Stuart Heritage 

Draw Something: which apps should be turned into TV shows?

Stuart Heritage: As the Pictionary-style app is headed for television, what other games should commissioners have an eye on?
  
  

Draw Something app
Draw Something: can you picture it as a gameshow? Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian Photograph: David Levene/Guardian

You may know Draw Something as the Pictionary-style iPhone app that you downloaded, became obsessed with, grew tired of and bitterly deleted over the space of a single weekend back in March. But now Draw Something is so much more than that. Now it's on its way to becoming a TV programme.

Earlier this week it was revealed that CBS has won a bidding war to produce a pilot for a Draw Something gameshow. No details have been confirmed, but according to Variety, the series is expected to include "teams of celebrities and everyday users, [and] viewers can also play along at home for a chance to win prizes".

While it'll be interesting to see if Draw Something can become more than a mere Win, Lose or Draw clone – not to mention whether it can effectively replicate the app's never-ending, wearying oppressiveness, as contestants spend every microsecond of their precious free time joylessly scratching 70 different pictures of a giraffe or Barack Obama or a hat onto a screen again and again at the cost of their most important personal relationships – it might just be the tip of the iceberg. If Draw Something is a success, the app spinoff might look increasing attractive to TV companies.

So there's only one thing to do: get in on the act. Television commissioners must be straining at the leash for pitches based on phone apps, so here are a few for them to chew over. If anyone needs me, I'll be buying a mansion on hire purchase.

Angry Birds

Already Angry Birds, perhaps the best-known phone app of all time, has moved from app to animation, with 52 weekly short animations to be released later this year, and a feature film on the way. Which is all very well, but what about a TV entertainment show? Picture the scene: Joe Swash, Dean Gaffney and someone out of Hollyoaks all dressed up as birds, being fired from giant catapults into the side of several buildings. It'd be just like The Golden Shot, but with an exponentially higher insurance premium.

Temple Run

In Temple Run, you control a man as he recreates the boulder scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark by sprinting through a never-ending obstacle-littered ruin, chased by a pack of furious monsters. So it goes without saying that the Temple Run TV show should be exactly this. Part Total Wipeout, part Crystal Maze, we'd pick a member of the public to pelt through a real-life recreation of the Temple Run course. Forever. The show only ends once the contestant, broken and exhausted, relents and is eaten by the monsters in a harrowing bloodthirsty orgy of violence. Richard Hammond to commentate.

Song Pop

Song Pop is a simple Name That Tune-style app, where users compete with each other to guess the name and performer of a song based on a short snippet. This obviously has tons of potential for television. We could introduce a karaoke element to it, to see if contestants can remember the words. And we could get Shane Richie to host it. And it could be on Sky2 all the bloody time. Oh, no, hang on, I've just invented Don't Forget the Lyrics, haven't I? Sorry, disregard.

Fruit Ninja

David Cameron karate-chops hundreds of watermelons into pieces over and over and over for half an hour. Then he pulls a funny face and the end credits roll. This, I believe, will be the all-time pinnacle of the televised app spinoff genre.

So that's how I will make my fortune, but what about you? Which apps would you like to see turned into TV shows? Leave your thoughts below.

 

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