Dutch? Like getting naked? Good at word games? Why not apply for Nudist Lingo? (link safe for work, thanks to Squared Eyes for the tip).
I hope they avoid the red balls.
In other news, the exciting looking Release the Hounds will go out on Monday 28th October at 10pm on ITV2.
Tipping Point is looking for contestants!
All the details are here, closing date 20th December. Good luck!
Still waiting for a contestant call for series two of C21/FRAPA’s best international game show of the year Take On The Twisters, but as soon as we hear anything we’ll be sure to let you know.
We looked at some Dutch shows last week, this Sunday let’s look at a French one. It’s one we’ve mentioned in comments before, but because France tends to geoblock its stuff it’s difficult for people in the UK and abroad to watch. It is likable word game Harry.
Broadcast weekdaily on France 3 and hosted by one-time weather forecaster and Richard Ayoade lookalike Sébastien Folin, Harry is basically that round of Brainteaser where the words are split up into bits and rearranged and you’ve got to find the word done as a half hour show and led by cheeky computer character Harry.
Four players compete, one of whom is the current champion who will select the category in the first round. In round one Harry will flash up bits of words in moving rings, the contestants must piece together the word on their touchscreen and confirm it as fast as possible – twenty seconds max, and a clue is given halfway through the time. Contestants are scored 5, 3, 2 and 1 point if they are correct based on speed of response – 0 points if you are wrong. The sixth and final question in the round is worth double points, the lowest score is eliminated and the points are reset between rounds.
Round two changes from show to show. It plays similarly to round one but there will be an added wrinkle – instead of letters one of the rings will show a picture and you’ll have to translate what letters it represents in your head when coming up with the word. Or the letters in one of the rings will be invisible. Or one of the rings will be fake. Wiki suggests one variation they introduced recently is a round where you make words without vowels. The category for each question is given before the letters comes up and again a clue is given halfway through the time. Points are 5, 3 and 1 point, doubled for the final question. Lowest score leaves.
Round three (the semi-final) is a buzzer round. A clue is given before each word, but now the elements of the word appear every few seconds. Buzz in if you think you know what it is, a right answer scores a point, a wrong answer lets your opponent see the rest. It’s best of nine.
The winner is the day’s champion and gets to come back tomorrow. For now they will play the final where they can win up to €2,000. Harry will flash words played straight for 80 seconds. Every time the contestant gives a right answer they move up the money ladder, every time they give a wrong answer or don’t respond within eight seconds they go down the ladder. Wherever they are at the end of the 80 seconds is what they get to keep. It’s actually fairly difficult, but the show’s best player (Michèle) won €24,100 across 27 attempts.
It’s fairly stylish for a daily show. Youtube!
It’s a shame there’s no real call for 30 minute shows over here at the moment really, it’d be too sleight for a longer timeslot. I tried to find the show’s original pitch tape which seemed to have quite different rules, where the amount of points you got converted into a better chance of being drawn in a lottery to decide who went forward through the next round, but I can’t find it now. Which may be for the best.
Unfortunately France Televisions geoblocks their catch-up service. But if you can get round it, new episodes are available to watch here.
If you missed any of the Going Dutch series this week, you can use our exciting catch-up service to watch again:
Monday: Met het Mes op Tafel
Tuesday: Twee voor Twaalf
Wednesday: Per Seconde Wijzer
Thursday: Lingo
Friday: Wie Ben Ik?
I’m hearing reports that a year after being filmed, it’s being tentatively pencilled in for Sunday nights beginning the 27th.
I bet despite the wait it’s not as good as Take On The Twisters.
Thanks to @TeamXander1 for the following report on what must be about the 36th pilot of Battle of the Ages:
It was in the Eldon Road section of Elstree Studios. Quite a nice green and yellow set, non-shiny floor, large hanging pictures of things meant to represent different generations – Andy Pandy, Angry Birds, a draper’s shop, smartphones, etc etc. The audience sit all around the set. Can’t imagine those behind the panel got much of a view. The teams’ desks have video screens in the front, and I assume the players also had screens on their side. I will speak more of these later.
There were two teams, the Older Generation (captain Dave Spikey and guest Billy Pierce) and the Current Crop (captain Jo Brand and guest Rufus Hound). Alexander Armstrong hosted. I can’t remember the names of the rounds, so I’ll give them my own names.
When I were a lad:
The teams are given a topic and each in turn has to explain why their generation had it worse than the other. The topic here was Holidays. The funniest individual wins the round.Duel:
Two players (the two guests this time) take turns trading jokes on a given topic for 2 minutes. Every time one of them gets a laugh, a buzzer goes and the other takes over. At the end of the 2 minutes, the one who has taken up the shortest amount of time getting their laughs wins the round. Two different topics were recorded.Envelopes:
Each player has a choice from 3 envelopes. They then have to do standup for 1 minute on the subject in the chosen envelope. The one who gets the loudest laughter wins the round.=== COMMERCIAL BREAK ====
Putting the world to rights:
Each player in turn says what they would get rid of or change to improve the world. The funniest wins the round.Duel:
Same as before, but this time the team captains. Two topics again.Buzzer round:
Players buzz in with short jokes on a given topic. Several topics during the round.I think this has the makings of an entertaining show. The Duel rounds were particularly good.
I was really bothered by the screens though. It felt as if someone had designed a set with screens in, then they’d desperately tried to think of something to do with them. In the whole show, I think we saw 2 still photos and 1 video, none of which were essential. One of the photos wasn’t even relevant, as far as I could see. They either need to integrate the screens far more, or just bite the bullet and get rid of them.
Recording started at 7.30 and we were out at 9.45, the time we’d been promised. Not bad at all for a pilot.
This is the last in the present series of Going Dutch, but who knows? If you enjoyed it perhaps we’ll do it again in the future.
To finish off the week we’re going to have a quick look at Wie Ben Ik? (Who Am I?), a popular comedy panel game. It began in Belgium and in 1990 a native Dutch version started hosted by a young Caroline Tensen (who some of you will know as the host of the Dutch 1 vs 100, which she still does) and has been on and off various different channels before restarting about six weeks ago on RTL4, now hosted by Wendy van Dijk (which Wikipedia suggests was an assistant in a previous incarnation of the show, and has also hosted the Dutch version of The Voice and The X Factor)
Currently each team has two regular players (Media personalities Paul van Leeuw and Jandino Asporat vs Gordon and Richard Groenendijk) and a guest celebrity. In round one one team will play “who am I?”, each player will hit a buzzer in front of them and a board will pop up with their mystery identity. The other team offer three cryptic hints before the player gets to ask 30 seconds of yes/no questions. Once all three players have had their go, they get to make initial guesses. If they’re right they get 90 points immediately, if not then they they get a clue (sometimes through a big door or an object on the conveyor belt) and get 90 seconds to ask questions. When they work out who they are they score 1 point for the team for every second left over. Repeat for the other players.
Round two is “what am I?” and plays the same as round one but with the teams swapping roles, and the mystery things to guess aren’t people.
The final round is “where am I?” where teams get alternating 30 second periods to try and work out where the host is according to her card by asking questions. Whichever team works it out gets their score doubled which will normally win the game.
Not the best game structure, but it’s just something to hang the comedy off really, and previous versions of this were very popular indeed. Here’s an episode from 1990 – doubtless this loses something if you don’t understand Dutch (and I don’t) but you can probably get the gist of the funny bits with tone, rhythm and expression:
Now, modern shows – regrettably RTL hide them behind a paywall and geoblock (although you can also pay to see the upcoming episode, also if you can get round the geoblock the previous episode seems to be free to watch) but the online clips are free to watch after an advert.
It is the sort of thing that’d work quite well over here during Would I Lie to You? off season, or with the 8 Out of 10 Cats people playing, I reckon. Or on Dave.