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Awesome / Double Dare (1986)

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Known for its messiness, the second Game Show to bear the name Double Dare had plenty of great moments.


  • Teams would normally choose to "dare" only if they didn't know the answer. A team on one episode figured out they could make more money by intentionally daring the other team, getting the "double dare" back, and then answering. They did this many times in a row. Considering that Marc explicitly gives this advice in his instruction spiel, you have to wonder why people didn't try it more often.
  • Obstacle course wins were rare enoughnote  that any win can count as being awesome, but this especially applies to wins where either a contestant grabs the eighth flag just as the timer hits zero or the team completes the obstacle course in a ridiculously short time (times of under 50 seconds were very rare, but they did happen; the record is 43 seconds by the Fischler family on the Fox version of Family Double Dare). Doubly awesome if the winning time is ridiculously fast even when the course includes an obstacle that is usually a huge time sink, such as "The Sundae Slide" or multiple "find the flag in the gunge" obstacles.
  • The guest appearance by "Weird Al" Yankovic on the Fox run of Family, where he absolutely crushes both the questions and challenges. This episode had Al and the family he was with dominate the first two rounds save for missing a Physical Challenge (admittedly a very tough one where they had to toss salad ingredients from a very far distance in 20 seconds) and two questions (though they weren't counted toward money for the other team). After winning against Lou Ferrigno's team in a near landslide with a score of $725-$100, they went to the obstacle course where it wasn't just Al (in the first and fifth events) blowing through the time in mere seconds for his events, but the rest of the family pulled their weight, including the daughter, who likely wasn't even five feet tall. And they managed to pull it off for a Chevy Blazer! At the end of it all, you can tell Al has had an absolute blast being on this show:
    Weird Al: (completely out of breath, covered in gunk) I FEEL LIKE A HUMAN HAMSTER, MARC!
  • From the Fox and 1990 runs of Family, any car win.
    • Aside from the two Fox runs mentioned above, one course run by the Brotschuls has Inside-Out as #8. The team's mother pops the balloon with the flag and grabs it while the buzzer is sounding. Marc goes to the judges who give them the win.
    • The Troopers' run from the 1990 season. They reach the halfway point with 23 seconds after the father, Wilbur, uses his height to his advantage in Gator Alley. His kids then pick up the pace in their obstacles, Squelch'M Waffles and Sushi. His wife finds the flag right away in Hourglass, and Wilbur uses the last couple of seconds to dive through Fancy Footwork. He pulls the flag from the last shoe just as the clock flips from one to zero, and Marc's voice cracks when this happens.
    • Another instance of a close win causing Marc's voice to crack comes from the Fast Tracks' run — the first two obstacles (Suspension Bridge and Lake Double Dare) give the family trouble in terms of actually grabbing the flag; the dad forces himself through The Woiks, followed by one of the kids managing to find the flag in Popcorn right off the bat. Down the Hatch is next, and the kid forces themselves down quickly. The mom has trouble with Inside Out, and when she finds the flag, there's only 10 seconds left! The dad finds the flag in Squelch'M Waffles with little difficulty, and the final kid pretty much dives through Moonwalk with flag in hand and only 1 second left on the clock!
    • The 3 M's & Me from the same season have a slightly bigger comeback that was just as impressive. After the mother struggles to find the flag in the third obstacle, Hourglass, her husband completes Wrestle-Rama with 21 seconds left. The two sons get through the next two obstacles, with the older son plowing through Fancy Footwork the same way Wilbur did. After the mother completes Icy Trike, the father stomps on the keys to Typewriter and grabs the flag with no time to spare. Everyone in the studio goes ballistic at the close finish.
  • On one 1987 Super Sloppy episode, Marc and Harvey have a gentleman's bet based on the obstacle course outcome. Marc gets a pie in the face if the team wins; otherwise, Harvey gets the pie. That day, the team wins with no time to spare and they pie Marc.
  • The Rif Raffs' obstacle course run from 1988. Both players keep good pace in spite of the run featuring some brutal obstacles in Pick It, Sewer Chute and Mt. St. Double Dare. To top it off, the clock was displaying "1" when the seventh and the eighth flags were grabbed.
  • Any time a team reaches an incredibly high score in the main game, a score often not reached. According to 1988's The Double Dare Game Book, the highest score under the original format ($10-$20-$40/$20-$40-$80 scoring) was $750. This happened only once on the original Super Sloppy in 1987. Under the Family format ($25-$50-$100/$50-$100-$200 scoring), it was $1,050, which happened twice, once in 1990 and once in 1992.
  • The final season, which incidentally wasn't supposed to be (they were renewed for an eighth year, but Marc realized they had done enough episodes [525 to be exact] to be in reruns forever, so DD was put to bed), ended with a Tournament of Champions pitting those with high front game scores vs those who won the Obstacle Course in the fastest time. The Grand Finale was a one hour special; two truncated games with the two families who achieved each qualification facing each other with the winners moving on to the finals. The winning family, a team known as Granite Toast, who won the finals with $1,000, successfully completed the final Obstacle Course to end the series on a high note, winning a Mercury Villager in the process.
    • Granite Toast also has an epic run to the Tournament of Champions in their featured episode. They answer 11 questions correctly, winning their game with $800. The team's mother gets them $200 by taking a slow and steady approach in their Round 2 physical challenge, and she finds the flag right away in the Blue Plate Special. The son continues the pace by doing a great job in Shark!, and the father dives through the Wringer to grab the eighth flag with one second remaining. During the credits, the exciting finish is played in slow-motion.
  • From 2000, any time a family takes the Triple Dare Challenge and succeeds.
  • The first team to win in the 2018 revival not only got to the obstacle course after coming back from a $650 deficit simply by answering a ton of questions correctly, but then proceeded to conquer the course by sheer Awesome by Analysis, being smart enough to send the one with longer limbs through obstacles like “Giant Hamster Wheel” and “Pick It”, while sending the smaller of the two through the more claustrophobic obstacles like “Tube-a-Totter” and “Down the Hatch”.
  • The 2018 revival featuring a family team with same-sex parents for the first time in the show's history. Cutely enough, their team was "Team Double Dads."
  • The 2018 revival ended with snowboarder Shaun White grabbing the last flag on the obstacle course. (He also grabbed the last flag in his first appearance during Double Dare's Holiday Week 2019 tournament.)

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