It's Been A While - I Took Some Time Off - Saw @Ashens, @NostalNerd, @TristaBytes, @mrbiffo and co. have been to Crystal Maze Live

 It's been a while since I did one of these. I've been doing 14 hour days, 9 days a week and I inevitably burned out. The last few weeks haven't been great for me so I've had a mental health week to myself. Honestly, barely moved from the bed. According to my phone, I've gone from 55k steps a week to 400. But if you aren't coping, you aren't coping, simple as that. 

So it's left me some time to catch up on a lot of things. Fixed my laptop for example. For several months the concept of sound has been beyond this thing, input or output, nothing. May as well have tried getting it to accept eclairs as a form of audio, just nothing. And nothing says I've been binge eating quite like shoehorning eclairs in there for no sensical reason whatsoever.

Washing piles are done, the sun's been out so I've been able to plough through the numerous mounds of washing that have accumulated around the house without relying on an electroholic tumbler.

Now, when I dragged my carcass out of bed eventually this morning (been really struggling on mornings so when I saw today would be hot, hung my washing out last night. Woke up to dry clothes.) I sat down at my laptop and saw that several of my favourite Youtube and Twitch types were at Crystal Maze Live.

Last night, These excellent folks and I cracked the Crystal Maze (Team Cygnet Moon ~don't ask).

I did two physical games, got two crystals, almost died of exhaustion. WOULD RECOMMEND.@TristaBytes @myunie @ashens @mrbiffo @SlopesGameRoom @quangdx @TheCrystalMaze @CrystalMazeHQ pic.twitter.com/ZVoV1mRtSu

— Nostalgia Nerd (@nostalnerd) March 24, 2022

 Content creators whose work has really helped over the last couple of years, so it put a smile on my face seeing them there. 

Just putting it on record some of these were in my fantasy celeb episode casting, and I did put forward the idea of a YouTuber team to producers, to be told Youtube types want too much money.

Ah well. This is the next best thing isn't it? 

Strike It Lucky or Strike It Rich - Whichever Name it Went By, It Was Great Fun

Strike It Lucky or Strike It Rich - Whichever name it went by, it was great fun and now there's probably the nearest there'll ever be to some official uploads.

Yesterday whilst scrolling Twitter, as I'm one to do, I happened across something that caught my eye:

The best way to start the weekend is with a dose of Eric and a good belly laugh! A good cure. The FULL episode is over on my YouTube channel (link below) X pic.twitter.com/0Msakyx1HQ

— Michael Barrymore (@MrBarrymore) June 11, 2021

The key bit that I noticed, "The full episode is over on my YouTube channel". Michael Barrymore is uploading episodes of Strike It Rich himself and I'm all for it. There's a lot of shows I've been watching on YouTube over the last year and a bit, and I'm very well aware they probably aren't from 100% legitimate sources. I don't imagine all those episodes of Indoor League I've enjoyed came from someone at Yorkshire Television. And if you like Indoor League, I highly recommend twitch.tv/nikkiandbunty on a Sunday evening, their watch-along streams usually include some Indoor League and Fred Trueman being the most Yorkshire Yorkshireman that ever did Yorkshire.

Strike It Lucky/Rich was a great show, it's quite hard to find anything not to like. An easy to follow format that doesn't suffer from one of my biggest bugbears of modern TV, overproduction. Nowadays everything seems like it's timed to the second, positions and timing are adhered to very strictly and there's no room for spontaneity. In stark contrast, Michael Barrymore found time to completely derail a show from the running order, start dancing with contestants, rant at production about giving an elderly couple trapeze lessons as a prize. One great example, the show starts with an introduction to the contestants which just never ends because MB just gets such great entertainment out of a couple. It goes so long, the episode goes on to skip the first half of the game just to make sure the show still fits its half-hour slot.

If you've never seen it, give it a half hour of your day, it's simply enjoyable throughout:

And I can't mention Strike It Lucky without mentioning the parody from Dick 'n Dom, Strike It Mucky. You know what they say about imitation. Mark Lamarr was less than complimentary about a similar parody of himself on "Never Muck the Buzzcocks" but I hope MB doesn't mind Dave Chapman's impersonation.

 

Fun fact: Dave Chapman, with his other talents as a puppeteer, would later be behind BB8 in Star Wars

Ayoade, Vaccination, Catchphrase and Jurassic Park - How Was Your Weekend?

Things aren't looking great at the moment. To paraphrase the joke EVERY U.S. talk show made on Friday: The last week has been a hell of a year. But what really topped off the weekend came via Stephen Mulhern's Catchphrase on ITV. Mr Ayoade was a contestant, but I wasn't watching at the time, I was fully engrossed in Jurassic World Evolution. PlayStation have a sale on and I packed out my hard drive again.

Anyhow, a couple of tweets caught my eye and knocked my confidence in seeing any future series of Crystal Maze.

Who Are Next Week's (December 17th) Crystal Maze Contestants?

Another week down and another episode aired, enjoy it? Good. Well there's another one next week and if you aren't sure who's on, or if you do know but have no idea who they actually are, keep reading.

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!

The Crystal Maze USA Starts Tonight at 7pm on Nickelodeon UK

 Morning, just a quick one. Wanted to stick a reminder out into the ether that the American incarnation of The Crystal Maze is starting tonight (September 4th) on Nickelodeon US. We reviewed the first episode after it aired stateside but for most of us, that is the only episode we've seen so we'll get to enjoy it show by show just like we would any new series. 

The show's hosted by TV personality and comedian Adam Conover, if you've never seen him before go and watch some 'Adam Ruins Everything' clips over on YouTube and prepare to lose several hours of your day. 

Nickelodeon is available in the UK on Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, and on NOW TV's £4 a month kids package

'Game Shows I Suppose' Covers The Crystal Maze, with @jordha

Podcaster, comedian and 'lonely nerd' (his words, not mine) Jordan Hass has been talking about game shows on his weekly podcast 'Game Shows I Suppose' since 2018. He's clearly got a love of the genre and has covered shows from both sides of the Atlantic alongside a range of guests. A great example to me is talking 'Big Break' with Ben Paddon, whom I once randomly had a game of 'You Don't Know Jack' with, which really caught my attention because I met Ben in the same town where I once annoyed Jim Davidson, it's a small world after all.

Jordan has long mentioned his love of everybody's favourite Channel 4 adventure game show on GSIS and today sees the drop of his TCM episode. It's just over 100 minutes of a guy talking about his favourite British game show so if you like/love/have heard of TCM: subscribe, put the kettle on, put your feet up, play Fall Guys, and have a listen.

Jordan can be found at -

• jordanhass.com
• twitter.com/jordha
• twitch.tv/JordanGames
• patreon.com/jordanhass

Newest Addition to the Collective Crystal Collection

Good day fellow Maze fans,

It's a very exciting day at Superfan HQ today, as we take delivery of another authentic TV crystal, one that was formerly a gap in our collective collection of crystals. The crystal is from the revived series and is one of the crystals from the podium in front of the dome. These are different from the crystals played for in the games only due to the lack of logo from the base, as this would have affected the light shining through it from the podium.

Fantasy Casting a Future Crystal Maze Team - @Ashens @paulgannonshow @elisnoid @MrBiffo @larrybundyjr @octav1usking @mrbarrylewis

Yesterday in the course of tweeting, something came up that had me rueing a missed opportunity to have something on TV I think people would love to see. Or at least I would anyhow.

I did enter us all in @barshens a few years ago, but never heard back

— Mr. Gannon (@PaulGannonShow) July 26, 2020

I apologize in advance as this bit of fantasy casting may go on a bit, but for the last few years there's been a group of collaborators whose work on YouTube, and on a podcast I've mentioned more than occasionally, has got me through some more trying times. I know it's a bit cliche but laughter is the best medicine and this lot never fails to elicit a chuckle or at least a smile out of me every time I go looking for their content. These are simply a bunch of fun entertaining people I'd love to see taking on the games of The Crystal Maze. Bickering, shouting at each other, and just being as entertaining and fun as I've always seen them. I'll be listing more than 5 names here but it's fantasy casting, my writing, my rules.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout - Fortnite meets Takeshi's Castle

I'm going to put it out there straight away. I hate Fortnite. From the moment Epic saw PUBG and said "This Fortnite game we've got going on, let's just ignore our initial idea we've put out there already and copy theirs" I've stayed well clear of the streaming favourite. I might just be old fashioned but I like my games to have a story, to draw me into a well-realized fictional world, and occasionally just have me turning zombies and Nazis into jam. When it comes to battle royale games, the concept of a load of 10-year-olds hurling abuse at me, killing my character with zero effort, and claiming intimate knowledge of my mother has simply never appealed to me.

Final List of Celebrity Names for The Crystal Maze's Next Specials

Now that the episodes which haven't aired yet on Channel 4 have broadcast in Australasia, thanks to our commenters we have a complete list of names for what Channel 4 will be calling the next series. A clip with almost all the following names can be seen at the bottom 

(Thanks Danker1990 and Phillip)

The Crystal Maze PC Game - I don't want to be harsh, but there's no other option really

In general, I will praise and adore all Crystal Maze memorabilia. Whether it's the board games, the jigsaw puzzles, the thermal reactive mug I had made, the press photos that I've been getting extorted for on eBay, I love it all. I'll big up The Crystal Maze Challenge by Neale Simpson any day (still available digitally for £3.99)

However, The Crystal Maze PC game is the most infuriating bucket of arse-gravy I have ever played. And I played, and completed, 'Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness'. Twice.

Good News! More Crystal Maze Incoming! Bad News! Not in the UK!

In 2017, three episodes never made broadcast. We'd been oversaturated with the same games over 20 episodes and so only 17 got to TV. It's happened again. 

Last year's episodes we haven't seen yet are to be aired on Australian children's channel ABC ME. They've been airing all of last year's episodes and will get the shows we haven't seen yet before we get them.

So, whos coming to Australia with me?

What do you mean 'pandemic'?

@BothersBar Remember how there were those three civilian Crystal Maze episodes that got shown in Australia but not the UK?

Looking like the OTHER unaired Crystal Maze episodes with the celebrities are going to start airing in Australia next week, on a different channel. pic.twitter.com/LBBzcSvFSO

— Captain ACAB, BA* (@TheGrimRecapper) July 3, 2020

My Trip Last Year to Test Out Games For The Crystal Maze

I've been sat around pretty bored of late. I keep ending up on eBay buying Crystal Maze related paraphernalia (more on that lot in another post for another day) so I thought I'd distract myself by recounting my travel last year from the North East to the South West to test games for The Crystal Maze.

I'll start by saying I don't drive, but thankfully we've got pretty good public transport covering the length and breadth of Great Britain. 

So...

Step 1 - Home to Middlesbrough: ~15 Miles. 

This stage is the easy bit. It's a trip I make not uncommonly. I went to Uni over there so it's somewhere I'm familiar with. At this time, McDonalds was doing Grand Big Macs so naturally, I had to go gorge myself on one in my usual combo - large meal, Big Mac, Fries, Strawberry milkshake. They should do GBMs more often because that meal kept me fed for the rest of what would be a long day. The meal in bag in hand, I head back to the bus station to wait for my first coach. I didn't take it on the coach, food in my possession rarely stays uneaten for long.

Step 2 - Middlesbrough to Leeds: ~65 miles

Getting Into Game Show Streaming inc. The Crystal Maze PC game

I'm a life long gamer. Since I first tore open a present of a Sega Master System 2 with built-in Sonic the Hedgehog (8-Bit version, bit different to the version everyone's familiar with), I haven't stopped. 

If you've got a PSN account, I'm 'Spudgun20', come say hello.

I recently got a new laptop which, unlike my past computers, doesn't soil itself trying to do anything more complex than minesweeper so I've been playing my old PS1 games via some emulators and I figured it could be fun to stream said games. 

As such, at twitch.tv/spudgun20 I'm going to be playing games such as 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire', 'The Weakest Link', 'Jeopardy', and a whole host of other older games on Twitch. It'll be mostly game shows but not exclusively, e.g. I've been rediscovering the game for The Italian Job. Chat'll be open, I'll get the old Crystal Maze PC game going, you can enjoy a relentless torrent of bad-control based failure.

If you know of any other game shows turned into games then let me know below. For now I've got TCM, Blockbusters, Weakest Link, Jeopardy, and Millionaire but I'd love to grow that list.

Follow me at twitch.tv/spudgun20 and say hi!

P.S. was setting my streaming up, looking for sound effects, and I found the ultimate clip of Chris Tarrant doing an alternate take for a voiceclip for a PC WWTBAM game (Some swearing within):

Crystal Maze Repeats on TV, No-One Told Me It Had Been Going A While

Before I get to Crystal Maze getting repeat airings, could you give these lads a 'like' each, please: 

 

 

Now that little bit of admin is out of the way...

Two Key Members of the Maze Blog, And as Such Crystal Maze Superfans, Shortlisted for The Crystal Maze Live Experience Superfan Competition

"These old doomsday devices are dangerously unstable. I'll rest easier not knowing where they are."

- Professor Farnsworth

Great words by a great man, and words we can all live by I'm sure you'll all agree. But another great quote of his, far more relevant to anything going on today - 

As you may have guessed from the overlong title, two of our number have been shortlisted for The Crystal Maze Live Experience's Superfan competition. 

Crystal Maze's Mumsey in America Alongside Fred Willard

Comedy great Fred Willard passed away at the weekend. You may remember him from roles in This is Spinal Tap, Anchorman, Modern Family, Everybody Loves Raymond and much, much more. Our thoughts go out to his family.

This got me on the hunt for footage of him from a comedy show: "An Evening at the Improv". I'd seen it a while back and the clips I was after are, I think, now set to private. So after a bit of hunting around through Reddit, this clip came to my attention this morning that I had to share.

Fred Willard hosting, and doing a skit with Sandra Caron. Her name may not be familiar but you know the face. This ought to clear up who she is for anyone unsure -

Mumsey/Auntie Sabrina worked on stage with the late Fred Willard. This clip is from 1981 so it was 9 years before she was seen sat behind her crystal ball with a smoke machine under the table. Should I find another clip of them, I'll be sure to share.

Crystal Maze Games That Were Too Hard 2: 2 Hard 2 Crystal

Ok, I admit it, that title is terrible. I apologize and I promise I'll never do anything that atrocious again until the next time I do it.

Following on from my last post covering all the '90s games that nobody won, I just wanted to have a quick look at all the games that have been used since Richard Ayoade took over which saw nobody walking out one crystal heavier than how they walked in.

Before I start, for reference and photos I'm using David Newton's website www.crystalmazedatabase.com. Much like if you want '90s show details you use Marc Gerrish, David Newton is who you can rely on for revival stats. Marc and David are to adventure game show fans as Stanley Gibbons is to stamp collectors. I only know that thanks to The New Statesman, I've been really ploughing through the boxsets lately.

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.