Spicks & Specks Articles

[Haggis]

From http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...415606273.html

Two new TV quiz shows are out to test our musical knowledge. Patrick Donovan reports.

In the past few years, music trivia nights have become increasingly popular, popping up in city and suburban pubs all over Melbourne. And now they are jumping from the humble pub to the screen, with two new shows starting up on SBS and the ABC in the next few weeks.

Music fans don't realise it yet, but they have been preparing for these shows their whole lives, every time they sit down with a new album or CD, chuck it on and start reading the liner notes.

"We are performing a great public service. All those people who spent years trying to refine your knowledge - we're here for you," says the creator of SBS' RocKwiz, Brian Nankervis.

RocKwiz, which will screen for 10 weeks at 9pm on SBS from Monday, January 31, is hosted by Julia Zemiro, and is recorded in the Gershwin Room at Melbourne's legendary rock pub, the Esplanade Hotel, in St Kilda.

Each program features four contestants who are selected from the live audience, and two musical celebrities, who perform a cover song together at the end of the episode. The RocKwiz Orchestra - seasoned musicians Mark Ferrie, Peter Luscombe and James Black - provide musical clues and back the guests' performance.

The show is a long way from the gloss of Australian Idol - there is no recording contract dangling at the end of the carrot, just a CD and 15 minutes of fame - and that's the intention.

"It's rough around the edges, a bit like In Siberia Tonight," says SBS' head of programming, Matt Campbell.

Campbell says the show would appeal mainly to over 30s, but he believes it would have something in it for all fans of music.

"We're trying to be as broad as we can. The questions are not too cliquey to alienate the audience. Viewers need to feel they have a chance of being able to answer most of the questions. They've got to be accessible without being dumb."

ABC TV's new weekly comedy game show, Spicks and Specks, kicks off on Wednesday, February 9 at 8.30pm.

It is hosted by comedian Adam Hills, who each week will be joined by two team captains - Triple J's Myf Warhurst and Alan Brough - and personalities from the local and international entertainment industry who answer questions, such as finding the connection between Brahms and the tango.

They are also asked to perform outrageous tasks, such as stage diving and tossing televisions through a hotel room window (in a turn-up for the books, opera singer Suzanne Johnston threw it further than beefy Spiderbait drummer Kram).

"We're trying to look at different ways to get people into music via TV," says the show's executive producer, Paul Clarke (Long Way to the Top, Recovery, Love is in the Air), who is aiming for the 20-somethings demographic still living at home and their baby-boomer parents.

"Australian Idol showed that a new format can deliver audience numbers while promoting local music and culture."

Both shows are being filmed in Melbourne, the live music capital of Australia.

"I don't think this sort of show could happen in any other city than Melbourne. This city has a healthy obsession with rock'n'roll. Look at all of the music venues, stores and community radio," says Nankervis, whose idea was inspired by Stephen Walker's music quiz on Triple R radio.

"We all bow down at the altar of rock'n'roll, so music is the most important thing. It's not a comedy show - it's a music show with some comedy. We're not bending over backwards to write gags. And it's not ironic, like Good News Week. Our main aim is to celebrate music."

But wouldn't a new Countdown be the ultimate celebration of music?

"People still sit down in front of the TV at six o'clock on a Sunday night waiting for Countdown to come on," admits Peter Bain-Hogg, from the show's production company, Renegade.

Campbell said the music industry was crying out for a new Countdown and RocKwiz could evolve into a broader music program.

"It could take off and evolve into something like The Tonight Show for music, with a small quiz element. This is totally different for SBS. We're funded by the taxpayers but we don't see anything wrong with having a bit of fun and people learning something about music at the same time."

While RocKwiz takes its music seriously, like a Radiohead fan, Spicks and Specks has more in common with fans of the jovial band The Presidents of the United States.

"It's a comedy game show based on music history," says Clarke. "It's not our version of (popular UK show) Never Mind the Buzzcocks. It's more like Good News Week meets The Panel, with parlour games and pantomime to take it into the absurd. Music history is so ripe for parody and playing with its interesting characters."

There is no live music, but there might be the odd cameo from a famous musician.

What about the suggestion that the ABC is jumping on SBS' coat-tails with a new music trivia show?

"I wish them well," says Clarke. "The less people looking at CSI and people cracking on to each other on Backyard Blitz the better."

And what of Australia's fascination with the Q&A? Campbell believes it is a combination of our Irish ancestry and our love of games.

"It could go back to our Irishness - our curiosity and desire to play. And Australians are the biggest gamblers in the world."

Bain-Hogg, who was a regular on national radio competition Quiz Kids and always had a copy of the Guinness Book of Records beside his bed growing up in New Zealand in the 1950s, said quizzes have been a staple of entertainment for at least 50 years.

"Many of the nominated topics on ABC's quiz show The Einstein Factor were music related," he says.

Nankervis, a former primary school teacher who regularly included music trivia in his role as "warm-up person" for live taping of television shows such as The Panel and Comedy Inc, remembers the Friday afternoon quiz being the highlight of the week for his students as well as his days as a student.

"I remember living in share houses in the late '70s. You'd sit around with the quiz in the Sunday paper, and you'd get to show off and prove how smart you are."

RocKwiz screens this Monday on SBS at 9pm

[unfrufru]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhh hhhhhh

hillsy show!!!! yaya!

i saw the ads for rockwiz the other night. i've already been banned from playing with my family

[Gutter Monkey]

Originally Posted by Haggis

Peter Luscombe

How much better would the show be if that was Peter Coombe?

[Alisso]

Shame that Adam Hills one isn't being filmed in Sydney, tapings of that would be fun *g*

[Gutter Monkey]

Originally Posted by Haggis

ABC TV's new weekly comedy game show, Spicks and Specks, kicks off on Wednesday, February 9 at 8.30pm.

It is hosted by comedian Adam Hills, who each week will be joined by two team captains - Triple J's Myf Warhurst and Alan Brough - and personalities from the local and international entertainment industry who answer questions, such as finding the connection between Brahms and the tango.

Okay .... unless I'm hideously mistaken, isn't this the same show that was discussed on this thread?

Originally Posted by araminty

It is provisionally titled "Hooked on a Feeling." Hosted by Peter Rowsthorne, it's a panel/quiz music show, with Charlie Pickering indeed there, but lurking off camera (did he write it, maybe?) As you'd expect, plenty of hilarious archive footage from Countdown etc.

The contestants were Cal Wilson, Tommy Dean and Suzanne Johnston (mezzo soprano from Opera Aust) on one team, and Meshel Laurie, Cram from Spiderbait and Colin from Playschool on the other. .

If it is the same show, it looks like they've recast a lot of it for some reason. But it also looks like they kept Suzanne Johnston and Kram from Spiderbait.

[Gutter Monkey]

What about the suggestion that the ABC is jumping on SBS' coat-tails with a new music trivia show?

"I wish them well," says Clarke. "The less people looking at CSI and people cracking on to each other on Backyard Blitz the better."

Wow. That was ... restrained.

I don't know how long SBS have had their show in the planning stages (I'll bet that Brian N has had it in mind for years!), but I do know that the ABC show has been in pre-prod for months. I'd also hazard a guess that the ABC might have beaten SBS to the punch if they hadn't been changing the cast around. (How long has Hillsy been back in the country? 2 weeks? 3?)

If these shows had been on 10 and 9 instead of 2 and SBS then the EPs would probably have been throwing shit at each other. The newshound must've been disappointed that Paul C didn't jump at the subtle bait.

Nankervis, a former primary school teacher who regularly included music trivia in his role as "warm-up person" for live taping of television shows

Brian is my favourite warm-up guy of all time. I get the impression that he thinks that I'm a freak, though - he's seen me at so many show tapings that he recognizes me and knows not to talk to me (I know all his schtick off by heart now) but I don't think he knows I'm a comic. Not that that little nugget of info makes me much less freaky.

[smuffy]

Originally Posted by Alisso

Shame that Adam Hills one isn't being filmed in Sydney, tapings of that would be fun *g*

Bout time you lot stopped hogging all the tapings :P

Now, we just need the ABC to improve in emailing people, and we'll be there!

[Alisso]

Originally Posted by smuffy

Bout time you lot stopped hogging all the tapings :P

If I could move down to Melbourne and bring the tapings with me, I would *G*

[lily]

So... anyone else watch RocKwiz? I found it pretty lacklustre, sadly. I'll see what Spicks And Specks has to offer.

[Laney]

yes i watched about 10 minutes of it beforel i fell asleep.

[Abundance]

I am sorry to say that I have just discovered Rockwiz a couple of weeks ago and am now loving it although last week I barely new any of the answers. I think that this is deffinitely an older demographic but the unabashed fun would reach all ages in my opinion.

[TIMAAAAH]

Agreed. I can follow spicks and specks more, but can randomly guess stuff on Rockwiz and also learn stuff. I enjoy both on different levels.

[unfrufru]

Belinda and Rove appear on ABC quiz show


Tuesday Dec 13 06:32 AEDT
Former soapie star Belinda Emmett is making a one-off television comeback on ABC comedy show Spicks and Specks this Sunday night.

Frail and still battling cancer, Emmett and her TV personality husband Rove McManus will go head-to-head in an hour-long Christmas special of their favourite music-based quiz show.

Hosted by friend and internationally renowned comedian Adam Hills, Emmett and McManus have long wanted to appear on the show.

"I went on Rove about six months ago and he said how he and Belinda loved Spicks and Specks and how they compete against each other at home," Hills said.

spac_writeAd('/SITE=NEWS/AREA=ENTERTAINMENT/SUBSECTION=/LOC=TOP/AAMSZ=MEDIUM')"Rove said Belinda always wins and when this opportunity came up to have them on the show on opposing teams I had to ask them to come on.

"I think she is going to kick his arse."

Other celebrities battling it out include singer Casey Donovan, Killing Heidi's Ella Hooper, Wilbur Wilde and a special guest Santa whose real identity remains a mystery.

"Let's just say it is the first time Santa has had a mullet," Hills quipped.

Spicks and Specks proved hugely popular for the network when it screened weekly segments over the ratings season.

The concept pits two rival teams who go on a journey to discover which contestants know the most about the music world.

Joining Hills every week were team captains Alan Brough and Triple J broadcaster Myf Warhurst, as well as brave personalities from the local and international entertainment industry.

Hills promises the special will be jam-packed with hilarious twists and turns but says it will be more like a variety show then the usual program format.

"There are going to be eight rounds instead of four," he said.

"Really, only two rounds are similar to what we normally do on and there will be around 30 guests."

One of Australia's most talented and best travelled comedians, Hills arrived back in Australia two weeks ago after four months in Britain and the United States.

Hills says it's important to see the world and its offerings in order to make it as a stand-up comic.

For the past five years he has spent at least half his year developing his routines in the UK.

"In London I have a bit of a following but now it's time to crack the states.

"I spend an enormous amount of money going overseas to pitch my ideas. But it's all part of the process, you have to spend money to get anywhere."

[unfrufru]

combined Rock Wiz/Spicks & Specks Articlehttp://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...582564518.html

Smells like team spirit

By Karl Quinn
March 19, 2006

They're both quiz shows about music, aired on publicly funded TV. They're both filmed in Melbourne. They both have two teams of three competing for a non-existent prize. They're both hosted by a professional comedian. They both have two musical guest stars per episode. They debuted one week apart (RocKwiz was first) in early 2005. They sound identical and yet, as anyone who's watched them both will tell you, they're not. To find out why, we attended live tapings of both RocKwiz and Spicks and Specks.

We start at St Kilda's Esplanade Hotel on a hot and sticky Tuesday. It's 6.30pm - early for a mid-week gig - but the queue to get in to the Gershwin Room is long, excitable and very slow-moving.

Inside, it's packed. There are 12 tables, each seating eight or so people, but they're pre-booked. The vast majority of the audience stands, mostly as close to the bar as possible. Filming doesn't get under way until close to 8pm, so by the time the seven cameras begin to roll, the crowd is well oiled.

Compare this to Spicks and Specks. Though it's just a few minutes' drive away, the ABC's Ripponlea studio is another world entirely. For a start, it's much smaller than the Gershwin Room. And quieter. And more organised, with everyone in their seats by the start of proceedings at 6.30pm. But most of all, it's sober.

This is the first clear difference between the shows. Being at RocKwiz is like being at a gig, what with all that beer and crowding and waiting for the main act to appear.

Sitting in the steeply raked seats of the Spicks and Specks studio, on the other hand, feels like being in the theatre.

Back at the Gershwin, I get lucky: someone's cancelled, so we get a seat at a table. This is good news not just for the obvious reasons, but because now we might get our mug on the telly.

The first business of the night is a rock trivia quiz. Each table gets a sheet of questions to answer, but the standing-room-only crowd doesn't. After a few minutes, warm-up-man/co-host/co-creator/co-producer Brian Nankervis reads out the answers, and the best performer from each table is ushered to the stage. There, the rock geeks are split into four teams of three, and given more questions. The best eight will be the audience members of the panels for the two shows to be taped this evening. (Having blitzed the trivia at the table, yours truly pulls off a dazzling rabbit-in-headlights performance on stage, managing to answer just two questions. And getting one of those wrong.)


The Spicks and Specks panel is chosen in a more straightforward way: beforehand, and by the show's producers. "The guests are sorted out about three weeks ahead," says series producer Anthony Watt. "We interview them, get info on their background, so we know what to ask them on the show."

Each team has a regular "captain" - actor-comedian Alan Brough and Triple J's Myf Warhurst - and is assigned a guest comedian for the night. They also get a musical guest each. When we attend, the musos are country singer Melinda Schneider and 1970s pop star Leo Sayer.

With everyone seated by 6.30pm, Spicks and Specks gets under way quickly. Host Adam Hills - a stand-up comic and, by all accounts, a stand-up guy - does his own warm-up, chatting to the audience, explaining the rules. Then he's in his chair at the centre of the set, and the floor manager counts down - "Filming in five, four, three, two, one" - and Hills is talking down the barrel rather than to us. He's likeable and reasonably funny, but it's in the unscripted bits when he's freed from the tyranny of the teleprompter that he's at his best. He has a particular fondness for identifying the kids in the audience and building them into his off-camera patter. "If there's anything you don't understand, just ask your dad after the show. Like the meaning of the word 'clitoris'.'' Thanks Adam.

Hills doesn't count himself as a music buff, though he claims "my music knowledge has got a lot better since I started this job''. But the show isn't really pitched at the hard-core music head anyway.

"Spicks and Specks is a dinner-party conversation,'' Hills explains, quoting the pitch that was given to him early on by one of the show's producers.

"We all know each other and we're having a chat, but then the camera turns up and doesn't know anyone, and doesn't know what we're talking about, and (the topic) needs to be introduced to them. We take it from there.''

RocKwiz, by contrast, is pitched squarely at the rock/pop fan. Host Julia Zemiro - born in France to an Algerian father and a mother from Queensland - knows her music trivia, and won Nankervis over in the audition when she completed the question "Paul Kelly and the ...'' with "Boon Companions'' (rather than the more obvious Coloured Girls or Dots or Messengers).

Unlike Hills, she has never done stand-up, but her background in Theatresports means she's a great improviser. It's a handy skill given the random elements she's dealing with. Like the guy plucked from the audience the night I attend, a joker whose every utterance is either irrelevant, slurred (he's clearly been lubricating long before the Gershwin opened its doors), or just too blue to put to air. Zemiro can barely shut him up, but when the show goes to air a few weeks later he has just one line.


Not that there's a lot of fat to be trimmed from the RocKwiz carcass. Each 27-minute episode is culled from a mere 45 minutes of filming. "We used to shoot only 35 minutes," says Nankervis. "But that was just a little too tight."

Zemiro's links are scripted, but everything else is improvised. She has a second take at one or two lines, but otherwise what goes to air is simply a cut-down version of what's filmed on the night. "None of it is rehearsed," Zemiro says. "None of it is preconceived, we don't have any workshop behind it. It's genuinely what you see is what you get." (Series three, which is about to go into production, will have longer episodes, with more audience stuff, to better capture the live flavour.)

Over at the ABC, Hills' stuff is a mix of scripted lines and seemingly freewheeling chat with his guests. The feel is relaxed and informal, but there's little left to chance in the ABC show. All that planning makes Spicks and Specks an evenly paced, neatly formatted program with broad appeal, but it can make for a rather flat experience live.

I, in fact attend two separate tapings. The first is for last year's Christmas special, an hour-long show that takes close to four hours to record. The set-up for the finale - a version of Little Drummer Boy featuring Casey Donovan, Belinda Emmett, Ella Hooper, Wilbur Wilde, James Morrison and a children's choir led by Lano and Woodley - takes more than half an hour. If the audience's laughter seemed a little strained when you watched it on TV, you'll understand why.

The Christmas special was a big format change, so in fairness we go again to see a more typical recording. This one's faster, but still pushes the 90-minute mark. There's a big break in recording, when a problem is spotted on one of the seven cameras in the studio.

Over at the Espy, you suspect that if one of the cameras died they'd just have to make do. RocKwiz is a genuine live show, as opposed to a show filmed before a live studio audience. Consequently, if the ingredients aren't right - the guests, the audience panel members, the live band (James Black, Mark Ferrie and Peter Luscombe, whose playing is really one of the best things about the show) - it will falter. But when they are right, it can be magic. If only for a moment.

I caught one such moment. Having witnessed guests Sarah McLeod (ex Superjesus) and Angry Anderson tear shreds off each other during the quiz rounds, the live audience at the Gershwin feared the worst when promised a closing duet (a standard part of every show) in which they would cover "an Australian folk classic''. Cue the opening bars of AC/DC's Highway to Hell, and mass audience relief. McLeod and Anderson did Bon Scott proud, and the night ended around 10pm with the crowd spilling onto the streets of St Kilda abuzz with the thrill of having witnessed a small and special piece of rock history.


Spicks and Specks doesn't offer quite that sort of kick, in large part because it's not, ultimately, a show for the rock fan. "There are three big differences between RocKwiz and Spicks and Specks,'' says Anthony Watt. "First, we do parlour games and RocKwiz does not. Second, we have comedians on the panel. And third, we don't just do rock and pop music. Our brief has always been to include as many forms, and to appeal to as broad an audience, as possible.''

In other words, RocKwiz is a music trivia show with laughs, while Spicks and Specks is a comedy show that just happens to feature music. It's fandom on one hand versus light entertainment on the other.

In the end, there's really no need to pick one over the other. We've suffered so many years without music on TV, outside of the clips shows, that we should embrace this sudden surfeit. As Brian Nankervis says: "There's plenty of room for both shows. They're really very different.''
Encore to that, we say. More. More. More.

RocKwiz screens on SBS Saturdays at 9.15pm.

Spicks and Specks is on the ABC Wednesdays at 8.30pm

TOP FIVE MOMENTS

Spicks and Specks producer Anthony Watt

- Adam Hills singing Advance Australia Fair to the tune of Working Class Man when Jimmy Barnes was on the show.

- English comedian/singer Earl Okin singing a bossa nova version of Teenage Dirtbag.

- Katie Melua trying to get an extra point from Adam, and him responding: "I'd love to give it to you but you've got a boyfriend.''

- After getting no points for doing his Substitute songs using the Bible, Alan Brough threw the good book to the ground in disgust. As he went back to his chair it collapsed and he spent the rest of the show on his knees in repentance.

- Myf being teased mercilessly for being the only Triple J DJ unable to name Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit.

RocKwiz producer Brian Nankervis

- The electrifying, sensual combination of Martha Wainwright and Dan Kelly performing Slave to Love.

- The roar of the audience when Chrissy Amphlett strutted on stage, singing All the Boys in Town.

- Tex Perkins, thanking us for "helping put on the show I dreamt about. I f---ing love Rockwiz!''

- Glenn Tilbrook's amazement when, unbeknown to him, Linda Bull joined him for her part of their duet, off stage and in the darkness.

- Angry Anderson and Sarah McLeod performing Highway to Hell. Angry's voice and posturing, Sarah's guitar, the Rockwiz Orchestra's brilliant accompaniment.

[Alisso]

While wandering through a newsagents today, I spotted the front cover of Rolling Stone magazine this month...

It's Adam, Myf and Alan, all done up to be "rock"

The boys have eyeliner, it's most amusing.

The article is mostly about Myf, but there's a double spread photo of the three of them in bed together, and some fun other photos *G*