Sort of a passing fancy post as its been a few days since the last one however there’s not much else on. Those of you interested in US gameshow historia (I don’t think that’s a legitimate word but it feels like the legitimate word) should go and have a look at Wink Martindale’s Youtube channel (for the uninitiated, Wink was a very popular gameshow host of the seventies and eighties fronting classics like Tic Tac Dough, Gambit and High Rollers and now plays up his image somewhat comically) where his team have been uploading unusual and rare clips of pilots and old shows past.

Anyway recently they stuck up a twelve minute edit for the pilot of Shop Til You Drop. You might not have heard of it, but for a time it was the biggest game on cable television and has been produced on and off for the best part of fifteen years (at one point a channel bought repeats in and it proved so popular they started making new first run episodes). Most series hosted by Pat Finn, the final series almost ten years ago by JD Roberto.

It is, to all intents and purposes Funhouse In A Mall. In it two teams of two compete in games (sidenote: in the US these are routinely referred to as “stunts”. In the UK a stunt would AT THE VERY LEAST be a man jumping out of a burning building onto a crash mat. Filling your face with marshmallows and then trying to repeat a phrase would be considered a “mild diversion.”) based loosely around shopping and pop culture in a set designed to look like a mall. They vary from the sublime to the ridiculous – using objects to spell out given phrases to trying to suck up ping ping balls with a vacuum pipe attached to the head, with some balls also included that are too big for the pipe. There’s then a 90 second buzzer quiz to determine the winner.

The end game is a thing of beauty. It manages to be both a bit lousy as a game but also fun and memorable. One of the couple reveals objects and between them they must decide whether to keep the object or run off into the mall and exchange it for another one, sight unseen. The aim is to have at least $2,500’s worth of prizes on the table at the end of ninety seconds. The decision making is frankly much of a muchness – all the prizes are worth around $300 except for a few in the mall which can be worth around $700 but you’ve no way of knowing which is which so it’s a blind game of chance. But it’s a blind game of chance with COUPLES SHOUTING and A VERY REAL POSSIBILITY SOMEONE MIGHT BREAK THEIR NECK. We came across this video which sums it up pretty well,  listen out for the rather kicking clock music (fast forward to 14:50):

What a pro, none of your six hour records here thank you very much. Anyway having binged on a couple of episodes throughout the ages on Youtube last night (they did in fact used to show this on UK cable back in the day) quickly came to the conclusion that you don’t really need to watch more than one in a sitting, but it still does some quite nice things – some of the stunts dress up pretty standard fare quite inventively, there is a real attempt at a comedy announcer sidekick years before Le Juste Prix and musically, certainly in its milennium incarnation, its pretty good.

Congrats to Vicky C-M who won just shy of €500,000 in the main event of the European Poker Tour this evening, having been shortstacked for most of it (in fact sitting down as THE short stack at the beginning of the final table) but being patient and making the most of her chances. She becomes the first person to win TWO EPT main events.

Relatedly, Only Connect‘s on BBC4 tomorrow, and they start filming the BBC2 series very soon.

If you had been watching the EPT coverage all day like I have and have been bitten by the bug, come and play in the next Bother’s Bar game two weeks tonight on May 4th. It’s a pretty friendly game, and all the details can be found here.

Here is a picture of a cake I’ve found on Google Images to celebrate:

In other news if you’re between 12 and 18 and want to take part in the next series of Fort Boyard Ultimate Challenge, you can apply here.

Did you watch Schlag den Brig 2 LIVE? Did you watch it on catch-up? Then we’d very much appreciate having a go at this exciting feedback form so we can make it better in future. Thanks!

It sounds very much like there’s a UK version of TBS’ King of the Nerds coming, Objective are currently casting (click for larger):

If this is what this is, the US show was quite good fun – challenges are split to alternate weeks between science-y and creative. I’ve seen series one of it but not seen series two (but Reality Blurred who is usually bang on about this sort of thing suggests it has even better challenges than the first one). casting@objectiveproductions.com is the direct link if you want to mail for an application form.

If it’s something completely different then meh.

Well this is a bit of a turn-up, an entire episode of Box Clever on Youtube. I used to bloody love this when I was about five.

In this show football player and Question of Sport captain Emelyn Hughes spends about twenty minutes explaining the rules of the game (UKGameshows has a good explanation, but it can be boiled down to: answer questions to turn squares your colour, if you don’t complete the set your opponents can nick it, try and box your opponents in on the board – it’s a bit like Blockbusters but you’re trying to claim territory). Hughes frankly not a great host, Dr Sue Kingsman has some quite fun questions (although seems to allow multiple guesses on a whim), aurally and sonically it is very eighties. Also was there a second computer game with a dog that I remember, presumably that’s series two.