The opening notes of the iconic Bee Gees song Spicks and Specks are about to ring out across the nation, as the equally iconic music quiz show by the same name returns for a new season.
Alongside Adam Hills, Myf Warhurst, and Alan Brough, this season will see 10 mystery songs, 100 clues, and forty guests grace Australian screens as the show figures out once and for all who is the best at music trivia – while hearing some pretty wild guest stories along the way.
Mediaweek spoke to host Adam Hills ahead of the season launch on Sunday, August 7th at 7.40pm on ABC and iview.
Following the success of specials and reunion episodes, Spicks and Specks came back to screens with a full season last year. As with any show that was usually filmed in front of a live audience, capacity restrictions meant that the team were left in the studio on their own.
Even while recording with a room full of empty chairs, Hills managed to find the bright side to the lack of a studio audience.
“It was fun. It was actually really relaxed, because there was no pressure to go for the laugh at all times – but I’m a comedian. My laughter monster needs to be fed somehow, and it was getting really hungry!”
Thankfully the monster now has a steady supply of laughs with the audience back for 2022, which Hills says gives this season a “pop.”
“It genuinely felt like we were making some of the best TV we’ve ever made on Spicks and Specks. There was a real zing in the room most nights.”
However, the spectre of Covid still hung over this season, even if it doesn’t look like it from the viewers’ perspective. As well as being “some of the best TV” the team has made, Hills says this “was the hardest season we’ve ever had to make.”
“We had two writers and at least two producers go down with Covid whilst we were filming. My wife and my daughter had Covid as well. We had to shoot one episode with a different team captain because Myf was sick. We also had to cancel an episode and then shoot it later in the run. We had various musicians that would pull out because they would end up with Covid.
“Imagine the chaos at Sydney Airport at the moment – that’s what it was like behind the scenes at Spicks and Specks!
“I made a speech on the final day to everyone where I said that what impresses me – and also annoys me – is that the people at home will never know how difficult it was to make this season!”
The Secret Song
Even with all the production difficulties that covid threw towards the team, the show has managed to get off the ground and onto people’s screens.
This time around there’s a new game on the block: The Secret Song. Throughout each episode, Hills will drop clues as to what the secret song is. If the teams can name the secret song at the end, they get an extra five points.
“It was our producer who came up with the idea,” says Hills. “It was fascinating because as a writer you then sit down and go, ‘Well, I’ve got this whole new toy to play with. How do I make this one funny?’
“By the end of the episode, I reckon most people will have worked out what the secret song is, but they won’t have noticed all of the clues. When I outline the 10 or 12 different clues that I dropped, it’s almost like the end of The Usual Suspects where you go, ‘Oh my God, of course it was Keyser Söze!’”
Looking Back
The original series of Spicks and Specks made its debut in 2005. With 17 years under its belt, there have been some changes as the show has evolved – particularly with the newer guests the show has join the panel.
“Young musicians come on the show having grown up watching Spicks and Specks,” says Hills.
“Back in the day, with a game like Substitute – where you’d have to sing a well-known tune using the words of an unrelated book – you’d get musos who wouldn’t talk for the whole episode because they were so nervous about doing it. Now you get young musicians who come on, and they’re looking forward to Substitute because they used to sing it with their mates at parties.
“They’re also really at ease in front of the camera, because they’re the Instagram and TikTok generation.”
Back in 2005, the iPod Nano had just made its debut and people were still recording songs off the radio to set as ring tones on their flip phones. Hills says the advancement in technology has meant that the Spicks and Specks team have got a new set of challenges to overcome.
“Because people listen to music in a different way, not everyone has the same cultural touch points anymore. Everyone’s got Spotify or their streaming service. We’re not all listening to the same songs on the radio, we’re listening to whatever our streaming service algorithm seems to throw at us.
“There’s a wider range of music to cover, but it’s not as universally well known.”
Looking Ahead
When asked whether it would be fair to say that Spicks and Specks will be back for the foreseeable future, Hills says that the crew will be around as long as people want them to be.
“Alan, Myf, and I have always gone with the thinking of: if we’re enjoying making it and the audience is enjoying watching it, then yes, we’ll keep making it.
“We’ll wait and see how this season is received, and if people love it and they want more, then we’ll make more.
“It’s like a gig – we finished, we had a break, we’ve come back, and we’re on the reunion tour. We’ll keep playing, and if people keep asking for an encore then we’ll keep busting out another song. When they stop shouting ‘more’, then we’ll take the hint!”