Fame Won't Change Me

Aye, crazy stuff in the SMG studios on Monday night. A behind the scenes look at the daftest show currently on the tele. Fair play to the staff, they zipped through things in a very professional manner, still, if you are turning out a lot of daft old shit, I suppose you should at least look good at doing it.
A few mysteries were explained. It now appear that’s the press guys sit in a corner called “the press box” and the special guests sit in a different bit dubbed “the executive lounge” (meaning, as far as I could see, slightly nicer chairs and more leg room). That didn’t really explain why Archie McPherson was sitting by himself in the earlier shows, as he’s worked for the Scottish press longer than practically anyone else in the country but anyway, at least a cursory effort was made to explain away one of the absurdities.

The set of course is a major source of fun.

Looking like something your Dad would make you if you asked him for a TV set for your birthday, it features a terrace for the fans/audience to stand on, despite the fact that terracing is not allowed in the SPL. A rickety and somewhat dangerous construct, both roving presenters (Jim never gets up except to see his auto-cue better) almost came a cropper on the various uneven bits and hang nails.
The other bit of the set I found amusing was the goals they have on at the start and the end. Again, no explanation as to why they are even there, I would assume for some kind of beat the goalie feature they decided to abandon when they couldn’t get insurance for old Archie.
In any case, the set seemed to account for at least a fiver of the shows total budget, freeing up that vital other fiver for the nanoseconds of actual football coverage.

Now I’ll admit I didn’t look particularly good on camera. Some people just don’t and if ever there was a time I needed my illusions shattered about any kind of front of camera career, this was it. My particular “favourite” bit of personal ugliness was when the girl next to me was being interviewed and all you could see of me was one of my particularly big flabby man tits. That plus the fact that I look as if someone has taken off my mouth and replaced it in the dark and my daft hair pretty much hammer home that the role of “Ride #1” in “Space Hunks” is unlikely to ever become a credit on my showbiz CV.
Having said that, compared to the rest of audience I did feel reasonably slim, well dressed and clean. Obviously no photo required when applying.
About the only other thing I remember apart from Tom’s glee on discovering the quality nosebag, was the fact that the studio corridor was strewn with bits of sets from other shows including items from “Wheel of Fortune”.
It’s probably as close as I’ll get to anything once used by giant handed woman frightener John Leslie, which is fine with me.
Of course, the show itself was mince with, inane “expert” comment from people who don’t even know who they are watching half the time. As Tom said in his bit, hearing from Andy Walker that Chris Boyd will probably want to keep scoring goals makes you wonder just how much money for old rope there is available out there. I can talk a lot of pish as well, where my fat cash?
The other annoying thing was that the Hearts fan who was on was not so much told what to say but what not to say “…we like the forum to be upbeat!” – He wanted to complain about Chris Robertson – why he couldn’t was beyond me. So contrived, fake comment from people they aren’t really interested in hearing from, but we knew that eh?
My biggest disappointment is that the show has unfortunately become competent to the point where it’s no longer as funny as it was. It’s dropped down from the giddy heights of the whistle contest to the kind of slightly sub mediocre Scottish TV show norm. Like “High Road” and “Weirs Way”.
Anyway, all that’s left to say is that wasn’t a frog in my throat, I was just all choked up with emotion ‘cos I was talking about the bears…