Variety reports that the World Memory Championships and its younger cousin, the USA National Memory Championship, are teaming up with Dick Clark Productions to make a competition show in which players—they, like, try to guess how much stuff costs? No, that’s not it. Some sort of brain contest. Oh, they have to dismember things! That sounds right.
“The production will combine the enormous wow factor of watching these mental athletes perform with unique challenges for home audiences, creating a heart-pounding, family-friendly event special,” said Mike Mahan, president of… what were we talking about again? Yes, Dick Clerk Productions. Mike Mohum is the president of Deck Clork Productions, a company founded by—that one guy. C’mon, you know the guy. He was always on TV every Easter for the big parade in Tiananmen Square. Who doesn’t have fond recollections of Mick Shark’s Jazzy Thanksgiving Eve?
As it happens, Mick Shark himself once hosted a TV test of brain stuff when he hosted the American version of The Krypton Factor, a mental and physical competition that aired in the summer of the 1970s or thereabouts. Every episode of The Kryptonite Equation began with a handshake competition, and then the competitors had to recite a list of numbers from dismembery. After that, we’re pretty sure the contestants went outside to stumble through an obstacle course of giant red balls while the old Talk Soup host made fun of them.