Weekly Idol

Weekly Idol
Promotional poster
Genre	Variety
Country of origin	South Korea
Original language(s)	Korean
Production
Location(s)	Seoul, South Korea
Release
Original network	MBC Every1
Original release	July 23, 2011 (2011-07-23) – present
External links
Website	www.mbcplus.com/weekidol

Weekly Idol (Hangul: 주간 아이돌; RR: Jugan Aidol) is a South Korean variety show, which airs Wednesdays, 6PM KST, on MBC Every1, MBC's cable and satellite network for comedy and variety shows. The show is hosted by comedian Jeong Hyeong-don and rapper Defconn. The set is often referred to as B3 (basement level 3).

Segments and corners

The main segment of the show, called "Idol of the Week" (Korean: 금주의 아이돌), features idol groups as the invited guests, and usually consists of several featured corners, whose presence vary from episode to episode:

• Random Play Dance: the staff plays any songs that had been promoted by the guests randomly. A song usually stops at a random point or changes to another song while the guests must dance with the proper choreography for each song. It can also be shuffled from the same song, or songs from opposite gender (boy groups dancing to girl group songs and vice versa).
• Profile Verification/Rewritten Profile: the guests comment their profile cards with the hosts, verifying or voluntarily proving the info before them.
• Win Against Idol: the guests play a game together with the hosts. If the guests can beat the hosts, the winning side will get the special prize and the losing side will get the physical punishment from the winners.
• Grill Idol: the guests must correctly answer some questions from the hosts; if they get the question right, they can eat the grilled pieces of Hanwoo beef that are prepared by the staff.
• DoniConi Idol Call Center: a special call center is prepared for one week before the recording of an episode, and the fans can personally call in and leave messages for the idols; some messages are then revealed to the idols during the recording.
• 99 Seconds Challenge: the guests need to succeed a certain mission during a ninety-nine-second relay.
• X2 Speed Dance Challenge: the guests must dance to one of their songs in double speed.
• This Corner's Star Is Me: the guests themselves decide the punishment in categories of when, where and what to do, and then play games to settle the final decision on each of the categories. The losing team (which is decided on the final battle) will carry out the punishment based on the categories.

During these corners, the talk is usually held without too much formality. An annual year-closing episode, Weekly Idol Award, started on December 31, 2011. In this episode, the hosts usually review the corners and the appearances from the guests that were featured in the latest year.

Before "Idol of the Week", Weekly Idol had only one segment, "Real Chart! Idol Self-Ranking", where idols were asked to rank each other on different topics. This was later replaced by "I Wonder If You Know", where hosts, featured idols, Ilhoon (BtoB), and Bomi (Apink) guess one answer out of two choice given to them about idols, with food as prize. This segment was replaced by "Weekly Food Tasting", where hosts, featured idols, Hayoung (Apink), Mina (AOA), and N (VIXX) complete mission to win foods they want. The following segment was "Idols are the Best", where various missions were given to the featured idols, namely Jackson (Got7), Jooheon (Monsta X), SinB (GFriend) and Dahyun (Twice).

A new segment was introduced on February 22, 2017, "Masked Idol: Your Name Is", where masked idols compete against one another: the winner has the chance to remove his/her mask and promote himself/herself and/or his/her group, while the rest have to attend the following week's contest alongside one new masked idol.

Host

Current

• Jeong Hyeong-don (Episode 1 – Episode 226, Episode 271 – present)^[1]
• Defconn (Episode 1 – present)

"Idols Are the Best" corner

• Got7's Jackson (Episode 246 – present)^[2]
• TWICE's Dahyun (Episode 246 – present)^[2]
• Monsta X's Jooheon (Episode 246 – present)^[2]
• GFriend's SinB (Episode 249 – present)^[2]

Recurring Guest cast

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Note: Some occasions, Jeong Hyeong-don and Defconn instead appear as the featured guests ("Hyungdon and Daejun") with their host position replaced by various guest hosts.

Guest hosts

Idol Relay System

Following Jeong Hyeong-don's hiatus from broadcast activities beginning Episode 227, a system was introduced in which idols with whom Hyeong-don is close to would take turns co-hosting the show in his place.^[3]

List of episodes

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

• Raina, Han Dong-geun, NU'EST W and Pristin to appear on 1 episode of the show, but broadcast date is unconfirmed.
• Sunmi and Kim Chung-ha to appear on 1 episode of the show, but broadcast date is unconfirmed.

References

External links

• MBC every1 "Weekly Idol" homepage (in Korean)
• MBC every1 "Weekly Idol" official twitter (in Korean)