A 32 Year Old Crystal Maze Mystery Solved - The Golfball from an IBM Selectric Typewriter (Thank you @Chrissie_c)

It's 1989, and series one is in production ready to broadcast in February 1990. The Crystal Maze is still finding its feet. They're producing a big elaborate game show and they still aren't 100% on the best way to do and present everything. When you watch it through now, there are little varied elements that stand out as slightly off. Maybe there's a music cue out of place, or there are bits of games that are slightly changed in later plays to account for something that just doesn't quite work.  The games aren't quite as big yet either. When looked at against games from later series, they're a little basic. Not that there's anything wrong with that, the creativity will come in time. 

One game that can be seen as a little basic was in Industrial and involved the contestant identifying small items by touch, needing to get 4 out of 5 correct to win the game. It was all fairly simple, small items. Wood shavings, tools, toys, things that should be easy to guess. However, for the last 32 years, I've had no clue what the hell these things were meant to be.

Never had a clue. Always thought they were a cap or stopper for some kind of equipment. Then @ElongatedCrab on Twitter was asking the same.

I was watching the crystal maze and there was a puzzle where you identify items by only touching them

What the hell is this thing? I can see it and I have absolutely no clue pic.twitter.com/Gp1fpaA725

— 🦀The Long Crab🦀 (@ElongatedCrab) April 12, 2022

Well, a quick retweet later and mystery solved. And I could never have figured this out with a lifetime of guesses.

It's the 'golf ball' head off a golfball typewriter.

Instead of keys that had the letters on them IBM Selectrics had a golfball-type thing that was electronically controlled to select the right letter when a key was pressed. https://t.co/EGLMWRLqrd

— Chrissie Caulfield (@Chrissie_c) April 12, 2022

That's been itching at the back of my head for decades, so thank you @Chrissie_c 

It's such a random item though, anyone else reckon they'd have eventually figured this out by touch alone?

Two Tiny Issues With The Show So Far

I'm going to preface this by saying "Yes, we were involved in testing, but we didn't test this game so couldn't raise any issue at the time". Now that little disclaimer is out the way, onto my main first point.

So far, I'm loving the new games. I love the look of them, I love the details behind some of them, a good example being the cause and effect mechanical crystal release for the Aztec wobble board game. However, there's something niggling at me in regards to the Eastern Ying Yang game.

The (Maneki Neko) Cat is out of the Bag

A press release went out and the Radio Times reported it today so we can finally say:

There's a new zone

Thank Thor for that, I hate keeping secrets. Anyway, I was midway through typing up another Sketch/Parody post when it came to my attention that the Radio Times website had let loose the news we discovered in March that Medieval is no more and the castle has been replaced with an Eastern palace.

Richard Ayoade in the new zone with a new suit

The Crystal Maze - Second Half of Series 1 and Series 2

A Social Media post by the official Crystal Maze TV group posted the exciting news today that The Crystal Maze returns back on our screens on 15th April on Channel 4. These portion of episodes were filmed in 2017 and held back for 2018, so some viewers may feel a bit confused when they see similar games from before. This is due to the broadcast lag time. However, filming for Series 2 is shortly to begin - this comprises of 12 episodes, 6 Civilian and 6 Celebrity episodes. We are unsure when Series 2 will air yet, but an easy guess would be later towards the end of 2018.

We look forward to watching the rest of the episodes from Series 1, and in particular, look forward to watching Series 2. I can't reveal why yet until probably later on in the year once Series 2 has aired. I won't be revealing any specifics, but we've been given an awesome and incredible opportunity here at the Maze Fan Blog - it's not quite what we initially expected or planned, but we aren't complaining at all and very much look forward to what lies and waits for us. With our deep love and obsession for the Maze, we're not going the full whole hog yet (tragic because we love to fly the flag for our favourite show). We won't be giving up - but we've been gifted the next best thing to achieving our dream. That's all I can say, and we are really honoured.