| Host | |
| Alex Trebek | |
| Announcers | |
| Johnny Olson (1976–1977) Gene Wood (1977) | |
| Broadcast | |
  | |
| Packager | |
| Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions | |
"Take a risk. Take a chance. Take a dare. (As we) Play the game of Double Dare! With the host of Double Dare, Alex Trebek!"
This version of Double Dare was a short-lived show testing people's knowledge on various subjects.
Gameplay[]
Main Game[]
Two contestants were placed in soundproof booths trying to guess identities of famous people, places & things. At the beginning of each subject, the home viewers were shown the answer. Alex would advise the home viewers to cover/close their eyes or look away from their TV sets should they wish to play along at home with the studio players. The contestants are read up to 10 clues to the given answer. The clues got progressively easier as they were revealed.
As soon as a player buzzed in, the opponent's booth was closed and was deprived of seeing & hearing. If one should answer incorrectly, that person's booth was closed and the opponent's booth reopened and the opponent received a penalty clue. A wrong answer on a penalty clue reopened the first player's booth putting that player back into play, but they never got to see the penalty clue. If one player should buzz-in and guess correctly, that person won $50 and could "dare" the other person for double value/$100 should he/she answer incorrectly (if the correct answer was given on a penalty clue, that became the "dare clue"); if successful, the other player could be "Double Dared" to try to answer again, this time for $200 to the daring player. If the dared player got the answer right, he/she won half the amount ($50 if it was a dare or $100 if it was a double dare). If the daring player elected not to take the "Dare" or "Double Dare", Alex would read the "(Double) Dare" clue just for fun after which the supposedly "(Double) Dared" player made a guess just for fun. The first player to win $500 or more won the game and the right to face the Spoilers for $5,000. The losing contestant kept his/her money won in addition to parting gifts.
Beat the Spoilers (Bonus Round)[]
In the bonus round, the winning contestant faced three Spoilers who each had a Ph.D. The Spoilers played the bonus round for the entire week. The winning contestant also faced a game board with the correct answer on top, and eight hidden clues (ten in the pilot) (the arrangement & hiding of the clues did not tell the difficulty of them).
The champion called out numbers; on each clue revealed, the player could either give that clue if he/she thought any of the spoilers couldn't give the right answer off the chosen clue, or pass if he/she thought they could. Passing on a clue meant immediately choosing another clue for the contestant, but on a give, the spoilers were read the given clue, and then each spoiler had very little time to answer. An incorrect answer or failure to respond from any of the spoilers won $100 to the contestant, but a correct answer given by any of the spoilers won $100 to the spoilers who were correct, and if all three spoilers got the correct answer, the game was over, but the champion got to keep any cash won in that round. The player's job was to give four clues; he/she could even pass on four clues (five of each in the pilot). If at least one spoiler missed on the required amount of given clues, the winning contestant won $5,000.
Spoiler subjects:
- Charles DeGaulle (Pilot #1)
- General Douglas McArthur (Pilot #2)
- Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzerelli (Pilot #3)
- Julius Caesar
- The Beatles
- Laverne & Shirley
- Agatha Christie
- Sigmund Freud
- Star Trek
- Judy Garland
- Nikita Kruschev
- Wonder Woman
- John D. Rockefeller
- Mahatma Gandhi
- The Devil (Satan/Lucifer)
- Paul Simon
- Henry Kissinger
- Princess Anne
- Lucille Ball
- Neil Simon
- Mississippi River
- Vladmir Lenin
- Popeye the sailor
- Rembrandt
- Perry Mason
- Beethoven
- Prohibition
- Lizzie Borden
- Chastity belt
- Football
- Bombing of Pearl Harbor
- Sir Walter Raleigh
- The CIA
- The prophet Mohammed
- Vampires
- M*A*S*H
- The Statue of Liberty
- Australia
- The Mormon Church
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Alfred E. Neuman
- Walter Mondale
- The French Foreign Legion
- Howdy Doody
- The Alamo
- Leonard Bernstein
- Cleopatra
- Hans Christian Andersen
- Michelangelo
- Laugh-In
- John Steinbeck
- Jimmy Carter
- Rudyard Kipling
- Disneyland
- Guys And Dolls
- Robin Hood
- Charles Darwin
- Big Mac
- The Sound of Music
- Woodrow Wilson
- From Here to Eternity
- Golf
- New Orleans
- Superman
- The Salvation Army
- Slot Machines
- Audrey Hepburn
- Christopher Columbus
- John Lennon
- 1929 stock market crash
- Roots
- Werewolves
- Welcome Back, Kotter
- The Berlin Wall
- The Merchant of Venice
- Jimmy Connors
- Wolfgang Mozart
Championship players stayed on the show till they lost a game or won (at least) $20,000, as the CBS winnings limit at the time was $25,000.
Gallery[]
Rating[]
Music[]
Score Productions
- The theme song from this show would later be used on the 1978 version of Card Sharks.
- The losing horns from The Price is Right were used if the contestant failed to stump the spoilers (albeit in an abbreviated form).
- One of two unused cues from this show would later be used on Hit Man for the category reveal.
Inventor[]
Studio[]
CBS Television City, Hollywood, CA
Episode Status[]
The entire series is intact and has been rerun on both GSN and Buzzr.
Cancelled Merchandise[]
Milton Bradley (1977)[]
A board game version of Double Dare was going to be released by Milton Bradley in 1977, but it was cancelled before it got released.
Imagination Gaming (2000s)[]
A DVD game based on this mid-late 70's version was planned by Imagination Gaming in the mid to late 2000's, but it was never made or released to the public.
Trivia[]
- This was Trebek's first Goodson-Todman/Goodson produced game show that he hosted, his second was Classic Concentration in 1987 then his third (and final) one was the brief revival of To Tell the Truth in 1991.
- This was also the only game show Trebek ever hosted for CBS.
- Johnny Olson announced the first five weeks of the show from December 13, 1976-January 14, 1977, then on January 17, 1977 Gene Wood took over the announcing through the end of the series.
- This was the first of two Goodson-Todman/Goodson games that Alex Trebek and Gene Wood worked on together, the other one was Classic Concentration from 1987 to 1991.
- The "Wubba" sound when the shutters opened was later reused as a sound effect for the Penny Ante, Vend-O-Price, and To The Penny games on The Price is Right as well as the CBS version of Tic Tac Dough, The Joker's Wild, and Break the Bank (3).
- In the pilot, when a contestant "rings-in", no SFX was used for the door opening. In addition, the line "This is Johnny Olson speaking for Double Dare, a Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Production." announcement was never said by Olson nor its logo was seen at the end of the show.
- The original 1976 pilot aired on Buzzr as part of their "Lost and Found" week on September 9, 2015. That plus two other pilots aired on Buzzr as part of their "Lost and Found" week on January 17, 2023.
- This was also the name of an even shorter-lived mystery action show starring Billy Dee Williams (as Billy Diamond) of the same name that also aired on the same network in 1985 nine years later. Some say that the premise for this show is similar to the short-lived 1968 ABC action-adventure series It Takes a Thief.
Additional Pages[]
Double Dare (1)/Episode Guide
Double Dare (1)/Video Gallery
Links[]
Rules for Double Dare '76
Another Double Dare (CBS) Rules Page
Double Dare (1) @ The Game Show Temple