Yes, we asked to push the buzzer. No, it’s not that simple.
They say you should never meet your heroes, but it’s already too late. I am standing in a studio deep in the bowels of the TVNZ building, face-to-face with one of television’s most alluring stars: the Tipping Point machine.
The British quiz show, which debuted in its homeland back in 2012 as a summer replacement for The Chase, is now firmly embedded as one of the mainstays of daytime TV in New Zealand. Its visually arresting centrepiece is a snazzed-up giant version of an old-timey arcade coin machine, from which contestants attempt to coax large monetised counters every time they correctly answer a question.
Now, following in the footsteps of The Chase and other popular international game show formats, we’re making our own version. Celebrity Tipping Point NZ premieres on TVNZ 1 on Monday night, for a season that looks set to dig deeper than ever before into the big barrel of New Zealand celebrities.
The machine that stands before us today is an almost identical replica of the UK original, series producer John McDonald tells me. It was built just out the back, to the exact specifications laid out in the 100-plus-page official Tipping Point manual. A busy-looking handyman, who shrewdly pretends not to hear when McDonald calls him over for a chat, has apparently been working on it since at least January.
It is a resplendent sight to behold, even in its current state of undress. Celebrity Tipping Point NZ shares a studio with the Lotto draw, so on this Monday morning the machine is being reassembled, and for now sits disconcertingly still while crew members tinker with it. One of these crew members is dressed like some kind of cat burglar, head-to-toe black except for a pair of pristine white gloves. During the game his job is to sneak in, add up the counters that have dropped and remove them in time for the next question. First, though, he is meticulously arranging them on the two tiers that sit below the machine’s drop zones.
When the idea of this set visit was first floated, the first thing we asked was – obviously – if I’d be allowed to push the buzzer to release a counter into the Tipping Point machine. This story was going to be a first-person experiential piece about the thrill of watching my hopes and dreams thunk their way down the drop zone and the nerve-racking wait to see if it was a “slider” (good) or a “rider” (total nightmare). Would my drop trigger an avalanche of hypothetical riches, or would I come up empty-handed?
At first the publicist said of course, you can push the buzzer. But over subsequent emails the messaging was dialled back to something more resembling a maybe. Watching the precision of the counter arrangement up close, this change of temperature suddenly makes a lot of sense – for me to push the buzzer would necessitate a full reset of the machine, which would not only be a huge pain for the cat burglar but a waste of time for everybody else.
Instead, I ask McDonald if I can peek behind the machine to check it’s all legit and there’s not just a little bloke back there feeding the counters in by hand. He obliges and I am able to confirm: it’s all wires baby. He then introduces me to Daniel Faitaua, a serious newsman who has made the leap to quiz show host with ease.
Talking to Faitaua, I am fascinated to note he uses “she/her” pronouns when referring to the machine. This is a gender designation typically reserved for the inanimate objects men really love, like cars or boats. Celebrity Tipping Point NZ has been filming for a week at this stage and Faitaua seems utterly bewitched by his mechanical counterpart. He also says he’s been surprised by how emotional the episodes have been so far, though this may be more to do with the celebrities’ chosen charities than the fickle nature of the Tipping Point machine.
After the celebrities have posed in front of the machine for their promo photos, I am invited to take one too. Faitaua generously offers me the golden counter to hold, which in a mildly consolatory way is even rarer than getting to push the buzzer – no one is allowed to handle the counters without gloves, I’d been told, because the grubby fingerprint marks will show up on TV. As soon as the golden counter is handed back to the cat burglar he hurriedly begins buffering it with a microfibre cloth.
One does not simply push the Tipping Point buzzer – that’s the headline, I think as I leave the celebrities to it and return to my humdrum civilian life. My other big thought is that they really ought to make a version of the show that the rest of us can go on. They already have the machine, which took months to build. They already have the studio, at least when it’s not being used for Lotto. All the hard work has been done. It’s a no-brainer!
Come on TVNZ, let’s get this country back on track – give us a non-celebrity Tipping Point NZ.
Celebrity Tipping Point NZ starts tonight (Monday, June 1) at 7pm on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ+
