For Sale: One Original Crystal Maze "I Cracked The Crystal Maze" Crystal from Series One (1990)

 Thanks to the modern wonder that is social media, one of the contestants for the very first series filmed back in 1989 and broadcast in 1990 has been in touch regarding selling his prize crystal from the show. 

Now, I'll be the first to admit I'd love one for my collection. I'd give vital organs and limbs for one. But right now I've other priorities so I'd love to help another proper Crystal Maze fan (you, the reader) get in contact with the seller and work out a sale yourself.

'Under Consoletation' Cover The Crystal Maze in a Patreon-only Podcast

 In the same way that they've been dissecting every episode of 'Gamesmaster' for their podcast 'Under Consoletation', Luke Owen and Ash Versus have picked apart an episode of The Crystal Maze for a special one-off podcast for their Patreons.

An Unexpected Item of Mail from Richard O'Brien

I came home from work this afternoon and saw an envelope with a New Zealand stamp, an Air Mail sticker, and my address in strangely familiar handwriting. I had suspicions that the letter was from Richard O'Brien, after all, he is the only person I know of who resides there. I said to myself "Nah, surely it can't be". I excitedly logged onto the maze fan group to tell everyone and then opened the envelope carefully. Inside was a lovely autographed white card reading "Stay Safe Neil and never give up".  This was a beautiful message from the Maze legend himself. I was overwhelmed by it really. He even hand wrote my full postal address on the envelope. What a guy!

Crystal Maze Games That Were Too Hard To Win

One problem I've got with TCM since it came back, too many people going home with a prize. It's partly down to 50+ gold getting a middling prize but, and there's a mild spoiler for the US version rapidly approaching here so keep on reading at your own peril, out of 10 shows there was at least 3 and maybe 4 top prize winners.

A 100+ gold winner should be a treat, a rarity, there shouldn't be nearly half a series of winners. People are clearly winning too many games and earning too much time. A little conversation I had the other night started at frogs and ended up at games that were never won and as such, here's the '90s games that were never won, and should be looked at so as to stop people winning quite so often. I'm not including any of those one-off games made for a kid's Christmas Special as it's a lot easier to be an unbeaten game if only one small person has a go.

Series 1 - 1990

Nuke Defusing - A nice simple two minute game sharing a room with a nuclear bomb. It needed defusing by connecting the correct coloured wire to the associated image on the wall. For example connecting the YELLOW wire to a picture of some PAGES, or a GREEN wire to some FINGERS. The trouble comes in knowing what word was meant to be shown by the image, while it was meant to represent fingers, it's clearly a picture of a hand. With a two minute time limit, there was an explosion every time. Or the lights were turned up. Same thing.

Another 30th Anniversary - An Excuse To Mention Denis Norden

In February we covered the 30th anniversary of the start of The Crystal Maze so today I just wanted to mention it's 30 years since that first series ended. The last episode of series one went out on the 10th May 1990. It was the last show broadcast to be filmed at Shepperton Studios and it started with an outtake that they left in the final cut, a moment that wouldn't have been out of place on Denis Norden's 'It'll Be Alright On The Night'.

Today is 30 years since the last episode of series one, and it opened with this little outtake which they kept in the final cut pic.twitter.com/mXq8Wmcm8y

— Crystal Maze Fan Blog (@maze_blog) May 10, 2020

 

Series 4 Episode 4 - Laughter in the face of failure (w/ Behind The Scenes Clips)

There were 83 episodes of TCM in the 90's, including kids specials at Christmas, and of all of them there's one that stands out to me. People have suggested reviewing every episode and, whilst a good idea, that means 83 reviewing covering roughly 80 hours of material. However this one in particular is a show I want to give a bit of attention to.

First shown on 15th April 1993, S4E4 contained a record that remained until Richard Ayoade took over. And whilst that record was achieved in now standard 10 games, 27 years ago they didn't have a fixed amount of games to play, it was just however many they could squeeze in. Series 4 each episode had either 14 or 15 games and I'm talking here about a 14 episode show. I'm talking about the fewest crystals achieved by a team, in this case, one.

Wendy, Andrew, Dave, Hilary, Spencer and Jane

New Additions For My Personal Collection - Publicity Photos

I recently had a stumble through eBay and happened across some more TCM paraphernalia I couldn't turn down to add to my collection. I got a set of three Channel 4 publicity stills from the 90s series, one from S3, one from S4 and one from S5 or 6. I've got my eye on some more stuff but for now I need some frames for these.

Series 3

Series 4

Series 5 or 6

Happy 76th Birthday Richard O'Brien from the Crystal Maze Fan Blog! We hope Mumsey gave you a fantastic present!

Original Series Crystal Maze Games Designer and Fan

"I Designed Games for the Original Crystal Maze"

One of our Blog Contributor's is Phil Newton-England. Our very own Phil designed a variety of games for the Original Series starring both Edward Tudor-Pole and Richard O'Brien. He is also a big super fan like the rest of us on this blog. He was voted as Challenge TV's No 1 Crystal Maze Fan. (I'd argue that with him, but he designed the games so he has one up on me!). Phil in the 90's had a dream job, that was to generate ideas and draw plans up for games to be built for the cells. The games themselves were built by Artem.

A highly imaginative and rewarding job, Phil put forward his plans and four of them were accepted and built. He designed the Hazard Symbols game in Futuristic (Above). This is the game in which a Meteor Storm happened to strike the Futuristic Zone, which featured pretty cool Special Effects of sparks flying around the abandoned Space Station. The game involved placing no two like symbols in adjacent spaces in a metal frame. 

Phil said: "I was 19 years old & remember getting home after work and switching on the TV. I saw this strangely dressed, bald-headed guy showing these people around a medieval castle...and locking the odd one or two inside. I thought ‘What is this weird show?' It was like NOTHING I’d ever seen before. Checking the TV guides it was called The Crystal Maze - from that moment I was hooked. ‘When’s it on next?’ I asked. Next Thursday 8pm my VCR was set to record this wacky, way out show (& yes...I still have the original airings recorded on VHS tapes in my wardrobe.

Phil-Newton England, Original Games Designer

Well, after watching & loving the show for 4 years my mind decided in a dream to place me, as a contestant, in the maze itself. I played one game unsuccessfully. The following morning I sketched the game I played on a piece of A4 & for some strange reason decided to mail it to the producers at Chatsworth TV. (I didn’t have emails & interweb back then).

They wrote back saying it was a great game but a bit too similar to one that had already appeared on the show. (Which to be fair, it was). They also said if I had any more game ideas they would like to see them. I got pen to paper & came up with eight new game designs.

Inspiration For The Games Inside The Crystal Maze

I drew inspiration from things I saw around work and out on the streets - people trying move certain objects from one room to another, parts of machinery that looked like they could be some part of a puzzle. I eventually sent my 8 designs to them & after various ‘phone conversations it was decided they would use 4 of the games I’d created for Series 6.

Build the Clock Face - Ocean Zone

These were the ‘no matching hexagons’ (Future), Ship & Cubes, Build the Clock Face & match the Octopus Tentacles (All in Ocean Zone, my favourite zone) the latter game appearing only in the kids special.

I was paid a one-off fee of £500 as I was told they alternated each year between payment or on-screen credit. They later asked me for some more ideas for series 7, which I started working on-but, unfortunately, the show was then de-commissioned.

I still have some of the unused game designs from back then & have since created another 60+ all locked away in a water-tight container & buried in the Aztec sands for Future archaeologists to find.

Built a Boat - Ocean Zone

Phil added: "As a little thank you, I was given one of the ROB era original jumpsuits (red) & 2 game crystals which now form part of my private collection, alongside my Crystal Maze fruit machine, all the puzzle books, board, LCD & PC game, jigsaws, original medic jacket (from series 6). I also decorated my old bedroom as the maze & Dome."

Tentacles, as used only in the 1994 Christmas Special