Finding out they don't keep the prizes on Taskmaster is something I really knew but having it confirmed is still a little like finding out Santa isn't real
I tried to introduce my mom and my sister to the show, but they have really short attention spans, and by the time I found a clip that showed the loophole strategy, they lost interest, and I never got the chance to explain how genius it is, because my mom would have actually loved it, but my sister wanted to change the channel to any movie that was showing on lifetime. It was one of the most disappointing moments in my life.
American here: it's absolutely true that Taskmaster & Would I Lie to You are the easy sells. In Taskmaster's case especially, as its well supported on RU-vid!
@@jillkearns525I watched a video essay once on it. And they theorized on of the main issues was that they took the prize segment out. US wanted it to be within a 30 min time slot. And without the prizes, the viewer doesn’t get to know the contestant and understand how they might approach a task. Making it less entertaining
@@jillkearns525 A lot of it is bad casting imo. Also they had Alex as TM Assistant instead of their own, which just felt weird to me. Plus panel show format isn't familiar to the general US audience. If they try to reboot it with a new cast and have it be available on YT/streaming services, they def could reach their audience. I mean, even the fanmade TM Minnesota has a decent following.
Correction: Donald Glover didn’t leave Community after season 7. It only ran for 6 seasons (and a movie!!). He left part-way through season 5. Chevy Chase left after season 4, but then his character died off-screen in season 5 (episode 3 - the asscrack bandit episode). During his Will-reading (episode 4) he left Troy (Glover) all his Hawthorn Wipes stock (valued at $14m) on the condition that Troy sailed around the world. Troy then left during/after the next episode, which was the Floor is Lava episode (S05E05).
He also left him the obligatory sperm. Also shows like Community or Brooklyn99 were cancelled and later renewed for addititonal seasons by another channel. Community just shy of the 100 at 97 episodes.
@@LiveDonkeyDeadLion Incorrect, Zach did a full 8 seasons of Scrubs and appeared in a few episodes of Season 9 as a transitionary character as S9 was always meant to be a spin off series called Med School, but the network wanted to cash in on the Scrubs brand.
That what Richard said about having a cold for a day or two being 15 episodes of a show, reminds me of one of the presenters of Catchphrase having a broken leg for what felt like years.
Glad you mentioned 'I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson'. Always thought I didn't really like sketch shows until I saw that. Cried with laughter on multiple occasions. Favourite American comedy since The Simpsons.
A true story about product placement. Before they started production, the people from the film E.T. went to M & M's with the script and said they wanted to do a promotional tie in with Elliot luring E.T. out with M&M's. The guy in charge of that decision sent the script back saying it looked like a cute kids movie, but it wasn't worth it to do a promotion with them. They next approached Hersheys that had introduced Reese's Pieces to lackluster sales. They bit, Elliot lured, and sales of Reese's Pieces skyrocketed a 1000 percent. E.T. obviously the best selling movie of all time (at that point) . I have always wanted to be a fly on the wall when that guy had to explain to the board of directors why he chose not to do the product placement.
"M&Ms already have worldwide recognition and a position of dominance in the market, theres a rate of diminishing returns and M&Ms couldnt have possibly expected such a high return. In our position it would be wasted money. Now gimme a raise."
There was paid product placement for four different instances for the California raisins but three of the four agreed-upon product placement spots were cut in the final edit and the only remaining product placement seen was on a bench that was half covered up by a sleeping homeless man so would not be considered positive product placement as it was barely visible and certainly not considered a positive product placement spot and for that they paid a pretty hefty Penny and I'm surprised they didn't sue and get most of their money back.
I worked in film + TV back in the 90's. I was lucky enough to be part of the Spitting Image crew doing sets and props. If we had to work on a Saturday or, Dog forbid, a Sunday morning because of a late breaking story (normally a political scandal) we got to have a lucky dip from all of the junk sent in by product promoters. I once bagged a really nice Tag Heuer watch. It lasted for years. I wasn't so cool about the 48 cans of lobster bisque. This was a sketch show but the overheads were basic. Even Steve Coogan only worked for £200 a day (when he could be arsed to show up, bit of party animal back then).The sets were constructed in half an hour. Three flats (8x4 wooden boards) screwed together and a few hastily arranged props. John Major's peas were still frozen but defrosted by the lights. They cost 89p for a 1kg bag from the Coop. We did it on the cheap and it worked just fine.
Great insight. The appeal of Spitting Image was the ramshackle, thrown together quality of it. The whole thing felt like it was written in an hour before the fiiming. Such a funny show. The line when Tina Turner is told the bombs are coming and she has three minutes to live and what shall we do and she replies "We can all make love" will live with me forever. The Roy Hattersley puppet was brilliant. Thank you!
@lifesbutastumble We didn't have a permanent set, you may have noticed that a lot of the sketches were close up shots? We did make a few 'large' sets, normally for the musical numbers. There was only a small team of puppeteers (two per puppet) so we'd get roped in to jig them around to the beat, they were pretty heavy. Producers, crew, runners, all have been corralled for a dance routine at some time. Loved it. Technically I qualified for Equity membership as a performer.
I love Taskmaster! I live in the U.S. Thank you, RU-vid!my other favorites are WILTY and Cats Does Countdown! All 3 shows are funnier and better than anything in the U.S. today!
I think that US comedy (particularly stand-up) has largely been taken over by a faction of libertarians who idolized George Carlin, but don't *_quite_* get his edge. (Namely that while criticizing liberals, he abhorred conservatives). On the other hand, the UK has a kind of borscht-belt, friendly style of comedian who populate the panel shows. Even someone like Jimmy Carr, who gets tagged as edgy, seems rather tame, in a tittering grandma way.
It’s just sad that our culture is so toxic that a competition show like that can’t be done in the US. The best series of Taskmaster? New Zealand Series 2. It’s the funniest, hands down.
Interesting point about how you’d just catch an episode of friends or something and watch it, whereas now with on demand watching you don’t tend to do that.
Aussie here: regarding the second series of Traitors Australia, the things you say about the contestants is, I think, the main reason the show was not renewed for a 3rd season. People did literally switch off because they couldn't bear the stupidity of the faithfuls (nor the character of Sam, who became very much hated across social media). But hang in there because the ending is spectacular.
Another Aussie here, can confirm all of this it true. Unfortunately, it seems the producers were trying to go for more of the US route using some celebrities (I use the term lightly here) when in reality, we want every day civilians. Oh, and I agree, the finale is spectacular. Whilst I hold out hope this might come back, it does need some work done. (And if we can convince the audience that this isn't the Mole. All the better.)
I was frustrated by the idiotic reasoning of the contestants in both seasons. Sam was annoying but part of that is down to how stupid the others were and perhaps how they chose to portray him in the edit which might have made him look more smug and full of himself than he really is or just left out other balancing factors of his character. In both seasons people latch onto silly reasons to vote others out because they have absolutely no idea. In season 1 someone uttered the word murder and that was enough to seal their fate. The constant gossiping, he said, she said BS that became convincing evidence for many was painful to watch. In season 2 people gave their parting shots at who they thought the traitors were but people persisted with their own theories and even after they were proven wrong, they still couldn't process what had happened. The show puts the voting power in the hands of the most feeble-minded contestants and comes down to someone like Sam who can manipulate them until the end.
Sam was active on social media and various self-aggrandising sites like LinkedIn. His family were likewise. With all of that combined, i have to conclude that what you saw on the show was very much what it appeared you got in real life.
I believe that The Traitors accurately reflects modern society - a large group of stupid people will always ignore facts and evidence in favour of their own beliefs ...there's even a term for it .. MAGA
So glad there are some Aussies commenting on this as we have just watched series 2, and was dying to know what you thought- we are in Scotland. The ending was such sweet justice that I almost cried, and I looked up Sam et al and as you say life imitating art and vice versa. So glad we watched it though and for thank you for your great insights- ‘it blew my mind’ in the words of a ‘famous’ psychoanalyst!😊!- not
I agree with her that sometimes it’s better to be a small series… most good shows disappoint people because they’re no longer around and they’re not coming back so it’s almost like grieving for something that is no longer… A lot of Uk shows that are small amounts of episodes seem to go quality over quantity, and don’t have the stomach to stretch out something further than they should be
One for Richard: We are super fans of House of Games. Are the week’s episodes of House of Games recorded in one day? Are they all live? I imagine the contestants having a short break where they change their clothes for each episode.
I was at the first recording of gladiators and Bradley actually told that tale of meeting his wife on the original show after about 5 hours of us being there and the 7000th break in filming…. Was a very long day
@@JessicaRainbow it was one episode at a time, and more painfully, one game at a time, so you would watch them film one game for about 15 minutes, then then a good 90 mins of them taking everything for that game away and then building all the stuff for the next game, we arrived for 1pm, we left at about 8pm (which was well before it finished) because we were so bored of watching what was essentially assembling furniture
@@JessicaRainbow we went to the semi finals, they filmed both of them together so we basically watched the first half of 2 shows. Like Furious Thomson says, it's a very long day.
Cable shows in America, including It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, have a more British schedule with a maximum of a dozen episodes a year. Nowadays, network programs are syndicated to cable or local broadcast stations while new episodes are still airing. Once upon a time, they were syndicated after the show was no longer in production. Local stations would air an episode each weekday. The magic number of episodes was 100, which ran as five episodes a week for 20 weeks with no repeats. Most shows with fewer than 100 disappeared.
Demolition man had a good example of product placement, taco bell was the original restaurant they visited but pizza hut was dubbed in some markets and logos replaced.
At 10m when she speaks about product placements I suddenly imagined a film set being put on hold and stars being asked to move outa the way while they light & film the can of Coke. hehe. Glad I found this podcast, very interesting.
On the topic of product placement, there was one shot in the latest US Godzilla film which shows a car like a commercial, it's comically bad. On the flip side, when it's obvious they didn't get clearance for a product, and it says "conk" instead of coke or whatever it's distracting.
There have been some good British sketch shows in recent years, Ellie & Natasia, Lazy Susan, a Whole Lifetime, Limmy only recently stopped making the in Scotland etc, they're certainly thinner on the ground than they used to be, but there does seem to be a slow resurgence
Yes yes yes to a deep dive task master episode!!! Love that the show introduced me to Richard, his books and so much more. Huge WILTY fan too😀Hearing about Richard's US tour makes me think that taskmaster may be the key to world peace😍 those of us that get to watch on youtube are seriously united in the comments section😂
‘Marina Jekyll,’ is simply proof that Richard is one of the smartest and quickest wits around. I believe My Family had a writers room and which did about 120 episodes. Then you have Fawlty Towers where John Cleese and Connie Booth would spend up to three months on each episode. But of course it did end up with 12 of the greatest comedy farces ever written. Not too sure about the apparent remake, the Frasier remake was, yeah, ok. And finally how do you guys watch so much TV and movies? And know so much? Great podcast as always.
To the episode numbers in the US: I understand the "comfort watch", but I also sometimes think that longer seasons aren't necessarily a good thing. Sometimes the focus and clarity of "we have 6/8/10 episodes, we need to get the story through" is much more helpful than "ugh how are we gonna fill 22 episodes?" I'm speaking about shows with narratives though, e.g. How I Met Your Mother. It's nice that we got more time with the characters, but in the end the last leg the story got weirdly inflated and the ending would have made more sense if it had been less runtime and less focus on Robin's and Barney's wedding in the end. (Sorry if offend anyone who really liked the ending!) Or also when you compare the earlier Lucifer seasons to the later ones - earlier with the longer seasons there is a lot more filler and unnecessary complications (season 3 anyone?!) as compared to season 4 onward when they had less episodes in a season and could focus the story better.
I'd assume they farm out the editing (as many RU-vid channels do) and the editor, possibly not from the UK, didn't know the show so likely just used whatever came up when they googled "Ghosts TV show" (for whatever reason doing that for "Horrible Histories" - which _also_ has a US version - comes up with the UK original but not "Ghosts").
You could ask the clasaic question 'Are you Dave Gorman?' The person asking the question may have been one of the other Dave Gormans that Dave found in his book
I’m really glad the RU-vid algorithm popped this into my feed I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every episode I’ve watched so far. I have a question I’d love to hear Richard’s thoughts on. I’m an American who has developed a somewhat debilitating addiction to panel shows. My question is this, why don’t panel shows work in America? Is it American audiences? Because I keep bumping into tons of people who love Taskmaster, WILTY, Cats does Countdown etc. so there’s an audience for them. Is it American comics? I’ve seen Americans like Michelle Wolf or Kristen Schaal on UK panel shows and they kill. I think it must be something with American producers because even when you have UK panel show stalwarts involved (Alex Horne on American Taskmaster, Jimmy Carr and Katherine Ryan on The Fix) the shows suck. I’d love to see some awesome and successful American panel shows and the closest we’ve ever gotten is @Midnight (but it’s new After Midnight version is only ok). If only someone could crack this mystery.
There's some Japanese comedy shows - especially the 24h no laughing challenge - which would be amazing and popular in the UK. We all know about UK media products licensed abroad but I wonder how often we do it ourselves
Hi Richard, like I'm sure many people have, I've had an idea rattling around my head for a sitcom-based comedy. I've always thought it'd be hilarious and relatable, but I have literally NO idea how I'd get it out of my head and onto a screen. As someone who has brought so many good ideas to so many millions of people, can you tell us, what are the steps from concept to pilot recording and commissioning?
Dear Richard and Marina, my husband & I are big fans of you both and love HOG every night at 6pm and Marina’s bitingly funny articles in the G. To top it all I was so amused and thrilled to hear you talk about The Traitors -Aus -2nd series which we also could not believe how on earth 80% of the candidates had ever been selected for the show, and how their absolutely brainless deductive powers would ever let them work again in real life! Especially the ‘blow my mind’ catch phrase of the psychoanalyst , who proved what an absolute clueless chump she was and the clairvoyant who got 50% of the Traitors wrong-then buggered off! It had a brilliant ending though with a morale tail, which was hilarious. Thank you so much for mentioning it- it is reaching cult status in our house for being so bad and I think they actually de -commissioned series three after that! 😅x
To me, living in the US, shows over here are all about making money. We want all the episodes we can get, because they allow the shows to make more money. And, as you pointed out, get into syndication, where some more large amounts of money can be made. Shows in England and the U.K. seem to be about the quality and the craft. I've seen great shows from across the pond that don't get stale or wear out their welcome because they are only 6-10 episodes a season and maybe 2 or 3 seasons total. Then the actors, writers, etc. go on to create something new. Over here, we will beat a dead horse until the last penny drops out of it, and that is why actors leave. They see the quality dwindling or their character has no more way to develop, and they want something new. The U.K. way is so much better for quality, but if you do get the rare show that can maintain that quality over multiple years, (The US Office was good for about 4 of them) you do have a lot of quantity to enjoy.
Another reason for the number of U.S. episodes is money for the stars. Back in the 80s, a season could be 30 episodes. Now a season is 10 or so episodes.
I love to see people from the UK praising some of the benefits of the US TV model and not just focusing on the ways that it's worse than the UK model. The US model does produce a lot of garbage, sometimes seasons are filled with filler to hit an episode count, etc. But when everything aligns just right you can wind up with a series with hundreds of good episodes and that's really nice when it happens.
On the issue of product placement, one of my favourite ever Korean dramas is Mother, the tragic story of a school teacher who "kidnaps" one of her pupils who has been abused by her mother and sadistic live-in boyfriend after the police are indifferent to the abuse. All very tragic. But the series was "sponsored" by the US chain Subway. So the "runaways" always ate in Subway. That to me looked like abuse.
If you are looking for ideas on what to discuss. I'd love to know about the pay structure on The Chase. The chasers always seem personally invested in how much money is given out and if they win or the like. My suspicion is that they don't get the money if they win but there is some kind of bonus structure. Even if they officially say there isn't.
When I watch TV I can now tell what is off the cuff and what isn't. I know why it has to be so but then when something incredible and unscripted comes along, it is just golden. So, why do really popular shows still claim to be entirely unscripted?
Question for the show: what does it mean to be 'in the public interest'? I saw a clip of a RU-vid show recently with Stephen Bartlett who thought it was to do with if something/someone has been featured on the BBC then that's defined as being in the public interest. Is that correct? Aaaaaand... discuss! Adam in Sheffield.
Also, Stand-up Comics can say what they want and put their work on youtube and get famous.... In a sketch show they have 'input' from studios and TV stations that is counterproductive to their work. Most of the 'input' will be based on misinterpreted demographic analysis and won't help anyone. Creatives don't want a boss... :D Panel shows are cheaper to make than sketch comedy and are effectively as popular. I vote for a Taskmaster special!
Regarding product placement on the BBC, at least two new daytime/early evening quiz shows have had visual “identify the product by its logo” questions throughout the show. The names escape me, but one was fronted by Alan Carr and one by Roman Kemp. How was that allowed? I asked on Twitter, but nobody answered.
Sketch comedies are alive in the US. SNL is going strong at over 40 seasons. Studio C has a sizable following in the "family friendly" space. Jimmy Fallon and James Corden both do sketches in their late night talk shows.
Hold on! Did Richard just casually mention his brother is the bass player for Suede?? Am I the only one that didn’t know this? I’m not a follower of Suede, so had to check Wikipedia and there he is, Mat Osman, Richard’s older brother, by three years. You learn something new every day.
The one thing they didn't touch upon in the discussion about US versus UK television was the episode length. In the UK (particularly with BBC programmes) you'll get a full hour in depth episode; whereas in the US the episodes are often only 20 minutes so they barely have time to introduce the plot before they're resolving it again. This means that you often don't actually get more content in US programmes, but you need more ideas. The contast is most notable in US remakes where they'll have similar storylines, but the US version is forced to be faster paced so by the time they get to the end of the first series they've usually covered the plot from a couple of UK series. However, when you examine the individual storylines, they've often had to skim over them or cut parts out or shortern parts just to fit it in an episode. Personally, I'd rather fewer well-written episodes than lots of banal ones. Having said that, I'd like to see UK series be closer to 12 episodes in length because 6 episodes can sometimes cause the overarching storylines to suffer the same fate as the US storylines have on a per episode basis.
Can I tell my funny but dumb Taskmaster related story? I found Taskmaster like 3ish years ago after the YT algorithms had been pushing the tasks on me with no context and me just being so confused. I finally found a full episode and loved it! 3 summers ago I was visiting a friend and their mom recommend me a book with glowing reviews, The Thursday Murder Club. I for some reason got it in my head that I’d find this relatively recently published book second hand. I have been searching for the last 2 years for it but I’m trash with names so I’d always kind of remember the title and the book cover but be like uhhh the author is like O something?? It took me to like three months ago to finally put two and two together and realize Taskmaster Richard Osman is author Richard Osman😅😅 anyways, never forgot the author name again while hunting for the book and I finally found it second hand on my birthday a month ago!! Love it and I’ll be getting the rest from the library like a sane person😂 I’m still mildly ashamed it took me two years of hunting for a book to realize I knew the author from one of my favourite shows😂😂
I'd say that one (24 minute) episode of a sketch show takes longer to write than a 6 episode series of a sitcom. I think better than having a question from Dave Gorman, king of powerpoint comedy, would be a question from one of the other Dave Gormans that appear in the Are You Dave Gorman? special. I think Marina could be on a forever rabbit hole with the rules around TV networks in the UK. Channel 4 isn't publicly funded either is it? Channel 4 is publicly owned. Aren't you looking at why American Network TV have 20-26 episode blocks v British TV having 6 , 13 or shorter episode blocks from the wrong end. You don't have a room full of writers, so you get 24 episodes a year - but because you're commissioned to fill a schedule for half a year you need a room full of writers to make enough scripts to fill a half year of TV
In relation to product placement, I was living in China when Iron Man 3 was released, and I got to watch scenes that were specifically for the Chinese market. One obvious product placement was when a Chinese actor was drinking a branded milk, to which the audience in the cinema burst out laughing, which I think was due to being too out of place.
Personally, I prefer the shorter seasons. As an American, I can't honestly name a show with 200+ episodes that would have sustained throughout. But then again, I never got into the types like NCIS and Law & Order, for the same reason Line of Duty doesn't quite land for me, either. But the premium channels use a slightly shorter model, which is why you the The Sopranos, 86 episodes over 6/7 seasons. Breaking Bad, 62. Even better was the old rotating NBC Mystery Movie, which had Columbo, McCloud, etc. Columbo only had 45 original episodes, over what they called 8 seasons or so. IMO, still the best program made anywhere, ever.
@@Est-os9yc I assumed they didn’t keep the prizes as they give away the same set of prizes every week, so I assumed the winner would just be presented with their choice and then it would be put back into the rotation. Where are they getting so many fondue sets?!
I feel like syndication and reruns aren't the same thing? Syndication is often reruns and reruns don't have to be the result of syndication.Maybe I'm thinking of an older model.
I wish the next James Bond uses Uber as his only transportation. And he's not wearing a wristwatch. Hans watches the clock on his smartphone, which are changing burner phones of no particular brand.
Here's my pitch - the Uber is an AI car (kind of like the one in that Pierce Brosnan one that he can drive with his phone) and it has a name and says stuff and this is how we reboot the Herbie franchise.
I would enjoy a Bond film in which a good chunk of the action takes place in an environment where fast cars or other high tech vehicles are impractical, illegal, or otherwise horribly out of place. So the audience would get to enjoy montage scenes of an increasingly frustrated 007 pursuing his target via tram, bicycle, and eventually horse and buggy 😂
I've been giving the same kind of recommendation for I Think You Should Leave for a couple years. You'll know if you are out pretty quick but if you arent there's a good chance you'll be like me and never stop quoting it.
