The Crystal Maze
From Frikipedia
Television
Cracking old 90's adventure game show presented by harmonica-wielding Richard O'Brien, and later by the less successful Ed Tudor Pole. Was sort of like Knightmare for grown ups.
Teams of six people were led around the maze in primary coloured jerkins. They attempted various games involving putting together big jigsaws, or jumping on stones, or whatever, to obtain the mystical crystals (which looked like the kind of tat-like jewel things you get in a Christmas cracker).
They went through four zones.
- Aztec Zone - Weird desert set and games involving egg timers and sandcastles.
- Future Zone - Crap looking "futuristic" set and games involving lasers and remote control cars.
- Medieval Zone - Odd dungeon like set and games involving bows and arrows and knots.
- Industrial Zone - Steam filled set and games involving pistons and wrenches. This was dropped after a few series when it became obvious it was just a dodgy redress of the Future Zone.
- Ocean Zone - Replaced the Industrial Zone. Set looked like The Malt Cross pub. Games involved more water and mermaids.
After trying (and mostly failing) to win crystals, the team and Richard O'Brien went Toooo the Crystallll Doooome, which was a rather imposing sounding name for a big perspex cage with a fan at the bottom. They then had a set time (based on the exchange rate of 1 crystal = 5 seconds) to grab "gold" tokens and ignore "silver" tokens as the fan blew them all over the place.
If they got 100 more gold than silver, they got a prize, usually an orienteering holiday in Somerset or something equally useless. If they failed, they got to keep one of the crappy plastic crystals as penance for their ineptitude.
Quizzie Game
A perfect idea for a quizzie game, in concept.
Sadly, the designers spent all their budget on obtaining the image rights to Richard O'Brien's face, so the games are rather derivative. i.e. Go to the Future Zone, Throw the arrows at the futuristic targets!, now to the Medieval Zone, Throw the arrows at the olde worlde targets!, onward to the Ocean Zone, Throw the arrows at the underwater targets!, etc.
Does have the payoff of the Dome at the end, which utilises the underrated quizzie tactic of "mash the screen as much as possible" as you try and gain enough Gold tokens to win 50p. Or a kayaking holiday to Cumbria.
