Dog Eat Dog (Courtesy Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Dog Eat Dog was a reality British game show on the BBC hosted by Ulrika Jonsson, which ran from 2001 to 2003. It was devised by David Young, then a BBC producer (and later founder of game show production company 12 Yard). The programme started off by showing the six contestants at a training day where they underwent various tests to assess their strengths and weaknesses. The contestants talked about themselves and their fellow competitors.

Format

In the studio, the contestants nominated who they thought would fail a given challenge, which would either be a mental or physical one. If they failed, they went to the "Loser's Bench," and if they won, they got to choose who went to that area of the studio.

The last remaining contestant had the chance of winning the £10,000 prize, but had to face a general knowledge round against the other five competitors. If they could predict which three would get their questions wrong, they won the money; however, if the losers got three of their questions right, they split the prize between them, i.e. £2,000 each, and the overall winner of the show went home with nothing. The format was licensed internationally by BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC.

Stunts

Some of the one-player stunts featured on various versions of the show were:

• 360 degree Ladder - Crawl around a circular ladder hanging in the air in a limited amount of time and capture the flag.
• Flag Capture - Climb a net and get the greatest number of flags in a limited amount of time.
• He or She - Given a panel of about six subjects, guess which one was the female (or male) out of the group. This normally involved having five cross-dressing men and one female, with the contestant having to guess which one of them was the female.
• Little Genius - Play a trivia game against a child prodigy.
• Strip Games - The contestant was required to perform a feat of skill of some sort; every time the player made a mistake, he or she was required to remove one article of clothing. If the feat was accomplished before the player missed the attempt completely naked, the mission was completed. Some of the stripping stunts included throwing a beanbag or a football into a target, making a hole-in-one on a miniature golf hole (with each removed article of clothing allowing the player to move closer to the hole), darts (where the contestant had to forfeit an article of clothing in exchange for a dart), and hangman (with each missed letter costing an article of clothing).
• Water Walk - Walk on a platform while being hit by water.
• Out-On-A-Limb - Player is enclosed in a large, X-Shaped figure, in which he or she must collect 4 red flags and 4 blue flags within the time limit, completing all of one color first, followed by the other.
• Treadmill Trivia - Walk/run on a treadmill trying to answer ten questions right before falling off the treadmill from fatigue and into a giant swimming pool. Every time a question is answered wrong, the speed on the treadmill increases. A variation of this game was used in which the contestant was required to walk/run on a large wheel, which arbitrarily sped up throughout the round.
• Ladder-Wheel - Climb a full 360 degrees around a circular-shaped ladder-like structure.
• Pandora's Box - Grab floating water markers and bring them to a box submerged underwater.

Some of the head-to-head competitions included:

• Fish Throwing - Used only once, two professional fish throwers threw fish at each of the 2 contestants. Whoever caught the most won.
• Rainstorm Hanging - The remaining two contestants hang on a bar with just their hands in pouring rain; the first to fall loses.
• Rainstorm pedestal - Contestants stand on a small pedestal mounted atop a long pole in the pool; the first person to fall off the pedestal loses. After five minutes, the rain machines are turned on; if both contestants last ten minutes, the intensity of the rain is increased.
• Wall Climbing- Contestants would climb up a wall holding a key which they would use to unlock a box at the top. They would jump down and take a second key to the top and put it in the keyhole they had previously unlocked. The first person to do this would dump 400 gallons of water on to the other person, and would send the other person to the dog pound.

In other countries

An Australian version hosted by Simone Kessell was briefly aired in 2002 on the Seven Network, but cancelled after receiving dismal ratings. The top prize was $50,000. The show gained more notoriety after it was axed than before it due to a number of tabloid stories regarding contestants who had won money on the show but not received it because the program they participated on never went to air.

A version made in Dubai by Dubai TV was syndicated across the Arabic-speaking world and each episode featured contestants from different countries in that region.

A German version hosted by Kai Böcking aired on ZDF in 2002. The show's format was generally the same as the other versions, except that the game started with five players instad of six.

The Singapore version of the show was hosted by Guo Liang under the name Show Me Your Power as Dog Eat Dog was considered an inappropriate title.

BBC Worldwide also licensed the format to broadcasters in Poland and Sweden.

United States

The United States version of the show aired on NBC. It was hosted by former Baywatch actress Brooke Burns and ran for two summer seasons in 2002 and 2003. The US version was famous for its sequences before the opening credits in which the host Brooke would be seen above the pool in a bikini before diving into it. The opening sequence varied on each episode. The prize was $25,000 and the "Loser's Bench" was called the "Dog Pound". The US version was somewhat less cerebral than the original British version, as most of the challenges were physical challenges, although it did retain the general knowledge endgame. The first season scored decent ratings and gained some attention due to stunts like stripping off clothes if you answered trivia questions incorrectly and one woman and man completely stripped off their clothes and underwear in order to attempt to win the game. One episode resulted in a lawsuit as one contestant claimed that one of the stunts underwater failed and caused him brain damage. NBC ended up not airing some of the later episodes in which this occurred; those episodes would not be seen until the game went into cable reruns on GSN, where it continues to air (the UK version also had a brief run in the US on BBC America). However, a disclaimer for the show claimed that NBC and parties affliated with the show were not responsible for death. NBC did not renew the show for a third season due to low ratings.

Trivia

In a 2003 episode, Claudia Jordan (who was then a Barker's Beauty; currently a Deal or No Deal briefcase model) was one of the six contestants playing the game. In Round 4, Jordan played a trivia challenge in the swimming pool with a dog named Dreamer, and she won the challenge 3 to 2 over the dog. She then participated in a Head-to-Head challenge which was about hanging on to the bar over the swimming pool but she lost to her opponent and ended up in the "Dog Pound". In the final challenge, Jordan was chosen to answer a question about Sports which was "Grand Slam tennis champion Andre Agassi married what female tennis athlete in 2001?". She answered Steffi Graf which was the correct answer, forcing her team to a 2-0 lead. In the end, Jordan and the rest of the "Dog Pound" won the final challenge 3-1 over the solo player, and split the $25,000 amongst themselves.

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