Game Shows

Game Shows - an Historical Overview

The following outline of the history of British game shows is based on David Mason's more detailed 'A Brief History of Game Shows' to be found in 'The Game Show Handbook', Francis Wheen's History of Television and Garry Whannel's essay 'Winner Takes All: Competition' in 'Understanding Television' (1990):

The simple spelling quiz Spelling Bee, transmitted live from the BBC's Alexandra Palace on 31st May 1938, was the very first television game show. In this show contestants simply tried to spell words correctly and, predictably, the show was not a great success. One immensely important discovery by the early programme planners was that quite trivial parlour games, if skillfully and entertainingly presented, were enormously popular with the television audience. The first regular TV game show of this kind, and the longest running one, was What's My Line ? (which began in America in 1950 and in Britain in 1951) where celebrity panelists guessed the occupation of a contestant. In America in the 1950's big prizes were introduced to the format. One of the most famous was CBS's The $64,000 Question which began in 1955. This was based on a radio show called Take It or Leave It which had a top prize of just $64. The contestants in The $64,000 Question were put in 'isolation booths', the questions protected by 'security officers' and the rewards so high, that even the losers were given a Cadillac. Within three months of its launch The $64,000 Question was being watched by 85% of the television audience and many imitations were being spawned.

By 1957 half of the networks top ten programmes were quizzes, including The $64,000 Question, The $64,000 Challenge and NBC's Twenty-One. An English professor Charles Van Doren, who won $129,000 on Twenty-One was the first 'celebrity' to be launched by these shows and was even invited to be a guest presenter on the Today show. The quiz show bubble was about to burst, however, as it was revealed that winners were being selected by the networks and the advertisers:

'In 1958, publicity was given to rumours that the quiz shows were 'fixed' - that favoured contestants were being told the answers in advance. The following year, Charles van Doren confessed to a congressional sub-committee that his appearance on 'Twenty-One' had all been rigged. Before his show he had been taken aside by the producer and given the answers, with instructions that he should arrange to 'tie' with the current champion that week, to build up tension. the next week he was allowed to win, and he continued to win for several months. he told the committee that when he learned that he was finally going to be allowed to lose, he was relieved.

Dozens of similar revelations were made after Van Doren testified. President Eisenhower said that the fixing had been 'a terrible thing to do to the American people'. All the high stakes quiz shows were hastily removed from the schedules.' (Wheen 1985) (Incidentally, the Van Doren/Twenty-One scandal which rocked America's trust in the television networks was the subject of the feature film Quiz Show (1995) directed by Robert Redford.)

Double Your Money and Take Your Pick were the first game shows on British television to offer cash prizes and were both launched on the new ITV commercial network. However, the IBA set limits on the prizes available and there was generally more emphasis on the enjoyment of competition rather than material rewards.

In the 1960's game shows developed alongside advances in the nation's 'white heat' of technology. The Golden Shot (1967), for example, used a miniature camera lens attached to a crossbow held by a blindfolded archer who contestants directed over the phone to hit targets.

In the 1970's the personality of the host and the contestant became at least as important as their ability to win prizes. The Generation Game was typical of a show where to be seen to be 'having fun' was central to the shows success. The surprise success of the decade was 'Mastermind' where the only prize was a glass bowl and the questions were very difficult. The success was probably due to its format - inspired by Nazi interrogation techniques. The contestant was isolated in a pool of light on a black leather seat and subject to rapid fire questioning by the Icelandic quizmaster Magnus Magnusson. Instead of name, rank and number contestants had to only reveal their 'name, occupation and subject'.

Memory based 'factual' knowledge was being disrupted by the end of the 1970's by the rise of the populist 'we asked one hundred people...' form of game show such as Family Fortunes or Play Your Cards Right where public opinion and 'common sense' were more highly valued. Whannel (1990) draws parallels here with broader political and ideological shifts:

'Many of the traditional assumptions and certainties of post-war Britain were being dismantled by the rise of Thatcherism. In its early populist phase, Thatcherism challenged established political knowledge by reference, mediated through the tabloid press, to the 'common sense' of ordinary people. During the same period, game shows shifted from a dependence on the traditional empirical/factual model of knowledge, towards a celebration of the views of ordinary people as a source of understanding.'

However, Whannel notes a return to fact based quiz shows in the 1980's. The likes of Fifteen to One whose model seemed to be the Victorian classroom reflected a return to 'Victorian values' including notions of competition in schools. Whannel, again, suggests the historical and ideological dimension to the trend:

'..by the late 1980's, Thatcherism has consolidated its power, and having successfully dismantled the old Butskellite welfare state consensual politics, is in the midst of an active reconstruction of major social institutions. as the project of imposing a new educational orthodoxy gets under way there are signs of a regeneration of the knowledge-as-fact school of quiz.'

Nevertheless, the hit show of the 1980's and one of the most successful game show formats on television today is the ultimate personality quiz show Blind Date. While the responses of the contestants have become increasingly scripted there is still, it is suggested, voyeuristic pleasure in watching the selection of an anonymous, 'no strings attached' sexual liason (with Cilla Black as the procuress) and the ritual trading of highly personal insults which follows it. The success of 'Blind Date' may, like many game shows, lie in 'the audiences sadistic pleasure in watching other people being humiliated in public'. (Wheen 1985)

In the 1990's game shows developed and mutated further both at the fringes and in the mainstream of the genre. The generic fluidity of Strike It Lucky hosted by the frenetic Michael Barrymore - a combination of quiz show , talent contest , variety and chat show - attracted a large mainstream audience. At the 'fringe' Julian Clarys' Sticky Moments shown on Channel 4 offered a camp version of Blind Date's grating innuendos draped over the comfortingly recognisable and predictable frame of the game show. Clary combined the deadpan humour of a Larry Grayson with the exotic, glamorous appeal usually reserved for the female assistant. The use of obviously straight contestants heightened the comic impact of his homosexual double entendres. Channel 4s Don't Forget Your Toothbrush also parodied many of the conventions of game shows yet successfully harnessed the 'vulgar' 'showbiz' energy of American style entertainment, (exploited earlier and with less irony) in ITV's The Price is Right.

The Popularity of Game Shows

Clarke (1987) identifies four types of game and quiz shows - specialist , intellectual, celebrity and populist shows. Each type has its own appeal. Specialist shows such as Film Buff of the Year, for instance, may target those with a keen interest in film, but may also have a general appeal beyond the 'buff' who is able to answer even a handful of the obscure questions. The same is also true of 'intellectual' shows such as University Challenge and Mastermind. The appeal of celebrity shows (which employ, at least, vaguely recognizable personalities) lies not with prizes or meeting a difficult challenge, but with the ability of the celebrities to provide amusing conversation and anecdotes. Shows such as Have I Got News For You are clearly structured by a quiz show format but are quite open about how unimportant and frequently arbitrary the scoring is. In this sense they are closer to chat shows in their essential appeal.

The fun and excitement of contests, both mental and physical, is given an added showbiz spin in populist gameshows. The lure of large prizes and how contestants perform under the stress of trying to win them is one common appeal. As Clarke notes, in those programmes where the prizes are largest the content is virtually irrelevant: questions involve commonplace general knowledge, or absurd guess-work. The contests, in this sense, are more a test of character - how they respond to the possibility of winning or losing a valuable prize, for example. Populist gameshows also exhibit the characteristics of popular entertainment as identified by Richard Dyer, offering: ' abundance, energy, and community, in contrast to the scarcity, exhaustion, and isolation more common to lived reality.' (quoted by Whannel 1990)

Where prizes are less important there may be a stronger 'educational' appeal as in 'intellectual' shows such as Mastermind. An audience that finds populist shows loud and vulgar will often prefer their entertainment disguised as self improvement. The recitation of obscure facts learnt parrot form, usually with a 'classical' emphasis will have greater status then, for example, estimating the price of a consumer product. The deliberately low key prizes for such quizzes - dictionaries, glass bowls, book tokens etc. set aside their competitors from those of more populist shows: knowledge on 'intellectual' shows has its own reward.

A powerful appeal of all game and quiz shows is the strong element of audience participation. For the populist shows this will involve cheering, clapping, whooping and general high spirits - an atmosphere essential to the success of the programme and insisted on in the studio. This is achieved through warm up comedians, free wine, cues to begin and end noise and frantic arm waving by the floor manager if the volume is not sufficient. The audience in the studio and at home are encouraged to consider the show as a great night out (or in !) to celebrate, in Bruce Forsythe's words, 'a bit o' fun' in a warm, communal atmosphere. It is generally accepted by contestants and audience alike that such celebrations are rigorously stage managed.

The widely recognized and highly paid talent of hosts like Barrymore and Forsythe is their ability to let audiences and contestants surrender total control to them. They wield this power with the confidence and flair of the music hall impressario or the variety artiste. Fiske ('87) suggests that in populist game shows there are elements of carnival where, 'the constraints of the everyday are evaded and its power relations temporarily reversed'. As such, the game show hosts role is that of Carnival King, whose rules and decrees though temporary, are absolute.

The fact that such shows are presented as if live - when, in fact, they are taped in batches of at least three or four, helps the viewer identify and feel as if s/he is there. Furthermore the mystery of who will win, creates suspense in the narrative similar to that in crime/detective stories. The contestants and winner are practically the only variable amongst the other elements of setting, story stucture, events, atmosphere (etc) which change from week to week.

Another form of audience participation which is common to virtually all quiz and game shows is the degree to which viewers can participate actively by trying to answer the questions themselves. There is an opportunity to compete at your own level and award yourself a 'self rating' against the competitors. The purely physical competition of Gladiators sets it apart from game shows with physical elements such as The Krypton Factor or The Crystal Maze for this very reason. Although Gladiators employs virtually all the conventions of a populist game show : it has a live audience, presenters, competition, excitement, glamour, competitors who are members of the public, points and prizes; the lack of opportunity for audience 'self rating' makes its status as a 'game show' problematic.

The fact that quiz and game shows are one of the very few television genres to feature 'ordinary people' is a frequently overlooked appeal. They may be young, physically attractive, talkative, extrovert and even exhibitionist, (as seen frequently on Blind Date) or shy, unglamorous or of any age, class and race (Countdown, Fifteen to One). As such these shows have an 'egalitarian' appeal. The fact that a taxi driver should be the 'Mastermind' of the nation, for example, helps promote a myth of social and educational equality which Masterman ('85) (amongst others) has explored in more detail.

Game Shows - 'Ritual, Game, Ritual'.

The following account of the role of 'ritual and game' in Game Shows provides a summary of some of the points made by John Fiske in 'Television Culture' (Routledge 1987).

In 'Television Culture' John Fiske examines the elements of 'ritual and game' in Quiz and Game shows. He traces the ancestry of such programmes back through radio to party and community games which were used to pass the time, keep warm, distract from hunger and boredom and bind a community together. Fiske defines ritual as something which brings people from different ages, backgrounds and status together to share in a common experience to create shared meaning and unified identities. A church service, for example, is a ritual where all are equal and all are treated equally. Elements of ritual can be found, especially at the beginning and end of game shows. At these points the contestants are given equal time and space within the privileged areas of the studio and share an understanding of the conventions and rules with the host and 'participating' audience. The standardised introductions, endings, physical placements and glamourised lecterns or desks, catch phrases and audience responses are all suggestive of a religious ceremony.

Where, as Levi Straus suggests, rituals move from difference to equality; games move in the opposite direction. Most sports, for instance are games, with the 'competitors' starting out equal and finishing as winners or losers. This philosophy of competition is also present in game shows. There is a strong emphasis on individual skill and ability and prizes for the winners. After the ritualised beginnings of the game show, the same as every week, the game itself takes over. All the contestants start equal and have equal opportunities - but they are not all of equal ability and this rapidly becomes clear. The game is usually structured so that contestants are progressively eliminated until there is only one winner.

The end of the show moves back to the ritual of the opening with the host taking the winner, usually by the hand, to a hallowed part of the set, where no one has yet set foot, the 'altar' upon which the prizes are displayed. The losing contestants are then asked to join the winner where they celebrate the end of the game together with the audience.

Why should these elements of ritual and game be pleasurable ?

* Social cohesion and escapism: people need and enjoy a certain amount of ritual in their lives. Work, education, area, accent, experiences all tend to divide us from each other. Rituals bring us together and, for a time, distract us from the differences - which, for many, feel very unfair.

* Identification: by identifying with the winner we can share the sensation of winning - but we can also share the sadness and disappointment of the losers which, perhaps, makes it easier to bear our own disappointments. The prime qualification for being on most quiz shows is to look and sound 'ordinary' so that the mass audience can identify with the contestant.

* Comfort and reinforcement: these shows are highly conservative and conformist - they are based, fundamentally, on rules. At the heart of the ideology of quiz/game shows are a set of beliefs which reflect those at thje heart of our society. These include the myths that all start equal regardless of race, colour, gender, region, class; that it's not who you know (old school tie network etc) but what you know that is important, and that if you don't succeed it is because you didn't try hard enough, or acquire sufficient knowledge, or have a lucky break.

Why Quiz and Game Shows are popular with the Television Industry.

Quiz and game shows are popular with the industry because they are cheap, easy to produce and they attract large audiences. ' "The great appeal to a controller is that they're unbelievably cheap," says BBC's entertainment development head Keith Lygo. 'They shoot six 'Blockbusters' shows in a day' . They are cheap and easy to produce for much the same reason that soap opera is cheap - the above the line costs are a reusable set, a presenter and perhaps an assistant and a few prizes which are often of little value or are donated by a firm looking for publicity. . Below the line costs are kept low because they can be filmed quickly in a studio space with a small crew, on a regular basis.

Criticisms of the Genre

Quiz and game shows have very low status in television's 'pecking order'. Reasons for this include their origins in oral culture and 'popular' forms of entertainment; their audiences - in daytime: housewives, retired people and the unemployed and in the evenings: working and lower middle class; their cheapness, throwaway nature and tendency to be 'bland and repetetive, or greedy and aggressive' . Quiz shows, in fact, stand opposite to 'high culture' in all their distinguishing traits:

' The 1962 Pilkington into television singled out quizes as the medium at its most trivial and socially harmful. Critical attitudes to quiz shows echoed attitudes to gambling - winning required no merit; prizes were too much for people to cope with.' (Beckett)

Criticisms of quiz and game shows is not, however, confined to the disapproval of 'establishment' figures out of touch with 'popular culture'. Such shows are also attacked generally for 'selling' dominant ideology through their competitive narrative structure and by perpetuating myths of equal opportunty (see above). At an individual level they reaffirm heterosexist attitudes ( through the widespread use of decorative assistants (for instance - Don't Forget Your Toothbrush) and by the assumption that heterosexual relationship are the only possibility (Blind Date). They promote crass materialism through the fetishistic concern with prizes and 'screaming, dancing, arm waving' consumerism (The Price is Right, Supermarket Sweep). Furthermore, they frequently (as with Mastermind) reassert a view of education that is mechanistic, (the rote learning of facts), 'unpleasant', 'dehumanising' and 'closely associated with humiliation and failure' (Masterman). Quiz shows ultimately are ambiguous in that, with their roots deep in egalitarian rituals they offer some of the utopian aspects of popular culture, whilst embodying several dystopian values and assumptions of contemporary society.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Watch an episode of a quiz show and try to answer as many of the questions in as much detail as possible:

1) On what channel and at what time is the show scheduled ? Is it produced by an independent production company, or is it made by the BBC or one of the ITV networks ?

2) Describe the title sequence and introductory music.

3) What is the set like ? What colours or shapes are common ? Is there more than one area ? Why do you think the set was designed the way it is ?

4) Comment on the presenters manner, dress, relationship with the contestants and audience and role throughout the show.

5) Describe the contestants.

6) What kind of knowledge or skill is being tested ? How important is scoring, if there is any at all ? How important is competition ?

7) What role does the studio audience play ? How can audiences at home join in ?

8) What is the target audience of the show ? How successful do you think it is ? Why is it so successful/ unsuccessful ?

Exercise 2

Devise a quiz or game show for a target audience not currently well catered for in the schedules. Use the following headings to plan your work:

Research

Current Choice of Game Shows and their likely target audience (use a weekly television guide to help draw up a list)

Target audience not well catered for currently . (think of a particular age group and/or interest group eg: teenage football fans)

Other programmes that are popular with this audience (use a television guide to help draw up a list)

Programme elements that are popular with this audience (what makes them appealing to this group)

The Game/ Quiz show - format

Use your research to help you plan a new quiz/game show. Agree on the broad shape of the show - originality is what is being looked for, the show should ideally be ground-breaking in some way. Are there different parts to it ? What sort of atmosphere will the programme be looking for - serious, lighthearted, riotous ? Once you have a sense of what the show is about plan the following in more detail. (individuals, pairs etc may take one task each)

Devise ideas for the title sequence and introductory music

Design a set in 3D, if possible.

Describe the presenters manner, dress, relationship with the contestants and audience and role throughout the show.

Describe the contestants.

What kind of knowledge or skill will be tested ? How important is scoring, if there is any at all ? How important is competition ?

What role does the studio audience play ? How can audiences at home join in ?

What is the target audience of the show ? How successful do you think it will be ? Why ?

On what channel and at what time will the show be scheduled ? Will it be produced by an independent production company or is it made by the BBC or one of the ITV networks ?

Practical Production

(This will take good organisation, division of labour and some effective leadership within the group)

1) Script questions (not answers)

2) Cast quiz host, assistant (if any) and contestants. appoint director, camera operators, floor manager etc

3) Organise costumes, painting of set, props etc

4) Rehearse episode - organise positions of cameras (more than one if possible - three ideally)

5) Camera rehearsal - camera operators know what to expect and what to film. Suggest one camera on host (close up), one one contestant answering question (close up) and one (long shot) of both.

6) Film uninterrupted wherever possible. Try to get audience and audience involvement - applause etc. Run three cameras simultaneously without cutting/pausing. It is then possible to edit sequence afterwards fairly smoothly.

Essay

Why are quiz and game shows so popular with television companies and audience ?

Essay

What can an analysis of contemporary game shows tell us about the society we live in ?

Essay

How are quiz and game shows unique as a television genre ?

Essay

Provide a detailed analysis of any one quiz or game show currently on television.

Sources

Alvarado, M. (1987) 'Television and Video' Wayland

David Mason (1990) *A Brief History of Game Shows

Fiske, J. (1987) Television Culture Routledge

Masterman, L. (1985) Teaching the Media Routledge

Clarke, M. (1987) Teaching Popular Television Heinemann Educational in association with BFI

Cooke, T. Case Study Game and Quiz Shows - Oldham Sixth Form College (unpublished)

Whannel, G. (1990) Understanding Television Routledge

'A Question of Thought' Andy Beckett (The Independent on Sunday) February 1995)