Game Shows Touch Our Lives

"Ladies and gentlemen, in the audience tonight, Academy Award winning actor, Ralph Feinnes"

Earlier on today I watched Quiz Show, the really rather excellent period piece with Ralph Feinnes and John Turturro. I'm surprised I haven't got round to watching it before, since it was almost to the last second, a perfect hybrid of All The Presidents Men and Network, two of my favourite films. The quiz show in the program though, was pretty shoddy. It was called 21, and was a familiar format, but not one I'd ever come across before, simply because I think quite a few American format quiz shows didn't really cross the Atlantic, and plus it was very very simplistic, with rolling "applause" signs, a hilarious parody of corporate advertising, and a really ordinary systematic set of questioning. It did, though, continue the general theme of last week which I spent in the staff room at work idly reminiscing about the quiz shows of my youth. People seemed surprised at my ridiculously retentive knowledge of some of these, possibly with the suggestion that somehow I wasted my youth. This I can't deny, but at the same time, I have memories all through the childhood and teens of doing the things most people remember; going to parties, shoplifting, sitting around in the park, going to friends houses to watch 15 certificate movies like Demolition Man, and so on. In fact, I remember doing all those things more times than I recall ever wanting to. I also spent a lot of time in large DIY stores like B+Q, Texas, and Do It All. An awful lot of time. So much time, that I don't intend to go to any of them ever again, and it's just as well I can't drive, because these big breezeblock, drafty cubes of DIY misery are far from anywhere I'm intending to go for the rest of my life, and because they're all in out-of-town Sim City industry hell-holes, I can probably use the excuse that I can't. I'll buy my paint from elsewhere. Probably an art shop. I hope I never have to paint anything, really.
But back to quiz shows. David has suggested that I could feasibly write to some people and ask if they need a rough guide / essential guide / pocket guide to quiz shows. I'm actually considering this, but since I can't remember the name of who he said, or whether he was being serious, I probably won't bother. But it's an idea, and if his friend can get a book about Dario Argento, whom nobody really cares about apart from a nanopercentage of horror movie film geeks, buck toothed weirdo women, and Quentin Tarantino. Anyway, I could talk in great length about any game show, right down to some contestants names and scores, but I don't have time, and anyway, I'm not getting paid for this, and I could get paid for that, so that can wait. Here though, is what you would probably find in the back page, the quick-read guide to British game shows.

All Clued Up - bizarre word-guessing game similar to Wheel of Fortune, presented by (I think) Michael Aspel, and it involved a giant keyboard
Bob's Your Uncle - I can't remember much about this, apart from that I think the prize involved winning shit for your wedding, and involved jumping in a swimming pool
Bullseye - Oft-parodied working man's social club darts-themed quiz.
Catchword - BBC2 Who-can-come-up-with-the-longest-word program to rival countdown, which was invariable won by anyone who could spell floccinaucinihilpilidication.
Celebrity Squares - Trashy British version of Hollywood Squares with people like Leslie Joseph and Roger De Courcey and Nookie Bear.
Chainletters - Fun word-puzzle game in which you had to change letters of words to make new ones: CAKE - RAKE - RARE - MARE - MARK etc
Crosswits - Classy semi-intellectual crossword-themed quiz game with Tom O Connor.
Fifteen to One - One of the best: Set design straight born from Foucault, William G Stewart as torture master, with offensive buzzer sounds and flippant rudeness.
Full Wing - Rubbish golf-themed Saturday night drivel with Jimmy Tarbuck
The Krypton Factor - Intelligence and ability-based quasi-intellectual challenge show with Gordon Burns suggesting that anyone who completed an army assault course is somehow like Superman
Lucky Numbers - Unwatchable Bingo-themed shit with Shane Ritchie sponsored by The Sun
Play Your Cards Right - Craptacular
Raise The Roof - Crap short-lived megaquiz in which contestants could win a house in Florida. Hosted by Bob Holness, these seemed to involve more video footage of the house than of anything resembling a quiz.
Take Your Pick. Classic 'open the box' show given cheesy tabloid makeover with Des O Connor.
Turnabout - Daytime quiz which involved answering word puzzles and making computer generated spheres change colour, a bit like a more elaborate naughts and crosses.
Through the Keyhole - Another oft-parodied celebrity show with David Frost and Lloyd Grossman trying to see who could look more out of place on such a show
University Challenge - Rendered fairly useless after the Young Ones parody, this intellectually alienating quiz has hit a new stride with Jeremy Paxman's new insolent approach.
You Bet! - Either with Forsythe or Matthew Kelly from what I remember. This was THE show for rewarding utterly useless talents, like memorising the cast of the Bill by their ears, or the country of origin of stamps from what they taste like.

There are of course, hundreds of others, but in researching, the above, I've discovered this website:http://www.ukgameshows.com, which pretty much renders my continuation useless, and the utterly ridiculous person who runs this website would evidently make a better candidate to write the aforementioned book than me. Unless there's a market for someone who can drop in anecdotes about suffering severe migraines eating a cheeseburger and watching The Main Event, a bizarre and rubbish living-room based family show hosted by Chris Tarrant. Maybe I'll just skip straight to doing in-depth essays trying to explain the concepts of most 21st Century quiz shows and ignore the classics. With the exception of The Weakest Link, Deal or No Deal, and inexplicably, Eggheads, most 21st Century shows have bombed. People just don't like seeing other people win money these days, and I guess advertisers can't drum up the cash because nobody at home is watching. It's sad, because two of the best game shows I've ever seen were short lived ones from the last five years or so: Traitor, and Didn't They Do Well? Traitor was a weird cross between an amateur dramatics improv show, an episode of Big Brother where the contestants all went insane and were convinced there's a total bullshitter in the midst, and an alcoholics anonymous meeting where someone suddenly notices they can smell gin. It was televised slanging matches, all neatly compered by Tony "Daily Sport" Livesly. It was compelling and lasted about a week. Didn't They Do Well? as the title suggests, was hosted by Bruce Forsythe, and was a great concept, because the only concept was that it didn't have one, and was a Frankenstein's monster of a quiz where instead of asking questions, Bruce played clips on a big screen from other game shows, ranging from easy shit like Family Fortunes or some kids stuff, through to the big money questions from University Challenge and Mastermind. It was a great concept, and it was what brought Bruce back to the BBC, his natural environment away from the News of the World scratchcards, illuminated dolly girls and rabid pisshead audience members acting like they were in Jumpin' Jacks rather than a respectable TV studio.

The only new-new show I've seen recently since I don't watch much TV was called Battle of the Brains. Hosted by some clown I'd never even noticed and whom talked too much, I couldn't gather much from the concept apart from that it was basically Eggheads, only without the eggheads themselves. Which meant neutrals can't be bothered to root for either team, whereas you always hope the eggheads lose, or that the show has been cancelled because one of them died. BBC2 have also had the scheduling idiocy to put it on directly before Eggheads as well, meaning you're basically watching the same program twice in a row. Here's hoping the mentalists in Holland or Scandinavia who devise all these concepts have their thinking hats on, and are happy to let us steal their ideas.