Who Wants To Be A Superhero? (found British children's game show; 2009)

The logo of the series.

Status: Partially Found

Who Wants To Be A Superhero? was a British children's game show that ran on CBBC from 3rd January - 18th April 2009, 15 episodes were made. It is based on the NBC Universal/Sci Fi Channel (United States) series of the same name. The show is presented by Sam Nixon, Mark Rhodes and the late Stan Lee. The show is a co-production between CBBC and NBC.

Children aged 9 – 13 create and become their very own, unique, never before seen superhero characters for the series, taking part in missions and challenges and living away from home in ‘The Superhero Lair’ in London. Contestants responded to trials on the CBBC Channel and application forms on the CBBC website. Each episode (with the exception of episode 1 – auditions) the superheroes face one or two challenges working as a team, pairs, trios or individually. They are judged by Sam and Mark on their behaviour as a superhero.

Villains

In most episodes, the superheroes take part in challenges and missions (as instructed by Stan Lee) to save the world from evil villain, Dr. Dark. Throughout the series, Dr. Dark tricks them, steals from them, and even goes as far as to imprison Sam and Mark. The villain is assisted by his evil, mutated, scary (and often angry) half human-half pig henchmen, whom the superheroes encounter multiple times during their missions. Dr. Dark is eventually defeated in episode 14 by the three finalists, on the roof of the secret lair. In the final episode, Stan Lee creates Fire Fiend, a fire based enemy for H2O Man's comic book.

Controversy

In early March 2009, UK mid-market newspaper the Daily Mail attempted to link the programme with the issue of child exploitation in reality television. After approaches to the BBC failed to produce sufficient evidence to support their position, the newspaper approached a number of the contestants' families, resulting in complaints that the newspaper was invading the families' privacies, and injunctions to prevent publication of the children's real identities. Furthermore, it is alleged that some of the story's professional sources had been quoted selectively in such a way as to direct what were general observations as if they were specific criticisms of the programme.

There was also some controversy among viewers about the power down of Steel Soldier, who many viewers felt was powered down to even out the number of girls, seeing as his track record had been much better than the two other superheroes up for powerdown, H2O Man and Gold Starlet.

Availability

Beginning on March 25th, 2023 YouTube user childhoodncstalgia started reuploading episodes of Who Wants To Be A Superhero?.

Powerdowns

This table gives the order of superheroes being "powered down" (eliminated) from the series. Some weeks, superheroes were immune from being powered down as a reward for a challenge or were unable to take part due to illness.

Contestants Name	Superhero Name	Eliminated
Karl	H20 Man	[Episode Lost - Winner]
Michael	S.G.W. (Stop Global Warming)	[Episode Lost - 2nd]
Ellah	Gold-Starlet	[Episode Lost - 3rd]
April	Pink Puffle Girl	4th
Tobe	Steel Soldier	5th
Charlie	Princess Paw	6th
James	Deflector	7th
Elliot	Santh	8th
Jake	9 Lives	9th
Branwen	Flying Feather	10th
Beth	Dolphin Girl	11th
Sam	Mega-Might Man	12th
Emma	Mizz Dungarees	13th External Links Alchetron page on Who Wants To Be A Superhero?. Episode listing of Who Wants To Be A Superhero?. Daily Mail page on Who Wants To Be A Superhero?.