Takeshi's Castle

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Contents 1 Intro 2 Challenges 2.1 Finale 3 Challenge UK 3.1 Craig's Quotes

[edit] Intro

Takeshi's Castle was an old Japanese television show from the 80's which starred the famous Japanese Director and actor Takeshi Kitano (hence, Takeshi's Castle). He plays Count Takeshi who owns a castle which is surrounded by near impossible challenges.

In the UK. Craig Charles hosts the show (still called Takeshi's Castle) on Challenge. A british cable station. The American version has been renamed to MXC or Most Extreme Elimination Challenge.

The show is very stereotypical to the Japanese which shows them doing just about anything (and nearly killing themselves in some instances) to be on television.

[edit] Challenges

A wide range of challenges were used throughout the show's history, some occurring only once or twice, or others in virtually every show, depending upon their popularity and ease of preparation. Many challenges involve falling into water or mud on failure.

• Avalanche: Players race up a narrow gulley, and must avoid being crushed by polystyrene boulders. Contestants try and hide in cubbyholes in the gulley's side, but they contain members of Takeshi's Gundan who attempt to push them out into the boulder's path

• Bridge Ball: Players cross a rope bridge] holding a gold colored volleyball, whilst henchmen fire black volleyballs at the contestant, who is eliminated if they fall off. Frequently, contestants are hit in the face, genitals, etc, and hold on to the bridge with one hand for several seconds before having to let go.

• Bridge The Gap: Contestants stepped onto one moving plank, and then ran over to the other side, where they had to catch another plank rotating in the opposite direction. It's all about judgment, as they have to be able to anticipate the moment where the ends of the two planks meet, and move with the second plank. It's very difficult, and usually ends in a painful looking landing on the crash mat below, lightly coated in white powder for good measure. Sometimes the platforms moved across a large pool of water, so failure meant getting wet

• Catch It: On a baseball field, the Popcorn twins (usually) hit a ball high up into the air. A group of contestants in giant Japanese Baseball League uniforms have to try and catch it. Whoever does goes through. Each get several chances, but if they still don't get it, they're out.

• Dominoes: Contestants have to cross a gap by running on the top of giant dominoes, which usually fall over, bringing the challenger down with them.

• The Dragon Lake: Swing across a gap over water or mud on a rope to land on a platform, either straight across, or in an arc.

• The Fortress: A starting game. All players run out into a garden area and must find a golden ball to go through. The balls are hidden in strange places like up a tree, in a tree, buried, in green slime water or down a guards costume.

• The Gauntlet: A video game-inspired obstacle course. Players must race a mushroom which slowly moves forward on a track above the course. Various obstacles include rocks thrown from above, a spinning platform, and a gap you need to swing on a rope to get across. The course is pretty narrow, and getting hit by anything will probably cause contestants to lose their balance and fall off into water.

• The Great Wall: Players must climb over a reasonably large wall

• Home Run:The Animal had this game made up for him. Wearing giant Japanese Baseball League uniforms, players try to avoid being knocked off a narrow balance beam by three styrofoam baseballs thown by "Animal"

• Honeycomb Maze: Contestants make their way through a blind maze made of hexagonal rooms, whilst chased by henchmen. They must make it to the correct exit without being caught (other exits are pits of water which the henchmen push them into).

• High Rollers: Similar to log rolling, contestants must run over seven large spinning drums without falling off. Very few appear to pass this challenge, and failure often looks painful with sudden impacts of the skull against the drums, and bodies folded as they fall.

• Mushroom Trip: Players cling to the stem of a giant fungus, and try to reach a platform at the other end of a lake. The mushroom spins as it goes across, making it harder to land on the platform.

• Poles Apart: The object is to use a pole vault pole to leap across a moat from a high platform and land onto a small pad

• Quake: Players enter a house wearing wigs and sit on cushions. (In a couples' special, the women sat on their partners' backs.) The house then shakes and the players must try and balance on the cushions for about 30 seconds.

• Rice Bowl Down Hill: Contestants had to sit in a bowl while being pushed down a hill into an area with water. Those who stayed in the bowl move on.

• Show of Hands: People are dressed as giant hands. A math question is asked, and contestants have to find the answer (many numbers are written on cards on the floor) and fall face first on the correct one.

• Single Roller: One large cylinder is placed on a metal track. Contestants must stand on top of the cylinder and move it forward to the other side. If this wasn't hard enough, near the end of the track, the track slopes downward.

• Skipping Stones: A deceptively simple challenge involving stepping stones, some of which are deliberately not secured and give way under foot. Again, contestants must make their way to the other side without falling off.

• Slip Way: Contestants, on a board, push themselves forward on a wheeled track. The objective is to stop after the arrow on the track, but before they fall face first into the water. If they fall short, they get pushed off into the water after being surprised.

• Sumo Rings: Draw a ball, face a corresponding sumo wrestler, and try to beat him in a sumo match.

• Velcro Fly: Wearing velcro suits, contestants try to swing across on a rope and into a wall, the object is to stick to the wall using the velcro suit.

• Wipe Out: Another simple-looking challenge: contestants stand on a motorized surfboard which swings round in a circle, and must jump over obstacles in their path without falling off into the lake below.

[edit] Finale

Show Down: The final challenge of the show, where the remaining contestants, and Takeshi's guards, each ride a motorized buggy with paper circles on them - they must shoot at water at the circle; breaking the circle eliminates them. Usually with a handful of challengers left by this stage, Takeshi usually wins. Later series used laser Guns instead of the water pistols.

[edit] Challenge UK

When the show first aired in the UK, it was extremely popular and soon became the no.1 television show to be shown on TV during the 6pm slot. They managed (and still do) get an average of 130,000 viewers an episode. Talk of unedited hour-long episodes airing on the network is ongoing as of this writing

[edit] Craig's Quotes

• "Our man with the tan, the ladies' favourite, General Lee, psyches up his one hundred kamikaze cousins..."
• "What a wazzock!"
• "He's a Happy Clappy Jappy Chappy."
• "New ribs/teeth/spine/spuds/etc., please!"
• "Floundering in the net like a captured cod!"
• "Protect your love spuds/gunnels/Ted Evans/happy sacks/etc.!"
• "No winners this time on Takeshi's Castle!"
• "Don't let the guards penetrate the ring on your shiny red helmet!"
• "Specially shipped in from a pig farm in southern Japan."
• "Answers on a postcard, please!" (usually said after a nonsensical question.)
• "As my old dad used to say..."
• "Ouch! Someone call the air ambulance."
• "Back to the happy farm/matron/rubber room with the warm biscuits/lemon curd sandwiches/lovely little white jacket that ties behind."
• "Shut up, commentator!" (usually said when he makes assumptions on a contestant's performance, but they prove him wrong.)
• "The elite troops: Highly trained, highly accurate, (highly cold, highly sprung, etc.) Haile Selassie." (He often also says of his half-brother, "Slightly Selassie" from time to time.)
• "I never thought I'd say this/that on the television..."
• "I'm innumerate, me. I can spell that, I just can't tell you how many letters are in it..."
• "If one synchronised swimmer drowns, do they all have to?"
• "Looks like something Marks made when Spencer wasn't looking"