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Fox’s ‘Boom!’ is trivia game show with a messy twist

In this image released by Fox, comedian and host Tom Papa, left, appears with contestants, from second left, Amber, Jeff and Ryan, during a taping of the new game show "Boom!," premiering Thursday at 8 p.m. EDT on Fox. A team of people elect a member to take turns answering multiple choice questions to deactivate bombs made of Nickelodeon-type slime. If the player answers right, they snip a wire to defuse it. An incorrect answer cuts the wrong wire and the bomb goes off. Papa, who does standup comedy but also hosted NBC’s game show "The Marriage Ref" said it was a no brainer to sign up for “Boom!” "As a comedian if something is even close to funny you can pretty much guarantee you’re gonna do it. How hard would it be to come up with jokes talking to someone covered in cheese sauce?" (Ray Mickshaw/Fox via AP)
In this image released by Fox, comedian and host Tom Papa, left, appears with contestants, from second left, Amber, Jeff and Ryan, during a taping of the new game show "Boom!," premiering Thursday at 8 p.m. EDT on Fox. A team of people elect a member to take turns answering multiple choice questions to deactivate bombs made of Nickelodeon-type slime. If the player answers right, they snip a wire to defuse it. An incorrect answer cuts the wrong wire and the bomb goes off. Papa, who does standup comedy but also hosted NBC’s game show "The Marriage Ref" said it was a no brainer to sign up for “Boom!” "As a comedian if something is even close to funny you can pretty much guarantee you’re gonna do it. How hard would it be to come up with jokes talking to someone covered in cheese sauce?" (Ray Mickshaw/Fox via AP) In this image released by Fox, comedian and host Tom Papa, left, appears with contestants, from second left, Amber, Jeff and Ryan, during a taping of the new game show "Boom!," premiering Thursday at 8 p.m. EDT on Fox. A team of people elect a member to take turns answering multiple choice questions to deactivate bombs made of Nickelodeon-type slime. If the player answers right, they snip a wire to defuse it. An incorrect answer cuts the wrong wire and the bomb goes off. Papa, who does standup comedy but also hosted NBC’s game show "The Marriage Ref" said it was a no brainer to sign up for “Boom!” "As a comedian if something is even close to funny you can pretty much guarantee you’re gonna do it. How hard would it be to come up with jokes talking to someone covered in cheese sauce?" (Ray Mickshaw/Fox via AP)

By Associated Press 2 min read

NEW YORK (AP) – “Boom!” host Tom Papa says he finds himself rooting for some of the contestants on the new Fox game show. And others? Not so much.

The show, which premieres Thursday night (8 p.m. EDT), features teams of three players who must defuse a series of ticking “slime-bombs” by cutting wires relating to correct answers of multiple choice questions and leaving the wrong answers untouched.

If the right wires are cut and the slime- bombs are defused, the players win money. If they’re wrong, or run out of time, they are showered with goop, forcing them out of the game.

“You find yourself in moments hoping this nice person is going to win half a million dollars, and there’s other times you find yourself kind of rooting that this person will see the end of an explosion,” Papa said in a recent interview.

Contestants wear goggles “because you’re clipping wires on this thing, so when it goes off, your head is going to be the color of whatever those bombs are,” Papa said. “They have names for them: the guacamole bomb, the oatmeal bomb, the mashed potato bomb. All these crazy inventions that these demented people are coming up with below the stage.”

The comedian found himself getting drenched in goop many times.

“The first couple (of slime-bombs) went all over the contestants and was kind of impressive, but I literally overheard the producers saying in my earpiece, ‘We’ve got to make these bombs bigger. We’ve got to hit Papa,'” he said.

“From that point on you’ll see there’s a lot of me running for my life because I just don’t want to be covered in this stuff. I went through 20 suits in the taping of this show.”

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Follow Alicia Rancilio at http://www.twitter.com/aliciar

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Online:

http://www.fox.com/boom/