Travelling game show makes stops in northern Ontario
It’s not often that a game show comes to the north, but teens around the region have been getting the chance to show off their pop culture knowledge.
New Canadian game show 'Pop Whiz' recently made stops in North Bay and Timmins, giving small-town teens aged 13 to 17 a taste of stardom and the chance to win cash.
For youth like Mathieu Robert, he normally would have been off to summer camp but with that cancelled due to the pandemic, he decided to audition for the show online.
"I was just kind of reading through the newspaper and I saw that there was a show coming to Timmins," Robert said. "I guess it was more, just, I wanted to be on TV and see what it was like."
A sentiment shared by fellow contestant Kaisha Lougheed, who felt confident after answering a series of pop culture questions on what the production crew call ‘the Dome.’
"I always liked watching game shows when I was little, so I felt like it would be fun to be on one," Lougheed said. "I think I did pretty good."
This being the first season of the travelling show, production staff said the goal is to meet young people from across the country and they wanted to start by featuring northern Ontario, as well as other small to medium-sized towns across the province.
For producer Sergio Gallinaro, the best part is watching excited and nervous teens break out of their shells and see their reactions to being on a TV show.
"We’ve got this travelling studio for one, that I call it, but inside it really does have the look and feel of a big-studio, shiny-floor game show and I think the kids are really responding to that," Gallinaro said.
With most of them likely being on TV for the first time, the show’' host, Andrew 'Gunnarolla' Gunadie, said the teens he’s met so far have been handling it surprisingly well.
"When they’re in the cube, it’s intimidating. You got lights, you got a crew," Gunadie said. "They are keeping their cool, they’re giving the best answers possible … I think they’re making friends too. A lot of them don’t actually know each other. It’s a real community spirit here."
'Pop Whiz' has three elimination rounds, eventually crowning one winner — but Gallinaro said really as long as people have fun, everyone wins.
Production officials said the show is scheduled to premier on GameTV early next year.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Canada's most wanted fugitive arrested in P.E.I. in connection with Toronto homicide
A suspect in a fatal shooting in Toronto’s east end last summer has been arrested in Charlottetown, just one week after he topped a list of Canada’s most wanted fugitives.
BREAKING Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
Concerns about plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall plexiglass barriers.
OPP officer said 'someone's going to get hurt' before wrong-way Hwy. 401 crash
As multiple Durham police cruisers were chasing a robbery suspect on the wrong side of Highway 401 Monday night, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shared his concerns, telling a dispatcher, "Someone's going to get hurt."
Poilievre unrepentant over calling Trudeau 'wacko' as his MPs say Speaker should resign
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Toddler of Phoenix first responder dies after bounce house goes airborne
A two-year-old child died after a strong gust of wind sent the bounce house he was in airborne and into a neighbouring lot in central Arizona, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office said.
Plane overshoots runway at airport in St. John's, N.L., no injuries reported
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are headed to St. John's, N.L., after a plane overshot a runway at the city's airport this afternoon.
A teen was found buried in a basement in New York. An engraved ring helped police learn her identity two decades later
For more than two decades, the unknown victim was nicknamed "Midtown Jane Doe" because she was found in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York City. But this week, investigators finally revealed her identity.