5. We Couldn't Afford To Pay Actors Or Buy Anything
Channel 4But the shows were expensive to make as they looked like money was lavished on them like you can't believe it's not butter, right? Wrong. Along with our wages, our budget for Games World was tiny. Like, an already-small knob in a cold swimming pool tiny. Keep in mind Games World was a daily show, so getting new content in the form of gadgets and games was paramount. There's only so many times we can show Street Fighter II before the kids start reaching for the eff-off button. So we begged, borrowed and in one case stole to get stuff we could use on air. Games were supplied for free (well actually we paid a quid for each one, legalities and all that), but many other things you saw on air - like consoles or computers - we'd often just bring in from our own homes. I don't remember the exact budget of Games World show but I think it was seven grand a show, maybe a little more. A half hour programme with ratings second only to the biggest American cartoon ever made and we had the same amount of cash to spend as what a crappy used car would cost. Keep in mind that included salaries, props, contractors, travel for talent, said talent, fluffers for the director and so on. So we improvised by bringing the aforementioned stuff from home, but to also save money many of the folks who worked on the show - myself included - performed on air for free, often with excruciating terrible results. Of course, no one would see the show again once it had aired as it was never repeated, and YouTube was a twinkle in the internet's eye, so why worry? Unfortunately viewers taped the shows and indeed you can catch myself and my esteemed colleagues embarrassing ourselves for a tiny bit of fame on YouTube if you go looking. Such whores, the lot of us. We did make one person famous though; David Walliams played Leslie and other characters for Games World. That fact though is often left out of his bio - can't think why.