Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Game On
- 1 Genre and the Quiz Show
- 2 Quiz Show Histories
- 3 Quiz Show Theory: Approaching the Programme Text
- 4 Knowledge in the Quiz Show
- 5 The Quiz Show and ‘Ordinary’ People as Television Performers
- 6 ‘Asking the Audience’: Quiz Shows and Their viewers
- Conclusion: ‘Not the Final Answer…’
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction: Game On
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Game On
- 1 Genre and the Quiz Show
- 2 Quiz Show Histories
- 3 Quiz Show Theory: Approaching the Programme Text
- 4 Knowledge in the Quiz Show
- 5 The Quiz Show and ‘Ordinary’ People as Television Performers
- 6 ‘Asking the Audience’: Quiz Shows and Their viewers
- Conclusion: ‘Not the Final Answer…’
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the summer of 2005, Big Brother was enjoying its sixth series in the UK. In one edition, the voice-over explains how the time is ‘3:21 pm, and the housemates are playing a quiz game in the garden’. Housemate Derek beams ‘Welcome to “Quizmaster” on a sunny afternoon’ (addressing both his fellow contestants and the home audience). Having elected himself as host and question-master, Derek promptly splits the remaining housemates into two teams, and then explains the rules of the game. Questions will cover a range of subjects and ‘on certain questions, there will be no conferring’. With the ‘contestants’ arranged in two teams on the grass, Derek presents the first question to Team One (‘Which attack caused America to go to war with Germany?’). At this point Kemal – a highly vociferous and flamboyant housemate – starts to laugh and chat, already impatient with the game. Derek swiftly interjects: ‘If you're going to talk you can go back [inside]… do you understand?’ Following Kemal's interruption, Team One asks to hear the question again. ‘The rules are that the question will not be repeated,’ Derek insists, and then bolsters his decision by explaining: ‘The secret of learning is to shut up’. Kemal retorts: ‘Well, nobody would tune into this [quiz] show, as it's all about you. [Viewers] … want the “drama” of winning, not a boring history class’ (2 June 2005).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Quiz Show , pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2008