Hello, and welcome back!

When we left off last week, Mark had just begun his first audition for Pointless, and was generally feeling pretty philosophical about the whole thing…

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MH: I thought ‘this will be a great story to tell one day; that I auditioned to be a quiz show host’. I had nothing to lose, so I was just extremely loose and I think that helped. They tested me with a couple of different people. They had said that the audition was supposed to go for about an hour… but they kept me back there for three or four hours.

SH: Great! 

MH: Yeah, so I thought “that’s a good sign.” 

SH: That’s a very good sign! 

MH: But even though they did that, in my head I was just still helping them out with logistics, or helping them solve a few other problems. At the end of it, I was just shaking people’s hands and saying “Thank you, I’m never going to see you again, but it’s been lovely!” I do remember that they had various members of the production staff being contestants for the purposes of the audition. One of them was named Paul, and at one stage, he answered a question about the musical Les Miserables. And I could tell – being a fan of musical theatre myself – that there was a lot of knowledge behind the answer that he gave… and as I was leaving, I said to him “Hey Paul, can we be friends?”  (LAUGHING)… and we did! We subsequently became Facebook friends, and since then, have gone to a number of musicals together! And that was my first audition! 

SH: And do you know how many other people they were seeing for the role of the host and for the role of the co-host?

MH: I was only conscious of two other people. When I auditioned, they didn’t tell me who else was going for it. 

SH: Fair enough.

MH: I knew (newsreader) Chris Bath was in the mix but that was only by reading about it on TV Tonight. But I think there was some issue with the ABC that meant she couldn’t do it. But at the time, I had no special knowledge about who was being approached. Subsequently, there have been about five people who have said to me “I was approached about that!” 

SH: Now Mark, I wanted to ask you about ‘Chemistry Tests’…. they’re something that a lot of our visitors here might not know about. I wonder, could you explain what a Chemistry Test is? And did you do many Chemistry Tests with other potential co-hosts, before they decided on the combination of you and Andrew?

MH: A Chemistry Test is essentially a screen test where they see if you and the other presenter are able to hit it off; to see what sort of dynamic you have together and what your banter is like between each other. So they’re putting two people together to find out… Are they too similar? Are they too different? Are they affectionate or combative? Do they cancel each other out? Are they able to build on what the other person says and create a little bit of magic?

And yes; when I did these Chemistry Tests, one of them was with a comedian, so that was two comedy people thrown together… 

SH: I see. 

MH: … And I thought we had a really good rapport, and that there was a nice, light fun energy to that. I also auditioned with someone who’d been a quiz show champion, so he was extremely knowledgeable. But with the dynamic there, a lot of the time it was me laughing at what he was saying because he was very, very entertaining. He was very verbose, though, so it was quite difficult to get a back-and-forth going, because he would tend to go on quite a long run. But I still found working with him very entertaining, very amusing. So they were the two at my first audition, but then I got a callback… and Channel 10 said “We would like to see you on the show’s actual set”. And in that second audition, I did two more Chemistry Tests, and one of them with was with the comedian who I’d previously auditioned with. 

SH: Right.

MH: But I was on a deadline; at that time, I was doing a weekly segment on the ABC and I had to be there at 8:00. And as potentially as rewarding as this audition could be, it was still an unpaid audition! And so at the time, when it came down to what was more important, the paid gig at the ABC took priority ….

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WILL Mark have to cut the audition short?

WILL the producers judge him harshly for this?

IS Mark about to compromise his chances of scoring one of THE BIGGEST GIGS OF HIS CAREER?

Well, no.

But if you’re interested in learning all the finer details, be sure to check back here next Tuesday.

Until then, then!

Hello and welcome to the latest instalment of my interview with Pointless host Mark Humphries, and this week, we get into the nitty-gritty of how he came to be in that position….

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SH: In early 2018, the rumours started that an Australian version of the English game show Pointless might be in the works. Can you tell us about your first learning of it, and what happened next?

MH: Sure. Well, back in 2016, I used to watch the UK version of Pointless when it was shown on the ABC and I loved it; I just thought it was the most clever concept for a quiz show. And I found myself one day tweeting ”If they ever make an Australian version of Pointless, I would love to host it.” Around the same time, I went on an ABC radio show called The TV Club where you could recommend a show that you enjoy, and of course I recommended Pointless. And I said on air “if they ever make an Australian version of Pointless, I would love to host it”. Then… fast forward to 2018, and I read on TV Tonight that Channel 10 and Endemol Shine are going to make an Australian version of Pointless. And then I thought – well, I don’t really know what I was thinking – but I remembered my earlier tweet and so I retweeted myself, saying “Hey, the offer still stands @Channel10 @endemolshineAU.”

It was tongue-in-cheek; I knew full well that these accounts are moderated by people, and it’s not like the Executive Producer of the show is looking at the Channel 10 Twitter account. I didn’t think it was going to go anywhere…. but by the same token, I just thought I’d put it out there and see if it would fly with the people who were following me. And there were quite a lot of responses that were really positive; “Yeah, that’s a great idea!”and so on. And then maybe two weeks later I was in at work at SBS, and I got a message saying “Someone from Gogglebox wants to talk to you.” And I thought ‘Gogglebox? That’s a bit weird; why would someone from Gogglebox want to talk to me?’ And then I thought ‘Hang on – who makes Gogglebox?’ So I looked it up, and it was Endemol Shine (the production company who would soon be making Pointless)! I rang the number and it was David McDonald (the director of Gogglebox and Pointless) who ‘d called me. He said “I said I was from Gogglebox because I didn’t want to raise any flags with your employer… but I’ve got this tweet here saying that you’d be interested in hosting an Australian version of Pointless. Were you being serious there or satirical?” And I said “Oh no, I was being very serious”, and then we chatted for about 10 minutes about the show and I consciously referred to a number of things about the show, and elements in it, to let him know what a big fan I was…

SH: That you knew it inside and out…?

MH: Yes. And then he said “Would you be interested in coming in for an audition?”

And I said “Yes, but my one condition is that I must have a laptop on the desk that serves no purpose, and that is not switched on. Or perhaps even plugged in.”

And he said “Yes! Exactly!”… which may seem like a small thing, but I reckon that a lot of people who would have been approached for that show wouldn’t have seen it before and I think that knowing details like that helped to show how keen I was. The other condition I had was that I wanted the prize money to be really, really low; almost offensively low. And I think that kind of stuff helped them to think ‘Okay, this guy knows what we’re dealing with here’. 

SH: You’re in tune with the spirit of the thing.

MH: Yeah, and I think that also helped when we came to do the initial audition, which was in a hotel in a sort of conference room. There was a very makeshift set with butcher’s paper and a wheel that had numbers on it. And because I knew the show quite well, I was able to be quite relaxed for the process – I wasn’t stopping and saying “oh what happens here?” And furthermore, because I knew I had no chance of getting the gig – because I was nobody; I was just making these little 2-minute satirical sketches over on SBS’s secondary digital channel – I was able to be really relaxed.

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WILL Mark nail the audition?

WILL he get the big gig?

And WILL he be awarded the role of the show’s host, or its co-host?

Be sure to tune in next week, Dear Reader, to discover the answers to all these questions, even though you already know them. Duh.

In other news, Mark’s appearance in the GRAND FINAL of Celebrity Mastermind went to air on Saturday, and he performed….. well, I don’t want to spoil the result for you, just in case you haven’t seen it, and want to catch up on it right now, at SBS On Demand…

Suffice it to say, all of us here at HowToWinGameShows.com (i.e: me) offer our (that is, my) most heartfelt congratulations or commiserations to you, Mark; whichever are more appropriate.

And we’ll see you back here next Tuesday!

Welcome back.

When we left off last week, Mark was just about to tell me about his first experience as a game show contestant…

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MH: I was in Year Six, so I must have been 11 years old. it was a show called Super 6 which was on Foxtel;  it was a kids’ game show.

* Here’s a sample of Super 6 that I found on YouTube. Unfortunately, it’s not Mark’s episode, but you get the idea..

MH: I obviously watched a lot of kids game shows as well. Including A*mazing, which I firmly believe should be brought back as an adult game show; I think it would be really smart of a network to pick up A*mazing and do an adult version capitalising on the generation who grew up on that because it was so beloved. And I know that (the show’s host) James Sherry did have a Facebook page a few years ago called ‘Bring Back A*mazing‘…. Sorry, I’m getting distracted. You can see how nerdy I am about this sort of stuff! 

SH: No, I love it! You’ve come to the right place! 

MH: So I was on this show called Super 6 which was hosted by Scott McRae who had been the host of Vidiot after Eden Gaha, if I’ve got my timeline correct… So my school submitted some entries and I got through. I was on a team of six and I had to do a quiz round which was on the buzzer. I won my round, which meant that another team member had to do a challenge to win 50 bonus points And her challenge was that she had to eat SAO biscuits and then whistle, within 45 seconds 

SH: Which is very difficult, because they’re so dry…. 

MH: … And she didn’t go so well so we didn’t win. But I do remember that each episode had a Celebrity Umpire. And for our episode, the Celebrity Umpire was ‘Vulcan’ from Gladiators!

SH: Wow! 

MH: Which was thrilling and terrifying. Because we were told not to speak during the recording and for some reason I started up a conversation with one of my teammates… and ‘Vulcan’ glared at me, put his finger to his lips and gave me the death stare, as if to say “SHUT UP!” That shook me to my 11 year old core.

SH: (LAUGHING) Yeah, that would have you waking up screaming.  

MH: (LAUGHING) Yeah. So that was my experience of quiz shows, although I was in the audience for a taping of Randling. But I guess I watched pretty much everything that was in the genre that was on television, now that I think about it. Win Roy & HG’s Money…

SH: Which I think was based on Win Ben Stein’s Money, wasn’t it?

 MH: Yes it was.

SH: So you’re a long time game show fan – apart from your appearance on Super 6, were you ever attempted to be a game show contestant again?

MH: Not really; I’m very interested in the things that I’m interested in, but I don’t have a great broad general knowledge. BUT… I am about to go and do an episode as a contestant on Celebrity Mastermind. 

SH: Oh, fantastic!

MH: So I will hopefully be good at my chosen topic, but once it opens up to general knowledge I will, no doubt, crash and burn. 

SH: That’s the spirit.

MH: (LAUGHING) Yeah! 

SH: What’s your special subject? 

MH: ‘The musicals of Stephen Sondheim from 1957 – 1987’.

SH: Wow – 30 years!

MH: Yes, which is pretty much the bulk of his output. But I did want to narrow it down a bit to make it easier for the question writers. But I’m pretty happy to be asked anything about him. 

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And, as luck would have it, Mark’s episode of Celebrity Mastermind actually just aired here in Australia on Saturday (14/03), and (NOT EXACTLY A SPOILER ALERT) let’s just say the show hasn’t seen the last of him… 

In case you missed it, you can watch it right now, right here, on SBS On Demand. 

See you next week!

That’s Mark on the left there, with his ‘Pointless’ co-host Andrew Rochford on the right.

Welcome to the second instalment of my interview with Mark Humphries. And when I left off last week, Mark and I were discussing how the relationship between TV shows and their audiences has changed; how, if you didn’t like a show back in the 90s, you weren’t able to just ring up the host and tell them so!

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SH: Yes, thinking about watching TV back then, it’s such a foreign idea, isn’t it? Not only to have the ability to provide that instant feedback… but to have the audacity and entitlement to want to provide – and not hesitate in providing – that instant feedback

MH: Yeah! But I came to accept that when you’re part of someone’s routine, and you are in their home… you are, weirdly, a very distant family member; you’re part of the furniture. And people get familiar with certain people and then that’s taken away from them. I do get it. But I also think there’s something to be said for reining in your rage, and targeting the right people… 

SH: Yes – sometimes ideas should just remain ideas. 

MH: (LAUGHING) There should be a cooling off period with tweets! Okay, so you’ve written a tweet, now maybe walk away for 10 minutes, have a think about it, and if you still want to send it… then go for it! 

SH: Speaking of ‘being part of the furniture’, when you were growing up, were there game shows that you loved and always tuned into?

SH: Absolutely. I loved $ale of the Century. I used to watch John Burgess on Wheel of Fortune, and I clearly remember when John stopped hosting it and it was taken over by Tony Barber. And I remember I also used to watch Tony on Australian Jeopardy, which I really enjoyed. But speaking of John Burgess, I remember a couple of other milestones; firstly of course when he went and started doing Catch Phrase and changed from being known as “Baby John Burgess” to being known as “Burgo”… and also he shaved off his moustache. Monumental changes! I remember it being quite earth-shattering at the time. And I used to watch Burgo’s Catch Phrase, and it was quite clear that they ran out of actual catchphrases after about four nights. And it ended up just being “objects” or “words” or “things you might say”. And I also watched Burgo’s Pass The Buck. 

SH: Pass The Buck? I’d forgotten that one. That it didn’t last very long, did it?

MH: I think that only lasted a season or so. I also had very fond memories of (host) Rob Brough’s curls on Family Feud…

These are the curls Mark’s referring to here.

Then later of course it was hosted by John Deeks. I used to love Larry on The Price Is Right… Now that I think about it, I watched a heck of a lot of game shows!

SH: Yeah, you did!

MH: … and The Weakest Link, Shafted with Red Symons – 

SH: You watched Shafted? Really?

MH: (LAUGHING) Yes, I watched Shafted. I was actually speaking about Shafted yesterday, after not having spoken about it for years. That show would just not fly today. Did you watch it? Do you remember it at all? 

SH: Watch it? I wrote it!

MH: What? 

SH: Yes, yes – I worked on Shafted for the ENTIRE six weeks. That was an early job; writing questions and little gags for Red. There will be a blog post about that whole adventure here at a later date, but I haven’t got around to writing it yet. But I must confess, I’m surprised that anybody remembers Shafted. 

MH: Oh, I remember it well, and one of the things that stood out about it was that I don’t think you could do that show today, because of the element of betrayal that occurs in the final round. I think people would go absolutely ape**** on social media, and would find the contestants and track them down… there’d be so much online bullying of anyone who had lied in that final section. I mean, I thought it was a great concept, and also quite anxiety-inducing. I felt quite sick each time someone shafted another person. But I just think that today people would be absolutely destroyed by the response to it.

SH: Mm, fair point.

MH: And I was actually on a quiz show – 

SH: Oh, brilliant – that was my next question!

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… But you’ll have to wait until next week to hear the answer!

I was just about to write “Sorry for being such a tease”… but then I thought ‘Nah’; you know the drill; that’s just what I do here.

Until then, remember that you can follow Mark on Twitter. 

… Oh, and you can follow me on Twitter too, if you feel like it.

Until next week, then!

Hello and welcome to my latest exclusive interview for HowToWinGameShows.com! This time, it’s with Mark Humphries, who hosted the Australian version of the English game show Pointless, here in Australia on the Ten Network from July 2018 – May 2019.

Mark was very generous with his time, and it was a wide ranging – and at times, very revealing – discussion. We covered the whole process of his becoming involved in the show, we talked about the ups and downs of hosting it, and we discussed the various reactions to the show at length. But before all of that, for those of you who may be unfamiliar with Mark’s work, I asked him to bring us up to speed with his story before game shows came calling… 

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SH: Mark Humphries, thanks very much for talking to me today for HowToWinGameShows.com! For those visitors outside Australia, could you give us a brief rundown of your career prior to your time as a game show host?

MH: Yes, sure. So I got my start on TV in satirical news comedy. And the first show that I was on was called The Roast, and it started out as a daily two-minute news comedy show.

SH: Economical!

MH: (LAUGHING) Yes, barely a show ! But because it was two minutes, and it was on ABC2, and it was on in the very sexy time slot of 7:28 PM, it was a thing that allowed us to make mistakes; to get it wrong, and we did that for a year. And then we got renewed, fortunately, and then the show ballooned into a massive 10 minutes per night. And that time slot was thrilling as well; sometimes it was 10 past 8, sometimes it was 8:07, sometimes it was a quarter past 8, so you could tune in and already have missed the bit that I was on. So I had three years on that show; sort of very, very low profile and out of the way… just getting my flying hours up, really; honing my skills. Because satirical comedy wasn’t necessarily what I wanted to do; I’d always wanted to write comedy for television, but I was more interested in sitcoms.But I was just lucky that I – and the rest of the team – were given enough time to develop our skills, so that when the show did eventually end, at the end of 2014, The Guardian newspaper had just started up in Australia and their website picked up the segment that I used to do on The Roast. So they commissioned us to keep that afloat for half a dozen special online videos.

SH: Great!

MH: And then after that I was approached by The Feed from SBS2… and Stephen, I should point out that it’s very important to me to always be on a secondary digital channel. Not the main free-to-air channel…

SH: (LAUGHING) Yes, of course – aim for the top!

MH: And The Feed wanted 2 – 3 minute comedy news pieces, so over there again I was able to make more mistakes!

SH: But it’s very valuable to have a chance to do that professionally, but without being subject to loads of scrutiny and pressure.

MH: I am such a huge supporter of shows like that. Shows such as Hungry Beast, and more recently Tonightly, where new talent – new writers and performers – can get the experience and become the valuable contributors of the future. If we don’t have those shows, you can’t just expect everyone to work for free and make stuff on YouTube, and hope that that somehow transitions into a career. In terms of career paths, I’m not a stand-up, and where do people like me (who have no interest in doing stand-up comedy) go? So I was so lucky in that sense.
Anyway, somewhere along the way we started to find a rhythm in terms of making new sketches and a couple of them got a few shares And so I started to develop something of a reputation as a satirical writer comedy performer. I was at The Feed for two and a half years, but I got kind of burnt out

SH: That was quick!

MH: (LAUGHING) Yeah! But by that stage, it had been years of producing daily news comedy… And I think even reading the news every day takes a toll; I don’t think it’s good for you. I don’t think I could ever be a journalist!

SH: No. Good point.

MH: And putting out creative work every day and knowing that it will be seen by an audience and especially on Twitter, where they are all just waiting to tear you a new one. Because they’re certainly out there, and that was a lesson I learned again with the whole Pointless thing; it was quite a bumpy transition because people really loved Family Feud (Pointless‘s predecessor in the same time slot). And suddenly it’s “Who the f*** is this guy?!”

But back in the day, it never would have occurred to me, if I was watching $ale of the Century, after an episode finished, to ring up Glenn Ridge and say tell him he’s f****** s***.

SH: (LAUGHING) No, that wasn’t really an option back then, was it?

MH: (LAUGHING) … which I don’t believe, by the way!

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And nor do I!

That’s where we’ll leave our chat for this week. Next week, we will shift gear and move into game show territory, but in the meantime, you can follow Mark on Twitter here… and I also heartily recommend the 8-episode original podcast that Mark did for Audible.com.au; it’s called Riot Act, and it’s brilliant.

See you next week!