Network: CTV Television Network
Broadcast Run: 1988 to 1990
Broadcast Medium: Television
“5-4-3-2-RUN was a Q-A ‘goo’ game for kids”, remembers host (now lawyer) Andrew Cochrane. “It was in no way intended to be educational…a wrong answer meant that blue goo would descend upon the contestant to the delight of their peers. The goo was kept at room temperature, so I doubt the experience was too traumatizing.”
This Saturday morning half-hour series had young competitors from the audience competing to be first to complete a series of physical tests – skipping rope, blowing up balloons etc. – in order earn the right to sit down at a television monitor and try to answer a question on the screen. Having answered, the contestant would press a plunger to see if the answer was correct: right answers led to prizes, but a wrong answer would find the contestant showered with confetti – or sometimes with the blue goo, much to the delight of the audience and their fellow contestants.
Produced in the Burnaby studios of CTV affiliate BCTV, 5-4-3-2-RUN played 9:30 – 10:00am on CTV on Saturday mornings in the 1988-89 and 1989-90 seasons. 26 shows were shot for each season, and those 26 episodes were taped in one hectic week in the studio. The show was created and produced by Goodson-Todman alumnus Mark Maxwell Smith.
Pip Wedge – December 2003