Spell Cast is a spelling game show in Singapore that featured children between the ages of nine and twelve. Season one aired between 5 June 2007 - 31 July 2007 and season two started airing in early 2010. It was hosted by Shane Mardjuki in its first season and by Sarah Tan in its second season. Dramatic changes took place between the first two seasons, such as the game format, as well as the programme being shifted from prime time Channel 5 to the kids channel Okto.
Contents
Season 1
The first season of the show was hosted by Shane Mardjuki, and featured a prize consisting of a trophy and S$10,000 for the winner. There were three main rounds in this season: The first round required contestants to select the correct spelling from three variations of a word, the second round required contestants to fill in a missing letter in a word, and the third and final round was an oral spelling round of tic-tac-toe, where contestants would have to spell out a word verbally within ten seconds after being given the word and its definition by the host. An estimated 1,200 children participated in the auditions held at MediaCorp, and only 48 of them made it into the qualifier rounds which were aired on local broadcaster MediaCorp's Channel 5.
Each qualifier round featured eight contestants, with eight questions asked in the first round. Only two contestants proceeded from the qualifiers to the two semi-final episodes, which comprised a total of twelve contestants, six in each episode. In the semi-finals, the amount of questions asked in the first round was reduced to six.
In the final episode, four contestants remained in the competition, namely: Jesse Chang, Sheena Lee, Russell Soh and Jayesh Melvani. In the first round, Jesse was eliminated after receiving the lowest number of points amongst the four contestants. Jayesh was then eliminated in the second round after receiving the lowest number of points, however it was pointed out by host Shane Mardjuki that he was the youngest amongst the four finalists, being only nine years old. During the final round of spelling tic-tac-toe, Russell was allowed to start the round first as he had attained the highest amount of points in the first two rounds. After an intense final round, with words such as 'rehabilitate', 'excruciating' and the final winning word, 'hieroglyph', Russell won the competition, and received the Spell Cast trophy and a cash prize of S$10,000.
Season 2
The following season of the show came in January 2010, almost three years after the first season ended, bringing with it numerous changes. Firstly, the host of the show was changed; instead of Shane Mardjuki, Sarah Tan hosted this season. The game was reconstructed completely, although maintaining the original three-round system, albeit without elimination between rounds, hence giving those who had done badly in earlier rounds a chance to catch up with the other contestants. It was also worth noting that instead of airing the show on the more popular Channel 5 at 8:30pm as was with the first season, season two of Spell Cast was aired on the recently-introduced okto channel on Sundays at 11:30am.
In the first round, contestants were tasked with spelling a given word on a keyboard. In the second round, contestants had to take turns at verbally spelling a given word. In this round, if a contestant misspelled his given word, another contestant could buzz in to have a chance at spelling it correctly. In the final round, contestants had to buzz in to spell given words verbally within ten seconds.
The second season of Spell Cast was won by Izzat Rashad, 12 from St Andrew's Junior School. He walked away with S$10,000 as well as the Spell Cast champion's trophy.