Post by Teddy Bear on Aug 12, 2013 17:54:57 GMT
Haven't watched this particular programme, nor am I likely to. Reading the format as explained in the article below it's about par for the highly paid creative-less BBC executives.
While reading the article it's worth imagining just how the 'brain-storm' session must have gone among these producers to arrive at this outcome. It'll give you more of a smile than this show ever will.
While reading the article it's worth imagining just how the 'brain-storm' session must have gone among these producers to arrive at this outcome. It'll give you more of a smile than this show ever will.
The new Muppets? Don't make me laugh: The BBC's latest weapon in the weekend ratings war would have Miss Piggy weeping in despair, says JAN MOIR
By Jan Moir
Bow down for the incomparable Miss Piggy. A round of applause, please, for the host with the most, the frog who has spawned a million imitators, we’re talking about you, Kermit. Fozzie Bear — I have always loved him! Rowlf the piano playing Dog, a woofy ditto.
The Great Gonzo and Animal? No one did soft foam anarchy quite like you two, though Statler and Waldorf came close.
Other Muppets we have loved and lost over the years? The Swedish Chef (‘Chicky in du baskie!’), Dr Bunsen Honeydew and his perma-terrified assistant Beaker, Pepe The King Prawn, the Pigs In Space, the Musical Chickens and other puppets much loved but too many to mention. How we miss every moment of your riotous furry fun.
For generations of adults and children alike, The Muppets ruled supreme. Created by the late Jim Henson, they were a TV comedy staple of the Seventies and Eighties; a puppeteering benchmark loved by millions
Only a lunatic bereft of ideas or a madman determined to steer the showbiz ship on to the rocks of despair would try to replace the original Muppets in the nation’s affections. But that is exactly what has happened.
At 6.45pm on Saturday, the horror began. The BBC unveiled its latest weapon in the weekend ratings war, in the form of a brand new series called That Puppet Game Show. This aberration, sorry, collaboration between the Beeb and the Jim Henson Company is the new Muppets in all but name.
The Disney Corporation owns the Muppet franchise and most of the best-known characters, but the Henson company — under the guidance of Henson’s son Brian — carry on puppeteering.
It is they who are responsible for this underwhelming cavalcade of foam characters freshly unleashed on an unsuspecting public; this mishmash of plastic eyelashes and toothless gurning masquerading as characters.
The original Muppets were beautifully crafted in every way; engaging characters in a show that bounced along on a witty script peppered with laughs. What can I tell you? That Puppet Game Show does not. Celebrational and Muppetational are the last words that come to mind.
Here, the Kermit character is a host called Dougie Colon. His big gag is that his surname is pronounced Cologne — ha ha HA HA (oh God).
The lantern-chinned puppet is designed to look and sound like a cross between Vernon Kay and Bruce Forsyth and say things such as: ‘Welcome to the show where celebrities are prodded, pinched and pulled apart.’
In the opening moments of this family-friendly programme, Dougie was already resorting to crass innuendo, asking special guest Jonathan Ross about his hobby of ‘stroking your stinky old ferret’.
Kermit, eat your darling, innocent froggy heart out. In 40 years of broadcasting you never, ever stooped so low. You didn’t have to.
Of course, the format of That Puppet Game Show will be familiar to Muppet fans of yore.
There is still the conceit of a show within a show, only this time the Muppets, sorry Puppets, are putting on a celebrity quiz programme instead of a vaudeville show; a cheapo and terrible sign of the times for a start.
Each week two celebrities go head to head in a number of games, hoping to win £10,000 for their chosen charity. The slebs must compete in subjects such as sport, science, nature, music and mental agility.
Each of the games is hosted by a different Puppet character, who is an ‘expert’ in their field.
These pup-specialists include a Martini drinking aardvark called The Amazing Ian, a gym mistress called Miss Jemima Taptackle, Eddie Watts on music and Amber O’Neill, the showbiz correspondent.
Elsewhere, her sister Mancie is the backstage producer, always trying to placate the boss of the show, a cow called Udders McGhee.
Please. Sandpaper or hammer your funny bone into submission for a moment. It gets worse. Much worse.
In the original Muppets, the guests were proper international celebrities such as Liza Minnelli, John Cleese and Debbie Harry.
Here, the makers hardly dared to tiptoe outside the London television bubble. The opening show’s guests were the aforementioned Ross and Katherine Jenkins, respectively described by Mr Colon as the ‘King of TV’ and ‘Everybody’s Sweetheart’.
That really was a big laugh, the best joke in the entire show.
You could see the Puppet bookings office has whirled through the Rolodex of BBC-approved talent and given up halfway through when they discovered Sandi Toksvig was on holiday in Denmark and Gary Lineker was making a crisp advert. (He is on next week, along with Freddie Flintoff. Of course he is!)
Instead, they went to the file marked Desperate & Will Do Anything and signed up the names on the very first page.
Jonathan Ross, making one of his first sneaky returns to the BBC screens since Sachsgate, looked as if he wanted to crawl back under a stone. He alternated between appearing stricken and being just too knowing.
The charming innocence of the original Muppets — and their guests — has been lost in translation and our more cynical times.
Katherine just seemed flummoxed without a script, giggling when she was expected to actually say something off the cuff or witty. And despite a lifetime’s career of being a professional leek-eating Welsh-person, she failed to name the highest mountain in Wales when asked.
‘It’s hard when you’ve got to think on the spot,’ she said. It sure is, sister (supportive face).
To give you a flavour of this new-fangled Puppet purgatory, the first challenge was the Saucisson Song, in which Ross and Jenkins had to put singing Scottish hot dog puppets into the correct lyric order using barbeque tongs. (I guess you had to be there.)
It was interesting on several porky levels. After leaving her record company recently, Katherine promised fans that she had great musical plans ahead.
‘I’m super excited about where I’m going next, but am currently sworn to secrecy,’ she said. Surely this hotdoggery wasn’t what she meant? Although her most ardent gentlemen fans must have been thrilled to see her kiss one hot dog and lovingly stroke another sausage.
Whaat? Oh, stop it. I’m only joining in the tenor of the show.
That Puppet Game Show did have its moments (I like Clyde the Crab and the acceptance speech skit), but it seemed a terrible concoction of hashed-up old ideas and cobbled together formats — game shows, puppets, celebrities — thrown into a liquidiser and pulsed to death. Then slap a charity plaster on top and see if it sticks.
The £10,000 donation to a good cause is supposed to lend an aura of nobility to the proceedings, but does it really? We might be able to judge that better if we knew what the guests were being paid.
Still, I suppose we should be grateful. The original Puppet Game Show format was to have a Stephen Fry puppet — as if he’s not on the BBC enough! — hosting a kind of late-night version of the same show.
That sounds like a smug foam-face version of Fry’s QI quiz show — who could tell the difference?
In the meantime, the poor old BBC has tried everything to have a hit show in this early Saturday night slot. It is strategically important, the Rock of Gibraltar of the light entertainment week, but nothing seems to have worked.
From 2011’s Don’t Scare The Hare — so awful it was binned after six episodes — to Hole In The Wall, where celebs contorted themselves to fit through shapes in a moving wall, nothing seems to have replicated the success of Noel’s House Party all those years ago. And now this.
That Puppet Game Show makes celebrity diving show Splash! look like The Sopranos, and the hideous canned laughter track only mocks the fact that there is nothing very funny about it.
Yes, there is a place for silliness on Saturday night television — just ask Harry Hill — but does anyone at the BBC have a clue what that might be? Judging by That Puppet Game Show, the answer is no.
What would Statler and Waldorf have made of it? I think I can guess.
‘Hey, Waldorf, you old fool, you slept through the show!’
‘Who’s the fool? You watched it!’
By Jan Moir
Bow down for the incomparable Miss Piggy. A round of applause, please, for the host with the most, the frog who has spawned a million imitators, we’re talking about you, Kermit. Fozzie Bear — I have always loved him! Rowlf the piano playing Dog, a woofy ditto.
The Great Gonzo and Animal? No one did soft foam anarchy quite like you two, though Statler and Waldorf came close.
Other Muppets we have loved and lost over the years? The Swedish Chef (‘Chicky in du baskie!’), Dr Bunsen Honeydew and his perma-terrified assistant Beaker, Pepe The King Prawn, the Pigs In Space, the Musical Chickens and other puppets much loved but too many to mention. How we miss every moment of your riotous furry fun.
For generations of adults and children alike, The Muppets ruled supreme. Created by the late Jim Henson, they were a TV comedy staple of the Seventies and Eighties; a puppeteering benchmark loved by millions
Only a lunatic bereft of ideas or a madman determined to steer the showbiz ship on to the rocks of despair would try to replace the original Muppets in the nation’s affections. But that is exactly what has happened.
At 6.45pm on Saturday, the horror began. The BBC unveiled its latest weapon in the weekend ratings war, in the form of a brand new series called That Puppet Game Show. This aberration, sorry, collaboration between the Beeb and the Jim Henson Company is the new Muppets in all but name.
The Disney Corporation owns the Muppet franchise and most of the best-known characters, but the Henson company — under the guidance of Henson’s son Brian — carry on puppeteering.
It is they who are responsible for this underwhelming cavalcade of foam characters freshly unleashed on an unsuspecting public; this mishmash of plastic eyelashes and toothless gurning masquerading as characters.
The original Muppets were beautifully crafted in every way; engaging characters in a show that bounced along on a witty script peppered with laughs. What can I tell you? That Puppet Game Show does not. Celebrational and Muppetational are the last words that come to mind.
Here, the Kermit character is a host called Dougie Colon. His big gag is that his surname is pronounced Cologne — ha ha HA HA (oh God).
The lantern-chinned puppet is designed to look and sound like a cross between Vernon Kay and Bruce Forsyth and say things such as: ‘Welcome to the show where celebrities are prodded, pinched and pulled apart.’
In the opening moments of this family-friendly programme, Dougie was already resorting to crass innuendo, asking special guest Jonathan Ross about his hobby of ‘stroking your stinky old ferret’.
Kermit, eat your darling, innocent froggy heart out. In 40 years of broadcasting you never, ever stooped so low. You didn’t have to.
Of course, the format of That Puppet Game Show will be familiar to Muppet fans of yore.
There is still the conceit of a show within a show, only this time the Muppets, sorry Puppets, are putting on a celebrity quiz programme instead of a vaudeville show; a cheapo and terrible sign of the times for a start.
Each week two celebrities go head to head in a number of games, hoping to win £10,000 for their chosen charity. The slebs must compete in subjects such as sport, science, nature, music and mental agility.
Each of the games is hosted by a different Puppet character, who is an ‘expert’ in their field.
These pup-specialists include a Martini drinking aardvark called The Amazing Ian, a gym mistress called Miss Jemima Taptackle, Eddie Watts on music and Amber O’Neill, the showbiz correspondent.
Elsewhere, her sister Mancie is the backstage producer, always trying to placate the boss of the show, a cow called Udders McGhee.
Please. Sandpaper or hammer your funny bone into submission for a moment. It gets worse. Much worse.
In the original Muppets, the guests were proper international celebrities such as Liza Minnelli, John Cleese and Debbie Harry.
Here, the makers hardly dared to tiptoe outside the London television bubble. The opening show’s guests were the aforementioned Ross and Katherine Jenkins, respectively described by Mr Colon as the ‘King of TV’ and ‘Everybody’s Sweetheart’.
That really was a big laugh, the best joke in the entire show.
You could see the Puppet bookings office has whirled through the Rolodex of BBC-approved talent and given up halfway through when they discovered Sandi Toksvig was on holiday in Denmark and Gary Lineker was making a crisp advert. (He is on next week, along with Freddie Flintoff. Of course he is!)
Instead, they went to the file marked Desperate & Will Do Anything and signed up the names on the very first page.
Jonathan Ross, making one of his first sneaky returns to the BBC screens since Sachsgate, looked as if he wanted to crawl back under a stone. He alternated between appearing stricken and being just too knowing.
The charming innocence of the original Muppets — and their guests — has been lost in translation and our more cynical times.
Katherine just seemed flummoxed without a script, giggling when she was expected to actually say something off the cuff or witty. And despite a lifetime’s career of being a professional leek-eating Welsh-person, she failed to name the highest mountain in Wales when asked.
‘It’s hard when you’ve got to think on the spot,’ she said. It sure is, sister (supportive face).
To give you a flavour of this new-fangled Puppet purgatory, the first challenge was the Saucisson Song, in which Ross and Jenkins had to put singing Scottish hot dog puppets into the correct lyric order using barbeque tongs. (I guess you had to be there.)
It was interesting on several porky levels. After leaving her record company recently, Katherine promised fans that she had great musical plans ahead.
‘I’m super excited about where I’m going next, but am currently sworn to secrecy,’ she said. Surely this hotdoggery wasn’t what she meant? Although her most ardent gentlemen fans must have been thrilled to see her kiss one hot dog and lovingly stroke another sausage.
Whaat? Oh, stop it. I’m only joining in the tenor of the show.
That Puppet Game Show did have its moments (I like Clyde the Crab and the acceptance speech skit), but it seemed a terrible concoction of hashed-up old ideas and cobbled together formats — game shows, puppets, celebrities — thrown into a liquidiser and pulsed to death. Then slap a charity plaster on top and see if it sticks.
The £10,000 donation to a good cause is supposed to lend an aura of nobility to the proceedings, but does it really? We might be able to judge that better if we knew what the guests were being paid.
Still, I suppose we should be grateful. The original Puppet Game Show format was to have a Stephen Fry puppet — as if he’s not on the BBC enough! — hosting a kind of late-night version of the same show.
That sounds like a smug foam-face version of Fry’s QI quiz show — who could tell the difference?
In the meantime, the poor old BBC has tried everything to have a hit show in this early Saturday night slot. It is strategically important, the Rock of Gibraltar of the light entertainment week, but nothing seems to have worked.
From 2011’s Don’t Scare The Hare — so awful it was binned after six episodes — to Hole In The Wall, where celebs contorted themselves to fit through shapes in a moving wall, nothing seems to have replicated the success of Noel’s House Party all those years ago. And now this.
That Puppet Game Show makes celebrity diving show Splash! look like The Sopranos, and the hideous canned laughter track only mocks the fact that there is nothing very funny about it.
Yes, there is a place for silliness on Saturday night television — just ask Harry Hill — but does anyone at the BBC have a clue what that might be? Judging by That Puppet Game Show, the answer is no.
What would Statler and Waldorf have made of it? I think I can guess.
‘Hey, Waldorf, you old fool, you slept through the show!’
‘Who’s the fool? You watched it!’