I’ve tried to filter the rubbish, but in truth the only people who know if what’s been left is correct are the people involved and the people who wrote it – therefore there are likely elements of truth but I can’t make any guarantee that it’s completely correct.

Right, eyes down, look in:

• The latest 90s-originating format to be brought back and fronted by a certain former Big Brother host is… Changing Rooms!

Funnily enough, this came up on Twitter later in the afternoon. The impression I get is it’s not a done deal but it’s certainly on the table.

• The Wall is coming back with thrice as many episodes as last time, including some celebrity specials. The first series was shot on the set of the Polish, this one has required it to be recreated in England for obvious reasons.

That’s a big order if it’s correct – 18 episodes (although it being recommissioned isn’t really news), they’ll probably split it in two. It’ll be nice to have an audience that appreciates Danny Dyer. Where would they be filming it, Glasgow?

• Beat the chasers is getting a rule change for series 2, the contestants answer all five questions before tackling the group of chasers, they are only eliminated if they fail to get a single question correct.

Plausible.

• Guz Khan is rumoured to have been snaffled up by Taskmaster for series 11.
• Now they’re on Channel 4, the makers of Taskmaster are considering stealing an idea from Come Dine With Me and having a Couples series. Instead of 5 contestants there would be 3 couples who would do tasks both together and apart.

Guz Khan’s a funny guy, he’d be a great get.

I don’t think Couples Taskmaster is going to be a thing, and certainly not this soon. I think the timings would make it difficult to edit – you’d have to have more but shorter tasks.

• Nobody was surprised to see the I’m A Celeb location confirmed as being a remote place in Wales today. But ACTUALLY, the remote place in Wales that was photographed with production type people in it last weekend, which everyone assumed was the location for I’m A Celeb, was in fact the location for C4’s The Bridge.

It all makes sense! The contestants of The Bridge are building the bridges that connect Ant and Dec to the celeb’s camp. Ingenious.

• CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of injury
• Buzzerblog are currently running a piece about a lost episode of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego that was apparently a snakebit production that showed a rather unpleasant injury to one of its contestants. With that in mind, I’m reminded that Scrapheap Challenge showed an individual aggravating a back injury to the point of required hospitalisation, and edited around it in a rather cynical manner. If you ever see the Monster Trucks episode shot in the US, observe the crowd rushing to ‘congratulate’ the victor after his last run – they’re actually rushing to cut the roof off to get him out, as he’d ploughed straight through the finish line with the throttle open and they’d had to cut the engine off. No lasting damage to the person in question, but it goes to show that, in the main, editing tricks can save most things, so it’ll be interesting to see what happened in the Carmen Sandiego case (which in theory should have been posted as this goes up).

I’ve yet to read these articles but I shall in due course. That Scrapheap Challenge story is insane if true.

• The BBC are planning to bring back Total Wipeout for a proper new series, with Freddie and Paddy hosting – that’s all I know but I presume it’ll be filmed on the set of the upcoming US TBS series.

Dunno. If the BBC want to turn Freddie and Paddy into the new Ant and Dec that’s OK, but it’s not like the Takeover Episodes have been doing very well. Also filming on the US set will likely be more expensive then the BBC are willing to pay for.

• Richard Osman’s house of Games will return this year for Series 4 after 6 weeks of repeats. It seems that It will be 10 weeks in 2020 and 10 in 2021. Guests include: Full quartets: Aisling Bea, Mike Bushell, Dion Dublin and Sunetra Sarker Maisie Adam, Rory Bremner, James Cracknell and Michelle Gayle Angela Barnes, Denise Van Outen, Melvin Odoom and Greg Rutherford Sally Phillips, Nathan Caton, Ronni Ancona and Colin Murray Two Celebs playing the same week: Jean Johannsen and Stephen Mangan Kae Kurd and Kate Robbins Various other Celebs in different weeks: Les Dennis Catherine Bohart Mae Moore Darren Harriott Jeannette Kwakye Mark Watson If anyone knows any more please add.
• Nothing really stool pigeon, but I think it’s quite funny: Thanks to Corona German celebrity Big Brother had to place fans that shout and/or sing in the front row, because they must have a 4 meter distance to the next person in front of them and the audience wouldn’t be filled enough if they sat in any other row.
• Not sure if this is quiz show related or not, but ITV2 has “uncancelled” Britain’s Got More Talent to run alongside the live shows. There are issues with Mulhern’s availability though – so may have a different presenter (Jordan Banjo and Perry).

Interesting scoop if true, although Mulhern was so attached to More Talent it might be too odd without him.

• Possessed’s The Mole meets Masterchef format Rat in the Kitchen was piloted recently in Manchester, both BBC and ITV showing interest so a commission seems likely.

I actually thought this was already commissioned so there we are. Just buy The Mole, Glenn!

Finally:

• Imagine Would I Lie to You? but instead of hearing all the stories, under new pandemic rules, you just get to hear the ones that Rob Brydon thinks may be true. That would be rubbish. No one should do that.

I’m detecting some snark. Luckily I can do that, but I get a bit fed up of having to correct people who through no fault of their own cannot which hopefully leads to more relevant conversations. Also the Stool Pigeon was never meant to be a true or false quiz, it was intended for insiders to share, sometimes very interesting, information that they’d rather not put their name to. Also I am a bit bored of in-jokes, and also also Twitter is a thing that exists for that purpose.

Christ that was a bit of a po-faced end! Let’s lighten the mood:

Right, it’s been two months since the last one, it’s time for your industry anonygoss.

Under the new pandemic rules, we won’t be printing anything we don’t believe has an element of truth to it.

The box will remain open until the end of Dan’s Quiz tonight, around 10pm.

Edit: Time’s up, going through it all now.

Channel 4 has just announced The Bridge, a show where twelve strangers try and build a 250m bridge in twenty days to win a £100k prize, which one person voted for by the group must decide to take it all for themselves or split it amongst everybody.

It is very much the sort of thing that sounds a bit rubbish on paper but might end up being quite entertaining. The question is: this sort of communal building challenge has been done in the past (Building the Dream, Trouble in Paradise) and didn’t really work out. With something fairly monotonous like a bridge, would it fare any better? Or will the Challenge Anneka aspect add the necessary frisson?

Anyway Wilderness are making this, which probably means this is the format I suspected was Survivor. Never mind.

Have you ever wanted to know the answer to the question “what if Holey Moley and Extreme Dodgeball had a child and it was a bit boring?” Well worry no longer, as Discovery in America has made that show and it’s called Dodgeball Thunderdome, and it goes out on Wednesday nights.

Hosted by David Dobrik (Youtube sensation apparently, I don’t know I’m 39 and British) and co-hosted by NFL player Andrew Hawkins and E! host Erin Lim, Dodgy Thunder sees eight people battle it out for a chance to enter the championship playoffs and the $25,000 grand prize.

The first round is probably the most successful – four people traverse a muddy Wipeout-esque obstacle course whilst getting pelted with dodgeballs – red (which will eliminate you if you take too many – the two who take the most are eliminated) and blue (for the LOLs). Contestants throw at each other, and production also chuck some in for good measure. Surely the people on either side are at quite a disadvantage seeing as they’re nearer production and only likely have one easy person to aim at whereas the people in the middle are protected by distance and a much easier choice of people to aim at. I don’t know.

Anyway repeat that, the four survivors face off in round two which is basically Kevin Hart’s TKO – one person tries to run an obstacle course, the other is on a gantry trying to hit them with balls, blue to slow down, red (which are in short supply) to eliminate (they also have a cannon and a giant ball on a catapult). Three red balls ends the run, the other person has to beat the distance.

The final sees the two survivors face off in the Dodgeball Thunderdome. Beginning with a schoolyard pick of the losing contestants, the captains build a team. Teammates can take one hit, captains three, and when the captain is eliminated it’s game over. To spice things up there are various targets and special weapons located around the arena, very few of which actually get used. It manages to be glacial in a complete opposite way to GSN’s Extreme Dodgeball from about twenty years ago, and despite all the potential twists never threatens to be particularly exciting.

It carries all the tropes of a comedy physical game – the straight man and the colour commentator, sarcastic woman interviewing the contestants, people falling off obstacles into mud/water, but it doesn’t do anything better than anything that’s gone before it and brings absolutely nothing new to the table.

In a year that’s been actually pretty good for physicality in gameshows in the US (Ultimate Tag was fun, Holey Moley was funny, even The Titan Games upped its game), it’s hard to see what the point of Dodgy Thunder is really.

We are *always always always* going to feature old Krypton Factor that finds its way onto Youtube, and it looks like this channel’s uploaded almost the entire original 1977 series.

SPOILERS, we’re skipping to the final as it features a) an intelligence test it took me until the end to figure out and b) a hilariously waterlogged assault course. The playlist is here.

https://youtu.be/G8eNUBgMfl8

Also on the channel likely of interest: five episodes of The Satellite Game.

We’ve featured the work of Charlie Wheeler before, years ago as part of Amateur Adventure Hour and for his titles mocks on Youtube.

Well he’s Kickstarting a book, and it looks like it might be very interesting and relevant to our tastes, The Last Pyramid is a puzzle adventure book that has been very clearly influenced by The Crystal Maze, Fort Boyard et al. £20 will secure you a copy, if it gets funded.