Spicks and Specks is an Australian music-themed comedic television quiz show in which the host, Adam Hills, asks two teams, of three people each, varying music-themed questions in different games.
The name of this television game uses a disambiguation style that does not follow WP:NCTV or WP:NCBC and needs attention. |
Team leaders are Myf Warhurst and Alan Brough. Members of each team vary from episode to episode; one per team generally comes from the world of music and the other from comedy. Scores are kept, but the prize for the winners is simply personal satisfaction. Many games are named after, or otherwise reference, well known song titles.
Spicks and Specks | |
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Presented by | Adam Hills |
Starring | |
Country of origin | Australia |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 10 |
No. of episodes | 317 |
Production | |
Running time | 27 minutes (original run) 58 minutes (new specials) 50 minutes (2021 and later) |
Original release | |
Network | ABC Television |
Release | 2 February 2005 23 November 2011 4 November 2018 – present | –
The series originally aired on what was then ABC1 at 8:30pm on Wednesday nights, with the show repeated on Thursdays on what was then ABC2 at 8pm. The previous year's season was repeated every Friday at 2:30pm on ABC1.
After the show's end in 2011, and an unsuccessful 2014 relaunch featuring new hosts, several themed specials aired beginning in 2018 with the original hosts.
The show's general style, employing a mix of music and comedy, is similar to the British show Never Mind the Buzzcocks and fellow Australian TV show RocKwiz, but the question formats and program style (Satirical vs. Family vs. Pub Quiz) are different.
Although there are no prizes for the winners, on rare occasions Hills decides to award some convenient prop for comedic effect – a "Fools' Gold" sandwich very similar (they used strawberry jam as opposed to grape jam) to that eaten by Elvis, for example.
The show takes both its name and theme music from the Bee Gees' 1966 song, Spicks and Specks. The theme music was performed and produced by The Dissociatives, a duo consisting of Silverchair singer Daniel Johns and dance musician Paul Mac, and replaced all the lyrics bar the title refrain with scat singing. In addition, Mac once appeared on the show as a panellist.
The show is hosted by stand-up comedian Adam Hills who poses questions to two three-person teams each headed by a permanent team captain, actor/comedian/author Alan Brough and radio announcer Myf Warhurst.
Games in the show include: Substitute, in which one member from each team sings three well-known tunes, substituting unrelated words from a text provided by Hills, while the other team members have to name the song; Cover Versions in which one team's member is chosen to draw pictures (in silence), initially representing an album cover and, in later episodes, song titles, while the other members attempt to name the album/song; Musician or Serial Killer, in which each team member is shown a photograph of a person and is asked to identify whether that person is a musician or a serial killer; and The Final Countdown, always the final game of each program, in which members of both teams compete to be first to attempt to answer general questions on music.
Guest team members, who varied from week to week, included some regulars: Hamish Blake, Jason Byrne, Frank Woodley, Colin Lane, Ross Noble, James Morrison, Renée Geyer, Ella Hooper, Meshel Laurie, Denise Scott, Antoinette Halloran and Dave O'Neil. With the exception of Dave O'Neil, Blake appeared more often than any other guest panellist, and his comparative lack of musical knowledge was a running gag.
In 2007 during a game called Kid's Music Special, the question "What children's song is contained in the song Down Under?" led to music publisher, Larrikin Music, taking legal action against Men at Work songwriters Colin Hay and Ron Strykert over the main flute riff. After three years of litigation, the lawsuit was settled in favour of Larrikin Music after Down Under was deemed to have used key elements of the Australian children's nursery rhyme Kookaburra.
The show returned for its seventh season on 4 May 2011. On 25 May 2011, the ABC announced the seventh season would be last, with the last program on 23 November 2011.
The ABC announced on 28 November 2012, during its 2013 program launch, that Spicks and Specks would be returning in the new year but without Hills, Warhurst, or Brough. The re-launch of the series was delayed by the broadcaster until 2014, with the first episode airing on 5 February. The new host was comedian Josh Earl with Adam Richard and Ella Hooper as team captains.
The revival was axed after 20 episodes due to low ratings, with the final six recorded episodes airing over the summer non-ratings period.
In August 2018, it was announced that the show would be brought back with Hills, Brough, and Warhurst for a reunion episode later that year. After the episode's success, four more specials, each with a different theme, were commissioned through the end of 2020.
In 2021, the ABC announced a new 10-episode series, hosted by Adam Hills and the original team leaders. Much like those specials and the 2014 series, it featured new games along with classic games, with Know Your Product, Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma, Substitute, and The Final Countdown all appearing in every episode.
The series was filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic while "stage four lockdown" was occurring, leading to some minor changes to the show's set, which was redesigned to have a curved outline, and solo buzzers instead of a single team buzzer. Physical comedy was frequently used in the rebooted series, which mostly came from Dave O'Neil, who appeared as a guitarist, a banana, a lost luggage collector, an ice cream van owner, a mobile DJ, the sole owner of Kurt Cobain's MTV Unplugged guitar, a Zoom comedian who has a puppet bat, a bootleg merchandise seller, and a "Dave-A-Roo" deliveryman.
The ABC renewed the series for a second season in 2022, this time with a live audience. The second season premiered on 7 August 2022. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the season's sixth episode was pushed back by a week.
In the majority of games, each team gets its own questions to answer – although the other team members may answer the question if the first team doesn't know it. In the remaining games, both teams can answer the questions.
Games begun in the original series included:
Many of these games have proven more popular than others. Substitute was used consistently throughout the early history of the show, appearing in almost every episode (although later was occasionally excluded in favour of Cover Versions). Other games were used only every now and then and others were used even less frequently. Some other games which proved to be popular early in the show's history have been used less or even abandoned later including Musician or Serial Killer and Bottom 100. Both were commonly used early in 2005, but rarely later. Some games were also introduced later in the series, and occasionally a game will be temporarily changed in some way (e.g. Musician Or Serial Killer was changed once to ARIA winner or Audience Member on the ARIA special episode), or only ever used in one episode (e.g. Disco v Punk.)
Spicks and Specks was first filmed in Gordon Street, Elsternwick, at Studio 31, before being moved to ABC Melbourne's new studios in Southbank.
Episode | First broadcast | Alan's team | Myf's team |
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Reunion Special | 4 November 2018 | Ricki-Lee Coulter & Frank Woodley | Briggs & Denise Scott |
AusMusic Special | 24 November 2019 | Missy Higgins & Rove McManus | Brian Mannix & Nina Oyama |
90s Special | 23 February 2020 | Tina Arena & Tom Gleeson | Kram & Anne Edmonds |
00s Special | 19 April 2020 | Ella Hooper & Joel Creasey | Nic Cester & Sarah Kendall |
2010s Special | 20 December 2020 | Kate Miller-Heidke & Luke McGregor | Vance Joy & Claire Hooper |
Episode | First Broadcast | Alan's team | Myf's Team |
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1 | 18 April 2021 | G-Flip & Frank Woodley | Linda Bull & Dilruk Jayasinha |
2 | 25 April 2021 | Christie Whelan & Nath Valvo | Scott Darlow & Danielle Walker |
3 | 2 May 2021 | Amy Taylor & Denise Scott | Stephanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe & Tom Ballard |
4 | 9 May 2021 | Alice Skye & Rhys Nicholson | Josh Teskey & Zoë Coombs Marr |
5 | 16 May 2021 | Mo'Ju & Michala Banas | Eddie Perfect & Nazeem Hussain |
6 | 23 May 2021 | Alex Lahey & Claire Hooper | Quan Yeomans & Anne Edmonds |
7 | 30 May 2021 | Kyla Matsuura-Miller & Kate McCartney | Isaiah Firebrace & Peter Helliar |
8 | 6 June 2021 | Kate Ceberano & Luke McGregor | Mitch Tambo & Kate McLennan |
9 | 13 June 2021 | Gordi & Jess Harris | Sensible J & Lloyd Langford |
10 | 20 June 2021 | Missy Higgins & Dave O'Neil | Yeo & Judith Lucy |
Episode | First Broadcast | Alan's team | Myf's team |
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1 | 7 August 2022 | Casey Donovan & Rhys Nicholson | David Novak & Bec Charlwood |
2 | 14 August 2022 | Emma Watkins & Michael Hing | Georgia Maq & Joel Creasey |
3 | 21 August 2022 | Jemma Rix & Nazeem Hussain | Tom Cardy & Danielle Walker |
4 | 28 August 2022 | Montaigne & Steph Tisdell | Zan Rowe & Luke McGregor |
5 | 4 September 2022 | Aaron Wyatt & Courtney Act | Guest team captain: Michala Banas |
6 | 18 September 2022 | Kayven Temperley & Alex Lee | Odette & Dave O'Neil |
7 | 25 September 2022 | Andrea Kellar & Reuben Kaye | Briggs & Zoë Coombs Marr |
8 | 2 October 2022 | Reuben Styles & Cal Wilson | Thando & Nath Valvo |
9 | 9 October 2022 | Dylan Alcott & Gabbi Bolt | Mama Alto & Peter Helliar |
10 | 16 October 2022 | Brooke McClymont & Sam Taunton | Timomatic & Denise Scott |
Since 2005, an annual hour-long Christmas episode, entitled "A Very Specky Christmas" on the Sunday night before Christmas. All questions are either about Christmas songs, or music from the previous year. While these episodes remain true to the standard format with three members on each team, adaptions are made to allow more guest stars to appear. Additional or notably different games have included:
As the last episode of each year, Spicks and Specks reflects back on all the highlights, lowlights and memorable guests throughout the year.
On 30 May 2007, Spicks and Specks celebrated its 100th episode. Instead of the show being divided into games, teams were asked 100 questions – one from each of the previous 99 episodes, and one new question, "What is the last question on our 100th episode?" which was correctly answered by Antoinette Halloran. Alan Brough's team was victorious although it did come down to the very last question.
This was the first episode of Spicks and Specks in which the games are not played at all. Instead, this behind-the-scenes special hosted by regular contestant Hamish Blake took a tour through the studios and dressing rooms of the ABC studios in Elsternwick and conducted interviews with show personnel.
The show was filmed at ABC Studios in Elsternwick, Victoria, which are rented by ABV-2
With ABC Studios in Ripponlea getting ready to shut down, the program's new home is now at ABC Melbourne studios in Southbank, Victoria. With the move from Ripponlea also comes a move from the ABC as the broadcast provider. It is recorded in front of a live audience of 500 people.
On 9 September 2009, Spicks and Specks celebrated its 200th episode. The show had a number of members from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra behind the hosts, who performed the show's many musical questions including the theme song Spicks and Specks by the Bee Gees. The episode also included returning guests Ella Hooper, Hamish Blake, Paul Grabowsky and Meshel Laurie. The questions covered 200 years of music from 1809 to 2009.
A one-hour special, called "The Finale", was the final episode of the original series of Spicks and Specks and went to air on 23 November 2011. There was a change to the list of guests: various guests rotated during different rounds of the show. All of the credited guest appearances on the show were Ella Hooper, Geoffrey Rush, Scott Edgar, Dave O'Neil, Rhonda Burchmore, Adam Richard, Darren Hayes, Brian Cadd, Brian Mannix, Felicity Ward, Amanda Keller, Jimeoin, Tommy Dean, Shane Bourne, Dan Sultan, Richard Gill, Antoinette Halloran, Denise Scott, Peter Helliar, Barry Morgan, Megan Washington, Damian Callinan, Hamish Blake and Andy Lee (who were in New York at the time of filming for their Hamish and Andy's Gap Year).
Special episodes have been compiled for various seasonal or arbitrary themes, including:
In each case, questions are written, and some games are changed slightly or new games invented, to suit the theme.
On 27 August 2018, it was announced that the show would return for a one-off hour-long special as part of the ABC's "Ausmusic" month. Confirmed as panellists were award-winning rapper Adam Briggs, singer/songwriter Ricki-Lee Coulter and comedians Frank Woodley and Denise Scott, plus a line-up of famous guests to lend their musical talents and knowledge.
The one-hour special aired on 4 November, with a repeat airing on ABC Comedy on 10 November. Guests included Adalita, Vika and Linda Bull, Troy Cassar-Daley, Kate Ceberano, Murray Cook, Paul Dempsey, Antoinette Halloran, Guido Hatzis, Kram, Angie Hart, Kate Miller-Heidke, Lindsay McDougall, Luke McGregor, Russell Morris, Montaigne, Pseudo Echo, Josh Pyke, Ruel, Eskimo Joe's Kav Temperley, Tripod, Cal Wilson, Ross Wilson. The show was dedicated to long time regular guest Richard Gill, who had died a week before the special went to air. It ranked #1 nationally with 1.36 million viewers.
In August 2019, it was announced that the show with the original lineup would return for a one-off special in November 2019, followed by a short three-episode reboot airing in 2020. The episodes featured original host Adam Hills and team captains Alan Brough and Myf Warhurst, with each episode focusing on a specific generation of music.
Four specials were broadcast; the Ausmusic special, the 90s special, the 2000s special and the 2010s special. Because music from the 2010s was not included in the original Spicks and Specks show, Adam Hills said it was his favourite to film.
Year | Awards | Award title | Result |
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2012 | Logie Awards | Logie Most Outstanding Light Entertainment Program | Won |
2012 | Logie Awards | Logie Most Popular Light Entertainment Program | Nominated |
2012 | Logie Awards | Silver Logie Most Popular Presenter Adam Hills | Won |
2011 | Logie Awards | Logie Most Outstanding Light Entertainment Program | Won |
2011 | Logie Awards | Silver Logie Most Popular Presenter Adam Hills | Nominated |
2010 | Logie Awards | Logie Most Popular Light Entertainment Program | Nominated |
2010 | Logie Awards | Silver Logie Most Popular Presenter Adam Hills | Nominated |
2009 | Logie Awards | Logie Most Popular Light Entertainment Program | Nominated |
2009 | Logie Awards | Silver Logie Most Popular Presenter Adam Hills | Nominated |
2008 | Logie Awards | Logie Most Popular Light Entertainment Program | Nominated |
2008 | Logie Awards | Silver Logie Most Popular Presenter Adam Hills | Nominated |
2007 | Logie Awards | Logie Most Outstanding Comedy Program | Nominated |
2007 | AACTA Awards | Best Light Entertainment Television Series | Nominated |
2006 | Logie Awards | Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding New Talent Adam Hills | Nominated |
2006 | AACTA Awards | Best Light Entertainment Television Series | Nominated |
2006 | Logie Awards | Logie Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Program | Nominated |
2005 | AACTA Awards | Best Light Entertainment Series | Nominated |
In 2008, the Spicks and Specks Board Game was released by Imagination Games. It was followed by "Up To Our Eras" in 2010, and an "Ausmusic Edition" in 2019.
In 2011 Spicks and Specks Quiz, an app for iPhones, was released. Users are given two play options, Quick Play or Quiz Challenge, with various games taken from the show. There are a number of top-up Quiz Packs to extend the game. On its initial release, the name of the app was automatically censored by Apple to 'S****s and Specks' because of the derogatory use of the word 'spick' in the US to describe a person of Hispanic heritage.
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