in quiz relevance.

    Ok, yes sorry, that wasn’t interesting at all was it

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Given that everyone had written off Eggheads, is this the BBCs attempt to rehabilitate it? I don’t know how it’s been rating on BBC2, but it’s surprising that they’re repeating it on BBC1.

      Reply
  4. Chris B

    According to Buzzerblog, Taskmaster UK being run on CW burned hard last night – 224K viewers, which must be less than it was getting first run on Dave, never mind primetime network USA.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.