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The Mint (Australia)
Encyclopedia
The Mint was an Australia
n phone-in quiz show based on the British program of the same name
, and broadcast on the Nine Network
in the late night time slot (post-midnight).
The show was filmed live at Nine's GTV Richmond
studios in Melbourne
. It replaced Quizmania
and was produced entirely by the Nine Network, unlike Quizmania which was produced by Fremantle Media. Like Quizmania, the program received its revenue from phone charges rather than advertisements.
Only contestants aged 18 or over were allowed to participate. Each entry cost a flat 55c charge to a premium-rate 1902 number when calling from a landline.
On 18 March 2008, it was announced that The Mint would be axed. The final episode aired on 29 March 2008.
had ended, with its UpLate late-night show a similar phone-in quiz show.
Shown on GTV-9
, TCN-9
, QTQ-9
, NTD-8
, TVT-6
and NBN, The Mint wasn't telecast live
in the Northern Territory
, with NTD-8
relaying the complete TCN-9
broadcast which includes Sydney ads and a fixed message stating the following:
Regional affiliate WIN Television
commenced broadcast of the programme on 1 October 2007, but axed it in February 2008 stating "WIN merely wants to provide entertainment to its viewers and in doing so removed The Mint."
The Mint was filmed on a large, extravagant set designed to look like the inside of a mansion. The programme was dogged by criticism that its questions were ambiguous and arbitrary.
, Natalie Garonzi
, Angela Johnson, Lyall Brooks, Lucy Holmes
and former Quizmania host Katrina Conder
. Former Hosts were Cherie Hausler
and Nathaniel Buzolic
.
Despite there being six hosts, only two were present on the show on any night; the remainder are said to be sleeping in "the Mansion
", their name for the studio set which was also used for the short-lived show Commercial Breakdown
. The host combination often consisted of one male
and one female
, performing as a double act, but has also been known to consist of two females. While there were two hosts in an episode, hosts mainly appeared on camera by themselves. The exceptions were during the start of the show, when a prize is won, and at the end of the show. Otherwise, the hosts presented from different rooms within "the mansion".
In similar style to its British equivalent, cash prizes offered on The Mint are bigger than those previously offered on Quizmania. However, prize winners are less frequent whereas Quizmania had more contestants winning prizes as low as $50.
Examples of on-screen games viewers can call-in to solve include:
This quiz, called "Code Red" by the hosts, was on the 2 August 2007 episode of The Mint. Viewers were told to find and call-in to tell the host "how many reds" are in the puzzle, with little else to explain how to solve it.
The prize money for this puzzle started at $1000, rising to $2000 within the first ten minutes then a high of $2500 within the next ten minutes, before reverting back to $1000 at 167 minutes into the show with 14 minutes left.
Despite the show lasting three hours with numerous contestants calling to offer guesses, no-one gave a correct answer and therefore no prize money was awarded at all for the entire night. At the end of the show they revealed the answer is 80. The answer of 80 can be derived by counting the number of times the word "red" appears (including across spaces and backwards - 9) and the number of characters (including punctuation) in red (71).
An obvious way for contestants to participate was to count instances of the word
, however this was not explained.
How many litres?
Beer (27 litres, in a barrel)
Stout (50 litres, in a barrel)
Pilsener (4 litres, in a jug)
Pilsener (4 litres, in a jug) [only the letters 'Pilse' and 'lit' visible]
Pale Ale (1 litre, in a can) [visible]
Pale Ale (1 litre, in a can) [visible]
Pale Ale (1 litre, in a can) [totally hidden except for lid]
Pale Ale (1 litre, in a can) [totally hidden except for lid]
Pale Ale (1 litre, in a can) [totally hidden except for lid]
Pale Ale (1 litre, in a can) [totally hidden except for lid]
After no correct answer was given by viewers, the correct answer was revealed to be 292.
Another example of the Beer Monster puzzle (including screenshot) can be viewed at http://community.livejournal.com/tv_australia/1127087.html
Other variations of this game include counting cents on price tags, and counting numbers (both words and letters)
, a short lived game show that aired on Nine in the summer of 1992.
The phone system used for The Mint is run by Be.interactive
, formerly known as Legion Interactive - the same provider used for most Australian shows with a telephone call-in or SMS
competition entry method, including Quizmania and Big Brother.
On 24 October 2007 the show started without a game to display, as the phone lines were 'down' again.
For example, section 38 under the general clause claims that the promoter nor producer is not obliged to provide methods of solution other than information provided by the presenter and any such information is released at the promoter or producer's absolute discretion.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n phone-in quiz show based on the British program of the same name
The Mint (game show)
The Mint was a live, late night, interactive quiz show with celebrity guests and live studio contestants filmed in a large extravagant set designed to look like the inside of a mansion. The programme, which was dogged by criticism that its questions were ambiguous and arbitrary, aired on ITV and...
, and broadcast on the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
in the late night time slot (post-midnight).
The show was filmed live at Nine's GTV Richmond
Richmond, Victoria
Richmond is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra...
studios in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
. It replaced Quizmania
Quizmania (Australia)
Quizmania was an Australian phone-in quiz show, based on the British program of the same name, and broadcast on the Nine Network in the late night time slot . The show was produced from Nine's Richmond studios in Melbourne. Its main Director was Rick Maslan.Quizmania was first broadcast on GTV-9,...
and was produced entirely by the Nine Network, unlike Quizmania which was produced by Fremantle Media. Like Quizmania, the program received its revenue from phone charges rather than advertisements.
Only contestants aged 18 or over were allowed to participate. Each entry cost a flat 55c charge to a premium-rate 1902 number when calling from a landline.
On 18 March 2008, it was announced that The Mint would be axed. The final episode aired on 29 March 2008.
Program history
The Mint began on 31 July 2007 after the 2007 Big Brother series on Network TenNetwork Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
had ended, with its UpLate late-night show a similar phone-in quiz show.
Shown on GTV-9
GTV-9
GTV is a commercial television station in Melbourne, Australia owned by the Nine Network. The station is currently based at a new high-tech, purpose-built studios at 717 Bourke Street, Docklands.-History:...
, TCN-9
TCN-9
TCN is the Sydney flagship television station of the Nine Network in Australia and is located at Willoughby. The licence, issued to a company named Television Corporation Ltd headed by Frank Packer, was one of the first four licences to be issued for commercial television stations in...
, QTQ-9
QTQ-9
QTQ is an Australian television station, licensed to, and serving Brisbane, Queensland. It is owned by the Nine Entertainment Co., and is part of the Nine Network. It broadcasts on VHF channel 9 and VHF channel 8 . QTQ began broadcasting on 16 August 1959, the first of the Brisbane stations to...
, NTD-8
NTD-8
NTD is an Australian television station, licensed to and serving Darwin, Palmerston and surrounds. The station is owned by the Nine Entertainment Co., and is an owned-and-operated station of the Nine Network, under the company name Territory Television Pty...
, TVT-6
TVT-6
TVT is the first provincial television station in Australia and Hobart's, and Tasmania's, first television station, delivering its first official broadcast on 23 May 1960. The callsign stood for "TeleVision Tasmania"....
and NBN, The Mint wasn't telecast live
Live television
Live television refers to a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. From the early days of television until about 1958, live television was used heavily, except for filmed shows such as I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke. Video tape did not exist until 1957...
in the Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
, with NTD-8
NTD-8
NTD is an Australian television station, licensed to and serving Darwin, Palmerston and surrounds. The station is owned by the Nine Entertainment Co., and is an owned-and-operated station of the Nine Network, under the company name Territory Television Pty...
relaying the complete TCN-9
TCN-9
TCN is the Sydney flagship television station of the Nine Network in Australia and is located at Willoughby. The licence, issued to a company named Television Corporation Ltd headed by Frank Packer, was one of the first four licences to be issued for commercial television stations in...
broadcast which includes Sydney ads and a fixed message stating the following:
Regional affiliate WIN Television
WIN Television
WIN Television is an Australian television network owned by the WIN Corporation that is based in Wollongong, New South Wales. WIN commenced transmissions on 18 March 1962 as a single Wollongong-only station, and has since expanded to 24 owned-and-operated stations with transmissions covering a...
commenced broadcast of the programme on 1 October 2007, but axed it in February 2008 stating "WIN merely wants to provide entertainment to its viewers and in doing so removed The Mint."
The Mint was filmed on a large, extravagant set designed to look like the inside of a mansion. The programme was dogged by criticism that its questions were ambiguous and arbitrary.
Hosting
The Mint was hosted by Australian Idol 2003 contestant Rob MillsRob Mills
Rob Mills is an Australian singer best known as one of the finalists from Australian Idol 2003. He was a co-host on the late-night quiz show The Mint as well as a regular singer on the game show The Singing Bee both on the Nine Network...
, Natalie Garonzi
Natalie Garonzi
Natalie Garonzi is an Australian actress, writer, comedian and TV Presenter. She worked internationally as a model for many years and then began her television career on Nickelodeon Australia where she was hugely popular on Saturday Nick Television and Sarvo...
, Angela Johnson, Lyall Brooks, Lucy Holmes
Lucy Holmes
Lucy Holmes is a British-born Australian performer, TV presenter and radio host.She has studied a degree in Music Theatre and has since worked as a professional singer, actress and presenter, recording artist and backing vocalist...
and former Quizmania host Katrina Conder
Katrina Conder
Katrina Conder is an Australian television presenter. She was a host Channel Nine's late night game show Quizmania. She made her Quizmania debut on 6 January 2007. Katrina has also appeared on 3 episodes of Blue Heelers as a nurse...
. Former Hosts were Cherie Hausler
Cherie Hausler
Cherie Hausler is a television presenter, freelance journalist, food stylist and creative director of Eat Me restaurant in Bangkok.-Television:...
and Nathaniel Buzolic
Nathaniel Buzolic
Nathaniel Buzolic is an Australian actor, who was television presenter on Channel Nine's late-night program The Mint and had a regular role on the BBC soap Out of the Blue . He was also a co-host of the educational show Weather Ed, on the The Weather Channel.Buzolic attended the Australian Theatre...
.
Despite there being six hosts, only two were present on the show on any night; the remainder are said to be sleeping in "the Mansion
Mansion
A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...
", their name for the studio set which was also used for the short-lived show Commercial Breakdown
Commercial Breakdown
Commercial Breakdown is a BBC/Celador light entertainment television programme which shows humorous television advertisements from around the world.-History:...
. The host combination often consisted of one male
Male
Male refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...
and one female
Female
Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...
, performing as a double act, but has also been known to consist of two females. While there were two hosts in an episode, hosts mainly appeared on camera by themselves. The exceptions were during the start of the show, when a prize is won, and at the end of the show. Otherwise, the hosts presented from different rooms within "the mansion".
Games
The namesake of "The Mint" comes from the large vault visible on set. The vault holds a jackpot. Those who correctly guess a three digit combination wins a share of the cash jackpot. There is a 1 in 1000 chance of guessing the code correctly. The prize money in the vault increases each Monday night, however the jackpot was known to be capped at $10,000. Only winners of selected on-screen games are eligible for a single guess at the combination.In similar style to its British equivalent, cash prizes offered on The Mint are bigger than those previously offered on Quizmania. However, prize winners are less frequent whereas Quizmania had more contestants winning prizes as low as $50.
Examples of on-screen games viewers can call-in to solve include:
Criss Cross
This game involves filling in one letter in each of four words to form a new word, in the style of a crossword. While there are multiple solutions for each puzzle, there is only one pre-selected solution that will win the contestant money.Quizzle
This game presents three sentences on screen, all of which begin with "The number of...". To win the money, the contestant must correctly add the numbers that are in the puzzle. Prize money for this puzzle varies depending on difficulty.Word Search
This game involves users trying to find one of the "hot words" in a word search. There are usually six hot words in a grid, each worth approximately $500. This is different to Quizmania in that each word found was worth $50, however much easier to identify and win.Tower Game
This game involved players guessing words that are on a tower. Each word is worth an amount of money (between $50 and $500).Code Red
| How many Reds? |
| Clown Andre donned red wigs, powdered red cheeks and chequered pants. Andre danced and juggled erratically with thirty red balloons. |
This quiz, called "Code Red" by the hosts, was on the 2 August 2007 episode of The Mint. Viewers were told to find and call-in to tell the host "how many reds" are in the puzzle, with little else to explain how to solve it.
The prize money for this puzzle started at $1000, rising to $2000 within the first ten minutes then a high of $2500 within the next ten minutes, before reverting back to $1000 at 167 minutes into the show with 14 minutes left.
Despite the show lasting three hours with numerous contestants calling to offer guesses, no-one gave a correct answer and therefore no prize money was awarded at all for the entire night. At the end of the show they revealed the answer is 80. The answer of 80 can be derived by counting the number of times the word "red" appears (including across spaces and backwards - 9) and the number of characters (including punctuation) in red (71).
How many Fives?
Another game, called "How many Fives?", consisted of a square grid puzzle on the screen, with each grid square filled with a letterE, V, I, F or the number 5 in a seemingly random fashion. Viewers were told to count "how many fives" were in the puzzle, again with little else to explain how to solve it.An obvious way for contestants to participate was to count instances of the word
F-I-V-E in adjoining squares. Contestants could also have counted the 5 numerals, and potentially even the V letters as roman numeralsRoman numerals
The numeral system of ancient Rome, or Roman numerals, uses combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet to signify values. The numbers 1 to 10 can be expressed in Roman numerals as:...
, however this was not explained.
Beer Monster
A more recent game (called Beer Monster by the hosts) involves counting the number of litres that you can see in the on-screen puzzle diagram. Several containers of beer are displayed, together with the amount of beer they can contain. Some containers are partially obscured. The following game was broadcast on the 24 October 2007 episode of The Mint, with a $4000 cash prize offered throughout the 3 hour broadcast:How many litres?
Beer (27 litres, in a barrel)
Stout (50 litres, in a barrel)
Pilsener (4 litres, in a jug)
Pilsener (4 litres, in a jug) [only the letters 'Pilse' and 'lit' visible]
Pale Ale (1 litre, in a can) [visible]
Pale Ale (1 litre, in a can) [visible]
Pale Ale (1 litre, in a can) [totally hidden except for lid]
Pale Ale (1 litre, in a can) [totally hidden except for lid]
Pale Ale (1 litre, in a can) [totally hidden except for lid]
Pale Ale (1 litre, in a can) [totally hidden except for lid]
After no correct answer was given by viewers, the correct answer was revealed to be 292.
Another example of the Beer Monster puzzle (including screenshot) can be viewed at http://community.livejournal.com/tv_australia/1127087.html
Other variations of this game include counting cents on price tags, and counting numbers (both words and letters)
Technical difficulties
On 16 August 2007 the show finished prematurely after the phone lines went down, requiring hosts Mills and Garonzi to stall the contest and fill-in for 30 minutes. As they couldn't get the phone lines back up in time, the last 30 minutes of the show's schedule was replaced by a repeat of KeynotesKeynotes
Keynotes was a game show created in Australia. According to the host's patter, the aim of the game was for "two teams of players, to try to put the right words in the right songs and see how well they can follow the bouncing ball to solve our puzzle song."...
, a short lived game show that aired on Nine in the summer of 1992.
The phone system used for The Mint is run by Be.interactive
Be.interactive
Be.interactive is an Australian telecommunications company which provides services such as SMS messaging and phone hotline management. Notably, it manages the phone system and eviction vote counting for Australian Idol and Big Brother Australia.It was founded in 1993...
, formerly known as Legion Interactive - the same provider used for most Australian shows with a telephone call-in or SMS
Short message service
Short Message Service is a text messaging service component of phone, web, or mobile communication systems, using standardized communications protocols that allow the exchange of short text messages between fixed line or mobile phone devices...
competition entry method, including Quizmania and Big Brother.
On 24 October 2007 the show started without a game to display, as the phone lines were 'down' again.
Caller Selection
Callers are selected randomly by a computer and at random times throughout the episode, including commercials. Should a caller be selected during a commercial break, the answer is taken immediately following the conclusion of the break.Terms and Conditions
As The Mint is a competition based game show it is run according to a set of terms and conditions.For example, section 38 under the general clause claims that the promoter nor producer is not obliged to provide methods of solution other than information provided by the presenter and any such information is released at the promoter or producer's absolute discretion.