Weird thai gameshow8/31/2023 ![]() ![]() We chanced upon these scenes so many times that it came as a great relief to us when the show was canceled in 2006. But the weird part came in the middle, when Fear Factor contestants had to do something disgusting - like eating blended-up rats or swimming in worms. The first stunt was a straightforward test of physical ability, while the final one involved navigating a Hollywood stunt-style spectacle. In each episode, players competed in a series of three extreme challenges. Just as the reality TV craze began to sweep network television around the turn of the millennium, NBC got in on the action with Fear Factor - a game show that, despite welcoming new contestants every week, took on the new format in an attempt to win over Survivor fans. This exercise in conspicuous consumption found teams of two competing in pop-culture challenges and racing around a totally ’90s two-story mall set (that bore more than a passing resemblance to the board game Mall Madness) like crazy people to collect prizes from faux stores. Another entry in the sub- The Price Is Right canon is Shop ‘Til You Drop - a show that also skipped around from Lifetime to the Family Channel to PAX between 19. Of course, Supermarket Sweep isn’t the only strange shopping game show in history. That’s right: three different networks have broadcast a show in which teams run around a supermarket throwing Butterball turkeys into shopping carts. Originally aired on ABC in the mid-’60s, Supermarket Sweep was revived by Lifetime in 1990 five years after that version’s cancellation in ’95, PAX picked it up for another few seasons. If you were a kid in the ’90s, you may have caught this one on cable while you were home sick from school. But by far the weirdest ’90s Nick game show was Legends of the Hidden Temple, a quasi-educational competition where teams of kids navigated obstacle courses and answered questions related to history and mythology asked by a giant talking Olmec head named Olmec. And, of course, there was the one where teens from different countries competed in extreme sports and then climbed up a crazy in-studio mountain called the Aggro Crag. There was the one where we watched kids play video games and then actually step inside in a virtual-reality video game. There was the one where contestants got slimed and also rooted around in a giant foot’s toe jam. ![]() ![]() We’d like to meet whoever was in charge of developing Nickelodeon’s game shows in the ’90s, because, whoa, were they fabulously strange. Is there any better way to announce that your society is in decline? “Capable of producing emotional moments,” eh? And although its title and premise has become such an accepted part of American pop-culture kitsch that no one really thinks about the meaning anymore, let’s talk about what it means to model your game show after the death matches Romans held among slaves for their own amusement. If you don’t remember American Gladiators being particularly bizarre, perhaps this video compilation of the show’s intros will jog your memory. Midway through the game, competitors were treated to a snack (which was often simply dumped on their head), and sometimes the disembodied voice of Ken’s mother contributed her two cents. With a young Colin Quinn as his sidekick, Ober quizzed college-age contestants with questions from nine pop-culture categories represented as “channels” on the TV behind him. The purposely DIY-looking Remote Control was supposed to be set in the basement of its host, Ken Ober, a guy who wanted so badly to be a game show host that he created his very own TV studio. In 1987, when MTV was still great, the network premiered what you might call a meta-game show. Meet a talking Olmec head, relive a slacker classic, and experience a show where John McEnroe tries to get your blood pressure up, after the jump. In celebration of its debut, we’ve rounded up some of the silliest and most bizarre examples of one of American TV’s oldest genres (we’re not even going to get into Japanese game shows here, because that’s a whole other can of weird). Have you found that adult life involves far too few childhood party games? If so, then The CW has the answer to your prayers with Oh Sit!, which premieres tonight at 8pm and is billed as a “high-stakes, high-octane musical chairs competition, in which 20 thrill-seeking daredevils race head to head through five physically demanding, obstacle course-style eliminations as they each compete to claim a chair, to the sounds of a live band.” Fusing a preschool pastime with extreme physical challenges seems unlikely, but it’s hardly the weirdest game show premise in history. ![]()
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