Fun House Pilot
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 พ.ย. 2023
- Double Dare was a smash, we needed something similar. Enter FUN HOUSE! The rivalry between the two shows was hysterical. But here is where it all started!
Go behind the scenes with TV and radio legend Wink Martindale!
Facebook: / winkmartindalegames
Twitter: / winkmartindale
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Fun Fact: JD Roth is one of the Executive Producers on the current hit show Bar Rescue.
This guy also hosted Masters of the Maze for its first season. And these children's games were all the same, with the wacky stunts.
Later on he hosted Sex Wars
I remember watching this fun show in the 80s. Not sure if today's kids would appreciate it as much but it deserves another run.
Nowadays kids would ask "Where's the animatronics?"
If they made it today, they would just make it for adults, like they did with the Legends of the Hidden Temple reboot.
Wink, I'm glad you met JD Roth, when he was only 20 to film the pilot of the series. When asked by me about working with you, he said: "Love Wink! The Best! And personally, a great human!" You nor I have never seen, such a young, unfamiliar talent, who later grew up to become a producer, who hosted a daily kids game show, to be mentored by you and of course, Marc Summers, whom I thought JD had feuded with, when, they were actually good friends, and he too grew up to be a producer, like JD, only thing was, Marc was a little bit older than JD, and is still awesome like JD!
This show was my childhood, along with many other kid's gameshows.
JD Roth was the youngest game show host to do any game show series or pilot
Always found this pilot interesting for a couple reasons:
> As others mentioned, the giant budget. Yeah, that wasn't happening on a 5-a-week basis. I don't even think a weekly could've pulled that off.
> Some rooms of the fun house never made it to series, but were still depicted on the home game board, which confused me as a kid for YEARS.
> The suggestion between the board game pics and the intro of this pilot that more than one was shot, which now makes me want to see those.
And for the record, in the first 5 episodes of the series taped (that eventually aired), they did retain some elements of the pilot:
> The intro from the pilot (even more confusing to me as a kid cuz now I wanted to see it)
> The consolation score for the losing team in each stunt
> The "scanning" of the prize tags for their value & the Power Prize, plus there were many more cash tags (up to $300, and a couple you can even fish out of the lake!), the 3-tag rule was now official, and you had to find the right TWO prize tags (not cash ones) to score the Power Prize.
Meanwhile, showed this to my daughter today, and she said it was... boring, actually. Said she felt it "empty" beyond the Fun House itself and lacked the "charm" of Double Dare. I still enjoyed it. *shrug*
I agree about the board game.
Kind of remember watching this as a kid
Thank you for posting this! This is a rare piece of game show history that never got rebooted by discovery
Loved this show, since I didn't get cable in myy bedroom till much later this show got more viewing time for me than the Nick game shows; plus the prizes offered in the pilot were so nice, even into the series i remember them offereing more than the other Nick games. Another great piece of game show history!
Loved this show as a kid/Pre teen in the Late 80s ❤, watched it Every morning before school
The 1980s were an absolutely Awesome era to grow up in!
Thank YOU for posting this❤
I watch this show after school when I lived on Vancouver Island.
Yet again, Winker, you never cease to amaze. I've seen _Fun House_ maybe once or twice as a toddler-I definitely recall the colors of the set, as well as the big "FH" on the door.
Several differences from the series:
-No Tiny(John Hurley) announcing as Brian Cummings was doing the voiceover.
-Different timer than in the series.
-Strange scoring format.
-The scanner on the podium during the Fun House run was dropped by series of course - they just showed the home audience where the Power Prize was and a siren went off if the contestant picked the tag with the Power Prize.
And of course - this show got 2 spinoffs/spiritual successors later with College Mad House for the college audience, and Shop 'Til You Drop for the adults.
And as for the prize budget in the pilot - Stone Stanley would've gone bankrupt offering $25,000/show. No surprise the Power Prize was slashed dramatically when they went to series - though its prize budget was still higher than Double Dare being a syndicated show.
Another difference was there’s point/dollar amounts on the tokens and that they dropped into the podium as opposed to just on top of the podium
Also I think the large fun house arch behind the podium wasn't a bright yellow in the series. I maybe wrong but I think it got a similar school bus dark yellow color. I'm going to check lol. Update I checked and yes the fun house arch was painted and school bus yellow, but the podium also had some minor changes too. The score board on the right has a yellow border. And there's a square display in the middle between the score boards. Also the buzzer buttons are set higher up than on the pilot. There still they're minor changes but they work! And I remember this pilot episode!
Although @ 21:19 2 Computers goes for $4,400, The Olympics went for @ 21:28 $9,400 and for 2 TV's @ 21:39 $25,000?!, I Think It's a Joke or is It Just Thinking?
Hard to believe that that legendary voice CAME from Brian Cummings.
At least we finally have a name to the voice.
Many pilots have done that, I have noticed. The show Bullseye, hosted by Jim Lange, did a pilot where bonus round players could win up to $1 million. In the 1980s, that was a gargantuan amount of money. So they (understandingly) slashed the budget of that, too.
Fun House would solve the problem by making the main game played for points instead of dollars.
This was popular enough that a college version of the show was also created. Same funhouse, different names for the obstacles, college-themed.
It's called "College Mad House".
And through this show, we got Legends of the Hidden Temple
Thank you for sharing the pilot episode. I use to watch Fun House on WGN when I was a kid, this is probably my favorite kid game show.
For me i watched Fun House on KPLR at 7a then on WGN at 4p
Same.
For me every weekday afternoon on KSTW 11.
I saw JD Roth when he came to where I'm at when he did a zoo game show and I had his autograph
He hosted a few other shows: Double Up, Masters of the Maze, Zooventure and Sex Wars (his only game show with adult contestants). He also hosted a few non-game show shows like GamePro TV and had some small acting roles. Basically since the early 2000s he's been behind the camera as a producer on many reality TV programs.
Jacqueline and Samantha Forrest are two very pretty cheerleaders in this 1988 Fun House game show treasured gem and this is a great children's game show as well!!
“Fun House” was definitely my show to watch as a kid. It was such a blast. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t JD Roth the youngest game show host at that time?
At age 20. Right behind him was Larry Toffler at 25 doing "Finder Keepers".
I believe you are correct. If I remember correctly, he got noticed on Star Search and that's how he got the gig. He was only 16 years old.
He was the youngest gameshow host in TV history.
Yes he was. I believe he was 20 when he became host.
Pretty sure he was.
I remember fun house when I was a kid
I was like 1 years old my cup runneth over nostalgia
Watched this one a lot growing up. It was on syndication, mainly FOX stations, which is why likely the third season ended up being on FOX. It gets flack for being a Double Dare ripoff, and yes, I can see many of the similarities, but I thought adding the Grand Prix and of course the Fun House made it different enough. JD Roth's "fake hip" schtick always irritated me a bit, but he wasn't a bad host. I think he was better behind the camera as a producer later in his career.
Some other fun bits of trivia about this show:
- A weekly edition, called College Mad House, also aired on syndication. Using college students instead of kids, the stunts were more "risque" and the host was a then unknown Greg Kinnear.
- The show had a much longer run in the UK, where it lasted over 10 seasons.
- This was the last game show produced by famed game show producer Bob Synes, who also worked on "Split Second", "Dream House," "Let's Make a Deal" and others.
- This was the first game show produced by Stone-Stanley.
And also the last new game show, if not one of the very last game shows co-produced by Lorimar-Telepictures.
Also Legends of the Hidden Temple and even Shop Til You Drop (Finn version) had inspiration from Fun House since both were produced by Stone Stanley.
What year is this, 1988? I wish someone would pick up the rights to rerun this show, in fact there are a lot of syndicated kids programming from this era that are largely lost media
I think you're right.
Fun house is one of my favorite game shows for crazy contests and messy games
Though I don't remember this show as well as I remember Double Dare, (of course), I do remember catching it a few times it was on air.
What I better remember was owning the NES game. which was _NOTHING_ like the show! It didn't have quizzes, no minigame stunts, just a top-down maze shooter where you had to hit a number of targets in a set time limit. Still kinda fun though even if the controls didn't make the most sense. Like why did your character drift if you let go of the skate button while turning? Considering the fact Fun House on NES would get a pseudo-sequel on Game Boy called "Out Of Gas" which had a space theme, (which makes the drifting physics make more sense), I'll bet that was the original idea before the developers got the Fun House license. Stuff like that happened quite a bit back then... Even more surprising was that there was another developer working on a version that was more accurate to the show before that version got canned.
Interesting that the pilot was announced by Michael Hanks and had a similar end game format to break the bank (code scanning) plus a all cash scoring system plus Ron Greenberg was one of the executive producers
The announcer was Brian Cummings.
I don't think it was Michael Hanks. Pretty sure it's Brian Cummings.
The announcer for the pilot was Brian Cummings
so the scoring format change when it was premiered. instead of money they play for points. well to me Double Dare was more messy. i grew up with the family version. Thanks for showing this Wink
I would love to see they would revive a great series like this one just like how Nickelodeon revived Double Dare back in 2018 a few years back
Douglas Emerson would later become a cast member of Beverly Hills 90210 for one season and a half.... until his character shot himself and died.
I was going to ask if I heard that correctly. Interesting, another example of before they were an actor they were a game show contestant.
The only successful imitator of Double Dare.
No, there were more. However, if you are talking about a non-Nickelodeon game show, then yes, it is.
I loved this game show as a kid I always wanted to be on it
Thanks, wink for uploading this!
Oh wow! I loved this game show! I always wanted to be on this game show!!! Thank you Wink!
I think the red team in the second round should have gotten the buzz-in question. The way they phrased it, it was easy for her to assume that they wanted the actress.
John I like watching game shows pilot early series this is awesome your the best
I felt like it was the unofficial flagship show of the channel it came on! Lol. But I was really little at the time lol!
Uk fun house: hold our rerun the fun
J.D. Roth is the native of Lake CHarles,Louisiana!
No he's not. He's from Cherry Hills, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia. I remember seeing his autographed picture at a cheesesteak place when I went there a few years ago.
what are those bikes called in this grand prix race?
To me it’s much better than Double Dare because there’s more stunts less question. Also I like enjoyed the spin off, College Mad House. It would be great if you had the pilot episode of College Mad House. We’d love to see it.
Hey, now. C'mon somebody! Yes, Mr. Martindale.
In a bonus round like what we saw, I believe we would have to see where the power prize was if they didn’t get it.
Still, I can see why they changed it to something more familiar.
The only thing that I didn't understand was the rules. I mean, when it aired. I knew and remembered just about everything else.
Is that Douglas Emerson who was David Silver's best friend Scott Scanlon on Season 1 of 90210?
I was wondering if you had any more episodes of fun house game show
I loved that show!
Are the cheerleaders identical twins? Seeing the credits, I guess they were, or at least related sisters.
He may not have said it in this episode, but most episodes, JD would say, “Let’s introduceour twin cheerleaders, Jackie and Sammy!” (who I crushed on big time as a kid)
I believe they were in fact twin sisters
Much later did an adult game show “Sex Wars”
Always wondered why the video game and board game had a picture of odd dollar amounts on the podiums when the full series showed on tv used points (not dollars) and was always in multiples of fives. Now we know. Although, I have seen this one before, it was a terrible copy. This one is great!
I always liked this show better than "Double Dare".
This tv game show from the 80's is forgotten,it's the same as Double Dare.
The amount that was won would be the equivalent to winning over $75,000 today.
Produced by Stone Stanley Entertainment in association with (Lorimar Television) Telepictures Productions distrbuted by Warner Bros Discovery Television.
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One of My Favorite Game Shows Next to Double Dare (Not the 1977-1978 CBS Game Show Hosted by (The Late) Alex Trebek)
Believe me, this wasn't the first Double Dare ripoff. Remember "Slime Time" with host Marty Cohen?
When "Fun House" went to series, I don't think JD had to wear that goofy letter sweater, did he?
As in the actual series, the Grand Prix was worth way too much. I think it's actually WORSE here--I don't recall those $50 blue markers!
She almost missed the tag for the Michael Jackson concert. Today she'd have done that deliberately.
If it were for, I don't know; Bruno Mars or Justin Timberlake instead, that would be another story.
Isn't that the announcer from TANLMAD?
Yep - Brian Cummings - he was replaced with John "Tiny" Hurley when the show went to series.
Yes
9:13 Contestant: Lea Thompson
JD: No
I guess he needed the character for the answer and not the actress.
First lol anyway I remember this show.