* For Recap List of Episodes - please see links at the bottom of the page.
“You Should Be Watching.”
A Running Man Endorsement by S’ra
I was having a crappy, crappy
week. I could go into exactly why it was a crappy week but that would kinda interupt the flow of this post -and mostly, I don't remember why it was crappy anymore. Anyhow, I watched just ONE episode of Running Man on a whim, and by the end,I laughed so hard my stomach and chest
hurt the next day. My neighbor probably thinks I'm an insane foreigner now. (Oh wait… I am.)
Running Man.
An insanity that I would explain to other Americans as The Amazing Race meets Super-Sloppy-Double-Dare meets a tribute/spoof show? This doesn't phase me at all, mostly because I grew up watching Japanese games shows (which are far most incomprehensible) as a kid in Manila, but a lot of my friends were watching Disney's afternoon cartoon block of other classics like Darkwing Duck ("Let's get Dangerous!") so when I say, "You have to watch this Korean game show! It's hilarious." They look at me as though perhaps, I have finally, gone 'round the twist as they'd predicated all those years ago.
So, the show works like this.
A group of actors/comedians (usually) invite various guests (anyone from comedians to athletic superstars to musicians/actors, called "Idols" in Korea) on the show to do things like complete missions and play ridiculous games such as:
Find fruit in the market and make a pyramid in 20 seconds!
Tag, where the "it" team wear jingle bells and switch places every 15 minutes
Running barefoot in freezing streams to make piles of stones on a table
Throwing each other off of floats into the pool
Eating things REALLY fast.
Whose team can make a longer line with their legs while doing the splits?
Can you pull this plunger off the wall? Off the car?
Who can find the teammate disguised as a yogurt lady?
Confession: I basically despise most western reality/game
shows. Especially in the United States.
(Sorry, guys!) They are usually
90% people whining about their personal drama (I get enough of that backstage) and 10% mildly interesting activities.
Running
Man's drama is all manufactured (as in fake relationship between two comedians on
the show, fake rivalries) and the hosts' natural chemistry means they are more interested
in entertainment at the expense of personal dignity and occasionally, actually winning the game.
Mildly surprising to be is the fact that permanent cast range from their late 20's to 50s and despite their TV-appropriate appearances they look rather like average people you might see on the street. I take that back, if I saw Kwang Soo on the street, I might take a second look. The kid is quite attractive despite his team members jibes, but his gangly limbs definitely earn him his title of "Giraffe."
What was I saying? Oh right. These guys are FAST. The show lives up to its' name. I kid you not, they would kick our bums all over the place. Well, at least mine.
Mildly surprising to be is the fact that permanent cast range from their late 20's to 50s and despite their TV-appropriate appearances they look rather like average people you might see on the street. I take that back, if I saw Kwang Soo on the street, I might take a second look. The kid is quite attractive despite his team members jibes, but his gangly limbs definitely earn him his title of "Giraffe."
What was I saying? Oh right. These guys are FAST. The show lives up to its' name. I kid you not, they would kick our bums all over the place. Well, at least mine.
If nothing else, it's like watching an Olympic
competition that's been injected with liquid sugar and then dunked in crack (I
mean this in the best possible way). This show proved to me that Variety shows,
while always cheesy can also be totally fun without being nasty, backstabbing,
and BORING.
Also, Jackie Chan makes guest appearances.
IT IS HILARIOUS.
In the words of the Anime company, Funamation “You should
be watching.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Getting Started:
We refer you to
these awesome explanations (and opinions) about Running Man written by fellow blogger of snark and eloquence, Joel Wong.
He has amassed a wide variety of information about the show, cast, guests, and general makeup of the episodes which is extremely helpful to the beginner. And since we are lazy bloggers at heart, we are happy to refer you, gentle readers, to him.
You can find him at his blog "Sarcasm? Pul-leeze!" In the link below he discussed complete Improv vw. the necessity of scripting. Go read it.
http://leonhart90.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-art-of-scripting-on-running-man.html
He has amassed a wide variety of information about the show, cast, guests, and general makeup of the episodes which is extremely helpful to the beginner. And since we are lazy bloggers at heart, we are happy to refer you, gentle readers, to him.
You can find him at his blog "Sarcasm? Pul-leeze!" In the link below he discussed complete Improv vw. the necessity of scripting. Go read it.
http://leonhart90.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-art-of-scripting-on-running-man.html
Intrigued yet? Your friend hasn't let up about making you sit through an
episode? You're lucky enough to know us and we haven't quit bugging you
either (* cough cough Bec cough*)
We’re not the first to blog about this simply ridiculously incredible show. Like, I pulled a muscle from laughing so much and then fell off the couch ridiculous. And we also realize it's not everyone's cup of tea. If you find adults playing childhood games a little eye-roll inducing, you'll probably get annoyed with the frankly juvenile behavior on this show.
But since we sorta said we’d do recaps and reviews – we thought
perhaps we'd highlight what we love about some of our favorite episodes.
(Although, to be honest, it’s kinda just the episodes we watched, most of which
have already become our favorites.)
Clarification!!!! For some
inexplicable reason Running Man episodes are labelled differently depending on where
they are hosted. DramaFever seems to
have all of them, but the first 100(?) or so are only available via DramaFever’s
YouTube channel. The rest (with new
updates) are available on DramaFever’s main website. Yes, you can also find running man episodes
in several other places, but for the relative newbie, this seems to be
the most straightforward approach.
For the purpose of ease we will refer to episodes listed
on DramaFever’s main website in one group with the numbers that DramaFever
uses. Ditto for stuff on DramaFever’s YouTube
channel. As with anything – if you’re
confused, leave us a comment and we’ll try to clear it up for you.
Onward.
We recommend
starting with one of the following episodes which can be found by their numbers at: www.dramafever.com
(The Athletic Club and Theatre Club square off ending
with an EPIC capture the flag the way I always wanted to play it in school.)
(Complete with games like Trampoline Volleyball, throw your teammate over the vault pole while in the pool and a surprisingly intense footrace, complete with soundtrack.)
Ep. 77: Battle
of the Heirs' Company Shares (Park Shin Hye, Kim Woo Bin, Choi Jin Hyuk) October
06, 2013
(Find famous people and make them give you clues, throw water in people's faces after losing a thumb war, push your opponent off the floaty using only your head.)
Ep. 95: Running Winter Olympics 2014 (Seo In Guk,
Son Ho Jun, Park Seo Joon, Baro (B1A4), Kang Ye Won) February 09, 2014
(Losing team has to cook the meal, do the laundry and chop the firewood after each round!)
All fine episodes, but I'm going to have to weigh in with my personal favorites thus far - Episode 2, with a prison break theme and Episode 6, which is Mission Impossible themed.
(To be fair, I am only on episode 8, but I have seen several out-of-order episodes with S'ra and I still like these two best. Watching episodes out of order ... who does that?)
Other Tidbits:
A Crying Ha-Ha makes everyone's day better!
Why the World Needs a Running Man Movie.
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