Article on International Game Shows

[dzinkin]

While I was searching in vain for anything on the planned mid-to-late '80s revival of MG, I found an interesting article on international game shows.  I can't reprint the whole article here for obvious reasons, but there's a reference to a French game show whose title when translated to English is "The Club of the Gay and Clever," and some information on Reg Grundy Productions and Fremantle.  In particular, this quote caught my eye:

Says French journalist Bruno Silvestre, who could be speaking for much of the world: "We don't have quite the idiocy of American game shows, but we're catching up fast."

Thoughts? :-)

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'dzinkin\' date=\'Jul 25 2005, 02:01 PM\']While I was searching in vain for anything on the planned mid-to-late '80s revival of MG, I found an interesting article on international game shows.  I can't reprint the whole article here for obvious reasons, but there's a reference to a French game show whose title when translated to English is "The Club of the Gay and Clever," and some information on Reg Grundy Productions and Fremantle.  In particular, this quote caught my eye:

Says French journalist Bruno Silvestre, who could be speaking for much of the world: "We don't have quite the idiocy of American game shows, but we're catching up fast."

Thoughts? :-)

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Not to engage in any broad country-bashing, but this is the country that created the show that "Countdown" was based on, "Les Chiffres et les Lettres," a program that when viewed can easily be seen why the Brits added a punning host, a celeb judge, catchy think music and eye candy who could do math problems in her head.

Speaking of Carol Vorderman, last week the NY Times had an article on Danica McKellar, who most of you know as Winnie on "The Wonder Years" (and is now grown up on "The West Wing"), but is also a math prodigy who even had a proof named after her during her time away from acting.  (She also does math tutoring on her web site--I didn't include a link to the article since it's about to expire and you have to be registered for the Times, anyway.)  All I could think when I read the article was, "Well, if we ever do an American version of 'Countdown'..."

[mmb5]

I believe Des Chiffres... has a celebrity involved, but in the same French tradition as Pyramide, it was always the same celebrity.  There were five non-contestants on the set when I was a regular viewer in 94 and 95 -- the host, the real old lady, the person who said what the letters and numbers actually were and the two people with the dictionary.  I think the celebrity was one of the two dictionary people.


--Mike

[Blaq]

[quote name=\'dzinkin\' date=\'Jul 25 2005, 02:01 PM\']While I was searching in vain for anything on the planned mid-to-late '80s revival of MG, I found an interesting article on international game shows.  I can't reprint the whole article here for obvious reasons

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David, don't be such a tease! Be a dear and fish out the URl from your history file and post it here, will you?

[dzinkin]

[quote name=\'Blaq\' date=\'Jul 27 2005, 11:23 AM\'][quote name=\'dzinkin\' date=\'Jul 25 2005, 02:01 PM\']While I was searching in vain for anything on the planned mid-to-late '80s revival of MG, I found an interesting article on international game shows.  I can't reprint the whole article here for obvious reasons

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David, don't be such a tease! Be a dear and fish out the URl from your history file and post it here, will you?

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Wish I could -- I can make links to Lexis-Nexis articles but the links would be useless for anyone who doesn't attend the same school I do (my requests go through RIT's proxy).  If I can be persuaded that posting a nearly 20-year-old article won't get us in trouble I'll just put the whole article here.

[Brig Bother]

In Fort Boyard, the French were doing Fear Factor a good ten years before the Americans did it. In their defence, they put a lot more imagination into this sort of thing (I'd be quite surprised if Fear Factor makes to 16+ years).

This said they do take their quizzes incredibly seriously - Questions Pour un Champion isn't so much a show as a daily televisual event, I gather.