A game show is a type of radio, television, or stage show in which contestants, individually or as teams, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles, usually for money or prizes. Alternatively, a gameshow can be a demonstrative program about a game [while usually retaining the spirit of an awards ceremony]. In the former, contestants may be invited from a pool of public applicants. Game shows often reward players with prizes such as cash, trips and goods and services provided by the show's sponsor prize suppliers.
An obstacle course is a series of challenging physical obstacles an individual, team or animal must navigate, usually while being timed. Obstacle courses can include running, climbing, jumping, crawling, swimming, and balancing elements with the aim of testing speed, endurance and agility. Sometimes a course involves mental tests.
John Morris Henson is an American actor, comedian and talk show host. He was the co-host of ABC's Wipeout with John Anderson, a prime-time game show that ran for 7 seasons.
Wipeout title card used from 2008-2010. The logo can still be seen around the course.
The series premiered on June 24, 2008, on ABC. After his pilot was shot, co-host Elon Gold was replaced. Producers called in Michael Glazer to find a "comic host replacement" that eventually went to John Henson. The first season's success spawned a series of international versions of Wipeout, debuting in countries including the United Kingdom and Argentina in January 2009.
The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network that is a flagship property of Walt Disney Television, a subsidiary of the Disney Media Networks division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, California on Riverside Drive, directly across the street from Walt Disney Studios and adjacent to the Roy E. Disney Animation Building, But the network's second corporate headquarters and News headquarters remains in New York City, New York at their broadcast center on 77 West 66th Street in Lincoln Square in Upper West Side Manhattan.
Elon Gold is an American comedian, television actor, writer and producer.
Mikey Glazer is an entertainment lawyer and former television producer known for his work on reality television programming. Glazer produced NBC reality/game show Fear Factor from 2001-2006. After Fear Factor ended its run, Glazer was Supervising Producer of the CBS Primetime Special Dr. Phil’s Romance Rescue and went to law school. Currently, Glazer resides in Los Angeles, California and continues to represent award-winning content creators in their media projects. Since 2009, he has written a column for the entertainment industry trade paper TheWrap.
On December 8, 2008, ABC announced plans to counter-program NBC's Super Bowl game-day telecasts with a sports-star-studded episode of Wipeout, entitled "Wipeout Bowl". The episode was broadcast immediately following the game. The episode featured female cheerleaders competing against male "couch potato" sports fans.[3] During the hour-long special, Monica Kauffman became the show's first female competitor to win. Following the episode, an announcement was made that a second season had been commissioned, and a promo for the season was subsequently broadcast.
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial terrestrial television network that is a flagship property of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, with additional major offices near Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia. The network is one of the Big Three television networks. NBC is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network", in reference to its stylized peacock logo, introduced in 1956 to promote the company's innovations in early color broadcasting. It became the network's official emblem in 1979.
Super Bowl XLIII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champions Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champions Arizona Cardinals to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 2008 season. The Steelers defeated the Cardinals by the score of 27–23. The game was played on February 1, 2009 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
The second season was broadcast during the summer of 2009. According to TV Week, in 2009 Wipeout became the third most popular game show in the world, based on ratings.[4] On July 22, 2009, Wipeout was renewed for a third season, for which filming began in September 2009.
The third season of the show premiered on June 22, 2010, with a special two-hour "Blind Date" episode preluding the series on June 1.[5][6] ABC subsequently announced that other themed episodes would appear in Season 3, including episodes featuring ladies only and families.[5] The third-season finale aired on September 14, 2010, with a special "America's Finest Edition", featuring some of America's heroes, including firefighters and policemen.
Co-creator and executive producer Matt Kunitz on the Wipeout Zone part of the course in 2010
On August 15, 2010, ABC announced that the show had been contracted for a fourth season.[7] The announcement added: "Wipeout has the distinction of being the only broadcast reality series launched in recent years that has demonstrated proven staying power." On October 13, 2010, ABC announced plans that the fourth season would be split into three sections– Winter, Spring, and Summer; with a total of 32 episodes: 8 Winter episodes, 7 Spring episodes and 17 Summer episodes.[8] The fourth season premiered on January 6, 2011.[9]
On June 16, 2011, ABC announced that the show had been renewed for a fifth season, and that Vanessa Lachey would replace co-host Jill Wagner on the show. New episodes of Winter Wipeout began on December 8, 2011, with a Christmas special episode, entitled Winter Wipeout: Deck the Balls.[citation needed] That same year, syndicated reruns of Wipeout aired on truTV and TBS.[10]
On August 29, 2012, Wipeout was picked up for a sixth season. In addition, it was announced that former co-host Jill Wagner would be returning to the series after a season-long absence.[11] John Anderson and John Henson also returned as hosts.
On August 30, 2012, Activision released a Wipeout game for iOS. It quickly became the top-selling app in the App Store.[12]
On May 9, 2013, season six premiered. In its sixth season, Wipeout celebrated its 100th episode.[13]
On January 22, 2014, Wipeout was renewed for a seventh season. For the first time, winners from each episode were brought together for a "Tournament of Champions" at the end of the season to compete for the title of Ultimate Wipeout Champion.[14]
On June 22, 2014, the seventh season began, with new episodes airing on Sundays. Season seven ended on September 7, 2014.
Wipeout appeared to have been renewed for an eighth season in a new version named Wipeout Extreme; however, by the summer of 2015, ABC had quietly canceled the show and removed it from the ABC website.[15][16]
Wipeout returned to syndicated reruns starting in the fall 2018–2019 season, this time to local stations. Note: Most local stations started airing Wipeout reruns in overnights; stations include WFTV and WRDQ in Orlando as well as WFAA in Dallas. It is also available as a standalone linear channel, which includes the U.S. and foreign versions of the franchise, through free over-the-top provider Pluto TV.
Contestants compete through four rounds of competition until a final winner is chosen. The first round features 24 contestants (they were introduced from seasons 1-3, but from season 4 onwards, not all were shown) running through a series of obstacles. The top 12 finishing times move on. The show never made clear to viewers whether or how the finishing times are adjusted for failing to complete obstacles along the way.
The next two rounds take place on two different complex obstacles. They typically involve large structures that competitors have to enter, navigate around while hostile devices try to knock them off, and then jump to a landing pad to finish, where Jill Wagner awaits them. The competitors keep trying on these structures until roughly half of them have reached the finish; the other half are eliminated. This leaves only the top four (top three in some seasons) to make it to the final round called the Wipeout Zone, where the winner earns the title of Wipeout Champion and a $50,000 grand prize.
The challenges change each week, but always feature offbeat and comical obstacles, such as the "Sucker Punch", "Big Balls" (the show's trademark obstacle, four very large red spheres in sequence that must be traversed from a running start, with failures often resulting in odd-angle rejections), the "Sweeper", the "Dizzy Dummy" or the "Dreadmill". Emphasis is always placed on obstacles that can produce sudden jarring collisions (the obstacle surfaces are heavily padded and competitors sometimes don helmets or flak jackets) followed by spectacular falls into the water below, these being the show's titular "wipeouts". As part of wiping out, the competitors often end up covered in mud, froth, vats of food, or other unlikely substances.
In one of the show's trademarks, the commentators have a humorous running commentary, often mocking and insulting the contestants as they compete. The hosts make frequent use of puns. Jokey sound effects and cheesy visual effects are often added as well. The exchanges between the two hosts is often a subplot of episodes themselves, with Anderson playing it mostly straight as a play-by-play man while Henson offers up off-the-wall inanities and non sequiturs as color commentary. Jill Wagner offers additional features reactions, and also provides interviews with the contestants filmed before their turn begins. These interviews tend to emphasize bizarre aspects of contestants' personalities, with Wagner making facial commentary as the conversation proceeds. Generally only those who will pass the first round are introduced, and a nickname is assigned that is used throughout the game.
At night, the show takes an epic and serious turn, with the humor dialed down, and serious background music instead of its lighthearted theme music. The final four or three contestants play separately on a large obstacle course inside the studio called the Wipeout Zone, each attempting to finish the course in the fastest time, much like the first round. Though slight variations are used in each episode, contestants wear wetsuits and they begin by either sliding down a water ramp or being launched by a giant catapult or blob into the course, swimming to the first obstacle. Obstacles have varied between episodes, but the course contains several obstacles that must be traversed in order to reach the finishing platform. Some obstacles can be skipped for a time penalty, but the last obstacle(s) has to be completed in order to reach the finishing spot. The player with the fastest time on the course is declared the "champion" of the episode and is awarded the show's grand prize of $50,000. The Wipeout Zone often brings competitors to the brink of exhaustion, especially when they have to swim back to a starting point to retry a failed obstacle.
The storage area of the Wipeout set at Sable Ranch, as seen in 2013
On its premiere night, Wipeout scored the highest premiere rating of any new show in summer 2008, besting competing veteran summer shows Hell's Kitchen and America's Got Talent.[17] As the season progressed, Nielsen Media Research put it at the top of the 18-49 demographic, slightly outpaced by America's Got Talent. On August 6, 2008, Wipeout was officially renewed for a second season.[18] The second season premiered on May 27, 2009, and with an audience of 9.69 million, Wipeout bested its first season average and gave ABC its best numbers in the Wednesday 8:00 p.m. slot since November 2007.[19] The third season premiered on June 22, 2010, with ratings of 10.21 million,[20] with a special "Blind Date" episode getting 12.8 million viewers on June 1, 2010.[21] In 2016, a New York Times study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook Likes found that Wipeout was "most popular in Northern, rural areas with a large percentage of white people: Idaho, Utah, Wisconsin and Maine are all on the top of this show's list".[22]
On January 6, 2011, the first season of Winter Wipeout premiered with the series' highest ratings ever, beating the 8pm competition in the coveted 18-49 demographic and many other key demos.[23]
↑ Wipeout won the award for the first time, dethroning American Idol, which had won the category every time since its inception. Over 220 million votes were cast.[29]
Lawsuit
The concept and style of the show has been compared to several Japanese game shows, most notably Unbeatable Banzuke and Takeshi's Castle.[34][35] This was brought to the attention of the Japanese broadcaster Tokyo Broadcasting System, who filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against ABC, charging that Wipeout is "a blatant copycat" of several of its classic Japanese competition game shows. Among the charges are that ABC bought search terms such as MXC (the Americanized comedy version of Takeshi's Castle) on Google to help drive traffic to the official Wipeout page, and that specific obstacles in Wipeout were knock-offs of challenges in those Japanese game shows. [citation needed]
Wipeout creator and executive producer Matt Kunitz, who also executive produced Endemol's Fear Factor (NBC), said Wipeout is "90% Fear Factor-inspired, 10% Japanese game show", adding in a Los Angeles Times interview that Wipeout was born from a desire to do a funny stunt series. He reportedly wanted to sell the show as Fear Factor meets America's Funniest Home Videos.[36] The suit was settled in December 2011 through mediation with a federal judge without going to trial.[37]
Wipeout has also been adapted into a video game, Wipeout: The Game, which was released June 22, 2010, along with the Season 3 premiere.[38] The game was released on the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS, and was developed by Activision. In the game, the player can choose from 23 different characters. There are four categories of characters, with each category having a certain amount of "Speed" and "Strength" for the player, which varies based on their body sizes. The "Small" characters have great Speed but little Strength. The "Medium" characters have a more balanced amount of Speed and Strength, with neither one serving as the dominant trait. And the "Large" characters have great Strength but little Speed. These first three categories all have 6 different characters each; 3 females and 3 males, and each character having 3 different outfits. The fourth category is "Special," which has a high amount of Speed and Strength. There are 5 characters in this category, including the three hosts. The game is played in two different versions. Challenge mode is where the player can challenge specific obstacles and attempt to beat them in a certain amount of time. The other is Play The Show, which means to play the game as they would in the show. They go through the Qualifier round first, and advance to the Sweeper round second. The third round, Free For All, has 3 different versions. In the Easy level, the Free For All features players spinning on the dizzy dummy, and then going across the Tipsy Tables or the Spinning Platform. Challenging level has players on the Unclaimed Baggage, and the Extreme level has them on the Double Crosser. Finally, they go through the Wipeout Zone. The Wii game is different from the show (and its Nintendo DS counterpart) in that there are only 4 contestants, and none are eliminated during the first three rounds. The game has commentary by Henson, Anderson and Wagner, all three of whom are featured as unlockable playable characters.[39]
Another Wipeout game was under development by Activision, this time for Xbox 360 with Kinect, entitled 'Wipeout: In The Zone'. It took full advantage of the Kinect remote and has ragdoll wipeouts and different rounds from the Wii and DS version, such as Bruiseball. The game was released "in conjunction with the premier of Wipeout's summer season on ABC"[40] on June 16, 2011.[41]Activision announced on August 18, 2011 that a direct sequel to the first Wipeout game was in development titled Wipeout 2[42] for Xbox 360 with Kinect, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS. The new game is described as "Offering updated, outrageous course designs across all platforms with obstacles and effects taken straight from the show's summer and winter seasons. Players must navigate around snow, ice, foam, and fan-favorite obstacles like the Sucker Punch Wall and Big Balls; which are making their triumphant returns alongside more than 50 others".
It was released on October 11, 2011.[43] Activision announced on June 25, 2013 that a new title called Wipeout: Create & Crash would be released on Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Nintendo 3DS on October 15, 2013.[44]
International versions outside the U.S.
Endemol Shine North America has sold the "Wipeout" format to more than 40 territories and has created two obstacle courses in Argentina for those international editions.[18] Past, current and upcoming versions include:
In Canada, the original United States series airs on Global for the first 5 seasons where City aired the 6th; the French-Canadian television V also aired the United States series but dubbed in French. The original United States series also airs in the UK on Challenge (as Total Wipeout USA), in New Zealand on Comedy Central, in Australia on Nine Network; in the Philippines and India on AXN and also on Comedy Central in India, in the Netherlands on RTL 5, and in Hong Kong on TVB Pearl.[66] It is also broadcast in Ireland by TG4 with an Irish language voiceover.
The Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway, and Sweden produce separate versions of the show based on the same footage of contestants from the three countries competing against each other.
The Dutch version is a collaboration between the Netherlands and Belgium.
The American, British, Canadian and Australian versions are broadcast in Portugal on FX and also the Spanish and argentinian versions and a rerun of the first season in Portuguese on +tvi.
The Italian version is made from the USA show, with the original audio still audible; some episodes are taken from the UK version, Total Wipeout.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is an international television game show franchise of British origin, created by David Briggs, Mike Whitehill and Steven Knight. In its format, currently owned and licensed by Sony Pictures Television, contestants tackle a series of multiple-choice questions to win large cash prizes in a format that twists on many game show genre conventions – only one contestant plays at a time, similar to radio quizzes; contestants are given the question before attempting an answer, and have no time limit to answer questions; and the amount offered increases as they tackle questions that become increasingly difficult. The maximum cash prize offered in most versions of the format is one million of the local currency.
Pyramid is an American television game show franchise that has aired several versions domestically and internationally. The original series, The $10,000 Pyramid, debuted March 26, 1973, and spawned seven subsequent Pyramid series. Most later series featured a full title format matching the original series, with the title reflecting the top prize increase from $10,000, $20,000, $25,000, $50,000 to $100,000 over the years. The game features two contestants, each paired with a celebrity. Contestants attempt to guess a series of words or phrases based on descriptions given to them by their teammates. The title refers to the show's pyramid-shaped gameboard, featuring six categories arranged in a triangular fashion. The various Pyramid series have won a total of nine Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Game Show, second only to Jeopardy!, which has won 13.
Endemol was a Dutch-based media company that produced and distributed multiplatform entertainment content. The company annually produced more than 15,000 hours of programming across scripted and non-scripted genres, including drama, reality TV, comedy, game shows, entertainment, factual and children's programming.
Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (MXC) is an American comedy television program that aired on Spike TV from 2003 to 2007. It is a re-purpose of footage from the Japanese game show Takeshi's Castle which originally aired in Japan from 1986 to 1990. The re-purposed "MXC" created a completely new premise, storyline and characters. The MXC re-purpose created two teams competing against each other à la a typical Saturday afternoon network football game broadcast, with players trying to win points for their teams by surviving through different challenges. In the original program the Count and his underlings would follow the progress of the players as they moved through the course. In the re-purpose Count Takeshi became veteran network announcer Vic Romano and the count's flunky became young upstart Kenny Blankenship.
Matt Kunitz is an American television executive producer known for his work on reality television programming. In July 2008, the Los Angeles Times dubbed Kunitz "The King of Reality TV."
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is an American television game show based on the same-titled British program and developed for the United States by Michael Davies. The show features a quiz competition in which contestants attempt to win a top prize of $1,000,000 by answering a series of multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty. The program has endured as one of the longest-running and most successful international variants in the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? franchise.
Deal or No Deal is the American version of the international game show of Dutch origin of the same name. The show is hosted by actor-comedian Howie Mandel, and premiered on December 19, 2005 on NBC. The hour-long show typically aired at least twice a week during its run, and included special extended or theme episodes. The show started its fourth season on August 25, 2008, a day after NBC's coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics ended. A daily syndicated half-hour version of the show debuted on September 8, 2008 and continued for two seasons.
Jill Suzanne Wagner is an American film and television actress, model, and game show personality. She was a co-host for the ABC comic competition show Wipeout from 2008 to 2014.
The Price Is Right is a television game show franchise originally produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, and created by Bob Stewart, and is currently produced and owned by FremantleMedia. The franchise centers on television game shows, but also includes merchandise such as video games, printed media and board games. The franchise began in 1956 as a television game show hosted by Bill Cullen and was revamped in 1972. This version was originally hosted by Bob Barker. Since 2007, Drew Carey has hosted the program.
I Survived a Japanese Game Show was an American reality show that saw its first season premiere on ABC June 24, 2008. The show followed a group of Americans, who leave the United States for Japan where they competed in a Japanese style game show. The winner takes home US $250,000. The series won both the Best Reality prize and the overall prize at the 2009 Rose d'Or ceremony.
Wipeout, presented on air as Wipeout Australia, is an Australian game show, which is based on the U.S. game show of the same name. The game show premiered on the Nine Network on Tuesday 3 February 2009 at 7:30 pm for an initial run of eight episodes. The show was produced by Endemol Southern Star. The show is currently being re-aired on GO!, a Nine Network multi-channel.
Total Wipeout is a British game show, hosted by Richard Hammond and Amanda Byram, which first aired on 3 January 2009. Each week, 20 contestants competed in a series of challenges in an attempt to win £10,000. These challenges were based in large pools of water or mud and generally involved large assault courses that participants had to cross. The 20 contestants are narrowed down to 12, then to either 6 or 5, with the final 3 progressing to the Wipeout Zone.
Wipeout Canada is a Canadian reality television series in which multiple contestants compete in numerous obstacle-based challenges. The series is produced by DTour and premiered on that channel on April 3, 2011. The studio hosts are Jonathan Torrens and Ennis Esmer, with Jessica Phillips as the on-site reporter.
101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow is a British game show produced by Initial for the BBC, it is hosted by Steve Jones and Nemone. On each episode, eight contestants compete for a £10,000 prize by picking the correct answers to general knowledge questions, all the while standing on a tower configured for various stunts. Competitors who pick incorrect answers are eliminated from the show in a variety of different ways, usually involving a drop into a large pool of water at the base of the tower. The show made its debut on BBC One on 10 July 2010 and ended on 28 August 2010. An American version, hosted by Jeff Sutphen, premiered on 21 June 2011.
Zor Ka Jhatka: Total Wipeout was an Indian reality game show. Aired on Imagine TV, it was the Indian version of the American reality show Wipeout on ABC. It was hosted by Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan and co-hosted by Saumya Tandon. The show consisted of a series of obstacles which the contestants must clear to move on to the next round. If a contestant fails to complete an obstacle, he is said to be wiped out. It was organized at the Wipeout course in Buenos Aires, while the end-game bits were shot with Khan at the Yash Raj Studios in Mumbai. The show started airing on 1 February 2011 at 9:00 pm and ended on February 25, 2011 with Kushal Punjabi as the winner taking home Rs. 5,000,000, while German-Polish model Claudia Ciesla was the runners-up by 51 seconds.
Oh Sit! was an hour-long game show competition series that premiered on September 27, 2012, on The CW. The series, according to the network, was a "high-octane musical chairs competition". Despite low ratings during its run, on September 26, 2012, Oh Sit! was renewed for a ten episode second season, which premiered on Monday, April 15, 2013 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern/7:00 p.m. Central and concluded on December 19, 2013.
Nan sheng nü sheng xiang qian chong (Pinyin, In Chinese: "男生女生向前冲", directly in English "Race Forward, Boys and Girls!") is a Chinese game show which is based on one of Endemol USA's best-selling game shows, Wipeout. Unlike the US version, this program has several changes to the original settings. The latest season is finished on October 24, 2013.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a 2013 video game published by Activision and developed by Magic Pockets, based on the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series. It was the first video game to be based on the Nickelodeon show, featuring several villains from the show's first season. The digital versions of the game, alongside other Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games published by Activision, were pulled from all digital storefronts in January 2017 as they chose not to renew the license.
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