There was loads on Monday and on Saturday we’ll have another one for Go For It, so in the meantime here’s something that might have got lost in the shuffle that Chris M Dickson posted about on Monday:
Take a look at a 1985 US pilot for a show called Finders Keepers, which has nothing to do with Finders Keepers (1) or Finders Keepers (2) as we know them. Take your strongest stereotypes of what a mid-eighties US game show might look like, then consider a take like that on the UK Treasure Hunt. It’s deliberately zany; the prizes are notably off-beat, and there’s a human sidekick pretending to be a computer character, because that’s what people did in 1985. (Max Headroom might have popped up in a movie, but was still a couple of years off being a show yet.)
There’s a particularly cute Sale of the Century-like mechanism in there which is by far the most interesting part of the show. The whole thing isn’t horrible, but you can see why it was a pilot that didn’t sell.
This has definitely come up on The Bar before, although it may well have been in an older version of the site. Anyway have a look:
The zany computer really is hugely irritating.
I don’t quite understand why you can’t go for more prizes once you solve the puzzle.
Hunted is back next month apparently. Here is a short clip of two of the contestants with bin bags over their heads because why not
This unsold pilot was produced by JM Productions who had also produced Starcade from 1982 to 1984 and The Video Game from 1984 to 1985. Here’s a video induction of the latter from Game Show Garbage’s YouTube account. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndk6JmCCk5Q"
Expect to see this on SNT one day soon:
Ha! That’s awesome.
Here’s an ep of Mastermind New Zealand:
https://youtu.be/eVQPtV-7E4U
Hive Minds returns September 8th 8:30pm on BBC4.
Moved to Thursday to get out of the way of OC perhaps?
CBBC have a new quiz show, Top Class hosted by Susan Calman will air sometime this September.
Trailer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/watch/new-quiz-show-top-class
Susan Calman gives it 400% in an otherwise exemplary “host holding a question card” entry. I suspect that holding more than one question card at once is cause for an investigation into doping allegations.
In this picture of her in Top Class, she is holding multiple question cards: http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/childrens-responsive-ichef/r/640/1x/cbbc/top-class_onward_journey_image_bid.png
I might bring this up in a post tomorrow.
I think that era was common for “non-human and wacky sidekicks”.
In that vein, here is Alex Trebek in an unsold pilot before Jeopardy was picked up.
“Malcolm”, 1983.
I’m convinced the gameplay is entirely sound, even if the conceit might have been a little ahead of its time. Alex Trebek had a history of reasonably playful game shows (and there are video clips of him hosting them “playfully”, by which I mean “tiredly and emotionally”) before his long, serious Jeopardy! engagement.