Thursday 4 July 2024

Kids game shows I wanted to be part of.

I feel sorry for kids today. There is a lack of game shows that they could be part of. Well I don't watch much kids TV now but I haven't heard of any. Back in the day, in the 80's and 90's when I was a kid there were so many. I watched them and used to think I could do that. I dreamed of taking part in them. They looked so fun! How many of these do you remember?

Woman with pink hair watching TV

Fun House.

"Wacky! Fun! Crazy! It's outrageous!"

When I used to take my kids to soft play I used to think of this TV show. lol Pat Sharp was a legend with a mullet and the games looked like so much fun! Two teams of two play three gungy games to win points. Then there was the Fun Kart grand prix, a race around the studio where they can earn lots and lots of bonus points by collecting tokens. Then the winning team got to go in the Funhouse where they could win prizes! A Megadrive, a trendy watch, a blow up alligator: the stuff of dreams!

Apparently, if you wanted to go on Fun House, they went round schools auditioning kids. Part of this auditioning included getting covered in gunge. I would have so done that if it meant that I could go on!

Knightmare.

Enter, stranger....

I loved this show but it scared me at the same time. I remember watching it shouting at the TV and getting so stressed over it, especially when they messed up.

The entire show was set in the Dungeon where Treguard the Lord of Knightmare Castle would host. On the immortal words of "Enter, Stranger" a child would enter the room, transported from the real world. He/she was the Dungeoneer and would enter the Dungeon with a helmet on so they couldn't see but to guide them they would have three team mates. It was quite ground breaking for a children's show as the dungeon was all computer generated, like virtual reality but 30 odd years ago.

I didn't want to be the child in the helmet. I wanted to be one of the kids directing them. I am sure my team would have won! 

Mallet's Mallet!


I wanted so much to be whacked on the head with a foam mallet. hehehe

Kids had to play a simple word association game and if you couldn't think of a word you would get smacked on the head. 

It sounds so stupid but I desperately wanted to play it. Timmy Mallett was a comedy genius back when I was a kid. We'll just forget about the Itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini song he brought out.

The Crystal Maze.

This wasn't really a kids TV show. I'm sure it used to be on at about 6pm on CH4. I was so sure as a child I could do better than some of the adults on it. hehehe It was only good when Richard O'Brien was presenting it though. Anyone since just hasn't done it for me. 

Get Your Own Back.

Two or three competing teams including a child and a parent/relative/teacher/celeb who has committed some dreadful crime such as being old, singing badly or insisting upon a tidy room compete. At the end of the show, the child who has gained most points has earned the right to Get Their Own Back upon their elder by dunking them into a pool of colourful gunge. I could have thought of a few people I could have happily dunked. 

They just don't make them like they used to, do they?
What game show did you want to be on?

4 comments :

  1. I knew that Fun House had to be top of the list, I was so desperate to be on it! That part at the end where they got to go around the house and grab the tags with the prizes on. And not a game show, but I also really wanted to be on Blue Peter! I found Knightmare a bit scary too, I don't think I would have wanted to be on that one!

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  2. I don't know any of these, but we had something similar here in the US. I don't know if there are any kids' game shows left on TV.

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  3. Just reading your post title brought Fun House to mind haha!
    I remember all of these. I LOVED Mallet's Mallet! I wanted to be on that soooo badly! Haha.
    You are right, they aren't the same now. xx

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  4. I loved watching all of these with my older kids. (I'm ancient, there wasn't much on when I was a kid, but I did like Tiswas and Why Don't You?) We used to play Mallet's Mallet as you could buy those giant mallets from Toys R Us. I would have taken part in Fun House, despite already being an adult! We went to a crystal maze experience in Tenby when my eldest two were young. It was really great with lots of different areas. But the games were a little rubbish. The Crystal Maze itself was also a let down, there were no floating pieces of gold and silver, we just had to press buttons around the dome. xx

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