Alright, so...
This is gonna be a new little sub-series that I'm gonna do.
And it's gonna be about the TV shows that I used to watch as a kid.
And I think it's safe to say
that TV shows were much simpler form of entertainment back then.
Well, maybe not simpler, considering
'Is It Cake?' is a thing, for Christ's sake.
What's the word I'm looking for? Oh, that's right, BETTER!
TV was better in the '90s and I'm gonna prove it today.
And the first show I want to talk about
is the Nickelodeon show Double Dare.
Now, Double Dare was a game show that pitted two families against each other
in trivia,
physical challenges,
and, of course, The Big Daddy obstacle course at the end.
You got a young Marc Summers as the host,
and yes, that's Mark with a C,
because, well, we spelled things differently in the '90s.
Back then you spelled Mark with a C,
you spelled kids with a Z,
all because it was cool with a fucking...
all because it was cool with a fucking... K!
So you have a family on each side of the stage,
and they're given some arbitrary team names.
"Okay, first up, we got the blue team, The Curious Uncles!
They're gonna go up against the red team, The Manitoba Stranglers.
Looks like it's gonna be a good game!"
But it didn't matter what the family team names were,
because they were all the same.
Each family had two kids,
the dad always had a mustache,
and everybody's mom just kinda looked like this.
And for whatever reason when they introduced the families,
they'd always make the youngest kid tell some bullshit story about their family,
which always took way too goddamn long!
"So, little Susie, I heard you have a funny story
about the time the family dog threw up in the driveway.
Care to tell us about that story?"
"Uhm, yeah, one time there was, like this dog,
uhm, it was our dog, and we were leaving...
And... And then the dog, it was in the morning,
uhm, and when it happened, we were there, over by the bushes...
Right before that my brother was walking, and then we looked over,
and uhm... And I think it was raining... no it wasn't raining...
And them Mom was there, and then we looked over,
aaaand then the dog threw up in the driveway."
(Cocks the gun) "That was a fantastic story there, little Susie.
How about we do some fucking trivia now?"
Now, Double Dare starts out as a basic trivia game,
but there is a catch, and that is if you don't know the answer,
you can always dare the other family to answer it,
and hope that they're just as stupid as you are!
Well, hold on a goddamn minute, the show is called Double Dare after all,
and that is because they could always double dare your ass back,
and now you have to do a physical challenge
and look like a complete asshole on cable television.
And since trivia is boring as hell by itself,
I think they made the trivia questions a little difficult
just so they could get to the goddamn physical challenges.
"Alright, blue team, first question, erm...
What is the hypotenuse derivative of the fifth hyperbole
when it's divided by the denominator of the fifth degree?"
"Uh, yeah, I think we're gonna dare on this one."
"Okay, over to the red team. Red team,
What is the hypotenuse derivative--"
"Fucking double dare, Marc! I put up drywall for a living, what the hell!"
"And we're back to the blue team again--"
"Physical challenge, Marc!
For Christ's sake we'll do the fucking physical challenge."
Now, the physical challenges were really never all that physical.
It was really just an excuse for one of the kids
to make their parents look like an asshole in front of a live studio audience.
"Alright, little Susie, you've got 30 seconds to fling this bucket of bear shit
down there at your dad, who's got a bucket taped to his head like an asshole.
Ready, set, go!
Oh, and there they go, little Susie is giving it a roll,
Ted's down there and he's looking like he's eating shit
both literally and figuratively.
The crowd is going wild, oh boy, it's gonna be close!
(Horn sound) Time's up, you lose!
Hundred dollars to the red team, Ted, here's a moist towelette,
now get the fuck off my stage!"
So this whole fiasco goes on over and over again,
until Marc has had enough of that happy horse shit.
And at that point whichever family has the most money
goes on to The Big Daddy Obstacle Course!
And the other family gets a pair of Skechers,
and they promptly fuck off.
Now, of course, the obstacle course was the best part of the entire show.
It's what put the asses in the seats of the Double Dare studios, if you will.
I mean, you got to cross the monkey bars,
you got to go sliding down slides into vats of slime,
or gak, if you will.
Remember gak? That bright-colored goopy shit?
I think that's what modern TV is missing these days, there's not enough gak in it.
You go ask anybody on the street that's under the age of 25 what gak is,
they wouldn't have a clue!
"Gak? What the hell? What is that, a fucking Dr. Seuss character?
What the hell is gak?"
Alright, so the whole point of the obstacle course is:
you have 60 seconds to retrieve 8 red flags,
each flag that you got - you won a prize.
Now, each prize, of course, got progressively better as you went.
Which meant that the first flag was always some bullshit prize.
Like 15 minutes before the show started, the showrunners were like,
"Hey, you took care of that first prize, right?"
"What? No, I thought you did!"
And then they had to like, run to a Dollar General real quick to find something.
But it didn't matter, because they always hyped it up on the show
like it was the best prize fucking possible.
"Alright, for the first flag
they got to climb over this baby pool filled with a fuckton of gak,
if they do that, Harvey, what do they win?"
"Uh... it's a bottle of... Palmolive dish soap!"
(Ovations)
Yeah, that's right, whether you're scrubbing pots and pans
or you're disciplining foul mouth children,
dish soap by Palmolive will get the job done!"
And of course, the middle flags would always showcase
like the peak of the '90s electronic technology at the time.
"Alright, for this obstacle we're gonna dump a bunch of bullshit on your head
and then there's like a flag or something... I don't know!
Harvey, what's the prize they win?"
"It's a Panasonic
It's a Panasonic VC
It's a Panasonic VCR
It's a Panasonic VCRR
It's a Panasonic VCRRR
It's a Panasonic VCRRRR
It's a Panasonic VCRRRRR
It's a Panasonic VCRRRRRR
It's a Panasonic VCRRRRRRR
It's a Panasonic VCRRRRRRRR
It's a Panasonic VCRRRRRRRRR
It's a Panasonic VCRRRRRRRRRR
It's a Panasonic VCRRRRRRRRRRR
It's a Panasonic VCRRRRRRRRRRRR
It's a Panasonic VCRRRRRRRRRRRR!
(Ovation from the crowd)
That's right, this bad boy comes with tracking, a remote control,
and it weighs more than an average fifth grader!
Now Dad can watch Smokey and the Bandit right in your very own living room
thanks to VCR by Panasonic!"
Now, the Grand Prize, of course, was at the very end.
And this was either a vacation or it was a brand new car,
which I thought was very ambitious for a Nickelodeon game show.
"Alright, little Susie, if you get past the rabid Doberman and grab the flag,
Harvey, what's the grand prize?"
"It's a FORD ESCORT-AAAAHHH!"
(Crowd goes wild) "Oh my God!"
"That's right, it's a 1.6-liter four-banger
with a top speed of 49 mph!
It's cheap, it's economical,
and it sounds like the hooker of automobiles!
It's the Escort by Ford!"
So finally, they start the obstacle course,
and let's be honest, it's a complete shit show!
I mean, the kids are one thing, they're all spry and limber, they're doing well.
But then you got Dad lagging behind with his fucking high-ass blood pressure
and Mom, who hasn't fucking ran anywhere since her lacrosse days in high school.
They got 60 seconds,
they sure as hell ain't winning that Ford Escort, I can tell you that!
Hell, even as a kid,
I knew how every episode of Double Dare was gonna end.
And that is with time running out, (Horn sound)
and somebody's out of breath dad
frantically searching a giant nose for a fucking flag.
"Oh, this is bullshit! There's no flag in there, this goddamn game is rigged!
Oh, wait a minute, here it is."
And then you got Marc Summers coming in out of nowhere,
"Ah, well, I guess it sucks to suck, doesn't it?
Harvey, tell them all the prizes they won!"
"Well, they got their Palmolive dish soap, the Bugs Bunny pencil sharpener,
the Vanilla Ice cassette tape, the pogo stick,
and the gigantic VCR by Panasonic!"
And then boom, credits roll, the show's over,
and your 8-year-old ass is fucking entertained, I can tell you that!"
That was it, solid, simple American television in the '90s.
Now you turn on TV these days and you gotta watch
Dog the Bounty Hunter dressed up as a fucking armadillo.
I don't want to watch that,
just give me a bumbling Midwestern family covered in bullshit
trying to win a fucking karaoke machine
and I'll be all set.
The end.
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