Chris plays Innuendo Bingo alone
With no guest available, Chris faced Innuendo Bingo by himself. Scott liked the solo format because every lost mouthful of water had nowhere to go except back over Chris’s own face. Viewers watched from sixth-form common rooms, classrooms and workplaces as the hashtag “Chris gets wet” began circulating alongside the live pictures.
The first clips moved through food programmes, current affairs and factual television. Paul was described as being as lovely as a particular item, Britain’s Brightest introduced one of its elaborate volcano rules, and a bank robbery prompted the question of whether somebody had acted alone. The Prime Minister appeared with his jacket off, Time Team discussed material still being attached to slag, and Bargain Hunt offered an old granola among its lots.
Chris tried to control the fountain effect by leaning back, but delayed reactions repeatedly sent water straight up his nose. Further clips concerned somebody who had attended sausage school, a wartime ditch which could no longer take the water, and a historical leader whose size apparently mattered because he had a very big one. A Dancing on Ice judge said that one contestant’s only route was through the back door, while an expert praised a great piece of horn whose rim was slightly loose.
The final question asked whether somebody normally cuddled their tulips. Scott thanked Chris for playing with himself and left him shaking off water like a wet dog. The solo game had removed the competitive element, but it also meant that every laugh was immediately punished and every clip became a direct test of how long Chris could keep a straight face.
The greatest film ever made
Chris had been trying to catch up on famous films when a friend handed him Electric Dreams. The 1984 story had not sounded promising, but he returned convinced that it was better than Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Con Air and every other contender previously identified by the show. His five-star review described a love triangle between a man, his female neighbour and a home computer.
The man, Miles, bought the computer to organise his life before discovering that it could control his appliances. When it overheated, he poured champagne over it and accidentally gave it a mind of its own. The computer then played music through an air vent while the woman next door practised her cello. She assumed that Miles was responsible, the computer became jealous, and an increasingly hostile electronic rival entered their relationship.
Chris loved the enormous computer, the big hair, the twists and the Giorgio Moroder and Phil Oakey theme song. The fact that the computer was named Edgar only improved matters. Scott accepted the recommendation, while listeners immediately reported owning the DVD or remembering the film from childhood. A 15-year-old caller had watched her father’s VHS copy on a family holiday and agreed that it was cool, even if she had been too young to understand every part of it.
The show found its next television screening on MGM HD at 3.05pm on 25 January and predicted an unexpected rise in the channel’s audience. Scott and Chris also wondered whether the story could be remade using people who appeared to have fallen in love with computerised voices, including Showbot and Lawrence.
Real or No Real
Chris played Real or No Real alone and continued to receive 10.3 points for every correct answer under the new inflation-adjusted system. The original town used for the Monopoly board was not Ashby-de-la-Zouch, although the discussion reminded Scott of a pub which still had an old Operation game bearing his face among its collection.
The average computer user really did spend more time touching a keyboard than a spouse or partner. Aprons had originally been “naprons” and adders had been “nadders”, with the initial n eventually moving to the preceding article. Silvio Berlusconi had not managed Portsmouth for three weeks in 1989, despite Scott briefly finding the combination of politics, football and four defeats plausible.
Pink’s real name was not Mavis Pinkerton. Chris knew that the singer’s actual first name appeared regularly in quizzes but could not retrieve Alecia until after making his decision. He finished with 20.6 points, while the wider lesson of the show remained that an overlooked eighties film about a jealous computer could still displace Con Air at the top of Chris Stark’s personal cinema chart.
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