Chasing our version of The Chase

Hamish Mcdouall, Ida Gaskin, Judith Medlicott, Brian Mcdonnell and Derek Bolt. These names mean something to a certain generation (or two). A throwback to a time when Kiwi quiz shows were Sunday night television staples and the whole country was glued to their screens in awe at this quintet and their ilk’s general knowledge.

In the 1980s (and early-90s) when Mastermind, University Challenge and Sale Of The Century were national obsessions, they could have been our Chasers.

Each a larger-than-life personality, allied to a fierce competitiveness and vast database of trivia that would have helped them see off most challengers in the same way that Brits Paul Sinha, Mark Labbett, Shaun Wallace, Jenny Ryan and Anne Hegerty (I remain unconvinced about Darragh Ennis) do with regular ease most nights.

A Stuff project has analysed data from the nearly 1800 episodes of The Chase, which now rivals the quiz shows of past decades in popularity, where it’s watched by more than 300,000 Kiwis.

But despite 18 other countries mounting their own localised versions of the hit show, there’s never even been a whiff of Kiwi Chase, even when Wallace toured New Zealand retirement villages, Sinha entertained audiences with his stand-up and Hegerty visited Auckland for a weekend.

TVNZ seems more than happy to just keep the British version on heavy rotation, essentially using it as the lead-in to the 6pm news seven nights a week, while the Australian and a couple of US attempts (the latest cleverly using former Jeopardy! champions as The Chasers) haven’t captured local audiences’ attention in quite the same way.

Their relative failure could perhaps justify why no New Zealand broadcaster has been willing to take the plunge on The Chase NZ but, to me, the real reason is our once-thriving televisual quiz show culture has been allowed to wither and die over the past 30 years.

Sure, TVNZ made an attempt to bring back Mastermind in 2016, but tinkering with the traditional format (by adding an additional round) robbed it of some of its enduring appeal, and it then unceremoniously ditched it after a single season. Prime’s Southland-shot University Challenge reboot was more successful, even if the focus wasn’t always on the questions.

To be honest, the rot set in a lot earlier. In the early-1980s, we had almost a cradle-to-grave pathway for trivia buffs. Once you got to intermediate, you could appear on W3 with Selwyn Toogood. For high school students, there was the fierce rivalry of It’s Academic! (where you could call New Zealand’s most famous sheep intestine expert Lockwood Smith ‘‘Sir’’), which then led to University Challenge.

After that, you could showcase your individual talents on The Krypton Factor or Mastermind. For the winners, there were book and travel vouchers, a swivel chair – and fame.

It was only when Sale Of The Century debuted in 1989 that national notoriety came along with potentially a waterbed, a car and a boot-load of cash. And yes, members of my family appeared on virtually all of these, albeit with mixed success.

My father, who was a National Radio Quiz Kid in his youth, just missed out on a semifinal spot on Mastermind (hampered somewhat by his specialist subject being The History of Newspapers in New Zealand), my oldest brother chose prizes over victory on Sale, and my middle brother wended his way from Academic to Challenge to Krypton, raising Dr Smith’s ire by refusing to follow his edicts and completely ruining our washing machine by failing to get all the mud out of his tracksuit while slogging his way to fourth in his year’s Krypton Factor final.

Sadly, my attempts at quiz fame were thwarted by a succession of bizarre coincidences. My intermediate decided not to enter anyone on the final season of W3. Having been named as an

It’s Academic reserve in fourth form (losing out to the principal’s son), TVNZ then cancelled the show the following year. As for Sale, I passed its ‘‘test’’, but never got the call-up.

All I have to console myself is a sole appearance on TVNZ 2’s 2004’s Olympics-themed Grand Champion, where I got the second-highest score in all of the heats. Unfortunately, the highest score was also in the same heat.

It was by that stage though, that Three and TVNZ had clearly fallen out of love with quiz shows. They seemed more interested in programmes that potentially humiliated contestants, rather than celebrated them (something made clear by the reduction in questions per episode from 1980s-era Mastermind’s roughly 150 to short-lived Australian-import’s 1 vs. 100’s half-dozen or so).

You could be berated by Louise Wallace on

The Weakest Link, belittled by Dominic Bowden and his pint-sized companions on Are You Smarter Than a 10-Year-old? or bamboozled by Mike Hosking’s bizarre hosting style on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire NZ?

The latter was a perfect example of how the state broadcaster had lost its way when it came to quiz shows.

Bizarrely shot in Melbourne on the Australian set, it was never going to be sustainable, especially with the compere at his most smug, and so it was that a local version of the then biggest quiz show format in the world lasted only 10 episodes, before being ditched.

We can’t just blame one broadcaster though. It seems inexplicable that it took until 2010 (seven years after it debuted) for New Zealanders to be able to see the BBC’S wonderful QI (and we’re still about four years behind Britain) and that both Eggheads and Pointless can no longer be viewed on our shores (especially when half of The Chase’s jokes are about their ‘‘enmity’’ with the latter).

Some may argue that there has been an uptick, particularly in British quiz shows, on our screens in the past year or two, but most of these are more about the celebrity presenting them and the impediments placed in front of the contestant than an opportunity to showcase and celebrate general or specific knowledge.

Honestly, the less said the better about The Wheel With Michael Mcintyre, Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance and Quizness with Tom Allen.

Meanwhile, homegrown quiz show 9 Lives is far too convoluted to really compel and Whakaata Maori’s Lucky Dip is really more about the laughs than the questions.

Thank goodness then, we lovers of quiz shows at least have Prime’s weekday dose of Jeopardy! (currently showcasing the incredible, all-time records-threatening Amy Schneider) and

Whitebait Productions’ Brain Busters.

Now in its third year, it offers perhaps our best chance of fostering a new generation of Mcdoualls, Gaskins, Medlicotts, Mcdonnells and Bolts.

A hybrid of W3 and The Krypton Factor, the Christchurch-shot series allows 12- and 13-yearolds a chance to demonstrate their wide-ranging knowledge (and some physical skills) and enjoy a brief moment in the spotlight.

Having got them – and audiences – hooked, we need the networks to invest in shows that allow them to shine as they get older, rather than spending money on celebrities making fools of themselves playing charades, or singing while under a mask.