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Does a banana peel slip or a crotch shot illicit laughter out of you? Do you stifle a chuckle when someone tells you they work as a meat handler? Do you appreciate and marvel at the infinite number of ways that sex organs and bodily functions can be referred? If so, then you need to watch Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, the funniest game show to hit the airwaves since Match Game.
Also known as MXC, the series takes video from a Japanese game show called Takeshi's Castle where a large group of contestants compete through a series of obstacles that involve muddy water and potential bodily injury for an opportunity to win one million yen. The MXC staff create an episode by editing multiple Takeshi's Castle programs, inserting graphics and sound effects, and then, taking a cue from Woody Allen’s What’s Up, Tigerlily?, adding a hysterical audio track of announcer commentary and contestant reactions.
The competitions involve a number of stunts that no insurance company in the United States would cover. Some of the games include running across rolling logs, running across large dominoes, pole-vaulting onto a small platform, walking across a rope bridge while being shot at by balls, and swinging into a wall and hoping to stick to it. The names of the games change depending on the theme of or teams competing in the episode.
Most of the shows are edited to make it appear like two teams are competing against each other, but no one is really keeping score except for the beer drinkers who are taking a break from playing Hi, Bob. It’s all about the silly things the goofy characters say, and the amount of punishment inflicted on the contestants. Especially the punishment which, at times, is repeated for comic effect. Every show ends with Kenny Blankenship’s Most Painful Eliminations of the Day, highlighting the top ten mishaps of the show. As a bonus, the set collects the “25 Most Painful Eliminations of Season One.”
Three out of the 13 episodes contain audio commentary by the show’s creative team. Executive producers Paul Abeyta, Peter Kaikko, and Larry Strawther are joined producers/vocal talent. Victor Wilson plays Vic Romano, the host who tries to maintain some semblance of order. Christopher Darga is Kenny Blankenship, his sexually obsessed co-host with a sense of humor similar to Beavis and Butthead. John Cervenka does double duty as sideline reporter Guy LaDouche, who also has an eye and a hand for the ladies, and Captain Tenneal, the quasi-referee. Mary Scheer plays every woman in the show.
Together, when they aren’t giggling, they provide the history behind the show’s concept, the creation of characters, and explain how they work behind the scenes, including inside information behind jokes and why there is always a character with a variation of the last name Babaganosh.
The show was pitched to Spike TV executives in the summer of 2001 and the original sales presentation is available as bonus material as is an original episode of Takeshi's Castle. It is amusing, but nowhere near as funny as MXC.
The fifth season premieres at Thursday, November 10 at Midnight on Spike TV.
