Top 10 Moments of 2012: Number 1
We’ve now reached the end of the countdown. It’s the final day of 2012 and this is what you’ve voted as the top game show moment of 2012. The voting was very close across the board and, unlike last year, we had no idea what would win, but we’re happy with the results. We’re especially happy with number one. There aren’t very many game show jackpots on the scale of Millionaire‘s money chain left. However, in 2012, the final great, elusive game show jackpot went off, and that’s what you voted as the most memorable moment of 2012.
NUMBER ONE: MO FARAH BECOMES THE FIRST PERSON TO BEAT THE CUBE AND WINS £250,000
On Saturday, July 14th, future Olympic gold medal winner Mo Farah stepped into the Cube. Entering the jackpot £250,000 game with seven out of nine lives he stunned everyone by gambling his charity’s £100,000 in an attempt to be the first person ever to beat The Cube. Mo’s game was Barrier, where he must cross over three hurdles of different heights and different locations while blindfolded. On his second attempt he successfully crossed all three and took home the £250,000 and the title of the first person to beat The Cube. Host Phillip Schofield joined Mo inside The Cube, for the first time, to congratulate him.
We waited so long for someone to beat The Cube and we were as thrilled as you can imagine when it happened. Very few, if any, shows since we’ve been around has come close to The Cube in terms of excitement, fun, and suspense. All eyes were on this show to finally give away the top prize. Given the large number of people to enter and fail it goes without saying how hard it is to win. It apparently takes an Olympic gold medal winner to do it and we couldn’t be happier to see it finally happen.
We’re very happy to have executive producer Adam Adler discussing the moment with us. In a statement to BuzzerBlog, Adam said, “We’re really pleased that Mo beating the Cube won best moment of 2012. We’d started to think it would never happen in the UK, but then up stepped a true Cube champion. After recording the show he went on to win two golds at the Olympics – but after ‘The Cube’ that was probably fairly straightforward! We’re also delighted that the prize money went to such a great cause. (The Mo Farah Foundation).”
Congratulations to Mo on his big win, and thank you all for voting in the Top 10 Moments of 2012. We’ll be back next December for the Top of 2013.
A truly wonderful moment, and one I’m going to have very fond memories of, despite it being the most heavily spoiled game show win here since Judith Keppel was the first to win Millionaire. I was meeting a friend on holiday who was a big Cube fan, we both knew the result, but we had to head to his house quickly to see the episode broadcast. Actually, we missed some of it, and then decided to watch the episode in full on ITV1+1. It was the right decision, as the episode was compelling all the way through.
In an interesting postscript, Farah was actually stopped by customs officials in the US recently; he is of Somali origin, and as such was caught by terrorist profiling. At least this poll shows there are plenty of Americans who appreciate him – he is arguably our equivalent of Billy Crystal, an utterly dominant celebrity contestant who gained a whole new set of admirers as a result.
I was lucky enough to be in the audience for this (and no, I wasn’t the sod who spoiled it to the tabloids). Anyone who’s ever been to a game show recording will say it’s a bit less exciting in the studio, since there’s obviously lots of breaks which are edited out in the finished product, but it really wasn’t the case here. Even with the extended length of the game it really kept its energy start to finish, and Mo is just a brilliant guy. I’m glad this reached number one, it shows that so far The Cube can still be a very good show.