The Clipton Factor - The Price is Right UK, again.
Somebody asked nicely for 3 in a Row and Permutation from the Crowther era. Luckily, the one episode I've got has got both of them. So here you go.
29th September 2008
Go West, they speak Welsh there
It's the S4C on demand service! UK only I'm afraid. But lots of it has English Subtitles. Only one gameshow on it as far as I can tell so far, 0 Ond 1.
Unfortunately there's no Tipit :(
In other news, tiebreaker questions on Only Connect are harsh. Is there any contingency if the players should come up with something that fits that's not the "official" answer?
What have we learnt about Spin Star?
That there was a major computer screw up in the shows filmed this morning putting everything two hours behind. Incompetol (thanks) not being able to do anything to time? Waddashock.
However this did give me an hour and a bit to explore Iver Heath (a place not a person) and found a different route which meant not walking for a mile on a grass verge to get to Pinewood, because being quite cheap yet awesomely hard I walked from Uxbridge tube station to Pinewood, although I wish I had a torch for the way back in retrospect.
Anyway when we finally got in they managed to tape not just one but two shows to time! Amazing.
Spin Star will be going out in the illustrious 3pm slot on ITV1 starting November 10th, I think warm-up man Ray Whatshisface suggested.
But what is Spin Star actually about? It's about a big five reel computerised slot machine called the Moneyspinner (which is random and independently adjudicated Bradley Walsh is at great pains to point out every few minutes. There was someone looking like an independant adjudicator watching some monitors off set and noting things down, although how you adjudicate on a computer program is something you will have to divine for yourselves).
It is also about six players. Five of them stand on contestant's row, whilst the sixth is the day's Spin Star. You move up one podium each episode, so it's definitely five days as a daily player than six and out.
The Daily Players will be the ones answering the questions. They're trying to earn money for the Spin Star. In many ways it's the camaraderie element of Deal or No Deal extrapolated and it works quite well, although as they film four a day you won't have much time to know your comrades socially in the hotel.
Each Daily Player is assigned £500 to begin with.
Round one is the quick spin round. The Spin Star will pull the lever and spin the machine three times. In the first window are categories and star ratings to suggest how difficult the questions are going to be (easy, medium or hard). In the middle three windows are the Daily Player's names, and in the final window the cash amount each question is worth.
Categories are many and varied, and the question setters seem to like their food (drink, confectionary, cheese and cakes were all seperate categories spotted on the wheel this evening). Difficulty ratings are about right, few of the questions are gimmes - we don't know how many of each difficulty are on the wheel at the start. Once a category is selected it either disappears or is replaced, we're not entirely sure which.
The Players answer one question in the category each time their name is spun. Every correct answer adds the cash value to their personal bank. However, if the Spin Star manages to spin a triple (i.e. the same person three times) then that is a jackpot line, and they answer three questions for double the going rate. The top cash amount on the reel increases with each spin, for round one that's £2k, £3k and £4k.
Round two adds strategy to the proceedings and really it works rather well. Three more spins (top values are £5k, £7.5k and £10k), but this time the Spin Star can elect to respin some of the reels. There are only two rules - first, you can't just respin one reel, it must be none or two or more. Secondly, you can't respin a reel showing a Brain Buster or a Bank Buster.
Yes, boo. If Brain Buster comes up in the category reel, then the next three questions will be super tough. Unfortunately I can't tell you how tough because it didn't turn up this evening. Bank Buster in the cash reel is even worse, because if the nominated players get their question wrong then it wipes out their bank. This is Bad News. Spinning both a Brain and Bank Buster is something best avoided.
So the idea is you try and match up the players to the categories, but the other strategy is deciding whether to try and spread the wealth or go for triples and put all your eggs in fewer baskets. And if a Bank Buster comes up you want to be trying to get your most cashed up players out of the firing line. The reasons for this will become clear.
The final round is the Moneyspinner round where the Spin Star determines how much, if anything, they're taking home. The banks of the five players are loaded onto the three middle reels - twice each on each reel. Unfortunately, one Bank Buster is also loaded on the first reel, two on the second and a mighty three on the third. But the Spin Star is given the chance to remove a Bank Buster from each reel - first they spin the category reel - they can elect to keep the category or dump it and respin and being forced to take the second option (there is a bit of strategy involved here - as I said, any category that gets used up in the main game can't come up in the end game, and there are no Brain Busters). They must answer a question for each reel - a correct answer removes a BB, a wrong answer puts another one on. Each reel is played for in turn - the money is cumulative so if they hit a BB on the second reel it wipes out what they earnt for the first one, and if they hit it on the third reel then they leave with nothing. Basically, it feels like about one person a week is going to get stiffed. Also you can see why not putting all the money on one person is a good idea, because it's worthless if it doesn't then come up on the win line.
That's it really. And it's good fun! I and many others were certainly perfectly happy to stay and watch the second episode being taped (something which normally elicits a groan from an audience) and more probably would have stayed if they weren't running two hours behind. It's a 45 minute show all done and dusted in about an hour twenty, and it didn't drag on set so it'll probably feel like it's going at a fast pace on telly.
Criticisms? The reels spin for far too long really. Greg the floor manager was trying to get an "ooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!" Name That Tune Roulette sort of thing going but the audience quietly dropped it when they realised they couldn't keep it up for the twenty seconds or so it seemed to go on for each time. It's even worse in the final round, but that was genuinely quite exciting when it starts slowing down and the audience shouting "STOP!" every time the biggest amount crosses the win line.
They could make a board game of this quite easily, and doubtless Paddy Power are already on the case with their own version.
Average win seems to be about £10k, top potential impossible win (jackpots for the same person spun every time with max amount, all questions answered correctly, all final three reels are that person): £597,000. Someone won over £30k that morning, so decent money to be won.
Any questions?
28th September 2008
Fun Walter Grootaers facts!
"WAL-TER! ARE YOU READ-YYY?
He is Belgium's only TV gameshow host, occasionally going under the pseudonym 'Ben Crabbe' for Blokken!
Other shows he has hosted include Now or Never,Vergeet Je Tandenborstel Niet (that's Don't Forget Your Toothbrush), Big Brother, Wie Wordt Multimiljonair (Millionaire), Fear Factor, Miljoenenjacht (you know) and Star Academy! And also The Singing Bee and Wipeout! And Wheel of Fortune, we think.
When he wasn't hosting the local version of Nothing But the Truth, he was a panellist! In fact he often ran between the host's seat and the panellists' seat, like on The Goodies or something!
The main reason Olivier Minne moved to France is because there were no shows left to front in Belgium! And now he's hosting Fort Boyard and is awesome. Thanks Walter Grootaers!
When he's not single handedly running the entire Belgian TV industry he's the singer in leading Belgian band De Kreuners!
He's also a politician!
And he won the fourth series of Going for Gold! Walter Grootaers!
27th September 2008
Fort Boyard Saturday
Right, from this week Fort Boyard clips will be going up on Saturdays and The Clipton Factor moves to Tuesdays permanently. How exciting!
Anyway we're going to travel to 2005 for a bit. Barely a year will go past without the Fort Boyard game designers going "we should do a new game with a corniche in it," so here we have the double corniche, a game of communication and teamwork.
So there we go. We're off to see Spin Star tomorrow, given that Pinewood is a complete pain in the backside to get to it had better be good, frankly. Look out for a recording review tomorrow night. And Fantasy X Factor begins very soon as well! How exciting. And! It's The Amazing Race tomorrow night, in the US at least.
25th September 2008
Bother's Bar's "Give us first degree Burns! Bring back The Krypton Factor!" campaign is a huge success!
So look out for The New Krypton Factor with Vernon Kay and/or Britain's Favourite Comedy Actor Who Isn't Shane Ritchie Bradley Walsh in the next six months.
In many ways it's a shame it's not the BBC doing it because Gordon Burns does the local news in the North West so he could have actually hosted, and you just get the feeling they'd be much more sympathetic with the original format in a way you just get the feeling ITV will mess-up.
Anyway. Cheers Giz for finding that.
22nd September 2008
The Clipton Factor - The Price is Right
Dear Brits,
Please stop "adapting" our formats and boiling meat.
Regards,
Americans.
This is from 1987, by the way.
What we've learned from last weekend's Die 100,000€ Show
i.e. how it works.
Five couples begin and are eliminated down to one couple in a series of physical and mental games.
In round one, the "bodies" must hang from a trapeze for as long as possible. Whilst they are doing that, the "brains" are memorising a 5x5 grid with 24 different pictures based around 12 famous couples (Laurel and Hardy, R2D2 and CP3O, that sort of thing.) BUT! As soon as their partner lets go of the trapeze their screen blanks over. Once the final person has fallen, their partner immediately gets 30 seconds to try and pair up as many partners as they can on the touch screen - their go ends when they run out of time or make a mistake. When they've finished, the team that hung for the second time gets 30 seconds to do their matching, and so on down to the fifth team who not only had the shortest time to memorise everything but also the longest to have to remember it. The lowest scoring team is out. We don't know what happens if there's a draw.
In round two, the brains answer a number of estimated guess questions. The nearest person in each instance gets points, although we haven't worked out how that's determined. The team with the highest score gets the advantage of having the shortest distance to cover in part two, the lowest score the most. The bodies must race on top of a vat of (we think) custard (something non-Newtonian anyway) to pick up eight flags hanging from rails, the distances being determined by how the brains did. Why custard? Because of the unusual property it has that if you run across it it hardens but if you hang around you sink. Last team to finish or the fewest flags in two minutes is eliminated.
Round three, bodies are running on ball-based treadmills spinning at 5 km/h. Brains are working out words being revealed one letter at a time. Every time the brains buzz in and get a question right, the opponent's balls rotate 1 km/h faster. The game continues until someone falls off, they're out.
So far it's quite good, but unfortunately about now it starts to fall apart. The final two teams play a game of communication - one team member is blindfolded and driving a pedal powered go kart. The other team member must direct them over some obstacles. The team that gets the furthest in two minutes or whoever completes in the faster time wins.
Right, the winning team have the choice - play for 100,000€ or challenge another team to do it instead, if they fail, the winning team win 200,000€, if they win, that team win 100,000€ instead. To win the money they must get to the safe. The safe is guarded by a laser course with 30 lasers. The couple will play three games, success in each will turn off some of the lasers.
Game one is the Water Tank - it's the old game with a modern twist. There are three water tanks, the body will choose to get into one of them and must hold his breath for as long as possible. Meanwhile the brain will be answering maths and knowledge equations (in fairness these are quite good, stuff like Berlin + 18:00hrs = Moscow + X, Angelina Jolie + X = Brangelina, that sort of thing). Now, if the body chooses the first tank with fish in it then for every three correct answers the brain gives, 1 laser will get turned off. If he chooses the second tank with fish AND some eels, it's a laser for every two questions, but if he chooses the mystery third tank (with baby crocs) then it's a laser per question. The body must choose whether they want the thrid tank before the curtain parts revealing what's in it. Whatsmore, the body can come up for air once for ten seconds, but the game is over the second time he does.
Game two is another modern twist on a classic - the hot wire. It's the don't touch the wire game, but in 2008 it's in mid air (one contestant is in a sling being controlled remotely by the other player on the ground) and the wire is literally on fire. The further they get in four minutes, the more lasers get turned off, one for each safe point passed. They've managed to make what was quite an exciting and fun 90 second game in the original show surprisingly boring, with added arm ache.
Game three is new, and unfortunately they haven't gone for something action packed like in the old show they've gone for something a bit strange which isn't a bad game but really doesn't suit the format. The body is given a question and three things show up behind a curtain. He has three chances to fire a ball using an air cannon at the item he thinks answers the question. If he's right, well that's good. The brain is high up in the air standing on a platform. Along the platform are ten pairs of steps. If the body answers correctly, the correct step lights up and the teams earn a laser. If the body gets it wrong or doesn't hit anything in three balls then the brain must guess which of the two steps is safe. If they're right then great, game on, if not then the step explodes, dropping them from a great height. Game over. This is slooooow and takes ages.
Right, finally it's time to go for the money. The lasers that have been earned are turned off, one of the team then has three minutes to get to the end of the course and reach the safe, winning the money. We don't know what happens if they hit a laser, you might consider that a spoiler.
And that's it really. The set is huge but they don't really make enough of it. Thre are some quite good game ideas, but really it could do with more focus especially towards the end, and the laser course is in no way as exciting as entering the code was in the 90s. Fewer games but taking longer, if you want to make a comparison there's quite a lot to like but also quite a lot to be disappointed by.
20th September 2008
Fort Boyard Saturday
OK then, this adventure was only played once, it's "hamac" (hammock) from 2004. We apologise for the poor picture quality.
Interesting things on telly this weekend, the UK version of Hole in the Wall with Dale Winton begins this evening at 5:40pm on BBC1, and if you're in Germany then you've got Die 100,000 Euro Show, a new version of the excellent Die 100,000 Mark Show begins this evening on RTL at 8:15 CET.
18th September 2008
We're so good at telly
We're just watching an episode of Battle of the Network Stars from 1970s America that we were sent and it's hilarious and awesome - just who is better at swimming, Lynda Carter (TV's Wonder Woman) or Telly Sevalas?
And I know They Think It's All Over briefly explored it on one of their tapes but surely as a modern take, why has nobody explored Celebrity School Sports Day as a viable format? It's got Saturday night written all over it!
Richard Hammond, like, totally wipesout
However Total Wipeout - what does that even mean? That's rubbish.
Dear Matchroom Sport,
Please have Neil Channing on to commentate the poker more regularly. Sure, he is a bit smug, but he is quite funny and does talk lot of sense. Or failing that, could we have more Jesse May and Padraig Parkinson not-really-commentary? We could listen to it for hours.
Also if there is any way you could hold your TV tournaments not months in advance of them being on telly so we don't accidentally read the results when looking at poker magazines.
Thanks!
Brig xx
17th September 2008
I have nothing to add.
But why not have a new comment box.
15th September 2008
The Clipton Factor - Cannon and Ball's Casino. Again.
Because someone asked for it and because we're really lazy, here are the other rounds from Cannon and Ball's Casino. Enjoy.
14th September 2008
We have no idea who Lee Kern is or what he wants, but after reading some rave reviews of Big Brother: What The Housemates Did Next, we had a look on 4oD and was quite surprised to see something more critical of the housemates than we're used to, he's a bit like a less classy Louis Theroux. This is rather an interesting change of tack from Endemol who are more used to shoving "brilliant" housemates down our throats whether we want them to or not (see Princess Nikki, anything with Jade Goody in and so on), instead pointing out the reality of fame seeking and selling out for the money in an amusing and dry manner. Worth a watch.
Sneak Peek: Only Connect
This starts tomorrow night on BBC4 at 8:30pm and we're allowed to put some screen shots up. So here they are.
Here's the lovely studio where the lovely Vicki Coren presides over two teams battling it out in a game of knowledge and wits.
The game is played over four rounds.
In round one, teams are invited to pick one of six greek letters (you are watching BBC4), behind each one is a puzzle. They'll be shown one of four things (normally in word form but occasionally in pictures or music) and 45 seconds to work out the connection for five points. This is unlikely with one thing showing, so if they don't know they can call for the second, third and final item for three, two or one point. You only get one guess, incorrect guesses throw it over for a bonus.
In round two (pictured) the object is work out what the fourth thing in a given sequence is for five, three and two points. This one shown is very clever but you're just going to have to watch episode two to find out the answer if you can't work it out. That is good advertising, thanks.
Round three is the Connecting Wall - sort the 16 things into four different groups against the clock, the catch being that some of the items fit into more than one group. There is only one correct solution though.
The final quickfire round involves guessing phrases with the vowels removed and the spaces changed that fit within a certain theme. To be honest it's a bit weak compared to the rest of a show but it's not a dealbreaker.
Only Connect has got good graphics and good gameplay. Jim?
13th September 2008
New exciting feature!
The Aussie version of Hole in the Wall takes itself less seriously than the US one and does a few things differently. And it's likely the UK version is going to be a bit like it, so here's a feature on the Aussie version.
It is Schlag den Raab this evening on ProSieben, German fans. There's no way of watching it live online as far as I know I'm afraid.
Fort Boyard Saturday
Alright we're back in Germany 1990 this week with Labyrinthe Obscur. This is the dark maze played for a key and was a tremendous creator of prisoners, as you'd expect from a maze in the dark really, although if they find the key there's also a flashlight to help them escape. But we always try and go for interesting versions of events and this contestant has spotted something lieing about that nobody else did which he thinks will be useful...
Things we have learnt from looking up Wipeout on Wikipedia
The Spanish version is splendidly going to be called "Guaypaut".
Everyone's favourite Belgian gameshow host (Belgium's only gameshow host) the ever versatile Walter Grootaers will be fronting the Belgian version.
The Finnish version of Hole in the Wall is called Hul i hovedet which awesomely translates to Hole In The Head.
10th September 2008
You oughta know
Here are some things that have cropped up in comments and elsewhere condensed into one bitesized chunk of goodness, like Dairy Milk Apricot Crunch:
The Amazing Race begins on 28th September, but The Amazing Race Asia starts this week and should be found in the usual places on Friday.
Apparently you can watch TF1 (French entertainment channel) live, although we haven't quite worked out how to do it yet. We've got this far, clicking the Programme des live en vidéo bit doesn't seem to do very much.
Have you ever wanted to watch Fort Boyard in Polish with the host smoking a pipe? Your dreams have come true! The full episodes (episode) are on the right.
BBC 4's brand new Vicki Coren fronted quiz Only Connect begins this Monday at 8:30. It has quite the most middle-class presentation on any show you'll have seen for a while (although Coren does her best to make it not too intimidating) but if you like quizzes based around application of knowledge (both high and pop culture, slanted towards the former) rather than rote learning of facts, and we do, then there is plenty here for you to enjoy.
9th September 2008
ATM
Do you know what we're going to do this weekend? A feature on the US version of Hole in the Wall, seeing as our version apparently starts the Saturday after. So there.
Actually strike that, we'll do the Aussie version.
8th September 2008
The Clipton Factor - Cannon and Ball's Casino
We're probably going to see bright new Endemol hope Spin Star being filmed at the end of the month, so in the meantime let's have a look at the show it's got to beat for slot machine fun, it's Cannon and Ball's Casino. Rock on, Tommy.
In case you've forgotten, Round Two was the celebrated casino game of "guess what thing Bobby Ball is trying to mime against the clock" (that's offered on a $3-$6 spread at Bellagio's) and the final round is "answer general knowledge questions to open a safe with a car in", which they play in the Grosvenor in London, TV's Vicki Coren's said to be a big fan. Rounds are interspersed by popular music and cabaret acts, like Roxette! This is from 1990.
6th September 2008
It's the Eurovision Dance Contest this evening! We're going to be out, but will inevitably tape it and skip forward to the voting. Which is the only bit anyone is actually interested in, obviously.
It will be interesting to see how Russia does.
Fort Boyard Saturday
Alright then, this week we have Ventouse (the literal translation for this is "suction cup", but in the UK the game was simply known as The Burglary). So far, so good, but what you may not have known is that the first few years in France the game had a slightly different layout. Here's one of the game's first playings from 1996:
Idle question: who is the portrait of?
We are very happy for Rachel in winning Big Brother, we just don't think it's good for the show. Anyway:
You wouldn't want to be TRAPPED!
Trapped! is back on the CBBC Channel (if you're watching through the iPlayer, you want the CBBC one on Thursdays not the BBC Two ones that have evidently been playing out on the weekdays).
As ever, the show has terrific production values and the graphics and set are more elaborate than last year's (no more child in empty room with a chair for each floor, oh no, and the explanation film with the period costumes is a bit more visually interesting that Greenall's rules rundown last year). And Simon Greenall continues to be excellent value as the Caretaker.
But. Davina McCall's mum Eve Karpf who had the deliciously rich evil voice playing The Voice in series one has been replaced by Faith Brown from the 80s who is much shoutier and whilst this is not a dealbreaker by any means is a bit less fun to listen to. Perhaps it was deliberate decision to be a bit less 'scary' and a bit more comic? You may as well get Carol Lee Scott in for season three. Anyway, they've almost ruined the awesome theme tune and titles ("Wiley Wiley Wiley Sneak" doesn't really scan very well as it turns out, and the shouting) and for some reason The Voice when speaking to the kids sounds like it's been fed through some sort of low bit rate computer recorder, like an answerphone message. Faith Brown AND Paddy O' Connell? The BBC are replacing everyone with robots! Help!
5th September 2008
Fort Boyard Friday tomorrow because we've just got in, are quite tired, and am watching the Big Brother final. So there.
4th September 2008
It's the question literally nobody is talking about...
Who's going to win Big Brother tomorrow?
Once upon a time, suggesting you "weren't watching Big Brother this year, ACTually" like some sort of bloody iconoclast actually made you some sort of bloody iconoclast. These days not watching Big Brother is all the rage. This is probably because we are all turning into our dads.
It is quite sad that a show I used to love I really can't be bothered to watch these days. Has the show changed, or have I? Would it be doing better if it wasn't an hour a day for three months? Who knows. My mum still really likes it, but she doesn't fall into the 18-30 demographic. And isn't our dad.
Still, we have sort of followed it through Digital Spy and we have watched the odd episode here and there. Putting all this together, who should win? Let's work this out through process of elimination.
Rachel - nice but boring. The problem for contestants and producers is that if you have a house with nice people in, everyone complains because BB4 was "boring". But if you're the nice housemate in a group of more entertaining housemates and you win then nobody need bother applying anymore since bland is what the viewing public apparently goes for. Hmm. There was a well thought out point there somewhere I'm sure.
Mikey - Probably the one the producers want to win, so therefore can't win.
Rex - We like Rex, he'd probably be good fun down the pub. But he's rich and, gasp, takes the piss out of people, so he can't win.
Sara is likable but Australian and almost got evicted last week anyway, but at least has £25,000 to her name. Can't win.
That leaves Darnell The Complex One! He'll do.
Well that was lazy.
According to Travis, it's Millionaire's tenth birthday today. Well done.
1st September 2008
The Clipton Factor - The Race
Well, as the new series of The Amazing Race begins later this month and we've been catching up with the last few (Dustin and Kandice = awesome) we thought we'd show you ITV2's 2001 approximation of the format hosted by Keith Duffy. It is like The Amazing Race, except it isn't amazing.
Unfortunately the first episode was basically auditions with a little bit of actual racing at the end, and the first episode is all we've got. Still, quite nice graphics.
Only Connect has got good graphics and good gameplay. Jim?