Here’s some fun, this channel has started uploading episodes of Challenge TV’s 2001 non-hit Stake Out.
If you don’t remember, Stake Out was the show where people staked £250 of their own money in a “ruthless” quiz. Winners could keep winning and turn it into thousands.
That was the plan. Unfortunately, so legend has it, production discovered before filming that this would be illegal under the gambling rules at the time and had to put up all the money themselves. Too late in the day to change the concept, evidently, so they went with it and pretended anyway.
Presumably someone had figured it out by the time Grand Slam happened.
I was reading the UKGameShows article on Grand Slam recently and I couldn’t figure out if that was a mistake on the article or not. I suppose there were also exceptions or loopholes for Late Night Poker and its various spinoffs.
It’s an interestong question, LNP predates this by a number of years. Certainly tournament poker is classed as ‘a game of equal chance’ (everyone starts with the same amount, continues until one has it all) and so the laws are a bit free-er, small stakes allowed in pubs, for example, whereas games of skill would be licensed differently. Presumably they had the relevant licences in Cardiff for the stakes on offer.
Note that cash games don’t fall under this.
That intro really makes me crave a pack of smarties / skittles / fruit mentos…
Stake Out is very much the People Place of quizzes:
https://youtu.be/Yn62LbHWcoI
The Anthony Davis is a private pilot. I don’t think his plane needs any jet fuel, it’s just powered by the speed and relentlessness of his speech…
The format isn’t particularly interesting and the host is in close competition with Robert Kilroy-Silk for Worst Gameshow Host 2001, but the set looks very good for a Challenge show. I also remembered this having a brilliant theme tune, not something that appears to be the demo track on a cheap synth.
Hilarity all round as we remember the producers of Weakest Link in the US optioned Stake Out at one point:
https://www.c21media.net/more-us-format-deals-for-chatterbox/
Is this a contender for the worst game show sound package in history? Most of the stings sound like they came pre-loaded with whatever software was used to make them.
I also never tire of seeing Anthony Davis race up and down those prongs in double-quick time.
This, and Cash Machine, are a reminder that “people pressing buttons to answer” makes for terrible television.
100% was half an hour of just that, and it ran for 4 years. That’s not exactly an indication of quality, seeing as it was early Channel 5 and cost astonishingly little to make.
People pressing buttons to answer only works if it doesn’t feel slow, because the host keeps the game feeling fast by talking as the timer’s running as Chris Tarrant did on Everybody’s Equal. Stake Out… doesn’t, to say the least.
Blimey: Richard Madeley will be a contestant on The Circle, in what is pretty much a “The People’s Puppet” role. https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/reality-tv/a29193963/the-circle-good-morning-britain-richard-madeley-surprise-contestant/
I don’t know elsewhere, but in Italy it’s already time for Christmas-themed commercials.
https://twitter.com/see_lallero/status/1176500813541335045/video/1