We’re hearing from a couple of sources that contestants are being sought for a second series of Rebound.
Rebound was the first show in the The Chase Summer Replacement Slot for ages to not do completely awfully (beating out Freeze Out, Gift Wrapped, The 21st Question and C21 Format Of The Year Take On The Twisters), holding and even slightly growing its audience in the slot that only Tipping Point had managed in the past.
We don’t have any real details as yet, we don’t know if it’s going to have a second go in the slot this Summer or whether its future lies elsewhere. The first series was a good fun quickfire quiz and hopefully the last year will have given it a chance to iron out some bumps.
We know we have Alphabetical to look forward to in the afternoons at some point which we’re presuming is a Summer replacement, we don’t know what’s going on with Scrabble.
Just some news from Germany, because it’s been the biggest headline here for the last week or so and it’s about the freedom of media.
Jan Böhmermann, a ZDF late night host (his show is called Neo Magazin Royale), has insulted Turkish president Erdoğan with a poem he created.
The week prior to this event (which occured on March 30th, making them look like an April fools prank) German satire show Extra 3 had shown a music video parodying Erdogan by rewording one of Nena’s (singer of 99 Red Balloons) biggest hits, Irgendwie Irgendwo Irgendwann, and criticising his undemocratic ruling. Erdogan then asked the German Ambassador in Istanbul to start prosecuting the creators of this video and getting rid of it altogether. Of course this video was pure satire so nothing could be done against it. Erdoğan made a fool of himself and the video suddenly went viral and was subtitled in several languages.
To “show Erdoğan the difference between insults and satires”, Böhmermann chose to write his poem, claiming that “this part of the show is illegal and it should never be shown, because it’s against German laws” right before reciting it on Neo Magazin Royale. Although it was recorded on Wednesday, it was shown on Thursday and available on catch-up before it was taken down on Friday morning. It was controversial immediately, but took some time to be recognised by Erdoğan.
Böhmermann has not done any TV/radio shows since then, police is protecting him because of several threats and the German govournement has had several special meeting to consider what they should do about him (Will he be prosecuted? Is it possible to solve this diplomatically?…).
Everyone in Germany seems to have an opinion on it. Some say it’s the freedom of speech or the freedom of arts, some say an insult is an insult no matter the contexts. Anyway this is the biggest headline right now, so I wanted to tell you about it. I hope my English is good enough, so you can understand it 🙂
I know this will be of interest to the Bar, as it’s a regulars’ favourite.
Avanti un Altro is to be piloted again in France for the main access prime slot (7.00pm) on TF1.
Two pilots will be recorded, each one testing out a different presenter.
One presenter is Christophe Beaugrand (who presents Secret Story and soon to premiere Ninja Warrior). The other is Christophe Dechavanne, who was part of a pilot originally made in 2014, but TF1 didn’t take it any further. If the pilot is approved, an order of 20 episodes will be commissioned.
Link – http://www.ozap.com/actu/tf1-christophe-dechavanne-et-christophe-beaugrand-en-lice-pour-un-nouveau-jeu/495446
Ooh, that is interesting, thanks.
I know Devauchanne did Wheel of Fortune for a few years.
It’s a pity Vincent Lagaf isn’t about.
Whether or not a new version of Scrabble comes to the UK, my coach journey viewing of choice has been the US late-’80s version of Scrabble hosted by Chuck Woolery, courtesy of scads of uploads (at least, for now!) by this YouTube channel. The show is a red hot mess and utterly glorious; those who know me may not be surprised that there’s a “because” rather than a “despite” between the two. If I were the chart-making type, I’m sure this would still be in my top ten US game shows of all time. (That said, I’m something of a sucker for any game show called Scrabble, even a less good one…)
It’s as stereotypically late-’80s US as it gets. There are returning champions. The sets move. There are camera zooms and incidental flashing. The audience shout out and play along. There are internal stings and sound effects galore. The action is very fast-paced, to the point where the sound effects sometimes hinder. The show has rules, rules and more rules (plus special cases and exceptions) to the point where it breaks every conventional wisdom in the book about keeping the game simple and intuitive, but it ran for well over a thousand episodes over six years. Perhaps having lots of rules is less of a problem when people are expecting them already – which works well if you’re basing a show on a game (such as a board game, or also a sport – imagine trying to explain all of Big Break to people who didn’t know snooker…) where the rules will already be familiar to the viewers. There’s a storming theme with slightly kooky instruments. It’s a Reg Grundy television production.
Most notable of all is Chuck Woolery’s hosting. Chuck is properly old-school of a sort that you don’t get any more, with immense self-belief and a very high opinion of himself. He appears to be hosting as if he is two drinks ahead of us, possibly three; it’s not clear whether they keep him topped up just enough between shows (for tipsy hosting was far from unknown at the time) or whether that’s just his shtick. With so many rules and so many different things going on, Chuck sometimes skips forwards and backwards in the order in which things are done, he occasionally makes arbitrary decisions without recourse to appeal which appear to be considered binding, he sometimes adds his own little meta-commentary on how the game is going, and he converses on air with unseen staff members (who sometimes reply) apparently for his own amusement, smiling at his own jokes.
The show is free-wheeling and it’s remarkable how little editing is apparent – all manner of… loosenesses get kept in rather than being retaken: stumbles over pronunciations, baffling comments, outright confusions (mostly over rare edge cases in the rules, sometimes about the simpler stuff) and even the occasional outright corpse. Yet Chuck holds it all together through force of personality. I don’t claim that this represents a standard to which shows should aspire these days; while the norm these days is for simpler fare, it’s also for what might be considered competence and professionalism – there’s a reason why things have moved on.
One of a kind, with much to criticise, but I’m glad it happened, and you might well get as much out of it as I did.
Yes I like a bit of Woolery Scrabble.
If you haven’t seen any Woolery Scrabble, watch Chuck surely host his way to a P45 – or, at least, any other host would be well on their way to a P45. (Or, locally, a pink slip, I suppose.)
1:08 – Chuck flinches far too soon when he thinks the cameras are off him.
1:31 – Chuck wastes ten seconds bitching about a prize description. Off-camera, his producer yells out “Just read ’em”.
1:50 – bizarre throwaway in-joke about, presumably, Merv Griffin.
2:42 – Chuck gently takes the piss out of a contestant’s job and laughs at his own joke.
3:05 – he’s not giving it up about that prize description adjective.
3:21 – Chuck rants about how long all the introduction is before the game starts and suggests viewers are turning over as a result.
3:39 – Chuck cracks up at a clue with moderate double entendre like it’s Fanny Schmellar.
4:03 – Chuck declares the clue “embarrassing” and general insubordination ensues.
5:17 – Chuck declares the next clue “real stupid”.
6:32 – Chuck still hasn’t finished ranting about that clue.
6:41 – Chuck doesn’t know, and hasn’t cared to practice, how to pronounce a reasonably famous name in the clue after that.
6:48 – …and he’s feeling ornery about it.
7:33 – …and now he’s moaning about the clue answers.
7:39 – Chuck moans about another prize.
8:07 – Chuck moans about more prize-descriptive adjectives.
8:34 – Chuck offers his own meta-commentary on his own grumpiness.
After the first break, Chuck is rather better behaved. One can only imagine that people have had words with him. This lasts until:
11:54 – Chuck smirks at his own joke that he is about to crack and belittles a later contestant’s achievements.
12:34 – Chuck conducts a discussion with a producer, on-air, over the limits of product placement.
15:35 – and now he’s not even paying attention.
16:02 – and now he can’t even remember what the contestants are called and blatantly making up excuses.
17:22 – more meta-commentary, maybe even a hint at a drug reference.
Chuck behaves for the rest of the show. The next episode (in the same video) is well worth watching too for at least three reasons.
I can’t completely decide how I feel about Chuck’s hosting. It’s purely held together by force of personality, rather than essential… competence. It’s sort of a breathtaking delight to watch and sort of bordering on parody, hinting at where every ’80s US game show host stereotype might come from. There’s almost a battle of wills between the show and its host, who clearly knows how to behave and just chooses not to do so.
Scrabble remains a great show; highly recommended, by the way.
Rebound is back from Monday 17th October in the 3pm slot so it’ll be going up against the return of Deal
Good stuff, thanks.