Summertime TV has been dabbling in game shows and contestant humiliation since 2001, when NBC debuted Fear Factor with an episode featuring players lowered into a pit filled with rats.
But this year, the networks have taken their game to a whole new level with programs that show competitors getting punched in the face and falling into a pit of mud as they try to climb an obstacle-course wall - or players dressed like bugs getting slammed against car windshields.
One entire series is built on the premise of contestants being forced to eat rich foods like clam chowder or cream pie until they are stuffed - and then put through physical paces intended to make them sick.
While some might say yuck, millions are eating them up.
ABC's Wipeout, a Tuesday-night series steeped in mud, is the highest-rated new program of the summer with about 10 million viewers a week. And almost half that audience is made up of adults 18 to 49 years old, the demographic most attractive to advertisers.
The bug-on-the-windshield series, ABC's I Survived a Japanese Game Show, is not far behind in popularity with 8 million viewers a week, and an even larger percentage of young fans in its audience.
While analysts and producers acknowledge the appeal of mean and the lure of get-rich-quick narratives in these uncertain economic times, they also see the shows speaking to other deeper cultural concerns as well.
"The appeal on one level involves ridicule and laughing at the other," says Sheri Parks, a University of Maryland, College Park professor of popular culture. "But I think some of the shows are also about survival in almost an apocalyptic sense. They ask the question: Are you tough enough to survive in these [post-9/11] times."
Whatever the reason, their appeal is widespread enough that cable channels are getting in on the nasty game-show act, as well. Last week, Comedy Central premiered two new entrees, including a parody of the burgeoning genre that seeks to have it both ways by mocking the formula and exploiting it with its own hapless contestants.
The Gong Show With Dave Attell revisits the mean-spirited 1970s show hosted by Chuck Barris that mocked wannabe performers for their lack of talent - and became the template for the tryout episodes on Fox's American Idol.
Reality Bites Back follows the remake on Thursday nights with 10 comedians competing in parodies of such series as NBC's American Gladiators. They don't just crack wise about the hand-to-hand combat, though. They engage in it, as well.
