Wednesday 18 June 2008

New TV Scandals Unearthed *BrokenTV Exclusive!!*

"Exclusive" mainly in the sense that these haven't actually happened yet, but when either/both does/do... hoo, boy. Who'll be sitting at the top of the Google page rankings and being invited onto News 24? We've got a shirt ironed and ready, just in case.

It's always worth keeping an eye on Paddy Power's 'novelty bets' section, as it's always good for a bit of a chuckle (such as offering 1000/1 on the next pope being Fr Dougal MacGuire). At the moment, two events have taken our fancy, the first of which being "Which Will Be The Next TV Comeback?" The odds are as follows:

The Generation Game 4 - 1
Play Your Cards Right 5 - 1
Blankety Blank 8 - 1
Wheel of Fortune 8 - 1
Catchphrase 8 - 1
The Price Is Right 10 - 1
Blind Date 10 - 1
Big Break 12 - 1
Telly Addicts 12 - 1
Strike It Lucky 12 - 1
Take Your Pick 16 - 1
The Crystal Maze 18 - 1
Noel's House Party 18 - 1
Fifteen to One 20 - 1
The Krypton Factor 25 - 1
Going for Gold 33 - 1
Pets Win Prizes 50 - 1

With Euro 2008 currently happening, if they were going to bring back Going For Gold they'd have done it by now (so we could at least get some sort of national victory from bettering Europeans at something, even if it's just answering questions in a language that we invented), so that's out. As is The Crystal Maze, with tabloid reports of a revival being deftly rubbished over at Bother's Bar, who know their onions (and more pertinently, quizzes). Blankety Blank can't be coming back again, surely, and the same applies to The Price Is Right. We always found Play Your Cards Right really boring, so we'd hope that's not coming back. Neither snooker nor Bigotry's Jim Davidson are as popular as they were, so Big Break is unlikely, and Noel's House Party is about as likely to return to the schedules as Curry And Chips.

With all that in mind, the smart money would be on The Generation Game. The BBC can't keep flinging variants of ...Maria at the Saturday night schedule board, and it'd be the perfect vehicle for Graham Norton. Although we're a bit worried a desperate ITV might resort to a risque late-night Moyles-fronted version of Catch Phrase once the last person at Gray’s Inn Road forgets the lessons they'd learned with Win, Lose or Draw... Late.

Meanwhile, and even more excitingly, they're also taking a tip from an episode of Drop The Dead Donkey, and offering odds on which will be the first cliche uttered verbatim by Davina McCall on Friday's Big Brother eviction show. "I'm coming to get you" is sitting at a comfortable 6/1, while "Ofcom Complaints" is a risky 33/1. Sadly, there's no price listed for "titting hell, will you lot just shut the fuck up for a cocking moment?". Whatever happens, if any of our readers have access to the autocues at Endemol Towers (we did see 'Channel Four Television' cropping up in our IP logs once, so fingers crossed) and don't mind submitting a sly comment, we'd welcome to chance to fill our boots before the Suspicious Betting Pattern Police get antsy.

(Note to selves: Don't worry about proposing large-scale betting fraud on a publicly available website. It'll probably all work out just fine.)

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Chris Hughes said...

You're right, it's a mine of pure entertainment. 50-1 on Rightprice Tiles becoming the next sponsors of The Late Late Show? That's got to be worth a tenner of anyone's money.

Mark X said...

Too right. Dale Winton for the next CEO of Woolworths? 500-1. Ramon Calderon will buy the Beckham's house and he will give it to Nicolas Cage as a present? 500-1. Accrington Stanley to finish first in the 2009 Deloitte Football Money League? 1000-1. I'm still a bit peeved I'd not backed a transexual to win Big Brother at 100-1, just before Nadia won it.

Anonymous said...

There was a rumour of Blankety Blank returning with Chris Tarrant at the helm very recently although he's apparently rubbished it.

Rumours of The Crystal Maze coming back have been on and off for the last ten years or so. It almost actually did come back as a CITV/Challenge TV co-production a few years ago, but CITV pulled out deciding that they were changing focus. The idea was kids shows would be filmed for CITV and adults would be filmed for Challenge. CITV had a credible stab at that sort of thing with Jungle Run not so long ago, so it probably would have been OK.

Nevertheless, I get the feeling that so many people are clamouring for it back that it's got to happen at some time.

Graham Norton did a one off Gen Game (craftily titled The Generation Fame, because of celebrity contestants. Do you see?) a few Christmases ago. It wasn't very good unfortunately.

I've heard rumours that PYCR (inevitably with Vernon Kay) and Blind Date could be on the cards.

Apparently Ant and Dec are in talks with Richard Madeley to revive Double Your Money.

Anonymous said...

Actually scratch that, I think we may have imagined Vernon Kay's All Star Celebrity Play Your Cards Right as a bit of whimsy when we discussed this story a few weeks ago. Nation saved!

Steve Williams said...

Why on earth might we be getting a remake of Double Your Money? For a start, nobody under forty has ever heard of it, and the entire format's been ripped off by Millionaire anyway. Although if it does come back, I hope we get the same mental list of a million categories, including, lest we forget, jazz (traditional) and jazz (modern).

As Brig said, the Generation Game has come back with Graham Norton, and it was rotten*. I wouldn't mind seeing Pets Win Prizes coming back, or at least Challenge could repeat the Bake-fronted episodes, because they were brilliant fun, basically because even the Bake himself couldn't believe what a silly show it was.

Surely we've got to have this Krypton Factor revival sooner or later?

* Of course, there was also The Generation Game Now And Then on UK Gold last year, which was enjoyable, but there was only four episodes, and then a best of - of a clip show! After four episodes! What next, The Two Ronnies Sketchbook Sketchbook?

Mark X said...

"Apparently Ant and Dec are in talks with Richard Madeley to revive Double Your Money."

Digital Spy have mentioned this tonight:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/a101995/madeley-to-front-new-double-your-money.html

Despite that URL, it claims "Richard Madeley may present a revival of classic Hughie Green quiz show Double Your Money, according to a report", which is surely one of the most non-committal news stories ever. I might be marrying Britney Spears on Saturday afternoon, according to a report I've just written on the back of a Somerfield receipt.

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