Christ, you know when you think something is a funny idea, but then you have to go through with it and you wish you left it at the idea stage?
I’m declaring zero outright duff questions for the previous series of the Million Pound Drop. I’ve considered the arguments, I’ve done research on the Mangalitza Pig and can’t find any scientific references to sheepigs. I see the argument on the airspace closure, but whilst it was certainly disrupted for about a month I would have difficulty in suggesting the airspace was closed for the entire period.
So of all the people who put all their million on zero answers, Barry Nosurname has won about £40’s worth of stuff, which is more than what most people win on the show itself.
Meanwhile of course, the show remains THE place to go to for poorly conceived questions, with the phenomenally popular US version running into trouble with internet historians everywhere with the apparent revisioning of the history of post-it notes.
I think one of the show’s main problems, aside from apparently not having experienced quiz writers writing the questions if what I’ve heard is to be believed, is that Endemol appear to be terrible at PR when things go wrong, see also Big Brother, that makes them look terribly arrogant and defensive in a way that other companies do not when they stuff up. Instead of being able to sweep it under the carpet, it’s an association that will run and run.
In all fairness to Endemol, they do not have a monopoly on badly-written or badly-researched questions.
Back in October, on the premiere of “Family Game Night” (a kids’ game show running on The Hub), a question of the “which-came-first” variety included as one of its answers “pinball machines”. The show credited the pinball machine to 1947.
Only one problem. There is a photograph of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of New York smashing pinballs and slot machines (which I understand are called “fruit machines” over your way), with a sledgehammer. This photo is dated from 1937–ten years before!
And we won’t go into all the predecessors of pinball, such as bagatelles and “drop cases”, will we?
Test marketing is still marketing, any way you slice it.
If Endemol were to do the right thing–as your broascaster of “Million Pound Drop” did recently when they found one of their questions to be more debatable than they thought–they wold invite the couple back onto the show, starting with $800,000, and take it from there.
Whilst it’s not a great thing to have happen on a show, I don’t see any way they can reasonably and fairly rectify it. Unlike when the error happened on Million Pound Drop, the couple lost all their money on the relevant question, so it was easy to just have them playing on as if the money hadn’t dropped.
With this incident however, the couple had money left and played on and lost on the last question. Fox’s argument is probably valid in that it didn’t matter how much money they would have had, they still would have lost it all on the last question. They can’t replay the game with the same questions obviously and new questions could give the couple a better chance of winning.
Whilst it seems less reasonable on Fox’s part compared to what Channel 4 did here in the UK, I can’t see any way of solving it fairly aside from what they’ve already done.
You know – maybe the next killer format is right under the nose of Endemol, and they don’t know it.
What about a programme where all the questions are badly researched, ambigious in the wording, more than one correct answer in a multiple choice, or no correct answers in a multiple choice question. All players start of with a bank of £20,000 and loose £1,000 each time that actually answer a question correctly by accident.
As long as the host makes clear to the viewers at the start that this is what the show is about, and the contestants are taking part knowing this – then there should be no regulatory issues (because the Daily Heil would ask it’s readers to complain to Ofcom about the show en masse).
Put the idea to the development team, Joe. I’ll look forward to watching “It’s Sooo Unfair” on Channel Four next year.
Mr. With a Y Not an I has an interesting idea – a show where the objective is to avoid the right answers. A bit like old Chris Tarrant vehicle , perhaps mixed with the random nature of Tim Vine’s because adding in some accurate questions would be even more confusing.
My question is: who would adjudicate on the apparent errors? Can the programme afford all of The Chasers, two of The Eggheads, Dr. Bayley and someone with the Electronica Britannica?
Or will they make do with adjudicators of the calibre of Quiz Gods Kate Garraway? Or her fellow Quiz God Myleene Klass? Will wrong answers be penalised by the loss of prizes? Or the contestant being forced to don a dunce’s hat?
In other news, relating back to the original post, I agree with Nick.
The pick-the-wrong-answers format was sorta attempted in the US with Trivia Trap, although it was only one round of the entire show, and only for the first half of its run.
Sorry, a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivia_Trap
Marty may be on to something there.
It reminds me of a couple of other games. One is “Ghost” a word-game in which the players try not to complete a word: “Hangman” with a twist. That was used as the basis for “Super Ghost” way back in the early 1950’s. (Doubt that there are any kinescopes extant, but stranger things have transpired!)
The other is “It Pays To Be Ignorant” (which appeared on the BBC as “Ignorance Is Bliss”), a scripted comedy show that was a takeoff on intellectual panel shows such as “Information Please”. Here a panel of comics did their darnedest not to come up with the right answer to a patently obvious question, throwing in puns, gags, jokes, non-sequiturs, and whatever else they could come up with. Examples of the US version are available from sites specializing in Old Time Radio.
Even Kay Kyser had a “give-the-wrong-answer” quiz in his “Kollege of Musical Knowledge” back from the late 1930’s. Again, examples are available from the same sites. This even
spurred one of the “Ol’ Perfesser’s” catch phrases: “That’s Wrong–You’re Right!”
Apprently The company who makes Post stick notes confirms they werent sold untill 1980.
That’s the official line from Fox. Unfortunately for 3M and indeed Fox and particularly for everyone involved, their own literature suggests otherwise.
TMPD indeed does not have a monopoly on badly written questions – why, Accumulate wanted Houston to be the capital of Texas, and there’s a large geographical error coming up in show 3.01, which gets corrected in 3.02. Sigh. I blame geography.
Christ, you’re as bad IF NOT WORSE AS YOU’RE THE FOURTH BEST SHOW OF 2009 than Endemol.
At least it gets corrected….
It looks like Live Millionaire will be going ahead tonight, admit the weather we’ve had this week. Two things to point out.
– The show will be recorded in HD for the first time.
– For once, they have decorated the set
http://yfrog.com/h8mt4tj
Thanks for the reminder.
Well, after two relatively even nights of 5.5 million viewers for MDMD off about a 3.5 rating, last night’s episode fell to 4.7 million viewers and a 2.7 rating according to Zap2It. TV by the Numbers says that it finished second in the first half hour and first in the second half hour among the five English language broadcasters in the key 18-49 demo.
But overall for the night, Spanish language broadcaster Univision was the most watched in the key 18-49 demo. That’s never a good sign, as it shows just how little competition it’s running against.
My best guess is that it’s travel-and-family time, so not much attention is being paid to the telly. In retrospect, I’m now realizing how many shows have already aired Christmas episodes at the beginning of the month, and they’re just rerunning them now. Without knowing any actual statistics, I’d assume this is a regular thing, and broadcasters plan repeats at this time anyway. This sorta brings up the question of why a network would attempt to schedule the debut week of a program now, as compared to forward or backward a couple weeks.
I’ve just read they’re getting a second chance after all. Will be intrigued to find out if it is going to be at the point of failure with 800k or from the beginning. It’s the correct decision I think, although given they were originally prepared to style it out I do wonder what led to the change of heart.
Last night was the last night, but it’s coming back for a short weekly run in January.
Really? But three different companies checked this. It MUST be right…
Dear Endemol, lessons to learn from this:
1) There’s a reason why you pay question writers to do this job, rather than 20-something researchers.
2) This apallingly bad hit rate is hurting the show, and hurting TV quizzes in general. Please get a grip. If £1m/$1m is at stake, you either need a dyed-in-the-tooth quiz producer of the David Briggs mould who knows when something smells bad. Otherwise, a handful of clever people ought to be stress-testing these questions in a round-table scenario.
3) There’s no shame in being wrong occasionally, these ‘gotchas’ come out of the woodwork occasionally, but don’t try to wriggle out of the it in the shameful way we’ve seen – what with 3M being brought in to ‘rule’ on an answer which clearly wasn’t sound to begin with.
In short, try to be a bit classier about it. Thanks.
Turns out the couple who lost on the dodgy question on the US version are actors. Alex on Buzzerblog has explained all on his website.
Yes, although before everyone gets overexcited it’s fair to make the distinction that they are contestants who are also actors rather than acting contestants.