US Fort Boyard

[Brig Bother]

I have it on reasonable authority (i.e. Yahoo.fr) that the David Bowie of gameshows, Fort Boyard, was sold to an American broadcaster at NATPE for Summer 2004. It will have US celebs in it (I wouldn't worry too much, it's been celebs in France for years and years).

Try not to mess it up this time round will you?

Just a few concerns:

1) FB pretty much popularised using fear as a legitimate source of game in Europe back in 1991. However compared to Fear Factor it's pretty tame these days.

2) I'm not sure the show can be done justice in an American broadcasting hour (what is it these days? 22 minutes of ads?). Still, it seemed to just about work in Canada. I'd love to see a full on version of the game in English but that would require a two hour slot which I can't see happening.

3) No RAWK music and black and white striped referees this time round eh?

4) We can take it pretty much as read I think that it's going to be the classical one team vs. the fort per show rather than two teams vs each other a la the pilot for Capture Fort Boyard.

That is all.

[dscungio]

I have it on reasonable authority (i.e. Yahoo.fr) that the David Bowie of gameshows, Fort Boyard, was sold to an American broadcaster at NATPE for Summer 2004.

I vaugely remember a Fort Boyard one-time special airing on U.S. TV years ago...

4) We can take it pretty much as read I think that it's going to be the classical one team vs. the fort per show rather than two teams vs each other a la the pilot for Capture Fort Boyard.

Is this pilot what I'm thinking of?

It will have US celebs in it (I wouldn't worry too much, it's been celebs in France for years and years).

Try not to mess it up this time round will you?

Are people getting tired of seeing celebrities?  Will we ever see "civilians" on a game show again?
Also, is this show going to try to imitate or top Fear Factor?


And, I'll give even odds that everyone will call this a "reality show" too.  Bah.




Dean

[Neumms]

Can anyone give a description of the game, for those of us not up on our French and Canadian shows? Thanks!

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'dscungio\' date=\'Feb 3 2004, 10:11 AM\'] I vaugely remember a Fort Boyard one-time special airing on U.S. TV years ago...
Is this pilot what I'm thinking of?
 [/quote]
 Yes. One-shot on Fox, if I remember my EOTVGS correctly.

[tommycharles]

[quote name=\'Brig Bother\' date=\'Feb 3 2004, 05:17 AM\']
2) I'm not sure the show can be done justice in an American broadcasting hour (what is it these days? 22 minutes of ads?). Still, it seemed to just about work in Canada. I'd love to see a full on version of the game in English but that would require a two hour slot which I can't see happening.
 [/quote]
 Yeah...any network giving two hours to a GS seems a little unlikely unless it's successful in half hour/hourlong slots first. Oh, and I think primetime is 9 minutes of ads now, and syndication is 11.

Is this the show that inspired the Crystal Maze, or am I thinking of something else?

T

(rant about commercial times: in the next couple of weeks a british satellite channel is going to air the entire 46664 concert...it's 4.5 hours, so with adverts it works out to 5 hours...over here it would have to be 6 hours...no one would touch a six hour concert, I don't think...)

[Matt Ottinger]

The American pilot of Conquer Fort Boyard is the example I like to use for a horribly designed game, though it was certainly a lot of fun visually.  The two teams played these elaborate stunt games in and around a real castle, and each game IIRC was worth one or two "keys".  The team with the most keys would go on to the bonus.  

The problem with the structure of the game was that the final competitive round was played for (again IIRC) dozens and dozens of keys, rendering the earlier parts of the contest preposterously meaningless.

[Brig Bother]

Yep, this was the show that inspired The Crystal Maze. It's still running, and the original French show celebrates its fifteenth season this year.

Basics:

A team come attempt to conquer the fort and capture its gold.

In the first part, the team need to earn keys to open the treasure room door. This is done by winning timed challenges of strength and skill inside the cells of the fort (failure to leave the room in time results in that contestant being taken prisoner, possibly coming with an additional penalty later on) or by correctly answering cryptic riddles set by the Wise Old Man of the watchtower. They only have a certain amount of time/challenges to collect the requisite keys, failure means sacrificing members to make up the shortfall. This is bad, as you will soon find out.

The second part of the show sees the team play much bigger games testing physical ability and mental toughness, often playing on popular fears. Completion of the games earns cluewords - single word clues that hint at a password.

After a certain amount of time/challenges the tigers are put away and the team get a crack at the treasure room. They get X minutes to spell out the password on the flagstones on the treasure room floor. If they don't know the answer they can sacrifice team members for extra cluewords. If they are correct then the gold coins drop down and the members of the team left have the rest of the treasure room time to scoop as much up as possible and offload it in a container outside the treasure room. With the thirty seconds to go, the treasure room door shuts Indiana Jones style - obviously you want to be on the correct side of the gate when the tigers are let back in. If they get the password wrong then it's game over and they leave empty handed/small donation to charity.

They're the basics used around the world anyway. Many versions have their own special rules for certain things (and the French show had a bit since 1995 between the keys and the clues where they played duels against "le Maitres des Jeux" to determine how much time they get in the TR which has changed to an overnight endurance challenge in order to release any prisoners taken).

I'm intrigued as to how it will work for you. I'm certainly hoping you don't make too many presentation style changes but I get the feeling you will. The game will be largely the same though as it's unlikely the French production team will allow people to mess around with it too much.

As I said, reasonably exciting (it's certainly one of my all time fave shows) but I question whether it will take off over there. And anyone calling this a "reality" show is an idiot.

[Brig Bother]

OK, you might find these useful. They were asked to be taken down from the webpage I got them from so I'll only keep them up for... a couple of days. All vids require DivX and as I said before, I can't take credit for them. Enjoy!

All files require DivX.

2003 titles (3MB)

Rules to the first bit of the show. [1.7MB]

Rules to the clues bit. [2.3MB]

[weaklink75]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Feb 3 2004, 01:04 PM\']The American pilot of Conquer Fort Boyard is the example I like to use for a horribly designed game, though it was certainly a lot of fun visually.  The two teams played these elaborate stunt games in and around a real castle, and each game IIRC was worth one or two "keys".  The team with the most keys would go on to the bonus. 

The problem with the structure of the game was that the final competitive round was played for (again IIRC) dozens and dozens of keys, rendering the earlier parts of the contest preposterously meaningless.[/quote]
IIRC, the show didn't show all of the games that they did, so the scores that were shown were altered so that the outcome remained the same (I remember Chis Berman saying there were 13 challenges, but there were only 6 or so games shown. Also, I remember a thing on Inside Edition that previewed the show, and they showed a type of fencing match high in the air that was part of the game, but it wasn't shown on the show. I have a feeling the show was supposed to be 90 minutes or 2 hours, but was edited down into the one hour slot that it got)

[vtown7]

As long as they use the right formatting, we'll be fine

Cheers,

Ryan

[Neumms]

Thanks for the info. It definitely sounds worth a shot.

[jalman]

After doing a Google search, here's what I could find about the older American pilot: Capture Fort Boyard (US) page by Vin Di Bona productions.