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Blankety Blank on ITV with David Walliams


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Old 24-12-2016, 23:09
Jonwo
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I think Blankety Blank would work better in a later slot so they can be risque with the answers and also cutting to 45 minutes so the pacing is faster.
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Old 24-12-2016, 23:44
Alrightmate
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It is amazing how Anne Robinson keeps her face wrinkle free
Well to be fair it must be easy to keep your face still with David Walliams is in front of you.
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Old 24-12-2016, 23:55
Alrightmate
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David Walliams is all over Christmas television this year.
We've got Walliams and Friend, that celebration of Shirley Bassey, Blankety Blank.
Anything else to plan around?
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Old 25-12-2016, 00:00
Baz_James
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David Walliams is all over Christmas television this year.
We've got Walliams and Friend, that celebration of Shirley Bassey, Blankety Blank.
Anything else to plan around?
No. You're clear for the rest of the hols. They're not doing one of his children's books this year as they have in the past.
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Old 25-12-2016, 00:13
Willpurry
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No. You're clear for the rest of the hols. They're not doing one of his children's books this year as they have in the past.
But he has a new hardback out, so next year......
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Old 25-12-2016, 01:55
Lenitive
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I never really understood Blankety Blank as a format. Tonally, it can't decide if it's serious or not -- do the celebs really try to answer properly or jokey? I would like to see it trialled in a later timeslot so there's a bit more freedom.

Walliams was a decent host, though. Liked the little comic details like the Chip & Pin and choir. It's the actual game element that's the problem.
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Old 25-12-2016, 02:54
Alrightmate
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I never really understood Blankety Blank as a format. Tonally, it can't decide if it's serious or not -- do the celebs really try to answer properly or jokey? I would like to see it trialled in a later timeslot so there's a bit more freedom.

Walliams was a decent host, though. Liked the little comic details like the Chip & Pin and choir. It's the actual game element that's the problem.
Well the idea in the original show was that although it was fun and jokey and played for laughs, the celebrities were still supposed to be trying to help members of the general public win prizes. That's why it tends to go a bit more serious when they're playing for the final prize.

I always thought at times in the original series that some celebrities were too egotistical for their own good and would try to get a cheap laugh at the expense of the contestant winning a prize and didn't care if they fukced things up for them.

I agree that Walliams was a bit more tolerable then usual in this. Probably because he was forced to stick to the format and had a job to do. It was sort of evident in this where you could notice the times where he was trying to stick to the script to move the show along.
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Old 25-12-2016, 06:15
snafu65
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I never really understood Blankety Blank as a format. Tonally, it can't decide if it's serious or not -- do the celebs really try to answer properly or jokey? I would like to see it trialled in a later timeslot so there's a bit more freedom.

Walliams was a decent host, though. Liked the little comic details like the Chip & Pin and choir. It's the actual game element that's the problem.
I've always looked at it as a bit of a send up of quiz shows myself, a bit tongue in cheek with nobody involved taking it too seriously. Anyway this reboot was OK, certainly worthy of a series. Even Walliams was unusually bearable.
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Old 25-12-2016, 06:27
broadshoulder
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Ridiculously slowly paced, even taking into account the ad breaks.

The 2016 version on ABC is played for a top prize of $25,000. ITV presumably thinks risible prizes are part of the format. They aren't - it is a sign the company airing it is impoverished or cheapskates.

Some of the contestants and for that matter the panel didn't seem to have seen the show before.

Still promising I suppose ...
Sorry, but keep the cheap prizes - it was part of the fun
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Old 25-12-2016, 09:14
FluxCapacitor
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I never really understood Blankety Blank as a format. Tonally, it can't decide if it's serious or not -- do the celebs really try to answer properly or jokey? I would like to see it trialled in a later timeslot so there's a bit more freedom.

Walliams was a decent host, though. Liked the little comic details like the Chip & Pin and choir. It's the actual game element that's the problem.
RuPaul's Drag Race do a risqué version each season, where it's played completely for laughs, and - IMO - it wouldn't work as a series. Everyone just ends up trying to get one up on each other and giving ridiculous nonsensical answers. It's funny, but gets old quickly and wouldn't work as a series. It would maybe work as a round in Celebrity Juice but that's it. The game aspect of actually trying to match answers keeps it at least a little bit grounded.
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Old 25-12-2016, 09:26
a01020304
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Originally Posted by Originally Posted by JezR
Ridiculously slowly paced, even taking into account the ad breaks.

The 2016 version on ABC is played for a top prize of $25,000. ITV presumably thinks risible prizes are part of the format. They aren't - it is a sign the company airing it is impoverished or cheapskates.

Some of the contestants and for that matter the panel didn't seem to have seen the show before.

Still promising I suppose ...
n
Its not suppost to be a serious quiz show its only a simple format fun show, its not suppost to have big prizes. the only prize people want is the blankety blank checkbook and pen.
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Old 25-12-2016, 09:26
JezR
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Sorry, but keep the cheap prizes - it was part of the fun
As I said before, I think these spoil what is a good mid-tier prize game show. It really was conceived as daytime show 5 days a week with the kind of prizes those type of shows now get in this country and I'd like to see a run of it here played that way as it is nearly everywhere else in the world. Even my mother, who probably hasn't seen an episode since the days of Terry Wogan and would never have seen a different version of The Match Game found it incredible that they were still using cheap prizes today. But each to their own I suppose.

They also didn't seem to realise that in the original the first round of questions usually had a number of reasonable possibilities, whereas the second had a much stronger clue, thus leading to much higher matches overall. The questions by contrast seemed flat.

Maybe they could bring in the wheel to select the celebrity for the Head to Head match rather than allow the contestant to pick him/her.
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Old 25-12-2016, 13:29
Alrightmate
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Sorry, but keep the cheap prizes - it was part of the fun
Some people think that people in the 1970s had no sense of irony or sarcasm.
Back then on shows like this they used to take the piss out of the prizes they were giving out. They knew that they were cheap tat. On this show especially they'd mock the standard of their own prizes.
I think the point was to mock the greed aspect of game shows and play on it. So you could get a game show where the game part of it was just another aspect of an entertainment show and not just about that alone.
That's why you got comedians and entertainers as the presenters. They got to showcase themselves as entertainers and the game show was just the platform to do it.

Blankety Blank was one of those such gameshows where it wasn't focused on winning top prizes, it was mainly a primetime family entertainment show.
I suppose in a way it was one of the forerunner of future gameshows which took a more casual approach.

You also have to consider the mood of society at any given time. There was actually a time when it was deemed to be unseemly and a bit embarrassing to be obsessed with money. So at various points in time the style of gameshows may adapt to fit with the times.

It may be the case that we're currently living in an era where some people genuinely don't understand why a gameshow isn't entirely focused on winning only the best prizes. But it wasn't always that way. It was quite normal for gameshows to be mainly entertainment shows where the prizes were secondary.

It reminds me of when Whose Line is it Anyway? started an American version and at first they didn't understand why the competition wasn't taken seriously and why the score marking didn't make sense. I think they eventually came to realise that it was purely a comedy show dressed up to appear in the format of a game show.
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Old 25-12-2016, 13:35
Biker Jeff
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Some people think that people in the 1970s had no sense of irony or sarcasm.
Back then on shows like this they used to take the piss out of the prizes they were giving out. They knew that they were cheap tat. On this show especially they'd mock the standard of their own prizes.
I think the point was to mock the greed aspect of game shows and play on it. So you could get a game show where the game part of it was just another aspect of an entertainment show and not just about that alone.
Dont remember Wogan taking the piss outta the prizes on BB..... It was only when Les Dawson took over the show in the mid 80's that it was done. In fact he made BB his by taking the piss out of the whole show.
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Old 25-12-2016, 13:49
Alrightmate
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Dont remember Wogan taking the piss outta the prizes on BB..... It was only when Les Dawson took over the show in the mid 80's that it was done. In fact he made BB his by taking the piss out of the whole show.
I think Wogan had a certain style where he would make asides which weren't necessarily blatantly obvious.
I definitely remember him regularly making fun of how crap the BB cheque book and pen was. This was an entertainment show. No one watched this to see what prizes could be won.
You are probably right though in that Les Dawson made more of a deal of taking the piss out of the show. However I still count Les Dawson as being part of the original era.
I suppose it's like classic Doctor Who and modern Doctor Who.
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Old 25-12-2016, 13:58
Biker Jeff
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I think Wogan had a certain style where he would make asides which weren't necessarily blatantly obvious.
I definitely remember him regularly making fun of how crap the BB cheque book and pen was. This was an entertainment show. No one watched this to see what prizes could be won.
You are probably right though in that Les Dawson made more of a deal of taking the piss out of the show. However I still count Les Dawson as being part of the original era.
I suppose it's like classic Doctor Who and modern Doctor Who.
I'm surprised Wogan didn't take the piss more on BB..... he was brilliant at it with the eurovision song contest...... and his R2 breakfast show.
Maybe he just hadn't properly honed his pisstaking skills when he first hosted BB.
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Old 25-12-2016, 16:43
LeeBoy19
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Very poor and overly long. I don't think Walliams brought anything to it seemed totally lacking in any sparkle or personality. I think Joe Lycett would have made a better fist of it. That said it was all a bit dire, sparkly set but not much sparkling banter. Definitely not worth a series on this evidence. One of the longest dullest hours of TV I've seen in a long time.
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Old 25-12-2016, 18:27
JezR
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I suppose it's like classic Doctor Who and modern Doctor Who.
Yes it depends whether you think such shows was successful in part because of the cheapness or despite it.

It certainly wasn't a deliberate choice by the producers - of either Doctor Who or Blankety Blank - and it wasn't intentional irony at first because all BBC game shows were done at a low level in the 1970s, Generation Game possibly being the most generous and that through volume of potential prizes rather than individual value. In fact it caused the producers of BB a real week-to-week headache Although they didn't used to buy the prizes apart from the ones won; the others were rented for the day! The chequebook and pen consolation cost more than many of the lowest level prizes.
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Old 25-12-2016, 18:32
Bob_Knoobb
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Is the bloke on the exercise bike / elf the one who was in the 'Middle Class Jeremy Kyle' sketch on Walliams & Friend this week ?
Yep it was him.

I thought the show was mind numbing crap.......... which was exactly what i needed today as i battled a huge hangover. As others have said it needs to be a bit shorter and a post watershed slot would allow it to be funnier apart from that it was a good effort.
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Old 25-12-2016, 18:34
Thomas_Craigie
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The format did stay true to the original but for me, Walliams let it down. There was no real connection with the contestants nor the celebrities the way Wogan, Dawson and Savage had.

I'd actually love to see Paul O'Grady be given another go at it, but as himself instead of Lily. He is a really likeable guy and showed the sort of contempt for BB that Dawson gave it - and it worked.
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Old 25-12-2016, 19:18
ItsNick
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Dont remember Wogan taking the piss outta the prizes on BB..... It was only when Les Dawson took over the show in the mid 80's that it was done. In fact he made BB his by taking the piss out of the whole show.
Les Dawson was excellent. I always remember him saying the prizes were from 'Curry's fire salvage'. Every time the show ended he'd say something like "goodbye to our viewer in Cheltenham" but even though he had a laugh he'd take it seriously when it came to the contestants winning prizes.
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Old 25-12-2016, 21:31
Pink Knight
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I've always thought Blankety Blank was crap. Back in the day, (to nick a phrase from Walliams terminally bad ..... and Friends) the panel had such joys as Larry Grayson and Kenny Everett.
Joe Lycett was randomly silly enough, but he was the only redeeming feature of this crock of shite. No more please.
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Old 26-12-2016, 02:47
rkid
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It would have been so much better without Walliams.
It would have been so much better if it hadn't been made, utter tripe
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Old 26-12-2016, 03:00
Biker Jeff
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Must admit, i thought it was shyte with Walliams........ but these days everything i see him in i think is shyte.
Blankety Blank was Les Dawson for me...... no one will top that.
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Old 26-12-2016, 08:49
JezR
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Blankety Blank / The Match Game is usually pretty indestructible by the host as it is such a simple game, but Walliams seemed trapped somewhere between playing the game seriously or for laughs.
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