A few Nickelodeon Double Dare questions

[Vahan_Nisanian]

1) Which episodes were shot first: The 2nd half of the 1988 syndicated episodes (the ones with the glass wall behind Marc), or the Fox Primetime episodes? I used to think that the Fox Primetime ones were shot first, but after thinking about it, I'm starting to think that it was the other way around. For one thing, I remember some earlier taped episodes from the 2nd half, where the contestants were still wearing white helmets on the obstacle course, as opposed to color-coated ones. Also, The Big Cheese obstacle, which was on both the syndicated version, and on Fox FDD, used to have the contestants search for the flag in one of the holes, but during the syndicated run, it was changed to going through a hole. The 2nd version was also on the primetime version. Not to mention that the "Inside Slop" VHS tape didn't feature any clips from the 2nd half of the syndicated run, or the Fox primetime version.

2) What were the names of the teams that competed on the episode where the cast of Don't Just Sit There played the game?

3) Which episodes of the Orlando Super Sloppy version were shot first? The ones with the blue lights behind Marc, or the ones with the amber lights?

Finally, I've been interested in trying to find out the number of episodes for all the versions of the show that Marc Summers hosted as of recently. As far as I know, here's how many episodes have been identified for all of them as of right now:

DD (1986): 44/?
DD (1987): 51/?
SSDD (1987): 24/26?
DD (1988): 76/?
Fox FDD (1988): 11/13
SSDD (1989, Philadelphia): 50/50
SSDD (1989, Orlando): 40/50
Nick FDD (1990): 40/40 (One of them being the Salute to Double Dare special)
Super Special DD (1992): 2/2
Nick FDD (1992): 40/40 (One of them being the hour-long series finale Tournament of Champions)

378/525

[JasonA1]

One episode of Orlando SSDD was declared the 400th. I guess it could have been tongue-in-cheek, but it's completely plausible. Marc gave the oft-cited number 525 during the final season, so I don't know how accurate it is as a final tally. Perhaps somebody with a Broadcasting (& Cable) from that era could find out how many episodes were being offered to syndicators for each of those seasons.

-Jason

[DJ !mpact]

Here are a few answers for you:

1) The FOX Family Double Dare run was shot first, then the 2nd half of the syndicated Double Dare run was shot afterwards.  The glass wall was one of the few set changes from FOX Family Double Dare that remained when the syndicated Double Dare resumed.

Disregard any significance with the helmet colors, as the white & colored helmets coincided with different versions, respectively.  Also, remember that the contestant uniforms for the 2nd half of the syndicated run returned to the same style as those worn prior to the FOX Family version.

Concerning the "Inside Scoop" clips, I do remember both "Inside Slop" & "Messiest Moments" VHS tapes were filmed/released at the same time in 1988.  Without whipping out the tapes (sorry, lazy night, lol), I distinctly remember one of these showing a clip of a physical challenge in which one contestant held 2 fake legs and stomped "grapes" (balloons) inside an elevated transparent plastic box, but the spout would not work properly...towards the end of the challenge, the side of the box holding the disfunctioning spout broke-off completely, with all of the grape juice flowing onto the sitting partner contestant.  This clip features the glass wall behind Marc's podium, which appeared for the 2nd half of the syndicated Double Dare.  You are correct that there are no video clips of FOX Family Double Dare shown in both "Inside Scoop" and "Messiest Moments" tapes, but notice that the box art (front AND back) for both of these VHS tapes show photos (I believe shot primarily just for the box art) taken on the FOX Family Double Dare set.

2) I'm of no help on this one, sorry.

3) If I recall correctly, I'm positive the Orlando eps with the teal blue lights were shot first, with the amber lights shot afterwards.

4)This is the information I have retained for quite a few years.  It doesn't add up to the "525" number that has been circulating online for years, but at a total of 481, it's as close as I can get:

DD (1986): 65
DD (1987): 65
SSDD (1987): 26
DD (1988): 130 (65 pre-FOX Family DD, 65 post-FOX Family DD)
Fox FDD (1988): 13 (entire version)
SSDD (1989, Philadelphia): 50
SSDD (1989, Orlando): 50
Nick FDD (1990): 40 (One of them being the Salute to Double Dare special)
Super Special DD (1992): 2
Nick FDD (1992): 40 (One of them being the hour-long series finale Tournament of Champions)

I hope this helps to somewhat answer a few of your questions.  Hopefully one day, I can wrap some more research around getting closer to seeing how accurate this "525" episode count is!

[irismason42]

IIRC, the earlier Orlando produced episodes of SSDD that had the amber lights were taped first, because for one thing, in all the episodes produced with the amber lights, Marc mentions the wrong FL city, also, in the very early Orlando-produced episodes, the backwall over the amber lights was blue when the colored lights aren't flashing and they displayed the ITC Korinna texted version of the Universal Studios crediting. Now several local stations didn't start airing the Orlando produced episodes until either during the summer months of '89 or to kick off the '89-'90 season. And BTW, all Orlando produced episodes including the International Day special used the original '86 theme music to open up all the episodes and were the last set of episodes of any Nick game show to take 3 commercial breaks. Another question I've been asking was were the Super Bowl sneak-peek Special and the International Day episodes were rerun on Nick GAS?

[rjaguar3]

I don't have the Complete Directory... around, but I seem to recall when I checked it a couple years ago, the episode count was 480-something.