Skedaddle

Children's Game Show produced by Hanna-Barbera and Jay Wolpert, played in an Absurdly Spacious Sewer, for a six-week span during the "FUN-Tastic World of Hanna-Barbera" block of programming. Two teams of four kids competed in a Hot Potato-like game in an attempt to win prizes and avoid being Covered in Gunge. It was hosted by a very young Ron Pearson, who would later host the Family Channel's Shopping Spree (also a Wolpert production) and become a famous comedian and juggler.

One at a time, a team would select one of the three "Down and Dirty Dinosaurs" (Slam, Dunk, or Seymour, who were the hosts of "The Funtastic World..." that season), who would then come out of his lair with some object that the kids had to toss back and forth to each other as they were answering the question that went with it. After the object had been passed enough times, someone on the team then had to race to the center of the studio and honk a bicycle horn. Getting a correct answer within the time limit earned that team points. However, giving a wrong answer, running out of time, or throwing the object out of bounds resulted in the team being slimed by some substance from one of the "businesses above ground" (the "ice cream parlor", for example, dumped melted ice cream all over the contestants).

Game Show Tropes in use:

 * Bonus Round: The winning contestants, one at a time, answered trivia questions with one correct answer out of three. Each dinosaur held a bucket representing a possible answer; the kid had to sit under the bucket he thought held the right one and would thus be empty; a wrong answer resulted in that player getting the standard "green slime" treatment.
 * Covered in Gunge: The punishment for an incorrect answer — as a team in the main game, individually in the bonus round.
 * Personnel:
 * Game Show Host: Ron Pearson, who was in his early twenties at the time.
 * Lovely Assistant: The three dinosaurs, created by Hanna-Barbera.
 * Think Music: During the Bonus Round.


 * Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The two teams were always the "Sludge Puppies" in red and the "Drainiacs" in yellow.
 * Follow the Leader: One of many games that followed the "messy kids' show" trend of the late 1980s.
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes: Has never been reran, and may not even be among the trading circuit if the traders' websites are to be believed.
 * Short Runner: Six whole episodes.
 * Shout-Out: One of the bonus round questions had Double Dare, Remote Control, and Finders Keepers as possible answers. Given the show that started the genre...