Sponk!

Host

Johnathan F. McClain

The Players

Allie Berdebes Tim Dorsch Julia Kay Vanessa Lengies Scott Irby-Rannier Miles Thompson Louie Torrellas Lori Wells

Announcer/SID

Karen Fowler

Broadcast

Noggin/The N (Daily): 9/10/2001 – 3/30/2002 (reruns aired 4/1/2002 – 1/1/2003)

Packagers

Insight Productions/Sesame Workshop

Hey you, watch this! It's Sponk! It's happening right now! (the kids set up the stage as their names on the screen are revealed) [after set up scene]: And here's your host, (insert funny comment), JONATHAN MCCLAIN!

Sponk! was somewhat of a junior spinoff of Whose Line is it Anyway?.

Gameplay

Sponk! resembled a classic Nickelodeon game show, featuring young actors and a young studio audience. The performers were four boys and four girls but with two sitting out and six competing in a red team and blue team. The ideas for the improvisational and sketch contests were submitted by the home audience through Noggin.com. SID would then pick a submission and provide credit for the home audience (as their screen name). Later, SID announced the winner of a small electronic device.

The studio audience participated as judges for the sketches. They disqualified a contestant by yelling out, "SPONK!". When time ran out, the audience voted the winner by raising the side of their "Spaddle" to vote for the red team or blue team. The "prize" that the performers competed for was the Sponk! Trophy, a golden rubber chicken. Occasionally an audience member would be the sketch participant while the original performers acted as a celebrity panel, and won a small prize.

Games

Here are some of the games featured on the show:

• Action Figure Theater
• Armpit Chef/Drama
• Dr. Allspeak
• Ballet
• Buy This
• Conducted Whatever/Story Survivor
• Identity Crisis
• Letter Rip
• SponkMart/Workaholic
• Where's Your Homework?

On some games, members of the studio audience voted on which team they thought was best with the best team receiving 100 points, if it was the final game of the day they scored 201 points+. On some others, teams scored 50 points a pop with the help of an audience member. There were also games which was about eliminating all members of the opposing team.

+ - the extra point was most likely to prevent a tie

Sponk! Challenges

Two Sponk! challenges were played each show. The first was where a member of the team that won the second game created a challenge for the opposing team. The second was the "Mondo Sponk Challenge" where host Johnathan set up a challenge for the losing team.

Additional Page

Sponk!/Video Gallery

Links

Official Website (via Internet Archive)
Rules for Sponk! (Archived)
Opening to Sponk