This Is Your Life… and we’re sorry about that
Dr Mumbo can only seriously endorse a reboot of This Is Your Life if the title is changed to This Is Your Life Now.
After years of lockdowns and COVID restrictions, Dr Mumbo imagines having one’s life flash before them could only be made palatable if we all simply forget from 2020 onwards.
In fact, for some, they may feel more inclined to wipe from 2016 to the present day. Let’s hope the talent is older than Fiji Water Girl or Watermelon Boy.
Yet, This Is Your Life is set to return to our screens – large and small, depending upon your disposable income and attention span – as a series of special events produced by ITV Studios Australia.
Dr Mumbo can fondly remember its original debut on Seven in 1975, hosted by the late Mike Willesee.
And This Is Your Life went on to become one of the most popular and engaging shows on TV over its six-year run on the network. Ah, yes, it was also hosted by network stalwarts Digby Wolfe and Roger Climpson.
The show also ran on the Nine Network, on and off, from 1995 to 2011.
Seven’s director of network programming, Angus Ross, said: “This Is Your Life was an iconic and incredibly successful show for many years. The time feels right for it to return. We can’t wait to bring the format into 2022, engaging both new viewers and the generations of Australians who remember the show fondly and will welcome its return.”
It’s true. And so Dr Mumbo has ideas on some fresh formats which might work:
- The
victim, sorry celebrity guest, is presented with a series of family members and friends all wearing masks and they have to pick them out of a line-up. Maybe have the mask wearers sing and give the guest a big red button to press when they can figure out who it is? - Have the guest sit in a glass booth (or glass case of emotion) with headphones on and a mask and deliver a series of ASMR recordings where the guest has to determine which COVID restriction applies that week. If successful, a state border is reopened.
- Ensure guest and all participants stand 1.5 metres apart at all times to create a world-first AR, VR, panoramic view that can be broadcast in the metaverse and sold as an NFT.
The host of the new version of This Is Your Life will be announced soon, Dr Mumbo has learned.
And Dr Mumbo has some further suggestions on this topic also.
Putting forward without further comment: Grace Tame, any Wiggle, Roy & HG, Keith Urban, Jason Momoa (long shot), Nick Kyrgios, Gladys Berejiklian, ScoMo, Melissa Doyle (unlikely), and Agro.
This Is Your Life debuts on Channel 7 and 7plus later this year.
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topics
All3Media International
Angus Ross
David Mott
ITV Studios Australia
LLC
Ralph Edwards Productions
reboot
Sabrina Duguet
Seven
Seven Network
television
This Is Your Life
TIYL 2010
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