FOX Joins 'Hole in the Wall' Gang

Zap2It.com | May 20, 2008

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Japanes format will be brough to the States by FremantleMedia North America

FOX has ordered 13 episodes of the game show "Hole in the Wall," based on the insanely popular international format.

FremantleMedia North America, the company behind "American Idol," is transferring a format that first premiered on Japan's Fuji TV in the summer of 2006. It continues to regularly win its timeslot two years later. Fremantle is already producing versions in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and the U.K.

Myriad clips from the Japanese version are available online, but the rules are deceptively simple. Contestants, sometimes solo and sometimes in teams, stand at one end of a platform and barrier walls move toward them. Each barrier wall has a segment cut out, sometimes a shape and sometimes a human form in a weird and wacky position. The contestants simply have to fit their bodies through the cut-outs in the wall. They can do it with athleticism, brains or by contorting their bodies into uncomfortable positions. If they don't succeed? Humiliation!

FOX hasn't set a premiere date for "Hole in the Wall," but the network will hold casting on Sunday, June 1 in Los Angeles and Saturday, June 14 in New York and Atlanta. Additional information is available at the network's casting site.