Pretty much every 90s kid’s dream was to somehow wind up on Double Dare. The Nickelodeon game show looked fun as all hell—Marc Summers ran around screaming at contestants while they tried to sprint through a Mousetrap-style obstacle course, picked a giant nose, and watched their dads get covered in slime. Alas, like most gems from the 90s, Double Dare was too pure for this world. The show went off the air in ’93 before making a brief return as Double Dare 2000, until, ultimately, it disappeared.
But now in the wave of TV reboots, Double Dare is about to get another chance. On Tuesday, Nickelodeon announced it had ordered 40 new episodes of its wild game show that pitted children head-to-head—and, sometimes, entire families—to compete for some sweet prizes. The show is slated to drop this summer, and according to Variety, all the sickest obstacles are coming with it: the human hamster wheel, the wringer, the massive mouth, and, of course, that gigantic nose.
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Sadly, Summers won’t be hosting anymore, though you can’t really blame the guy. Aside from being busy producing a bunch of weird Food Network shows, the dude is 66 now—maybe just a little too old for sloshing around in giant puddles of gak and getting tackled into inflatable swamps.
Nick still hasn’t announced who’s going to fill Summers’ slime-filled shoes, but one can only hope that the network decides to pair a show we haven’t seen in forever with some child celebrity who’s long since retreated into the shadows. Amanda Bynes feels like a natural fit, and apparently she just “resurfaced” in Los Angeles—auditioning for the role of MC, perhaps? Also, what the hell ever happened to Kel? Nickelodeon could also just try to tap John Cena for the role, seeing as the guy is good at literally everything.
There’s no word on what the prizes are going to look like this time around, but honestly, you have to hope Nick steps its game up in that department. While it might have been able to make a studio full of kids lose their shit over the chance to win a pair of binoculars or an electronic dictionary in 1988, that’s probably not going to cut it anymore.
Still, the real prize is just getting to be on the show, a long-faded dream that just became a reality once more. Sadly, if you remember Double Dare, you’re probably too old to make it on as a contestant, since the whole thing is pretty much for children. But who knows—maybe your kids could get invited into the gauntlet, and you’ll get to be that old person who everyone laughs at when they get slimed.
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