Small Talk

Revision as of 22:17, 17 April 2010

Synopsis

A bit like Child's Play in that adults attempt to guess how the children would respond to questions. Cute and p'rhaps a little bit sickly. There were the inevitable funny moments when little Emily thinks the capital of France is Venezuela, or something like that.

The first series was somewhat illogical because the contestants had to make predictions about the kids without hardly knowing them. This was tweaked in later series so that a clip of the kid was shown first and then the contestant made a prediction before the answer was revealed.

Key moments

The little girl who thought that the man on top of the column in Trafalgar Square was Nelson Mandela.

The child who thought an asp was a small snake that once bit Cleo Laine.

The girl who thought a "typhoon" was something posh people used to make calls.

The things the children used to call Ronnie, such as "Mr Corset", "Mr Carpet" and "Mr Courgette".

The little Scottish boy who, after introducing himself, declared proudly, "I'm ten in England and I'm ten in Scotland - 'cos there's no time-difference!"

Trivia

The consolation prize was a Small Talk trophy "crafted by my own fair hand", according to Corbett. This was given to the first contestant to leave: the second one to do so would receive a BBC hamper. If the surviving contestant won the endgame, he/she would win a romantic weekend in a European city like Paris or Amsterdam. If the contestant failed to do so, he/she would be given a night out for two in London, with a West End theatre show, dinner and a night in a hotel all thrown in.

Rather bizarrely, the children were not always, as Corbett used to call them, 'The Notorious Nine' as such, because there were quite often two of them on one screen, ie 'Richard and Simon' and 'Stephanie and Stephanie'. One some occasions, the kids concerned were twins, which was logical enough, but why did they otherwise have to have two kids operating as one, even if they were close friends? The logic (or otherwise) of this system could certainly have been called into question on at least one occasion, whereby one of the two gave the right answer, but was persuaded to change his/her mind by the other one - it seemed highly unfair to get the contestant's hopes up, only to immediately dash them.

Some of the show's 1996 editions were screened back-to-back with a very different show, namely Mastermind and the BBC produced an amusing trailer for both shows as a result. Magnus Magnusson's voice would be heard saying, "May I have our first contender, please?" and a little boy would appear and announce, "My name's Jamie, I'm six years old and I'm a genius". Magnus would then ask, "Occupation?" and a little girl would say, "I can do a magic trick - watch!" (This 'trick' was putting a pencil on her top lip as a moustache - and the pencil duly fell off, surprise, surprise!) Finally, Magnus would ask, "And your chosen specialised subject?" and a rather serious little boy would say, "Er - I'm not sure about that question." A clever way of trailering two very contrasting shows and certainly a cut above the average BBC trailer.

Catchphrases

"And here's the star of the show... me!" - or, "And here's the man in charge...me!"

"Hello, boys and girls!" and, at the end of the show, "Bye, bye, boys and girls!"

(The children):"Hello, Mr Corbett!" and, "Bye, bye, Mr Corbett!"

"So let's meet the three contestants ready to challenge the Notorious Nine!"

"To all nine children, we asked the same simple question..."

"We hate to lose you, but lose you we must."

"So it's goodnight from me and it's goodnight from them!"

Not forgetting the most tortuous sign-off in game show history: "That's it from the big show with small people, where small words mean big rewards." (There were a number of variations on this catchphrase).

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