We don’t normally do this but they’re influential friends of The Bar (and one of them made the BB masthead which is six or seven years old now), happy birthday to our chums at nostalgia site TV Cream, twenty today.

To celebrate they’ve made an Anniversary Cassette, a feature packed miscellany which is very nicely produced (seriously – it must have taken ages to get the look right) and features at least two items of specific interest to the Bar – a commentary on a Channel 4 1997 documentary series on board gamers called Movers and Shakers which would have completely passed me by and a recording of Bob Monkhouse on the phone talking about The Golden Shot. But there’s lots of other stuff too.

You can find it split into two parts (it’s an hour total) following the link.

Because I’ve been playing lots of Splatoon 2 on my Switch recently, and I’m about to start playing Mario + Rabbids which is out today, what more appropriate video than that of short-lived Channel 4 back-when-it-was-vaguely-interesting paintballing show X-Fire with Ed Hall?

My Switch code is SW-2805-5403-1808 if you want to add me and can handle the raw skill.

The nominations for the world’s foremost TV entertainment prize actually came out last week but The Crystal Maze was more important, frankly.

Nonetheless I think it’s time for my annual round-up of the game show category. Last couple of years I’ve been pretty confident of the winners, this year I’m not sure I’d bet my house on it. Here then are the runners and riders, bearing in mind that these are apparently the best shows of those that paid to enter:

Babushka: A really, really nicely produced unbelievably terrible format. The good news is that the judges in the end are normally pretty good at picking the right winner and will probably see through the shiny. Estimated chances? 5%.

Só Pra Parodiar: A Brazilian show and a bit of an unknown quantity, only that it involves lots of Youtubers making parody music videos. Clips on Youtube are quite stylish and well done but difficult to judge as a TV show. Estimated chances: 20%.

The Wall: This is the best show here (although to be clear it’s a solid 7/10 than a 9/10 humdinger) based around it’s fantastic set piece. Does it really do much original though? It’s Plinko Millionaire. Estimated chance: 30%

Bigheads: Neither the best nor most successful of the four shows on offer, however what it does have going for it is that it does leave an impression on first viewing (just not subsequent ones) and you only need one good episode to win the Rose d’Or. It’s also, with its costumes and physicality and “satirical intent”, precisely the sort of thing Rose d’Or judges tend to go for, for better or worse. It might be too soon after Wild Things and not be as good as Wild Things but if there’s a show on the list precision engineered to win a Rose d’Or and nothing else it’s probably Bigheads. Estimated chances: 45%.

In other news, with Virtual Reality almost as big as 3DTV now, keep an eye out for TV Norge’s Lost in Time in the VR category which has been briefly discussed here.

Haven’t had a post for a few days, er nothing interesting’s happening until later in the week er, what’s topical? The eclipse? Nothing relevant. Big Ben shutting down? Ah! Well in that case here’s an episode of little remembered kids quiz Clockwise with Charlotte Hindle, featuring an end game with Big Ben. Sort of.

This was then reversioned, gunged-up and given to Darren Day as a Double Dare replacement on Going Live. He’s hosting it an octave higher that you’d normally expect here.

We’ll probably have a Show Discussion post up for The Crystal Maze for Wednesday if O2 are doing their previews again. There’s a preview video of fails on DS right now.