This condensed version of the original series became an unexpected hit when it premiered on Challenge on 9 November 2002, regularly dominating the top ten programs on the channel each week. The format followed closely the original Japanese format showing the contestants as General Tani's (named General Lee) troops trying to storm Takeshi's Castle. Each episode is commentated by Craig Charles and would have about seven games followed by the Final Showdown. Although it does follow the original format, Challenge decided to cut out the comedy sketches between Takeshi and Higashi to allow more games to be shown in the half hour block. The success of Series One was immediate with Challenge being told it was great from the first day it was shown onwards. More series were commissioned and shown over the next few months, culminating in a series of hour long specials in the Autumn of 2003, and a special highlights show, The A-Z of Takeshi's Castle, broadcast on January 1, 2004 which showed some of the best clips of the best games. Though no new episodes have been made since then (due to all the Japanese episodes having now been shown) repeats still air regularly on Challenge, including an eight-episode block feature broadcast on Sundays, with an average of 130,000 viewers an episode. Challenge have regularly been asked to consider showing unedited episodes, but as of September 2005, they decided to air MXC in the UK instead, retitled as Takeshi's Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. Recently there has been some activity at Challenge in trying to get some unedited Japanese episodes to see if it would be worth showing, but however there have been problems so far, and plans for both newly dubbed versions and unedited episodes are now on hold. Recently Challenge also attempted unsuccessfully to acquire the German DSF dub. There are some recurring phrases that Craig Charles uses during the UK version. These include "This slurry is of course imported from a pig farm in Southern Japan","In the Drink","What a Wazzock", "As my old Dad used to say...", "The Emerald Guards..highly trained, highly accurate" and if a confusing enigmatic situation arises - "Answers on a postcard please". General Lee is often described as "the ladies favourite" and "Des Lynam of the east" and he describes the guards in the Honeycomb (or Square) Maze as "the black handed, black hearted guards" in reference to the black stuff that the guards usually smear over the contestant's faces if they manage to catch them. In Sumo Rings, Charles often describes the guard in the purple mawashi (or nappy as it's often called) as the "purple porker", the guard wearing yellow is often called "blob of custard" and the guard for the blue ring is called "Spud". Contestants are also referred to as being "Happy Clappy Jappy Chappies in over-sized nappies" when playing Sumo Rings. |
