Details About Popular Korean Games Variety Shows
In South Korea, there are not only Korean dramas that are fun to watch and popular, but variety shows can also be entertaining during leisure time and they have become really popular. Not just talking, variety shows in Korea also contain exciting games and unexpected missions. Variety shows are currently a major part of television entertainment in South Korea. They are usually composed of various stunts, performances, skits, quizzes, comedy acts, etc. Popular celebrities and K-Pop idols also feature on Korean variety shows. In this article, Channel-Korea will provide you with a list of popular Korean games variety shows you must watch from 2020. Let’s find out more about the variety shows. So, stay tuned and keep scrolling down this article.
V Live BTS Run
Run BTS! is a South Korean variety web series starring the most popular boy band BTS. It is airing weekly and is offered for free viewing on the live video streaming service V Live. The variety show first began in 2015 with the first episode of the first season being aired on August 1st, 2015, and every Tuesday in the week, unless an episode of BTS Gayo is aired. After a year of hiatus, a second season started airing on January 31st, 2017. Since Episode 20 on May 23rd, 2017, Run BTS! has become a weekly show.
On January 1st, 2019, the group resumed the variety show Run BTS! Season 3 after a break since the hiatus for the group’s Love Yourself World Tour. In each episode of Run BTS! the members of BTS have missions, complete challenges, and do many other activities in which they can earn prizes or punishments. The show is still ongoing and as of January 21st, 2020, and it so far has 92 episodes.
JTBC’s Amazing Saturday
DoReMi Market, or also known as Amazing Saturday, is a South Korean television program that airs on tvN. The first episode of the program was aired on April 7th, 2018. It is airing every Saturday at 19:35 (KST) on tvN. The show has aired 92 episodes and 2 special episodes as of January 18th, 2020, and is still ongoing.
Amazing Saturday became a program that consists of two corner programs: Prison Life of Fools and DoReMi Market when the former was started. The show is currently starring Shin Dong-yup, Kim Dong-hyun, Moon Se-yoon, Park Na-rae, Hyeri (Girl’s Day), Nucksal and P.O (Block B), with Boom as the main host of the show. Nucksal and P.O (Block B) are the latest regular cast members to join the show. They joined the show starting from episode 52 to replace former cast members Hanhae and Key (SHINee), who were confirmed to enlist in the army on February 7th and March 4th, 2019, respectively. Hanhae and Key officially left the program after episode 47 and episode 51 of the show respectively, following their military enlistments. Every week that an episode of the program is airing, there is a featured market from every region in South Korea and there are 3 types of food selected as its representatives. The cast and guests, as contestants, have to play games and win them to be able to eat the food. There also will be a dressing theme concept for the cast and guests to follow for the filming of each episode.
For episodes 1-4, the program format was only a dictation of three different songs. But, starting from episode 5, the program format changed to the dictation of two different songs, with a Snack Game in between the dictation segments.
tvN’s I Can See Your Voice
I Can See Your Voice is a South Korean television music game show that originally aired on Mnet and its simulcast on tvN Korea. The South Korean program was a success and subsequently became an international franchise as I Can See Your Voice, and there are several countries that have adopted the program, such as Indonesia. The first episode of the first season was aired on February 26th, 2015. The show is now airing its seventh season and has 85 episodes as of January 24th, 2020. The seventh season first aired on January 17th, 2020.
During the show, there are guest artists who have to guess six contestants who are ‘good singers’ (skilled vocalists) and who are ‘bad singers’ (tone-deaf vocalists) without hearing them singing and talking. The guest artists also help with a group of panelists under the Tone-deaf Detective Team (also called SING-vestigators). After the guest artists eliminate one to two contestants in each round, the contestants will reveal their singing ability whether they are good singers’ (skilled vocalists) or ‘bad singers’ (tone-deaf vocalists) on the Stage of Truth. For the groups, all the members have to be able to sing to be considered as ‘good singers’. If one member of the group cannot sing well, even when the others can sing very well, they are all considered as ‘bad singers’. The last participant that stands on the stage will get to sing alongside the guest artists and reveal their true singing abilities.
If the winner is a ‘good singer’, they will get a chance to release the song alongside the guest artists as a digital single. If the winner is a ‘bad singer’, they will receive ₩5,000,000 ($4,500). In the first episode of the 5th season, the winning skilled vocalist received a pair of specially-made microphones.
SBS’ X-Man
X-man was a popular South Korean game show which was on the air from November 8th, 2003 to April 8th, 2007, on SBS with a total of 178 episodes. From 2004 to 2006, the show peaked its popularity. The popular show was hosted by Yoo Jae-suk as the main host, Boom as a guest role, Kang Ho-dong, Kim Je-dong, Gong Hyung-jin, Park Kyung-lim, and Lee Hyuk-jae as regular members. The program first aired on November 8th, 2003, as a “Genuine Psychological Reasoning Variety,” Real Situation: Finding X-man, a corner program of “Real Situation Saturday.” However, on October 10th, 2004, the program was moved to “Good Sunday” and simply known as X-man. And since November 5th, 2006, the program became the only program airing as part of “Good Sunday” and became officially known as X-man Good Sunday. The program was broadcast until April 8th, 2007.
In the first season of the program, the main host actually was Kim Je-dong, with team leaders Kang Ho-dong of Kang Team and Yoo Jae-suk of Yoo Team. However, since the beginning of Season 2, Yoo Jae-suk replaced Kim Je-dong as the main host, with Kim Je-dong becoming the leader of Kim Team. During the early stages of the program, popular games that became the main game of the show were “Team! Horse Riding,” “Tongue Twisters Relay,” and “Fly! Fryingpan” with the biggest hit “Of Course!” created in May 2004.
KBS’ Star Golden Bell Challenge
Star Golden Bell was a South Korean variety show broadcast on KBS. It became a very popular show in South Korea, and it occasionally entered the South Korean top 20 charts. The popular program broadcast its first episode on November 7th, 2004, and ended on November 20th, 2010. The show consisted of mini-games, which have certain amounts of a prize. The winning celebrity is given the opportunity to ring the bell by correctly answering a riddle. If the celebrity’s answer is correct, the money is donated in the winner’s name. All of the “winnings” of the show went to a charity of KBS’ choice; the last donation, with the amount of $110,000, was held on July 1st, 2008.
The show was hosted by the main MC Jun Hyun-moo, and there were two additional hosts, Kim Je-dong and Lee Chae-young, who were either in charge of administering games or were challengers competing against the celebrity contestants. In April 2009, the popular show was revived with the latest format and a new MC. The former main host Ji Suk-jin and MC Oh Jeong-yeon left the show. Their replacements were host Jun Hyun-moo and actress Lee Chae-young.
Since the early episodes of the show, Star Golden Bell evolved from single-line challenges (games involving one team at a time) to group-line challenges (games involving the lines going against each other), although it has moved to a mixture of game types. Star Golden Bell has four “stages” of gameplay in which celebrities can win money to donate. At the end of the first three stages, three contestants were picked to play the fourth stage in order to win the pot.
MBC’s Idol Star Athletics Championship
The Idol Star Athletics Championships is a South Korean television program that was broadcast for the first time in 2010. The first episode was aired on September 25th, 2010. The program features celebrities, popular Korean pop idol singers and groups, which compete in multi-sport events. The show is broadcast on MBC. The Idol Star Athletics Championships are special events held during Chuseok and lunar new year special in every year since 2010. There are several events in the sport program, such as hurdles, relay walk, long jump, high jump, javelin, swimming, aerobic gymnastics, archery, baseball pitching, basketball, bowling, curling, esports, equestrian – dressage, fencing – individual saber, football, footvolley, futsal, rhythmic gymnastics, ssireum, table tennis, and ten-pin bowling.
Here is the list of every season of Idol Star Athletics Championships with details since 2010 until 2020: Since the first season, the program has taken place in several venues, such as Mokdong Stadium, Jamsil Arena, Goyang, Gymnasium, Samsan World Gymnasium, Namdong Gymnasium, etc. During the show’s broadcast, several participants have left a good impression with their performance in the sports events and fans created some memes that became very famous. For instance, Tzuyu of TWICE during archery looks very beautiful with her extraordinary skills.
Another performance that was breathtaking, very interesting and phenomenal was Cosmic Girls’ Cheng Xiao’s who competed in Gymnastic Rhythm at the 2016 Idol Star Athletics Championships and won the gold medal. According to Judge Cha Sang Eun, who is an Olympic coach for Korea’s rhythmic gymnasts and greatly praised Cheng Xiao, commented that her performance was up to Olympic standards.
