Our Dark Secret!

Hey Hot Sitters,

We've been reviewed in the local paper. I'd flick you the link, but the article only made it into the print version. So being the caring and generous guy that I am I've typed it out for you below. This is really all down to you and your support so let me say a big thank you to you all!

There is a little pub in inner-city Melbourne that harbours a dark secret. 

Every Wednesday at nine pm a hundred or so of the city’s funkiest types meet clandestinely to play a cut down version of Millionaire Hot Seat, called In The Hot Seat. The black leather jacket clan, backpackers, even some suited-types, meet and mingle, unashamedly, to play this most low brow of games. Why? What’s the appeal? Is it some anti-casino protest, or is it something even more sinister? Tonight I take up my social analyst’s pen and attempt to work out why this glitzy game show is so popular with this crowd. It doesn’t make sense.

Our host for the evening, Uncle Bill takes the stage. Amidst a flurry of funky game show tunes he gives the audience a brief lesson in Hot Seat etiquette, demanding that they kindly not refrain from yelling the answers out, especially during the phone a fool segment, that they boo all winners and that the judge’s decision is final and that no correspondence will be entered into even if the answer is patently and obviously incorrect. This is by no means necessary, they all seem to know it already - it’s more of a pep talk, a part of the ritual.

The atmosphere is reminiscent of that before a gig by a favourite band. There is no self consciousness, no hint of embarrassment, even though this is a game that our mum’s watch while they’re making the tea. A game that we suffer through on the odd occasion we find ourselves at their place in the afternoon. Yet there is no sense of that. Why not?

Perhaps because it’s a great laugh and like much Australian humour it takes a cultural icon (if you will allow me to treat The Seat as such) and turns it on its head. They’ve turned it into an audience participation sport. They make up the questions, the answers, the rules, and they decide how seriously they’ll take them. Nobody pays to play and nobody wins anything of any great value. Big Bill is a socialist game show warrior at the cutting edge of twenty first century gaming. Check it out at: hotseat2000@.blogspot.com.au