Double Dare
Synopsis
Goody! Two Human League albums for the price of one. Double Dare was (at the time) one of the most popular slots on Saturday morning telly show Going Live! which was hosted by Phillip Schofield and Sarah Greene. Double Dare would be a 20-25 minute slot therein.
Hosted by kids presenter/comedian Peter Simon, two teams would battle it out over challenges of brain and brawn in order to get through to the obstacle course and win... things. The majority of the show hinged around the questions. If a team didn't know the answer to a question, or thought the other team didn't know the answer they could 'Dare' them to answer it for double the points [bearing in mind that a wrong answer gives your opponents the points and control of the game]. However, that team could 'Double Dare' it back to redouble the points. The original team faced two choices: answer the question or brave the perils of the... (da-da-da-duh) Physical Challenge.
Now, these physical challenges were in the It's a Knockout style, such as launching foam filled flans over a wall to your team-mate who would have to catch a certain amount in a pile to win the game within a time limit. The one unifying factor of the challenges was this: gunge. Yes, Tiswas has a lot to answer for. The other unifying factor to all these games was Peter Simon hilariously falling over and getting himself covered. All the time.
Excellently, part two of the show was 'Double Double Dare' (because 'Quadruple Dare would have been less catchy, no?) where (you'll never get this) all the points are doubled. Lawks!
The team with the most points get the chance to go round the excellence of the Double Dare Obstacle Course. 8 obstacles, 8 flags to find, eight prizes, sixty seconds and loadsagunge. Obstacles were of the 'go down this gungy slide' or 'pop these foamy balloons because one has got a flag inside' although (in later series especially) there would sometimes be a theme to the decor of the course. Which is nice.
Different versions and specials were formed including Celebrity Double Dare (go on, guess) and Family Double Dare, a bit like Jim Davidson's Generation Game. In fact they're spookily similar, except one of the players is a child and their partner is someone older but don't worry, that didn't mean that Peter Simon wouldn't keep falling over as he did with comic aplomb every week.
Inventor
Adapted from the Nickelodeon (USA) show of the same name.
Trivia
Paul Clarke of Big Brother 2 fame notoriety appeared on Double Dare with his sister Nicola, many years before failing to snog Helen Adams to the frustration of the tabloid press. Oh, and they lost miserably, incidentally.
Merchandise
There was a Double Dare game available for Spectrum computers.
Web links
Joe Wehmann's site primarily documents the US version, but has additional information on the foreign ones, too.
