The Worst TV Game Shows Of All-Time
The British public love a TV game show, but boy have there been some bad ones down the years. Many of them leave you to question who exactly signed them off?
And some big stars have put their names to them too, from Ant & Dec to Simon Cowell, but what are the worst?
Well, it was a difficult task and we initially produced a list as long as our arm. However, like the great game show would ask of you, we whittled them down to come up with our final answers. So, here goes…
Red Or Black?
One show that there was no doubt about making the list was Red Or Black?, the brainchild of Simon Cowell. It was a big-budget show that was very short-lived.
Ant & Dec even admitted they knew the show would be a flop after the very first night. It perhaps shouldn’t have been though.
You see, the game was essentially based around a roulette wheel and the red or black element of it. The concept was on-trend at the time. It was during a period when online casino sites like spinandwin.com were booming, welcoming thousands of new players by the day to games like online roulette. And they still are. Yet this show just couldn’t make it work.
You only need to look at The Wheel today to see it is a concept that could have worked too.
Hole In The Wall
“Bring on the wall!”
The phrase nobody wants to hear ever again. Hosted by Dale Winton, and then later Anton Du Beke, it was absolute trash TV that everyone involved in should be ashamed of.
All it entailed was a group of celebrities, packed into tight, shiny Lycra having to create a body shape to fit through a hole in a wall. If they didn’t they’d be knocked into a swimming pool. Need we say more?
Tipping Point
Tipping Point has been on our screens for a decade now. A DECADE. How?
Presented by Ben Shepherd, it’s a show that is based around a 2p machine you find in amusement arcades by the seaside. The concept in itself is fine, in fact it’s not bad at all. Players must answer questions to place coins in the machine and win prizes. It’s the fact that Shepherd and the contestants talk about the machine-like “she’s”, and it is a she apparently, a real person. Do us a favour.
That, combined with the fact the questions are ridiculously easy make it absolutely no fun for anybody.
Shafted
On the other hand, Shafted is long gone and it’s just as well. Richard Osman named it in the top four worst game shows of all time and it did indeed only last for four episodes before it was dropped.
Hosted by Robert Kilroy-Silk, it was firstly hampered by having a terrible presenter. Then the concept was just dreadful, the rules were confusing, and quite simply everybody hated it.
When it was axed, such was the lack of interest in the show, nobody really batted an eyelid.
Eggheads
Eggheads is still going. You may not know it, but that’s largely because it’s on Channel 5. Now, don’t get us wrong, Eggheads had its time in the Sun and it was a relatively good programme for a while. It’s certainly got tired now though, and while the likes of University Challenge and Mastermind still works, the going to head-to-head with professional quizzers has seen the baton well and truly passed on to The Chase.
The quizzers simply aren’t as charismatic, the host isn’t the quick-witted style we want, and the questions are pretty difficult for the audience at home. What’s the point in watching it?
