Not sure if this appeared in print but the Telegraph have a good little article on Quizzing HERE.
Couple of points worthy of some discussion maybe -
-Marcus Berkman is quoted here, his Brain Men book being one of the best books on quizzing out there, and he states Trivial Pursuit started the quizzing boom in the 1980's. Would people who were around at the time agree with that? I am a little young to be able to comment but I am interested to know if that is the case.
-I totally agree on the issue relating to Sky Sports vs Pub Quizzes. Thinking of myself, I definitely drink more in a 2 hour quiz than if I were watching a football game. No matter who was playing. The problem I guess getting people in for the quiz in the first place.
- Funny that the "British Gas" question is mentioned. I was asked that very question in a quiz recently and totally agree with Marcus on that one. I am finding so much lazy setting, particularly in current affairs rounds, lately.
Trivial Pursuit was a huge factor in popularising quizzes at the time, though it is simply one chapter in an ongoing story, along with the likes of Milllionaire. I pitched a history of quizzes to my agent a few years ago. This was the proposal for the chapter on TP...
ReplyDeleteSOME OF OUR SCRABBLE TILES ARE MISSING: Trivial Pursuit takes over the world
In the late 1970s in Spain a couple of Canadians were going to play Scrabble, but some of the pieces were missing, so they invented a new board game instead. It made them millionaires. Sales of the game reached around 100 million. It took quizzing into the average home, with a game board set-up familiar from Monopoly, Cluedo and Snakes and Ladders, a simple question format familiar from the sort of primary school tests a post-war generation had encountered in assessing their knowledge of geography and history and the like. The addition of questions on pop and football turned it into fun (for those odd people who didn’t think school tests were in themselves fun).
The idea for the book never came to anything. I would recommend the Berkman book and also Brainiac by Ken Jennings and the history of Mastermind.
Thanks for the recommendations! I will check them out
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