Family Double Dare 1992 Internet Archive

[Peñen Tegtmeier]

DoubleDare is an American game show in which two teams compete to win cash and prizes by answering trivia questions and completing messy stunts known as physical challenges. It originally ran from 1986 to 1993. A revival ran in 2000, and the most recent revival ran from 2018 to 2019.

Double Dare saw many adjustments in scheduling and titling throughout its run. Almost immediately after its debut, Double Dare had more than tripled viewership for Nickelodeon's afternoon lineup, becoming the most-watched original daily program on cable television. The program was a major success for Nickelodeon, helping to establish the network as a major player in cable television and to revitalize the genre of game shows for children in the 1980s and 1990s. Double Dare remains Nickelodeon's longest-running game show. In 2001, TV Guide ranked the show number 29 on its list of 50 Greatest Game Shows. The program has been nominated for two Daytime Emmy Awards, two Kids' Choice Awards, and won a CableACE Award in 1989.

Each team on the original Double Dare and Super Sloppy Double Dare consisted of two children, while teams on Family Double Dare and Double Dare 2000 included two adults and two children.[2] Originally, both teams wore red uniforms, but after Double Dare entered syndication in 1988, one team wore blue uniforms while the other wore red.[3][4]

Each round begins with a toss-up physical challenge in which both teams compete, with the winning team receiving both initial control of the round, and money for their score. After the toss-up, the host begins asking trivia questions of the team in control. Each correct answer earns a monetary award and allows the team to maintain control, while an incorrect answer or failure to respond within approximately ten seconds turns control over to the opponents. However, the team can dare their opponents to answer the question, doubling its value; in response, the opponents can double dare for quadruple the original value. When the team in control is challenged to a double dare, they have to either answer or compete in a physical challenge. An incorrect answer, or not responding within approximately five seconds on a dare or double dare, awards both control and the appropriate amount of money to the team that issues it. The second round plays the same as the first, with question values doubled.[3][5][6] On the original Double Dare and Super Sloppy Double Dare, a question was initially worth $10. On Family Double Dare and Double Dare 2000, a question was initially worth $25. On the 2018 Double Dare, a question was initially worth $50, later 50 points.[3][4][7][8][9]

I'm going to ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, or think the other team hasn't got a clue, you can dare them to answer it for double the dollars. But, be careful, because they can always double dare you back for four times the amount, and then you either have to answer that question or take the physical challenge.[4][8][10][11]

Physical challenges are often messy stunts[2] that a team has to perform in a specified time, usually 20 or 30 seconds, although occasionally 10 or 15 seconds. All physical challenges on Double Dare 2000 were 30 seconds in length, unless a time reduction was in play due to the Triple Dare Challenge. The team wins money and retained control for completing the stunt. Otherwise, the money and control pass to their opponents.[5]

Many challenges have involved filling a container past a line with one of a variety of substances including water, uncooked rice, green slime, whipped cream, and milk. Others involve catching a specific number of items before time runs out. For example, during "Pies in the Pants," a contestant has to catch a set number of pies in a pair of oversized clown pants within the specified time limit, while their teammate launches the pies from a foot-operated catapult at the opposite end of the stage.[12]

Double Dare 2000 introduced the Triple Dare Challenge. Available only in round two, this allowed a team to make their physical challenge more difficult, increasing its value by $100, and putting a bonus prize at stake. Difficulties included reducing the time limit, adding an extra item to the stunt, or increasing the overall difficulty of the stunt. The actual modifier was not revealed unless the team decided to accept the challenge. If the team did not complete the challenge successfully, the money, prize, and control went to their opponents.[2]

The team with the highest score at the end of round two goes on to the bonus round, the obstacle course (renamed the Slopstacle Course for Double Dare 2000). From the original Double Dare through Double Dare 2000 both teams keep all money earned, regardless of the outcome.[11] Only the winning team on the 2018 version gets to keep their money.[8]

The course consists of eight obstacles that have to be completed within 60 seconds. Each obstacle has an orange flag either at its end or hidden within it. One team member runs the first obstacle, then passes its flag to a partner, who then moves on to the next obstacle. The team continues to alternate in this manner until they have completed the course or until time expires.[5] For safety reasons, team members are given helmets, elbow pads, and knee pads to wear while running the course.[13]

Many obstacles have appeared in the course rotation, often based on body parts, food, and enlarged items found in daily life.[14] Popular elements of the obstacle course have included The One-Ton Human Hamster Wheel, an oversized hamster wheel; Pick It, a giant human nose with a flag hidden inside; The Sundae Slide, a chocolate-covered ramp leading to a playground slide with ice cream at the bottom; and Gum Drop, which required contestants to leap into a giant gumball machine filled with plastic balls and slide out through the dispensing hatch at the bottom.[14][15]

Through January 2019, the team would win a prize for each obstacle completed, escalating in value up to a grand prize for completing the entire course.[5] Two-person teams split cash earnings from the front game, and both contestants receive the same physical prize for each obstacle. Prizes have included televisions, concert tickets, encyclopedias, electronics, gift certificates, non-motorized modes of transportation and, on the Fox Family Double Dare, cash.[6] On the original and Super Sloppy versions, the grand prize was usually a vacation or an experience at Space Camp. All eight prizes were usually worth a total of between $3,000 and $4,000, with some episodes featuring a prize package nearing $10,000.[16] On the Fox Family Double Dare, as well as the first season of the Nickelodeon run, the grand prize was a vehicle, making all eight prizes worth between $15,000 and $25,000.[17] Once again, the grand prize was typically a vacation for the second season of Nickelodeon's Family Double Dare, Double Dare 2000 and the first season of the 2018 Double Dare, with grand prize packages on the 2018 version having a value of more than $6,000.[18][19] With the premiere of the second season of the 2018 revival, the obstacle course was played for $500 cash for each obstacle completed, with a total jackpot of $5,000 for successfully completing the course. Cash values were doubled for the finals game of a tournament series.[9]

According to host Marc Summers, two children were injured on the obstacle course.[20] The first was a boy who had brittle bone disease, which his parents lied about on the application form, resulting in an injury during taping where a bone went through his arm.[21] The second was a boy who slipped on the ladder within the "Sewer Chute" and fell backwards, with Summers initially believing he had snapped his neck and died.[21] The boy's father, an attorney, asked for a television prize as a settlement, to which the Double Dare crew agreed.[21]

In the mid-1980s, Nickelodeon was approached by production and consulting groups with the idea of doing a game show for children, a first for the network.[22] Nickelodeon conducted focus groups and concluded that children enjoyed watching game shows with adults, but they did not have a game show targeted at their demographic.[13][23][24] Dee LaDuke, Robert Mittenthal, Michael Klinghoffer, and Geoffrey Darby worked to develop a new format, basing it on a combination of trivia, truth or dare, and the board game Mouse Trap.[22] The pilot presentation was recorded in May 1986, hosted by Darby.[15] Double Dare was green-lighted, and Nickelodeon announced its premiere on June 5, 1986.[25][26]

Initial candidates to host the program included Soupy Sales, host of children's variety shows in the 1950s and 1960s, and comedian Dana Carvey. After Nickelodeon determined Sales to be too old for the role, and Carvey was offered a chance to audition for Saturday Night Live, the search for a host continued. Producers viewed over 1,000 applicants from New York or Los Angeles. First attending a tryout in lieu of a friend, and later passing multiple auditions, television warm-up comedian Marc Summers was one of two finalists advancing to a final audition.[27] Each hosted a mock game for Nickelodeon to make an ultimate decision on who would host Double Dare. The producers felt the way Summers ended the game by leading into a commercial break was more professional and he was hired for the position in the first week of September 1986.[22][28] Because focus groups showed that the audience thought he was more than 10 years younger than he actually was, Summers, then 34 years old, was obligated by Nickelodeon for years to not mention his age publicly.[27][29]

In need of an announcer, Double Dare producers were made aware of Philadelphia-area radio host John Harvey, known on-air as Harvey,[30] whose Harvey in the Morning program on WIOQ had been canceled months earlier. He accepted the offer to be announcer of the program.[22] Stage assistants also appeared on-camera on Double Dare, initially only assisting in setting up physical challenges and obstacles, but expanding the role as the series continued to sometimes interacting with Summers, demonstrating challenges, and modeling prizes.[31] Robin Marrella and Dave Shikiar were the two permanent stage assistants when the program began.[15][5]

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