Jungle Run: Playing Games In Themed Areas To Obtain Items Worth Time For The Final Game, Familiar?

Warning: The following contains mentions of Keith Chegwin in a state of undress towards the end. Consider this a customary nut allergy warning.

In what could easily be classified as the Jacques Antoine genre (play some games to dictate how easy the end game will be), CITV dipped their toe with ‘Jungle Run’. 

Starting 20 years ago this week (see, there is some planning goes into these posts, it's honestly not a complete coincidence brought to my attention on Twitter) in 1999 and initially hosted by Dominic Wood. Jungle Run invited a team of three kids to play a few games in a series of themed areas to collect as many MacGuffins as they can to have as much time as possible in the final game where they could win something... well, something.

Waiting for his boiled eggs

Wood waiting for some contestants

Here he is as more may remember him, throwing custard at children

For Wood's series, it was bananas that were collected, later it was silver monkey statues. The more MacGuffins they collected from these games, the more time they would have inside the Temple of the Jungle King to try and win prizes. So far, so Crystal Maze. in Each episode there would be one instance where, in place of a banana/silver statue, there’d be a golden banana/ruby statue which was worth 50 bananas/20 seconds instead of the regular 10. 'Megamonkey', it just sounds right doesn't it?

The games were played in different themed areas of the rather large jungle set. There was an abandoned camp with a crashed helicopter, a waterfall where wet games could take place, a tomb where one player would have to traverse obstacles within whilst their teammates helped from outside by holding aids such as beams or ropes. As time went on, certain places were done away with and replaced with similarly themed zones areas. Whilst the contestants played the games, they faced minor inconveniences in the form of antagonistic monkeys Sid and Elvis, who would throw things at the team, or when time limits were reached would raise the MacGuffins out of reach to bring the games to a relatively natural-looking end.

The endgame was a journey inside the Temple of the Jungle King, where they’d head down some stairs into a room and complete a puzzle to unlock the next room with a puzzle in it, that puzzle would unlock the next room and so on and so forth. Each progressive room would also contain a statue of a monkey made of stone, then bronze, then silver and finally the giant gold statue. When the time limit was dwindling they’d grab all the statues they’d unlocked and run back up the stairs to make their escape before the door, in this case, the stone belly of the Jungle King statue, closed. Anyone who didn’t get out doesn’t get a prize. The prizes could consist of video cameras, mp3 players, portable DVD players, up to grand prizes of mountain bikes or adventure weekends.

The future-proof prize found in a statue

As mentioned it was first hosted by Dominic Wood, then Chris Jarvis. Jarvis had been an established kid’s presenter on the BBC since the early 90’s having hosted CBBC in the same era as Zoe Ball and Josie D’Arby and he was also the man behind the character of The Anorak. He later hosted Saturday morning show Fully Booked alongside former Blue Peter presenter Tim Vincent and Gail Porter.

It was a few years later he made the move away from the BBC to host Jungle Run for CITV in 2001. Jarvis soon returned to the BBC where he is still a face on their CBeebies channel to this day doing programming for preschool viewers. He was replaced on JR by Michael Underwood, another host known for appearing on CBBC. He won his role on CBBC on Saturday night show ‘Whatever You Want’ hosted by Gaby Roslin where the gimmick was you could win whatever you wanted. However, his first TV appearance that I know of (feel free to correct me in the comments) was as a contestant on the first Christmas special of The Crystal Maze in 1990. After a few years on CBBC, he moved to do the same role hosting continuity on CITV in 2002 and became the host of Jungle Run in 2003 until the show ended in 2006.

Underwood after everyone promised to stop tweeting him every
Christmas to tell him that his TCM episode is on

Now, why the Chegwin comments? In 2000, Channel 5 did an evening of themed programming, nothing unusual there. The theme was nudism, nothing unusual for Channel 5 at the time. They did an all nude game show, and now you're paying attention for either the right or wrong reasons.

"But dear writer..." I hear none of you asking, "...why bring up a nude game show on this, an article about a children's game show?"

Filmed on the set of Jungle Run, 'Naked Jungle' was a one-off show pitting nude couples against one another. Nothing will ever remove the mental image of Keith Chegwin wearing nothing but a safari hat running into the jungle, little Cheggers swinging free. I'm not linking it out of taste and decency, and sheer common sense. If you go looking for it, it's on your own head. The shame that is, not little Cheggers.

The VHS release: for those who wanted
 nude Cheggers for home viewing