BH
BillyH
Founding member
Thank God You're Here
was a brilliant concept that suffered from needless padding, with constant clips of what we're about to see and long sections of the host asking the celeb contestants what they think the show was going to be like, were they feeling nervous etc, when you really didn't care and just wanted to see the funny sketches. A bit like how the Krypton Factor revival kept asking the contestants if they found the assault course difficult or not - of course they did, we can see for ourselves!
What put me off it after the first episode was when one of the "improvisational actors" asked the celeb (playing a fortune teller) for her name, and she gave some bizarre-sounding answer, and the actor just said "...or, as you're really called, Madame Olga" and called her that for the rest of the sketch. Basically ignoring the answer she gave completely and sticking to her pre-prepared script, which didn't strike me as particularly good improvisation. God knows how I remember this for a show almost a decade old...
What put me off it after the first episode was when one of the "improvisational actors" asked the celeb (playing a fortune teller) for her name, and she gave some bizarre-sounding answer, and the actor just said "...or, as you're really called, Madame Olga" and called her that for the rest of the sketch. Basically ignoring the answer she gave completely and sticking to her pre-prepared script, which didn't strike me as particularly good improvisation. God knows how I remember this for a show almost a decade old...
RO
Nick Owen, of BBC Midlands Today, once, hosted a sports gameshow on ITV called Sporting Triangles. Andy Gray was a team captain on it. It was an ITV version of A Question of Sport. The game board, as the name suggests, was a Triangle.
Also of note was another gameshow he hosted, Hitman. The format had a flaw, in that at the end, the winner played the final round. The two other contestants had won prizes, but unless the winner completed one row of questions, they had to get three in one row to win money, they ended up with nothing.
Also of note was another gameshow he hosted, Hitman. The format had a flaw, in that at the end, the winner played the final round. The two other contestants had won prizes, but unless the winner completed one row of questions, they had to get three in one row to win money, they ended up with nothing.
SW
Well, indeed, it was woefully unsuited to the primetime Saturday night slot it got, and it was woefully unsuited to being an hour long as well when it dragged on to ridiculous levels - two things I would also suggest absolutely torpedoed The Marriage Ref as well. It was Fern Britton who tried to go off on that flight of fancy you remember. It was a very clunky format which showcased its inherent pointlessness - I know all light entertainment is pointless, but the aim is to disguise that and make it look like a natural thing to do, while Paul Merton's hosting just drew attention to every contrivance.
Funny the things you remember, I hadn't heard that theme for thirty years but I could still remember it. I seem to remember watching it a bit, despite having very little interest in sport at the time, but this was the period where I'd just got a television in my bedroom and I was watching all kinds of crap for the sake of it.
Greavsie writes quite a bit about it in one of his umpteen autobiographies from the eighties, he said he always used to refer to it as Snoring Triangles, and the first series, which that was up there, wasn't very good. Of course, he and Nick were old mates from TVam and he says the format was so rigid Nick was never able to add any personality to it and none of them could get any funny bits of business going. That bit at the start where he explains the rules at great length is a bloody awful bit of telly. It is also the most derivative idea imaginable - A Question of Sport is popular, let's just do our own sports quiz! Actually on Christmas Eve 1987, they were on at the same time, and Sporting Triangles got thrashed.
It carried on for a couple of series, though, and Greavsie says it got better. They then poached Emlyn Hughes from A Question of Sport, which was big news at the time (they talk about that in the One Day Of The Life Of Television book, someone complains that Ian Botham is now on A Question of Sport as Emlyn "has defected to the appalling Sporting Triangles"), and Greavsie says in his book that as part of the deal he'd arranged for everyone to have to wear his own Emlyn Hughes-branded range of jumpers.
Thank God You're Here
was a brilliant concept that suffered from needless padding, with constant clips of what we're about to see and long sections of the host asking the celeb contestants what they think the show was going to be like, were they feeling nervous etc, when you really didn't care and just wanted to see the funny sketches.
Well, indeed, it was woefully unsuited to the primetime Saturday night slot it got, and it was woefully unsuited to being an hour long as well when it dragged on to ridiculous levels - two things I would also suggest absolutely torpedoed The Marriage Ref as well. It was Fern Britton who tried to go off on that flight of fancy you remember. It was a very clunky format which showcased its inherent pointlessness - I know all light entertainment is pointless, but the aim is to disguise that and make it look like a natural thing to do, while Paul Merton's hosting just drew attention to every contrivance.
Nick Owen, of BBC Midlands Today, once, hosted a sports gameshow on ITV called Sporting Triangles. Andy Gray was a team captain on it. It was an ITV version of A Question of Sport. The game board, as the name suggests, was a Triangle.
Funny the things you remember, I hadn't heard that theme for thirty years but I could still remember it. I seem to remember watching it a bit, despite having very little interest in sport at the time, but this was the period where I'd just got a television in my bedroom and I was watching all kinds of crap for the sake of it.
Greavsie writes quite a bit about it in one of his umpteen autobiographies from the eighties, he said he always used to refer to it as Snoring Triangles, and the first series, which that was up there, wasn't very good. Of course, he and Nick were old mates from TVam and he says the format was so rigid Nick was never able to add any personality to it and none of them could get any funny bits of business going. That bit at the start where he explains the rules at great length is a bloody awful bit of telly. It is also the most derivative idea imaginable - A Question of Sport is popular, let's just do our own sports quiz! Actually on Christmas Eve 1987, they were on at the same time, and Sporting Triangles got thrashed.
It carried on for a couple of series, though, and Greavsie says it got better. They then poached Emlyn Hughes from A Question of Sport, which was big news at the time (they talk about that in the One Day Of The Life Of Television book, someone complains that Ian Botham is now on A Question of Sport as Emlyn "has defected to the appalling Sporting Triangles"), and Greavsie says in his book that as part of the deal he'd arranged for everyone to have to wear his own Emlyn Hughes-branded range of jumpers.
SW
I never really understood the joke of Gayle Tuesday, and even if it worked in small doses, a whole series was stretching it to breaking point. Brenda Gilhooly, for it was for her, now a very successful writer of course - she was a prolific contributor to TV Burp - and funnily enough I saw her revive Gayle Tuesday last year for a charity concert I went to. She seemed a bit out of practice, though, alas.
Gayle's World was also part of another aborted attempt by ITV to use the post-News at Ten slot to attract younger viewers, after they'd seen They Think It's All Over get ten million viewers on BBC1 after ten o'clock and wanted a piece of that. So they showed that and the stand-up show Live At Jongleurs in a double bill and heavily branded and promoted it as a new full-time comedy slot. Of course, after the series ended, they abandoned the idea. They tried again the following year when they showed Friday Night's All Wright and some imports including Dharma and Greg and Drew Carey at 10.40, but that flopped as well, hence the rush to move News at Ten.
Gayle's World:
I never really understood the joke of Gayle Tuesday, and even if it worked in small doses, a whole series was stretching it to breaking point. Brenda Gilhooly, for it was for her, now a very successful writer of course - she was a prolific contributor to TV Burp - and funnily enough I saw her revive Gayle Tuesday last year for a charity concert I went to. She seemed a bit out of practice, though, alas.
Gayle's World was also part of another aborted attempt by ITV to use the post-News at Ten slot to attract younger viewers, after they'd seen They Think It's All Over get ten million viewers on BBC1 after ten o'clock and wanted a piece of that. So they showed that and the stand-up show Live At Jongleurs in a double bill and heavily branded and promoted it as a new full-time comedy slot. Of course, after the series ended, they abandoned the idea. They tried again the following year when they showed Friday Night's All Wright and some imports including Dharma and Greg and Drew Carey at 10.40, but that flopped as well, hence the rush to move News at Ten.