Run BTS Rewatch Episode 39: Pun BTS

방탄 골든벨 1, BTS Golden Bell Pt 1

We are once again hanging out in their big white studio watching some nerds play games against each other, and I for one could not be happier. It’s the most basic BTS formula, but it never gets old, much like pizza. Sometimes you just want some fucking pizza, you know? And they are here to deliver it to us.

Setup:

BTS will divide in two teams, play seven games, and the winner gets a reward while the loser is punished. We all know how this goes, right? There is also an MC, and they liked the hilarity when Yoongi was the MC and had to pick a team to secretly share a fate with, so they’re bringing that back too! It’s all the classics in one spot.

I don’t really know what the Golden Bell is about, but I think it’s a reference to another variety show, and it sits proudly behind them throughout every game.

The Moments of Pure Love:

1. Hoseok opens with a series of spinning karate kicks for no reason; Jungkook is impressed, Jin is mostly confused

2. They’re all wearing high school uniforms, and Vmin in particular say that this is essentially what they wore when they went to school together

3. Jimin reveals that he used to wear a snapback with his school uniform and they all gasp in horror, but none moreso than Yoongi who really hams it up

4. Hoseok gets goosebumps from how bold Jimin was back then

5. Jungkook, his shoulders so high they are nearly at his ears, thrusts his chest out, grins widely, and states that the winner today can have his desktop PC

   1. Jin has some kind of cardiac event at this announcement

   2. Everyone else’s competitive drives are turbo-boosted by this amazing prize

   3. Jin, who is supposed to be the MC, hands off duties to Jungkook so he can explain the specs of the prize (and because Jin wants to get the prize)

   4. He starts laughing, flustered, and Yoongi very seriously says he needs to practice his MC skills

   5. When Jungkook says it has a 32-inch monitor Taehyung suffers another cardiac event and falls to his knees

   6. Jimin starts to suggest that Jungkook should hand out one piece of his computer per episode but whatever voice inside him told him to do this is very excited to give it all away at once

6. The producers say that Jungkook should also set the punishment

7. Yoongi, smiling very big, jokes that at this rate all 7 of them will have to go hiking together

8. Teams are chosen at random via the “pick a piece of paper method”

   1. Team A is Taehyung, Namjoon, and Jin, and they start doing riffs on which branch of Kim they are (Taehyung and Jin are from the same branch, so they form a subunit that excludes Namjoon)

   2. Team B is Yoongi, Jimin, and Hoseok

9. There is some concern from Yoongi that these teams are NOT balanced, and as a long-time watcher of Run BTS I have to agree

10. Team A is the Kim Brothers, a powerful unit who won the kimchi battle (with Yoongi’s support)

11. Team B go with Min-Jung-Park to counterbalance

12. Jungkook says confidently that the teams are well-balanced

13. The producers say he has to decide the punishment after the third game, and also he has to pick his team of destiny

14. As Jungkook approaches the staff, the look in his eyes is a dawning realization that he, #1 best golden maknae, will have absolutely no chance to help the team he chooses win with his incredible and often unknown skills

15. He is sided with Kims, which is probably good for him

16. Game 1 is Yes or No, which is very funny in 2024 since he named a literal song after this

17. The rules are not like the song, in which the person is being requested to say Yes or No, because they are that Jungkook will ask the teams questions and they can’t say Yes or No, and they can’t ask a question back to Jungkook

18. Jimin requests that Jungkook hit the bell with a giant novelty hammer, and he does

19. Taejin take the opportunity to suck up to him by calling him cool and awesome

20. Jungkook tries so hard to ask questions and think of good new ones that he can barely do anything else, and Bangtan are incredibly good at not answering anything simply

21. Yoongi in particular is a machine, though the producers quibble with one of his answers after the fact, and Jungkook is like “I didn’t even notice, because I can’t listen and think at the same time”

22. They switch back to Jin for the MC, working out the logistics of how he wins or loses, and Jungkook is like “thank god I hated every moment of having any kind of responsibility for entertainment”

23. Two new rules are added, that they have to look Jin directly in his eyes and they have to answer in two seconds

24. Jin starts the entire process over like none of the last five minutes ever happened, and Jungkook laughs so hard because now he is seeing true MC Power

    1. They all seem to think that the producers are going to edit out Jungkook’s part, which makes the fact that they didn’t even funnier to me

    2. This might also be because Jin’s rules explanation misses a detail, so Namjoon comes in like “I think there is another rule X, right?” and it’s all very silly

25. Jin comes out strong interrogating Taehyung about if he likes the MC, and Taehyung makes the mistake of calling Jin handsome, which really gets him revved up until Taehyung messes up the 2 seconds rule

26. Namjoon also has to endure questioning about if Jin is handsome, including describing his looks, and Namjoon starts writing a little poem right there

27. Jimin is hit with a sudden attack when Jin simply yells his name, and he asks a question back and loses

28. Jin is like “watch me tiny Jungkook, this is how you force everyone to fail”

29. Namjoon once again handles Jin like a pro, because he has been through at least one American press tour by this point and has no fear

30. Yoongi falls to the yelling name trick, and he is very impressed with how good he is at failing to make the show more interesting

31. Hoseok says brightly that he is the only one on his team left alive, and Jin turns on him like a heat-seeking missile and takes him down in two questions

32. All of the people who failed have to line up so Jin can hit them with the novelty hammer, which he does in a businesslike way, as befits his rank

33. They all praise Jin for making the first game way more interesting, except for Yoongi who continues to praise himself

34. Jin, on the fly, changes the Kim Brothers team to Kim Brothers plus King Jeon Jungkook, which is shortened to Jeon Jungkook

35. Game 2 is We Are One, and Jin admits that he hasn’t read the rules so he will read them first and then explain them, and then he stands back and creates several seconds of dead air as he does just that

36. The rules of this one is that they all have to have a correct answer to the same question, and if they get it right they have to dance in celebration

37. To play this game they sit on 3 stair platforms, each team flanking Jin, so that they look kind of like that meme about three raccoons standing on top of each other in a trench coat

38. Q1: Sing one of Jin’s parts from Love Yourself: Her

    1. Hoseok goes with a line from Best of Me

    2. Yoongi weakly tries just singing the “DNA” part from DNA, which is wrong

    3. Namjoon sings a part of Pied Piper

    4. Jungkook sings Jin’s actual part from DNA

    5. Taehyung sings what sounds like the same part but it’s actually the lyrics from the second verse

    6. This causes some distress from Hoseok, who wants to win, and Yoongi, who wants the computer, but Kim team wins and does a dumb little dance

39. Jin introduces the next question with a little riddle: Name three words that end in “jae”

    1. Team Jeon Jungkook clears this easily and does another even dumber dance

    2. Jin joins in every single dance

    3. Jimin, who is the only one having fun on Team Min-Jung-Park, high fives Taekook as they go around him

40. Q3: Name three children’s songs about food

    1. Yoongi calls out their team, but Hoseok is sitting in the front and hasn’t even begun to process the question

    2. Team Jeon Jungkook wins again, and Hoseok makes Yoongi sit in the front since he’s so eager, and he takes the very back

    3. Sope continue to snipe at each other, and Jimin compliments the other team on how good they are

41. Jin does an extended bit to intro the next question, which involves asking Yoongi what his favorite BTS song is - it’s Outro: Her, which is a great choice

42. Q4: Sing the verse of a BTS song that says BTS / Bangtan

    1. Yoongi yells out his team name, then starts to choke hard and gets mocked by Hoseok before he comes up with a line from Dope

    2. Jimin follows with a song that I 100% know and can’t come up with and hopefully will before I submit this to be published (A/N: It’s the pre-chorus from Not Today)

    3. Hoseok finishes with Attack on Bangtan and they finally get to do their own nerdy dance, made worse by the fact that the producers are so startled that they succeeded that they don’t cue up any music

    4. Yoongi shakes his ass so hard that the rest of them have to stop moving, and Jungkook can’t even look directly at him

    5. Jin adds 5 dance points to their score for Yoongi’s butt

    6. Hoseok wants to know if these points are real and Jin is like uh, no?

43. Hoseok gives Jimin a shoulder rub, and Jimin passes it on to Yoongi

44. Jin forces them all to sing the lines of the number song, which is like a love song that uses Korean numbers to create lyrics

45. When Jimin fumbles on 5, Jin sadly says the moment is ruined so he’ll ask the actual question now

46. Q5: Of BTS songs -

    1. Yoongi interrupts to answer, because he’s intuited the question will be about Bangtan songs with numbers in them, and says “2,3!”

    2. Jimin has not figured this out and says “8989” which confuses everyone

    3. Namjoon also doesn’t know what’s happening so says “8282”

    4. Jin, totally flustered, says they need to hear the whole question, and Jimin does a deep bow of apology

    5. Once he does it Jimin still doesn’t know what else to say after 2,3!

    6. Namjoon steals 2,3!, Jungkook says Whalien, and Taehyung says Cypher Pt 3

    7. Yoongi points out that Whalien isn’t the right name of the song, and Jin has to agree

    8. Team Min-Jung-Park go with Cypher Pt 1, 2,3! and Whalien 52 and get to do another dance

    9. Hoseok throws his ass back so hard that Jimin is disgusted with him

    10. Yoongi realizes, belatedly, that they could have just done the three Cyphers

47. Q6: Name foods that are reddish

    1. Yoongi: Apples

    2. Jimin: Persimmons

    3. Hoseok: Plums

    4. They start dancing while Taehyung questions if persimmons are actually red

    5. Yoongi, not stopping his dancing, is like fuck yeah they are!

    6. Jin simply stares Taehyung in the face as he does pelvic shimmies towards him

    7. Taehyung realizes he’s gonna have to take this to the production staff, but they say that Jin asked the question in an ambiguous way so it’s okay

    8. To me, a person who has read a lot of children’s books to her nephews about fruit, I’m astonished that they’re arguing about persimmons, which are fairly red, instead of plums, which are always in the purple sections

48. The next phase is turned up high, as Jin is going to ask them a bunch of dad joke riddles that they have to answer correctly, and he mixes up their order every single time so no one knows what they’re going to get

49. I will record them here, but know that I understand very little of why any of the answers are right except that they involve Korean and / or English linguistic tricks, but I’ll do my best; if you know any of them please tell me!

50. Also know that these questions are asked over and over again to various people and there’s a lot of yelling happening the whole time, and they don’t get all of the answers so some are left to be a mystery

    1. In what world will a mom side with the younger brother when they are fighting? World Not Siding With Elder

    2. How can you say "the kid gave birth to a god” in 4 letters?

    3. What kind of duck fights the best? Eulji Mundoek (he is an ancient military leader, and the word “duck” in English is the trick for the last part)

       1. Namjoon guesses “frozen duck / slope” for this, and it’s not right but Jihope and Taekook think it’s hilarious

    4. What happens if you use a lion to make soup?

       1. Jungkook guesses “Lion hooooooooooo” which is ridiculous

       2. Jimin tries “Lionsoup” in Korean, which is wrong

       3. Yoongi tries “Lion Soup” in English, which is wrong

       4. This question becomes something of a white whale for them, because none of them can figure it out

    5. What kind of magic does the meteor make in the night sky? Yuseong Magic (I don’t get this one at all)

       1. Namjoon gets this question for a second time after Yoongi already gets it right, but he confidently doesn’t remember the answer and gets it totally wrong

    6. What is the name of the milk that King Sejong drinks? A-ya-eo-yeo-o-yo-u-yu (u-yu is milk, but I don’t get why the other vowels matter)

       1. Namjoon interjects from across the way on the first ask of this to say “I love milk”, and Jin almost hits him with the novelty hammer

    7. What happens when four cats become a monster? Pokemon

    8. What happens when a strawberry loses its job? Strawberry syrup

       1. Yoongi guesses unemployed and syrup strawberry, which is the wrong order

    9. What does the king say when he doesn’t want to go into the castle? Grumble grumble

    10. Why shouldn’t you close car doors too hard?

        1. Jungkook, at his absolute limit for this shit: Because it will ruin the car

    11. How long does it take for oil to arrive? 5 days (o is 5 in Korean, and il is days, so o-il)

        1. Yoongi does the math and figures it would be about three days by plane

        2. Jin gives Namjoon a hint to use the English work, and he gets it and they’re all actually kind of impressed with this one

51. At this point they all switch seats to stop Namjoon and Yoongi from having to answer every single time

    1. What’s the name of the younger triangle? Jung Samgak (this is referencing triangle kimbap)

52. Taehyung doesn’t know the answer to that one, but Namjoon does, so they switch so that he’s in the front again because you want your biggest word nerd playing up front

53. Jin starts ending every single pass with the question about the lion and soup, and no one has any idea so no one can ever win unless he offers them mercy

    1. What’s the most boring middle school in the world? Loading Middle School

    2. What happens when a pine tree gets upset?

       1. Jungkook guesses pine cones very uncertainly (it’s wrong)

54. Most of the above happened in a totally different order than I wrote it, and that’s fine because Jin is the MC and that’s what he would want

55. Jin finally lets Team Jeon Jungkook do three they’ve already answered and win

56. As they dance, Team Min-Jung-Park look up the lion soup question on their phones

57. Jin shakes his ass directly in their face as Namjoon rings the bells with what he probably thinks is a very sexy face

58. When they find the lion soup answer is “The king of all soups”, Yoongi is kind of pissed off, and Jin is delighted that they were all so wrong

59. Game 3 is Frying Pan, which is familiar to all of them

60. Each team sits across from each other and calls out a name and number to attack from the other team; the attacked member has to say their name in a rhythm, and you can do something with making them all say a team chant a do a unified motion and etc etc and honestly this is one of those ones you just have to sort of watch

61. The rhythm starts “ting tingtinging tang tangtangtang”

62. Once they start the game it becomes familiar to me from a future episode where they’re wearing those bunny ear hats that you can squeeze to make them flop up; the bunny ears improve the experience by 1000% but we will take what we can get

63. Yoongi is attacked first and has to say “Yoongi Yoongi Yoongi Yoongi” and it’s so fucking cute

64. Jungkook makes the other team do their action and Hoseok twitches manically out of rhythm and falls to the ground

65. Taehyung fails the next team attack by doing the wrong motion, and Jin hits him in the forehead with the novelty hammer

66. Jungkook also got confused by the team action because after it was done he called out himself instead of someone on the other team

    1. Jimin walks all the way across the room to give Jungkook a massive hug as he laughs

67. Jungkook says he’s getting confused with using their real names, and they all are like “you use your real name in BTS?” but he clarifies that he means for Yoongi and Hoseok

68. Team Min-Jung-Park use their MC Chance, where Jin has to sub in for one of them, and Yoongi gleefully stands up to be the MC, because he loves to have power

69. Hoseok stands up to dance around the room to the rhythm, because he cannot hep himself

70. Jungkook immediately calls for his own team to do the action, and he hands his head in shame as Yoongi hits him with the novelty hammer

71. Jin comes back to MC and sets a blistering pace, which throws off Jimin’s pronunciation of “Jeon”

72. They start again, and Team Min-Jung-Park successfully complete the team action but the ask the other team to say their name 3 times, which is not approved, and Hoseok gets hit in the head

73. Team Jeon Jungkook summons Jin, who swaps with a very excited Taehyung

74. Jin loses by doing the same thing Jungkook did, calling his own name, and that makes the whole team lose

75. Jin finds this completely hilarious

76. Jin commands the winning team to dance, even though the production team doesn’t have a dance segment set up for this and has no music

77. Sope go for it anyway, saying the editors will put it in later; they do not

78. Game 4 is Dibidibidib, which involves Jin making one of three weird motions, and if the rest of them make the same one they go to the back of the line

79. Hoseok is some kind of savant at this as he learns to read Jin’s tells for his motions to avoid them

80. Everyone else is pretty mediocre, but Jin works his ass off doing the weird motions over and over and over again

81. In the end Team Jeon Jungkook wins for being all similar levels of okay, while Team Min-Jung-Park had one ace and two anchors

82. Jin joins hands with Namjoon, Taehyung, and Jungkook and dances in a circle like they’re going around a maypole

83. Jungkook has to pick a punishment, and they’re all sure it will be hiking-related

84. Jimin suggests packing a lunch and hiking, raising the stakes

85. Jimin also suggests going to the ocean, which they all agree is not a punishment, until Jungkook adds jumping into the water which makes them more nervous

86. They don’t show the members the punishment, but we get to see that it’s going to a winter ocean, eating alone, then jumping into the water, which is a lot!

87. The looks on the staff’s faces makes Namjoon realize it’s a hard punishment

88. The next games will happen in Part 2, which they show us a preview of, and we’re out!

The Finish Line:

I had forgotten about the brief MC switch in this one, and Jungkook’s nerves were very cute, as was the way that Jin realized that he needed to step back in, even if he really wants that computer. Jin is a truly excellent MC, which is a real skill, and it was nice to see that come across in real time even if they were very sweet to their small Jungkook lad.

What I hadn’t forgotten were those nonsense questions, and how mad it made everyone especially Yoongi. Jin was having a FANTASTIC time fucking with them, and they could do nothing but sit there and take it, both because he was the MC and because he’s the oldest. It’s the sort of total control we don’t see from Jin all that often, because he is a very nice guy, but in Run BTS nice guys often turn capricious…

Part 2 has a truly iconic moment in it, and if you know you know, so I look forward to seeing that blossom forth on my screen for the 50th time, as I’ve watched that section a LOT in my days…