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Seven announces TV Quiz, The White Room.

Tony Moclair and Julian Schiller will host a new comedy game show all about television for Channel Seven, The White Room.

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Tony Moclair and Julian Schiller will host a new comedy game show all about television for Channel Seven, The White Room.

An original format developed by Seven, it features two teams of “well-loved TV faces, established comedians and some of Australia’s best emerging comedy talents, as they are quizzed, challenged, poked and prodded about TV shows and TV stars.”

Both comedians and broadcasters, Moclair and Schiller have recently been regulars on The 7PM Project on TEN. Schiller hosts a breakfast radio show on Nova in Adelaide, where he previously worked with Moclair following work on 3RRR. Moclair is now part of Triple M’s Hot Breakfast with Eddie McGuire in Melbourne and has also been a writer on Newstopia, and a regular on The Einstein Factor.

Seven is yet to announce any plans to return its other TV-loving format TV Burp to schedules in 2010.

No further details on The White Room have been released.

53 Responses

  4. Panel shows are very popular in the UK; they have a glut of them. So why not have more here too? It’s worth a try.

    I could see Ed Kavalee doing well as a guest on this one.

    Speaking of which, is TV Burp returning?

  6. Seven first piloted this in 2005.
    Loosely based on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and other UK panel shows.
    Chris Lilley was in it – doing “interpretive dance” numbers for classic Aussie TV shows like A Country Practice. Hilarious!
    So like the My Kitchen/Restaurant Rules/Masterchef argument, it’s all a bit chicken and egg.

  7. @James: If this new show can develop a point of difference then good luck to it, but until then the viewers will just view this as a clone. Like they did the You May Be Right and those SBS shows that nobody really bothered watching.

    Talkin About Your Generation probably got away with it just by having Shaun Micallef hosting, otherwise it would probably have suffered the same fate.

    That’s not to say Spicks and Specks invented the genre, I remember a show 20+ years ago called The Main Event which was along the same lines. So no concept is ever entirely original but viewers are going to be naturally cynical at too many adaptations of the one idea in a short space of time

  8. Seven first piloted this in 2005.
    Loosely based on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and othyer UJK panel shows.
    Chris Lilley was in it – doing “interpretive dance” numbers for classic Aussie TV shows like A Country Practice. Hilarious!
    So like the My Kitchen/Redstaurant

  9. This doesn’t sound all that appealing, not a fan of the hosts at all.

    @ Janey. Your beloved Ten’s foray into variety/panel/comedy hasn’t exactly been perfect. Spearman Experiment anyone? The 7pm Project has also failed in epic proportions.

  10. Andrew – fair enough re ‘the panel’ however point still stands.

    All the shows you’ve listed (Spicks and Specks, ADbc, You May Be Right, Talking About Your Generation, The Squiz) stem from a similar style but all have individual qualities.
    I find it rather inane that shows are judged as ‘copies’ rather that focussing on the points of difference.

  11. hmm sounds kinda lame, it seems they react when something on another channel does well then tries to do something in the same vein.
    Both be in house productions i would also question the quality,

  12. @James: That’s not what I said. For a start, The Panel was not a “two teams of celebrities game show” so I don’t even know where you got that from.

    So to quote Seven, two teams of “well-loved TV faces, established comedians and some of Australia’s best emerging comedy talents, as they are quizzed, challenged, poked and prodded” You don’t think that’s remarkably similar to a handful of other shows on TV in recent times? Like Spicks and Specks? ADbc? You May Be Right? Talking About Your Generation? The Squiz? Come on… the format’s the same just the questions are different…

  13. Sounds a lot like that hit show (sarcasm) “You May Be Right” hosted by Todd McKenney. Seven have tried copying these formats before and haven’t had much success, why would this one be any different? TV Burp and Out of the Question are another 2 failed attempts.

  15. I watched the pilot of this show for a survey company and I didn’t like it much at all. It relied heavily on clips from old TV shows and it just wasn’t all that entertaining. From the pilot, I doubt the show will last very long on air or in it’s orignal timeslot.

  16. Another “two teams of celebrities” panel game show… and Seven says it’s original? They think we don’t know Spicks and Specks?? Or even that we have forgotten You May Be Right??

  18. Having not seen it, i can’t be 100% sure…. i just hope that it isn’t like the disaster of “You may be right” – trying to be in the spirit of Spicks & Specks…. and failing miserably (welly Lizzy Lovette was the best thing about that show!!).

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