Mesmerized
Contents |
Host
Tom O'Connor (1993)
Danny Wallace (2008)
Broadcast
Chameleon TV / Yorkshire Television, 1993 (non-broadcast pilot)
Celador, 2008 (non-broadcast pilot)
Synopsis
This is either an "interesting before-its-time idea" or "a strange one" depending on your point of view.
Basically, it's one of those wacky hypnosis shows where people are made to act strangely, only in this one they've then been thrust into a quiz show. The contestants answer the questions wrongly, think they're naked, speak in strange ways, act like children and so on.
At the end of the show, one contestant wins a brand new car. The twist was, of course, that it's really a cardboard box which they're convinced is a car.
Why an old stager like Tom O'Connor was involved is a bit of a mystery, but the concept was quite a funny one and the basic idea turned up several times - there was a contestant call in 1996 for a version involving teams of four (though again, nothing made it to air), and Celador produced another pilot in 2008. It took until 2015 for a similar concept to finally make it onto our screens in the form of You're Back in the Room.
Merchandise
When the show failed to be commissioned, the creators adapted it into a board game instead. Obviously there was no actual hypnosis involved, but players got "Suggestion" cards which were basically forfeits to be performed when "triggered" by a specific thing happening in the game. It's not made anymore, but it sold pretty well and second-hand copies can be found quite easily. From those beginnings, they went on to found the Rocket Toys And Games company, which flourishes to this day. For a while one of its major revenue streams was The Annoying Thing (i.e. Crazy Frog) jigsaw puzzles. More recently it's published the tie-in games for Would I Lie to You? and Tenable.
Inventors
Graham Thornton and Rick Vanes. Vanes, incidentally, was the original script editor for Countdown, writing the first five years' worth of Richard Whiteley's cheesy puns.
