Marc Summers Talks ‘Double Dare’ & Show’s Legacy 40 Years After its Debut

Green slime, messy physical challenges and obstacle courses proved a recipe for success when Double Dare hit the airwaves October 6, 1986. However, one would argue the most important ingredient for the beloved Nickelodeon show’s enduring longevity has been Marc Summers. The longtime host, who is now 74, brought a fun energy to each episode as the kids were given freedom to let loose. Summers’ relatable approach to the young contestants was different from the norm where adults would maybe use a more condescending or belittling tone elsewhere. 

It’s this cross-generational bond that has continued on as Double Dare celebrates its 40th anniversary. To mark the occasion Summers will host a one-night-only live reunion at the City Winery Philadelphia, near the iconic series’ original taping studio at WHY-TV. Joining him for the festivities are the original cast and crew including announcer John Harvey, production assistant Robin Russo, and composer Edd Kalehoff. The fun trip down memory lane will feature live physical challenges, musical pies, archival footage, and of course, that wonderful green goo. 

The venue has already sold out for the Marc Summers & Friends’ 40 Year Double Dare Reunion show on October 4, but fans can also watch via a livestream and video package pay-per-view. Along with access to the event, viewers will also be able to check out a behind-the-scenes featurette from October 31 through December 31. Double Dare’s original run ended in 1993 after almost 500 episodes. In the years since, there have been a few incarnations of the iconic family game show, including a revival that last aired in 2019. 

Ahead of all the shenanigans, we caught up with the TV veteran about the show’s legacy and favorite memories. 

Talk a little bit about what went into putting on this reunion and your decision to run it as a pay-per-view. 

Marc Summers: Well, the 40th anniversary was something I never really thought anybody would care to see. And then this gentleman  [EP C.J. Malmis] who has been a friend of mine for years contacted me when I was exec producing Dinner Impossible and Restaurant Impossible. He was saying we should do this 40th anniversary, and that’s what we’re doing. We were sort of shocked, at least I was, that it sold out so quickly at City Winery in Philadelphia. And then we thought, well, we were getting a lot of nasty emails from people saying, “Well, we can’t get to Philadelphia, and even if we could, it sold out.” That’s when we came up with the pay-per-view idea because we had fans all across the country. With only 300 seats, tickets sold quickly. They wanted to be a part of it. And I’m thrilled all these years later, people who are now in their 50s care that this thing exists and that they want to be a part of it.

What can you tease about what is planned? 

In my opinion, this is the last time we’ll ever be doing something like this. I’m going to be 75 years old in November, and 10 years from now at 85. Who knows if I’m going to be here and what shape I’m going to be in. So in my mind, this is kind of the last deal .Needless to say, we’re going to do a lot of physical challenges and try to get people messy. That’s the question we get asked, “Is there going to be slime?” And of course there is. I also hosted another show called What Would You Do? And in that show we did a thing called Musical Pies, which was. musical chairs, except if you didn’t find a chair, you have to hit yourself with a pie.

We’re going to be doing that as well. So we’ll be going through the audience, grabbing a lot of people. There’s a video that we pulled up that I don’t think either people have seen, or maybe they don’t remember it if they have seen it. And of course, our announcer Harvey is going to be there. Robin will be there. And the people who put it together, our producers were coming.  Michael Klinghoffer, Dana Calderwood, Alan Silberberg , who was our head writer, will be there. We’ve all got stories. I don’t think there’s going to be any problem filling, you know, 90 minutes for this program.

What do you remember about when you got the hosting gig for Double Dare during those early days of filming? 

Well, I always wanted to host a game show when I was 33 years old. I kept getting jobs, but they never came through. So when I got that, I was thrilled. I had no idea about the facilities. When I got to WHYY-TV , which was the PBS station, I was surprised how tiny it was. And my question is, “Gee, how are we going to shoot this?” But Mike Klinghoffer, who put the whole team together and was the initial director and then handed it over to Dana. But Philadelphia has some of the best tech crews. Our camera guys were absolutely amazing and creative and thought on their feet and came up with stuff that we could have never thought of. And so the first day was rough. We spent eight hours trying to get one episode in the can, and it took us eight hours to get one episode in the can because we kept screwing things up. But then we got up to doing six episodes a day, first in Philly, then we moved to New York, then back to Philly. And eventually they built the next studios in Orlando. So once we got it running after the first 65, it worked so smoothly. It was unbelievable.

Was there a moment you knew this show was different?

You never know because we were doing little shtick things. I grew up watching Soupy Sales, who was sort of my childhood idol in kids’ television. He always did jokes for the adults, and we were doing that as well. The thing that came up was, through research, the kids had something called playground talk. And they would go out in the playground that day and say, “I saw this show where people jumped into 5,000 pounds of baked beans, and then they got a trip to space camp.” Oh, what’s that? And so they started going to people’s homes who had cable. Not everybody did back in the day. I was slapped on the back in a positive way because I got kids to tell their parents to buy cable and that got Nickelodeon into more homes so more people saw us. So it’s just the whole process, but when you’re doing it, you have no idea if it’s going to be a success or not. At the time, UHF TV was gigantic. It was Facts of Life and Diff’rent Strokes that were leading the way. And all of a sudden, their ratings disappeared. They couldn’t find out why, and it was because they were going to Nickelodeon.

You see the adults and kids want to watch together, which is fun. When you look back at these 40 years, what stands out as a memorable moment? 

My favorite show that we did of all time was Super Sloppy Double Dare with Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon. It just was a magical time. I knew Heenan from back in the day, being from Indianapolis, and that’s where he was from. I wanted to be anywhere around performance, and they had a place called Starlight Musical. I was an usher there, and Bobby worked there. He also worked at the Coliseum selling refreshments, and then he slowly got into wrestling. I don’t think there was a bigger personality, a funnier guy, and a nicer guy than Bobby “The Brain” Heenan. I had no idea how intelligent Gorilla Monsoon was. He had a couple of degrees from colleges, and these guys knew how to perform and produce. And as we got ready to do the obstacle course, they said, “Do you mind if you get messy?” They asked and I said, “Whatever you want to do.” So at the end, they picked me up and threw me through a vat of chocolate, and there was no bigger honor than to have those two guys pick you up. I must have weighed an ounce to those two massive men. That one stood out.

We also kicked off on the Fox Network, primetime on Saturday night. I don’t think many people even knew that or remember that. And we got it into a celebrity version. And we had one of our first shows where it was “Weird Al” Yankovic against Lou Ferrigno. That was another thing. Lou came in and said, “I’ve got an earache and I don’t know how well I’ll do.” And the whole point is people wanted to see physical challenges. And every question we asked, Weird Al knew the answer.I said to him, “How do you know these weird facts?” And he said, “Hey, man, that’s my gig.” And, you know, during the commercial break, we stopped and wrote harder questions, hoping to get him to go to a physical challenge. He finally did. But those kinds of moments sort of stick out in your mind.

Beyond the original Double Dare, there were also other versions like Double Dare 2000. What did you make of the other interactions?  

Well, you know, we did Double Dare, we did Super Sloppy Double Dare, we did Family Double Dare. Those all worked beautifully. In the year 2000, they thought I was too old, so that was 26 years ago. I was basically 50 years old. I guess for a kid’s network, maybe I was. So, a very talented gentleman by the name of Jason Harris was the host of that show, and he did a really good job. For whatever reason, it just didn’t connect with that next generation. Who knows why? I kind of have a feeling they tried to do something different to stand out, and they did something called the Triple Dare Challenge, which was a waste of time because it took you 15 minutes to explain it. And then if they said no, you haven’t advanced the game. The kids in the audience want to see action. They want to see slop, so that didn’t help that at all. 

When we brought it back the last time, it was the same deal. “You’re too old.” So, they brought in an influencer, a term I hate more than life itself. It never connected for whatever reason, and the thing that’s fascinating about that is, [Liza Koshy]  got sick one day. They said, “Could you take over and host the show?” And I said, “Sure.” And they said, “How much rehearsal do you need?” And I said, “None.” They asked, “How can you do it without any rehearsal?” I said, “I did over 500 shows. You want me to give you the rules? I’m going to ask you a question. If you don’t know the answer, it’s all in my head..” So for whatever it is, the audience liked what I did, and with all due respect to the other hosts, it just kind of never connected with them.

Have you been asked to do the show again considering the buzz of this reunion show? With social media so big, I feel like we’re at a different time where people want to see this stuff again, even from a nostalgia standpoint.

They’ve said online they want more for sure. Unfortunately, Nickelodeon doesn’t listen. The only thing Nickelodeon’s doing right now is SpongeBob Squarepants. They got rid of their development department. So they do SpongeBob. Pretty much nothing else. And would it make a great idea to do it? Yeah. But are they going to do it? Probably not. CBS actually now owns Double Dare, which is fascinating to me. We’ve been in conversations about growing it. But once again, they don’t want to do the show the way I think it needs to be done. 

The best show would be to bring back teams that were originally on the show when they were 11, 12, 13. Now they’re, you know, 49, 50, 51. And the team that lost said, “I want to try it again. I want to see if I can beat them and see if we can beat that team or does the other team win again.” And I think that’s where it is. But you know, every game show now starts with, we have to have a hundred contestants. No, you don’t. You have to have, you know, three or four, but not a hundred. So, I’m not sure that even if they did bring it back with the people in the industry now who think they know better than the people who actually started all this stuff, I’m not sure it would work.

You mentioned What Would You Do? earlier. Why do you think that show didn’t last as long or have the same durability? 

We did 90 episodes. I never liked the show. I never got it. The exec producer initially was a guy where we used to fight like cats and dogs. I didn’t necessarily agree with some of the thoughts he had. We brought on another gentleman, Bo Kaprall, who changed it a bit. It’s hard to say why it didn’t work so much. Some people say to me they liked What Would You Do? better than Double Dare. There’s that group of folks who like that as well. But I’ll tell you, the funny thing is that time marches on, and you don’t realize it. I was stopped the other day, and somebody asked for an autograph, and I said, “Do you want me to say something about Double Dare or What Would You Do?” They knew me from Unwrapped. So there’s a whole generation of people who only know me from the Food Network as opposed to where I started at Nick. It’s fascinating.

You really did find this second hosting chapter  through Unwrapped. You posted asking followers on social media if Food Network should bring the show back with you as host. I say why not?

It makes sense. I mean, with all due respect to them as well, the way they make a Tootsie Roll then is still the way they make a Tootsie Roll today or a Hershey’s Kiss or anything like that. So we could actually do it inexpensively. But once again, I was told that they had no interest. A video gets millions of hits online. It’s on Discovery+, and if you go on, I believe, YouTube, I saw they had 12 million hits for Unwrapped. I’m not sure what I know that they don’t because people stop me all the time and say they’d love to see more of those kinds of things, but the people in charge apparently don’t. It’s just a different time. When you think about syndication, there is no syndication for talk shows. Rosie O’Donnell was hosting Jimmy Kimmel. But daytime TV as it once was is no longer there. She might work on a streaming service, or on a YouTube channel, but as far as coming back in syndication, that’ll never happen. 

As a former executive producer of Restaurant Impossible. How did you feel about the network going in a different direction without host Robert Irvine? 

Well, it’s really not the same concept. If you look at the new episodes, it’s not what we were doing. And I don’t know anything about the producers or anything about that stuff. Ours was a hundred percent real. There are some shows that I will not mention that do a certain kind of television, but it’s all fake. And ours was 100 percent real, especially when we did not tell them, knocking on the door and saying, “We’re going to fix your restaurant.” And we had many issues where the people said, “I don’t want you to do that.” And we had to convince them. We did it most of the time. The thought of what goes on today. My son is an exec producer for a lot of television shows, and when he talks through the process and what they’re doing these days, it’s 180 degrees from what it was when I started in TV when I was about 11 or 12 years old in the early 60s. The fact that I’ve been doing this for 50 years, and I’m still sort of dabbling in it, but the way it works is not the way it worked when I started. I don’t want to say I’m set in my ways. I just think the way we did it might have been a little more creative than what’s going on.

What do you think the legacy of Double Dare will be? If they ever did a Nickelodeon Legends like they do with Disney, I would include you in the first class. 

You Can’t Do That on Television introduced slime. I get all the credit for it, but we found out that kids were living vicariously through their parents and watching Wheel of Fortune and The Price Is Right, but they had no game show for themselves. We broke that barrier. There are three people in an article once in a broadcasting magazine about who put cable on the map. First one was Larry King from the show he did on CNN, and then it was Gallagher, because Leo Gallagher was the first guy to do comedy specials, I believe it was on Showtime. And then it was Double Dare. The three of us, that’s a good group to be in. We were the ones who got people to know what cable was and got them to open up their wallets and go for it. So, I’m proud of that. We were the ones that put Nickelodeon on the map. There were many shows after the fact. Certainly, SpongeBob has made them a billion dollars or more, so they certainly have taken the ball and run with it. But we were the ones who opened that door and opened that gate, and it would be nice every now and then to get a pat on the back and be told thank you. But that never happened either.

Is there anything from the set or anything from the Double Dare set that you’ll never part with? 

I have an original pair of Reeboks that are still in a box. I have a box of Reeboks from 1986. God knows what those would be worth at this point because the people have said, “Would you sell them?” The answer is no. And we did this one stunt once. We’d shoot six shows in a day, and I would get exhausted and be silly and goofy. And Geoffrey Darby, who was our exec producer, had this little wind-up guy, a man in a boat. He wound him up, and for some reason, he put him on the first obstacle, and it made me laugh. He saw how it made me laugh. So when I’d say, “Harvey, what do they get if they get that?” And he’d give the prize. Then he’d pick up this little man in the boat, and he’d move him to the next obstacle. Towards the end, I couldn’t even talk. I still have that little man in the boat. That’s probably the most precious and dear. Once again, people have said I’d love to buy it, but would never sell it. It just has great memories for me.