If you’re anything like us, you dearly miss Spicks and Specks, the long-running ABC music-based quiz show, which ran from 2005 till 2011. Hosted by Adam Hills, the show paired team captains Alan Brough and Myf Warhurst with a roster of celebrity guests.

The two teams would then square off against each other in a series of rounds testing their musical knowledge, including in much-loved segments like ‘Substitute’, where a panelist from each team would sing well-known melodies, substituting words from a book provided by Hills.

If the departure of the beloved show has left you with a hankering for some music trivia on your tube (and you’re always out on a Saturday night when RocKwiz is on), you may be delighted to know Channel Seven is currently working on its own music quiz show.

As News Corp reports, The Big Music Quiz, based on a French series of the same name and format, will go into production in Melbourne next month and is expected to debut later this year, with Darren McMullen, best known for his time presenting The Voice, as host.

According to Mumbrella, McMullen will emcee two teams of celebrities from the worlds of music, screen, stage, comedy, and sports, who’ll face off in individual and team-based challenges. Viewers at home can even play along using a special Big Music Quiz app.

“The Big Music Quiz is the ultimate, anyone can play, music quiz. We’re delighted to welcome Darren back to Seven. He’s a sensational presenter and is the perfect fit for a big, fun, rollicking show like this,” said Seven’s Director of Production, Brad Lyons.

“The challenges come thick and fast in this test of musical knowledge in which teams of celebrities compete in a massive musical extravaganza,” the show’s official website reads. “Top scoring celebrities pick the teams after a testing warm up.”

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“Then it’s non-stop musical entertainment for six fast-moving rounds as the celebrity contestants face a series of inventive musical challenges. In round one, they have to guess who originally performed a popular cover version.”

“In another round, they try to figure out which song is being played at ten times its normal speed. In the personalised round, they are tested on extracts linked to their career, and that’s before they try to identify a cover sung in a different language.”

“In the final, the celebrities from the team with the most points go head-to-head. Its all about speed as they shout out the name of as many songs as they can identify in a frenetic two minutes. And at the end, there will only ever be one audience reaction: Encore!”

A surprise hit or a cheesy mess? Only time will tell. But it bears remembering that ABC attempted to reboot Spicks and Specks back in 2014 to appeal to a younger audience and was forced to cancel it before the first season finished airing.

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