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Host
Chris Hardwick
Hostess/Announcer
Andrea Wagner
Trasher
Mark Fite
Broadcast
Trashed
Trashed-001
MTV: 2/14/1994 – 7/23/1994
Packager
MTV Networks

Trashed was a short-lived MTV game show where contestants try to protect their personal items and eventually themselves from being "trashed" in any way.

Gameplay[]

Two teams of two answered pop culture/music video questions in order to score points and protect their six prized possessions they brought from home from getting trashed by the trasher.

Main Game[]

To start, a toss-up question was asked to both teams and the first team to buzz-in with a correct answer won the right to choose which of their opponents items they would like to see trashed.

Rounds 1 & 2[]

In the first two rounds, the team in control would which choose which of their opponents items they would like to see trashed. After that, a category was given and three questions from that category were asked. All questions were toss-ups and the first team to buzz-in with a correct answer scored points. For the team trying to defend their object from being trashed, they must answer two of the questions correctly to save their item; otherwise, the selected item was "trashed" in many ways by Mark the Trasher. When a category was finished regardless if the item was trashed or not, the team that answered the most out of three got to choose the next item of their opponents to trash.

Each team played three items each round, and they can only be played once whether they were trashed or not.

Categories[]

Each category consisted of three questions dealing with pop culture, music videos, or random trivia. On occasion, a skit would be presented, after which the contestants would have to answer questions about the skit or from the performers themselves.

Examples of Categories[]

NOTE: Most of these questions very often included bathroom or sexual humor; while commonplace for MTV, some of it was very clearly meant to test the boundaries of acceptable material on the network. This pushing of the envelope may go hand-in-hand with the experimenting with crudeness done on other relatively new MTV shows at the time, most notably Beavis and Butt-Head.

  • Blind Date Guy – This category featured a character who was on a date with a random woman, talking about a movie he saw on another date that ended poorly. The contestants then had to guess the movie.
  • Disturbing Videos – An obscene clip from a music video would be shown, and the contestants were asked a question about it.
  • Suck-up Shoeshine Boy – This character was shown in a video clip shining a celebrity's shoes, and congratulating them on their work. The contestants then had to guess the celebrity.
  • Stupid Contestants – A clip from a supposed "previous game" was shown, leading to a trivia question.
  • The Naked Trucker – This character (strumming a guitar over his private parts) would call someone to party with, and the contestants had to guess the person.
  • Shane – "Hollywood's Most Flamboyant Historian" Shane Gray spoke about an event in pop culture history, and the contestants were asked a question about it.
  • Encyclopedia Boy – This character was shown in a video clip (featuring an off-screen narrator) looking up something, and the contestants were asked a question about what he was looking up.
  • Dateless Joe – This character was trying (and failing) to ask a woman on a date, and the contestants were asked about the celebrities he was ratting on.
  • Greasyboy – This character talked about a music video that he "cleaned the pool on," so the contestants were asked questions about music videos with swimming pools in them.
  • Cover Art – A contemporary pop art painting was shown to the contestants, and they were asked a question about it.
  • TV Guide Preacher – This character gave a sermon about a television show. The contestants then had to guess the show.
  • Sci-Fi Guy – The contestants were shown a video clip of a science-fiction geek talking about one of his favorite works, and the contestants were asked a question about that work.
  • Army Man Theater – A Vietnam War general acted out a battle seen in a movie that took place during the Vietnam War, and the contestants had to guess the movie.
  • The Shredder Institue – A guitarist tried (and failed) to imitate a rock guitarist, and the contestants had to guess who he was imitating.
  • Corn Dogs 'n' Such – A video clip showed "Kiki the Corn Dog Girl" talking about a concert she was going to see (or thought she was going to see), and the contestants had to guess the performer(s).
Scoring[]

In Round 1, each correct answer was worth 50 points, and in Round 2, each correct answer was worth double or 100 points.

Trashing[]

The demolition of prized possessions was carried out by Mark Fite, AKA "Mark the Trasher", with occasional help from Andrea Wagner, the model/announcer. Depending on the item being destroyed, this could be carried out in many ways:

  • Blowing the item up inside a blast chamber
  • Shooting the item with a paintball gun
  • Stuffed animals, shoes, and the like were run over with a lawn mower.
  • The possession was placed against a brick wall, then a wrecking ball would be sent crashing into the object.
  • Electronics, such as VCR's and boomboxes, were crushed in a device that looked like a vertical vise with spikes. An autographed basketball was also destroyed with this machine.
  • Mark would appear to be working out on a leg press machine; he would extend a full rep and the item was placed underneath the suspended weight stack. He would then remove his legs, allowing the weights to freefall and crush the object.
  • Shoes and boots were destroyed by placing them on a mannequin sitting in a shoe shine booth; the boots were then "shined" using a sander, destroying them.
  • Clothes were destroyed by cutting them up with scissors or a knife, or swinging them around on a chainsaw; on one occasion, a shirt was placed on a giant doll of Beavis or Butt-Head (clearly to promote that show, which was just starting out and becoming popular.) Mark then proceeded to pour bleach on both Beavis and Butt-Head, ruining the shirt; it was then sliced apart with a knife.
  • Baseball cards and CD's were destroyed by placing them in a box filled with sand, then running over them with a belt sander, ruining both sides.
  • Televisions and cassette tape collections were often destroyed by throwing heavy objects onto them from a balcony constructed on stage.
  • Surfboards were sawn into pieces with a chainsaw.
  • Mark the Trasher played a bowler with the item used as a bowling pin. Mark would then throw the ball, causing the item to be destroyed by the ball.
  • If at any time the "trashing" did not work as planned, Mark the Trasher would simply finish the job himself using a sledgehammer.
  • On one occasion, the item at stake was an autographed baseball; they brought out a paint can full of hot tar in which to submerge it. However, Mark decided that the baseball was too expensive and instead threw it into the audience.
  • On another occasion, a male contestant with long blonde hair put his hair on the line as one of his "prized possessions"; upon getting these questions wrong, staff members began cutting his hair and continued to do so for the remainder of the main game.

Round 3: Survival Round (Lightning Round)[]

In the final round of the main game, instead of trashing contestant's items, they were trashing the contestants themselves. For one member from each team was "imprisoned", while their partners stood back at their podiums and answered questions. Each correct answer in this round was worth 150 points. The round lasted for an obscure time of 39 seconds and the team in the lead when time ran out won the game. The imprisoned contestant of the losing team ended up getting "trashed" in all sorts of ways. Examples included:

  • Being pied in the face
  • Getting doused with slime, gravy, milk, eggs, chocolate syrup, etc.
  • Getting his/her head shaved.
  • Male contestants wearing dresses.
  • Mark and his fellow cast members would have a party in which they would each too much junk food and vomit on the contestant.
  • Mark and several others spitting tobacco on the contestant.
  • A very bad singer serenades the contestant while the contestant is being humiliated.
  • An old lady (played by Mark the Trasher in drag) would force the contestant to eat spoiled food.

The winners moved on to the final round, while the losers left with a tacky parting gift such as a Simpsons chess set and were also required to do 10 hours community service (to go with the "trash" theme).

Grand Prize Round[]

This bonus round was a cross between the Remote Control bonus round and the Winner's Circle round on Pyramid. The winning contestants sat face to face with three TV monitors behind each of them--one player with the odd-numbered monitors, the other with the even-numbered ones. Each one consisted of a music video. While alternating turns, one player would describe the artist in the video while the other tried to guess who the artist is. The time limit for this round depended on how many possessions they saved in the game. They started at 30 seconds, and they add five more for each item they saved. So if they saved all six of their personal items, they played the bonus round for a full minute (60 seconds). Players were not allowed to name any band members, titles of albums or songs; use any part of the band name; sing, hum, or whistle any part of a song; or recite any lyrics. If any of these illegal clues were given, that music video was taken out of play. If the team can get all six artists correctly in the time that they earned, they won a grand prize vacation.

Press Photos[]

Studio[]

The Production Group, Los Angeles, CA

Music[]

Opening Theme - Dweezil Zappa
1st Close Theme – "What Is Love" by Haddaway
2nd Close Theme – "Mr. Vain" by Culture Beat

Inventors[]

Juliette Blake & Trevor Hopkins

Links[]

One contestant's experience
A Full Episode of Trashed

YouTube Video[]

Full Episode - 4/12/94

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