Gunge

A family gets slimed at Nickelodeon Suites Resort Orlando

Gunge as it is known in the U.K., or slime as it is known in the United States and most English-speaking areas of the world, is a thick, gooey, yet runny substance with a consistency somewhere between that of paint and custard. It has been a feature on many children's programmes for many years around the world and has made appearances in game shows as well as other programming. While gunge mostly appears on television, it can also be used as a fundraising tool for charities, youth and religious groups. Gunge tanks have appeared at nightclubs and Fun Days. The British charities Comic Relief and Children in Need, supported by the BBC, have used gunge for fundraising in the past. In the U.S., slime is sometimes associated with Nickelodeon, even having several game shows revolving around it, such as Slime Time Live. In most countries, being gunged is seen as a forfeit with the aim to cause embarrassment. In contrast, being slimed in the U.S. can be a good thing as well as a bad thing. Overall the main point of being gunged or slimed is to cause mess.

Look up gunge in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Composition

The gunge that is widely used on television is an industrial powder thickener called Natrosol, mainly used in production of the sauce for apple pies.^[1] Alternatively, other items can be used for "gunge", for example eggs, sauces, as well as other messy items, but Natrosol as seen on the gunge used on TV shows is regarded as the authentic gunge. In many cases, the gunging occurs in a gunge tank, a transparent booth with a means for storing and releasing the gunge. Due to Natrasol having industrial uses as a food thickener used in soups and stews, this makes gunge safe to eat, provided the colouring is also non-toxic. Oobleck, a mixture of cornstarch and water, is also a non-Newtonian fluid like Natrosol. Xanthan gum, another food additive, is also a common gunge ingredient.

The iconic green slime of the Canadian television series You Can't Do That on Television was developed by accident, according to producer Roger Price - the original idea had been to dump a barrel of food leftovers on a young boy chained in a dungeon, but before it could be used, the contents of the barrel had turned green with mold. The noxious mixture was dumped on the young boy anyway, and overnight the series had its trademark gag. The show subsequently went through several different slime recipes incorporating ingredients such as lime gelatin dessert powder, flour, oatmeal or Cream of Wheat, baby shampoo, and even cottage cheese (not all necessarily at the same time). On the show (and subsequently on Nickelodeon since then), the composition of the slime was treated as a closely guarded secret, and some episodes revolved around the cast members trying to discern what the slime was made of.

Today gunge or slime features on many television shows around the world; however, since the 2000s the focus has changed from mainstream shows to children's and teenager's television programmes like Nickelodeon's Figure It Out. In fact, thanks largely to the popularity of Nickelodeon shows, slime and gunge have typically been associated with children's programming in North America since the 1980s. In addition to its use on television and as a fundraiser, gunge in tanks sometimes features in nightclubs. Youth groups such as church groups and scouting movements also make use of gunge to "gunge the leaders" as well as the children.

History of gunge on television

The 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 reciting poetry.^[2][3]

1970–1979

The 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.^[4][5]

1980–1989

In North America, You Can't Do That on Television, a Canadian children's show popular on Nickelodeon developed by a British TV producer, Roger Price, routinely subjected its characters to "slime" (usually green, but sometimes in other colours), usually when they said, "I don't know." It became a staple of the show where other actors would try to encourage their peers to say a phrase to get them slimed. A sliming scene from a 1982 episode of You Can't Do That on Television was also used in the opening of the 1987 film Fatal Attraction, and references to the series have been used in mainstream U.S. television series ranging from NewsRadio to Family Guy. This aspect of the cult show later became iconized in Nickelodeon's slime logo, subsequent game shows such as Double Dare, What Would You Do?, Figure It Out, and BrainSurge revolving around slime, pies in the face, and other forms of mess, and live events in which participants (including celebrities, particularly at the annual Kids' Choice Awards) would be offered the chance to get slimed or publicly humiliated. In the late 1980s, Nickelodeon and its Canadian counterpart, YTV, even held write-in contests in which the grand prize was a trip to the YCDTOTV set in Ottawa, Ontario, to be slimed. The popularity of Nickelodeon's gunge shows spawned imitators such as the short-lived 1988 syndicated game show Slime Time (no relation to Nickelodeon's later Slime Time Live), in which schoolteachers were the victims of green gungings.

In Britain and Europe, in the early 1980s, children's gunge-based game shows 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 while 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. On Crackerjack, the two weekly celebrities would compete against host Stu Francis in a gunge based gamed called "Take A Chance" to try to win points for their child contestant. Usually the ladies (not always) got away with it but the male contestants were always gunged along with Francis who would cop it at least once per show.

Later in the 1980s, the BBC launched Double Dare, based on the US style format, but much sloppier than its U.S. 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, Donnerlippchen, a television 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 boxer shorts.

New Zealand children's show What Now has used gunge over the years since its launch in 1981. As of 2015 the show is still broadcasting on channel 2 each Sunday morning from 8am. Various segments of the show using gunge include, tank of terror, gunge on the run, flushed away, frog in the bog and brain freeze.

1990–1999

In Noel's House Party, the public often voted to determine which celebrities on the television 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 gallons of gunge was splattered over 731 people. All across Europe television producers were ordering more gunge segments to be fitted into mainstream television shows due to its popularity with viewers. In Germany, on Sat.1, Halli galli,^[6] Glücksritter (RTL),^[7] Glücksspirale,^[8] 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 on SAT1, Glücksritter RTL and Rache ist Süß Sat1, had contestants plucked out of the audience and gunged in the most spectacular ways. Towards the end of the 1990s, 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 television shows. Teenagers and celebrity guests are often seen competing in quizzes on Live & Kicking, and are gunged if they lose. Celebrities 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.

From 1996 to 2001, The Dutch television show Droomshow featured gunge.

From 1997 to 2003, a Canadian show called Uh Oh! (game show), that ran on YTV, featured a punishment system that had the participant go inside a closet sized room and have green gunged dropped on them if their partner wasn't able to answer the question correctly.

2000–2009

In mainstream television programmes during the naughts, gunge was used in shows such as the The Paul O'Grady Show, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, and Insides Out.

2010-present

Gunge continues to be used in children's TV.

References