Dragon's Den: Classic/Dud?

so let's carry on here instead. it was hilarious last night, the attitude woman especially but also the poker guy had his moments ("I wouldn't take your money anyway because I wouldn't take the money of someone who wouldn't want to invest in me!" or something equally ridiculous).

my favourite dragon is the guy on the far left (Richard?) - direct from the 80s but he and Peter tend to come across as more open-minded than the other three.

Yeah, they must be fairly trivial amounts for the investors, but I s'pose there is a risk where they take the plunge on commodities in markets they clearly don't know all that much about. They seemed to get swayed by the pitches from young dudes, like algorithm guy and his download mixology shite, or those two clowns from Dr Cap.

And attitude woman was amazing.

Attitude woman was great. Everyone's fault but her own. Maybe there's a market for the business, but who the hell wants to work with her. She made me sympathise with the dragons for the first time.

My favourite bit every time is when Duncan and Theo compete for the comedy summing-up. Like 'She's well balanced: a chip on both shoulders.' 'Oh yes, well said Theo'. At least Richard doesn't indulge in that.

Theo P needs to cut down on the avuncular "please please don't spend any more time on this idea, it won't work"-style advice, he can't really pull it off.

You mean Peter Jones or the Australian one? I'm, not sure which period of Havers's illustrious career contained your idea of the classic "Havers haircut". Either way, that's surely mentalism.

It did seem like most the deals were very small-scale stuff though.

Also, all the old series of DD (bar the first 3 eps of series 1) are on UKnova.com, very much looking forward to going through them. It seems there was a one-off HOW DID THEY FARE show after series 1, which is a great idea. They should do at least one hour long show covering this, or even slot in 3 or 4 flashback bits in each episode because at the moment it only seems like half a show (but a great great great half a show).

Genuinely like the Australian guy; Theo P is a dimwit who tries terribly hard to come up with quotable put-downs but usually ends up slobbering out some mangled nonsense; the woman is nightmarish; Bannatyne is just a cunt (massive lolz in Affectian towers at his "Do you know how many pubs I deal with? Do you? NO! BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T ASK! My respect for you has gone down to nil and I wouldn't invest in you anyway."); Peter Jones appears to be the daddy, being the richest, and does seem to know his stuff and isn't as relentlessly cruel as the others - mild surprise to find out he's 6'7, he looks like a teeny little feller on tv.

One of the best moments of this series was when a woman made some wisecrack about them all having nannies which made the dragons go ballistic: HOW DARE SHE ASSUME JUST BECAUSE WE'RE RICH WE DON'T LOOK AFTER OUR KIDS OURSELVES, and going on and on about how people think just because they're rich they have nannies and how they're persecuted so terribly. Yes, poor little million/billionaires, life so hard, diddums..

Some good stuff on youtube too, including a cpl of well-edited DD / X Factor splices, and this piece of madness here.

Inventor comes in with a radical new gearbox, three working parts (very cagey about showing the workings to the cameras, but does show Duncan Ballantyre 'privately')

Theo, god love him, cheers up no end, expresses the guy to go away, get some business advice, come back next series, and virtually guarantees him backing.

They don't half want it on a plate, don't they?

That guy was just downright strange.

Duncan Bannantyne is funny, he never invests in anything, the tightwad. If he wasn't Scottish he'd be Spartan. I'm sure just after he pretended to be offended at the Poker guy and screamed "YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MANY PUBS I OWN, YOU DIDN'T ASK" he was privately thinking "Ah yes, that was a close one, almost invested there....oh dear". Also wtf is someone who runs health clubs and hotels going to know about inventing.....he's just a bag of cash.

Peter and Richard are definitely the best, Theo has his moments but seems like a football agent. I can't even remember the other one's name but she is really boring, though it is funny watching her have a mini freaker everytime someone has a product aimed at children..."I-I-I-I......no I'm not going to invest in this nooooo!"

Was her child killed by a teflon bib or something?

Just started on Dragon's Den s2 (thank you UKNova) and Rachel Elnaugh should absolutely not be on there - even voiceover guy seemed a bit embrassed explaining how her business died and a couple of dragons had to jump in and help her out. It all got very cruel (+ amusing) when she was competing against Theo & Peter to invest in the marina wi-fi guy and Peter casually said "Why don't you ask each one of us how successful we are..." Peter then listed dozens of businesses and the exact amount of profit he made; Theo rambled on and on about how he makes A LOT of millions, A LOT (why not give a number then you wacky-accented dimwit); and poor Rachel was left stumbling and saying how she could help him best and giving NO details of her businesses/turnover. It upsets the balance of the show when one dragon is so obviously weaker than the other and I'm very glad they dumped her for this new series.

Are there US and Australian versions of DD? Are they as watchable?

her wikipedia entry is not v flattering but has provided me with my second schadenfreude roffle of the week

-- Affectian (niche_ia...), September 22nd, 2006.

Australian version (last year, or maybe the year before?) probably didn't run for more than a couple of months. Very watchable I thought, shame it didn't catch on.

"I'm going to stop you there, I'll tell you now, this isn't for me, I'm out".

THE BADGER IS THEIR MAIN SELLING POINT.

Two-and-a-half thousand litres are not equivalent to two-and-a-half million litres.

I have never seen Reggae Reggae Sauce on sale anywhere.

But yes, I don't understand how people come on that show without a bar chart giving their turnover and profit for each year that they've been running their 'business' so far, and their reasons for their projections. And how can they not remember their figures? Stupid people.

Nerves

ah but when it goes right....

that was excruciating television

Don't knock it Dom, it was (literally) a battlefield back in the 80's.

(disclaimer: I know nowt about Scot accents)

Felt rather sorry for the guy with the driving glove. WTF was he thinking?

LOVE this show

The GaBoom website just collapsed after 1 minute on Dragon's Den :)

Ha, that was a real "salute fellow brave" moment, that one.