Golden Balls

Our jackpot wasn't won, and in fact was diminished by nearly 40K when they put me out - silly sods. It was a resonably exciting game, though.

I got a very nice note through from the producer (I sound like Ronnie Corbett) saying I had played the game well and had helped make it an excellent show. I thought it was probably a standard letter until I got a very much more standard thank-you letter the next day.



He was very funny, but there wasn't much of an audience present to respond. A fair amount of dubbing was at work on the episode.

We met Jasper and the head writer during rehearsals in the morning, and went through our biographies with them to find funny stories and the like (much of which never sees the light of day depending on how slow/involved the gameplay turns out to be). It made the experience all the more interesting to be involved at that level and I couldn't fault the production team at all - especially the production assistant who accompanied me to pop for a ciggie at various points without so much as a grumble.

You sort of forget that you could walk away with tens of thousands of pounds after you've been treated so well, flown there and home, and have a lovely hotel room.

Winning it as well would seem a bit greedy! (No, I don't beleive that either).

Thank you Endemol. Rest assured I'll apply for other shows soon.

It could be one of two reasons
1) As a poster has said, big money wins are crammed in the first few weeks of the broadcasts
2) The winning amounts are agregated through the weeks, so you get roughly the average amount won per week. I.e you don't get one week of shows winning £50,000 per day followed by a week of double steals and nothing won.

The same sort of broadcast schedule happened for the other Endemol show for ITV1 'For The Rest Of Your Life'. I was in the audience for shows 15,24 and 34 out of 40. Show 22, went out in the last week of the run, show 34 went out as the third show in the run and show 15 (two sets of loosers) was never broadcast.

Why can we no longer make quiz shows which DON'T have:

- Annoying "tension" dramatic music in the background;
- Contestants agonising over how to play;
- Contestants entering into slanging matches with each other;
- Presenters keeping us guessing before revealing the correct answers

Let's have more traditional game shows where the questions are asked and answered subserviently.

The contestant Nick on today's show has been in something else, perhaps on the BBC I think.

digiperson

He does look a serial game/quiz show contestant.

I'm sure I've seen him on In It To Win It, or he could have been on The Peoples Quiz 2007(viewers)

I couldn't agree more. Shows like Bob's Full House or Every Second Counts had speed and pace - questions flying at the contestants like bullets - Bob Monkhouse was the master at buiding tension in this way. I'm sick of moody lighting, tense music and piss easy multiple choice questions that contestants have 10 minutes to go through the answers and then a further 10 minutes for the right answer to be revealed.

The Weaksest Link (the only quick-fire show I think) is past it now, questions are stupid and the format/Anne has become very stale imo.

isn't the weakest link nearing it's tenth aniversary

I find the whole concept of golden balls wrong in that you can cheat the other contestant out of half the prize money

I think they should split them money in the end rather try to con the other out of it, what sort of moral message does that send out when the person who opts to steal the money wins it off the person who opts to share it. In the end the most dishonest person of the two wins the lot

at least if both contestants try to steal it they both get nothing

The split/steal thing is flawed anyway.

If you split, the most you can hope for is half the money -- if they steal you lose the lot.

If you steal, you're not losing anything in effect -- if they steal you still lose, but if they split you get everything.

And why should you care what the other man gets?

It started in 2001 if I remember, so about 6 years.

Golden Balls is just another tense but rubbish gameshow that seems to only be created to put Jasper Carrott back in the spotlight - such a waste, go back to stand up or acting Jasper.

This is my main problem with the programme - it's rewarding dishonesty and selfishness rather than skill, knowledge or chance/luck - I'm sure in the old days of the IBA this sort of programme would've been frowned upon.

I totally agree, they could hardly do a celebrity edition with somebody stealing the prize money to donate to their charity

Cynicism, I like it