October 2023 – Anime Game Show Party

Occasionally I do get some comments that aren’t from princes of a far-away land offering me a lot of money to do particularly sketchy things! Mark wrote in and said:

you should do double dare at cons

Fun Fact, this could mean one of two shows! There was a game called Double Dare that aired in the 1970s starring Alex Trebek with one heck of a ‘fro. It was a fairly involved Q&A show, where strategy played a key role in controlling how many clues your opponent got to see. It only lasted from 1976-77 and then faded into obscurity (though its theme song was reused for the much more popular Card Sharks).

Or there’s the kids’ game show that aired on Nickelodeon and Fox in the 1980s into the ’90s. Two teams of kids answered much easier questions and did a lot of messy stunts to win some surprisingly cool prizes (all the way up to a minivan for the Family Double Dare series!). This Double Dare got a really solid revival on Nickelodeon a few years back.

But to get back to the comment, one would take a LOT of preparation, tech, and manpower that I don’t really have, and the other I simply will not do.

Trebek’s show could be done but we’d have to engineer around some of the physical set pieces on the show… namely, the isolation booths for the players and the experts. Building them is out of the question. Perhaps we could get the same effect by having players wear blindfolds + noise-cancelling headphones, but that brings up sanitary issues. If we can find a way to basically make players temporarily unable to see/hear when needed, then it’d be workable.

Double Dare on Nick has been one I’ve gotten multiple requests for over the years. I love the show. I loved it as a kid; I loved the reboot. But I can’t create or host it at a convention. Physically, sure. I could write questions and construct physical challenges and obstacles, but what if someone is hurt? What if they have their phone in their pocket and the screen cracks if they fall in the One-Ton Human Hamster Wheel or it gets whipped cream on it while going Down the Hatch? What happens to the con when the hotel finds out about these activities that endanger their meeting room/property? As a former convention runner, I would instantly make sure that show never happened at my con, and I’m not willing to put a con-runner in that same difficult position.

No amount of waivers would protect me personally or the convention from being sued out of existence.

Best I can do is have two teams play the NES adaptation of Double Dare, and I wouldn’t inflict that pain on anyone.

Our goal at Anime Game Show Party is to make the lives of convention attendees entertaining and educational, and to make the lives of convention staff a little less stressful.

There has been a lot of negative comments thrown at Ohayocon recently, and while we normally do not comment on such things, we do have a long-standing relationship with the convention, having served as staff in myriad capacities and having appeared several times as presenters and panelists.

For full transparency, we have submitted four events for approval at Ohayocon 2024. As of the writing of this post, we have not received a response as to the status of the submitted events. It was also to be a return to performing at in-person events following a long absence due to the global pandemic and other health concerns.

The information being made public is still new, and AGSP will be taking all information in and analyzing it as quickly as possible. Any changes to our status with the con will be posted here.