28/02/2021

The Time A Saudi TV Channel Borrowed From My Crystal Maze Intro Editing

 Since the revived series started, I've taken the episodes, done a bit of chopping, stuck the original theme underneath and created a montage style opening more akin to the 90s series. They were on YouTube for posterity but YouTube said no and I no longer have a YouTube. Annoying? Yes but nothing to get angry at. It's not lost me anything.

After the first run, I put together the following:

19/02/2021

Crystal Maze - and a possible way to explore... in D&D?

Whilst the UK is feeling the struggles of being locked in at home, people like myself who need to escape somehow to help manage their mental health, have taken to playing Dungeons and Dragon's as a means of escaping to fantastical worlds and leaving modern comforts behind in the form of role-playing gaming.

With the crews of Critical Role, High Rollers, Acquisitions Inc. & Force Grey all enjoying playing their games whilst broadcasting them to Twitch & YouTube platforms, interest in the game has grown massively, especially with the growth of the digital toolset "D&D Beyond" providing a quick, easy way to manage your character, uptake has never been higher!

Traversing the Crystal Maze is much alike to D&D, as you and your band are lead by the Dungeon Master across strange lands, handling the people of the land and helping them out, and solving devious and dangerous puzzles.

Of course, Dungeons and Dragon's has a connection to the Crystal Maze in the form of
Reckless Rick, yes, Mr O Brien!

11/02/2021

1994 Crystal Maze "I Cracked The Crystal Maze" Crystal For Sale

 Much like we did for Alan Holloway from series 1, we've seen a commemorative crystal for sale and want to make sure that Crystal Maze fans are as informed as we can make them about possibly owning one of those little items that we'd all clamber over one another for (in the 'before times' obviously, clamberings a bit trickier keeping a 2meter gap)

In the course of my regular checking on eBay for any TCM merch that I haven't got, I found this.


I've been in contact with the seller, on the item page they say they're selling due to Covid, and I think we can all attest to what a kick that's been. So we just want to help someone selling their bit of TV history while at the same time helping a fan of the show (you) have the opportunity at owning one of these highly desirable baubles, which would be surely the centrepiece of any TCM collection. I'd be going in for it myself but I too have been taking a kicking so at least I can do some good here.

I don't want to give away their identity, but it's from an episode in the second half of series 5. Let's see what we can do and get this in the hands of a fan just in time for the show's 31st Birthday.

Click here to go to the sale.

10/02/2021

The Crystal Maze Comes to BritBox

 It's been available on NOW TV for a while but, just in time for its 31st birthday, The Crystal Maze is coming to worldwide subscription service users via BritBox.

Available in the UK, Canada, the U.S. and Australia, BritBox provides subscribers with a wide range of boxsets of British shows and currently boasts 1.5 million subscribers in North America alone. They also create original content, a notable example being the recent revival of Spitting Image.

^^ Look, top billing!^^

March sees a selection of 90's favourites being added, including 'Jungle Run', select episodes of 'Knightmare', and the first 3 series of 'The Crystal Maze'. So that's 1.5 million more I need to pester to watch TCM. It's going to be a busy March.

The Richard O'Brien Industrial years will be added to BritBox on March 4th 

BritBox is available for £6 a month or £60 for a year

The Crystal Maze Turns 31: A Look at the US Version Against The UK Original

 From the desktop of Phillip Newton-England:

The year 2020 was, as someone once said, an Annus Horribilis for....well, all of us really. One of the only decent things to come out of last year was the avalanche of ‘new’ Crystal Maze episodes. Not only did we get the remaining celebrity episodes of what was technically series 3, but we also got to see the ‘missing’ civilian episodes from the very first series over on E4.

 But the extra icing on the cake for me was the airing of The Crystal Maze U.S. on NickelodeonUK. Now I know not everyone has seen it yet so I won’t give too much away, but here at the blog we’re going to give you a moderately detailed description of the differences and similarities to our own U.K. version.

02/02/2021

The Crystal Maze Fan Blog Discord Is Now Open

 Here's something I probably could have done weeks ago, put together a Discord server. For those unfamiliar, Discord is a messaging app mostly created with gamers in mind but allows users to join topic-focused communities. Say, for example, people who have a keen interest in game shows. It's simply something else to do in these very, very dull times.

Join at this link and say Hi! 

https://discord.gg/z7YvQdwgsq