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The World's Weirdest Game Shows

The World's Weirdest Game Shows

The World's Weirdest Game Shows
21 February 2013

After we bored of simply seeing people answer questions and win fridges, the ruthless ratings-seeking brains who control what we watch decided to go off the rails and create a series of increasingly bizarre game shows that were seemingly aimed at drunk people who'd lost the remote control.

We've scoured the web for the very strangest the world has to offer and provided some chilling proof of how far we've moved on from The Krypton Factor.

And no, they're not all from Japan.

Find the Chair - Japan

The object of the game: find the chair. Easy, right? How about finding a chair while wearing a blindfold? Yeah, not so easy now eh? This complicated Japanese show might sound less fun than having a root canal but when you add 'blindfold' to 'looking for a chair' you often get 'falling over', as this clip shows.

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Oh Sit! - America

When it was originally announced that a 'Musical Chairs' TV was actually going to be a thing, we all laughed. And then the title Oh Sit! was announced and the laughter increased. And then it really happened. It wasn't a prank. In this clip, you can see the set-up of the show. Contestants have an inflatable obstacle course on their way to the all-important chairs. Oh and a live band plays alongside. Sounds a bit Sit! to us.

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Man Vs Beast - America

If you have a spare day or two, then we recommend you forego sleep and food needs to spend your time watching nothing but Man Vs Beast clips on YouTube. The bizarre US show had people competing in athletic events against animals, including an elephant pitted 44 little people in pulling a jetplane and, as shown above, a man racing a giraffe. The UK version, presented by John Fashanu, was pulled after understandable complaints.

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Lizard Attack - Japan

Back to Japan here with a show seemingly thought up by a madman. The game appears to revolve around a group of hysterical women (in this example, pop group Morning Musume) with pork chops taped to their foreheads who wait for a hungry lizard to come along and have a bite. From the troubling cries erupting from the contestants, we'd also guess that the lizard is infected with some sort of deadly virus as well.

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Touch the Truck - UK

Another self-explanatory one here that involves, yep you guessed it, touching a truck. As this informative, yet utterly annoying, video tells us, the object of the game is to touch the truck for longer than anyone else without letting things like sleep or toilet stand in your way. It was presented by Dale Winton, the ghoulish gatekeeper of bad UK gameshows, and offered up a live webcam so you could watch strangers touch a truck all day long.

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El Gran Juego De La Oca - Spain

Translated as the totally catchy and not at all confusing The Great Game of the Goose, this strange show saw contestants taking part in a giant board game. So far, so The Movie Game. But what made this one stand out was the bizarre set of tasks that faces the poor victims as they made their way around. Highlights included having all of your hair shaved off and having your feet licked by a goat, as seen above.