University Challenge

[ardcarp]

Does anyone have clips of the rebellious teams of the 60s (or was it 70s?) when students brought student protest to UC?

[Serial_Apologist]

Does anyone have clips of the rebellious teams of the 60s (or was it 70s?) when students brought student protest to UC?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LLR6tGRAUI

... from this longer documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7L6ICUNDjs

I was just a member of the future dictatorship of the proletariat, working in a factory...

[LMcD]

I like the way teams are beginning to see the game as a kind of over-the-top display opportunity...too solemn and no one has fun, imv.

That's OK until it turns into grandstanding, pressing the buzzer without knowing the answer, and holding a protracted committee meeting for every bonus question.

[ardcarp]

Thanks SA. Those were the days! BTW, I wish they still had the original 'popular' version of the signature tune for UC. It sounds silly and pretentious played by a string quartet...IMVHO of course....especially that feeble pizzicato D on a cello. IIRC, the original had that note swooped up to by a pedal timp, and there were tubular bells in the mix. Maybe someone can post that up too......

[Bella Kemp]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LLR6tGRAUI

... from this longer documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7L6ICUNDjs

I was just a member of the future dictatorship of the proletariat, working in a factory...

Thanks for these clips. Yes, the students were very silly but perhaps we forget how much more classist, unequal (and racist) our society was just a few decades ago - and so perhaps they made a difference by eventually effecting change.

[burning dog]

http://www.televisiontunes.com/University_Challenge_-_Original.html

Actually wasn't the original tune it seems

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oZk6DWlw8I

[ardcarp]

It's the first one of your links that I was referring to. Thanks bd. I'd forgotten that University Challenge wasn't spawned by the BBC. Does anyone know when the Beeb took it over?

[subcontrabass]

It's the first one of your links that I was referring to. Thanks bd. I'd forgotten that University Challenge wasn't spawned by the BBC. Does anyone know when the Beeb took it over?

Broadcast on ITV from 1962 to 1987 and on BBC from 1992 (but still produced by Granada TV and its successor).

On a side note I see that the weekly blog University Challenged is now back in action.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Thanks SA. Those were the days! BTW, I wish they still had the original 'popular' version of the signature tune for UC. It sounds silly and pretentious played by a string quartet...IMVHO of course....especially that feeble pizzicato D on a cello. IIRC, the original had that note swooped up to by a pedal timp, and there were tubular bells in the mix. Maybe someone can post that up too......

A first class observation which I heartily endorse. I loved that pedal timp swoop...
Another great sig tune ruined by reworking is Newsnight . The original version had wonderful brash horns now it has a twangy electric guitar.

[ardcarp]

Another great sig tune ruined by reworking is Newsnight . The original version had wonderful brash horns now it has a twangy electric guitar.

Yes, that's one of my 'things' too. A good signature piece emasculated!

[LMcD]

Was it unreasonable of me to expect the RAM team to do at least reasonably well when it came to questions about music?

[LHC]

Was it unreasonable of me to expect the RAM team to do at least reasonably well when it came to questions about music?

I thought it was rather embarrassing for the RAM. It seemed to me that there was a much higher prevalence of classical music questions in this edition, in the same way that there were more art history questions when the Courtauld Institute was on, and yet the RAM team managed to get all of the questions they answered wrong. They failed to recognise Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, thought Glenn Gould had named Vladimir Ashkenazy rather than Richard Strauss as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, and clearly knew nothing about Verdi or his operas.

[underthecountertenor]

I thought it was rather embarrassing for the RAM. It seemed to me that there was a much higher prevalence of classical music questions in this edition, in the same way that there were more art history questions when the Courtauld Institute was on, and yet the RAM team managed to get all of the questions they answered wrong. They failed to recognise Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, thought Glenn Gould had named Vladimir Ashkenazy rather than Richard Strauss as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, and clearly knew nothing about Verdi or his operas.

To be scrupulously fair to the RAM team captain, the Vladimir Ashkenazy answer was a wild stab after he buzzed in just as the 20th Century was mentioned. My guess is that, as the question was clearly about someone admired by Glenn Gould, he was going to say J S Bach, and then had to trawl around for anyone from the 20th century. Had it even been narrowed down to a composer by that point? [Edit: I've reviewed, and it hadn't] Certainly there was nothing to point to R Strauss unless you happened to know of Gould's admiration for him (which I didn't).

The failure to spot the Young Person's Guide before the St John's scientist from Poland got there was inexcusable, however, and as for thinking that Violetta Valéry could possibly be the title character in Aida - well, words fail.

[LHC]

To be scrupulously fair to the RAM team captain, the Vladimir Ashkenazy answer was a wild stab after he buzzed in just as the 20th Century was mentioned. My guess is that, as the question was clearly about someone admired by Glenn Gould, he was going to say J S Bach, and then had to trawl around for anyone from the 20th century. Had it even been narrowed down to a composer by that point? [Edit: I've reviewed, and it hadn't] Certainly there was nothing to point to R Strauss unless you happened to know of Gould's admiration for him (which I didn't).

The failure to spot the Young Person's Guide before the St John's scientist from Poland got there was inexcusable, however, and as for thinking that Violetta Valéry could possibly be the title character in Aida - well, words fail.

Or indeed, that Nabucco was based on a poem about a pirate by Lord Byron! BTW, as impressive as the Polish scientist was, I think it was the other student of Natural Sciences who got the Britten starter (and very pleased she looked too, at beating the RAM to the buzzer).

[underthecountertenor]

Or indeed, that Nabucco was based on a poem about a pirate by Lord Byron! BTW, as impressive as the Polish scientist was, I think it was the other student of Natural Sciences who got the Britten starter (and very pleased she looked too, at beating the RAM to the buzzer).

Il Corsaro is one of Verdi's more obscure operas of course, but a bit of knowledge and lateral thinking could have got them there even if they didn't know it, and Nabucco was a terrible group effort, as Paxo made clear.

You are probably right about the Britten starter - by the end it just felt to me as if the Polish team member had got pretty much everything!