Board of Excitement 2nd – 8th January 2011
2011! Fancy that. I wonder what is in store for the year. I’d like to thank all fourteen of you for making Bother’s Bar the world’s 863,566th fave website in 2010. We’ve got lots of (some) competitions coming up, and fingers crossed two shows to go and see and write about before the end of the month. But what about this week, eh?
- The Cube – Last celebrity special, I think, with Jennie McAlpine and Ricky Hatton. Watch out for a new game for Ricky, “Hat On”, can he throw a hat onto a hat stand for £250,000? (Sunday, 8pm, ITV)
- Famous and Fearless – i.e. it’s The Games EXTREME. Chris Evans and Claire Balding invite celebs to do extreme sports live every night this week, beginning with a two hour special this evening an concluding Friday. The question on everybody’s lips is, of course, will there be an accident? (Sunday, 8pm, C4)
- Poll of the Year 2010 – This is so exciting, apparently there is a budget for ACTUAL TROPHIES to send to the winners this year. Look out for the details tomorrow, and find out just what is replacing the Golden Fiver? (Monday, UKGameshows.com/Bother’s Bar)
- The Chase – New series of last year’s sleeper hit for Bradley Walsh and chums (Monday, 5pm, ITV1)
- Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2010 – This is SO last year. (Monday, 9:30pm, C4)
- Penn and Teller: Fool Us – Blimey, midweek is a bit dull. Anyway I was interested in seeing this partly because Penn and Teller are awesome, and partly because Peter Davey off of The Mole is producing, which makes us more confident of this than The Magicians on BBC1. Unfortunately we weren’t successful in getting a ticket but Geek Comedian Tom Scott was and sent us a recording report which I will put up on Friday. Anyway here magicians try and impress P and T in a bid to earn a slot in a Vegas show. (Friday, 9pm, ITV1)
- Total Wipeout – Anyway, new series of this. Let’s hope it doesn’t succumb to last year’s really stupid scheduling. (Saturday, 6pm, BBC1). NOTE: I’m a bit bored of the US one which has become a bit one note, but I should point out that Winter Wipeout begins Thursday night on ABC.
Edit: It would be remiss of us to not point out that Million Dollar Money Drop continues on Thursday night on Fox – the holidays are over, it will have nowhere to hide. Except behind more popular shows, obviously. ARF!
Happy New Year!
“Hi, it’s John Anderson and The Big O here and on my first whistle, we want you all have a very happy new year!”
Thanks John and Oblivion! I hope you both have a good New Year too.
Well folks, that just about wraps up Bother’s Bar for another year, and goodness what a year full of incide… oh sorry it’s been a bit dull hasn’t it? Never mind.
Look out for the Bother Series of Poker bumpf over the weekend, and possibly (just possibly) details about the Poll of 2010. And find out the answer to the question that’s on everybody’s lips: What new award is replacing the Golden Fiver?
Whatever you do this evening, do it to the best of your ability,
Brig xx
Fun vs 100
Hey you!
Do you like fairly entertainingly written questions hidden inside horiffically broken formats, but done with enough pizazz to convince producers all over the globe that actually that way is the way to do it and then be surprised when it isn’t really all that successful if at all?
Then you’ll just love the fact you appear to able to watch all of GSN’s 1 vs 100 online, without having to resort to hiding behind a proxy if you’re in the UK either. Ta to Alex Buzzerblog for the heads up.
Knock yourself out, just as you’d knock out members of the mob.
Are you game?
Did you play a lot of games over Christmas?
One thing I was sent was an episode of Family Game Night, currently airing on family channel The Hub in the US. I think it’s quite neat, and would fit quite well into an ITV or BBC Saturday early evening schedule with a few tweaks.
And you can read about it in my latest feature.
I quite like Todd Newton, and doing a little bit of research bought up a question I would be intrigued if any of my American readers would be able to answer. Newton was meant to be doing a documentary for the Travel Channel last year called Are You Game? where he travels around the world and competes on gameshows with a camera crew in tow. Did the series go out and was it any good? Not much has been written about it anywhere.
Ha ha, it’s… ha ha, haaaaaaaa, it’s the Belgians! The Belgians are coming! HAAAAAAAAAA!
Long term fans of Bother’s Bar may remember that back when you could stream John de Mol’s Tien channel live over the internet we championed a show called De Slimste (The Smartest). Hosted by the ever amazing Linda de Mol, this was the Dutch version of a popular Belgian format De Slimste Mens Ter Wereld (The Smartest Person In The World, the joke being that Belgium is meant to be the smartest country so the winner must be the smartest person in the world). It’s basically a sort of general knowledge themed Talkabout with added strategy elements. Despite this it doesn’t take itself too seriously, the Dutch show was played with celebrities.
It’s a neat little quiz which I will be doing a feature on in the next few weeks. But if you can’t wait that long it looks like the Belgians are currently “doing a run” of it right now. I can’t find full episodes or a live stream, but there are clips.

