The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 316

BEHIND THE SCENES 'Double Dare': Not just for kids 4 -MfmA i lb 1 1x Gross-out games go for grown-ups BY KEN TUCKER Knight News Service Try to imagine Jeopardy! mugged by a bunch of wiseacre youths, and you're on your way to understanding the appeal of Double Dare, the hottest new game show on television. "Game show," in fact, may be too limiting a term for this crazy, all-stops-out weekday half-hour; it's more like a televised Van Halen concert marinated in raw eggs and green slime. It's a game-show for kids, in which the contestants run through an obstacle course whose stations include a slide slathered with chocolate sauce and "The Icy Trike," in which a luckless young person must negotiate a baby-size tricycle across a surface slicked with vegetable oil. Double Dare airs Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. on Channel 22; 4:30 p.m.

on Channel 19; and 7:30 p.m. on the Nickelodeon cable channel. Family Double Dare airs Saturdays on the Fox network (8 p.m. Saturday, Channels 19 and 45). Double Dare began life as part of the cable station Nickelodeon's slate of children's programming in 1986; response to the show was so great that this year it was picked up for syndication throughout the country.

The structure of Double Dare has all the dramatic inevitability of classical tragedy. In the first segment, two teams, each consisting of a pair of preteens, are asked such brow-furrowing questions as "How do you say 'thank you' in French?" If neither scholar responds correctly, the team is whisked quicker than you can say merci over to a garishly colored playground set. There, the second phase of the Double Dare ritual is enacted: "The Physical Challenge." Physical Challenges have It i Fox Lou Ferrigno, left, and "Weird Al" Yankovic, middle right, take on the messy challenges of Family Double Dare with host Marc Summers, right. included: trying to catch a ball in a basket strapped to the top of your head; throwing a football to your partner while blindfolded (oh, yes: your partner is blindfolded too); trying to assemble a Mr. Potato Head toy in less than 20 seconds Although the gross-out stunts and elaborate sets get most of the attention, host Marc Summers and the show's announcer, John Harvey, are the not-so-secret ingredients in the show's success in drawing adult, as well as youthful, viewers.

Double Dare has proven so successful that it's already inspired a spinoff, Family Double Dare, in which Mom and Dad can join in on the gloppy fun as contestants along with their children. 4 The Cincinnati Enquirer TV Week, May 29, 1988.