May 2nd - Takeshi's Castle

Today is the first airing anniversary of a legendary and influential TV program. Takeshi's Castle was a Japanese game show that ran from 1986-1990. In it, around 100 volunteers would do a series of bizarre challenges, typically obstacle course type stuff, and whoever wasn't eliminated in the early rounds then would get a shot at the final round. In the final round; whether as a group with a split prize, or as individuals going for it all (varying by episode) if the contestants could take down Takeshi himself they'd get a 1 million yen prize ($8000-sh USD when it aired). If they failed, they went home with nothing but memories, bruises and bragging rights. Out of the 133 episodes of the series, only 8 episodes had a winner, with 36 winners in total from the group wins. So yeah, it was not an easy competition. The show is known for being localized all over the world. The US localization, known as "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge" or "MXC", in particular is a low brow gag dub that reworked the old footage over new team vs team narratives.