NEED TO KNOW
-
Marc Summers is looking back at the 2018 revival of Double Dare and why it wasn’t as much of a success as he hoped
-
Summers said he thought Nickelodeon made a “major mistake” by hiring an influencer to host instead of him
-
Summers was part of the show as an announcer
Marc Summers has some notes about the 2018 revival of Double Dare.
Summers, 73, was the original host of the Nickelodeon game show Double Dare, a rolicking television series that saw kids compete in very messy challenges. On the May 25 episode of Nostalgia Tonight with Joe Sibilia, Summers said he was cast on the series because he seemed like an “older brother” to the kids, and talked to them as if they were adults.
“It just worked,” he said. “It was so much fun.” The original series ran from 1986 to 1994 and Summers filmed six episodes a day.
Summers explained that “for years,” he tried to bring Double Dare back, believing the iconic show could still resonate; the show also had a brief, Summers-less revival in 2000. Eventually, his “persistence” paid off and Nickelodeon decided to bring it back, but they told him he wouldn’t be the host. They told him, “We hired an influencer,” and Summers didn’t know what that meant.
MTV / Courtesy of Everett Collection
Marc Summers (center) on an episode of ‘Double Dare’ in the 1980s
Though Summers does not name her during the podcast, the new host was Liza Koshy, who first found success on YouTube and was branching out into more television work. Summers appeared as the show’s announcer instead and was an executive producer.
“My feeling was I get it, they probably think I look like somebody’s grandfather and didn’t realize I still have the energy and could do everything they wanted me to do and more,” he said. He also thought he would appeal to the parents of kids the network was hoping would watch.
One day during filming, Koshy, 29, got sick and they asked Summers to fill in. He did it with “zero rehearsal” and “no cue cards.” Summers claimed it was the highest-rated episode on the reboot.
As for the choice of host, he said, “They made a major mistake, in my estimation, of putting somebody on who had never hosted a show, and with all due respect, pretty much refused to rehearse.” He said that during breaks, he would coach Koshy on how to keep track of which team was winning, the point totals and how the challenges affected game play.
PEOPLE reached out to representatives for Koshy for comment.
MTV / Courtesy of Everett Collection
Marc Summers (right) hosting ‘Double Dare’ in the 1980s
“These days, they just put people on who have no idea how to do these things,” Summers said of hosting. “And some of them are okay, and some of them aren’t. And if you really don’t have the passion for it, it generally doesn’t work.” The revival aired for two seasons, ending in December 2019. In 2020, the show was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for outstanding game show host.
In 2024, Summers performed an Off-Broadway show about his life titled The Life and Slimes of Marc Summers, which used Double Dare to tell his life story.
“Doing Double Dare obviously changed my life. But I’ve had a weird career,” he told PEOPLE at the time. “You couldn’t have planned it any way that I did it. I just kept falling into things, which led to what I’m doing now.” After Double Dare, he continued to appear widely on television, most famously as host of Food Network’s Unwrapped.
“I just love doing the show,” he said of his stage performance. “It takes a hell of a lot out of me. It’s exhausting and emotional every night, but I’m just loving the experience.”
Read the original article on People
