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A Year in the Life of Blockbusters

Published 18th September 2016

TV Gameshows

The most popular thing I’ve published here on Dirty Feed this year has been this piece on the title sequence to Blockbusters, scanned from the 1989 Blockbusters annual. Never let it be said that I’ll pass up the opportunity to scan a few pages and profit from someone else’s hard work, rather than actually writing something informative myself.

With that in mind, then, here’s a couple more pieces from said annual. Firstly, here’s producer/director Jenny Dodd, on a year in the life of the show. (On the second page of that article is a wide shot featuring a brief look at the complicated projector setup used for the game board. Has anyone else got a close-up of this famed contraption?)

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Blade Runner Afternoons

Published 6th September 2016

TV Gameshows

One of my most vivid television memories as a child was the title sequence to Blockbusters.1 Every afternoon I’d lie in front of the fire, and that gorgeous neon cityscape would transport me to another world.

I often wondered how it was made… and the answer came when I ended up in hospital, and I managed to borrow a copy of the 1989 Blockbusters Annual. Contained within was a four page feature on how the titles were made. I devoured it… and then had to give the annual back at the end of my stay when I had the temerity to get better. I never managed to trace down a copy over the years, and in the end those pages became a distant memory.

Nowadays, I’m an adult, and eBay is a thing. And this morning, I finally saw that feature I hadn’t seen for over twenty years. If anything, it’s even more detailed than I remember, with many absolutely gorgeous behind-the-scenes photos… and well worth sharing with you lot.

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  1. Technically, the second title sequence – the first is nice enough, but nowhere near as good as the famous one. ↩

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The Crystal Maze and “Modern Audiences”

Published 19th July 2015

TV Gameshows

So, that’s it – the Indiegogo for the “live immersive experience” of The Crystal Maze has closed, with an absolutely whopping £927,252 raised – a full 185% 85% over target.

If you haven’t heard of the project, this from the Indiegogo page sums it up:

“In the 90’s, The Crystal Maze, was one of the UK’s favourite television shows. Now we’re planning for it to return as a live immersive experience right in the heart of London!

You’ll get to play the maze just as contestants did on the original show – placing you at the centre of the action. What we really want, is for people to live the magic of the hit television programme for themselves.

We will be lovingly recreating the famous set just as it was on the original show. All four famous zones will be present; Aztec, Medieval, Industrial and Futuristic, not forgetting of course, The Crystal Dome!”

But the part I want to concentrate on is the following:

“Modern audiences want to do, not watch. In recent years, there has been a cultural shift towards entertainment that audiences can engage with in a more active way. More and more we are finding new audiences who want to experience, interact, and play as opposed to watch.”

Horseshit.

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Pointless Jingles

Published 19th October 2014

Jingles / TV Gameshows

On Saturday, Pointless Celebrities did their second radio special. And to celebrate the event, Richard Osman had lots of jingles at his disposal. As possibly one of the most Dirty-Feed-friendly programmes ever broadcast, we had to mark the event somehow.

Now, many shows might have just got some cheap, nasty, mock radio jingles done – maybe because they wanted cheap, or maybe because they wouldn’t have any idea companies exist whose entire purpose is to create radio jingles. But the beauty of Pointless – as with all great programmes – is how much care is taken in the production. So we get resings of tracks which originally came from US jingle companies JAM and PAMS – who both produced Radio 1 jingles for decades.1

The result of this? That, much like TV Offal, all the jingles heard on Pointless were originally sung for US radio stations. And if you don’t want to hear a comparison between the two different versions, then you’re clearly on the wrong site. What are you doing here? Go away.

[mejsaudio src=”https://www.dirtyfeed.org/audio/pointlessjingles.mp3″ volume=”false”]

Download “Pointless Celebrities Jingles – 18/10/14” (6MB MP3, 4:09)

For the record, the jingles in order are: Turbo Z #18, Turbo Z #4, Turbo Z #26 (my favourite), Turbo Z #1, Series 34 ‘Music Power’ #23, Series 27 ‘Jet Set’ #2, Turbo Z #6, Series 33 ‘Fun Vibrations’ #16, and Series 34 ‘Music Power’ #14. (With thanks to Robin Blamires for helping me identify that last one.)

All huge amounts of fun, and the delight with which Alexander Armstrong greeted them was a joy to behold. (Though well done Trevor Nelson for calling them “dated”, which is possibly the least interesting thing that could possibly be said about them.) It is, however, slightly ridiculous that Pointless not only has better jingles than an awful lot of radio stations, but also knows how to use them better…

  1. The resings for Pointless were in fact UK vocals done by S2Blue, rather than Dallas vocals. I find the Dallas vocals superior, but nitpicking when the results are so much fun feels a bit churlish.

    What’s also a bit of a shame is that none of the companies got a mention in the credits – but an awful lot of people and companies don’t get the credits they deserve these days. Mind you, we’d best avoid the topic of ever-shortening end credits, or – ironically – we’ll be here all day. ↩

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Wankety Wank!!!!!!!!!11111111

Published 10th November 2013

TV Gameshows / TV Presentation

On Friday, Challenge did the best thing since they acquired the rights to Knightmare again: the start of a repeat run of Les Dawson Blankety Blank episodes. I honestly – no joke, no exaggeration – count them as some of the best, funniest television ever made.

Sadly, take a look at the video above, taken from the end of the second episode. At 18 seconds in, I’m afraid I made an extraordinary noise.

To Challenge’s credit, they apologised – if only all TV stations would do that when things like this happened. Despite my childish headline, they get huge bonus points for that, and it’s something other channels could learn from. The problem is, it’s not even that unusual for programmes to be ruined in this fashion – and most of the time, there’s not a snifter of an apology.

So, a plea. To all television schedulers in this world – and, indeed, anyone who happens to pass an eye over end credit DVE offsets (they are generally scheduled these days, rather than an operator manually pressing a button) – please, please get this right. There is very little which hurts viewer experience more than misplaced credit shrinking over the final part – the climax – of a show. It absolutely kills it.

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A Few Notes on an Audience Screening of That Puppet Game Show, 20th July 2013

Published 21st July 2013

TV Gameshows

Yesterday, I went to the third audience screening of That Puppet Game Show – BBC One’s great Autumn Saturday night entertainment hope, co-produced with The Jim Henson Company. Official synopsis time:

“Each week two top name celebrities will be plunged into That Puppet Game Show – a unique world of puppet comedy and madcap games. As the only humans who appear on the show, the celeb contestants will be going head to head in a number of games, hoping to win £10,000 for their chosen charity. They’ll compete in subjects such as sport, science, celebrity, nature, music and mental agility. Each of the games is run and hosted by a different puppet character, who is an “expert” in their field. But that’s only half the story…

In a unique twist, That Puppet Game Show is the first gameshow to include a backstage sitcom. It features all the puppet characters that we’ve met onstage and more, like the producer Mancie and the bullish Show Executive, Udders McGhee. Combining the comedy traditions of The Jim Henson Company and a top celebrity based gameshow ensures that this will be an amazing event, not to be missed!”

Does the show live up to the breathless copy above? Here’s my lazy, bullet-point-ridden report.

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And That’s Blockbusters

Published 7th January 2012

TV Gameshows / TV Presentation

As I slag off Challenge when they do something wrong, it seems only fair to congratulate them when they do something right. With the sad death of Bob Holness yesterday, Challenge made a point of not only updating their EPG, but also recording some new links; genuinely impressive for a channel which doesn’t have live continuity. Take a look below – and make a note of listening to Bob’s intro for the female contestant, where he makes a hilariously inappropriate joke, but gets away with it because he was brilliant:

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A Few Notes on a Recording of Pointless, 4th January 2012, Evening Recording Session

Published 5th January 2012

TV Gameshows

Today I went to the recording for the BRAND NEW series of Pointless. (Despite the fact the last series is still runnning. Don’t fret about it too much.) The last quiz show recording I was at was an episode of Golden Balls back in 2008, so I thought I’d give some similarly unfocussed and misinformed opinions, only even worse because I’m very bloody tired.

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CELEBRATING 75 GLORIOUS YEARS

Published 2nd November 2011

TV Gameshows / TV Presentation

So, you want a more inappropriately placed end voiceover than the one on GOLD the other day? How about this one, taken from tonight on Challenge+1?

Well done Challenge. You have LITERALLY managed to disrespect the dead.

It’s fairly simple. If you’re using pre-recorded voiceovers, make sure you preview everything to check your timings are right. If you can’t be arsed to do that, at least place them 15 seconds or so before the end, so you’re unlikely to crash the programme.

Don’t make it look like you don’t give a stuff about the channel, or the viewers. If you can keep the dead out of your incompetence as well, so much the better.

(EDIT: Listening again, only just noticed – the voiceover repeats halfway through! Ouch…)

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