Entertainment For Lively Minds
Is the sausage sandwich game the greatest radio game ever?
The high point of Danny Baker's current Saturday Morning show on Five Live is a game called "Oy, do me a favour" (or the sausage sandwich game). It's a rare example of how in the world of radio contrivance can combine with trivia to fashion a regular feature that is somehow more gripping than X Factor. It works as follows: a celebrity is put up on the phone (these are usually football figures like Jeff Stelling or Dion Dublin) and two listeners (each "representing" their team) attempt to guess how the celebrity will answer three simple "yes" or "no" questions. These are along the lines of "on Christmas Day did you have a short nap, a long nap or no nap at all?" and they always culminate in the deciding question, which is "when you have a sausage sandwich do you have brown sauce, red sauce or no sauce at all?"
The team represented by the listener who gets most right is deemed to have won the tie. A few weeks ago there was a mix-up over the result. Since then each contest has been overseen by another listener who keeps the score. This trifle has become so compelling that I had to fast-forward the podcast of the programme on my way to work this morning to see how the latest contestant got on. As is only right, it's played with immense good humour as well as great seriousness. I wonder why this radio game works while so many others don't. For a start you could tell me who was it that used to play snooker on the radio.
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Snooker on the radio..
Aahh.. that favourite of The Massive, the one-and-only Wunnerfulrayjowon's Dave Lee Travis.
That ended up as a pub trivia machine! Could the Sausage Sandwich Game end up the same way?
Quack Quack Oops!
Hope so.
Didn't the Hairy Cornflake do a darts based quiz too?
Mark and Lard used to do a good line in radio quizzes. "Fish or Fowl" was a personal favourite.
It's a great game
Danny's show is a joy throughout.
Snooker on the radio was indeed DLT's : pub against pub. It was also one of Noel Edmund's "Gotchas" where Noel had organised the two teams to be his stooges and get pretty much everything wrong. This menat the game dragged on and on and it was driving DLT demented - his rage when Noel appeared through the door to say "Gotcha!" was magnificent to behold.
And he, of course, had to get Noel back.
Just to show what great mates they are and what a wacky, fun person he is.
Which is odd because it made him look like an even more miserable, embittered, jealous and humourless old git than we already thought.
and here it is..
thanks!
Last time I looked this wasn't on youtube. I can still picture me having to stop driving the car because I was laughing so hard when this happened.
I had remembered it as the snooker one.
Gives me an excuse to post this:-
Simple, Amusing, Inclusive
The sausage sandwich game is all of these and that is its secret. You don't even have to be a football fan! I am usually driving to work on Saturday mornings when DB is on the radio and I always pull in to a car park for this part of the show.
I have just completed my first year with no TV and it's radio shows like this which will keep things that way.
Poker
The DVD box set poker game on the "boxing" day show was equally as funny, with Danny and a caller fighting over who had the bbest box sets.
Time to get him in for another word podcast I feel
Jeremy Beadle & Chris Evans
were/are also great at these type of things. I remember Beadle's show on LBC in the late 70's early 80's and he used to do this quiz thing where he would throw out a load of wonderful trivia questions and whenever someone got one right he would then put out another one.
Chris Evans on GLR had some great quizzes too. The Kids Are Alright was great.
And all of these have another thing in common - no mega prizes either. Done just for the fun.
At a slight tangent...
... one of the things I always liked about "Stars In Their Eyes" on TV was the fact that there was no prize. And I realise it's about to end, but after the first few years of "Big Brother" I wondered why they bothered with the prize, as it's clear the inmates only want to be on TV, and would probably pay Channel 4 for the privelege.
PS Haven't heard this sausage sandwich game, but will definitely download the podcast and give it a try...
Beadlebum
Beadle's 70s LBC show was some of the most inspired, funny and erudite live radio I've heard - I wasn't a huge fan of his TV persona, but he certainly was never given the credit he deserved.
As for Danny Baker, now that Adam and Joe are off indefinitely, he could be the saviour of Saturday mornings - used to be a huge fan of his BBC London prog and he's always top value (I don't even mind his revisiting of anecdotes)
Beadle
I wasn't lucky enough to hear him on the radio (from the provinces, you see), but I always loved him for the utterly wonderful Eureka! on BBC2. Now there's a show that had Reithian principles at heart and was good fun too.
Beadle's greatest achievement was, of course,
the '72 Bickershaw Festival (which was, incidentally, the 4th ever Grateful Dead gig in the UK)
The sausage sandwich game.
It's pure genius, it almost beats...
I'm still struggling to understand why I spend my Saturday
mornings watching a radio show on the TV.
The FPO asks me almost every weekend and I've not yet come up with a convincing answer other than "It's Danny Baker"
I like
the fact that Ray Parlour's appearance ended up mired in scandal. Mere minutes after claiming his best friend was his FPO on tSSG (awwww), he went on record on Sky as saying it was Tony Adams.
How can we trust such lies?
Part of the appeal is
that Brown or Red is the last contentious emotive subject it's possible to air in public without offence. It's something that most people have strong opinion on (I know there'll be some sad contrary types who claim to like "mustard" or even "nothing at all" but that sort of conchy talk lost us Suez).
Being a radio genius DB has taped into this see also his follow up quiz "Milk first or second" .
Heh...
I was going to read to the end of the thread then post that I have mustard on my sausage sarnies
(actually, where available, I'll have French's Mustard - a sort of vaguely mustard-flavoured sauce)
that French's Mustard stuff is nasty
and like all nasty food damn tasty but not at breakfast time! :)
"That sort of conchy talk lost us Suez"
Double tick.
V.G.
One for the teenagers there.
Baker is just playing
Good Day Sunshine... He's taking the mickey now - I've got a foot of snow outside.
Just been out across the fields in the Argocat - THAT'S what snow was invented for :-)
not that you need much excuse
to get the banana split mobile out though ay!
Well, it's SUPPOSED to be a working vehicle
but it's difficult to resist arsing about in it when it's snowy!
When the ground's a little slippy, it's easy to make it spin on its own axis - not quite sure *why* I do it - presumably merely because it will :-)
While we're on the subject...
... of DB's podcast, is it an edited version of the radio show or the complete radio show as broadcast? Unfortunately, because of the time difference (we're 8 hours behind the UK) I'm never going to be able to listen to the show live.
Not that I'm complaining, mind. My new Saturday morning ritual is footy on the telly (recorded because kick off was something like 4:30 AM my time, hopefully Fulham are involved) with the sound turned down, DB's podcast and a nice cup of tea.
It's slightly edited
to remove the news, weather, traffic reports and, most importantly, the music. There's not much music compared to his weekday show so you're not missing anything much.
Am I the only person that finds five live unlistenable?
It seems that every time the conversation gets interesting they have to break for news, sport, travel... I DON'T CARE! If I needed this information I would get it from somewhere. The podcasts make it listenable but nevertheless the breaks are still annoying. On a recent podcast Dan was interviewing Harry Hill or Al Murray recently (unsure who) and something happened and by the time they came back to Dan the guest had understandably upped and offed.
I'm still unsure why they split Dan's Saturday show into
two podcasts.
I can't get my itunes
to download both. It downloads the latest one (i.e. 2) and ignores part 1. Bloody annoying.
same here
I need to do it manually.
(is it still pantomime season?)
In other words…
… once a year.
(Yes, it is)
me too
in fact the controversial Ray Parlour section has never turned up for me - the other half of the 'cast is there, but not that one.
you need to
click on the title and open up the list of previous podcast and click "get" on the first part (well you do in Itunes on my pc) and it should start to download.
I think there's an iTunes preferences setting
to say "Download all episodes" or "Download the latest episode only" (or words to that effect)
I can't find it if there is
and I have looked (albeit a sort of cursory man look).
I use iTunes 4 (as it does all I need)
and it's under iTunes -> Preferences -> Podcasts
It's a drop-down list called "When new podcasts are available" and it has the following options:
Download all
Download the most recent one
Do nothing
On iTunes 9
Select Podcasts on the library section on the left. At the bottom is a button marked settings. Then you get the options Stimpy has on his version 4.
Ta Stimpy - you have helped remove on of those little annoyances that irritate.
It was Harry Hill
As a podcast listener, I am also mystified as to what happened there. The chat was going really well - and then something happened - and then Harry had gone. Danny apologised for it - but what was it?
They went to a live interview with the parents
of Meredith Kercher (?) I think and presumably Harry had to wander off to talk a cow or whatever surreal comedians do on saturday morning.
Then there's this..
Then there's this from last year's 606. Bohemian Rhapsody sung using just the surnames of footballers.
and then he did...
Slade's 'Merry Christmas Everybody' in footballers names.
On last weeks podcast he did "Good King Wenceslas" but that's not on ver 'Tube yet.
Fraid this skit
passes me by , seems fairly pointless can't see why DB finds it so good, much like his continued enjoyment of his weekday chum David Kwo(?) offically one the most annoying people on radio.
All Hail Izzy Clarke
I would imagine that riding in Danny Baker's sidecar would be a difficult job - but she is superb.
Sausage Sandwich
I'm a subscriber and big fan of the Danny Baker show. I actually managed to get be a contestant in the sausage sandwich game today at the first attempt. I was representing my 5-a-side team, Whalley Rangers and managed to beat a guy representing Charlton Athletic with a final score of 2-1. As shock defeats go, that's got to be right up there.
oh, mate
- spoilers, puh-lease. I heard the start, your intro, even the first question on my way to the little un's swimming class, but was saving the meat of the game (s w I d t?) for the 'cast - now it's ruined! Ruined! Seriously, congratulations to ya.
An apology
sorry badartdog - I'd forgotten that there's actually a fair-sized chunk of people who enjoy the tension of not knowing who won until they listen to the podcast. Blame it on my excitement.
Captains versus Doctors
I though the Captains v Doctors from pop culture poker was genius too.
I know it is a subtle retread of the various poker games he's played in the past, but his invention and lightness of touch is such a joy to behold.
Possession battleships?
The jury's still out on this one but I don't think it'll ever be as popular as the SSG.
Although in many ways
The Sausage Sandwich Game owed a debt to: