Induction #50: Jason's Selfish Fun House Run

#50: Jason's Selfish Fun House Run
To Him, Sharing Isn't In His Vocabulary

Syndication: (November 1988)

Children's game shows in 1988 fell into a few categories, Great, Inventive, or Crappy Double Dare Knockoffs. Fun House would fall into the Great category. Mainly because, who didn't want to run through this.

Although the Obstacle course was a great end game for Double Dare, Running through the impressive Fun House was much, much better. Going into the house, grabbing 3 tags, coming back out, tagging your partner and doing it all over again until time ran out. Not to mention, the prizes given away on Fun House were amazing. They had the classic staples of Nintendo's & Electric Guitars that Double Dare had, but Fun House also had Limo Rides to School for a week, various shopping sprees, among other awesome prizes. Needless to say, the best strategy for the end game is to grab the closest 3 tags, come out and do it all over again. Sure, you might not get the Power Prize, which was an awesome trip, but you'll get tons of stuff. What you don't want to do is make everybody mad at you and hog all the time for yourself. More often than not, both teammates had ample time in the house. But there was one moment where this one kid, spent almost the entire 2 minutes in the house, earning the ire of not only his teammate, but JD Himself. Let's meet the bastion of selfishness himself, Jason Meadows.

Here during the introduction, he seemed like a nice kid, although that sly smile worries me a bit. Last time I saw that type of smile was...wait a minute.

Oh dear lord. Nadine was just inept at even buzzing in, let alone her bonus game. As far as I know, she wasn't a selfish prude.

Anyways, his team won the game quite handedly, mainly because the red team failed to pick up the tokens around the track and dropping a couple as well during the Grand Prix Race. So, they get to run through the Fun House and grab as many cash and prize tags as they can. Normally, this wouldn't be seen as bad, mainly because normally both teammates get ample time in the house. Jason, however had another motive.

Let's start at the beginning, he runs all the way to the upper right hand corner of the house to grab the Telescope from the weather room, passing up a couple of Cash Tags. I am thinking, he's going up there to grab that prize tag & then go back down and grab the two cash tags he passes up and tag in his partner.

Or at least, that's the hope as he only grabs that prize, and decides to head to the haunted bridge and up Mt. Fun House. So, he's already passed up a few tags, and this is prompting JD Roth to actually tell Jason the basic rule of the Fun House, "YOU NEED TO GRAB THE TAGS!" It takes a lot to get JD to say that. So, already, Jason has gotten the normally, calm JD to become furious.

He makes his way back to the start with only one tag, that Telescope Tag, Instead of grabbing a couple more tags at the top of the mountain...

...or even near the beginning at the Swimmin' Hole. With JD still telling him to grab the tags, which would mean he'd tag his partner, he decides to bypass his partner and go into the other side of the house. That was when JD decided to stay silent. You know you've done something wrong when JD doesn't even talk about what you're doing.

He goes through the balloon tunnel & up to the prize-o-mat and tries to grab the electric guitar prize, and got stuck because 2 buttons wouldn't release, which happens from time to time. At this point, he's spent about 1:10 in the house. Which in itself is far too long for one contestant at one time. He then finally decides that it's time to grab some tags...

He gets the $100 tag on the Staircase...

...and the Video Games tag in the ball room. So, he's got his 3 tags...

Or he would have, if he didn't drop the tag back in the ball room. Right now, he's clocked in at 1:32 in the house. He finally has his tags, and now is heading out to tag his partner. All I have to say is, It's About Time.

He finally tags his partner, leaving her only FOUR SECONDS! Yeah, that's great teamwork right there. She helped you out in the front game, got all of her questions right, and this is how you reward her? FOUR SECONDS???

Thankfully for her, she sprints in and gets a $100 tag before time runs out.

Afterwards, JD said that he may have been confused. The name of the game is that you're supposed to grab the tags and come out, not stay inside the house and grab no tags. They wound up with the telescope, the video games, JD gave the kids the Guitar & the $100 cash tag. In total, about $2,000 total.

I'm just thankful that this never happened again in the show's run. I bet the coordinators told all the kids that the aim of the bonus round is to grab as many tags as you can, not waste any time in the house. Let this be a lesson to all kids. Greed gets you nowhere. Playing by the rules and allowing your partners to get ample time would help you benefit & maybe earn some valuable stuff. Otherwise you end up being the bane of your peers and people would want you gone.

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