Marc Summers Reacts to ‘Double Dare’ Photos & Nickelodeon Slime Memories | PEOPLE
Marc Summers looks back at his life and career through photos, from performing magic as a kid to becoming the host of Nickelodeon’s Double Dare. He shares how he landed the audition, why producers chose him, and the exact recipe for the show’s famous slime. Marc remembers his pie fight with Burt Reynolds on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, playing racquetball with David Letterman, and going out to dinner with Bobby Flay. He reflects on opening up about OCD on Oprah, beating cancer, and meeting his wife while working as a page on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Looking back on it all, he says, “I think that’s why we’re all put here, to do good things for others and I hope I’ve done enough.”
Timestamps:
0:00 – Marc Summers Reacts to His Life in Photos
0:31 – ‘Double Dare’ (1986)
4:06 – Pie Fight with Burt Reynolds (1994)
5:47 – Dinner with Bobby Flay (2020)
7:43 – Talking About OCD on Oprah (1997)
8:48 – With David Letterman (2025)
10:45 – Performing Magic (1964)
11:29 – Beating Cancer (2014)
12:43 – With His Wife (2024)
From PEOPLE:
Marc Summers Reveals What That Slime Was Really Made of as He Reflects on Double Dare’s 40th Anniversary (Exclusive)
The host of the beloved kids’ game show tells PEOPLE about some of the most unforgettable moments, 40 years later
NEED TO KNOW
- Marc Summers has hosted many iterations of Double Dare over the years, beginning with the original series, which ran from 1986 to 1989
- Speaking with PEOPLE, Summers shared the story behind securing the hosting gig and the atmosphere of ‘90s Nickelodeon
- Summers also revealed the network’s original slime recipe
Marc Summers has nothing but warm memories of Double Dare, 40 years later.
Summers was an up-and-coming stand-up comedian with some hosting experience when the Nickelodeon game show opportunity came up. The 74-year-old tells PEOPLE that the opportunity actually wasn’t his own.
“The Double Dare job all happened by mistake. A friend of mine, Dave Garrison, who was a ventriloquist from Indianapolis, had moved to Los Angeles, and we were both trying to grow our careers. I get a phone call one day and Dave says, ‘You know what? I can’t do this anymore. I’m going to move behind the scenes and become a producer. I got a call from a network I’d never heard of called Nickelodeon. They’re doing a kid’s game show. Do you want to go instead of me?’ ” Summers tells PEOPLE.
“I said, ‘Of course. I want to host a game show.’ So when I got there, they say, ‘Dave Garrison?’ I said, ‘Dave’s not here. My name is Marc. Can I go instead of him?’ ” he continued. Not only did the network agree to let him audition, but Summers left feeling like “I’ve nailed this.”
Summers called his agent to convey his excitement, only to be told to temper himself as the agent had “about 10 other clients going” to audition. After three callbacks, Summers was anxious to learn whether he’d gotten the gig. He called one of the creators to ask for an update. Creator Mike Klinghoffer admitted he had reservations about Summers’ lack of experience working with kids, even though he was already a dad.
Summers suggested testing each host with kids and “let the best man win.” Some phone calls and an hour later, Klinghoffer said the idea was a-go.
“So they flew me and this other person — to this day, I don’t know who it is — to New York and we shot. I went first, then they threw me out of the studio, brought the other guy in, and two days later they called me and they said, ‘Congratulations, you’re the host of Double Dare,’ ” he shared.
The job was life-changing for Summers, who said, “There was never a bad day on the set of Double Dare, whether it was real-life kids who we picked up from Philly or New Jersey or then we shot in New York for a while, and then we shot down in Orlando, but every day was a good day.”
Summers even got used to the network’s signature slime, which was heavily featured in the show’s physical challenges. He explained, “People always want to know what the slime was. Well, the insurance people back in the day said if the slime gets in the kids’ mouths, it has to be edible.”
“The original recipe was vanilla pudding, applesauce, green food coloring, and a little oatmeal to thicken it up,” he revealed. “When we brought it back the last time, when I was exec producing and a sidekick to another host, they had a new formula to slime, and when we went in there, you could build the viscosity, the thickness, the thinness. Do you want it to sort of slowly drip down? Do you want it to drip down fast? And I’m assuming it’s still edible, ‘cause if the kids got it in their mouth, it had to be edible, but it just didn’t look the same and it didn’t smell as good.”
Summers hosted Double Dare from 1986 to 1989, followed by Family Double Dare from 1990 to 1993, with various specials and reinventions that followed. Altogether, he hosted over 500 episodes of the show and admitted that he has a favorite that stands out.
“Favorite show I ever did on Double Dare, and we did originally 525 and then there’s been other versions that I’ve done, [was when] we did Super Slop-a-Mania and we had Bobby the Brain Heenan with Gorilla Monsoon. And they were huge performers with the WWF at the time, before it became the WWE, and they just were good,” he recalled. “They were entertaining, they were fun, they were funny, the kids loved them, and it stands in my mind as perhaps the best show we ever did.”
The memories are as sweet as ever as Summers prepares to host a special celebration this month, honoring 40 years of Double Dare.
“I cannot believe that we’re celebrating the 40th anniversary of Double Dare. I mean, I was 34 years old, 35 when we started this thing, and here we are making a celebration. I figure this is the last time we’re going to be doing this. In 10 years, if I’m still around, I’ll be 85. I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk at that point. I mean, I try to look after myself, take care of myself... but who knows what the future brings,” he shared.
“I figured this is the last time we get the whole gang together, so all of our producers or most of them. Harvey, our announcer, Robin, my sidekick on the air, we’re all getting together, and we’re going to have an audience of 300 people at City Winery,” he said of the Philadelphia-based reunion. “And we’re going to play physical challenges, we’re going to have slime, we’re going to show them clips that they probably have never seen or don’t remember seeing, and I think it’s going to be a fun 90-minute show of going back in time and reliving your childhood.”
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From PEOPLE:
Marc Summers Showered Backstage at Double Dare to Remove Slime While Quietly Living with OCD (Exclusive)
“I was not going to work so hard my entire life to get to where I finally wanted to go and say, ‘Hey, I’m not pouring slime on me,’ “ Summers says.
NEED TO KNOW
- Marc Summers tells PEOPLE about hosting Double Dare, Nickelodeon’s messiest show
- He coped with the mess by showering backstage to remove the show’s infamous slime
- Years later, he was hosting a Lifetime show in 1995 when a guest doctor described obsessive-compulsive disorder, and he recognized the patterns
Marc Summers had a complicated relationship with slime.
When the Double Dare host, 74, first took the reins on the Nickelodeon series in 1986, he didn’t know what he was getting himself into. While he was aware it was a kids’ game show, Summers didn’t know how messy it would be.
“For the first 65 episodes, I never got a bit of anything on me, especially slime or whipped cream. I had not been officially diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder; I just knew I didn’t like getting messy. So I was able to dodge it. I wasn’t wearing Reeboks; I was wearing penny loafers, and I kind of did things my own way,” Summers tells PEOPLE.
The show was a hit and picked up by the network for 65 more episodes. They looked into what they could do to make the hit even more appealing to viewers.
“They did a focus group with kids, and they said, ‘We love the show. The only thing that’s missing is we want to get the host messy.’ So the executives from Nickelodeon called me in and had said, ‘Everything’s going great. The kids love you. The network loves you. The ratings are great. One thing we need to change, you got to wear Reeboks ‘cause they’re our sponsor and you should have them, and, secondly, you got to get messy,’ ” he recalls.
Summers had his reservations at first, but couldn’t deny he was enjoying his dream job. “You’re getting paid to do something you always wanted to do your entire life. You do what they tell you. And so, yeah, I had got slimed and whipped creamed and had stuff dumped on me, and we would be ready to do the obstacle course and the kids would say, ‘At the end of the course, if we go all the way, can we throw stuff at you?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, whatever you want,’ ” he shares.
Though Summers would later discover he was living with OCD, he was determined to “never let OCD affect my life when I was performing.”
“I was not going to work so hard my entire life to get to where I finally wanted to go and say, ‘Hey, I’m not pouring slime on me. I’m not getting messy. No, no, no, no, no.’ So it didn’t affect me at all. Now, the only thing it did was when I would get messy, I would go backstage and I had a shower in my dressing room, and I would take a shower and put on a new outfit. But I think any host who was in that situation would do the same thing,” he says.
Summers continued, “But as far as staying away, people say, ‘Oh, I was miserable.’ No, I wasn’t. I defy you to look at any one of those episodes where I was clobbered with some goo and see that I was in pain; I was not in pain. When the camera went off, I could go back to my natural self, but when the camera was rolling, I was having the best time of my life.”
In the four decades since Double Dare first premiered, Summers has hosted many iterations and specials. Not only does he believe the show holds a special place in game show history, but it could still hold its own today.
“Double Dare was a very smart idea from Nickelodeon because they did focus groups and found out that kids had no game show of their own; they were living vicariously through their parents watching Price Is Right and Wheel of Fortune. And so there was a game that was hot on the playground at the time called Truth or Dare, and they decided to add some mess with physical challenges, and I just think the combination of questions, but if you can’t answer them, you can do a challenge and in the process get messy,” he explains.
“And kids used to get reprimanded if they got messy and go to their rooms and have to do more chores. We were rewarding kids for getting messy, sending them to Space Camp, giving them prizes,” Summers noted. “And I think it’s exactly what the doctor ordered back at that time. And I think if you brought it back today the proper way, kids today would love it.”
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Originally published: October 06, 2026.
Additional source: Parade.
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