Takeshi's Castle

Original Takeshi's Castle

The original show involved between 100 and 142 contestants whom General Tani (Hayato Tani) "forced" into a series of physical challenges, in some ways similar to those in It's a Knockout, eliminating many of the contestants. Each show finished with a "Final Showdown" in which Count Takeshi (Kitano) was faced by the remaining contestants. In early episodes they would storm the castle set itself in a short-range water gun assault. Later episodes introduced carts with paper rings, and eventually lasers and light-sensitive targets. If the contestant's gun penetrated the paper ring or hit the sensor on Takeshi's cart, against such weapons as a large water gun and a laser-armed plane, Takeshi's cart was deactivated, the castle was "taken" and the game "won". The player who stopped Takeshi won one million yen (which, at the time, was roughly equivalent to $8,000 US or £5,000 sterling). However, there were only nine winners during the show's run.

The series featured extensive landscaping of a fixed campus at TBS-owned Midoriyama (Green Mountain) Studios that included large man-made lakes and extensive permanent obstacles in Yokohama, Japan. The final regular episode aired on April 14, 1989 followed by 4 one-off specials up until October 19, 1990. A special revival took place just outside the TBS Building for the network's Spring All-Star Thanksgiving Festival on April 2, 2005 and featured Skipping Stones and Bridge Ball.

Challenges

A wide range of challenges were used throughout the history of Takeshi's Castle, some occurring only once or twice, or others in virtually every show, depending upon their popularity and ease of preparation. Many challenges involve falling into water or mud on failure.

Music

Takeshi's Castle challenges used a wide variety of well-known songs from movies, television shows, video games, anime, and other sources.

Characters

Arab countries

 Arab League — In Arab countries the show was called The Fort or Al Hisn (Arabic: الحصن‎‎). It aired in the mid to late 1980s where it became a cult hit. Commentary was provided by Lebanese television personality Riad Sharara (رياض شرارة), then later by Jamal Rayyan (جمال ريان), who is currently a well known news broadcaster in Al Jazeera's Arabic TV news channel.

Australia

 Australia — A version of the show was produced by The Comedy Channel, it had hosts in The Comedy Channel studio, it was redubbed, but unlike the American version it still kept to the real plot of the episode and showed the final challenge, rather than taking random footage and making up "teams". This has since been cancelled and/or finished. The show was hosted by two housemates from series two of Australian Big Brother Shannon Cleary and Nathan Morris. It also featured a crossdressing Geisha girl named Beryl. Some episodes featured a special guest third host, including Greg Fleet. Highlights appeared in Australia on the television program World's Weirdest TV. The American version MXC currently airs on Fox8 (an Australian cable network). The Australian writer and critic Clive James was once a celebrity contestant on the original show.

Brazil

 Brazil — During the 1990s, a version was aired by Rede Globo, called Olimpíadas do Faustão (Portuguese for "Faustão's Olympics"), as an insert in Fausto Silva's Sunday-afternoon variety show Domingão do Faustão. In 1994, rival SBT copied that version, and a legal action by Globo and SBT stopped the broadcasting. On June 1, 2008, SBT Keshi remake reappeared on TV, now licensed, remaking Faustão's known games (as Bridge Ball and The Run Way), not-seen in Globo games (as Skittles and Ride the Wave), and original games (cross a balance beam after spin, or cross a small bridge using a crank-kart). The games are a segment named "Playtime" in the "Programa Silvio Santos".

Czech Republic

 Czech Republic — It was shown by the name Takešiho hrad (Czech), with comedic voice-over by two Czech comedians. The commentary was mostly fictional. The show was popular among young viewers. The Czech TV channel also broadcast the show to Slovak Republic where it gained some popularity as well. In 2011 was Takešiho hrad broadcast on channel Prima Cool with a new single-voice comment.

Denmark

 Denmark — The Danish TV station TV 2 Zulu bought the rights to air the Challenge version in Denmark, thus making the Danish broadcast identical to that in Britain.

Finland

 Finland — On January 7, 2008, the television channel Jim started airing the UK version of the program. The comments are subtitled in Finnish. The show is titled Hullut japanilaiset ("The Crazy Japanese").

France

 France — A shortened version given a comedic voiceover by comedians Vincent Desagnat and Benjamin Morgaine has been shown on the W9 TV channel since October 2006, in a program called "Menu W9" (which also presented a shortened version of Sushi TV on its first season, now replaced by Sasuke). It has been also broadcast on the channel M6 which shown 2 episodes per day at 6.50 p.m from Tuesday to Friday. The voices were those of the late sport presenter Thierry Roland and Moon Dailly.

Germany

 Germany — A dubbed version of the show aired on DSF in 1999. This version was released on a DVD box set with 12 selected episodes. Two more volumes were planned but were presumably canceled. A German dubbed version of the 2002 UK edit airs from July 3, 2007 on RTL II. There also exists an adaptation called Entern oder Kentern (engl.: Board or Capsize) with almost the same games but pirates as antagonists and celebrities as Team Captains. This version was aired on RTL in summer 2007. Shorter versions of episodes with comical commentary air on Comedy Central.

Greece

 Greece — A version airs on Skai TV by the name "Το κάστρο του Τακέσι"(=Takeshi's Castle). It has been dubbed by Kostas Papageorgiou and Akindynos Gikas.

India

 India — A shortened version of the show is aired on the Pogo TV channel, with Hindi dubbing by Javed Jaffrey. Jaffrey adds humor in the show. It has become very popular in India, being shown at least twice a day and having marathon runs of 2 hours on Sundays. The show was earlier voiced by Indian comedians Raju Srivastav, Sunil Pal, Navin Prabhakar and Ahsaan Qureshi. It gained huge popularity among children and adults due to its raw content. It is still aired on Pogo TV channel from 9 to 10 pm from Monday to Saturday and from 9 to 9:30 on Sunday.

Indonesia

 Indonesia — The original Japanese show was re-run, dubbed in Indonesian, on MNCTV.

Iran

 Iran — It was shown by the name Masir-e Talaa'ee (Persian: مسیر طلایی‎‎) (when translated it means "Golden Path"), on Iran's Channel 3 since 2009.

Italy

 Italy— Renamed Mai dire Banzai (Never Say: Banzai!) it first aired in 1989 on Italia 1. A reedited version interspersed with clips of another Japanese gameshow called Za Gaman, it was given a comedic voiceover by Gialappa's Band, who changed Kitano's and Saburo Ishikura's names to Gennaro Olivieri and Guido Pancaldi, historically Swiss Italian judges in Games Without Frontiers. They also renamed in absurdist comical ways the other figures of the show like calling the in-game reporter 'Pokoto Pokoto', the martially-attire'd host 'General Putzersthoefen' and so on. Gialappa's Band making fun of the duty-bound, stoic stereotype of Japan, described the games and tasks as traditional Japanese past-times and thus rather mundane and humdrum by Japanese standards, introducing a veil of non sequitur to the show which is lacking in English language versions. The show gained new popularity in the 2000s, when it started being broadcast on various satellite and terrestrial channels with the original title and using the half-hour episodes of the UK shortened version, with independent voiceover (superimposed to the still audible Japanese tack) done by various Italian comedians. As of 2008, this version is broadcast on GXT with the voiceover done by Trio Medusa (previously the show was commentated on by Marco Marzocca with Stefano Sarcinelli and still before by duo Lillo & Greg); shortly after it was re-aired by local broadcasters and by K2. From 10 January 2011, the series is re-transmitted in Italy on Cartoon Network and the voiceover is done by Roberto Stocchi e Francesca Draghetti.

Lithuania

 Lithuania — The show was aired by the name "Takeši pilis", featuring Fumito Tomoi (a Japanese person living in Lithuania at the time), who dubbed the show in a comic way with his broken Lithuanian. The show was very popular.

Malaysia

 Malaysia — The Japanese version was aired over NTV7 in early 2000s, although edited to be shortened to half an hour. The broadcast was added with Malay overdub commentary (the original Japanese audio track is still audible in background). Sometimes in earlier versions, the unoverdubbed parts will be subtitled in Malay. The show was known as Istana Takeshi in Malaysia.

As of June 2010, the show is airing again using the American version with Malay subtitles on TV9 but still called Istana Takeshi instead of MXC.

Mexico

 Mexico — The Japanese version on Azteca 13 of TV Azteca in 1993 and Azteca 7 of TV Azteca was aired in Mexico, which, like the Spanish, has its own stories and invented by giving voices teams.

Due to the success of the American edits of Banzuke and Ninja Warrior/Sasuke on Azteca 7, on May 4, 2015, the program was broadcast by Canal 5 of Televisa, under the name "Castillo Takeshi" and narrated by two presenters from Televisa using the British edit as basis for their own edit. Possibly due to the upscaling from PAL to HD, it had a poor quality image, making it look even older than it was. It took the time slot where ABC's Wipeout had been broadcast since 2014. After just three weeks, the show was replaced by ABC's Wipeout, which has had a longer more successful run on Mexican TV.

Netherlands

 Netherlands — The show was aired on August 15, 2009 on the Dutch Comedy Central. Each episode lasts half an hour and Dutch voice-over is provided by sports commentator Ronald van Dam and actor/comedian Ruben van der Meer. The episodes are a copy of the British version, since it also shows replays at the end of each challenge.

Philippines

 Philippines - It was first shown on the Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation TV network in October 1990 as a Filipino-dubbed show. Later episodes contained interludes shot on a studio with actors Anjo Yllana as Takeshi and Smokey Manoloto as "Iwakura" providing the commentary with a gravelly Japanese accent, which was later dropped in favor of their natural voices. The Filipino production crew also developed on their relationship, with Iwakura often trying to trick Takeshi on several occasions. One episode which resulted in the contestants' victory was even written as Takeshi's worst nightmare; when Iwakura finally wakes him up, Takeshi is so traumatized that he asks to call off a scheduled taping. Makers of the malt drink brand Ovaltine created an in-show mini contest as part of a product endorsement deal in 1991. In this version, the names given to most of the challenges are translated from their original Japanese such as "Devil's Maze" for the Honeycomb and Square Mazes, "Flying Mushroom" for Mushroom Trip, and "Sumo Wrestling" for Sumo Rings.

The IBC episodes of Takeshi's Castle were later rerun on SBN during 1993 and 1994. The show was not edited as before at IBC.

Takeshi's Castle enjoyed a revival in the Philippines in 2006. This time around, comedians Joey de Leon and Ryan Yllana (Anjo's younger brother) provide the commentary as fictional characters shogun Shintaro "Taru" Gokoyami who is Takeshi's right-hand man and sumo wrestler Kakawate Takehome, the leader of the Takeshi Gundan, fictional in the sense that there are no such characters in the original cast. Initially, the two provide play-by-play commentary, but they as well as some added characters reduced themselves to skits and commentary in between clips of the show. Later, as part of Q's first anniversary, Anjo finally appeared alongside the new cast, reprising his role as "prince" Takeshi. Due to Takeshi's Castle's competitive ratings, the management of GMA Network (which produces shows for its sister network Q) decided to move the show from its original station in an evening slot, now to the early afternoon weekend slot of GMA. Takeshi's Castle is aired on a weekly basis as opposed to the weekdays airing on Q, and is aired before Eat Bulaga on Saturdays and before SOP on Sundays. This is done to increase and improve the ratings of the succeeding shows. Takeshi's Castle started to air on GMA on December 23, 2006 with same hosts. The show aired on its last episode on May 9, 2007, and after a long break of TV experience, Joey and Ryan assumed new personalities as Master GT (later Tirso Potter) and Captain B respectively. It was temporarily replaced by "Just Joking" which starred also Joey de Leon and Ryan Yllana and other casts. On August 15, 2007, "Takeshi's Castle" returned on air once again with all new episodes and Mike "Pekto" Nacua (Cookie), John Feir (Belli) and Love Añover (replacement when either Cookie or Belli was not in) become commentators. The show aired at Saturdays 11:30 a.m. before "Eat Bulaga!", and Sundays 11:15 a.m. before SOP Rules. On GMA's regional networks, a Cebuano-dubbed show now on GMA Cebu & Davao from Saturdays and Sundays in the Morning by Cebuano version from title called Takeshi's Castle Wala Gyud sa Isaysay Banzai! (Never Say Banzai!).

Portugal

 Portugal — A version called Nunca Digas Banzai (Portuguese for "Never Say Banzai", based on the Italian name for it, Mai Dire Banzai) aired on SIC starting in 1994, where it reached some popularity. Voiceovers were provided by two hosts, José Carlos Malato and João Carlos Vaz. Takeshi and Ishikura were renamed "Fujimoto" and "Fujicarro" (a play on the Portuguese words for "[motor]bike" and "car" using the Japanese word Fuji), and the Portuguese hosts made no attempt to interpret the reality of the show, instead using the contestants as surrogates for the satirical comments about Portuguese public figures, in a similar style to MXC.

Russia

 Russia - The series were featured in Ren TV project show "The Best Shows of the World" (Лучшие шоу мира) in the early 2000s and due to positive public reaction were aired on the regular basis on its own, named "Takeshi Kitano's Castle" (Замок Такеши Китано). Show was translated and aired on 2x2 channel as "Japanese amusements" (Японские забавы) during 2011-2012 and in 2013-2014. The format of the show is the translated commentary version of UK adaptation.

Serbia

 Serbia - Show started with showing on FOX TV in January 2010 named Takeši.

Singapore

 Singapore - The show first debut in the early-1990s on Singapore's free-to-air channel, Channel 8, as "100 Wars" (Chinese: 百戰百勝), as the program was acquired from Taiwan. In the mid 90's till early 2000's, re-runs of the show aired on Saturdays at 1.30 pm in the afternoon, following the News on Channel 8.

Slovakia

 Slovakia — During the 2011-2012 was Takešiho hrad (Slovak) broadcast on channel Joj Plus with a single-voice Slovak comment.

South Africa

 South Africa The show is broadcast daily on the Sony MAX channel, Channel 126 on DStv. It is the condensed version of the original series with commentary provided by Craig Charles. It began broadcasting in 2009 and is a huge hit with viewers. Due to its popularity the show has been aired to a broader audience on SABC 2.

Spain

 Spain — The program aired in the 1990s as Humor Amarillo (when translated it means "Yellow Humour" or "Yellow Comedy") on TV channel Telecinco. Comedians Juan Herrera and Miguel Ángel Coll (son of José Luis Coll) commented on the images; this version of the show has achieved cult status and there are some fansites and web petitions for returns. In fact, the Spanish version created some terms now familiar to either Takeshi's Castle or Humor Amarillo, like "El Laberinto del Chinotauro" (literally The Chinesetaur Labyrinth, name for any of the maze challenges), "Los cañones de Nakasone" (parody of "Guns of Navarone" Spanish title), "Las Zamburguesas" (for Skipping Stones),"Gacela Thompson" ("Thompson Gazelle"), a pathetic businessman character, and "Chino Cudeiro" (The Chinese Cudeiro, as the name started to be assigned when appeared a player with a red T-shirt with the inscription "Cudeiro, Galicia, España"), the name assigned to a random player that always "dies", one of the most popular characters in Spain. On January 28, 2006, a second version dubbed by Fernando Costilla and Paco Bravo premiered on Spanish TV channel Cuatro. They have shown every one of the original Japanese episodes, with the last one being shown on June 9, 2007, ending with a special message by the Spanish commentators. The 2006 version is currently being rebroadcast on the Telecinco-owned channel Energy.

These two versions had in common that it was naturally assumed that the dubbing was completely unrelated to the original dialogues, to the point that sometimes the references to the actual contest were really few. The commentators could turn the contestants into mushroom seekers, or people looking for a new apartment. Alongside the spectacular hits suffered by the contestants and the show's peculiar aesthetic, this helped boost its popularity.

Taiwan

 Taiwan — A gameshow called 100 Wars, 100 Victories (Chinese: 百戰百勝) on CTS was formed from the original show, similar to how MXC Almost Live was formed.

Thailand

 Thailand — Takeshi's Castle was dubbed and shown on Channel 5 in 1988 - 1995. The title was changed to "Hod, Mun, Ha" (โหด มัน ฮา), or "Cruel, Thrilling, Fun".

In 2007, the unedited original series with bilingual soundtrack (Thai & Japanese) was aired on X-ZYTE channel on TrueVisions cable TV every Sunday and rerun several times throughout a week.

In 2014, Channel 7 (Thailand) bought the rights to remake the show. "โหด มัน ฮา Takeshi's Castle Thailand" first aired on 20 July, with a new episode airing most Sundays. The show's format is identical to the one used in the original show, but with a few minor changes. Shogun Takeshi (Note Chernyim) has kept Princess Woosenko (Woonsen Virithipa Pakdeeprasong) as a prisoner in his castle. General Shahkrit (Shahkrit Yamnarm) attempts to rescue the princess from the castle by sending his army of contestants through Shogun's challenges (remade challenges include Slippery Wall, Avalanche, Honeycomb Maze, Skipping Stones, Slip Way, Sumo Rings, Wet Paint, and Tug Of War), and the last remaining contestants battle against Shogun's guards in the Showdown. Any winners receive the 1,000,000 Thai-baht cash prize, the cash prize is rolled over to the next episode if there are no winners

Later on, the show reduced the number of competitors to 20, and then 12 in current shows. With the rules format changing, the competitors don't get eliminated throughout the show, but instead work as a team. The competitors are given, by Shogun Takeshi, 10 carts and the Shogun has no guard carts at the beginning of the episode. The competitors then play 5 challenges before the Showdown. In the first challenge, usually involved all the competitors playing at the same time, every single competitors must pass the challenge, while the subsequent challenges needs at most 5 passes in order to be credited as a win. Winning a challenge will cause the situation remaining unchanged, while losing the first challenge takes one cart away from the competitors team and one cart added to Shogun's team in Showdown. In subsequent challenges, one car is taken away and added to Shogun's team if less than 5 competitors passed, two cars are taken if less than 3 competitors passed. In current shows, with 12 competitors, two cars are taken away if less than 3 competitors passed, while 3 passes are credit with a win, and no cars are taken away. Losing a challenge also results in a punishment for the competitors in various ways, usually messy and painful. In Showdown, the team sends out two competitors per one cart they have to battle with Shogun's guards. Succeeding in Battle awards all competitors a share of 5,000,000 baht cash prize, but the prize is remain the same in all episodes.

Ukraine

 Ukraine — Show was translated and aired on QTV channel as «Laughter with Takeshi Kitano» (Реготня з Такеші Кітано) during 2008-2010.

United Kingdom

 United Kingdom — The show was first introduced to British audiences in the late 1980s, when it was featured semi-regularly as part of LWT's Tarrant on TV, in which broadcaster Chris Tarrant showcased a variety of unusual television programmes from around the world. One of the series' previous hosts, Clive James, appeared in an original Japanese episode as an international contestant - with behind the scenes footage shown as part of his two-part ITV documentary ...in Japan in 1987.

Takeshi's Castle would become more well-known later when a condensed version of the original series proved an unexpected hit when it premiered on Challenge on 9 November 2002, regularly dominating the top ten programmes on the channel each week.

The UK format did not follow the original Japanese format - instead presenting each sequence of games as comic martial challenges leading to the final game wherein contestants not so far eliminated try to storm Takeshi's Castle. Each episode in the original run was narrated by Craig Charles, who also coined the term "Keshi Heads" to describe avid fans of the show. A typical episode of the UK format of Takeshi's Castle has about eight games, followed by the final Showdown. After each event, a 'Ridiculous Replay' is shown, highlighting the most entertaining attempt. Challenge decided to edit out the comedy sketches between Takeshi and Higashi to allow more (or fewer) games to be shown during the half-hour block.

More series were commissioned and shown over the next few months, culminating in a series of hour-long specials in the Autumn of 2003, and a special highlights show, The A-Z of Takeshi's Castle, broadcast on January 1, 2004 which showed some of the best clips of the best games as the last original series finale. Repeats still air regularly to this day on Challenge, with an average of 130,000 viewers an episode. On 3 September 2005, MXC aired for the first time in the UK on Challenge.

On 9 May 2007, The Paul O'Grady Show had their own mini Takeshi's Castle challenge, including 'Knock Knock', 'Bite the Bun', a "Bridge Ball" adaptation called 'Balancing Act' and the 'Slippery Wall'. The UK TV series returned to Challenge after a hiatus on 7 September 2009 with a modified opening sequence (to fit with Flextech rebranding to Virgin Media Television).

In February 2010, a campaign was launched by fansite Keshi Heads in an attempt to bring a brand new series of Takeshi's Castle to Challenge within its 10th anniversary year on the channel (November 2012-13). It was suggested by campaigners that these new episodes would feature never-before-seen games (previously completely cut from other episodes), and feature five Japanese episodes new to the UK, including the Pilot and an International Special which have never been seen on TV since their original airings in Japan.

On 13 December 2012, Challenge officially announced that they had signed a deal for unseen bits of Takeshi's Castle. The new series, named "Takeshi's Castle Rebooted", which aired from 8 to 29 March 2013, featured games and episodes suggested by the Keshi Heads website in their campaign. Despite Craig Charles agreeing to return for the new series, Challenge decided to bring in Richard McCourt and Dominic Wood (alias Dick and Dom) as the new voiceovers. Hayato Tani also filmed presentation links for the new series.

"Rebooted" disappointed fans, with many complaining about Charles' replacement as voiceover. Challenge reportedly received more negative comments about Rebooted, on their social media accounts, than any other show in the channel's history, with the series never once reaching its weekly top ten ratings. The original episodes returned to Challenge after 'Rebooted' ended its run. In contrast to the newly produced series, these entered the weekly top ten rating shows almost instantly upon their return. Rebooted has since been repeated in off-peak timeslots.

United States

In the United States, Takeshi's Castle aired as MXC (subtitled Most Extreme Elimination Challenge) on Spike TV, providing both dubbing and commentary in English that effectively spoofs the original show. The show has been broadcast in Australia and New Zealand.

Two attempts were made to Americanize the format:

Vietnam

 Vietnam - The Vietnamese show Đại Náo Thành Takeshi produced under license, with the first episode airing March 25, 2017 in prime time on VTV3. The program features famous Vietnamese artists, with warlords Takeshi played by Trấn Thành and Sharkito by Trương Thế Vinh, and Princess Woonsenko played by Diễm My 9X. Challenges in the first episode included Slippery Wall, Slip Way, Honeycomb Maze, and Final Fall. The Show Down in front of the castle takes place in boats equipped with water spray nozzle weapons and paper disc targets.

In other media