FOX Orders Pilot for “Hole in the Wall”
There’s been a YouTube clip that’s become a sensation somehow, and it’s from a Japanese game show called Hole in the Wall. Basically, it’s human Tetris. People have to fit through tiny holes in walls in various shapes as they move towards them. If they miss, they are tossed back into a pool of water. It’s humorous enough, but one thing I was always happy with was my thought of “At least this show’s so one-sided that it can’t possibly be picked up as its own show in America.” And as usual FOX does the impossible and makes me hide in the corner and shiver with fear out of their decisions. Cynopsis announced that FOX has ordered a pilot of Hole in the Wall from Fremantle. Here’s a clip of it.
Honestly, not much to it. And it’s going to be painfully scary to think how they’re going to do this in America. I doubt it’ll get past pilot stage, but still. In Italy, their version of one of my favorite games of the past decade, Distraction, uses this as one of their mini games. Not an entire show. I mean how do you even get excited watching this. The entire show will be a viewer going “Haha, he fell into the pool. Haha, she did too! Look, that one did as well!” I know that shows like Deal or No Deal have the similar idea of doing one tiny, somewhat stupid, objective for excruciatingly long periods of time, but at least there’s some drama and emotion there. This is going to get old so quickly it’s scary.
Fox’s need help when coming up with shows or founding shows to do. 24 & American Idol are their two shows. Ellen has done this game once and it worked fine for her…
You’re missing my point. If Ellen did it, she probably did it as a segment on her show, not the entire show. This is going to become brutally boring very quickly.
Or just really really stupid. Either one. I’m guessing both.
The French did this, too. I believe it’s called “Le Mur Infernal.”
*sigh* again…
I saw this clip months back and I said, I wonder who’d actually be bold enough to try this in the U.S., and WHO ELSE, Fox came to mind first.
Not barring how ridiculous the concept, for potentially for a full hour and *shutter* a million bucks would be, the fact that FOX has become this predictable is, by far, the worst development in this scheme…
However, seeing people make fools of themselves on national TV, in a Double Dare like fashion, will be at least good for a laugh or two for the first few eps. I LOVE seeing idiots make fools of themselves, it makes this fool feel better… :D
Here you go, folks! Another of the “575 (or so) Reasons Why Japanese Television Is Better Than Ours”.
Much as they’d like to deny it, I’ll bet someone at FOX probably got the idea from watching Olbermann’s show one day, for he had a clip of this on his show in Oddball some months ago. Funny stuff.
But, as much as I enjoy the original (thank you, YouTube), I don’t see this as something FOX will write home about at the end of the day. It looks to me as something that might work out as a short-term fill-in, but not a week-to-week series.
I agree with the above, but then my mind started to drift elsewhere on the Japanese game show topic… What if this were only one game in an American show that plays several games from Japanese stunt shows? I’m sure if you search for “Japanese game show” on YouTube, you’ll find tons of game ideas that FOX could pull together into one Japanese-themed game show medley. After all, we’ve borrowed a lot of Japanese concepts before (Takeshi’s Castle comes to mind the quickest). I mean, I would never volunteer for a game show if I knew that misreading a tongue-twister meant getting snapped in the junk by a giant mousetrap (please tell me you’ve seen that video), but I’m sure that if they pick the right games and make the prize worth it, FOX could have a decent concept on their hands. But to base a whole show around one game like this? No chance.
This is pretty ironic, I remember discussing game show formats from other countries that really need to be imported to the USA on the GSN message borads, and the funny thing was I mentioned how this would be an interesting option. Well, I have thought a whole show with this could get old quick. But, I am very curious to see how this is excecuted. I hope it gets picked up.
this seems boring to me please bring back The Rich List or even revive Greed or Russian Roulette even It’s Your Chance Of a Lifetime which was a fun show.
That was a stupid-funny video!… for a second.
I… I’m… Uh. Wow. I’m out of words for FOX.
It did work great for ‘Ellen’ quite a few times as segments… but an entire show? I’ll pass.
unhhhh……
Question……why?
Spike TV….Why didn’t you fight?
Comedy Central…..Why didn’t you fight?
Quick little intro. I’ve been watching American and Japanese Game/reality shows for a long time so in my humble oppion I know what I am talking about.
America is 20 years behind in terms of TV. What the idiots behind making this show don’t understand is that “Human Tetris” is one part of a segment which is usually aired on a “Variety show” (Japnese variety shows work completly differnt that the ones that ever aired here.). If “Human Tetris” were to air exclusivly in Japan it would be cancelled because the idea would get old quick. What “Variety Shows” do is think of quick and cleaver ideas for games and run them on a couple of shows and then they are done. In America through we usually like to do a idea in to death.
While on the topic of how behind American TV is did you know that 35 yeards before “American Idol” and 15 before “Star Search” there was a show called “Star tanjo (A star is born)”. The rules were similar to Idol except record producers were the ones that picked the stars and the show wasn’t dragged out for weeks to see who the winner was.
Also “America’s Funniest Home Videos” was originated in Japan from a show called “Fun with Ken-Chan and Kato-Chan” which was a heck of a lot funner. If you don’t believe me look at the end of the credits of AFV.
I could go on all with examples of Survivor and other shows but I think you get the idea.
I’ll leave you with a trivia question.
Before “The Amazing Race” was on the air, what ’80s show had contestants going around the world answering trivia questions with the winner getting $100,000 and the losers paying their own way home?
The Ultra Quiz (Which also originated in Japan)
Looks craptacular to me….
I think it might have mediocre success if they played the humour up like SpikeTV/TNN did with MXC, some of those “holes” are just about impossible but it’s hilarious to see them try anyway and fail miserably. but either way if it airs this needs to be emphasized as a comedy show, not a suspenseful or dramatic competition for big money. but even then my feeling is it won’t last longer than 2 years on network TV.
O.o’
Excuse me a minute while I call G4 and let them know about this show so they can put it on their Duty Free TV block filled with foreign progamming.
Okay here are my thoughts on this. Funny BUT people are different sizes and I can’t imagine how some could fit through a person cutout like was shown in round 2. He was pretty much pushed into the water. ^_^ Now I like Japanese shows so I would love to give this a try.
Well, I like the sound effects anyway lol :P.
Good ol’ Japanese Game Shows. If they cannot do the “outrageous” stunts, who will?
If this is FOX we are talking about, i expect it to more than likely have a category wall… with the final wall being $100,000!
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Unless this is going to be like the Japanese Version, and have Celebrities play it for fun.
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Also, Ellen stole the idea and made the segment “THROUGH THE WALL OR TAKE A FALL” with Howie Mandel playing it, and humorously “taking a fall”
I would never get tired of seeing fat, out of shape Americans contorting their body into painful shapes only to end up drenched in a pool. I could watch it for hours and still want more.
After thinking on it further, I’m of the opinion that this show, should it make it to air, will be more concentrated on the comedy aspect rather than gameplaying a la “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”. I think as long as viewers keep that mindset and not spend the whole show going “What the hell kind of sense does that make?!”, it should be an enjoyable (half?)hour.
i went to a taping of the show it was pretty funny.