How to get 100 losers, make fools out of themselves and possibly severely injure themselves all voluntarily. All in the name of entertainment. All in the hope of winning Takeshi's Castle, and some fabulous prizes¹.

Takeshi's Castle is taken from a Japanese television programme that has been running for years². The Japanese telvision programme may or may not be like the UK version shown, what with judicious editing and everything. This Entry will describe the craziness that is the UK version. The UK version is compared by Craig Charles himself and though he has no more information than the viewer he tries and makes sense of the carnage and absurdity that will go on in the next 40 minutes. The programme can be seen at various times on ChallengeTV, a UK digital channel.

It is a bit like It's A Knockout, but It's A Knockout pumped up on steroids and then taking a whole bucketful of magic mushrooms and amphetamines.

Unfortunately this Entry will be unable to covey the sheer craziness of this game. It will, however, be able to convey the incomprehension that could occur for first time watchers.

Format

The idea seems to be that General Lee wants to take down Count Takeshi, who may or may not have previously deposed him. To this end he rounds up 100 contestants to help him. The contestants have to pass through a number of fiendish games set up by Count Takeshi's Emerald Guards³. Those few that survive the games are then allowed to storm Takeshi's Castle which is now defended by the Emerald Guard. If they are able to disable all the Emerald Guard before being eliminated themselves they win. In the UK version it is implied that all the contestants play all the games, though this may very well be impossible⁴.

Variations

The 'normal' Takeshi's Castle is as above and is superb, with 100 contestants, but there are other variations that happen every now and then to add even more intrest to this great show.

Parent-Child - Here a parent and child combo try and take on the Count.

Couples - Couples try and battle their way to storm Takeshi's Castle.

International - Here gaijin try there best to complete Takeshi's Castle.

Children - Sent here by evil step-parents is the only explanation for allowing six to 12 years to play the same games as the adults.

Female - Japanese females only show. 'So what?' you may think, however a large proportion of Japanese females seem to be 'girly girls⁵'. This seems to be backed up by the televisual experience provided by Takeshi's Castle. Expect lots of cowering and screaming.

Characters

There are several recurring people in the show. Again, this may not be the correct Japanese versions, but this is the names given by the narrator in the UK.

General Lee - The Ladies Favourite. The Man With The Tan. The man trying to get his castle back, he allows the contestants their own 15 seconds of fame before he sends them to which ever game they are playing and then on to hospital. Always immaculately dressed in a He also carries a sword though he only uses it in the classic 'charge' movement.

Takeshi - The man who's castle will be stormed at the end of the programme. Never seen, at least in the UK version, though he may be in one of the 'dinky dodgems' with a giant head.

Animal - One of the Emerald Guard, a big beardy Gaijin, so a good foot taller than any of the contestants. Can get some women to give in just by yelling at them. Plays most of the games.

The Baron - One of the Emerald Guards in the final storming of the castle, sitting in a mock-up of a biplane suspended 20 metres off the ground, allowing him excellent shooting. Often referred to as an extra from The Water Margin⁶. His full name depends on the colour of his plane - yellow plane gives us The Yellow Baron, red plane gives us The Red Baron and so on and so forth.

Spud - A poor Emerald Guard made to dress up in a big potato suit with a playing card face. With arms almost sticking straight out, and only half his legs visible he is an easy target in any game.

The Yellow Peril - A slim Emerald Guard, and a bit of a clever-clogs - he is the one who asks the questions in the relevant game. Most impressive in Sumo Rings.

Blondie - A big Japanese guard, pushing Animal in the size stakes. Called Blondie because of his swept-back, bleached-blonde hair.

Porker - Sumo Rings player. Possible an actual Sumo Wrestler at one time. Not that tall⁷, compared to the other big two (Animal and Blondie) but probably outweighing both of them.

The Games

To have a chance at Takeshi's you have to pass through the various 'games'. 'Games' normally have simple, simple concepts - easy to describe, hard to perform. Also, 'games' is in inverted commas here because contestants normally have the chance of to experience severe humiliation or severe injury during them, sometimes both. Here is a look at some of them. The best bit about Takeshi's Castle is that contestants do not watch each other try the games, so everyone has an excellent chance of making a fool of themselves.

Knock Knock

One of the early games this is just a headlong race through some doors. As it is the first game there is no peptalk from the General and everyone just starts running. The course is wide and about 250 meters long. It is also very muddy. Every 50 Meters there is a barrier with eight doorways in. Up to two of the doorways will be filled with a paper 'door', some will have a wooden 'door' and some will have a paper 'door' but have netting behind it. Behind some of the doors are pits, filled with water or mud. These normally have Emerald Guard's trying to stop people get out of them.

The competitors charge down the course and try to get to the end as quickly as possible. This will involve charging at a likely door and hoping it is a paper one. If not you will bounce off, or go through and get caught in the netting. Once through the doors there is a big trough of flour, with coloured balls in. Pick up one of the balls and you are through to the next round. As is to be expected, with only two doors per barrier, they quickly become bottlenecks and the people trickling through into the pits are easy prey for the Emerald Guard.

There was an earlier, single-player version of this, with only four doors per barricade and four barricades altogether. After the second barricade there is a 'boxing monster' trying to put the contestants off. Other than that it plays just like the multiplayer version, above. It is, however, more fun to watch - each contestant has a chance to smack their head off a good solid piece of wood, or even run into it a full pelt, or better yet smack their head into one at full pelt.

Skipping Stones

Oooh, thats gotta hurt! The Ultimate Shin Shredder. Another simple game - A 20 meter run up leads to 20 meters of deep water to cross, the only way across is some irregularly placed stepping stones⁸. There are many stones - in some places three next to each other - so there are many possible paths across. However, there is a twist. Whereas some of the stones are solid, others will sink under the weight of a competitor. There is no visual difference between the two kinds so competitors are bound to come a cropper, and end up smashing into stationary stones.

Competitors have two choices on the way to play this game - speed or caution. Speedy competitors race down the runway and take the path they think is best. Cautious players normally run to the edge of the water, stop, and then slowly take the path that they think is best. Both styles have their pro's and con's. Speedy competitors can have the speed to get off a sinking stone, however they cannot control where they go so well. This means that one mistake and it is shattered shins, or ribs, or pelvis as they crunch into a stationary stone. Slow competitors will not get as hurt, but have almost no chance to avoid sinking. Both run the risk of slipping, even on the rough surface

The Honeycomb Maze

Possibly the best game in the show. Competitors just have to make there way through the honeycomb maze, without falling into the water, or getting caught by the guards. The maze is made up of hexagonal 'cubicles⁹' about two meters in diameter. They make up a maze that is four of these cells wide and six cells long. The internal walls of the cells are doors into the neighbouring cells. The maze itself forms a bridge across a strech of water. The entrance on one bank, the exit on the other. The exterior cells have doors which open onto water. The maze also contains three of The Emerald Guards best, normally including Animal.

Competitors come down a steep, slippy slope outside the maze, speak a quick message to camara and then in through the door. Due to the mud from the slippy slope and the moisture in the air from the hot water the floor rapidly becomes extremely slippy. As with most games there are two strategies for Honeycomb Maze, though the slow and tentitive strategy often becomes the running like a loon strategy once the guards are spotted. If captured by the guards the loser's face is blackened with paint, or oil, or mud, or something similar and they are released to go home. As all the cells seem the same it is easy to become disorientated, and if the contestant is moving at speed then it is all too easy to run through one of outer doors and into the water.

The other variations of Takeshi's castle, where there are two contestants on a team then there is a platform above the maze, where one of the contestants can shout directions and try and guide the other through the maze. Well, that is the theory, it doesn't seem to work so well in practise. This is also one of the games where some of the more tentative players may just freeze and scream when the guards catch sight of them, especially if Animal is in the maze...

Show of Hands

Take ten contestants, dress them up in giant hand costumes - the wrist at their feet, their head looking out a hole just below the middle finger, all the fingers above their heads, their left arm sticking up the pinkie finger and the right up the thumb. Place them on the edge of a big square¹⁰. On the square are about 30 giant playing cards, each with a different answer, or picture, or word, or number on¹¹. One of the Emerald Guards, normally the Yellow Peril, will shout out questions and the first hand to jump on the correct card get through to the next round. Sounds dull, but is very, very funny to watch. In some of the games it appears that there is an opposing team of Emerald Guard who also try and get the correct card, blocking the competitors from winning.

Sumo Rings

A chance for the Emerald Guard to get their hands on the contestants. A number of different coloured sumo rings are laid out on the ground - these are simple circles about three meters in diamater. Each ring has an assosiated Emerald Guard wearing a lycra costume of the appropriate colour, complete with the Sumo (name for the sumo nappy)*******. Each contestant is wearing a sumo (nappy)******* and runs up to General Lee and pulls a coloured ball out of a box. The colour ball indicates which of the Emerald Guard the contestant will fight. The Emerald Guards range in ability from Spud, through Grandad, Slim and Blondie until you reach the apex with Animal. This is Animal's Game.

After 'choosing' their opponent the contestants line up against them. After following the pre-match ritual of Sumo the contestants and Emerald Guard come together to try and either throw the other out of the ring, or take them down to the ground. The chances of going through vary wildly as Spud just takes a tap and the costume will take him over, whereas Animal is almost impossible.

Water Sumo

Very similar to Sumo Rings but on a tiny platform, with a diameter of about one meter. The platform is in the middle of a big pool of water. The contestant stands back to back with the chosen guard on the platform and try to shove each other in the water. This game is possibly fairer to the contestants as even the smallest has a chance of knocking their guard off, if they are quick. Though the guards will not be too happy and will probably pull the contestant into the water anyhoo.

Wipeout

A staple of the show, and again a simple concept. Take a small pond, in the middle put a big pillar, about 3 meters high. Attach an electric motor set up to move a beam. One end of the beam is placed on the top of the pillar, and the motor moves the beam round in a horizontal sweep, like a clock hand if looked at from above. A surfboard is attached to the free end of the beam, pointing in the direction of travel. Around the pond are five equidistant'stations' each just slightly higher than the surfboard. For ease of description here they will be named one through five in an anticlockwise direction. One is a platform with a big shark head breaking through it, number two is a pink thing on a stick, number three is a simply a large, flat platform, number four is another pink thing on a stick, number five is the end platform.

The game itself is simple enough - Once out of the sharks mouth, and given their skit to camara, contestants need to step onto the moving surfboard as it sweeps by. They then need to jump over the pink thing, landing on the moving surfboard. The next step is up onto the platform, which the surfboard passes under. After jumping from the platform onto the surfboard as it emerges from under them they will then need to jump the next pink thing, again landing on the surfboard. After this they finally get the final jump onto the end platform. The pink thing may meant to be a whale and sticks out on the end of a big pole. It is about 50 cm high and just above the surfboard so the surfer has to jump it. There is only a single Emerald Guard in this game, on the second platform. He provides distraction for the players, and will throw them into the water if they sneak under the whale. He is normally dressed as a native american female¹².

Harder than it looks; this seems to be one of the more painless experiences that Takeshi provides.However it still can hurt with mistimed jumps, bouncing off the surfboard and the humiliation as you step from the first ledge onto the surfboard and promptly fall off must be crushing.

Runway

Bridgeball

Bridge ball or the bridge over the river why.

Rice Bowl Downhill

This is one of the fun games that Takeshi's has. Player sitting in a big fibreglass rice bowl about a meter in diameter, at the top of a big slippery slope, about 30 meters long at a 45 degree angle. What the slope is made of is unknown, it could be the same stuff as the false ice rinks, or it could be a big blue polythene sheet covered in grease and then water running down it. At the bottom is a fairly deep pool where the excess water and the ricebowl go.

Two of the Emerald Guard start the chant and then fire the contestant down the hill. The contestant does their best to stay in the ricebowl and then stay afloat in the pool at the bottom. It sounds easy but the bowl can get a fair speed up and when it hits the water the contestants own momentum will normally overturn it. This is also one of the less fatal games, but still it has potential for pain. As the bowl slides down the hill it is very easy for the contestant to slide either all the way out of the bowl, or partially out. Falling partially out looks worse as the contestants face is normally dragged along the ground at great speed. After repeated watching it appears that there is no particular strategy for this game and that luck is the overriding factor, though keeping as low in the bowl as possible may help. Or maybe not.

The Gauntlet

High Rollers

Another of the many staples of Takeshi's. This face-smashing, back-breaking game is always a welcome addition to any episode of Takeshi's Castle. Dig a pit three meters wide, twenty meters long and just over a meter deep. Fill it with water and mud.......

The Single Roller

Possibly the hardest game in Takeshi's repetoire, and evidence that the format that the UK version of the game says takes place is incorrect as at least one avid Takeshi watcher has never, ever seen a contestant complete this game. Take a big pit three meters wide, 20 meters long and just over one meter deep¹⁴. Fill it with water. Place a rail along both edges and a platform at either end. Take a roller from High Rollers, put an axle with small metal 'wheels' and put it between the two rails so it can roll freely backwards and forwards, the wheels fitting into the rails. Put a contestant on the roller and get him to log roll to the from the start platform to the finishing platform. Not too hard except that the rails are not horizontal from one platform to the other, they slope down towards the finish, with different gradients at different parts of the course with one part at a 1 in 5 gradient!

What can be said - no-one has ever seen to finish this game. Even the best contestants will get to the steep gradient part, about 5 meters from the end and the roller will just rush off from under them. Lots of cartoon running guarenteed.

Skittles

Take ten of your victims, sorry, I mean contestants and line them up in front of a board. The board has an upside down pyramid consisting of numbers. The point is 'one', the next row is 'two' and 'three', the one after is 'four', 'five' and 'six' and the last row consists of the numbers seven to ten. General Lee stands in front of them holding 10 outsized playing cards. One by one the contestants come forward and choose a card. The number on the card relates to where they will stand in Skittles. The number 'one' card is of course the devil card, the ace of spades. Basically they become human 10-pins.

After choosing their position the contestants are dressed up like 10-pin skittles. The bottom of the suit is right at their ankles, they have a hole for their face at the shoulder of the skittle, and the top of the skittle is way above their head. They then get set up according to their position of the chart at the bottom of a 20m, 1 in 7 hill. At the top of a hill is an Emerald Guard¹⁵ with a large black 'bowling ball' a good 7/8ths the size of the guard, weight unknown but heavy. The guard simply rolls the ball down the start of the hill and allows gravity to do its magic. The ball hits the skittles and any standing at the end of the end of it go through. There is no second bowl to try and get the 7-10 split.

Roller Derby

Kareoke

Dragon Lake

Poles Apart

Take a big lake, drain out 95% of the water, put a three meter platform at the edge and a small 1 meter x 1 meter pontoon in the middle of the lake - about five or six meters from the platform.

Contestants climb up onto the platform, pick up a pole-vaulting pole with a large bauble on the top. They then launch themslves off the platform and try to use the pole to land safely on the pontoon. Not an easy one for the ladies, as a fair amount of upper body strength is needed.

Pain and humiliation abound as people smack right into the side of the pontoon, slide right down the pole, go diving headfirst into the remains of the lake.

Velcro Fly

Tug of War

A rare game where a contestant chooses a coloured ball, much like Sumo Rings, but instead of wrestling they play tug of war. The rope runs through a small door in a big wall. This means that contestants never know what they will be pulling against. Sometimes it is Animal, sometimes Yellow Peril, sometimes a big tractor. Contestants who have weak grips can get shredded hands, those with good grips will get pulled into the door.

Quake

Take your contestants, dress them in traditional Japanese costumes and put grey wigs in traditional styles on their heads. Set up an earthquake simulator to look like a room. Place six big cubes of foam, about 50cm high, in the room and put three cushions on top of each. The contestants enter and kneel on the cushions and try to stay upright whilst the whole room is shaken to bits.

A game that slowly grows on the audience. The whole vibe depends on the strength of the shaking. A 2.0 on the richter scale is a poor effort, but by the time it is 7.6 quake then there is the fun. People falling out onto their faces, knocking each other off. Quietly amusing.

Gridiron

Bite the Bun

This is a start of the epsiode game, where it is everyone all in it together. So, take 100 contestants, make them where either a cloth sack or a life preserver ring around their arms and torso, so their arms are unavailable for use. The arena is a ten meter width by 20 meter long corridor with walls running along it. String is streched across the corridor and buns¹⁶ in plastic bags are hung from the string at different heights.

This game is a free for all so the whistle blows and General Lee waves his sword and everyone rushes to get a bun. This normally ends in people being trampled, lots of banging of heads, leaping up and down and general argie-bargie.

Wet Paint

Slipway

Ride The Wave

Dominoes

Ball Cupping

Whack the Stack

Walk the Plank

Avalanche

Boulderdash

Uphill Garden

Invunraball

Catch It

Slippery Wall

Roulette

Blueberry Hill

Extinction

Die or Pie

Mushroom Trip

Bridge the Gap

Rope

Final Fall

Muddy Waters

Gone Nuts

Fish Food or Feed the Fish

Dino Ride

An odd one this. In a room done up with black wall-hangings and some cushions, take a mechanical bull and dress it up like a dinosaur¹⁷. Give the contestant a water pistol and make them ride the bull. A plastic bat¹⁸ dangling on some paper is then released from its hideyhole and proceeds to cross the backwall of the room and then returns the same way to it's hiding place. The contestant has to soak the strip of paper enough so that the bat falls off, before it returns to its house or they get thrown from the dinosaur. When the bat returns to safety, or the contestant is thrown, an Emerald Guard dressed up like an octopus leaps towards them and shoots a fire extinguisher right into their face. Lots of screaming from the girls in this one, and General Lee normally gets soaked as the contestants shoot wildly due to wild arm flails needed to keep on top of the dinosaur..

Footloose

Another mass game. All the contestants charge down a hill and then have to put on various pieces of footware lying around. These range from trainers, through big foam 'yeti' feet to empty tins with string, through traditional japanese sandals to a rope which has to be tied around the feet. Once the footware has been fought over and been put on then they have to run 20 meters to the goal, across a large, sticky area. Nothing really painful here for the contestants - except each other, and it can get vicous - and not too much humiliation unless you cannot tie your laces. Obviously this is just to ease the contestants into the full horror that Takeshi has lined up for them.