This is more likely near-topic than on-topic, but there are several very fine, very puzzly people involved, and the first attempt in January was a spectacular success.
One of Germany’s most spectacular TV shows is Schlag den Raab. The title refers to regular house contestant Stefan Raab, a TV host, musician and comedian, might be thought of as a German version of Jonathan Ross crossed with Vernon Kay… in their dreams. He’s as prolific and important as a US late-night talk show host who’s been attracting A-listers for 20 years. In Schlag den Raab, Raab takes on a contestant in a series of 15 games. The games can be mental, can be physical, will often be outdoors, can often be spectacular. It’s a test of “Who’s best at everything?”.
The first game is for 1 point, the second game is for 2 points and so on; there are 120 points possible, so the first to 61 wins overall. (If it finishes 60-60, there’s a sixteenth game.) The most exciting thing is that the show starts at 8:15pm and runs, live, as long as it has to in order to find a winner. Maybe it finishes as early as midnight; maybe it runs past 2 a.m. The show is that important and popular that people will stay up as late as they have to, to see who wins. There are pretty A-list musical guests, as well.
Part of the attraction is that Raab is very competitive and extremely good at what he does. The show is so big-budget that they run it as a special, six times a year. There have been 46 episodes to date; Raab has won 32 and lost 14. He’s beaten an Olympic gold medallist, a Boat Race participant, and some pretty high-powered competition.
That’s Schlag den Raab, this is Schlag den Brig; the Raab role is played by Nick Gates, known as Brig Bother in his guise as host of the superlative Bother’s Bar web site. The Bar discusses UK and international game shows, with a heavy emphasis on the puzzlier end of the spectrum. It was very probably the foremost English-language discussion site for the amazing, puzzle-laden Korean show The Genius (series one discussion and series two discussion) and the Dutch Wie is de Mol?.
Schlag den Brig is an online event broadcast live as a Google Hangout. Nick and his opponent play from the comfort of their own homes. This affects the sorts of games that can be played; the physical games are dialed down somewhat – though not entirely – and the puzzle content has been dialed up. (That said, Nick and his opponent have met face-to-face for two pre-recorded games already, leading to this trailer.) The game devisor is David J. Bodycombe, who has been producing puzzles for TV and print for over 20 years, possibly most notably for the first eight series of Only Connect (and the ninth series starts on BBC Four on Monday) and also for The Crystal Maze. Nick’s opponent is Daniel Peake, who co-runs Puzzled Pint in London.
The first episode took place in January and featured plenty of puzzly games: the first game was a word puzzle with a physical combination lock, the fifth game was a cracking and unusual strategy contest between the two, the sixth game saw the contestants complete jigsaws while blindfolded (much harder than you’d think, despite the jigsaws going out of their way to help), the thirteenth game was Mastermind and the eleventh was a Solo Chess series of puzzles that used chess-based concepts in an unusual and interesting fashion.
The first episode was played in excellent humour and was full of surprises; none of the games dragged and you knew there was something different coming up shortly. The second show should be at least as remarkable, with more interactive elements promised. The URL will be publicised within this post at Bother’s Bar at around 8pm UK time; follow also on Twitter using hashtag #sdb – and post your allegiance with either #teamdan or #imbackingbrig to play along!