As far as we know, this was the original European daily version of the game which began in 2003, the style of whish spread to France, Spain, the UK, India and even back to the Netherlands. The original host was Paulo Bonolis of Fattore C fame, he left and then Pupo (pre-Tutto x Tutto) took over.
Here’s Pupo running on set with his opening song and shaking hands with all and sundry. Sing along if you know the words!
Pupo greets the notary and his notional sons.
Pupo greets the new contestant.
There is a pull-upable microphone between each contestant.
The selection question.
The buttons are integrated with the desk.
Each contestant represents one of twenty regions of Italy.
Tonight’s winning region is Tremtino AA!
And here’s tonight’s lucky contestant!
There’s now a commercial break.
Now we get the proper theme tune.
Not much of a title sequence, some packaged boxes fall from the top of the screen, the camera spins round the studio and ends up inside the safe.
There’s a Christmas tree here, because it’s Christmas.
Here’s tonight’s prize board.
“Forse” is one of Pupo’s songs and if won he’ll do a rendition of it at the end of the show. The 22 is the amount of shows it has gone unclaimed.
This is a stocking, the “calza”.
A Voltapietre seems to be some kind of bird. A zerbino seems to be something you put on a door.
Here’s the resident cook, we can tell this because she’s wearing cloves of garlic.
Perhaps she’s cooked the volatapietre.
Before the game opens, the contestant is invited to open up the book of fortune and read the advice on the page chosen.
Like so.
The boxes are made up to look like postal packages.
The contestant opens six in the first round, and then three every round thereafter.
And that’s not a great pick.
Big red numbers being eliminated is struck home with the traditional smashing plate of glass graphic.
Pupo on the phone to the bank, who in this version knows where the money is.
The first offer is always “cambio” – an exchange.
Our contestant accepts.
This is his original box.
When the theme from The Exorcist plays, the player is invited to spin his box round and peek inside and react for the player.
Unlucky!
At these sorts of times, Pupo will start his lucky jump up and down very quickly dance.
And his first cash offer from the bank is… €1,000. He refuses.
The stocking goes, so Pupo mops his brow and offers it to a lady in the audience!
And here’s the board looking much better at the eight box stage.
The offer is €10,000.
It’s an offer that causes a lot of problems for him, so the audience are going to vote to help him come to a decision.
Bear in mind that of what he takes home, 20% goes on taxes and a further 20% is given in old coins, for some reason.
It goes up on the big board as well.
Against the audience’s advice, he deals.
The proveout works slightly differently to how we’re used to, it looks like Pupo is picking the boxes, but picking deliberately to keep the biggest value in play. The bank doesn’t phone up with offers, obviously. This suggests that the host is aware of where the money is, but we’re not sure.
This is what it could have come down to – Forse vs €100,000.
Pupo has a dramatic peek inside the box… has he blown €90,000?
No he hasn’t!
He swapped €250,000 for Forse, but he still walks away with €10,000 ! Amazing.
And don’t forget the board game!
He’s off to congratulate with family and contestants, join us again tomorrow!
When Pupo left the show in 2006 it was very briefly hosted by Antonella Clerici, before being taken over by Flavio Insinna.
The game is pretty much the same, but there have been some changes, most notably in the set. Most notably, the contestants have been split into three desks, covering North, Central and South regions.
Here’s the popular Italian actor Flavio Insinnia.
Here’s the notary carrying the envelope with today’s winning contestant in it.
The selection question has gone, it’s now predetermined.
And today’s lucky contestant is the representative from Calabria!
And everyone’s very happy for her!
Commercial break, title sequence.
The contestant gets their own photo albumesque biography, like in the French show.
Family and friends are bought out. Even the dog!
They get their own exciting couch.
The gameboard and graphics haven’t changed since the earlier incarnations, but it’s now in duplicate.
There’s no large opening salvo, it’s a phone call after every three boxes.
The first offer is an exchange, whic she accepts.
What is new is that the offers are now shown on screen.
This is the box she swapped out. Flavio has a peek inside, and the decides to secretly show it to a camera next to one of the gameboards.
She’s not doing too well, so the dog is bought over for luck.
The offer was €11,000 which she has declined. You can see the offer being smashed to bits in the graphic.
What is also new is that she has a hammer and gavel, and if she wants to accept an offer, she will bang her gavel.
She’s not won a comedy 3D animation of a hippopotamus.
Well it’s not gone brilliantly. The next offer was for €3,000 which is refused.
So it comes down to guantoni (no idea) vs €15,000. The final offer is a swap offer.
She consults with her family and declines.
And unfortunately, she swapped her original €250,000 for whatever guantoni is.
But she sounds as though she’s enjoyed herself. And she gets to go home with a copy of the game!
This articule was originally written in 2006. The following comments were left in the comment box:
Gizensha
According to www.wordreference.com…�
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She won a boxing glove.
CeleTheRef
Here’s what Pupo is singing in the intro:
Magic boxes, numbers, packages, twenty regions, many dialects Affari Tuoi
Our life is full of packages, fabulous prizes, some booby ones Affari Tuoi
Pupo calls booby prizes “farlocchi” which is Tuscan for “fake”
The proper theme is the song Hu-Ha by Montefiori Cocktail
“”Here’s the resident cook, we can tell this because she’s wearing cloves of garlic.””
On the show there were two advisors: a superstitious woman with garlic to shoo away bad luck and a geeky guy who did some math analysing
The book of fortune was called “the book of the boxes”
“”She’s not won a comedy 3D animation of a hippopotamus.””
Recently if the contestant opens the toon animal box within the first three picks, he or she gets a few thousands euro as a bonus (it is represented with a bag of money recycled by Il Malloppo)
Joe Raygor
Interestingly enough, Flavio Insinna and the current Affari Tuoi set appeared on the US version via monitor last week when the show had an Italian contestant!
Jonathan Rothwell
Un zerbino appears to be a doormat.
the wise one
ITS ALL FIXED IN ITALY !!!!!! THE CONTESTANTS ARE ALL ACTORS !!!! IT HAS BECOME A COMPLETE FARCE IN THE PAST FEW MONTHS !!! REFLECTION OF THE LEVEL OF CORRUCPTION IN ITALY !!! TRAGIC !!!
update: it was demonstrated that some observing contestants figured out that the boxes came into the studio in four stacks, each stack containing all the prizes in one quarter of the board
those contestants just had to open a box from the “red” stack to be sure that every other box from the same stack had a “red” prize in it.
here’s a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xzxo6hMOo4