Ciao Darwin
| Ciao Darwin | |
|---|---|
| Genre |
Variety game show Comedy |
| Created by |
Paolo Bonolis Stefano Magnaghi |
| Directed by |
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| Presented by | Paolo Bonolis and Luca Laurenti |
| Theme music composer |
Renato Zero Renato Serio |
| Opening theme | "Matti", performed by Renato Zero |
| Composer(s) | Danilo Aielli |
| Country of origin | Italy |
| Original language(s) | Italian |
| No. of seasons | 7 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
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| Location(s) |
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| Cinematography |
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| Running time | 190 minutes approx. |
| Production company(s) | RTI |
| Release | |
| Original network | Canale 5 |
| Original release | October 3, 1998 – May 6, 2016 |
Ciao Darwin was a variety game show format from Italy sold under licence to several countries, including Romania, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Canada, United States, China and Greece.
There are two competing teams of 50 people each, usually made up of people who fit certain opposing stereotypes. In each game two members of the audience are selected at random, one from each team, indicated by a light in front of them which remains illuminated when all the other team members' lights have gone off. The games involve contestants competing in acts of skill, intelligence and general knowledge, with deliberately ridiculous results, trying to mimic the mechanism of natural selection theorized by Charles Darwin. Some of the games are designed to humiliate the contestants, especially an assault course which was introduced with the Italian version in 2010, and the Finale which is a water tank game.
At each round a score by a vote in the studio by the audience consisting of 300 people. The sum of points at the end of the various tests determines the team in the lead for the Finale.
In Italy it's aired on Canale 5 from 1998 until 2003, hosted by Italian celebrities Paolo Bonolis and Luca Laurenti, and it returned again in 2007, 2010 and 2016.
The early round in the show consist of singing a sound, a debate between the two teams, an intelligence test and a test of courage.
In the Obstacle Course round, five or six randomly selected contestants from each team have to make their way around an assault course consisting mainly of:
Some contestants cannot make it up the slippery slope and are eliminated from the round. At the end the score is determined by a further competitor who slides down a rope and attempts to attach themselves with Velcro to a target on a vertical wall for as long as possible.
The contestants are given trainer shoes, and elbow and knee protectors, but otherwise remain fully dressed and must participate in the clothes that they are already wearing to the show. Almost all contestants fall into one of the two pools in clothes ranging from casual wear or fancy dress to expensive dresses or suits which are ruined by the water. The pools are approximately 1.3m deep and filled with cold water, and falling from the rollers results in total immersion.
In the Italian version in 2016, one variation is that fire hoses were played on the competitors as they try to cross the pontoons, and another variation involves them having to jump into the pool fully clothed and swim past the pontoons using inflatable rubber sharks as buoyancy aids.
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Wikipedia