Quiz Shows

[Scratch]

Whittle, presented by Tim Vine in the early days of Channel 5 was quality. I’ll never forget the episode where they had a question about Cockney rhyming slang, which was answered before Tim asked the contestants to shout out other examples.

Amongst the chorus of “apples and pears, trouble and strife etc” came a piercing voice that shouted “double decker”, followed by a hushed silence and Tim noting he didn’t know that one.

Asking what double decker was rhyming slang for, the same voice simply replied “bus”.

Edited March 3, 2025 by Scratch

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

5 hours ago, Jazzy G said:

There was a pub in Guide Bridge the ex and I used to go to some Wednesdays for the quiz with her friends, and if they saw me walking in some people who would usually play the quiz if I wasn't about would leave. 

You are lucky. A friend of mine sets a monthly pub quiz and he has told me that he writes two for each month, one for if I turn up and one for if I don't. Neither is harder than the other but he and I have quizzed together since we could both drink in pubs and he knows the areas I am strong on and just takes them out of one of the quizzes and puts in stuff he knows I don't know about. For example, my James Bond knowledge is shockingly bad because I've never had to learn it because I'm always on a team with him and his is excellent. 

I always maintain that there are no easy or hard questions, you either know the answer or you don't. You can often make an educated guess, which is better than nothing. 

There is nothing worse though than a poorly phrased question, that way arguments start. We once had a question in a quiz (Not from my mate) that was "How many fences are there in the Grand National Course?" We asked the quiz master did he want how many fences there are or how many do they jump? He just repeated the question. So we wrote down that there are 16 fences but they jump 14 of them twice and the other two once so they jump 30. The answer he gave was 30 and he marked us as wrong because we wrote 16 first. Needless to say we didn't win that quiz, and we didn't bother doing it again. I do respect the shithousery, though I didn't at the time. 

[CTXRussomark]

16 minutes ago, Callum1993 said:

There’s been a couple of good new ones recently. Lee Mack’s The One Percent Club is excellent. Also really enjoying One Question with Claudia on Channel 4. Really simple format but it works. 

I do like the show but I find Mack to be terribly awkward when interacting with the contestants.  Like someone trying really hard to make small talk but with no social skills, which is crazy considering his stand-up background. 

[Jazzy G]

@Lion_of_the_Midlandsyears ago a group of friends and I would go to a quiz at the Cheshire Wheel in Hyde on a Sunday night. There were four of us, and we'd turn up dressed in our leather jackets calling ourselves The Four Horsemen. Some of my mate's co-worker went as well, and there'd be banter between the two teams whenever we went. We played the heel, and in true pub quiz fashion would normally end up having to call out the quiz master on some of the questions which he had the wrong answer for. The gimmick the quiz had was that you could play a joker and get double points for one round, and the winning team could pick a category for one of the following week's rounds. I think you can see where this ended up going... 

[SuperBacon]

17 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

There is nothing worse though than a poorly phrased question, that way arguments start

Back in my recruitment days I hosted a quiz for about 50 people in a pub for a celebration of some sort. It was doomed from the start as there was no mic and my directors hadn't booked properly so there were just regular shitmunchers, with me hollering over everyone.

Obviously as it's a free bar, everyone gets ratarsed quickly and then I nearly cause a riot with a question on how many golds Team GB won on that "super Saturday" 2012 day (in all honestly I can't remember exactly but I think I wanted an answer in total so 4x rowers = 4 golds etc, not 1 gold for the event) with one lad getting so incensed he was asked to leave and told to take the next day off ?

Needless to say, I had the last laugh (directors team won it and they gave me 3x bottles of champagne, Ray Von style)

Edited March 2, 2025 by SuperBacon
50 Pence - In Da Pub

[hallicks]

1 hour ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

I do respect the shithousery, though I didn't at the time. 

Shitquizzery should never be encouraged.

I loved quiz shows as a kid. Can’t believe chain letters was a daytime-only show, to me, it was absolute box office (“change the P to an F to make FART, F-A-R-T”). The aforementioned 15-to-1/Countdown combo was a mainstay, though I preferred the former as it felt more big-time.

I remember Turnabout being an interesting format, though I’m struggling to remember it now. A bit like connect 4 but you have to answer questions to turn the sphere to your colour to get 4 in a row? Was that it?

There was another word game one, I think an early-afternoon BBC affair, maybe mid-to-late 90’s. They would put up three letters and you had to say the longest word possible that used the letters in that order, not necessarily consecutively. So if you got S A E, you could say “sausage”. Or possibly something longer (oo-er missus). Sounds pretty rubbish now that I think about it. I doubt anyone else remembers it.

Every Second Counts was essential viewing. No memory of the format but Mr. Friday Night Paul Daniels hosting, and a beautiful looking set. His version of Wipeout was great as well.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

2 hours ago, hallicks said:

Shitquizzery should never be encouraged.

I've been to a pub quiz where they do what they call the Democracy Quiz. The answer is the one that the most teams give, not necessarily the correct answer. The correct answer only counts if it is tied with another answer. It changes the way you answer the questions. You have to look at the other teams and try and work out how they are going to answer. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

Daytime quizes were the best. Keynotes with Alistair Divall, Chain Letters with Andrew O'Connor, Lucky Ladders, Supermarket Sweep, Crosswits, Win Loose or Draw, Going For Gold and Bob Monkhouses Wipeout. And of course, one of the ultimates Blockbusters with Bob Holness.  Most daytime TV quizes now days are shit. And even revivals of bygone gameshows just don't cut it, they never capture the magic, no idea why.

[Arch Stanton]

Popmaster TV is a wonderful quiz show, comfortingly simple and old school in both its presentation and format, and they haven't dumbed down the questions too much for TV, which you might have expected them to. It's available on E4.

[Jazzy G]

12 hours ago, hallicks said:

Every Second Counts was essential viewing. No memory of the format but Mr. Friday Night Paul Daniels hosting, and a beautiful looking set. His version of Wipeout was great as well.

Wipeout as well. He was great on that, as was Bob Monkhouse. He was fantastic on whatever they asked him to present. Legend. 

[BomberPat]

3 hours ago, Arch Stanton said:

Popmaster TV is a wonderful quiz show, comfortingly simple and old school in both its presentation and format, and they haven't dumbed down the questions too much for TV, which you might have expected them to. It's available on E4.

I keep thinking about applying for Popmaster, after I got an ad about it on Instagram. 

I once emailed in to Radio 2 to complain, because back when Susan Boyle's version of Wild Horses was in the charts, they had a question asking who first released the song. Not who wrote it, who first released it. They had the answer as The Rolling Stones, but the Flying Burrito Brothers released their version the previous year. Never even got a reply, let alone a Popmaster mug out of it.

[Just Some Guy]

15 hours ago, hallicks said:

 

There was another word game one, I think an early-afternoon BBC affair, maybe mid-to-late 90’s. They would put up three letters and you had to say the longest word possible that used the letters in that order, not necessarily consecutively. So if you got S A E, you could say “sausage”. Or possibly something longer (oo-er missus). Sounds pretty rubbish now that I think about it. I doubt anyone else remembers it.

IIRC that was a round in Masterteam.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

3 hours ago, Jazzy G said:

Bob Monkhouse. He was fantastic on whatever they asked him to present. Legend

Monkhouse for me is the doyen of quiz show hosts. No one else has ever had Bob's combination of charm, panache and surehandedness 

[hallicks]

27 minutes ago, Just Some Guy said:

IIRC that was a round in Masterteam.

I’ve just had another look, pretty sure it’s Catchword:

Memories of Scottish bloke presenting, and many instances of the word “floccinaucinihilipilification” being used. 

[Tommy!]

6 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

Monkhouse for me is the doyen of quiz show hosts. No one else has ever had Bob's combination of charm, panache and surehandedness 

He did a bit in his last stand up on them, if I'm remembering the right show, and how to a generation he wasn't a comedian but a game show host.

"That's monkhouse! Quick, follow him; he's got prizes"