We watched Snoop Dogg’s The Joker’s Wild revival that went out on US channel TBS last night.

It was fun enough. Snoop Dogg plays the role of Quizmaster Snoop Dogg of Snoop Dogg fame well enough and was pretty good at asking the questions even if Jeannie Mai is doing most of the technical heavy lifting. Question ideas are fun, even if it errs slightly too hard on pot references. Audience whooping for no discernable reason quite annoying.

The Joker’s Wild was a quiz that most famously ran in the US in the 70s and 80s hosted by Jack Barry. In it contestants picked categories as chosen by a giant slot machine. The winner got to Face the Devil in the bonus round, trying to spin up $1,000 before a devil showed up on one of the reels. It was quite fun. Not to be confused with the Barry Cryer comedy panel game of the 70s. Anyway here’s a random episode on Youtube:

Urban dictionary defines “when the stars align” thusly: “When an unexpected and nearly impossible event takes place. Usually due to pure luck or the divine intervention of God.”

Next week, for possibly one week only, look at this stellar afternoon line-up:

2:15 – !mpossible (BBC1)
3:00 – Tenable (ITV)
4:00 – Tipping Point (ITV)
5:00 – The Chase (ITV)
or 5:15 Pointless (BBC1)

Has there ever been a stronger afternoon of quizzing, where every show is 8/10 or better? Incredible. You can even extend it both ways to Countdown and Eggheads if that is your wont (it’s not mine).

What a time to be alive. And unemployed. Or a student.

Tenable‘s back next Monday. 3pm ITV.

In all the Game Night excitement, I forgot series three of Robot Wars started last night. Is it worth catching up on?

Saturday, 9pm-midnight UK,
Here and on Youtube

Join us as we celebrate two years of Bother’s Bar Game Night with the inaugural Champion of Champions special as we bring back THREE of the six previous champions (because the other three couldn’t make it), TWO moral victors shafted by the Arbitrary End Game, ONE person who claims to be the Champion of a hockey mode of an old MMO and A COMPLETE LOSER to explore the brand spanking new Jackbox Party Pack 4.

And as ever, Team Audience can ruin the whole Champion of Champions vibe by turning up and winning the night for themselves. And as one game requires 16 players (on top of everyone else voting for results), the audience stand their best chance ever of going into the Arbitrary End Game with a big advantage. To play go to www.jackbox.tv and enter the room code on the screen. There’s about a six second delay in watching along but relevant information will turn up on your phone at the relevant points.

Comedy games of knowledge, strategy, creativity, bluff and luck – we’ll have them all and we’d love you to join us. The stream will be running both here and on Youtube on Saturday night.

Edit: LIVE at 9pm!

Let’s be clear here, if you hadn’t guessed I don’t love the Crystal Maze reboot. At its best it’s OK, but it shouldn’t just be OK, it should be one of the best things on TV.

From having fewer games to concentrate on the contestants’ personalities, to the tediously matey social media presence, to declaring the games to be “multilayered” which seems to just mean “you have to get TWO riddles right instead of one now” and various other issues in between, not least Richard Ayoade’s wildly inconsistent likability as Mazemaster, it’s been a very difficult series to love. And there are still eight more of this one to be shown! Instead of making The Ironic Crystal Maze, they should have just tried making The Crystal Maze.

And yet! There may be interest from an unlikely source in the form of the official Christmas cash-in book which I’m sure they’d love to advertise on telly, only there was very definitely always going to be a split in the series at this juncture. Out Thursday, it’s The Crystal Maze Challenge. It promises to let you play the show in your very own home with over 100 ideas.

And this might be ingenious. I suspect there is nobody reading, of a certain age and persuasion, who didn’t try and emulate The Crystal Maze in their bedrooms with friends in some capacity, even if it’s just endless variants of The Floor Is Lava or throwing things at cuddly toys. What will this book teach us? I do hope it’s not as disappointing as the show.

It’s priced £7.50 on Kindle, but the hardback version can be ordered in many places for £7. I hope to devour it over the next day or so when it downloads.

What were your homemade Crystal Maze games from twenty years ago?