One of the fun bits about traveling to the UK is watching British TV. On the one hand, there are passingly few channels (compared to back home), and a lot of them are doing sports, news, or sports news at any given moment. Though the news tends to be interesting, or less fluffy, or certainly more international in flavor (heard the latest about the Brazilian presidential race?) than back in the US.
On the other hand, there are game shows. Lots of game shows. And relatively erudite game shows. Tuned into what I grew up with knowing as "College Bowl" (here called "University Challenge"), and those questions were hard (for example University Challenge S44E08 Glasgow vs Bath). After that was "Only Connect," one I hadn't seen before, which is all about pattern matching (for exampl Only Connect – Series 10 – Episode 5).
I mean, these are shows that make "Jeopardy" (the only popular US show of this ilk) look like the Dating Game. I wonder why these sorts of games are popular here and not back home — unless the UK likes the idea of snooty knowledge and smart people, and the US doesn't like the idea that "any pointy-headed intellectual knows more than me."
(That the score numbers are small and the cash prizes either low or not even mentioned, is probably also meaningful.)
I might need to add some of these to our home rotation, via YouTube and Chromecast.
The even more amusing thing is when questions come up that I'm sure I will know that … I don't. Either US history questions that are insanely difficult, or else things like "Monopoly Chance cards" that turn out to be UK versions like "Advance to Mayfair."
Knowing stuff isn’t snooty! 😉
I can’t pretend all UK game/quiz shows are this clever – there are plenty of pop culture stuff out there where your jaw drops when someone gets the wrong answer – your allusion is correct (if unstated) intelligence seems inversely proportionate to prize – University Challenge, Mastermind type quizzes are seen as a) the pinnacle and b) have a glass trophy and no or little prize money. Lots of “Non-UC” people watch UC and will be proud if they get 3 questions right! (I usually score as a weak team on the times I’ve kept count). I think my best for Only Connect is about 15 points- I had a really good opening round!
I was surprised the other day when Jeopardy was described as some sort of pinnacle of US quzzing- its just a bog standard quiz but set by Yoda.
Quizzes are big in Britain – every town has pubs that run weekly quiz nights as a way of bringing in custom, and its a favourite fund raiser for schools and charities. We have quiz shows where contestants are pitched against ‘house’ teams made up of the best quizzers – “Eggheads” are all major winners of TV quiz shows. Then there are the variations – Pointless is an inverse Family Feuds/Fortune – wrong answers get 100 points, the object is to score as low as possible against a 100 person survey: at work get a group of collegues to write down as many Clint Eastwood movies as possible. Score 1 point for any answer no one else has!