International versions of Deal or No Deal based on the US model? FAILURE.
International versions of 1 vs 100 based on the US model? FAILURE.
So which not-massively-successful-really version of Endemol’s Million Pound Drop will Eddie McGuire be emulating in Australia? Yes brilliant, I know. At least they’ve had the sense to call it The Million Dollar Drop.
Joe’s still gonna love it LOL
Note to the staff at Challenge: create a database of which games are played within which episodes of Takeshi’s Castle so that episodes containing game material that might be considered inappropriate can be pulled from the schedules.
I noticed that an episode of The Simpsons of The Simpsons was edited last night – the one where Bart becomes the “I didn’t do it” boy – the part where Kent Brockman can’t pronounce Kuala Lumpur was missing – presumably because it was a news item about an earthquake.
I don’t know if anyone even works at Challenge anymore. I’ve heard it’s now just run by robots. Every month they randomly generate a schedule from the shows they have in licence (but the programme to do this doesn’t work properly, so most shows stay in the same place every time) then it gets played out automatically.
At least, I think that’s true…
You can’t even contact Challenge anymore. Try to email Sky and your message will get “passed on” and never replied to. It’s sad.
Apparently Quake was on an episode this morning. Well done.
FORT BOYARD NEWS!
Not sure if the patrons of the bar have seen this, but:
http://www.fan-fortboyard.fr/blog,-officiel-en-2011-les-celebrites-sont-de-retour-sur-le-fort,991523065.html
Translation of the article by yours truly:
It has been the wish of many tv viewers to arrive at the fort in the guise of a participant. That being said, the big change of the 2010 season didn’t last long. Today, Franck Firmin-Guion, president of the ALP, told TV MAG that celebrities will be back on Fort Boyard in 2011. He also went over some new points…
According to him, “The players that participated last year were real fans and really wanted to win, and it was less fun. That’s why we decided to bring back the personalities.
Other new points included that there will be new challenges, and “high-tech” will now be present. It’s hard to tell what we can call “high-tech” in a place where we’re not really expecting it, let’s hope that the clepsydres aren’t replaced with a countdown on a monitor…
To wrap up, it was mentioned that Olivier Minne will be joined by some new personalities. Let’s hope that the old folks are still there, if not, people won’t be happy.
Intrigued and excited as usual. Thanks Ryan.
Actually I would like to expand on this.
I know there is a vocal fan community of Fort Boyard who are quite conservative and would love the show to stay the same as it always has been. I on the other hand don’t fear change – the ratings tell the story, evolve or die. As long as they don’t mess around with the core of the format too much (i.e. it’s a bunch of tasks with time limits in an old castle) I am happy to see what adding some high-tech challenges add – it’s been twenty-one years there’s no reason the show shouldn’t have a reboot and whilst I admire the physical sets of the challenges they come up with I’m interested by the prospects this may bring and if they can hide it in a steampunk style then all the better. However they’ve got to start doing more than about two new games a year, I would not be ecstatic unless they bought in about 15-20 new games and a couple of old classics. It is much more difficult to come up with adventures because it’s all been done, so it’s imperative that the freedom the tests have to do and be anything is used to the full.
I don’t even mind a refresh of the characters. I think the worst thing the French show did last year was reduce the place to a jumped up outward bound centre, I’m absolutely up for light fantasy elements without being mass alienating, it adds to the compedy potential and the kid appeal. I know exactly what and how I would handle it which is why it’s important the French show succeeds so the BBC do a version.
I would be surprised if they got rid of keys, clues, tigers, clepsydres and Pere Fouras, possibly the Passes. I think anything else is fair game.
It doesn’t matter if countries take the UK version or the slightly different US version, the core format of Million x Drop is so good that viewers will enjoy it no matter which version they’re given.
ITV have picked up Endemol’s Marriage Ref for a full series, by the way.
I make that 18 hours. Disappointing, Joe.
Brig has Tweeted about this already, but it’s very interesting to see celebrities “up for sale” on Twitter for Comic Relief. While it’s true that most of the celebs have added something to their “package”, the relative worth of the celebs might be assessed each other in a CELEBDAQ-tastic league table.
Victoria Coren is doing rather well, though her poker heads-up addition probably makes her package rather valuable. At the other end of the table, Katie and Mary from The X Factor are, er, offering good value for money, and Marcus Bentley – the voice of the chickens – will throw in an answerphone message and a phone call, which makes him look like his price might yet rise tenfold before the auction is done. Vernon Kay might yet be a bargain to be snapped up also. (Personal to Iain: would you join Twitter just so that Shabby might follow you? £137 and rising…)
Vernon Kay is cheap as it looks like he will follow you on twitter and that’s it. At least he could throw in a round or golf or let the highest bidder go behind the scenes at All Star Family Fortunes.
Victoria Coren seems to be the best one since you have a chance to win back your donation via three games of poker. Although she will thrash the opponent. Emma Kennedy still looks good as you can chat about DoND to your hearts content.
He’s not the only one to do that though. McFly seems to have the exact same basic package, and they’re close to two grand already. I find it interesting that Stephen Fry’s floating around one grand; I almost want to think his frequent tweeting makes him less valuable in this sort of scenario. Also, I noticed the bidding for Coren hit 600 quid pretty quickly then stopped… Apparently people think they’re capable of winning back their donation just like that. Good luck…
It might be worth pointing out that Vicki has also said on Twitter that they can just have $330 if they want, although I can’t help but feel that would be missing the point a bit.
A full response to Mr. On a Different Browser’s aside would be long, and amount to a big derail. That’s for my blog, not in Brig’s space. Two bullet points will suffice:
1) I hope and expect that people would be interested in my writing because of its quality, because of what I’m saying or how I’m saying it, rather than because I’ve got deeper pockets than the next person.
2) There are an awful lot of people who would appreciate a follow from Shabby more than I ever would. Let’s not be selfish out there.
And do give generously.
I don’t usually plug repeats but if anybody missed it first time around then I suggest watching tonight’s episode of The Cube at 10.45pm. To quote Tim Halbert from 2009 “he’d just pissed away twenty grand”
Haha! I still remember that episode vividly. One of the few shows out there that ratches out a genuinely protracted amount of tension from the feeling of *possibly having made* a life-altering mistake. A far cry from “let’s open this arbitrary shape and see what random amount you’ve done nothing to earn is behind it”.
From the same ep I’ve just noticed how jarring the use of Arial is as a clock font.
I mean, come on, even the Portuguese version uses the proper font.
Looks like a German TV network has picked up The Cube. Recording will take place at Fountain Studios as per normal.
I think Germany are the first country to have The Cube and Minute to Win It airing at the same time.
Nice one, although I hope it gets renamed DAS CUBE:
http://www.lostintv.com/tv_show.cfm?f=1299939197862&content_type_id=245
£20 expenses reimbursed.
It will be Der Cube, unfortunately.
Anyone know if it’s a big German network who’s picked it up?
Sat1 has already got Minute to Win It (The Perfect Minute) so that would mean either RTL or Pro7. Cannot see it being ARD or ZDF. No way Sat1 would have both shows on their channel.
That news thing came from me BTW.
It might be a better fit for Pro7 than RTL, though I couldn’t find any casting notices anywhere….BTW apparently Pro7’s wok racing program is tonight (3/12).
Back to the main topic and getting Eddie Maguire (Channel 9’s only TV host it seems) to host it is killing it off before it starts. Million Pound Drop is kind of this generations Millionaire (though that’s being quite favourable) and having the Millionaire host front it does it no favours at all.