The Mint (UK game show)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''The Mint'' was a live, late night, interactive quiz show with celebrity guests and live studio contestants filmed on 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
ITV1 ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the Channel 3 public broadcast service across all of the United Kingdom except for t ...
and
ITV2 ITV2 is a British free-to-air television channel owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc. It was launched on 7 December 1998. For a number of years, it had the largest audience share after the five analogue terrestrial stations, a ...
, Sunday to Wednesday. On 26 February 2007, ITV announced that ''The Mint'' would return to screens later in 2007, however an announcement on 12 September 2007 confirmed that the show, along with similar late night phone ins, would not be returning.


Overview

''The Mint'' was produced by Ludus:ETV, and was one of the main programmes showing nightly on ITV and ITV2. One of the criticisms levelled against the programmes makers ITV, is that the presenters created an illusion that the lines were "open" for calls when in fact the programme continued to take vast numbers of calls from so-called contestants. Cash prizes on offer were usually larger than other British phone-in quizzes and the programme gave away large sums of money (usually £10,000–£30,000 for top answers depending on the bonuses they were doing at the time e.g. Top money – £10,000 but on quadruple money it would be £40,000). The programme was first shown early in the morning on Saturday 1 April 2006 (Late Friday night). It typically lasted for anything from 2 hours to 4 hours, depending on ITV scheduling. To win money viewers had to either call in at a cost of seventy five pence (previously sixty pence) from a BT landline, text the word 'MINT' to a special number or enter through the ITV website and, if selected, would be issued a freephone number and PIN valid for one entry. If they were successful they would be placed on hold then, if the computer selected them at random, they would be transferred live to ''The Mint'' mansion, where they went on to give their answer.


The Mint

The titular 'Mint' was a large vault situated at the back of the themed set and inside was a £100,000 prize. £1 was added to the £100,000 jackpot for every minute the programme was on air without finding a winner. A chance to play for the jackpot was given to winners of the standard games whenever a correct answer was given, the jackpot prize was awarded if players could guess the 4-digit code that opened ''The Mint''. This code was locked in the computer and only changed when someone had won the prize. No-one in the studio or on the production team knew the code. After a number of wrong guesses the producers would reveal the first number and later, the second, leaving viewers having to guess the remaining digits. On 12 May 2006, the last two numbers were guessed correctly and over £108,000 was won. On 20 October 2006 at about 2.15 am, ''The Mint's'' second jackpot was given away totalling just over £130,721.


The Mint Mansion

''The Mint'' Mansion was not referred to as a 'set' and the presenters played along with the fiction that they were all friends who lived in the mansion. The other presenters who were not working on a particular night were said to be "upstairs sleeping". Some of the presenters occasionally slipped up and called the mansion a set or mentioned that certain other presenter were not in that day; when this occurred they normally corrected themselves and tried to maintain the illusion. When the presenters needed to refer to the producer/director (and other people who normally reside in the gallery of such TV shows) they called them "people in the Utility Room" or the "Butlers". The camera men were referred to as 'the window cleaner' (due to them looking in on the proceedings). When celebrity guests were about to appear a doorbell sound effect was played, and when their time on the programme was up a distant car horn sound effect was played (this was supposed to be the guest's cab home). Segments were linked by canned footage of (supposedly) the mansion and its grounds with
Securicor Securicor plc was one of the United Kingdom's largest security businesses. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but merged with Group 4 Falck in 2004. History The Company was founded by Edward Shortt, a former Liberal Cabinet Minister, ...
style security guards standing outside the front door.


Games


Champagne bottle

In addition to the clock that all other phone-in game shows used to spur callers on (and get them waiting on the phone lines), The Mint also used a large animated graphic of a champagne bottle in the lower portion of the screen. This would pop (accompanied by a sound effect and relevant animation) at random moments signifying when a caller would be plucked from the lines and come through to the studio. Some of the presenters made gags about this bottle "popping its cork" and they often pretended to interact with it in a variety of ways, this was especially true of Brian Dowling.


Added incentives to play

* Bonus amount of cash for a limited time (e.g. extra £2000, sometimes the top answer increased to £15,000 and even £30,000) * Turbo Round (Back-to-back calls taking only callers names and answers. The presenters occasionally played their own game of trying to take as many calls as possible in the allotted five minutes. The record stands at 54 callers) * Chance at ''The Mint'' (Chance to guess ''The Mint's'' 4 digit combination, potentially winning over £100,000) * Added money each time a wrong answer was received (prize money on offer grows) * Double money, Triple Money, Quadruple Money, Quintuple Money or Sextuple Money * Caller got two guesses at the puzzle * Occasionally special prizes were offered instead of cash prizes, such as a brand-new Mini or a holidays.


Caller selection

When a caller was selected at random a message was played to them over the telephone that said the computer would try to connect the call through to the studio. However, not everyone got through immediately. Calls were not vetted so when the contestants got through they could, and occasionally did, say anything. Some contestants had to wait around 5 minutes (still only charged one flat rate of 75p) to be selected.


2007 British television phone-in scandal

The
2007 British television phone-in scandal A quiz channel (also known as a participation television channel) is a television Television channel, channel that focuses on phone-in quizzes. The quizzes usually focus on puzzles, such as filling in blanks, identifying subjects, or other forms ...
involved allegations against phone-in segments of television programmes and quiz channels conning viewers. On 23 April 2007, the long-running
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
programme ''
Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
'' showed a brief clip of ''The Mint'' where viewers were shown a
wordsearch A word search, word find, word seek, word sleuth or mystery word puzzle is a word game that consists of the letters of words placed in a grid, which usually has a rectangular or square shape. The objective of this puzzle is to find and mark all ...
-style 4x4 grid and asked to find the name of an animal. The grid contained many animal names, but only one would win the viewer the prize money. The grid was set up as follows: After no-one was able to find the prize winning answer, the grid was removed from the screen and the answer was revealed to be
tuna A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max length: ...
. When Panorama, who had recorded an episode of ''The Mint'', looked back at the grid, they discovered that "Tuna" was not, in fact, present within the grid as the letter "U" was absent.


Music

An excerpt from " Celebration" by
Kool & The Gang Kool & the Gang is an American R&B/soul/funk band formed in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1964 by brothers Robert "Kool" Bell and Ronald Bell, with Dennis "Dee Tee" Thomas, Robert "Spike" Mickens, Charles Smith, George Brown, and Ricky West. T ...
used to be played whenever a contestant won money. An excerpt from "
Yeh Yeh "Yeh, Yeh" (in some territories released as "Yeah, yeh, yeh") is a Latin soul tune that was written as an instrumental by Rodgers Grant and Pat Patrick, and first recorded by Mongo Santamaría on his 1963 album ''Watermelon Man!'' Lyrics were ...
" by
Georgie Fame Georgie Fame (born Clive Powell; 26 June 1943) is an English R&B and jazz musician. Fame, who had a string of 1960s hits, is still performing, often working with contemporaries such as Alan Price, Van Morrison and Bill Wyman. Fame is the on ...
used to be played whenever a contestant won money.


Extra Mint and The Mint Extra

''The Mint Extra'', originally called ''Extra Mint'', was an early evening version of ''The Mint'' shown on ITV's newly-launched ITV Play channel. ''Extra Mint'' was produced by Granada Productions & Gallowgate and presented by one presenter and gave away much smaller sums of money to winners, featuring very different games than the late-night edition. There was no Mint to be opened in this version of the show and the vault was covered up by a false wall with a painting hung on it.


Mr. and Mrs. Mint

Towards the end of November 2006, ''The Mint'' started a search for Mr. and Mrs. Mint, the presenters asked viewers to submit pictures of themselves via E-mail. On Monday 27 November presenters Beverley French and Mark Rumble unveiled the top 3 females, the night after (28 November), Beverley French and Brian Dowling unveiled the top 3 males. The 6 finalists were live in the studio on the night of the final (29 November), they were:


Female finalists

*Ria, a former child model. *Adele, self-proclaimed vegan warrior princess. *Erin, a
barmaid A bartender (also known as a barkeep, barman, barmaid, or a mixologist) is a person who formulates and serves alcoholic or soft drink beverages behind the bar, usually in a licensed establishment as well as in restaurants and nightclubs, but ...
.


Male finalists

*Adam Greeno, a railway engineer. *Patrick Cooney, a part-time
Latin American Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-eth ...
. *Jay, who had just graduated from college with an HNC in construction and was working in a
call centre A call centre ( Commonwealth spelling) or call center (American spelling; see spelling differences) is a managed capability that can be centralised or remote that is used for receiving or transmitting a large volume of enquiries by telephone. ...
.


Celebrity judges

On Wednesday 29 November 3 celebrity judges joined presenters Yiolanda Koppel, Craig Stevens and the 6 finalists in the Mint Mansion to ask the finalists questions and then cast the final vote on who should become Mr. or Mrs. Mint. *Beccy Jones, a Fitness Instructor. *
Page 3 Page 3, or Page Three, was a British newspaper convention of publishing a large image of a topless female glamour model (known as a Page 3 girl) on the third page of mainstream red-top tabloids. '' The Sun'' introduced the feature, publishing ...
model Phil Spencer. *Actor Simon Cole, who played Jeremy Peterson in British soap opera, ''
Hollyoaks ''Hollyoaks'' is a British soap opera which began airing on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995. It was created by Phil Redmond, who had previously conceived the soap opera ''Brookside (TV series), Brookside''. Since 2005, episodes have been aired on ...
''.


Result

After questioning all of the contestants the judges were sent away to make their decision. They were recalled towards the end of the programme to give their scores, each judge having to mark the contestant on a scale of 1–10, then the 3 judges scores were added together to give the final result. The winners were given £5,000 each and the runners up a bottle of champagne.


Final broadcast of the series

The final episode of the series of ''The Mint'' aired on 15 February 2007. The presenters insisted that the programme was 'taking a break' and would return later in the year. An announcement by ITV on 12 September 2007 confirmed that the programme, along with similar late night phone ins, would not be returning.


See also

*
ITV Play ITV Play was a short-lived 24/7 participation television channel in the United Kingdom owned by ITV plc. The ITV Play name continued as a strand on the main ITV Network until December 2007. It was launched as a standalone channel on Freeview ...


References


External links


ITV Play

BBC News: Treasury Reviews TV Quiz Channels 19 Apr 06

Writer, producer and director Ken Korda discusses his creation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mint (game show), The 2006 British television series debuts 2007 British television series endings 2000s British game shows English-language television shows ITV game shows Phone-in quiz shows