The contests preparing for the siege of the castle are humiliating and painful, and many have more than a tinge of the Freudian about them. The survivors, led by a character named General Lee, then attempt a takeover of the eponymous castle. During the show’s initial contests, players are eliminated until an “army” of 100 survivors remains. Takeshi’s Castle was licensed by Spike TV, renamed Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, and given an occasionally amusing dubbed English narration, performed by two comedians drafted from L.A.’s Groundlings comedy troupe.
Spike tv japanese obstacle course series#
The show was hosted by “Count” Takeshi Kitano and featured ordinary Japanese citizens navigating a bizarre series of difficult physical contests while attempting to win a series of prizes. MXC’s main footage is taken from the Japanese reality show Takeshi’s Castle, which was a runaway hit from 1985 to 1990 on Tokyo’s NHK network. If Spike TV has anything to communicate beyond beer and boobs, it may be found amid MXC’s Downhill Giant Rice Bowl Slalom and its Eat Shiitake Challenge. But among the MacGyver reruns and commercials for herbal testosterone enhancers resides something oddly artistic and genuinely resonant, an obstacle course reality show titled Most Extreme Elimination Challenge- MXC to its fans (Wednesday through Friday at 11:30 p.m. Billing itself as “the first network for men,” Spike TV appears to be aimed at an audience that lacks the physical energy required to turn the pages of Maxim.
Finally, last summer brought the launch of Spike TV, an entire network devoted to reality programming and other low-concept fare-shows like Joe Schmo 2, Trucks! and Pamela Anderson’s Stripperella. Then came the bachelors, bachelorettes, big fat obnoxious fiances, and that reddish, fuzzy thing that makes its home on Donald Trump’s head.
In early 2017, Viacom announced plans to take the aging channel to the woodshed and start fresh in 2018 with a top-to-bottom rebrand as the Paramount Network.įinally succumbing to its long battle with relevancy, Spike TV passed away on January 17, 2018, its death rattle taking the form of a (presumably fake) Twitter meltdown.First came Big Brother and Survivor, shows that introduced American audiences to reality television’s pungent blend of narcissistic participants, base audience urges, and network executives’ bad faith. Though Spike continued to experiment with original programming throughout the years, most viewers likely regarded Spike as that channel with 24/7 MMA fights by the end of its run. The network fiddled with the formula and focused its targeting over the next decade, dropping the “TV” from its name and trying out new logos in 20. Then there’s the ahead-of-its-time blend of reality TV and satire to which Nathan Fielder owes an enormous debt, The Joe Schmoe Show, which had a regular dude cluelessly compete against paid actors in what he thought was a reality contest. Take, for example, Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, where the conceit of dubbing comedic commentary over a retro Japanese obstacle course show was genius enough for most people to ignore some of its more problematic jokes. While some of that content was craven nostalgia-bait ( Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon") or puerile quasi-smut ( Stripperella), a few diamonds were sprinkled into the rough. Though its schedule was padded with Star Trek reruns and TV-edited James Bond films, the network churned out a surprising amount of original programming in its early era.
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