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Gunge
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Gunge is a British colloquial name for ‘‘slime’’ a term used in the US and other countries to define a runny substance similar to paint, that is often featured in game shows. It is used by covering or dropping over a victim, often inside a Gunge Tank, with the intention to cause embarrassment and making a mess. More recently, Gunge has been popularized by the BBC and ITV with shows like Get Your Own Back and Mad for It.
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Gunge is a British colloquial name for ‘‘slime’’ a term used in the US and other countries to define a runny substance similar to paint, that is often featured in game shows. It is used by covering or dropping over a victim, often inside a Gunge Tank, with the intention to cause embarrassment and making a mess. More recently, Gunge has been popularized by the BBC and ITV with shows like Get Your Own Back and Mad for It. It has also been used on Big Brother. Gunge is often used in charity and fundraising events too, in which certain figures are often sponsored to get gunged in front of a public audience. Gunge is made by mixing water with non toxic powder paint and industial food thickener (Xanthan Gum).
The slime meaning for the word originated in the late 1930s, probably as an alteration of the word gunk. In the US it has been popularized by networks such as Nickelodeon using slime in both its games and as its well known “Splat” logo.
History of gunge on TV
1960s
In Britain the popular BBC show Not Only... But Also featured a closing sketch called Poet's Corner in which that week's guest would be challenged to an improvisational poetry contest against Peter Cook, with Dudley Moore acting as referee. Each contestant would sit at the corner of a square tank of BBC Gunge on a rigged seat that could be triggered so as to catapult the occupant into the tank. The referee would sit at one of the other corners in a similar chair. Any use of repetition, hesitation or deviation from the challenge theme would precipitate the offender into the tank. The sketch always ended with all three personalities in the tank, chest deep in slime and spouting poetry.
1970s
The legendary UK Saturday morning children's show Tiswas used the concept of gunge in abundance. Having already established messy slapstick humour through custard pies and buckets of water being thrown over presenters and guests, Tiswas had taken to locking up adult volunteers into a cage. Once inside the Cage, the inhabitants would normally be soaked with buckets of water at random points in the show. Where gunge became involved, was thanks to the tin bath perched on top the Cage. Through a handle, this tub could be tilted, dropping its messy contents onto the people below.
While famous for its custard pie humour, it would not be unusual for Tiswas to have buckets of food and imitation mud/horse manure poured over people. Custard and baked beans were popular choices.
1980s
In North America, You Can't Do That on Television, a Canadian children's show popular on Nickelodeon, routinely subjected its characters to gunge when they said, "I don't know.", or any other phrase related to slime, the colour, water, or pies. It became a staple of the show where other actors would try and encourage their peers to say a phrase to get them "slimed". This aspect of the cult show later became iconized in Nickelodeon's slime logo, and live events where kids would be offered the chance to get "slimed" or publicly humiliated. There was also a character called "Gunge" on the Jim Henson Puppet show of "Fraggle Rock", a rat that would take care of the All-Knowing Trash heap.
In Britain and Europe, in the early eighties, children's gunge-based gameshows were the norm. Particularly shows like How Dare You! on ITV and Crackerjack on the BBC ensured that the gunging element featured on shows for the decade to come. On How Dare You!, one of the main games was 'Teach Them a Lesson', where children got the opportunity to drench their teacher or representative from their school in gunge whilst sitting above a knee deep filled gunge tank. After this game the teachers were sometimes knocked off their perch by one of show's presenters and into the gunge tank.
Later in the eighties, the BBC launched Double Dare, based on the US style format, but much sloppier than its US counterpart. Also, gunge started to appear on mainstream shows such as Game for a Laugh on ITV and Noel Edmond's Saturday Roadshow on the BBC.
Other countries in Europe also started to have gunge elements on mainstream shows. Un Dos Tres on TVE in Spain often had contestants throwing buckets of gunge at each other. Also, , a TV show in Germany, had many messy games; the climax of the show was dunking the team's suited boss in a dunk tank and pouring custard down inside every team members pair of boxershorts.
1990s
In Noel's House Party, the public often voted to determine which celebrities on the TV show would be gunged in the Gunge Tank. In later years, the Gunge Tank became the Gunge Train, and celebrities were forced to take a ride on the train and were covered in gunge throughout their journey. Celebrities usually returned with their suits ruined and faces unrecognizable. Sometimes audience members were gunged on the show for reasons of revenge by family members or friends.
The entertainment factor attached to the process of gunging was realised by the producers of the charity event Comic Relief, who held an event, in cooperation with the Guinness World Records at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham where an attempt to set a record for the Most People Gunged Simultaneously took place on March 12, 1999. 184 gallon s of gunge was splattered over 731 people.
All across Europe TV producers were ordering more gunge segments to be fitted into mainstream TV shows due to its popularity with viewers. In Germany, on SAT1, Halli galli , Glücksritter (RTL), Glücksspirale , plus the German version of NHP - Gottschalk's Haus-Party, all involved a high dose of gunge. Halli Galli had audience members plucked out of their seats and sent down a messy gunge slide and into a pool. Likewise, Glücksspirale and Glücksritter had contestents plucked out of the audience and gunged in the most spectacular ways.
Towards the end of the nineties, with the demise of Noel's House Party and the dwindling audience figures for other European shows, the gunge segment in many mainstream shows started to fade.
Throughout the 1990s, gunge became a focal feature in many children's TV shows. Teenagers and celebrity guests are often seen competing in quizzes on Live & Kicking, and are gunged if they lose. Popstars Lee Ryan, Ben Adams, Katy Hill, Lesley Waters, Katherine Merry, Heather Suttie and Victoria Hawkins were gunged on this show. Many other shows used gunge throughout - Fun House, Get Your Own Back, Run the Risk and Double Dare.
2000s
In 2000 a children's gameshow called Insides Out featured gunge throughout the programming, most notably a tug of war involving intestine like ropes over a pit of gunge and the final game, an inflatable assault course of the digestive system where gunge would drop at unexpected points whilst the contestant was going back and forth to pick up body pieces. The most regularly watched show containing a gunging is the Saturday Show, the child and the adult, normally Simon Grant, if the grown up lost they got gunged and they were in the same gunge tank the following week and the child took home the prizes, but if they lost they got gunged and they took home with them a "I Got GUNGED On The Saturday Show" Certificate. Other kids' programmes such as Xchange, Best of Friends and Diggin it also featured gunge or messy activities from time to time. Dick and Dom in the Bungalow and Holly & Stephen's Saturday Showdown (previously Ministry of Mayhem) featured messy segments through out the programmes, but more recently Toonattik featured a gunge quiz known as "make em squirm". In 2006, S4C introduced a kids Show called Waaa!!! where kids are sat on a chair that moved along rails over tanks of gunge and foam and failing to answer a question correctly resulted in then being dropped into the gunge/foam. In 2007 there was a programme on CITV called Scratch and Sniffs den of doom featuring gunge, where children fall in to a vat of gunge similar to the Gunk Dunk on Get Your Own Back. Gunged has also appeared on Prank Patrol and Globo Loco.
The 2008 remake of Swap Shop (Basil's Swap Shop) features gungey games. "Question Line", a game where children ask the celebrity guest questions and if the celebrity chooses to answer it the child doesn’t get gunged. If however, the celebrity chooses not to answer the question the child asking the question slides in to the gunge tank (a pool of gunge similar to the one on Waaa!!!). The children move as they are sitting in or lying across a rubber ring on a ramp with their legs hanging out on the "gungeulator" a red and white travelator. If the child does slide into the gunge tank then they have to move over and sit in the gunge tank until the game is over. Another game called Dunk Beds, is where there are 3 teams of 2 children, 1 is on a bed attached to a platform and the other child is off the bed. The child off the bed pushes the bed off along the platform , where along the platform are scoring zones. Up to a point, the points are negative then past a certain point, the points become positive until finally off the scale. If the bed goes off the scale the child on the end of the bed slides into a tank of green coloured water. 0 points are awarded if the child gets dunked. Each child from each team is on the bed once during the duration of the game. In the final Game, the final 2 children, left over from the previous game, play on a moving platform called the gungeulator collecting objects, avoiding obstacles, to get them back to the start of the "gungeulator". If a child falls then he/she is automatically gunged and the child that is left continiues the game. However if the child left wins then prizes are awarded to both the children but if both children are gunged the game is over and no prized are awarded. Whilst playing these games the children are barefoot except the final game where the children are dressed in fat suits wearing trainers on a moving platform. These gungey games meant the return of gunge to Saturday Morning children’s TV in the UK.
Gunge tanks
A gunge tank is the device from which the gunge is dropped overhead onto people. Usually constructed with plastic transparent walls, the tank is made up as a box shape with three walls, and usually a front door for access. It usually has a chain which is connected to a mechanism which releases the gunge when pulled. There is usually a seat in the tank for the victim to sit on. The gunge tank is commonly used in television programmes, notably the British TV series Noel's House Party & Crackerjack. More recently, Gunge Tanks have been used in children's Saturday morning TV programmes such as Holly & Steven's Saturday Showdown. A gunge tank doesn’t necessarily mean a shower like cubicle, it could be in the form of pools like on Get Your Own Back, Waaa!!! And Basil's Swap Shop. In The US a gunge tank is sometimes referred to as a Slime Booth.
Gunge tanks can also signify an enclosure where the gunging occurs. A gunge tank does not have to be used, however this gives the gunging an authentic look. Other alternatives can be used such as a bath were someone pours the gunge onto the victim who is sitting in the bath, a shower cubicle - which is similar to the Gunge tank but has no seat or release mechanism (so someone will have to pour the gunge over the victim's head standing on a high object). Gunge games or a messy game makes use of gunge or alternatives. Sometimes a Dunk tank is filled with Gunge/Slime and when the target is hit the victim (the person sitting above) falls in.
See also
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