El gran juego de la oca

El gran juego de la oca (The Great Game of the Goose) was a TV game show produced in Madrid, Spain from 1993 through 1995 and again in 1998 as El nuevo juego de la oca (The New Game of the Goose). It was a weekly show airing in a block of several hours on the Spanish channel Antena 3, and later Telecinco. The show was created by world-renowned television producer Jocelyn Hattab, and first premiered in Italy as Il Grande Gioco Dell'Oca.

Hosts

Each season had a different trio of presenters – a lead male host and two female assistants – that shared hosting duties:

In all seasons, at least one celebrity was invited as a guest host per episode, and was brought out several times to explain and/or participate in some of the challenges.

Premise and gameplay

Four adult contestants, two men and two women, played a giant board game based on the centuries-old children's game, Juego de la oca (Game of the Goose). A 63-space game board was set up around the perimeter of a large arena, with the object being to reach space 63 by exact count. Contestants earned money with each roll of the dice, which they then used to bet on how well they could perform pruebas, or Hollywood-type challenges and stunts that tested the contestants' minds, bodies, and nerves. The majority of these challenges took place either on a main stage (one of two in the second season), a giant cage, a circular swimming pool in the middle of the set, or on one of several large playing floors for the more elaborate challenges.

A contestant began the game with ₧100,000 (€601, then-equivalent to roughly US$800). On a turn, he or she "rolled" the electronic "dice", and advanced the number of spaces rolled. Each space traveled was worth ₧10,000. After landing on the designated space, the contestant was shown a prueba that he had to perform. After the host explained how to accomplish the task, the contestant wagered some or all of his money, depending on how confident he/she was that he/she could succeed. Successfully completing the stunt added the player's wager to his or her score, while a failed stunt deducted the wager. Not attempting a prueba, or refusing to go through a "punishment" sequence (such as the haircut space) where required, resulted in a contestant losing all of his or her money accumulated to that point; however, this rarely happened.

Spaces

Special spaces were distributed along the path, with the game generally getting more "dangerous" the further along a contestant moved. The special spaces included:

Traditionally, before a contestant took his second roll, he and the host recited a rhyme from the board game: De oca a oca... tiro porque me toca (From Goose to Goose, I roll because it's my turn.)

Characters and personalities

Regular characters and/or personalities on the show included:

Challenges – las pruebas

Final mission – la reoca

A contestant who reached space 63 won the game and kept all the money he had accumulated. In the first season, he then was given until the taping of the next show (one week) to perform a reoca, an additional mission attempted outside the studio, in order to win a car. The whole thing was taped and watched at the beginning of the next episode; the participating player was then informed whether or not he won the automobile.

Tournament

After 32 standard games had been played (excluding celebrity episodes), a lottery was held to determine who would be invited back to participate in the Tournament of Champions. The names of all winning male contestants were placed into one hopper, while the names of the winning female contestants were placed into another. Eight names were drawn from each, and these were divided up into four semifinal games with two men and two women each. The four semifinal winners competed in a final episode to determine the Grand Champion for that season.

In the second season, all finalists began the game with ₧250,000 (€1,502, then-equivalent to approximately $2,000) instead of 100,000.

Notes

The entire first season of this show was aired in the United States on Telemundo and Mexico on TV Azteca in the 1994–1995 television year, exactly one year after airing in Spain. Episodes from the second and third seasons were never shown in the US.

A New Year's Eve special featured four celebrities including Mr. T. The special was not aired in the US.

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