PORTLAND, Maine — When Danny Cashman announced he'd be wrapping up his hosting gig on 'The Nite Show,' taped in Bangor, he connected us with someone who's become a dear friend, famous TV host, Marc Summers.
Summers has become a regular guest on 'The Nite Show,' and told us Cashman reminds him of a younger version of himself.
Marc Summers is a name most kids who grew up in the 1990s immediately recognize. The television host is best known for his work on Nickelodeon's "Double Dare," and the Food Network's "Unwrapped."
Admittedly, I was a huge Marc Summers fan and watched all of his shows as a kid, so I was pleased to find out that he is a kind human being as well, who enjoys connecting with his fans through his one-man show Off-Broadway called, "The Life and Slimes of Marc Summers." And at 72 years old he's happy to be still working. That one-man show has wrapped up for the season but you can sign up for the mailing list on lifeandslimes.com for any updates.
"I tried to retire, I tried and I just wasn't good at it," Summers said.
He'd been working on the one-man show for about 11 years, and finally, it clicked.
"Got a call last summer about doing it in Pennsylvania and in Buffalo, New York and this is why you should always say yes: we were in Buffalo, New York and the Mrs. Doubtfire national tour opened next to us and the Director Steve Edlund came in and saw the show and afterwards came back and said, 'Have you ever thought about doing this in New York?' I thought, 'Well every day but I don't know anybody there,' and he said, 'Well you do now.' He made a phone call and four months later I'm doing a show off-Broadway." Summers, enthused.
Summers said his early years were spent behind the scenes in television, and that hosting the show "Double Dare" for Nickelodeon was his big break. It was also the network's big break, he said.
"We put them on the map. Before that they had bad puppet shows on and their attempt of what a talk show should be with kids, and it never connected. And we were on 5:30 Monday through Friday and for whatever reason you know, kids were always told to stay neat and clean and we were rewarding them by jumping into 5,000 pounds of baked beans. And there was something at the time called playground talk where they would go to school the next day and say, 'I saw this great show where you get hit with a pie and you could win a trip to space camp or win a computer.' There was an article in Broadcasting Magazine several years ago that said the most important people to get cable started were initially Larry King because of CNN, next was Gallagher on Showtime because of his comedy specials, and then me because I got kids to go to their parents and say, 'I want to watch this show.' And parents would buy cable and tune us in."
Summers joked that he's known as the "Slime Guy." I asked him if that was a curse, or if he saw it as a blessing. He said, he's just happy anyone remembers him for anything.
"And it's fun because the people who come to our show in New York are the kids who grew up watching me and they have memories and they wanna talk about it after the show at the stage door. I hear stories about "Double Dare" birthday parties and building obstacle courses in their living room and dining room and having their parents get mad at them. Who knew when we were doing it that would have the impact that it still has today?"
All of these years later, Summers remembers exactly what slime was made of.
"The insurance company wanted to make sure that if we got it in kids' mouths that it was edible, so it was vanilla pudding, applesauce, and green food coloring. That's it. And that's what we used on our show every night."
Summers returned to Nickelodeon years later as an executive producer for a reboot of Double Dare.
"We went to the facility and they would come to me and say, 'What viscosity would you like? Would you like it to be thin and drippy or heavy?' It was crazy. Back in the day, we were making vanilla pudding and applesauce, and it worked beautifully."
The dark truth behind his big break on Nickelodeon is that Summers was hosting one of the messiest shows on television and was struggling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. At the time, he didn't understand what it was.
"When we did the auditions in Los Angeles, there was not even physical challenges. It was easy. I get to the studio in Philadelphia the first day and I see a guy pouring chocolate on a slide and then there's this mix master where they were making 100 pounds of fresh whipped cream and I was like, 'Excuse me what is this?' and they were like, 'That's the obstacle course.' I hadn't been told about it at the auditions and they said, 'Whoever wins has to run through the obstacles in 60 seconds or less.' So I had been waiting forever to get on television so I had to have a talk with myself in the corner saying, 'Okay. You waited for this forever you're not going to walk away.' It was a good acting job because it was mind over matter, because yes, I did not like getting messy, but it was part of the show and it was part of my job so I made it happen." Summers recalled.
"I wasn't fully exposed to what OCD was. I was hosting a talk show on Lifetime called 'Biggers and Summers' [years later] and Dr. Eric Hollander came on to discuss OCD and I said on live TV, I think I have this," Summers said.
And ultimately for a few years, that admission cost him jobs. But it also got him the help he needed and he said today he's about 80% cured.
"I was signed on to do Hollywood Squares and the OCD stuff came out and I got fired. Believe me, my life is fine. I continue to work. I had a couple years there that weren't so busy, but at 72 to be doing what I'm doing, I couldn't be happier and I have no plans of stopping this anytime in the future," he said.