“Le Bigdil” is making its comeback on television in January 2025. More than 20 years after stopping on TF1, Vincent Lagaf has aged well…
Good news for those nostalgic for the 1990s! At least from a certain part of the 1990s… The Bigdila cult game hosted by Vincent Lagaf and his extraterrestrial sidekick Bill, returns to our screens in 2025. This flagship program, which was a hit on TF1 between 1998 and 2004, will make its comeback more than 20 years later, with its crazy atmosphere, its crazy trials and the famous sequined curtain hiding the gifts.
It was the RMC Story channel that decided to resurrect the famous game. And everything was designed to immerse the public back into the very special world of bigdil. We will find the original decor, the same emblematic games like “The Blind Test”, “The Tumble Dryer” or the famous “Dark Room”. Even the jingles and the credits have not been changed! The very colorful Bill, “from the planet Fricus”, will also be there, still played by actor Gilles Vautier. The two goofballs Nadia and Fanny, the dog Attila and most of the secondary characters will also be back.
A notable change all the same: it is no longer on TF1 that Vincent Lagaf's game will be broadcast (nostalgia has certain limits all the same). It is RMC Story which inherited the program, with broadcast announced from January 2, 2025. And if the mechanics and spirit of the bigdil remain intact, another major change should still be noted. Gone are the daily prime-time access meetings, as was the case in the heyday. Now for a weekly slot, every Thursday evening, but in prime time, at 9:10 p.m. this time.
Less Bigdil because of Vincent Lagaf's health?
A less sustained pace which is undoubtedly explained by the prudence of the channel, which is undoubtedly waiting to see the audiences. But also perhaps by the age and state of health of the star host. At 65, Vincent Lagaf himself admitted that he would no longer feel capable of covering more than 200 issues of the bigdil per year, as before.
“I’m too old for that,” the star confided to several media outlets including Télé Loisirs recently. “I don’t feel like re-recording 250 numbers a year,” he explained. Far from his “loved ones”, his “house”, and his “family” for the first three-week shoot, Lagaf admitted to having lived a “dream”, but also to having suffered because of health which supports his health less well. antics and its famous stunts. “It doesn't show when I'm on set, but in the evening, yes, I pay,” he said.
The host of bigdilaccustomed to sometimes extreme improvisations, has been marked by multiple accidents over the years. He speaks of “trauma” which weakened his body and of a brain which has not forgotten the pain. “I have 41 pieces of scrap metal in my body. Back, ankle, neck […]. And I see it when I want to jump, when I want to run, there is something that tells me: 'You can't do this anymore,'” he added.
A Bigdil with far fewer stunts in 2025
“We succeed in giving through the word and through feeling what we can no longer give through the physical,” he concludes, still in Télé Loisirs. Even if he must now “listen [s]on corps” for several years, Vincent Lagaf has lost none of his energy and his communicative madness. “When the director tells me '3, 2, 1, top, good show', it's over. We let the dog loose in a ball game. I started, I was a crazy young dog. And there, I became an old mutt on the lookout for everything. But I'm having fun, I'm always having fun,” he enthuses. Especially since for this return of bigdilhe is surrounded by “friends” and his own son, the director Robin Rouïl, rather accustomed to reports and interviews in the field of extreme sports until now.
It remains to be seen how the public will react to this new bigdil on a weekly basis. When we tickle him a little about this famous daily format, Vincent Lagaf finally admits: “Obviously if we manage to achieve rave audiences it will make me think”. Maybe we too.
