Friday Night Games (partially lost Australian spin-off of "Big Brother"; 2006)

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The show's title screen.

Status: Partially Lost

Friday Night Games was a 2006 Australian game show that was created as a spin-off to the 2005 special show Big Brother: Friday Night Live which in itself, was a weekly live-to-air game show featured as part of the TV show: 'Big Brother Australia'. This show, however, was pre-recorded and shot on location in Dreamworld's Games Arena at Dreamworld studios in Coomera, Queensland. [1]

The 'games arena' that was purpose built for the show and that years upcoming big brother season.
The 'games arena' that was purpose built for the show and that years upcoming big brother season.

Premise

The general premise of Friday Night Games was celebrities in teams of 3 competing in ridiculous and wacky games to win three shows (the heat, the preliminary final, and the grand final) and donate 50,000 to charity. Every week to make teams 4 players, the show would include a 'celeb to be'. This was a member of the public who would be decided from hundreds of applicants whittled down to a handful of contestants competing in two challenges explained on the show each week.

The former production location: "Dreamworld Studios" where friday night games was filmed.
The former production location: 'Dreamworld Studios' where friday night games was filmed.

[2] The first challenge (which was recorded before the show's actual taping) had challenges which included holding onto a balloon whilst riding "Wipeout", holding a piece of paper above their head whilst riding on the Tower of Terror, a roller coaster at Dreamworld, without ripping it or trying to make origami whilst riding on the Giant Drop, another thrill ride at Dreamworld.

The next challenge featured contestants playing shorter formatted various mini-games during each episode recording the female and male winners of each game and then being added to the teams of celebrities.

Search

The first episode to be found was the "Athletes vs Academics" episode which was found on a game show trading website in late 2011 as a complete episode with its aired commercials when it aired. It wouldn't be until 2018 that the search would be resumed as a webpage was discovered with more episodes listed by yet another game show collector. The gameshow collection of 'cjpowney' contained episodes 1-4 of the series. However, these were not posted online to any kind of file-sharing website and despite attempts to contact this lead, he did not reply to messages.

In 2019, a lost media video was made by Sam Davis to bring awareness to the show and its search. In a comment left by a user: "S. Blake" he claimed:

"I was in the first episode as the celeb to be selected in the Big Brother team. I have a full copy of the whole episode. I have also been searching for them all online. I will upload it to the tube".

The person who left this comment never replied to replies of his comment nor did he upload the episode. However, strong belief was later gained that he was in fact a contestant in this episode, as years later in 2023, he was once again contacted via linkedin. A profile that matched the same name was messaged by Sam Davis who asked if he was the same S. Blake that once appeared on the show, he replied:

I am actually. Why do you ask?

Sam then told Blake that he recalled his comment and was intrigued with it, as he wondered for years about the authenticity of it. Blake replied with:

I do have an electronic copy of it. It was the first episode which was the barbecue theme. It was big brother Vs AUS idols

Davis then asked if it were a possibility if he could fulfill his original ambition and post the episode to YouTube. However, blake never responded. Despite davis sending two more follow up messages (with each one being more accomodating in an attempt to organise the upload) blake read his messages but never replied.

Through the years between 2020 and 2023, many listed people from the show's end credits were contacted. Most didn't respond to messages sent to them, some people did respond but claimed they had no clue how to locate the episodes. All of the show's production companies were contacted but each of them suggested contacting one another to try and find the show.

Two promos for episodes of Friday Night Games have also been found over the years. One of which (a promo for episode 6) was found on a VHS tape by YouTuber, Sam Davis, when going through the commercials of a miscellaneous recording. The other promo was found by YouTuber, MediaTreasureTrove, and included two alterations of promos for the same episode (episode 9) playing during commercial breaks on the morning of April 14th, 2006.

In early 2021, the show's main host, Mike Goldman, was contacted about the show and claimed he was "almost sure" he had the entire series on VHS tapes at his home. He sent a parcel of all his shows to YouTuber, Sam Davis. When Davis opened the parcel, many of Goldman's shows were in there but contained no episodes of Friday Night Games. When Davis asked again to Goldman where the show was, Goldman simply stated that everything he still had from his hosting days was in that parcel and that he "must not have ever been given that show". This was the first of two dead ends in the search.

The second lead in the search for Friday Night Games was an email sent from the aforementioned 'cjpowney'. 'cjpowney' detailed in an email that he had sent to Sam Davis that he had seen Davis' lost media special about the show (the first one) and went on to say:

"And as I was watching I thought to myself, I have some of those "missing episodes".

These episodes are listed as archived, however, the private collector has withheld all of them.
These episodes are listed as archived, however, the private collector has withheld all of them. "ws" means the episode is in widescreen digital. These are the only widescreen digital episodes of the show that are 100% confirmed to still exist

He finished the email by recognizing that Davis attempted to contact him back in 2018 with his original email about the listed Friday Night Games episodes and ended the email saying:

"I would be happy to talk game shows and you might just have some items of interest for me also".

Despite a quick response from Davis, 'cjpowney' never replied. Davis has attempted to reach him on other forms of social media believing emails were not something he checked regularly. However, it just so turned out that 'cjpowney' never checked any social media messages. Since early April 2023, 'cjpowney' has not replied to Davis' reply to his email and he has only read/seen just one of Davis' many other attempts to reach him online.

The third, most vital lead in the search for the show was discovered in late July 2023. After most of the show's grand final episode was randomly found to have been sitting on YouTube for three months as the inconspicuously titled: "Blank VHS Tape #12". Davis, once again, became inspired to find more episodes. This resulted in him finding a mirrored website that contained a detailed collection from another game show collector. All but two of the ten Friday Night Games episodes were listed in this collection.

'b's listed episodes of friday night games on that mirrored website
the episodes of friday night games that "B" had listed on that mirrored website

The Instagram of the game show collector with his pseudonym "B", replied quickly to Davis' message and said that he remembered the show. "B" also noted that he was surprised his game show collection still existed as a mirror because the original website domain had been long since deleted. 'B' also recalled throwing out a bunch of their VHS tapes to try and reduce clutter in his house on which some of the tapes that "B" thrown out had been multiple episodes of Friday Night Games (including the commercials) recorded on several different tapes.

Not long after this dead end in the search occurred, the show's lead production coordinator was contacted on LinkedIn about the show. He recalled converting episodes 3-10 of the series to a television preservation format known as DigiBetacam and then mastering it on a site in the Gold Coast for what is known as: 'picture lock-off' (which is a way of formatting a TV show into its best possible quality for archival purposes). He then brought the episodes to Sydney for 'audio sweetening' and 're-stripping' (a television show mastering process) on which he brought those converted episodes to the Network Ten building in Sydney, Australia to then be stored away in their archives.

The current efforts in the search for Friday Night Games involve attempts to contact the archives at Network Ten Sydney. However, there is a low likelihood of much help being given from this department of the network.

In January 2024, YouTuber 'Filip with an F' (who specializes in Big Brother Australia documentaries) was contacted by Sam Davis about the missing show. He didn't have any episodes of FNG; however, he did have the contact of a person (named Kevin) who recorded Big Brother religiously when it aired years ago. Davis contacted Kevin who quickly responded claiming he remembered the show and just needed some time to remember where he had the series stored. Kevin stated that his current priority was to clear his house of old printers and computers before doing anything else. He began searching through his hard drives for Friday Night Games recordings. Despite having HD recordings of every old Big Brother Friday Night live episode, Kevin did not record Friday Night Games when it aired.

The next attempt to find the show will be made through the Australian television archive's research and supply service designed to discover lost and buried Australian TV shows that only exist at TV stations and in company archives. The Aus TV archive owner: 'James', runs the service. It will not be a while until this service will be utilised in an attempt to find the show as it costs nearly 500 AUD to even ask the owner to do research on the show and then further hundreds of dollars for the owner to attempt a search of the missing episodes. Even then, nearly $1,000 AUD could be spent without the show being able to be discovered...

On June 29, 2024 episode 8 or (the pre-final #2) was discovered on a random vhs tape from a box of tapes that lost media YouTuber Sam Davis had recently bought. The episode was incomplete however, over 90% of it was on the tape.

ep 8
The VHS tape which contained episode 8 accidentally recorded onto it. The labelling was later added after the tape revealed the episode...

It was seemingly accidentally recorded onto the tape as that same box of tapes contained recordings of various news bulletins. The episode of fng appears exactly two hours into the tape which matches when it would have shown up after the news was recorded. As the episode cuts out (presumably when the person realised the VCR was still on record) the tape then cuts to another news bulletin from around the same time and on the same network...


On July 8, 2024 Sam Davis (inspired from his recent find of episode 8) decided to message multiple cast members from the show whom he hadn't already messaged over the years. Immediately only two hours later one cast member named wendy (who appeared in three episodes of the show) responded to sam's message saying:

"Wow random question, but yes I think I have vhs copy, not sure of how many episodes. But I'll check for you. I'll let you know tomorrow."

The following day wendy messaged Sam Davis after searching for the tape and said:

"Really sorry looks like they have been thrown out."

This result wasn't all that surprising to Davis who is well aware (after many years of searching for the show and many failed leads) just how buried Friday Night Games episodes are.

On July 10, 2024 another contestant from the show: 'glenn' (who also appeared in three episodes of the show) replied to Sam Davis' message about episodes of the show and said he didn't have copies of the show. However, he said he would message his parents and ask them if they had copies of the show. After recieving a response from them, he replied to Davis with:

"I cant believe it but they actually reckon that they do have copies! They are going to have a look tomorrow and get back to me so I will let you know then"

It took 12 days but glenn eventually got back to Davis on July 22nd, 2024 sending him a photo of VHS master copies of the three episodes he appeared in.

the friday night games VHS tapes which were sent to Davis
the friday night games VHS tapes which have been sent to Davis

Davis then organised covering the eventual postage cost of the parcel over the phone with Glenn's father (who had the episodes in his possession). Glenn's father Kevin agreed to posting the episodes to Davis the following day. Once the tapes are delivered and the content on them is 100% confirmed to be these episodes, the lmw status on them will be updated. Two of the three episodes that were in the photo sent by Glenn are completely lost. One of them is Partially Lost, with the first twenty minutes of it not being included in the currently existing YouTube upload of the episode. If the episodes show up in the mail as described then they will be immediately added to this page and then made public by the YouTube channel: 'For The Love of Broadcast' (who specialises in obscure tv shows and previous uploads of friday night games episodes).


Coincidentally, on the same day (July 22nd, 2024) a representative of the network ten archives responded to a previous inquiry Davis made via email which was a question regarding the show's existence in network ten's archives. A man named Paul who ran the archives claimed that every episode had been recently found by their people. However, he went on to say that because the network no longer owns the rights to the show (they haven't since 2008...) he was legally unable to share the episodes to Davis. This is a pretty common occurance when media is requested from official archives... Paul did however tell Davis to try contacting Endomol Shine (the company who produced the show) one extra time as there was a chance they would be willing to help considering they are the rights holders and only very recently discovered the show.

"I guess the good news is at least the series isn't lost any more. We have them all so if Endemol wish to sell it to another Network or Streamer they could in theory."

This is a company that Davis had contacted on numerous occasions in the past regarding lost episodes however each and every time they would tell him to contact another company (as aforementioned in this article). Davis contacted them and is awaiting response however, once again, not much help is likely to be given from this company as they will probably be more interested in a means to profit from a show they own the rights to.


On July 18, 2024 on the Australian version of craigslist known as 'gumtree', a user responded to an ad which had been recently created by Sam Davis that was essentially a *wanted* post asking if anybody had episodes. The user: 'TS' responded:

"Sam! I genuinely watched a few at a mates house the other week, Want me to reach out to him for you?"

There's also a chance he is refferring to the three episodes which are already on YouTube as he said: "watched a few"... however this is seemingly not the case as he then replied with:

"He has ALL episodes, they’re burnt onto DVD’s. This has all the episodes as well, not just the FNL. He definitely has what you’re after 100%, are they super rare? We kinda just binged watched them and had a laugh, thought they were kind of stock standard in households. We watched them so happy to move them on."

We await to see what can be negotiated but there's a genuine chance this person has the entire show. There's also a chance that these episodes being viewed on a DVD "the other week" could somehow be directly linked to the show being recently discovered in it's entirety by the people at network ten's archives. Davis attempted to get a more direct means of contact from this person however they essentially hashed over that question of his. From July 18th to July 25th, the gumtree account did not respond to the follow up message from Davis.

On July 25th 2024, the user made himself no longer reachable on gumtree. This potentially further proves that there is indeed a link to the episodes being found in archives and this person. As the user's friend probably told him that the episodes could not legally be shared, either that or the person was making it up. There was still never confirmation from the user's friend that he had episodes of friday night games. Although it seems as though he did, he never sent screenshots from episodes of the show. The user on gumtree was also not overly specific when it came to him having exactly 10 episodes and him actually having dvd's which contained friday night games. This was not an overly dissapointing moment in the search due to the lack of evidence and the recent discoveries of three and a quarter episodes of the show. This meant that friday night games is now nearly 50% found.

On July 27th 2024, every episode that had been sent by glenn and his father kevin to Sam Davis were finalised and converted into mp4's. The episodes had several picture and sound issues in several attempts to convert them to half decent versions, however, despite these issues they ended up being converted into mostly good quality. Before June 29th 2024 just one complete episode and two thirds of another episode was found. Now the show has 4 completely found episodes and 1 episode that's around 75-80% found. This includes a 6 minute clip of the ending to episode 9 as well as a two minute clip of the ending to episode 4 meaning that very nearly 50% of the show had been found to that point of time.

On October 14th 2024, Sam Davis visited the actual site where the show was filmed and took a photo of it's current state.

what the former filming location: 'dreamworld studios' looks like today
the fng filming location today

The land in which the games took place is now a dam that collects storm water. When figuring out where the actual ground level of the games arena was, davis realised it is now underwater.

On October 25th 2024, a former contestant or 'celeb-to-be' (as the show referred to him as) of friday night games on the episode 'Screen v Stage' or 'Episode 4', finally responded to a facebook messenger text that davis had sent him months earlier inquiring as to whether or not he still had his episode on him. The contestant: 'Joe' said:

I think I do actually. How come you are collecting them?

After davis explained why he was so committed to locating the series, Joe began searching for the show on his computer and quickly responded with:

Can’t find the full file. I will dig out the dvd when my kid is in bed and upload

A magazine spot about the show which features a photograph taken during the episode 4 recording.
A magazine spot about the show which features a photograph taken during the episode 4 recording.

When asked if he went well on the show, joe responded with:

No I sucked. Lost the game for the team but it was fun! How did you get my name?

Davis responded to this by saying that he found his name from the end credits of the exact episode, as in 2023 only the final two minutes of joe's episode was found as an old vhs recording.

The episode was sent through later that night. When the file was opened it was found to be a complete digital recording with it's commercials. This is the first digital recording of a friday night games episode that has been found. One day later it was upscaled to 720p HD. It will be posted to YouTube as a public video very soon, however, it is currently available via the 'episode 4' hyperlink in the episode list on this article.

As of October 2024, attempts are still being made to find the remaining 4 (and 1 quarter) missing episodes. However, the new tactic is finding them one at a time. Currently the search is for Episode 1 as that episode is Big Brother related. Many diehard big brother fans online are set to be tracked down and contacted regarding the potential of them having the episode in their own personal archives. As for the AFL vs NRL episode, many private archivists who specialise in preserving NRL and AFL related content will be contacted about the episode. There is unfortunately no viable plan yet to attempt a realistic search of the brunttes vs blondes and the athletes vs brunettes episodes.


Status

When it comes to found/lost episodes, six of the ten episodes that went to air have been found with one of those six being mostly complete. They are:


Episode 2: Country Bumpkins vs City Slickers (a complete VHS studio master copy)

Episode 4: Screen vs Stage (the entire episode & the commercials in digital quality)

Episode 6: Athletes vs Academics (the entire episode & the commercials in VHS quality)

Episode 7: Country Bumpkins vs Australian Idol (a complete VHS studio master copy)

Episode 8: Stage vs NRL (or): "Pre-Final #2" (the episode in VHS quality with all of it's commercial breaks but it's missing the opening sequence, the final challenge and the closing segment)

Episode 10: The Grand Final Show (both a VHS version that has 65% of the episode with it's commercials and a complete version that is a VHS studio master copy).


These episodes are soon to be all public videos on YouTube however, they are viewable via the hyperlinks in the episode list below.

The confirmed themes of every episode is as follows:


- 'Aussie Barbeque Night' (Confirmed to the lost Episode 1)

- 'Wild Wild West Night' (Confirmed to be the found Episode 2)

- 'Circus Night' (Confirmed to be the lost Episode 3)

- 'Safari Night' (Confirmed to be the found Episode 4)

- 'Wedding Night' (Confirmed to be the lost Episode 5)

- 'Baby Night' (Confirmed to be the found Episode 6)

- 'Kids Sports Night' (Confirmed to be the found Episode 7)

- 'Pirate Night' (Confirmed to be the partially lost Episode 8)

- 'At The Movies Night' (Confirmed to be the lost Episode 9)

- 'Best of the Best Night' (Confirmed to be the found Episode 10)


Episodes one and three are marked as 'lost' but are in reality withheld by a private collector.

No actual segments from Episodes one and five have ever been found however brief compilations of these episodes are available. Episode three is the only fng episode to have no more than mere split second grabs available.

Episode nine is marked as 'lost' however the final six minutes of the ep has been found. It is marked as lost however because only a brief and insignificant amount of it's overall running time has been found.

Episode eight is marked as 'partially lost' as most of the episode has been found however two segments of it are still lost. (Specifically the first seven minutes and final eight minutes) The episode does however have every commercial break in tact which indicates how little of it is actually still lost.


Episode List

# Teams Air Date Status
1 Big Brother vs Australian Idol Feb 17, 2006 Lost
2 Country Bumpkins vs City Slickers Feb 24, 2006 Found
3 AFL vs NRL Mar 3, 2006 Lost
4 Stage vs Screen Mar 10, 2006 Found
5 Blondes vs Brunettes Mar 17, 2006 Lost
6 Academics vs Athletes Mar 24, 2006 Found
7 Country Bumpkins vs Australian Idol Mar 31, 2006 Found
8 Stage vs NRL Apr 7, 2006 Partially Lost
9 Athletes vs Brunettes Apr 14, 2006 Lost
10 Country Bumpkins vs Brunettes vs Stage Apr 21, 2006 Found

Videos

Sam Davis' first video on the subject.

Sam Davis' second video on the subject.

Sam Davis' third video on the subject.

Sam Davis' fourth video on the subject.

Sam Davis' fifth video on the subject.

Sam Davis' sixth video on the subject.

Sam Davis' seventh video on the subject.

Sam Davis' eighth video on the subject.

A Brief Clip From Episode 5.

The Last Six Minutes of Episode 9.

References

External Links