Why can't gameshows to be 'jolly' anymore?

Hang on...are you saying that a gameshow can actively encourage people to go out and commit crime?! It might be possible to blame some of society's ills on TV...but I think that's taking it a little far.

I for one wish gameshows could go back to being cheesy, jolly, glitter filled and happy. There's enough cynicism, backstabbing and tension in real life - it'd be nice to be able to escape that for half an hour!

I reckon Catchphrase should return to ITV - what the hell was wrong with that? Other than the fact the last host, Mark Curry looked like a weedier version of Greg Scott.

Me too, but looked what happened to Price is Right and Supermarket Sweep (even though SS didn't look half as dated even though Dale Winton seemed to had lost his stamina by the end of the last series ). There just doesn't seem to be a budget for these types of gameshows anymore. Not saying there was originally but you get my point.

Nice rant there,
[[ Mod snip: OK, let's not lower this to personal attacks on other members, regardless of who they are. ]]
Forget cool, "**** remake" is not a by-word for cheesy but that's what you and the rest of the people in this thread will get.

I don't think the formats of the past will work now, it's all nice looking back but that's nostalgia pigmenting the low-grade shows which if remade would feel several decades out of date. Nothing to do with a cruel, harsh world unyielding to the ideas of cheap and cheerful programming. that is a fallacy of logic. The burning truth behind all this "bring back them gameshows we watched in the 80's and 90's" is that they don't work now! Cast your mind back to The Price Is Right, the most inanely camp piece of a remake which felt and played out date along with bad jokes and bad prizes. How about that Sky remake of Blockbusters? Is that what you want? Forget it, your shows are but memories never to come back to your screens, that boat has gone and if you think it can return to the "glory days", you'd better lay off the crack for a while.

The whole emo crap is still done in shows like Deal or No Deal and the whole "we're a big ol' family" feel I get from it makes me sick with it's falseness. Don't be giving me 'they have reunions', they're there to win money by guessing right, not to make friends. Might be the way forward but you'll still get tension beds and emotional fools because that seems to be the way society has become.

Could go as far as to say the way a gameshow portrays itself is indicative of how society is doing but that's another thread.

I'm all for more fun Gameshows but bringing back the likes of Blockbusters, Catchphrase & Family Fortunes isn't the answer. We need new formats.

I do. And I suppose I should have added to my original comment "but they won't because that era is over". Which is perhaps a bit of a shame, and not worth getting into some philosophical debate over the way the world is, but true none the less.

Agreed. I thought that was totally uncalled for. Always brings a decent debate to bullying.

I think the Lottery probably killed the gameshow, and it's emphasis on big cash prizes not seen before in this country, the football pools didn't really come close.

Thinking of the prizes these days, it's nearly always about accumulating vast sums of money, whereas years ago the car or the holiday would be the top prize.

These days cars and holidays are more affordable, so the stakes have had to be raised, and it's nearly always large cash sums. And with an increase in the stake so does the element of risk and it tends to have to be all or nothing, there's not much "well I've won the teasmaid and had a really lovely day".

I think a mixture of old and new is better. ITV was wrong to scrap all its old style gameshow all at once. Then then when they do bring them back to mess around with the format or in the case of The Price Is Right put it on so often you get bored of it.

Uncalled for? Yeah, I'll give you that but I'm not sorry and I most certainly do stick by what I feel for that man even if everyone else figures this man is actually worth watching and has, gasp, entertainment value.

Now that's been excised from the records, address my points if you want.

I think there needs to be a happy medium. Obviously, there's always been an element of tension in gameshows, but the "dark" music and annoying dragging out of questions need to end. It's an idea that's been nicked off reality shows, and it doesn't fit the genre at all.

It's all come around full-circle though hasn't it.

The earliest quiz shows were all about the tension, seeing the country's great minds do battle etc etc. Sometimes quick-fire, though by no means always.

Then they became gimmicky. The US led the way -- Merv Griffin and Goodson-Todman produced a stream of tacky-but-inspired glamathons. The UK versions were always weaker than the US originals.

Therein lies the problem. Because of the often poor production values of the UK copies (Sale of the Century was destroyed by Anglia, to the point where it could never be re-used in this country again), whereas the US shows are looked on with genuine nostalgia (and repeated ad-infinitum to large cult audiences), the UK ones are mocked and parodied, to the point where the whole format of most of them becomes a joke.

So now we are left with what amount to the original, pared-back approaches -- just that the flashing lights are more slick.