Promo from 2001 (not 2000 as suggested in the title, because TWL premiered on 5/2/2001).
Credit: All Australian Television
A happy birthday to Cornelia Frances who would’ve turned 79 today.
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This is something I really don’t get - how there’s so many multichannels, yet repeats of old gameshows don’t make it onto any of them. There’s a few whole channels in the US dedicated to it - surely they could fill some hours on 7two or flix with some?
Is it just no one knows who has the rights or would need to pay for the format rights to show repeats?
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7TWO regularly re-run old episodes of Million Dollar Minute and Deal or No Deal these days.
In its early life, that channel could have run old eps of The Weakest Link including those that didn’t make it to air at the time the show was abruptly axed.
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Granada owns it I think (it was through their short-lived JV with 7) but surely it’d be owned by them these days so they’d have licensing fees. Million Dollar Minute is 7 owned, Endemol owns Deal or no Deal I believe.
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I imagine it comes down to licencing rights, particularly for formats franchised from overseas.
God please don’t bring back the Weakest Link, it was bad enough the first time around! The Weakest Link makes Family Double Dare look like SBS’ Mastermind! The day Seven premiered The Weakest Link was the day Australian television dumbed down! Cornelia Frances’ insults were demeaning and cruel. Seven had to dump That 70s Show to make room for this crap!
I think you’re missing the point of the entire show. If you thought Cornelia is rude you should see how Anne Robinson tortures her contestants on the UK edition.
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LOL no, the day Australian television dumbed down was Tuesday April 24, 2001 - when the first episode of Big Brother aired on Ten! 
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But I thought people liked Big Brother 
It was also all scripted. She was acting. 
But it was a big novelty at the time but once the novelty wore off the ratings dived. Stunned that it went for so many years in the UK.
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Probably helped that Anne Robinson toned down the insults and cruelty over the years. She sometimes even laughs as a reaction to a contestant’s response/answer in the voting-off periods.
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Once, on the Aussie version, there was a contestant who wanted to vote someone off because “she took his car spot in the car park” or something among those lines. It went something like this:
Cornelia: Matthew, Tina’s performance was similar to the others. Why are you voting her off?
Matthew: Because she took my car spot earlier on.
Cornelia: Maybe for the viewers at home, but maybe not for us. Can you elaborate please?
Matthew: Yes, she took my car spot earlier on.
Cornelia: I meant about about why she has to go.
Matthew: Well we all know she’s answered some questions incorrectly.
Unfortunately, the YouTube video featuring that above vote-off reason has since been taken down.
And then there was this:
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It just became quite repetitive. The same thing over and over (albeit with different time limit) does kind of become stale in an hour.
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Similar to what we see on The Chase Australia today, albeit the time limit is still the same (60 seconds in the cash builder round) and there is no financial penalty for an incorrect answer during the cash builder round.
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Big Brother special from 2001.
Credit - bigbrotheroz
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Watching this, I noted that the words “Big Brother” were never actually uttered once by Cornelia (or anyone for that matter) during the show… legal reasons?
Most likely, as the first season of Big Brother had just concluded on Network Ten.
However, she did use words such as “locked in a house”, “big bother” and “big sister” during that special.
You may also recall in 2002, there was a crossover between The Weakest Link and The Mole in which the nine remaining contestants from the latter show were blindfolded and put on the Weakest Link set, and that their assignment was to win as much money as possible so it could go towards the kitty on The Mole. On that occasion the term “The Mole” could be used liberally as that show was shown on Seven.
Odd though, when the words “Big Brother” (and even the theme music + snippets of show footage) were used when Sale Of The Century had their special series of episodes featuring the 2001 housemates…
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