Sponge (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Sponge is a South Korean TV variety show
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...

 that debuted in 8 November 2003 on KBS2. The show claims to be "infotainment," and revolves around presenting various pieces of triva in an entertaining fashion. The pieces of trivia are often sent in by viewers who wish to broadcast some piece of little known information they have. Sponge ended in November of 2007 because of low TV ratings and continued as Sponge 2.0 in a new format.

Hosts

The show had three hosts:Kim Kyung Ran  and Lee Hwi Jae. Additionally each week a panel of celebrities is present.

Former Hosts

  • 1st: Hwang Soo Gyeong
  • 2nd: Kim Kyung Ran
  • 3rd: Goh Min Jeong

All of them (from the list) are the KBS announcers.

The Show's Format

Each piece of trivia is introduced as a sentence with a blank missing. A pannel of guests including singers, comedians, and actors then attempt to fill in the missing blank. After the guests make their guesses, the answer is revealed and then proof is offered to show how this piece of trivia is true.

Following the video evidence a panel of 50 judges vote on how interesting the particular piece of trivia was, rating it on a scale of one to five stars. For people that submitted items that received five stars, a cash prize of 1,000,000 won
Korean won
The won was the currency of Korea between 1902 and 1910. It was subdivided into 100 chon .-Etymology:Won is a cognate of the Chinese yuan and Japanese yen.-History:...

 is awarded.

However, the new version, Sponge 2.0, has a different format. Instead of viewers submitting items, professionals from specific fields would appear on the set and provide intriguing and interesting facts which is presented with video footage.

Instead of 50 judges, the show now invites 100 people to usually assist in on-stage polls and demonstrations. The panel of celebrities remain.

Top Web Searches

Each week the program ended with that week's top internet searches on Naver
Naver (web portal)
Naver is a popular search portal in South Korea, with a market share of over 70%, compared to 2% for Google. Naver was launched in June 1999 by ex-Samsung employees, and it debuted as the first Web portal in South Korea that used its own proprietary search engine...

.
In version 2 however, the program ends with a way to develop the brain and stimulate it.

Criticism

The show was criticized for being very similar to a trivia program produced by Fuji TV in Japan. The show in question was called Trivia no izumi was first broadcast in October 2002. When Sponge debuted the following year, producers of Trivia no izumi complained about the stylistic similarities between the two shows, which lead the producers of Sponge to slightly retool the format.
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