SNORTMANTEAU

A derisive response generated by the ugly blending of two or more distinct words.

Example: football + entertainment = footbotainment.

Was footbotainment invented by an Age or Channel Seven work experience kid? Some ports work, some don't, footbotainment doesn't.

Nor is footbotainment merely an ugly word, it's also an ugly genre. Extensive investigation undertaken by the AGB R&D department has revealed that for every successful footbotainment show, there are 123 rancid failures.

Richard Hinds eleborates, somewhat:

Risky business

IT SAYS something about Channel Seven's somewhat strange recent programming priorities that it plans to show the first instalment of its new "footbotainment" show The Bounce at 7.30pm on Wednesday - 70 minutes earlier than it deigns to screen the Friday night games from which it derives some of its hopefully thigh-slapping material.

For some reason, the picture at the top of the following article does not fill me with optimism. Debi Enker filters Seven's press release:

Taking a punt at the big league

CHANNEL Seven's first prime-time footy show in more than a decade kicks off on Wednesday at 7.30pm. But before the first official Bounce, the rules are being fine-tuned for its newly assembled team of television players.

Even the name of the show, The Bounce, leaves me feeling queasy; evoking, as it does, Foxtel's horrendous Before The Bounce. BTB started off with good intentions, but in the last twelve months has been reeking a similar reek to the corpse of Seven's late, but not lamented Live and Kicking.

Comments

[m0nty]

So if it starts weirdly, do we get to call it The Recalled Bounce? And if it continues to suck, we can call it The Throw Up?

[m0nty]

You know the show I really miss? Live and Sweaty. The blonde, the brunette and the bloodnut (plus the nerd). That's a combo that is sorely underutilised on TV.

[Tony]

I resent that L&S increased the profile of Karen Grandstand Tighe.

[Ron Casey & Doug Elliott]

We're nostalgic for that show from 1967 that had cheerleaders with floggers leaping about goalposts in the studio.

[m0nty]

But seriously, The Bounce needs to have a strong format, not this blancmange of different styles that the interviews hint at. The Footy Show is based on televising an old-fashioned sportsman's night which, if a little antediluvian, is still a format that sports-loving people understand and like. Before The Game is more along the lines of the format that The Panel pioneered, which is televising a dinner party. Footy Classified is like televising a pre-game radio footy show. Chucking in elements of World of Sport with Skithouse is not going to gel.

They probably should have made Catherine Ellis the host. She looks far more likable and personable than Helliar. She'll be the star if it takes off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOtvA9CQXr0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0_2vRxgrQQ

[m0nty]

Don't you be dissin' my homegirl Karen Tighe, Tony. She's the thinking sports fan's hornbag. It's just a shame she shacked up with Mitchwell.

[os]

yeah, put him in a bucket monty.

[Karen T.]

"We now cross to Simone at the log-rolling nationals."