Uh Oh! (game show)
| Uh Oh! | |
|---|---|
| Starring | Host: Wink Yahoo Co-host: The Punisher Mayhem games hosts: Tearin' Aaron Slashin' Sam Speed Round host: Quizmaster Patricia Slime Tour hosts: Shaun Majumder Christian Hagen Erin Strimatis Akua Otupiri |
| Country of origin |  Canada |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | YTV (Corus Entertainment) |
| Release | 1997 – 2003 |
Launched in 1997 as part of Corus Entertainment's YTV, Uh-Oh! is a child's game show, featuring children aged from 10-14. It is the longest running children's game show in Canada and is a spin-off of the popular variety show It's Alive!, where Uh-Oh! was part of its game show segments. It is currently not yet determine when this show will be on reruns.
Concept
Plot
The game is played with three colour-based teams that would be pitted against each other in each episode. The goal of the game was to have more points than the other two teams. Teams would consist of two players each and would be either Red, Green, or Blue. Audience members would also pick sides and wear clothes of the color they support. Team members would either spin the wheel for half of the episode or, participate in whichever activity the wheel would choose. The team members would participate in games which would nearly always involve goo and would be silly. If won, games would provide points for the respective team.
History
Uh-Oh! was created off of a sketch on It's Alive in its second season as a game show parody where contestants were chained up and answered questions. If a contestant answered incorrectly, a man called "The Punisher" would pour slime on the contestant from the rafters.
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Set for the Uh-Oh! sketch on It's Alive.
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The host of the show during the sketch.
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A contestant, before getting slimed. Notice the chains...
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The Punisher preparing to dump some slime.
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The same contestant being slimed.
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Two contestants at the end of the sketch.
In the show's third season, realizing that the game show parody could actually work as a real game show, Uh-Oh! debuted as part of the slate of game shows during the show's game show segment. The game was much shorter than its spin-off, with the game consisting of one round of two spins each. Quickly becoming the most popular game show in the segment, the game was played more frequently than its other games. After It's Alive's cancellation in 1997, Uh-Oh! became its own show in 1998, playing with the exact same rules as when it was on It's Alive, except that there were now two rounds, with an additional round between the two rounds called Slime Tour, which was basically the obstacle course segment from It's Alive involving different teams whom were competing against each other in their own competition. (See Round 2 section below)
Characters and hosts
Wink Yahoo
Hosting Uh-Oh! was Wink Yahoo (Scott Yaphe), who played a very wacky, zaney and extremely enthusiastic character. His hair was comparable to Elvis and he would always wear flamboyant suits that would sparkle ever so much. He would sometimes taunt team members and show no compassion when a team would lose all their points. He would always get overly excited when a player landed on the Uh-Oh! space and would always act regretful if the player got the Uh-Oh! question wrong or disappointed if the player got the question right (very conflicting attitudes). Wink would also tease the contestants spinning the wheel if they happened to have been dumped on by the Punisher. Typically he would say lines like "Alright green, get your mess over here and spin the wheel" or "The goopey red team wants some points". Yaphe is the only cast member from It's Alive! that moved over to Uh-Oh!, though there is some belief that the never indentified Punisher was a former cast member as well
Slashin' Sam & Tearin' Aaron
Tearin' Aaron and Slashin' Sam (Aaron Alexander, Samantha Cook) would host the Mayhem games. They would wear matching uniforms and instruct the sometimes unwilling participants what to do for the game.
Slime Master Shaun
Slime Master Shaun Majumder and the other hosts of the Slime Tour, Christian Hagen, Erin Strimaitis and Akua Otupiri would instruct the participants of the Slime Tour on what to do. Now a well known comedian, Shaun seems to be the only cast member of Uh-Oh! to have found any other success beisides Uh-Oh!
Quizmaster Patricia
During the quiz game featured in the earlier seasons of Uh-Oh! Patricia Ribeiro or Quizmaster Patricia would ask questions to the contestants.
The Punisher
Perhaps the co-host, The Punisher responsibilities would be just that, to punish those who hadn't awnsered Uh-Oh! questions right. He would throw the offender in a small cell with a glass door and dump goo on them mercilessly. It has been suggested that with such lack of compassion to those he dumps goo upon he might have no conscience or sense of right or wrong, thus making him a sociopath. The Punisher would often taunt the team member in the cell and would say sadistic comments before dumping the goo.
Portrayal
The Punisher was played by the same actor during seasons 1 through 5. It was never revealed who he was, but the actor was a white man and had dark curly hair named Mike Beaver. In season 6, the punisher was played by a different person, this time a little pale white man named Raymond. All in all, the way the Punisher acted did not change and he still had the same job. In the first five seasons, the Punisher's costume changed slightly from season to season. For example, he sometimes had different color shoulder pads or other small additions to his costume.
Plot
At the start of the show, the Punisher is kept locked in a cage on-stage. After Wink Yahoo has introduced the various hosts for the show as well as the contestants, the Punisher is released. Wink usually offers up a line like "Hold your noses because this is going to stink ... release the Punisher!". Sam or Aaron are usually the ones who release the punisher from his cage, although most of the time, he just burst through the door or the side of the cage. At this point, the audience is going wild and booing the Punisher which usually makes him take revenge on people in the audience.
Often, the punisher would grab one or two audience members and throw them in a pool of watery goo or mud. These pools were used during the Mayhem games, but the Punisher had his own purpose for them.
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The Punisher is locked in his cage while Sam is preparing to release him.
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The Punisher bursts throughout the door of the cage.
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The Punisher grabs a couple of audience members...
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... and tosses them in a pool of watery goo.
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Two very wet audience members after suffering the Punisher's wrath.
Sometimes, after he was release, the Punisher would throw pies or dump goo on audience members.
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The Punisher bursts out of his cage. Oh no! He's got a bucket of goo with him.
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Some "lucky" audience member gets the bucket of goo on the head.
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She doesn't seem to appreciate the situation.
During the intros and outros to commercial breaks, the punisher would also mess with the audience. He would also often have a couple of water guns with which to torment the audience. Sometimes he would dunk someones face in a bucket of goo or dump something nasty on them.
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Punisher, what are you doing with that bowl of flour?!?
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NOOOOO!
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The other audience members sure seem to be enjoying themselves.
Gameplay
Games
Round 1
During round 1, a wheel is spun by one of the team members. The wheel can land on either "Mayhem!", "The Dump", "Speed Round" or "Uh-Oh!". There are also "Win & Spin", "Lose & Spin" and "Trade & Spin" spaces on the wheel.
Round 2
Slime Tour would be a segment of the show where it would leave the studio and show somewhere else in Canada besides the Uh-Oh! studio in Toronto, although in its first season, the Slime Tour was mainly played in Yukon. Shaun Majumder would host this game. Shaun Majumder, Christian Hagen, Erin Strimaitis and Akua Otupiri would introduce three contestants who would be dressed either in Purple, Yellow or Orange. Those contestants would have to run a very silly obstacle course. The Red, Green and Blue teams would have to choose who they thought would win the obstacle course. If they chose the winning contestant, they would be awarded 35 points. Often teams would not pick female contestants because they thought them inferior. This obstacle course was more based on skill and not physical exploits. The segment was originally introduced as a segment on It's Alive as an obstacle course that was played in-studio, with the same concept being used in the Slime Tour.
The round would later be renamed "Field Games".
Round 3
Exactly the same as round 1, except the partners have switched places, and the wheel works differently. (See below.)
What happens if the wheel lands on...
Uh-Oh!
Uh-Oh! would require The Punisher to put one of the team members in the cell with the glass door. Wink Yahoo would then ask a random question giving multiple choice awnsers. If the team member answered incorrectly, The Punisher would dump goo on the poor participant in the cell. If answered correctly, the team would be awarded 50 points.
Uh-Oh! Deluxe
Uh-Oh! Deluxe was introduced in the second season after the cancellation of It's Alive!. It was exactly like the standard Uh-Oh! except the question asked by Wink Yahoo was often a bit harder (or at least more abstract). If answered correctly the team would be awarded 75 points. If they answered incorrectly, The Punisher would dump two buckets of goo on the partner instead of one. Usually, the second bucket of goo contained a more oily (shiny) type goo and often had sparkles mixed in it. Uh-Oh! Deluxe was changed slightly in the 4th and 5th seasons. During these two seasons, Wink Yahoo would make the participants taste some sort of gross smoothie while blindfolded and make them guess what ingredients it contains. Participants would still be given multiple choice answers. In the 5th season, the Uh-Oh! Deluxe space on the wheel was replaced byt the "Pick It!" space. In the 6th season (the last season), the Uh-Oh! Deluxe space on the wheel was replaced by the "Fruit Gushers" space.
Pick It!
Sometimes the "Pick It" space replaced the "Uh Oh! Deluxe" space on the 3rd round wheel. Humorously depicting a nose, Pick It allowed the contestant to choose any one of the wheel spaces. The most popular choice was trade and spin, but Uh Oh! Deluxe was also chosen several times.
Mayhem!
Mayhem, hosted by Slashin' Sam and Tearin' Aaron would require a team member with the Punisher to find objects in pools of goo, retrieving objects with his her hers mouth, throwing objects into the crowd for their supporting audience members to catch. There is a time limit of 20 seconds. Depending on how well the contestant did on the game, points would be awarded accordingly. The maximum amount of points for a team to be awarded in a Mayhem game was 50 points. Most games awarded points incrementally, but a few had to be fully completed before any points were earned.
The Dump
The Dump was a game resembling Plinko from the well known game show The Price Is Right. The contestant would drop a ball into the game surface through a pipe. The resulting action would either give to or take points from a certain team depending where the ball ended up. The player can also operate flippers on the game surface like on a pinball table. The Dump was hosted by Patricia.
Note: If the ball ended up on Steal 25 points, a team member must pick a team they want to revenge 25 points with.
Speed Round
Speed Round was a quiz game. The participants would be asked questions by Quizmaster Patricia and would get 5 points for every right answer. They would have 20 seconds to answer as many questions as they could (up to a maximum of 10 questions.)
Additional wedges
Additional wedges used when a team can win or lose points for every two spins.
Win & Spin
When a team landed on Win & Spin, they earn 20 more points.
Trade & Spin
When a team landed on Trade & Spin, they pick a team to switch points. Most of the time in the entire show they're not in the lead.
Lose & Spin
When a team landed on Lose & Spin, they lost 20 points. Only used during the 3rd round of the game.
Pick It!
When a team landed on Pick It!, the partner that had spun the wheel got to decide what game was played. Either Speed Round, Mayhem or The Dump could win the team up to 50 points. The teammate that had spun the wheel could also choose Uh-Oh! Deluxe for a chance to win 75 points. Obviously, if they chose Uh-Oh! Deluxe and got the question wrong, their partner would get two buckets of slime on the head.
Fruit Gushers game
Fruit Gushers were a chewy candy snack for kids which was a main sponsor of the show during the later seasons. The Fruit Gushers game consisted of a giant Fruit Gusher candy that when opened up, would have many smaller Fruit Gushers pieces floating in it. The contestant would bob in the giant Fruit Gusher and pick up a smaller one. On the underside of the smaller Fruit Gushers would be point values as well as team colours. These points were awarded to the team colour under the small Fruit Gusher, independent of the team which actually played the Fruit Gushers game.
Game endings
Teams and competitive spirit
As mentioned before the three teams consisted of Red, Blue and Green. Competition in Uh-Oh! was very fierce. Members of the opposing team would boo and make rude gestures like the Thumbs Down or The Evil Eye to the team who was playing at that moment.
At the end of the show, Wink Yahoo will look at the scoreboard to determine who will take home the grand prize. The color team who is in first place will do it.
Red was believed to win more often than other teams in the entire show. Some suggest corruption of the game hosts or bribes to earn more points. Other reasons would include red getting the last spin of the game always, and usually landing on trade and spin which would result in an automatic (and unfair) victory, pretty much negating whatever happened earlier in the show.
Fans at home usually were loyal to one of the three colours.
Prizes
Wonderful prizes would be awarded to the team with the most points at the end of each half hour episode. Such prizes would usually consist of Super Soakers, Mountain bikes, Bop It (later, Bop It Extreme) and high quality stereos. Members of the audience would always receive Hubba Bubba chewing gum.