Game Show
12.22.
Family Double Dare
Family Double Dare premiered on Fox on April 3, 1988, and aired on Saturday nights. The team size was increased to four as kids and their parents competed. This series was conducted with a much larger budget as the Obstacle Course total haul could exceed $30,000. The game was conducted in the exact same manner as regular versions of Double Dare, with different question and physical challenge values (see table at top of page). Family Double Dare only aired for thirteen weeks on Fox and ended due to actions taken by Viacom & Nickelodeon, who co-produced the series; Fox insisted on taking away the families and instead replacing them with celebrities, and both Viacom and Nickelodeon balked. Click here to read more and watch a clip »
No Comments12.14.
Shop ‘Til You Drop
Shop ’til You Drop is an American game show that aired on various broadcast television networks from 1991–2006. The series was hosted by Pat Finn from 1991–2002, followed by JD Roberto from 2003–2005. Co-hosts/announcers included Mark L. Walberg (1991–1994), Jason Grant Smith (1996–1997), Dee Bradley Baker (1997–2002), and Don Priess (2003–2005). From its premiere through 2002, the backdrop of Shop ’til You Drop was a 14-store, two-story shopping mall.
The show ran on Lifetime from July 8, 1991 to September 30, 1994, with reruns aired until May 31, 1996. After four months, the show moved to The Family Channel as The New Shop ’til You Drop, where it ran from September 30, 1996 to August 14, 1998.
PAX (now ION) reran episodes of The Family Channel version from April 19 to October 29, 1999, followed by the final Lifetime season from November 1, 1999 to March 31, 2000. On April 3 of that year, PAX launched a new mall-based Shop ’til You Drop series and continued until 2002. A new warehouse store-based version began airing on PAX on October 6, 2003 and aired until 2005; reruns of that series continued until 2006.
A PAX episode from 2000 aired as part of The 50 Greatest Game Shows of All Time series on Game Show Network (GSN), featuring a 950-point total by a winning team. The network purchased the rights to the one episode and does not currently own rights to any reruns. Click here to watch a clip from the show »
1 Comment12.08.
Super Sloppy Double Dare
The format of Super Sloppy Double Dare copied that of the original program. Launched in 1987, it aired on the weekends on Nickelodeon. This incarnation featured a home viewer contest during physical challenges, with Summers taking a postcard from a large plastic box behind his lectern. The viewer would receive a prize if the team won the physical challenge, and a T-shirt (regardless of the outcome). This version was filmed at Unitel Studios in New York. Forty episodes were taped.
To compete with other children’s game shows at the time, the format returned to the air (minus the home viewer contest) in January 1989 with the physical challenges and obstacle course mostly designed to make the biggest mess possible. This newly revamped Super Sloppy Double Dare filmed from WHYY’s Forum Theatre for approximately the first 50 episodes, eventually to moving to Universal Studios in Florida to film the approximately 50 remaining episodes of this version. Both the Philadelphia and Orlando eras of the show aired in syndication. Many special “theme shows” were taped during the 1989 run, including “Salute to Baseball”, “Backwards Day”, “Marc vs. Harvey” (with guest host Jim J. Bullock), and many more. This was Nickelodeon’s first production at Universal Studios. Click here to watch an episode »
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