We'll Take the Physical Challenge

Growing up, I spent a lot of time watching Nickelodeon's Double Dare.

I remember enjoying it vicariously because I knew my family and I would never be contestants on the show. And it's not because we weren't a loving family; there wasn't anything especially dysfunctional or abusive about our relationship. But we just weren't that kind of family. I couldn't imagine all of us ever putting on matching uniforms, answering trivia questions, and performing stunts on national television -- at least not together. I don't think I'd have a problem playing with another stand-in family provided by the network (I could easily live a temporary lie for a 30-minute game show), but playing with my own would have just been weird.

My Mom would have absolutely refused to get messy, so considering the slime-based nature of the show, that would have immediately presented itself as a problem. My younger sister was really small as a kid, with tiny little hands and underdeveloped upper body strength (probably a byproduct of being five years old), so she didn't have the ideal physique for running, jumping, and grabbing. And my Dad had an uncanny ability to make me feel nervous and inadequate during anything remotely physical by just standing there (this issue would resurface again in the near future during Little League games), so I'd probably forget how to perform simple motor skills like walking from one point to another point, or how to use my opposable thumbs to grip things. I'd always see the families on TV jumping around, hugging and supporting one another, playfully hitting each other in the face with pie tins filled with shaving cream -- and I couldn't see us doing that. Again, there was nothing wrong with my family; we're actually very typical. We just weren't that way. We didn't have that dynamic, that rapport. I cringe thinking about how uncomfortable the car ride home would be if we didn't win.

If you didn't know the answer to a trivia question (or if you were employing some strategy and wanted to make the other team think you didn't know the answer) you can dare them. Then, if the opposing team also didn't know the answer (of if they wanted to call you out on your obvious bluff), they could double dare you. That's when you had to make a decision -- you either had to answer the question or accept a Physical Challenge. And I liked the Physical Challenges fine, they were like a precursor for messier, funnier things to come (read: the Obstacle Course). But looking back on it now, it's funny how the objective of so many of those challenges involved putting brightly colored liquid (usually green or orange) into big measuring cups. That was almost always the case: put this stuff into that thing and keep doing it until you fill it up to the red line. There were slight variations of course -- sometimes you had to sit on liquid-filled balloons, sometimes you wore a juicer on your head and you had to "juice" liquid-soaked balls -- but it was all more or less the same. Basically, it seemed like if you had the required eye-hand coordination to pour yourself a glass of milk, you could easily win.

Marc Summers was born to be a TV host. I couldn't picture him doing anything else with his life. He had the right combination of charisma, inoffensive All-American looks, and just enough cheese-factor to satiate the nation's old fashioned, conventional suburban viewership. I remember how he always used to wear a sports coat, necktie, blue jeans, and white sneakers with white tube socks. He was just really good at holding a microphone, looking into a camera, and saying things. And he's really prolific, too. It's not like he's a one-hit wonder; he also went on to host What Would You Do? (this was when the TV genre of pie-throwing was at its peak) and is currently hosting the Food Network's Unwrapped (it's nice to know how BBQ Fritos are made). He's just great at what he does.

The best part of the show, of course, was the 60-second Obstacle Course at the end of each episode. I spent a lot of time studying this challenge, closely comparing how one family fares to another. I took mental note of each tendency and pattern that formed: a strong start was imperative; if a contestant spent in excess of, say, twelve or more seconds on the very first obstacle, I knew their prospects were dim. Physical fitness played a role; maybe not a major role, but the father with a slight beer belly or the mother with the extra-wide hips were at a disadvantage. Because the ultimate goal of each obstacle was to capture the flag, there was a lot of reaching and grabbing and stretching and extending. The longer, leaner families usually responded well to this, as their sleek and slender arms were able to cover a lot more ground and reach the flag milliseconds faster than other, squatter families. And cardiovascular health was naturally a point of concern. Granted, the course was only a minute long, but stamina and endurance were important. I'm sure running around a TV studio and knocking down giant bowling pins would leave many people gasping for air.

I soon realized that aside from a few exceptions, the obstacles generally fit into four basic categories:

1) The "Gimmies" - These were the blatantly easy challenges that the producers strategically placed to make sure that families at least had a fighting chance of winning. They're essentially automatic. The objective was simple: get from Point A to Point B. The contestant would start at one location, travel a distance of about ten feet, and then grab the awaiting flag. These included the "Drawbridge" (you had to push your way through the big red drawbridge), the "Sunspension Bridge" (you can find these in any park on any playground), the "Doggy Door" (just had to crawl through on your hands and knees), and any variation of having to wade through a waist-high pool of water (the pool was often decorated as a swamp with fake sawgrass, fog machine, and inflatable alligators). These were all boring, but they served a purpose. Without them, they'd definitely have to extend the time limit.

2) The Slightly More Difficult "Gimmies" - These were fundamentally the same obstacle, only a little harder. You still only had to get from Point A to Point B, but these demanded at least the slightest bit of athleticism. You actually had to traverse across something or negotiate your way through something, like the "Ant Farm" (it was a giant ant farm and you had to snake and wriggle your way through the tunnels), the "Sushi Roll" (they were big pipes shaped like California rolls and you had to crawl through them on your belly), "In One Ear" (enter through one ear, squeeze through the wax, and come out the other ear), and the "Sundae Slide" (climb up a ramp, ride the twisty slide down to the bottom, land in a giant ice cream sundae, reach up for the flag. Now, because the ramp was greased with faux chocolate syrup, the key to this obstacle was to put your feet on the outside edges of the ramp; too many contestant tried running right up the ramp and slipping back down).

3) The Pull-This-String or Stomp-This-Button - These included "Bats in the Belfry" (there were three hanging bells to choose from; two of them dropped down only rubber bats and confetti, the third dropped down rubber bats, confetti, and the flag), "Soda Jerk" (there were three flavors of soda and you had to stomp on the right button; the soda would spray down from above and one of them would include the flag), and "Gak Gesier" (this was more straightforward; just hit the button, watch the big machine shoot out green gak from the top, and then collect the flag wherever it lands). The trick here was to just pull all three string or stomp all three buttons successively, one after the other. Too many people wasted time pulling the string, checking the ground if anything fell; pulling the second string, checking the ground; pulling the third string, picking up the flag. Obviously one of them has to be the right one, so make the odds work in your favor and pick them all at the same time.

4) The Messily Hidden Flag - The fourth most ubiquitous obstacle was searching for a hidden flag, usually in a big slice of pizza, or a big pile of waffles, or big peanut butter & jelly sandwich. They ususally called this "The Blue Plate Special." The folly of many a contestant is a hesitatation or reticence in approaching the giant representation of food. It was frustrating to watch people nervously poke at the very corner of the sandwich, or listlessly lift one of the pieces of waffle. As if they were afraid of getting dirty or something...go ahead and attack it. The flag obviously isn't going to be sitting daintily front and center, so dig under that cheese and pepperoni like a madman. Just tear shit up and worry about the repercussions later. This was often the death knell for contestants; if they're wasting over a quarter of their allotted time messing around with this challenge, they weren't going to win.

And then I guess you could also count a fifth unofficial category: The Miscellaneous. These were the obstacles that didn't quite fit into any of these categories, or perhaps fit into all of them simultaneously. For example, the "Gumball Machine" (jump down into a ball pit and come out the other end), "the Lift" (this involved two contestants sitting on a seesaw, with the one going up grabbing the flag overhead), and the "1-ton Hamster Wheel" (jump into a giant hamster wheel and keep running until you made the boxing glove holding the flag drop down).

I haven't flipped past Nickelodeon in a while, but I don't think they have game shows like this anymore. No Double Dare, or Legends of the Hidden Temple, or Wild and Crazy Kids, or Guts. There's no present-day equivalent. I assume it has something to do with how sedentary we've grown as a society. And even if TV producers did try to pitch a similar game show today, most kids are probably too fat to compete on it anyway. Bummer.