Double Dare (1986 TV Show)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Very rarely did a team use the "I Dare you to answer it because I don't think you know it" strategy.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: Some of Edd Kalehoff's most recognizeable work can be found here. Taken Up to Eleven on the FOX version with countless remixes of the Theme Tune and in-game music (and not just the ones that were kept after this version ended).
  • Cue Irony / Funny Aneurysm Moment: It was revealed years after the show was over that Summers suffered from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). That's right, the host of one of the gungiest shows on TV was a massive neat freak; a documentary on the show and him showed him doing things such as lining up all the fringe on a throw rug. Fortunately, he got over it and has gone on to be a successful TV show host, producer, and author. He's one of the more prolific producers at Food Network and its affiliates.
    • This also made him a major Badass among fans, as he still showed up for work and you'd never know. Guy's got balls.
  • Growing the Beard: The show started to look and feel much more polished with the FOX Family version. Updates to the Theme Tune, a noticeable increase in the amount of messy challenges, an increase in the budget for that version only (exotic trip for Obstacle 6, cash from $2,000-$5,000 for #7, and a Car for #8), and some visual elements carried over into subsequent versions of the show.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Marc Summers hosted this show and he has freakin' OCD no one knew at the time. Now everyone between 18- 32 knows.
    • Specifically, he had a Monk-level obsession with neatness at home. He's been public about his battle with the illness in the hope of helping others, but it makes one wonder how he could've possible withstood hosting a show like this.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: One of the angles for early commercials for the original Double Dare focused on the fact that the game was for kids rather than adults, and tended to show a man in a jacket and tie making a fool of himself trying to go through such obstacles as "The Sundae Slide" or "Icy Trike" to emphasize this. Then Family Double Dare came along... although the adults still looked quite ridiculous going through the obstacles, it was now part of the show's appeal.
  • Replacement Scrappy: Jason Harris and Tiffany Phelps, the host/announcer tandem on 2000. Jason was nothing at all like the cool Mr. Summers, and Tiffany was overbearingly shrill.
  • That One Obstacle: "Squelch'm Waffles", "Garbage Truck", "Pick-It"-- pretty much any obstacle where the team member had to find the flag hidden in gunge.
    • Also, any time a fourth tunnel was added to "Sushi" or "Dallas".
    • Cranked right on up to Platform Hell whenever the producers decided to put upwards of twenty balloons at "Inside Out" instead of three or four, with wrong flags hidden inside several of them.
    • Many obstacle course runs in the early years were derailed by the original version of "The Sundae Slide", which required contestants to climb up a 45 degree incline covered with grease and slime before going down the eponymous slide. If they did not make a point of only putting their feet on the padding under the rails on either side of the incline (which had no grease on it), they could waste 15 or 20 seconds just trying to get to the top of the slide. Though arguably one of the most popular obstacles with young audiences, it proved the difference between getting all eight flags and getting only seven (or fewer) so frequently that one could be forgiven for suspecting that it was deliberately engineered to prevent the obstacle course from being won too often (Summers often made jokes about the program's limited budget in the early years, and this included the prizes). It got to a point where in the final season, the incline was replaced by a regular ladder; the incline returned for 2000.
      • This was made even worse in the first season or two when they had a variant of the Sundae Slide entitled the "Fireman's Flag-Pull", where once you climbed up the chocolate covered ramp you then had to pull in a clothesline to retrieve the flag before sliding down a fireman's pole to pass it off. At least one contestant forgot to pull in the flag and had to repeat the obstacle. Made particularly egregious on a Halloween episode where there were Trick-or-Treat bags on the clothesline with the flag hidden in one of them (naturally, the last one).
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: The Family and 2000 versions, with many unnecessary rule changes.
  • What an Idiot!: On two separate episodes, both from 1989, neither team could guess the answer to "How many arms did Babe Ruth have?" and "How many ankles did Michael J. Fox have?".
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