ARTSETC.
Tune in to Most Extreme Elimination Challenge for a smile
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by Dominic Pontello
Thursday, February 5, 2004
If you have the winter blues, then take a break from the UW rat race and tune in to a little “MXC” (“Most Extreme Elimination Challenge”). This Asian game show has been adapted to the Western (mainly male) audience of the Spike TV channel. The actual rules of the game show are unknown by the Spike TV viewers. In the Spike TV version, two squads are teamed up to face off in a series of extremely goofy challenges. The range of challenges on the game show is about as varied as the beer selection at Woodman’s.
The premise is that each team gets points for having a member of their team not wipe out during some strange challenge. One example of a challenge is having people run across fake logs that roll most of the contestants into a pool of unpleasant-looking water.
In my particular opinion, the best challenge is when each of the contestants has to choose between three fake-looking doors, and one of the three is real. If the contestant chooses incorrectly, hilarity ensues. That frown on your face left over from class will turn upside down when you see that guy or gal run full speed into a wall.
A third elimination challenge is when a set of enlarged dominoes is lined up and the contestants must run across the dominoes without falling over. Each of the two teams on the game show usually scores only one or two points. This might seem low-scoring to the offense-minded American, but it is not the scoring that you should be tuning in for. It is the funny, often painful-looking eliminations that give this show its appeal. And at the end of each episode, they replay the top 10 eliminations of the day. Priceless.
Not only is the premise of the show fantastic, the commentary will make you laugh harder than the punishing eliminations. The show is dubbed over in English and the two commentators, Vic Romano and Kenny Bankenship, are pure geniuses. The wit that comes on the fly will astound you. I don’t now how they come up with some of the crap they talk about. The motions and gestures of the contestants are used in this dubbed version to express odd and often-entertaining voiceovers. The show is only a half-hour long, but is often shown on Spike TV with back-to-back episodes.
For those of you out there who have yet to witness the sheer delight of MXC, here are some of the more recent listings. Spike TV is a division of MTV networks and is channel 30 on the local Charter cable provider. Tonight there is an MXC marathon from 8:30 until 11 p.m. The next showing is Saturday, Feb. 6 from 7 till 8 p.m. If you can’t attend either of these showings in your living room, check your local listings. The genius of MXC is scattered on Spike TV’s lineup like sprinkles on a sundae. So take a break, laugh your ass off and remember: “Don’t get eliminated!”
