Based on the format* created and owned by Tokyo Broadcasting System Television Inc. (TBS), the popular audience participation obstacle course program “Takeshi’s Castle” will be produced in a localized version and broadcast in Thailand. The original Japanese program aired from 1986 to 1989 and was extremely popular with television viewers.

The new home of “Takeshi’s” Castle will be Channel 7, a terrestrial free TV broadcaster with a long reputation of #1 audience share. The first broadcast of “Takeshi’s Castle Thailand” will take place on Sunday, July 20, from 14:45 to 16:30. Thereafter, the program will be a regular Sunday afternoon series. Handling production is one of Thai major production companies, Heliconia Entertainment in collaboration with Dentsu media (Thailand), In addition to recreating obstacles from the original Japanese program, the two production companies are featuring Thai celebrities and Thai-style humor to create a program with high appeal to local viewers.

To help bring the new “Takeshi’s Castle” to life, the producer of the original series, Kunihiko Katsura, and other TBS veterans have been traveling to Thailand to assist. Working on 2.4 million square meters of land, the largest production site in Thai TV history, the production team has been recreating such popular obstacles as Knock Knock, Run Away Rock Away, Strait of Gibraltar, Beach Boys & Girls, Stepping Stones and Flying Mushroom.

The original Japanese “Takeshi’s Castle” has been broadcast in 159 countries. Under the title “Hod, Mun, Ha” (“Cruel, Thrilling, Fun”), the Thai-dubbed version was highly popular in Thailand in the late 1990s. Thailand will be the sixth country or region to produce a local program based on TBS’s “Takeshi’s Castle” format, following upon Taiwan, the Netherlands, the US, Spain, and Brazil.

*A program format is the concept, production know-how, and other creative elements of a quiz show, variety program, reality program or other type of television program. TBS has been a major power house in the development and sales of program formats, entering the market before many other major players in Japan and around the world. The history of TBS format sales began in 1980 with the sale of the “Waku Waku Animal Land” format in South Korea. Since then, working with its US format sales partner Bellon Entertainment, TBS has sold over 200 formats in over 160 countries around the world. Several thousand program episodes have been produced based on TBS formats, and many of the programs have become beloved local series in their respective countries. Famous TBS formats include “Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan (“America’s Funniest Home Videos” in the US)”, which has been sold to around 100 countries, “Happy Family Plan (“The Moment of Truth” in the UK)”, which has been sold to around 60 countries, and “Takeshi’s Castle (“MXC”)” and “SASUKE (“Ninja Warrior”)”, both of which have been sold in over 150 countries and territories.