''Brendan O'Carroll's Hot Milk and Pepper'' was an

RTÉ television RTÉ Television is a department of Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), the Republic of Ireland's state controlled national broadcaster. Its first channel was Teilifís Éireann, which began broadcasting on 31 December 1961. Since the 1960s, RT ...

quiz show A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, sh ...

presented by

Brendan O'Carroll Brendan O'Carroll (born 17 September 1955) is an Irish actor, comedian, director, producer and writer. He is best known for portraying foul-mouthed matriarch Agnes Brown on stage and in the BBC and RTÉ television sitcom ''Mrs. Brown's Boys''. ...

and also starring Gerry Browne that was broadcast for two series between 1996 and 1998. The show featured two teams of four competing each week.

History

Production company A production company, production house, production studio, or a production team is a studio that creates works in the fields of performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, comics, interactive arts, video games, websites, music, and ...

Frontier Films devised ''Brendan O'Carroll's Hot Milk and Pepper'' as a comedy quiz show vehicle for

. It was devised as a replacement quiz show for '' Where in the World?'' which ended in 1996. O'Carroll claimed that the name referred to

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...

's drink request when he worked as her

butler A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some a ...

for four days in 1984 at an EU summit.

Format

''Hot Milk and Pepper'' featured two teams of four - the Pink team and the Green team. Each member of the team was linked (e.g. all four members of the team were taxi drivers from the same firm). Round One: Connections The first round featured each member of the team picking the odd-one-out from a group of three related elements (e.g. Greek Gods). The four remaining odd elements were also linked and extra points were given if a team could name the connection. Round Two: Match Up The second round featured two columns of eight. Each word in the left-hand column could match up to a related word on the right-hand column (e.g. US states and their capitals). Each contestant had to answer two questions each. If a team member got a question wrong the opposing team had a chance to steal and the question was passed over. Round Three: Risky Business In this buzzer round the teams have to guess which word could come before of after another word. As extra words are revealed to help, the points awarded diminishes. Round Four: Go For Broke The final round was for the winners of the previous three rounds. Each member could choose their own prize from the show's catalogue beforehand, but would only win the prize if the round was successfully completed. Prizes ranged from video recorders to holidays abroad. The final round featured twelve elements all linked to three different topics. There were three "red herrings". The team had to match up the different elements to the different topics and had two extra lives to do so.

Production

''Brendan O'Carroll's Hot Milk and Pepper'' was broadcast on

RTÉ One RTÉ One ( ga, RTÉ a hAon) is an Irish free-to-air flagship television channel owned and operated by Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). It is the most-popular and most-watched television channel in the country and was launched as ''Telefís � ...

on Sunday evenings from 8:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. For the second half of the second series the show moved to Friday evenings at 8:30 p.m. The show was pre-recorded before broadcast in Studio 4 in the

RTÉ Television Centre The RTÉ Television Centre is a television studio building which is owned by Ireland's national public service broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann. It is part of the RTÉ campus located at Donnybrook in South Dublin. The building houses th ...

Donnybrook Donnybrook may refer to: Places Australia * Donnybrook, Queensland, Australia * Donnybrook, Western Australia * Donnybrook, Victoria, Australia ** Donnybrook railway station, Victoria, Australia Canada * Donnybrook, Ontario, a former village in ...

Dublin 4 Dublin 4, also rendered as D4 and D04, is a historic postal district of Dublin, Ireland including Baggot Street Upper, the southernmost fringes of the Dublin Docklands, and the suburbs of Ballsbridge, Donnybrook, Irishtown, Merrion, Ringsend ...

. Following the initial two series the show was repeated in early morning and afternoon slots for the 1998–99 season.

Reception

''Hot Milk and Pepper'' received poor reviews. In 2000, O'Carroll observed that he "got it so wrong" with the game show saying that he did the show primarily because a senior RTÉ figure suggested to him that he owed RTÉ a show, considering all that they had done for him. With 45 minutes in studio needing to be cut to 25 minutes for TV, something had to go out and so O'Carroll's comedy had to be filleted out. When he saw the finished product, he "couldn't believe it." RTÉ weather presenters John Doyle, Dr. Aidan Nulty and Joan Blackburn appeared on the programme on 4 January 1998. The series went on RTE Player Christmas 2021 to celebrate 60 years of television.

References

External links

An Illustrious Game Show
{{RTÉ Entertainment Irish quiz shows RTÉ original programming