Richard's Online Journal
The Crystal Mess
I don’t normally stick random images and webjunk up on the site, but I’ll make an exception for this one. If you were of TV viewing age during the 90s — or alternatively were a police officer involved in some accident who woke up in 1991* — you watched The Crystal Maze, by order. Or by hiding from your parents, as the case may be. The British version of the atrocious Fort Boyard, it was great, and if you disagree, leave, Satan.
However, what made it fun wasn’t seeing contestants complete great tests of skill. No. It was seeing some of the dumbest people in the history of the world struggling with such basic concepts as ‘reading instructions’, ‘pulling levers’, or ‘walking’. The stupidity of Crystal Maze contestants was legendary, as seen in this spoof, and this all too real clip.
Darwin Awards without the death, that’s what it was.
But what I hadn’t seen was this; a compilation from behind-the-scenes, complete with producers and engineers’ commentary as the teams struggle towards failure. You may have. But I hadn’t. And since I’m in a sharing mood, I share. Thank goodness they were such gentlemen (and ladies) to the poor unfortunates in their charge.
The sound’s a bit quiet, but you can’t argue with the sentiment.
Randomly, there’s a behind the scenes diary of how the show actually worked over here, but I’d recommend not reading it. Like Knightmare — the wonderful, tacky, glorious Knightmare — it’s more fun to pretend it’s an alternate world of discovery and adventure than accept the mattress of lies and deception that all television actually is.
Except for Interceptor, of course. That one was totally convincing.
(* I’m looking forward to the fifth season of the Life on Mars epic, in which a cop from 2011 wakes up two weeks earlier in 2011, mildly confused but basically untroubled.)