It might be wet outside, but the gameshow news and OPINION well is dry. What do we do in these circumstances? We bring out the Stool Pigeon for (almost) anonymous gossip. The box will be open until 8pm and if anything good comes up will reprint later.
This is now closed.
Some good/interesting stuff on Saturday so here’s a kind of general signpost. All times UK.
It’s Dave Benson-Phillips as it turns out.
I was doing some Youtube diving the other night going into the channel that had that Price Is Right episode the other day (lots of good stuff on it btw) that we talked about and rather brilliantly it had this, a piece of music I was kind of fascinated by as a teen.
It’s the rather fabulous end theme for peak era Get Your Own Back, which was also used as clock music for some of the games at the time, the show’s early foray into the arena-style after it left the fairground set. It sounds like it was written by Harold Faltermayer of The Running Man and Axel F fame, and it sounds completely out of kilter for a light-hearted kids It’s a Knockout style show. The music for Squeal On The Wheel feels especially doom-laden, and I kind of dig it.
Yet it wasn’t written by Harold Faltermayer, it was written by the musician and comic Steve Brown, who is probably best known for playing band-leader Glen Ponder in Knowing Me Knowing You With Alan Partridge in the early 90s.
GYOB went through a couple of variations on its decade-plus long run and has TWO golden periods. No, not the fine-but-unnecessary Lisa Brockwell years (let’s be clear here, it was always going to be Big Dave’s show). Not the era of the Forfeit Furnace where they tried to go large on the fairground set, but when the show first moved from a 15 minute show to a 25 minute one and the very last series where the adult (the Chump) was the one earning the points to avoid the gunge with the kid (the Challenger) trying to stop them (for the latter two-thirds of the run the kid would try and earn the points whilst the grown-up would try and obstruct or undo the work under a handicap). They added a new big round – It’s Puzzle Time, which had a clever twist with the kids swapping teams to try and help the other adult earn as many points as possible – and a couple of bonus games where the kids could reduce their adult’s score. It all felt quite well thought out and fun, and I think the Brain Box round and it’s mangle was missed.
This series was also the last time we saw the original and best Gunk Dunk game where the adult had to answer questions against the clock with obvious answers that all started with a certain letter but none of their answers were allowed to begin with the letter. I’m surprised this has never been reversioned in some capacity.
Anyway it’s quite sad watching DBP scrabble about in the internet wilderness these days, if Pat Sharp can can still dine out on a haircut he’s not actually had for 25 years, is there really no room for Uncle Dave on CBBC?
We had plans to write CONTENT today, but then this showed up in my timeline:
Being a board game collector and an ex #CrystalMaze captain… I squealed when I saw this… pic.twitter.com/sSyQ4tflei
— MIKE PARK (@PuzzleCheetah) 20 August 2018
Cor. And this news story I’ve found of it suggests there’ll be a mood-setting app to accompany it as well. Let’s hope it doesn’t take about 45 minutes to set-up like the original board game did, although we still have fond memories of the catapult and that industrial robot arm game which never wanted to pick the cylinders up.
Have we ever linked to the first ever UK Price is Right from 1984? No? Great, content.
Cripes at the value of prizes on offer, must be in the region of £10k, wa-a-a-a-y above what the IBA would normally have allowed at the time (did I read somewhere that it made better sense to accept the fine and keep offering the prizes or did I make that up? Although it seems odd to then drop the wheel and its luck element also). Also amusing is the way they handle “you have won, but you sort of also haven’t” in the Showcase. And my favourite bit is Central in the credits covering themselves in case they just wanted to make some prices up.
Saturday 9th June, 7:15pm UK/8:15pm local
Pro 7 and naughty internet streaming
Tweet us! #bbsdh
Schlag den Henssler is back from its Sommerpause, and a plucky contestant will be attempting to win the €250,000 by besting celebrity chef Stefan Henssler over 15 mystery events. Celebrity musical guests include Kovacs, Aloe Blacc and Vanessa Mai featuring Olexesh! I know! THE Vanessa Mai (not the one you’re thinking of)!
As ever, we’ll be here attempting to provide commentary, gossip and games, and we’re likely to be a while so do feel free to dip in and out.
Watching the live Pro 7 stream might be a bit more difficult than it has been previously.
Our commentary stream link will appear here – live from 7:15 to around midnight.
This stream is commentary only. You will need to have a naughty stream running at the same time for the visuals. We are likely to be about 15-20 seconds behind the visual stream (and about a full minute behind if you’re watching an actual satellite feed), sorry.The Opera VPN has apparently stopped being useful for SdH. Bother’s Bar recommends shelling out for a proper VPN service. Bother’s Bar uses Tunnelbear, other VPN services are available. Matt Clemson recommends Windscribe as a free alternative. We cannot take responsibility for anything you do to your system, so be careful and use some common sense.
To watch it would be useful to sign up for ProSieben’s catch-up service – it’s pretty simple to work out, don’t click the box if you don’t want e-mail messages. You will need to put in a proper e-mail because it will send you a confirmation.
If anyone knows of any relatively safe livestreams, do feel free to share.
@bothersbar, @danielpeake, @davidjbodycombe @sensei256, @ogbajoj