Fox Orders Crazy New Bomb-Defusing Quiz Show, 'Boom!'
I have to give FOX credit. Not too many game shows these days have a sense of humor about themselves. But the latest game show to hit network TV is looking to do what The Million Second Quiz didn't: provide an easily digested, humorously absurd quiz show for the masses.
Boom! is an adaptation of a popular Israeli game show format, and is essentially part quiz show, part cheesy 80s action movie climax.
Each episode pits four contestants against each other in a race against time to defuse replica bombs by answering a series of trivia questions. The players will answer multiple choice questions by cutting the corresponding colored wires. Make the wrong choice, and BOOM! Getting blown to smithereens never sounded so fun.
And, much like The Million Second Quiz, Boom! is interactive. During each episode, viewers can play along from home in an online, interactive version of the game.
"Boom! is a perfect blend of family entertainment and Fox attitude," said Simon Andreae, Mike Darnell's successor as Fox Executive VP of Alternative Entertainment. "Never has a ticking clock been so ingeniously placed at the center of a game, and never has a game more inventively borrowed from the language of a thriller. It's as if Jack Bauer made brain love with Jeff Foxworthy."
(Um....yeah, not touching that one with a ten-foot pole.)
Credit: Keshet International
"We have no doubts that Boom!'s fresh take on the traditional game show will blow American audiences away with laughs and thrills, and we couldn't be happier to have secured such an esteemed broadcast partner as FOX only days after announcing our plans for the show in the U.S. market," said Alon Shtruzman, CEO of Keshet International, the company responsible for creating the original Israeli format.
"Boom! represents a continuation of original, provocative and unique content coming out of the Keshet DCP venture," added Allen Shapiro, CEO of Dick Clark Productions, which will be bringing the show to North America. "Fox is the perfect home for it."
Honestly, I believe him. I can't imagine any of the other three Big Four networks going for such a blatantly hokey premise. But I really do think this has the potential to be insanely fun, owing to its colorful premise and simple format. Plus, primetime network TV needs a good quiz show back on its schedule. Take me back to the days when every network was trying to replicate the success of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (how quickly we forget Maury Povich as host of NBC's failed reboot of Twenty One).