Friday, October 16, 2015

Game Time: Small Talk (1994)

Remember Art Linkletter's Kids Say the Darndest Things? That popular segment of House Party was later spun off into its own series, first for CBS, then Nickelodeon (hosted by Bill Cosby), but didn't last long.

UK producer Reg Grundy, who had packaged Scrabble and a revival of Sale of the Century for NBC, developed a similar show, but Small Talk, which originated in England in 1994 before moving to the US in 1996, had more in common with a short-lived Goodson-Todman game, Child's Play.

Comic Ronnie Corbett (ex-The Two Ronnies) hosted the British version, which lasted two years. The American version, airing on the Family Channel, lasted just 1 season, and hosted by another comic, albeit one with game show experience, Wil Shriner (ex-That's My Dog), who doubled as his own announcer, taking his cue in that regard from Gary Owens' dual gig on Letters to Laugh-In nearly 30 years earlier.

Small Talk would be the last series to bear the Reg Grundy label, as the production company was bought out, and currently is part of Fremantle Media, which also acquired much of the Goodson-Todman library.

I never saw the show, so there's no rating. We'll leave you with a clip from the Shriner version.......




And a full episode of the Corbett version. Corbett is also his own announcer.

No comments: