Fun House

Host

J.D. Roth

Twin Cheerleaders

Jacqueline "Jackie" and Samantha "Sammi" Forrest

Announcers

Brian Cummings (Pilot) John "Tiny" Hurley (Syndication) M.C. Michael Chambers (FOX)

Broadcast

Pilots: 2/6-7/1988 Syndication (Daily): 9/5/1988 – 9/9/1990 FOX Saturday Mornings: 9/8/1990 – 4/13/1991

Packagers

Stone Television (Syndication) Stone-Stanley Productions (FOX) Lorimar Television (Syndication, Season 2) Telepictures (FOX)

Distributors

Lorimar-Telepictures (1988–1989 season) Warner Bros. Television (1989–1990 season)

Fun House (then later as FOX's Fun House) was a kids game show where child contestants get messy and run or ride a race for the right to run through an amazing fun house for thousands of dollars in cash and prizes. Some say this is a ripoff of the hit Nickelodeon kids game show Double Dare.

Gameplay

Two teams (Red Team and Gold Team) of two children (a boy and a girl) played messy games and answered questions to win a chance to run through an obstacle-strewn Fun House at the end of the show. The Red Team was on the viewer's left and the Gold Team was on the viewer's right at the contestant podium.

Main Game

Round 1: Stunts

The teams played three stunts (usually one for the boys, one for the girls and one for all players). Some stunts resembled those on another children's game show, Double Dare (in fact, Double Dare often mocked Fun House many times due to its similarities when the former was still taped in Philadelphia). While most stunts were matches of skill, others relied on luck, such as having teams alternating picking up pies with their teeth until finding two that said "WIN". Several games, such as "Pinhead" and "Dump-O", were races to answer a certain number of questions first, with the losing player being slimed by an unusual contraption. The winner(s) of each stunt won 25 points. If the stunt ended in a tie, both teams received the points. After each stunt, the teams returned to their podiums to answer a toss-up question (that somehow tied in with the stunt) for an additional 25 points. In the FOX run, a contestant who got the question right not only earned the 25 points, but also pied his/her opponent in the face.

Round 2: Fun House Grand Prix

This was a high-stakes point earning round that decided the winning team.

There were two different formats used for the race. In one format, the teams used vehicles to run the course, with one teammate pushing/pulling and the other riding, and they traded roles in addition to lanes for the second lap. The other format was a relay race on foot, with each teammate running one lap. Small challenges were usually set up around the track that each team had to complete during the run, such as gathering and carrying items, running through tires, or squirting targets with a seltzer bottle. Roth signaled the start and finish of the race with the green and checkered flags used in motor racing.

While racing, teams collected white and blue point tokens worth 10 and 25 points, respectively; they could collect as many tokens as they wanted but only tokens that remained with them at the end of the race counted (tokens that hit the ground were taken out of play). Starting later in the syndicated version, a token bank was placed near the track on the second lap, at which teams could make a pit stop to grab as many tokens as they could. The token banks had as much as 200 points in them.

The first team to cross the finish line earned an additional 25 points (50 in earlier episodes). At the end of the race, the teams returned to their podiums and the host counted up the tokens, starting with the trailing team. The team with the highest score after all the tokens were counted up won the game and advanced to the Fun House; the losing team received consolation prizes (which included the Fun House board game). If the game ended in a tie, one last tie-breaker question was played. A correct answer sent the team to the Fun House, but an incorrect answer meant their opponents could answer the question (as they couldn't win by default).

Fun House Grand Prix Track Season 1

Fun House Grand Prix Track Season 2

Bonus Round: The Fun House

The contestants on the winning team took turns entering the Fun House and tried to grab a series of tags (three tags per player per turn) in each room in the Fun House. Six tags were red, each marked with a different prize; the others were green and awarded cash amounts from $50 to $300. All cash tags were placed in plain sight, but the prize tags were sometimes hidden within the rooms. Every room that held a prize tag, hidden or visible, was marked with a placard indicating the prize.

One randomly selected tag also included the "Power Prize", which if found awarded the team with a big trip. This continued for two minutes, after which the cash and prizes were added up, and the team was told if they had won the Power Prize. Any cash earned was awarded to each player.

In the FOX version of the show, a "Glop Clock" was also hidden in the house; finding this specially marked alarm clock earned the team an additional 15 seconds (at the end of the main two minutes) to collect tags. In addition, time was started when the contestant hit the water after the water slide was added. Also, in the Fast Food Fight area, members of the losing team threw glop and pies at the winning team.

For the first two seasons, the audience was invited to come down to the stage to watch the day's champions run through the Fun House. In Season 3, the audience sat in their regular seats.

Pilot

The pilot was pretty much the same as the series except for these differences:

• There were four stunts instead of three (two for the boys and two for the girls).
• Teams played for dollars instead of points with the stunts worth $25 to the winner and $1 for the loser for each portion of the stunt completed. Questions again were worth the same value. Any cash won was theirs to keep win or lose.
• Winning the Grand Prix Race was worth $50 to the team that won. Plus instead of just blue and white tokens, there were also red tokens. The values for the tokens were as follows:
  • Reds – $10
  • White – $25
  • Blues – $50
• In the Fun House, contestants on the winning team grabbed just two prize tags each turn (though they could grab as many cash tags as they wished). Also there was a cash prize "Button Banger" room, where one member of the winning team would press a button and whatever cash amount lit up was what the team won. The values range from $100 to $2,000. After the Fun House run, each prize tag was checked one at a time, for as before, one prize tag was a "Power Prize" tag, and if that was found & checked, the winning team won every prize in the Fun House, for a total of over $25,000 in prizes.

Gallery

The Fun House

The Fun House with the Podium

Does that taste good, Tiny?

Wow, talk about a sandwich!

Oh, someone got slimed!

Who's going to win the Grand Prix?

Fun House won an Emmy, and here is the congratulatory poster.

Tickets

British Version

The British version of Fun House aired on CITV from 1989–1999. Hosted by Pat Sharp along with the twin cheerleaders Melanie and Martina Grant, and Gary King as the announcer.

Theme song lyrics to the UK version of Fun House
It's Wacky!
It's Fun!
It's Cr-a-a-a-zy!
It's outrageous!
Fun House,
It's a whole lot of fun,
Prizes to be won!
It's a real crazy show where anything can go!
Fun House,
It's a quiz,
It's a race,
It's a real wacky place!
Use your body and your brain!
If you wanna play the game!

If you want to learn more about the British version of Fun House, visit its page on British Game Show wiki and click on this link:

http://british-game-show.wikia.com/wiki/Fun_House

Merchandise

Games for the DOS and Commodore 64 were released in 1989 while the NES version was released in 1991 by Hi-Tech Expressions, Inc. (NOTE: While the DOS and Commodore 64 version stays very faithful to the show, the NES version makes you shoot targets throughout the rooms before time expires.)

DOS version

Commodore 64 version

NES version

A board game was released by Pressman in 1988 (as mentioned above, it was among the consolation prizes given to losing teams).

An electronic handheld game was released…

…as well as a Klix pocket travel game by Tiger Electronics in 1989.

Exercise videos entitled Fun House Fitness (better known as The Swamp Stomp in red and The Fun House Funk in green) in two editions were originally released as VHS tapes in 1991 with J.D. Roth and Jane Fonda in exercise routines. The videos also included a run through the Fun House as well as clips from the show. It was reissued as a DVD compilation in 1999 as the Jane Fonda Collection.

Fun House Fitness Mini Gallery

Music

Score Productions

Inventor

Bob Synes

Stations

These are the stations that carried the syndicated version of "Fun House."

New York City - WPIX
Los Angeles - KCOP
Chicago - WGN
Philadelphia - WTXF
Baltimore - WBFF
Dallas - KTXA
San Francisco - KTVU
Boston - WSBK
Atlanta - WGNX
Washington, DC - WDCA
Houston - KTXH
Detroit - WKBD
Phoenix - KUTP
Seattle - KTZZ
Tampa Bay - WFTS
Denver - KWGN
Miami - WDZL
Cleveland - WUAB
Sacramento - KTXL
Pittsburgh - WPTT
Indianapolis - WXIN
Raleigh - WLFL
San Diego - KTTY
Hartford - WTXX
Nashville - WCAY
Columbus, OH - WTTE
San Antonio - KRRT
Harrisburg - WLYH
Oklahoma City - KGMC
Jacksonville - WNFT
Memphis - WMKW
Mobile - WJTC
Dayton - WRGT
Charleston, WV - WVAH
Honolulu - KAAH
Omaha - KPTM
Johnstown, PA - WPTJ
Topeka - KTKA
Sioux City, IA - KMEG
Milwaukee - WCGV
La Crosse - WLAX
Eau Claire - WEUX
Green Bay - WGBA
Flint - WSMH
Grand Rapids - WOTV
Montgomery, AL - WCOV
Cedar Rapids - KDUB
Charlotte - WCCB
Cincinnati - WXIX
Columbia, SC - WACH
Madison - WMSN
Minneapolis - KMSP
South Bend - WHME
Anchorage, AK - KYES
Boise - KTRV
Portland, OR - KPDX
Lafayette, LA - KADN

Rating

Spin-Off

College Mad House – which also ran weekly with college students participating.

Studio

Hollywood Center Studios, Los Angeles, CA

Additional Pages

Fun House/Quotes & Catchphrases
Fun House/Video Gallery

Links

The Fun House Factory
The Fun House Headquarters

YouTube Videos

The Pilot Episode