Scrapheap Challenge..... Dead! (well sort of)

[Nobody You Know]

In it's proper format anyway.

Have just ben hunting around online and have found out that one of my favourite TV shows ever has had it's budget slashed and there will be no proper 'heap' based show for 2009.

Instead series 11 will be one of the fairly lame road shows were people build stuff at home and then compete at steam rally's and other events. Apparrently Robert Llewellyn saw this coming and left the show, Dick Strawbridge is now the presenter.

I'm actually quite sad about this. I have really enjoyed Scrapheap over the last 10 years and the format works well and is very entertaining, the roadshows have always been a pale subtitute. I have known 3 people who have been on it (1 judge, 1 expert and 1 contestant) and they have said it was one of the best things they have done.

The team tems on the heap format was great, lots of banter, mishaps, and failed test leading to either complete failure on test day or some incredibly close races like the Motorbike made from no motorbike parts in the last series.

And before anyone criticises just like the Stigs identity we all know the experts send a 'wishlist' of parts they think the team will need which are then scattered about the heap in various working or broken form.

Anyways thought I would share my thoughts and start a bit of a tribute thread to the show that has given us moments like:

The Barley Pickers awesome exploding Trebushae, skip to 6:20min for the biggest failure ever.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-fE5ZE4Pj5w

The Plane on the Yank version. Brits doing it best, skip to 4:00 mins for the best Scrapheap vehicle.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LIhRVAp1Qy4&feat...

I hope the new series will be better than I am expecting but we'll see in May.

Anyway post favourite moments, thoughts and cool clips.

[Hedders]

A show about people making things from scrap is too expensive to produce?

Something is wrong there, how much are they paying for all the scrap?? :P

[SamHH]

I thought it was quite a popular show; had the rating been worsening recently then?

[Nobody You Know]

SamHH said:

I thought it was quite a popular show; had the rating been worsening recently then?

Apparently it was still C4's most popular show on a Sunday? Maybe they found out Scrap was at £150 per ton last summer and flogged the heap to China.

Don't really know what the reasons are but as usual anything that isn't a cack reality show or about MMGW falls by the wayside first.

[MrsMiggins]

I loved that flying challenge. Building a plane with 100 year old materials and equipment.

[R360]

Im watching it now on More 4, its the car curlin episode. Will be a shame to see it go its a great program

[Nickyboy]

Hedders said:

A show about people making things from scrap is too expensive to produce?

Something is wrong there, how much are they paying for all the scrap?? :P

Thats just it, they dont make it form scrap as such. All the parts needed are bought in and hidden in the scrap yard

[glazbagun]

MrsMiggins said:

I loved that flying challenge. Building a plane with 100 year old materials and equipment.

And that the Brits were the only ones making a completely untried design, that wasnt expected (at least by me) to do anything like as well as the other, tried & tested, historical designs... ...and it blew them all away. Great show!

[Hedders]

Nickyboy said:

Hedders said:

A show about people making things from scrap is too expensive to produce?

Something is wrong there, how much are they paying for all the scrap?? :P

Thats just it, they dont make it form scrap as such. All the parts needed are bought in and hidden in the scrap yard

Ok, 'recycled' stuff then, not scrap as such

[GreenV8S]

It is (was) a great show and I will be sad to see it go, but I was a bit surprised that they managed to get it past the 'health and safety' police.

[robminiman]

i liked the road/rally type one with the barly pickers big yellow tractor, infact i like all of them scrap heap is the best

[cazzer]

Gone the same way as Rough Science by the looks of it...my other fave.

[Talksteer]

Nickyboy said:

Hedders said:

A show about people making things from scrap is too expensive to produce?

Something is wrong there, how much are they paying for all the scrap?? :P

Thats just it, they dont make it form scrap as such. All the parts needed are bought in and hidden in the scrap yard

They need two all day location shoots with multiple cameras including boom cameras per episode. You'll probably find that as they do a morning to sundown build process you need two shifts worth of camera and sound people as well.

Of course because you have 5 cameras rolling for 16 hours or so you then generate loads of hours of film that needs to be cut into an interesting show, plus all their various animations and voice overs so they have an expensive post production as well. Then you add in hiring locations to do the challenges, all the various insurances and health and safety and I suspect it adds up to a relatively expensive show.

Compare this to most game shows that are shot in a studio with three cameras they are edited on the fly, and they can make 3-5 episodes a day with the same audience and host. You can see that scrap heap challenge is likely to be pretty much the most expensive game show on TV so if they can get similar audiences with a studio game show they are likely to go with it.

Still a shame they are canning it.

We don't realise it yet but we are probably in some kind of golden age of TV. An enormous amount of TV with film like budgets and attention to detail is being made at the moment, but I don't see how in the future with TV advertising being worth far less and more TV being delivered via the internet how anyone is going to get the budget together to produce something like that any more.

[Hedders]

Is it possible that they don't want the next generation to know how to build dangerous bits of kit out of spare parts? It would be far more useful for them to know all about the lives of a dozen homosexuals in a fake house on TV.

[oobster]

Nobody You Know said:

Robert Llewellyn

Now there is a guy I wouldn't tire of punching in the face.

[Morningside]

cazzer said:

Gone the same way as Rough Science by the looks of it...my other fave.

Nooooooooooo. I love(d) Scrap Heap Challenge. Another one that died out was Salvage Squad.


Rough Science was/is another good one. Just a shame all science based stuff has been thrown to one side in pursuit of singing and dancing crap. TV reflecting the dead brains of the real world?

Unless you class the stuff on Sky. But to be honest I am getting fed up of the high-fives every time the 'dudes' do something awesome or the annoying heavy metal / grunge music that seems to overtake the commentary.

All I can say is "Proper Job"

Edited by Morningside on Sunday 1st February 15:25

[s3fella]

Some friends of mine were asked to do the new series and build a car that played golf or something for this new fomrat. They did it in August 08 at their workshops then it was meant to be shipped to some golf course up north for the challenge. The prducers messed up and never passed the date for the filming to them until 3 days before and it was a Bank Holiday. So to get the thing transported, short notice, best price they could get was £500, there and back........producers said it was too expensive, so after all the effort they put in building it, they could not take part in the chalenge!!
A few weeks after the challenge was filmed, they crew came to their workshops, and did some filming of it in a local field which they were going to splice into the challenge film to make it look like they DID take part! I told my mate he should have told them to fxck right off! ! !

Shambles!!

Edited by s3fella on Sunday 1st February 15:26

[matmoxon]

Thats a real shame, I was actually thinking of putting a team in for 2010 (mate who is a great welder finishes Uni then) bah.

Maybe if they stopped making that total tripe that is big brother they would have a bigger budget.

Matt