Brendan Richards, with The Big Brass Mug he took home for winning Episode 7 in Series 10 of ‘Hard Quiz’.
Hello, and welcome to our latest HowToWinGameShows.com guest post! And this time, it’s from Brendan Richards: a veteran of Wheel Of Fortune, Celebrity Name Game, and most recently, Hard Quiz ! This week, Brendan takes us through his various game show appearances over the years, and next week, he’ll return to dig down into a little more detail, and share his top tips for game show success.
So, a very warm welcome to you, Brendan… and take it away!
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Ever since my days as a toddler I’d been fascinated by game shows – the lights, the sounds, the prizes on offer, and the range of questions.
One of my biggest dreams was to make it onto Sale of the Century; I ended up on the ‘Fame Game’ board on 21 July 1995, which at the time was a big deal for me.
The ‘Sale of the Century’ Fame Game board regularly featured viewers who’d sent in their photos… Looks like Brendan may have been slightly too young to qualify as a contestant at the time!
(That night’s champion, Cameron Burge, later went on to win the lot…)
* * * * * * *
My first in-studio game show experience, though, was on Wheel of Fortune (Transmission date: 27 May 2004). I was a few months fresh out of high school at that time, and maybe too eager to try and win (leading to a bit of brain freeze). I solved two puzzles, but I’ll rue the moment I picked car care products (i.e. car oil) over sports clothes. Never pick a prize on impulse if you don’t know what it is.
* * * * * * *
15 years later, I’d auditioned for Celebrity Name Game with one of my sisters, Sally. My knowledge of pop culture helped me get through that audition. Sally unfortunately had some trouble with the pop culture side of things, so I re-auditioned with my other sister, Jodie (with a few days’ notice), and we were both accepted not long after. (Transmission date: 16 September 2019).
We went up against Shay and Mon (whom we got on very well with during the session), and we had Rove McManus and – to Jodie’s delight – Stacey Thompson (“Ranger Stacey”) as the celebrities. We had a slow start in the first round (words starting with certain letters), but my clues for the second round (words associated with teachers) helped our score a great deal.
When “Mr. Miyagi” (the teacher from The Karate Kid) was presented as an answer, I passed because I couldn’t remember that name. I do remember hearing a crew member saying to the audience I’d made the best choice to pass immediately without hesitating or stumbling on clues, which could have cost vital seconds.
Then to the head-to-head round; I’d cracked a couple of jokes to everyone’s delight, culminating in my enthusiastic answering of “BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!” on the last question to win that round.
Finally in the Bonus round, I gave Jodie a good head start with Rove and Stacey correctly answering 6 of the 10 answers, including this moment:
ME: You see these at construction sites.
ROVE: Arsecrack.
ME: (BRIEFLY LAUGHING) NO! Something that lifts a lot of—
ROVE & STACEY: Crane!
Ultimately, Jodie and I won $10,000! Rove leapt straight into me (slamming right into my face in the process), but the victory was worth the pain from that.
* * * * * * *
Then to Hard Quiz, a show where I was not afraid to laugh at myself. (Or Tom Gleeson, for that matter.)
Around 2021 or 2022, I landed a video audition where I explained why I chose Monty Python as my special subject. During the call, I was reminded to not give too much away about my chosen subject, in case it was used in one of the show’s questions. Then, in June 2024, I was contacted to see if I’d still like to be a contestant, with taping set for Friday 13th (yeech!) September.
And so I found myself in wonderful sunny (?) Melbourne. In the weeks before, I took to watching / listening to / reading as much Monty Python material as my spare time could allow.
For this episode, I went up against Bec (expert subject: American presidential assassinations), Nathan (expert subject: Poker) and Mel (expert subject: Contraception – yes, really!).
During the taping, I decided not just to play hard, but to laugh hard as well, and keep Tom Gleeson at bay. (I think he was genuinely surprised with what I came up with during the show.)
I buzzed in on at least one question on everyone else’s expert subjects; one question about condom material had the audience laughing, but they got an unexpected bigger laugh when I protested: “I haven’t had any experience! Don’t ask!”
After the Expert Round, I had a very sizeable lead, so I wasn’t worried if I got some questions wrong in Tom’s Round. Thankfully, I kept my lead during both that round and The People’s Round.
In the final Head-to-Head round, I knew the competition was tough, but Nathan kept his cool and managed to get three correct. When we came to my last question, these were the scores:
|
NATHAN |
N |
Y |
N |
Y |
Y |
|
BRENDAN |
Y |
Y |
N |
Y |
I had to get this last question correct, if I was to win the show. And the question was…
TOM: The 16th century painting An Allegory with Venus and Cupid inspired what piece of Monty Python iconography?
BRENDAN: I don’t believe this…! It’s something that’s been seen in almost all 45 episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. It has to be the foot.
The moment Tom shouted “CORRECT!”, that really was it. I had played HARD… and won!
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And congratulations to you, Brendan! By the way, the transmission date of Brendan’s Hard Quiz episode was 12 March 2025… and if you’re in Australia, you can watch it on ABC iview, right here:
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/hard-quiz/series/10/video/LE2331V007S00
Next week, Brendan will take us through the Hard Quiz contestant experience in more detail, with exclusive excerpts from his diary on record day (including some top behind-the-scenes tips).
That’s next Tuesday, right here at HowToWinGameShows.com. Until then, then!
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