University Challenge (also featuring Only Connect and other BBC quiz shows)

Bit freaky to see Bobby Seagull on Indian Matchmaking.

1/ This post has given rise to 3 days of creative brilliance across social media, which is so humbling. It gives me particular joy because jungle and raving was a big part of my life for years. Thanks to all who have mixed the sample.. P.s..#jungleimafraid #UniversityChallenge https://t.co/iCZqtuxKff

— Amol Rajan (@amolrajan) January 10, 2024

KING

ha, love that

I know it's ITV, but is anyone else watching (and enjoying) Jeopardy? It's genuinely of a really good standard and deserves better than the Tipping Point slot, but a Quizzy Monday BBC slot wouldn't provide the prize money, and prime time ITV would require different casting and a different vibe, I think. It's the same fate which befell Toksvig-era Fifteen to One - a decent prize fund for a cerebral quiz on daytime TV isn't going to fly over here.

I think it would work promoted to the Chase slot when the Chase is on its holidays.

(and I need it to continue so I can apply for the next series)

Ooh, are they trying Jeopardy again? Obviously the US version is the king of teatime quizzes. I don't see it on the Irish version of ITV. Must have a look. Thanks for the heads-up.

i'm fascinated if jeopardy catches on over there! my bf (british but lives in the states) really came to love it, but when we were in the UK recently his mom asked me if the jeopardy answering convention -- having to do it in the form of a question -- was an american cultural thing and i was like, well no that's just jeopardy. and then she was asking me questions about it & i was like, look it makes no sense i'm not sure what to tell you. it's definitely our driest game show tho so i hope it does catch on over there

What it has going for it is that they are casting people who are good at quizzes. And, by extension, who are aware of Jeopardy. This seems to be baffling some people on Twitter, amplified by clickbait media who like to quote three contrary weirdos with no followers and push this as narrative. It's good, just leave it be.

the answer as a question thing puts me off, I'm not sure why. as does Stephen fry being the host.

Oh no, is Stephen Fry the host? My interest just waned rapidly. Wow, these last few posts have been a rollercoaster.

i'm fascinated if jeopardy catches on over there!

I vaguely remember they tried it in the Nineties with Paul Ross or someone. I might well be wrong, but I am not going to check.

Not wrong, they definitely did it on morning ITV at some time in the past

In the Crosswits slot, for the real heads

I'm enjoying Jeopardy and not minding Stephen Fry, though he does seem to think that if a contestant is Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish then that's their sole character trait.

Yes, that's really annoying.

I record it and zip past anything that isn't questions so don't hear any of the contestant bantz, which is good that it's all concentrated in its own bantz zone and not peppered about randomly - once a question session starts, all you get are the question bit of the programme.

It's just not the same. I don't think it will survive. There are so many quiz shows already. What makes Jeopardy! work so well in the US is that it's the only quiz show we have really. Oh I guess maybe millionaire is still on there? I can't remember but there really isn't anything like it whereas here there are so many similar things.

the tv listings mag tells me wheel of fortune is back (with graham norton) and that's an american format (and another that has only ever been niche in the uk)

yeah I noticed that too

Wheel of Fortune was pretty big when yon domestic abuser was hosting it

It's a long time since I saw Wheel! Of ! Fortune! I tend to lump it in more with game shows than quizzes.

though he does seem to think that if a contestant is Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish then that's their sole character trait.

I wonder if he has the same writers as Roman Kemp had on the one he did with Sarah Greene, where if a contestant wore a bright colour or had once been on a plane, they were basically "ooh, where's me shades" or "will you FLY away with the prize today?" every time they had to talk to them. It's very wearing, and so obviously scripted. I think Omid Djalili is the only one who gets away with this kind of thing, because he just bellows non sequiturs at people and they're not sure if he's kidding or not. Keep 'em on their toes.

in my head WoF was only ever hosted by nicky campbell and guy carol smillie

The worst thing about auditioning for a game show is having to come up with some amusing personal anecdote that the host can riff off

I'm not an expert, but I assume the single-point-of-RIFFerence is essential when you're recording fifteen shows in a day and you don't have time to get to speak to the contestants for even a minute before recording starts. The one time I was on a game show, we at least got to rehearse with the host, so there was some opportunity to at least establish a tiny bit of rapport going into it.

My take on Jeopardy...

Blimey, don't Stephen Fry talk a lot!

I feel Stephen Fry has to talk a lot to explain every single answer to the Tipping Point timeslot audience. It seems unnecessary, but I guess he's both Richard Osman and Alexander Armstrong here.

I think it's a shame if it doesn't survive because there aren't enough high standard quiz shows with decent prize money. I think if they gave it the Chase slot when the Chase isn't working it could hold its own there.

V interesting points! I hadn't thought about the money part at all.

Which reminds me, need to get an application in for the 1% Club before they ditch that as well.

"when the Chase isn't airing", that should be

Oh, the 1% club, we enjoy it at home but I do have to be mindful about looking too much of a smartarse on things I alone get right...

You'd do well on 1% I reckon, unless it's the one about putting a phone in your jeans pocket and turning it inside out.

(ailsa)

Cheers. I need to practice my wacky quiz personality before applying for stuff that isn't tedious and worthy though.

joe muggs has a quietus thinkpiece on the jungle vs drum&bass issue, complete with a mean sideswipe at the borads lol

ha, just coming here to share it

As the 21st century rolled in, journalistic tendency that you might call the Continuity Melody Maker Faction, which created an echo chamber for itself in overwhelmingly white male pseudo-academic online spaces like Dissensus and ILX, perpetuated proprietary categories that cemented the authenticity myths

i mean that seems like a bad description of us but i wasn't really paying attention in the relevant threads and it's not like the rest of you aren't #RONG #ALLTHETIME abt stuff :)

I started a rolling D&B/Jungle thread a few years ago and it's now still around in it's second or third iteration but afaict it's just sharing tunes. May have been some threads in the 2000s he's thinking of?

Article is very "This is a dumb thing to talk about and here's 2000 words about why".

Talking of dumb articles, Hitchens is back on his annual "why must woke UC ask questions about women and science rather than boring shit I like" tip. It's pretty much a retread of his last go at it

What's lost in the jungle/drum&bass thing is that after that they were asked a question about the creator of House music and deliberated whether it was The Prodigy or Fatboy Slim.

that was a lol for sure

The P Hitchens article is hilarious, how can anyone be so lacking in self-awareness?

in summary: shameful these young people aren't aware of the recent events of 60 years ago, too busy listening to slob music.

(archive link if anyone wants to annoy themselves without giving the dm clicks: https://archive.is/lxs4m )

if he'd stuck to "questions too woke" then it would be a standard anti-BBC mail article, but nooo he has to go for the "I don't understand this question and now everything seems unsettling" - truly the one true tory beliver in a world of cynical grifters

He wrote an almost identical one when Paxman left, with the same whining about how asking questions about Artemisia Gentileschi is pandering to the woke lefties.

i got a five-pointer on OC last week but can't remember which.

Internal angles 55.9°, 63.1°, 62.6°

also something on UC which neither of the teams knew, but can't remember what.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon

OC was characteristics of the Bermuda Triangle

I got it at the same point because the sum of the angles is >180 suggesting most likely it's on a sphere (or oblate spheroid).

i didn't even add it up, it was the first triangle with a name i could think of

I made it as far as looking at Hitchens's face before I bailed from that article. Dear fucking christ.