Talk About (game show)
| Talk About | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Game show |
| Created by | Mark Maxwell-Smith |
| Directed by | Michael Watt |
| Presented by | Wayne Cox |
| Narrated by | Dean Hill |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Production | |
| Location(s) |
CBC Studios Vancouver, British Columbia |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 22-26 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Comedia Productions |
| Release | |
| Original network | CBC |
| Picture format | SDTV |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Original release | September 18, 1989 – March 16, 1990 |
Talk About is a game show produced in Canada for CBC, which bears some similarities to the board game Outburst. Originally produced for CBC for the 1988-89 season, it was later picked up for American television syndication, airing from September 18, 1989 to March 16, 1990 with repeats later airing on the USA Network from June 28 to December 31, 1993 and on GameTV from January 3, 2011 to September 2015. Taped at stage 40 of CBC's Vancouver studios, the show was hosted by Wayne Cox with local radio personality Dean Hill as announcer.
Gameplay
Two teams of two people, one team usually returning champions, played. For each round, the team that was not playing donned headphones to prevent them from hearing anything onstage. The champion team always played first in each game.
The team in control was given the choice of two topics to "talk about" by Cox with the team's captain making the choice and deciding who would talk first. Both players spoke for 20 seconds, trying to say as many keywords as possible on a list of 10 that had been secretly pre-selected; forms of the words were accepted. If the team said all 10 words, they won a $500 bonus and scored 10 points. If not, their opponents returned to the stage and were shown the keywords that the speaking team did not say. Correctly guessing the topic awarded one point to the opponents for each word the speakers did say while failing to do so gave the points to the speakers. The first team to score 15 points won the game and $100 then advanced to the bonus round, while the losing team received parting gifts. All players received a copy of the Talk About home game.
Games could straddle from the end of one episode to the start of the next. This rule was changed for celebrity weeks; when time ran out at the end of an episode, the team in the lead won the game and received prizes for the charity sponsoring them.
Any team that won five consecutive games retired undefeated and collected the Grand Game Jackpot. This was a prize package worth $1,000 in the first season; during the second season, it began at this value and a prize was added every time new champions were crowned until a team claimed it.
Bonus round
The winning team played the bonus round for a bonus prize and up to $2,000 in cash.
A choice of prizes was given to the winning team to begin the round, followed by another choice of "talk about" topics. The team captain decided what prize to play for, what topic to discuss, and whether or not they would play or go into an isolation booth. Once that was decided, the talking player was again given 20 seconds to come up with as many of the ten keywords for the selected topic. Each word was worth $100, and if the player got all of them within the 20 seconds the team won the prize and $2,000.
If the first player did not get all ten words, the words they did not come up with were shown to them and that player faced a decision. The player could either stop and take the money they had gotten or bring their partner out for a chance to double their cash total and win the prize. If the player decided to take the risk, their partner was brought out of the isolation booth and given one second for each word their partner guessed to try and come up with one of the remaining words (for a maximum of nine seconds). This was an all-or-nothing decision as if the second player did not come up with an unsaid word the team lost the cash the first player earned.
Foreign versions
An Irish version of the show was broadcast by RTÉ in the early 1990s on Saturday nights, it was presented by Ian Dempsey. The show was brought back to RTÉ in the mid-1990s and was this time presented by Alan Hughes.
A Swedish version called Prata på (Speaking on!) ran briefly on TV4 in the mid-1990s, hosted by Lars Gustafsson. In the bonus round, each word was worth kr500, and the "doubling" option required the partner to say any one of the unsaid words within a time limit of one second per word already said.
A UK version of the show hosted by Andrew O'Connor ran for three years on ITV from 1990-1993. The only difference was in the bonus round, where each word was worth £20 and at the end, the player had two options: "doubling" (up to £400), by having their partner say any unsaid word in 10 seconds, or "double-doubling" (4 times the pounds, up to £800) by having them say a specific word within a time limit of 1 second per word already said.
Home version
A home version of the game was produced by Pressman Toy Corporation in 1989. All contestants got a copy and Cox would originally plug it after every match. Later, Hill would plug it after coming back from the first commercial break.
A computer game of the show was produced by GameTek, but is fairly rare.
Notable contestants
- Denis Simpson: Already known for his work on TVO's Polka Dot Door, Simpson and his partner, singer Marcus Mosely went on the show and lost their game. After a dispute on a subject, in which they guessed "rugs" on the subject of "carpets", they were invited back to play the next game, which they won and would go on to win $1,800 in 4 games. Simpson would later become a regular on Acting Crazy, another Wayne Cox-hosted show.
- Melody Davies: Like Denis Simpson, she would later become a regular on Acting Crazy.
- Denalda Williams: Williams became a contestant on Talk About before she was chosen as a panelist on The Next Line.