Recap: Your Gen, March 28th 2012

Tonight, Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation was Gone With The Wind! It was the unofficial last episode, and the guests, set and Shaun were all dressed for the American Civil War era.

The teams were all dressed as characters from the book, mostly Scarlett O’Hara and George Wilkes; Shaun himself was Rhett Butler.  Deborah Hutton joined Amanda on the Baby Boomer team, Matt Lucas and Charlie on Gen X and Christie Whelan with Josh on team Gen Y.

When Shaun found out Christie had been nominated, but never won a Helpmann, Shaun proclaimed he never wanted a [Gold] Logie; Carl Stefanovic could have it.

Shaun and Matt shared some mutual admiration – Matt had come to be on the show solely based on his love of The Micallef Program.

First up was Cinematic Smart Alec, where a single frame from the opening credits of  movie was show. Despite Matt’s limited movie knowledge, he picked most of them. When it came to What Ya Talkin’ ‘Bout Willis?, Josh and Shaun entered an argument on if some of the sayings were actual sayings, or just rubbish taken from Urban Dictionary.

For the magic window, all the buttons were roles Michael Ward has played through the last four seasons: Dracula, Santa, Mr. Spock being attached by a woodpecker and General Mccarthur.

  • Gen Y chose Mr Spock, which was Draw That Book.
  • Gen X decided on Santa, playing Who Am I Doing? Matt did the impersonations, with Shaun “helping” and encouraging.
  • BB picked Dracula, playing Crate Expectations – a crate version of Whose Baggage Is This?

The Your Gen topic was Wind!

In the end game, Tara (the set/house from Gone with the Wind) had been destroyed, so the challenge was to find out Which Generation Is Best at… Building a Grand Staircase. The teams used parts of the set to mostly build ladders.

Matt Lucas (and therefore Gen X) won the Forbidden Medallion of Kandor, Modelled by Jacinta (Stephen Hall) sent in by Nobby Doldrums of Hove SA

The mood throughout the episode was certainly of a show which ending. Did anyone else spot the Mad As Hell sign on Shaun’s desk? 🙂

Recap: Your Gen, March 21st 2012

Rather than anything special, it was just a regular old show tonight (in Shaun’s words) with Maggie Kirkpatrick, Dave O’Neil and Ella Hooper joining the teams as guests.

First game up was Franken-Face, which just like Cannibal Celebrity Masterchef, involved parts of celebrities. Taking a leaf out of the old Spicks and Specks book was ‘Look What They’ve Done To My Album Cover’, where part of the album cover was changed. For As Quick As, the trusty toaster came out again.

The magic window buttons were all people who look like Julia Gillard: Tilda Swinton, Endora from Bewitched, David Bowie and Roy Orbison.

  • Gen X chose Tilda – playing 7 Degrees. In the end, they didn’t have to move anything, just identify the links between the actors.
  • Gen Y decided on Roy which was HG Wells’ Time Machine.
  • BB went for Endora, and the game was Name That Tune. All the tunes were solos from songs.

Eyes are the windows to the soul, and were the topic for the Your Gen round.
For end game, they decided ‘Which Generation is Best at Preparing a Horse for Dressage.’ Despite putting lipstick on her team’s horse and an un-elegant mount, Amanda (and Maggie) won the 2011 MVP Scarborough Sharks Mixed Netball trophy, donated by Simon Caruana.

TAYG Season 4 wraps up this week

Channel Ten have again decided to play with the TAYG schedule and run the final two episodes of Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation in one week – this week.

On Wednesday at 8pm, the teams are joined by Deborah Hutton, Matt Lucas and Christie Whelan for the ‘Gone With The Wind’ Special, which was originally designated as the season finale.

At 7:30pm Thursday, Ten will air what could be the final episode, with Carl Cox, Bob Franklin and Veronic Milsom all as special guests.

Recap: Your Gen, March 14th 2012


This week the pre-intro scene made a comeback, with Shaun asking who had the quickest draw in Hollywood while dressed as a doctor – obviously!

It was all about the wild west this week, with the teams, set and Shaun all dressed the part. Shaun was not sure who he was, but Yul Brynner from The Magnificent Seven was the best guess. At least we now know how Shaun looks bald!

The teams were Calamity Jane and John Wayne for the BB (Amanda and Matt Preston), The Man with No Name and Lili von Shtupp/Madeline Kahn for Gen X (Charlie and Kate Langebrook) and the Milky Bar Kid and Seth Bullock as Gen Y (Josh and Josh Earl)

First up was Howdy Partner! Every successful person had a loyal partner which the teams had to guess, but in Shaun’s case, Stuart the Meercat had quit. In Nobody’s Business, the aim was to determine the TV show from the fictional business. Toasting bread was too modern, so toasting flapjacks was used instead as a timer in ‘As Quick As’.

In the magic window, the choices were all horses from the wild west:

  • BB chose Silver, which was Quick, Draw. As the wild west didn’t have modern things like movies and books (?!), Matt drew musical artists.
  • Gen X chose Lionel, playing Liquidentify – which was a disgusting as it sounds.
  • Gen Y picked Tornado – and it was Trust Me! The ‘torture’ was Chuckwagon Pillory, and Josh Thomas was ‘lashed’ to the wheel. Every question was answered wrong, so Josh got baked-beaned, chillied and coffeed. But there was no ‘Super Flying Power Turtle’.

The Your Gen topic was Hats! Finally, the end game was ‘Which Generation Is Best At… Finding a Needle in a Haystack’. It almost looked hopeless, but Josh Thomas found one eventually, winning the 1987 Worst Score Par 3 Licolla Classic, donated by Robert Tobias.

Shaun to present at the 2012 Logies

Shaun will be one of the presenters at this year’s Australian Television awards night, the Logies. Most likely it will be presenting one or two awards, like he has in the last few years, rather than full hosting duties like in 2001.

The bad news is Shaun himself is not up for any awards, and TAYG is only up for one – Most Outstanding Light Entertainment Program.

The awards will be on April 15.

Recap: Your Gen, March 7th 2012

In a show many writers have described in the programme listing, the teams were joined by Rachel Berger (BB), Craig Lowndes (Gen X) and Katlin Stacey (Gen Y). Shaun was challenged on his lack of circumcision, so he promised a new bris segment.

First up was Ad-hoc, and even though we’re subjected to them all time, only one frame from each ad was shown and the teams had to guess them. A new game was Vita Alla Voce, identifying the voice actor from the cartoon character. Josh didn’t know who Mel Blanc was!

The teams donned their googles for As Quick As, and this time, Shaun set the toaster to raisin toast mode, so the round was even quicker!

The magic window buttons were Amanda, Charlie, Josh (actually a photo of Angela Lansbury) and Shaun (actually a photo of George Clooney).

  • BB picked Charlie, which was Who am I doing? Rachel acted out the lines for Amanda to guess.
  • Gen Y chose Amanda,  What Just Happened? The clip was from Pulp Fiction – actually it was Shaun as Christopher Walken’s character giving the watch to the younger version of Bruce Willis’s character, played by Francis Greenslade.
  • Gen X decided on Josh over Shaun, playing Who’s Your Mummy. A mummified celebrity had to be identified with yes and no questions. It was Gen Y who guessed right – Shane Jacobson.

The Your Gen topic was Soap! For the final round, was Which Generation is Best at… Origami. No team really succeeded with the large paper folding, so the Baby Boomers won due to Amanda’s thinking chimp impersonation. They won the Golden Dunlop Volley Trophy donated by Gerrard Fouvrelle and Sunny Munn.

Who does Shaun think he is?

Shaun certainly wants to know, and we’ll find out soon with the season 4 première episode of Who Do You Think You Are?

Delving into a family past he was never told much about, Shaun goes to Turkey to discover that his great-great-great-grandfather on his mother’s side had a brush with one of the most famous women of the 18th Century, Florence Nightingale.

But it’s the things he learns about his father’s family, originating from Malta, which are the most surprising and bring his relationship to his father to a new level.

In some unaired information, Shaun also found that part of his family tree ended up in Perth. He great, great, great-grandfather had seen out his last years in Perth, when the colony of WA was only 50 years old.

The episode airs Tuesday March 27th at 7:30pm on SBS.

Preview of TAYG season finale

Production has wrapped for TAYG 2012, and there’s only four episodes left to air – but the season finale is a doosy.

Matt Lucas will join the Gen X team in the last episode, which is themed “Gone with the Wind”. Matt actually changed his schedule to be on the show, despite having never seen an episode! He is, however, a big admirer of Shaun’s, ever since seeing The Micallef P(r)ogram(me).

Charlie was quoted by TV Tonight as he was thrilled to have Matt on the show and on his team. “I’ve been very lucky with quite a few familiar faces in the old Gen X seat,” he said.

Shaun’s secret acting role

A few would have noticed Shaun eating bananas at various times on recent episode of TAYG. According to TV Week, Shaun is losing a bit of weight for an upcoming, secret dramatic role for Channel Ten.

Shaun says he has “a project coming up that I can’t talk about, where the person I’m acting with is stick thin, and in my normal state I’d look too big against them.” So far he’s lost 9 kg, so watch him chisel up as the season continues.

In a separate article on TV Tonight, Shaun revealed the new drama came out of an idea from himself and Jason Stephens, and will star Kat Stewart. He won’t be writing it though, preferring to concentrate on the acting side. Shooting looks like running from late August up until the end of the year, making 2012 another busy one for Shaun.

TV Week has guessed that the secret role is linked to a telemovie about Julian Assange. What do you think?