Board of Excitement 16th – 22nd April 2011

By | April 17, 2011
31 Comments

Another quite boring week:

  • The Bother Series of Poker Game 8: Deepstack Doubler – it’s all very exciting in the world of Pokerland at the moment, however what’s going on shouldn’t affect those of us playing in the UK – yet. You may find you need to update your software by downloading from fulltiltpoker.co.uk if your current software will not update, and regrettably it looks like our one US contestant will not be able to join us for the forseeable. The discussion page for Game 8 is here. (8pm, Sunday, Full Tilt)
  • I’m going to the doctors to get a chest X Ray. Well technically she’s going to phone up the hospital and get me one which seems like quite a convoluted system really. (Wednesday)
  • The Million Pound Drop – Live! – Either series four or five, depending if the run of episodes at Christmas counts as a series or not. Anyway, it’s back for six weekends and Freddie Flintoff and partner are on the first one. That means that there’s every chance Flintoff will be competing with himself on A League of Their Own on Sky One from 9:30pm. (10pm Friday, 9pm Saturday, Channel 4)
  • Don’t Scare the Hare – Nowadays any show that has an obstacle in it is “a bit like Total Wipeout“. This one also has a talking animatronic hare and a lengthy gestation period. Angry frogs and laser beam carrots are promised, and at no point has Barry Davies been mentioned. (5:25pm, Saturday, BBC1)

And at some point I’ll stick up an iPad review of You Don’t Know Jack.

Show discussion: Sing If You Can

By | April 16, 2011
43 Comments

Well after weeks of idle speculation it’s finally here – ITV’s brand new comedy hit sensation (so they’d like you to believe) Sing If You Can (7:20pm ITV1).

It is hosted by Keith Lemon who seems to be able to mention “bang tidy”, but will he be funny without being able to fall back to using “jizz” and “smashing her back doors in” for a cheap laugh? Celebrity Juice posted it’s best figures on Thursday night, will Lemon be able to keep it up for an hour pre-watershed, and will a sizable number of people just see him and click off? And then there’s Stacey Solomon who is lovely but not by any means a decent host. And there’s the games, described by people at the recordings as cheap and crap and you will have to sit through each one twice. The celebrities taking part are *quite* ITV1 and include Jedward (tellingly the ITV TV guide isn’t listing who is on tomorrow’s show).

And yet it’s leading into rating’s behemoth Britain’s Got Talent, and it’s against a failing So You Think You Can Dance? Lemon seems to be in the ascendancy. The advert for it makes it look not too bad.

My head says it’s the next Celebrity Wrestling, my heart has been secretly wavering all week. Which will end up being correct? I’m actually out this evening and will be watching from the comfort of a V+ Box, obviously you aren’t expected to wait with your comments and observations and I’ll read them after I’ve watched the show.

Don’t Scare the Hart

By | April 15, 2011
15 Comments

In slightly baffling news, we’ve had confirmation that despite putting out a massive press release saying Miranda Hart is going to be the voice of the Don’t Scare the Hare hare, which I could see working, it’s now Sue Perkins and feels a bit less appealing. What’s THAT all about, eh?

In other news, Penn and Teller: Fool Us records its series 16th-20th May. You can get tickets here.

In other other news this Sunday is a Deepstack Doubler for the BotherSOP, if you’ve never played before but fancy a game feel free to join in, the details are here. HOWEVER you may have some trouble if you’re from the US as there appears to be a major story brewing regarding getting round the illegal online gambling thing. You probably will not have a problem in the UK but the details are there for you to make an informed decision.

Now you can know Jack

By | April 14, 2011
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Awesome, the iPhone and iPad editions of You Don’t Know Jack, featuring different questions to the recent console release, are now out. Demos (iphone, iPad) are also avaliable, will try and review at the weekend. The demo ‘lite’ versions have different questions to the full games.

If you want to compare scores, you can add me on Game Cent(“re” – Ed): Brig Bother.

Amazing

By | April 13, 2011
22 Comments

Right, if you’ve been following us on Twitter this afternoon you’d have noticed we were all bashing out a new chat show called Font Chat with Russell Grant and Richard Osman (as “the font of all knowledge” – thanks @OfficialBanker) and that the theme tune was going to be that of The Zodiac Game, but with fonts instead of star signs. Brilliant I’m sure you’ll agree. And I was going to put up the theme to The Zodiac Game on here to jog people’s memories.

However sod that, here’s Connections with Sue Robbie.

Better than catching a disease

By | April 13, 2011
2 Comments

Ha ha ha, we’ve never actually been sent a proper press release before, so as it’s the first one we’ll print this without comment or criticism, rest assured it won’t be happening again:

Pop Monkey Acquires International Format Rights To GSN’s “Catch 21”
From “Hollywood Squares” creator, Merrill Heatter

LOS ANGELES, CA (APRIL 13, 2011) Following a successful MIPTV market, Pop Monkey Productions, the new company launched by US TV veterans Syd Vinnedge and Hugh Wright with UK TV executives, Chuck Thomas and Simone Thorogood, have signed a deal with “Hollywood Squares” creator, Merrill Heatter to acquire the international rights to GSN’s “Catch 21” and to represent his eagerly awaited new game show, “Hollywood Teasers”.

The hit game show, which is currently in its fourth season on GSN combines the card game “21” with the latest pop culture questions. Each correct answer earns contestants a card that they can use to improve their own hand or destroy the competition. The winner goes to a high stakes finale where catching “21” three times wins the top prize.

Veteran game show creator Merrill Heatter said “Pop Monkey impressed me with a vision to not only bring this superb format to TV audiences around the world but to also create multi-platform elements. It’s very exciting to be in business with them”. Hugh Wright said “It’s tremendous to be working with a game show pioneer like Merrill on Catch 21. As GSN has proven over four seasons, the show rapidly finds a high rating audience”.

Pop Monkey will also be representing Heatter’s next big format “Hollywood Teasers” which updates mega-hit “Hollywood Squares”, that ran from 1966 – 2004 with over 5000 episodes produced. The new format retains all the fun with celebrities that Heatter invented but he’s added what he calls “the missing link with today’s audience”. It’s a new and challenging word game that torments the contestants and gives viewers the play along action they love.