If you were ever curious to know a little bit about what goes on backstage on a game show, now you can find out a little! Back in 1995, a few of the crew members of "Ruck Zuck" were fooling around one day, on and off the set. Originally intended to be used for a party, they collected some funny moments during the shows run, and included some backstage video just for fun. At the party, a few people from the RTL2 Network, the channel that aired Ruck Zuck at the time, were present. (I'll explain a little further in a moment). I provided some snaps of that video for you to see. I'd like to personally thank Andreas Berkl, who was a technical director at Ruck Zuck, for letting me have a copy of this neat and original tape.
This is the introduction on the videotape I was given. At first, the video was meant to be played at a party, and was originally never intended for broadcast. But after members from the channel RTL2 saw the video at that party, they said that they wanted some edits done to the tape, to make it ready for air. It is very likely that this program did in fact air on RTL2 as a "Special Edition" or "Best Of" episode of the show.
Here we get to see a shot of a member of the camera crew. I think that was really a nice touch, since no one ever really gets to see the people that have one of the most important jobs on the show, since without the cameramen, you wouldn't have nothing to broadcast in the end!
Here we see a shot of the guys that get to watch the show on a large number of monitors, from every angle. (Lucky them!) ... It seems to me that they would have the most fun, telling the people which set they want to keep at a certain time to make the broadcasts look the best they possibly can. On the left, we see Andreas Berkl (technical director), who's the one that's helped me a lot with this section of SuperShow 8000, and on the right, we see Eva (the vision mixer).
Here is another angle of the above, but this time, Andreas and Eva are actually watching something on the monitors! They are in the process of dealing with and editing the introduction of the contestants at the shows start. That computer that you see in the center of the screen is an edit controller. That is the machine that they use to roll the tapes for recording & playback purposes.
Here is a very cool snap of behind the "pretty colors" where host Werner or Jochen would come out onto the stage. (I'm told that Jochen could be getting into his final makeup at this point!) It's interesting to know that the doors were actually operated by 2 human stage hands. (Because until I saw this, I had a thing going on in my head that the doors were mechanically powered, like an automatic door for say, but I guess I was proven wrong!)
Here we see a close-up view of the edit controller computer that was shown in the picture above. Not perfect to see what's on the screen, but it still is cool to see some pictures like this, because no one ever really gets the chance to see stuff like that. (Thanks Andreas for correcting me!)
Here is a direct to file screen grab of one of the Amiga computers, the ones that created all of the on-screen graphics. This screen is what is used then two words are to be chosen by the contestant. Look carefully and you will see buttons for clearing one of them off the screen when one was picked, as well as the button to put the 40 second timer on the screen.
Here is another direct to file screen grab. This is the behind the screens look at the bonus round computer. Here you will find the 4 spaces to enter the words that are picked by the contestant. Again, look closely, and you'll see the button to start the 20 second timer, as well as the place to type in the words as players gave it to the host.
