This new game show? It’s da bomb
Keshet’s ‘Boom!’ is explosive prime-time team trivia
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
Israel’s Keshet TV has unveiled a new prime-time game show that could appear somewhat unseemly for this particular region.
Called “Boom!,” it’s a trivia show in which a team of four contestants work together to defuse a series of huge black “bombs” sitting in the center of the TV studio, with four colored wires — green, red, yellow and blue — representing a different answer to the series of questions. If the contestant offers a wrong answer, and then snips the wrong wire, the bomb and studio “blow up,” spraying a foam-like material everywhere.
Worse, the team loses a quarter of the potential NIS 500,000 ($143,000) prize money.
Hosted by actor Ido Rosenblum, it’s meant to be “explosively entertaining,” according to the promo commercials. It’s “a smart trivia show that’s also a big, entertaining event with a wow factor,” said Ran Tellem, Keshet’s vice president of programming in the Hollywood Reporter.
None of the contestants are bomb sappers, either. The first set of four contestants last Thursday were an a capella group that lost its first NIS 125,000 on the second question, which offered four possible destinations for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.
When the teammate nixed Beijing, cutting the yellow wire, the bomb “blew,” spraying greenish foam all over the place.
“Don’t feel pressured,” urged Rosenblum. “And don’t cut the wrong answer. Just neutralize it.”
Easy for him to say.
Keshet International made the first sale of “Boom!” to France’s TF1 this week, prior to the start of MIPTV, the Marché International des Programmes de Télévision in Cannes, during which TV programming is bought, sold and distributed.
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