Pizza Rollo (1994 Interactive Game Show)

Pizza Rollo was an interactive game show that aired on French channel Canal + around 1994, hosted by David Chevalier. It was aired from Monday to Friday, at 6.30 pm.

Its concept was inspired by Hugo Délire, another interactive game show for children. Both would have an original "video game" on screen, and child contestants would call live, and control the player character using the keys of their phones.



While Hugo Délire was a 2D-animated and had a small imp going to the rescue of his family that was caught by a witch, Pizza Rollo was 3D-polygons, and was about pizza delivery people who would ride through a city with their bikes, avoiding obstacles. Contestants could choose between three different characters: Pizza Rollo, Pizza Rollette and Pizzo Lillo.

The game was infamous for its difficulty: control was awkward as the child contestant had to use the keys from the phone to move the character, but there was also a slight delay due to the length of the connection to the TV station. Not only that, but players had to finish the level in less than 1 minute 30 seconds. Suffice to say, winners were rare.

Very little footage of the game show remains to this day, and all of it shows the contestant choosing Pizza Rollo as their playing character, with Pizza Rollette and Pizzo Lillo only seen in the select screen.