Driving Me Insane
When survivors of the coming apocalypse look for clues as to how civilisation’s moral fabric disintegrated by sifting through the smoking charred ruins, they will surely find that TV shows like Quizmania sowed the seeds for our doomed fate.
I heard it was bad. Having watched hours of gelled morons and empty-headed goons beckon me to spend money of futile phone calls on the many digital channels, I thought I had seen the very worst of the rolling quiz revenue-generating TV programme. But what hit me when I got back very early this morning was like a spray of effluence directed in my face. It was even worse than I could have imagined. It made Mallett's Mallet look like fucking Shaft … er, I mean, Mastermind.
Debbie. Oh Debby. Debby has brains. Probably. I think we might have to run some medical tests first. Last night’s show had a London-centric theme and asked viewers to ring in and guess what London landmark was on the list, which naturally led on to some bright spark thinking that everyone should dress up in a Sixties style. You know, like Austen Powers and other noted figures who never actually existed in real life. Debbie, however, was done up as a peroxide Barbarella and still said: "I’m not sure who I am". Nobody told her. Poor girl. I’m thinking it was just an excuse for producers to get her into a zip-up top and perhaps even, gosh blimey guvnor, to show her pins off, and entice a few bored but horny late night viewers. Never mind that Barbarella was an American film adapted from a French comic by Jean-Claude Forest. Even Duran Duran was played by an Irishman. It has nothing to do with London. You got me?
Debby, who looks like Anna Faris from the Scary Movies series (yes, I have accidentally watched three of the films in the trilogy and may accidentally watch the fourth when it reaches and spreads through our lands like the Black Death) actually grew on me with her dopey-cute persona and her attempt to set the world record for talking bollocks. "We’re going a bit sixties … it’s groovy baby". No, love it’s not groovy, it’s shit. "I want you to email me pictures of gnomes". Are you insane? Why? Oh, I forgot. This is Quizmania. Everyone has to get sectioned by the end of the show. "Why is London associated with magpies?" It’s not Debbie, (whose thickness is becoming quite adorable) but the Blitz is. Why do thoughts about aerial bombing come into my head? Debbie also likes the Queen because she is "a nice old woman who reminds me of my grandma", which, frankly, could also be said of actress Liz Smith and calls the Millienium Dome the "inverted wok" to which I am wont to reply: no, it's the teflon meteorite - Iain Sinclair rules!
Poor Debbie repeats the single piece of decent trivia that is repeated all night: that Julian Lloyd-Webber was the first official busker on the Tube, then she ruins it all by saying he was the "son of Andrew Lloyd-Webber ... maybe". No, that's a lie. There is more decent trivia. Another caller says she looks like Mary Hopkins's daughter. By an amazing coincidence, Debbie reveals that her mum Wendy King beat her on Opportunity Knocks. Amazingly, this also proves that Debbie does know something.
But finally, bien sur, the leitmotif of the show: "You could be winning £5000 right now!" Which translated through the crap-o-meter means: "There is a miniscule chance of you winning £5000. In fact you have a better chance of winning some money on The Jeremy Kyle Show which is coming up afterwards because if you go on it and talk about how much you hate your girlfriend/boyfriend for being ugly/a cheat/ fat/a scumbag/pregnant, someone might feel sorry for you and give you a fiver."
Co-presenter Chuck provided some saving graces, saying: "This is Babestation, isn’t it" (nice little Sky Digital joke there and funny because there is no real qualitative difference between a bunch of silicone-enhanced naked women jiggling their jugs for your money and Quizmania, which just asks for your money) and "We’ve just beaten ITV Nightscreen in the ratings" thanks to gratuitous shots of Debbie’s legs. Actually, come to think of it they’re pretty rubbish. But such is the rough surrounding them that they inevitably look like diamonds. Having taken the mistaken guess St Paul's Cathedral and said: "St Paul's Cathedral - for religious fans!", Chuck then disturbingly revealed a gallery stuff that people had emailed in – sort of like Tony Hart asking for pictures of pervs and ghouls and pouting pikeys. I mean, one young-ish viewer sent in a picture of himself naked and covering his penis with his hand. If this is a quiz, I’m a watermelon.
So when they give up asking people for random guesses and have to wrap up the show, they give out clues. These clues might be termed as giveaways by some and are described as being for "the hard of thinking", which really means for the utterly illiterate or brain damaged viewers out there. They are along the lines of rhymes with "Putty Park"; it has the words Batter and Sea in it and is a power station; and "sounds like Cleopatra's beadle". By this time I am butting my head against the nearest brick wall repeatedly. I realise why it's called Quizmania. Because you have to be certified insane to watch it, and it seems that by the end I have actually gone insane. It worked. I am a nutter. People like Anthony who email Chuck and Debby to tell them about being married to "25 stones of pure Heffalump" and wanting a divorce seem to have gone a little bit crazy too. And how else can we explain the answer of caller Mick who was asked to "sum up the show"? After a yawning five-second pause, he says: "Fantastic". He's doollaly I tells ya.
You realise, of course, that one day all channels will be like this: a twenty-something tartlet who looks like she is incapable of never smiling talking to the camera and begging you all day long to give money to the corporate vampires who pay her. And just begging on an infinite loop: "Watching and looking at me is fun. Now give me money. Money, dosh, moolah, cash, spondulix, money, readies. You have no lives so you might as well". And maybe, we just asked for this. The use of premium phone lines in alliance with a nominal question (e.g. What is the first name of our Queen? A. Jordan B. Elizabeth B. Xena – Lesbian Princess) has metastasised with hardly anyone noticing. But metastasised it has. Every show is sucking punters dry through their phone bills, and if they are going to ring up and feed the insatiable cash-hungry monster corporate television, then they deserve to be fleeced. You shouldn’t encourage them. Naughty, silly people. I would like to hear the thousands of frustrated cries of people whose calls never get on the show just to hear them drown out the jubilant screams of the cash-winners, but such mass anguish will be silenced for all time.
Quizmania is an abomination. The Gala bingo soundtrack is an atrocity on its own merits and the show makes late night TV connoisseurs like myself dearly miss reruns of Tour of Duty and Get Stuffed. It gives quiz shows a bad name, like Tarquin. If there was a Father of Quiz he would be rotating so fast in his grave that the kinetic energy produced would be enough to solve the world's impending energy crisis. But you know that already. I'm just saying that if we let shows like this rancid piece of monkey toss proliferate even more, we will surely reap the bloody great whirlwind.
Shows like Quizmania are singularities that just suck everything in, whether it is your attention, money or intelligence, as well as sucking and blowing at the same time. It’s time to draw a line in the sand before it is too late, but it appears we are the generation that spent more money on shoes than charitable causes and we are letting these shows pollute the world without a whimper of protest. Wait, can you hear them?The nuclear warning sirens in the distance. Bagsie a Dr Strangelove-style underground complex.
Finally
Why not visit the website! It says Quizmania "is an exciting late night interactive gameshow which gives you chance to win instant cash prizes". Hand me that phone. It sounds brilliant.
I heard it was bad. Having watched hours of gelled morons and empty-headed goons beckon me to spend money of futile phone calls on the many digital channels, I thought I had seen the very worst of the rolling quiz revenue-generating TV programme. But what hit me when I got back very early this morning was like a spray of effluence directed in my face. It was even worse than I could have imagined. It made Mallett's Mallet look like fucking Shaft … er, I mean, Mastermind.
Debbie. Oh Debby. Debby has brains. Probably. I think we might have to run some medical tests first. Last night’s show had a London-centric theme and asked viewers to ring in and guess what London landmark was on the list, which naturally led on to some bright spark thinking that everyone should dress up in a Sixties style. You know, like Austen Powers and other noted figures who never actually existed in real life. Debbie, however, was done up as a peroxide Barbarella and still said: "I’m not sure who I am". Nobody told her. Poor girl. I’m thinking it was just an excuse for producers to get her into a zip-up top and perhaps even, gosh blimey guvnor, to show her pins off, and entice a few bored but horny late night viewers. Never mind that Barbarella was an American film adapted from a French comic by Jean-Claude Forest. Even Duran Duran was played by an Irishman. It has nothing to do with London. You got me?
Debby, who looks like Anna Faris from the Scary Movies series (yes, I have accidentally watched three of the films in the trilogy and may accidentally watch the fourth when it reaches and spreads through our lands like the Black Death) actually grew on me with her dopey-cute persona and her attempt to set the world record for talking bollocks. "We’re going a bit sixties … it’s groovy baby". No, love it’s not groovy, it’s shit. "I want you to email me pictures of gnomes". Are you insane? Why? Oh, I forgot. This is Quizmania. Everyone has to get sectioned by the end of the show. "Why is London associated with magpies?" It’s not Debbie, (whose thickness is becoming quite adorable) but the Blitz is. Why do thoughts about aerial bombing come into my head? Debbie also likes the Queen because she is "a nice old woman who reminds me of my grandma", which, frankly, could also be said of actress Liz Smith and calls the Millienium Dome the "inverted wok" to which I am wont to reply: no, it's the teflon meteorite - Iain Sinclair rules!
Poor Debbie repeats the single piece of decent trivia that is repeated all night: that Julian Lloyd-Webber was the first official busker on the Tube, then she ruins it all by saying he was the "son of Andrew Lloyd-Webber ... maybe". No, that's a lie. There is more decent trivia. Another caller says she looks like Mary Hopkins's daughter. By an amazing coincidence, Debbie reveals that her mum Wendy King beat her on Opportunity Knocks. Amazingly, this also proves that Debbie does know something.
But finally, bien sur, the leitmotif of the show: "You could be winning £5000 right now!" Which translated through the crap-o-meter means: "There is a miniscule chance of you winning £5000. In fact you have a better chance of winning some money on The Jeremy Kyle Show which is coming up afterwards because if you go on it and talk about how much you hate your girlfriend/boyfriend for being ugly/a cheat/ fat/a scumbag/pregnant, someone might feel sorry for you and give you a fiver."
Co-presenter Chuck provided some saving graces, saying: "This is Babestation, isn’t it" (nice little Sky Digital joke there and funny because there is no real qualitative difference between a bunch of silicone-enhanced naked women jiggling their jugs for your money and Quizmania, which just asks for your money) and "We’ve just beaten ITV Nightscreen in the ratings" thanks to gratuitous shots of Debbie’s legs. Actually, come to think of it they’re pretty rubbish. But such is the rough surrounding them that they inevitably look like diamonds. Having taken the mistaken guess St Paul's Cathedral and said: "St Paul's Cathedral - for religious fans!", Chuck then disturbingly revealed a gallery stuff that people had emailed in – sort of like Tony Hart asking for pictures of pervs and ghouls and pouting pikeys. I mean, one young-ish viewer sent in a picture of himself naked and covering his penis with his hand. If this is a quiz, I’m a watermelon.
So when they give up asking people for random guesses and have to wrap up the show, they give out clues. These clues might be termed as giveaways by some and are described as being for "the hard of thinking", which really means for the utterly illiterate or brain damaged viewers out there. They are along the lines of rhymes with "Putty Park"; it has the words Batter and Sea in it and is a power station; and "sounds like Cleopatra's beadle". By this time I am butting my head against the nearest brick wall repeatedly. I realise why it's called Quizmania. Because you have to be certified insane to watch it, and it seems that by the end I have actually gone insane. It worked. I am a nutter. People like Anthony who email Chuck and Debby to tell them about being married to "25 stones of pure Heffalump" and wanting a divorce seem to have gone a little bit crazy too. And how else can we explain the answer of caller Mick who was asked to "sum up the show"? After a yawning five-second pause, he says: "Fantastic". He's doollaly I tells ya.
You realise, of course, that one day all channels will be like this: a twenty-something tartlet who looks like she is incapable of never smiling talking to the camera and begging you all day long to give money to the corporate vampires who pay her. And just begging on an infinite loop: "Watching and looking at me is fun. Now give me money. Money, dosh, moolah, cash, spondulix, money, readies. You have no lives so you might as well". And maybe, we just asked for this. The use of premium phone lines in alliance with a nominal question (e.g. What is the first name of our Queen? A. Jordan B. Elizabeth B. Xena – Lesbian Princess) has metastasised with hardly anyone noticing. But metastasised it has. Every show is sucking punters dry through their phone bills, and if they are going to ring up and feed the insatiable cash-hungry monster corporate television, then they deserve to be fleeced. You shouldn’t encourage them. Naughty, silly people. I would like to hear the thousands of frustrated cries of people whose calls never get on the show just to hear them drown out the jubilant screams of the cash-winners, but such mass anguish will be silenced for all time.
Quizmania is an abomination. The Gala bingo soundtrack is an atrocity on its own merits and the show makes late night TV connoisseurs like myself dearly miss reruns of Tour of Duty and Get Stuffed. It gives quiz shows a bad name, like Tarquin. If there was a Father of Quiz he would be rotating so fast in his grave that the kinetic energy produced would be enough to solve the world's impending energy crisis. But you know that already. I'm just saying that if we let shows like this rancid piece of monkey toss proliferate even more, we will surely reap the bloody great whirlwind.
Shows like Quizmania are singularities that just suck everything in, whether it is your attention, money or intelligence, as well as sucking and blowing at the same time. It’s time to draw a line in the sand before it is too late, but it appears we are the generation that spent more money on shoes than charitable causes and we are letting these shows pollute the world without a whimper of protest. Wait, can you hear them?The nuclear warning sirens in the distance. Bagsie a Dr Strangelove-style underground complex.
Finally
Why not visit the website! It says Quizmania "is an exciting late night interactive gameshow which gives you chance to win instant cash prizes". Hand me that phone. It sounds brilliant.
posted by That Quiz Guy at 3:55 AM
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