I've written numerous What Would You Do tribute stories, envisioning a spinoff where a wilder version of the show somehow finds its way to late night TV. This is the latest installment, the full version of which you can find on my Patreon (patreon.com/hooliham) in both female and male variants. I hope you'll consider becoming a patron today -- it's only $3/month!

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"Do you smell that?"

It was a bright, sunny early afternoon in Daytona Beach, Florida, and the start of the long Memorial Day weekend. The air was warm and full of possibility. The days were getting longer, the temperatures getting warmer. It was also Day 1 of the inaugural Life's a Beach Festival, a 4-day music festival which would bring over 100 artists to perform on stages built right on the sand.

Festivalgoers were encouraged to camp on the beach, and the beachfront was set up to accommodate them: just off the festival grounds sat a temporary campground where visitors could set up tents, allowing them to attend without spending exorbitant amounts on beachfront hotel rooms, all of which inflated prices just for the festival. All the better for the organizers to vacuum up that money instead, redirecting it from Hilton, Sheraton, or the Shellfish Motor Inn toward their own overpriced food, drinks, and merchandise.

Families and festivalgoers alike shared the boardwalk on this Friday midday hot dogs, sodas, ice creams in hand when they caught a whiff of spoiled milk and sugar. Some scrunched up their faces. They looked at each other. They looked around. Then, they spotted them: the cause of that rank odor and the accompanying question.

Four college girls trudging down the boardwalk, as if in a trance. A couple were dressed in shapeless, oversized T-shirts that they clearly just got; another was in an American flag bikini that looked like it had been through a war; and the last in a matching outfit that used to be pristine white, but now was stained in all kinds of colors above her chest and all over her butt. And it looks like it's is that duct tape holding it together?

And that was just their clothes. Their faces had remnants of gooey substances all over them, smears of green, white, blue, and others. Their hair was all knotted, mangled, and matted to their backs. They all looked in desperate need of a shower, and seemed both embarrassed and dejected to be out in public looking like this.

[Four hours earlier]

Just after 9am, the girls parked their overstuffed Kia Soul at the campground parking lot, having just completed a 23-hour drive that took 2.5 days to complete. They were all 20-year-old members of the Omega Delta sorority, about to be seniors at the University of Minnesota, and in fact drove straight from Minneapolis, their shoestring college budgets leaving them no choice but to hit the open road. They were both bleary-eyed and enervated, prepared to rough it for four days and three nights in nothing but a small camping spot. Still, they were ready to make this a weekend to remember.

With a few hours to kill before the first artists hit the stage, the girls decided to kill time on the boardwalk. Three of them were content to just wear what they wore to bed last night, but for Bea, the overachiever in the group, her rumpled pajamas wouldn't do.

For someone who worked hard on sculpting her muscular body mostly by rock climbing at least thrice a week she wasn't about to be seen wearing any old thing.

Despite the cramped quarters of the backseat, Bea transformed in an instant, straightening her messy brown hair trading a ratty pair of running shorts and a standard issue U of M t-shirt for something much more attention-grabbing: an American flag-patterned tube top bikini, which she covered with a black v-neck tank top, enough to show off a lot of boobs and her rock hard abs; and a matching red and white striped bikini bottom, which she covered with a black mini-skirt and fishnet stockings. All this barely covered her shapely butt, acquired through some combination of her Puerto Rican heritage and her relentlessness at the gym.

All the while, the other three girls killed time on Instagram, doing their best to ignore their high-maintenance bestie. They each did a perfunctory bit of their own makeup in a halfhearted attempt to match Bea, but apathy was the prevailing mood in the car after their long sojourn. Best to save their energy for the concert.

They only made it a couple of blocks when they saw it. On the marquee of one beachside building, a sign reading, "TV SHOW TAPING TODAY! WIN VIP PASSES TO L-A-B FEST!"

They ran to the ticket window to learn how to enter. A cheery attendant gave them each a wristband, and instructions to return at 11am.

Comedy Channel was an official festival sponsor, and were holding what amounted to a pre-fest party by shooting a new episode of their popular variety show, the rebooted What Would You Do. With VIP passes to all four days at stake, which entitled the holders to upgraded camping accommodations and prime viewing areas of the four stages, the line was down the boardwalk when the girls returned just before 11.

Luckily, the line moved quickly, and they found themselves seated in the fourth row center. They looked around at the opulent set with its wacky looking contraptions and bright colors and immediately felt transported back to the 80s. Or what they heard the 80s were like. With literally hundreds of people in the audience, they wondered how on earth they'd ever be the ones picked to get the VIP passes. Maybe this was a waste of time.

Just then, their seatmates, a couple of friendly-looking college guys, asked if they were here for the festival. They all started talking, and the guys revealed they were students at the nearby University of Central Florida. It turned out their campsites were near each other's, so they pledged to hang out throughout the weekend. One of the men asked if any of them had seen the show before.

"Never!" one of them replied. "We're just here for a good time."

One of the guys snickered. A bunch of marks, these four. "Well," he said, "It gets pretty nutty. If you get picked, be prepared for just about anything."

Before one of them could ask what he meant, a stagehand called for applause, and the famous What Would You Do theme song began playing. Just a few seconds later, host Marc Summers skipped out on stage under a bed of cheers.

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to What Would You Do, how are we doing today?"

The crowd let out a roar, surprising the veteran host.

"Wow, a lot of energy in our studio today, thank you so very much!"

"And it's no wonder why! We here at the Comedy Channel are excited to be partners of the first-ever Life's a Beach Festival! By round of applause, who is here for the festival, huh?"

More big energy. Pretty much everyone is here for one purpose: getting their hands on those VIP passes.

"And we've got a special giveaway for some lucky people today. Who here wants some VIP passes?"

The ensuing sound could only be described as Taylor Swift tweeting she was at the local Target.

"Well, that's what we like to hear!" Marc exclaims. "I wanna play a game with some lucky audience members, with the winners taking home a set of these VIP passes. I've got a question for everybody. Who here drove from the furthest away? Not flown, drove?"

Countless hands reach for the sky to get Marc's attention. Groups of people shout their origins, and as Marc scans the crowd, he notices just how uniquely everyone is dressed. People have turned up in all kinds of flashy, colorful, skimpy festival wear.

It's a dead giveaway. No one who drove from far and wide would have enough energy to put themselves together the way most of these people did. Frauds, Marc thinks to himself. He surmises the furthest most of these people drove was from the Enterprise Rent-A-Car counter at the Orlando airport.

But then he spots a group of four guys dressed in sports jerseys. He points his microphone at a guy in a Space Jam Toon Squad jersey and asks where they're from.

"Tempe, Arizona!" the boy says. "We go to Arizona State, go Sun Devils!"

Marc is impressed; a trip from Arizona to the edge of the Atlantic Ocean is no small feat. The crowd cheers in envy as Marc invites them up on stage to play.

"Now I'm looking for a group of women, any women from far away with us today?"

The cheers turn to shrieks as the disappointed hands of all the male volunteers recede, leaving only the overenthusiastic, overcaffeinated women to make noise. Again, Marc looks for the most plain looking group he can find, and sees one slender girl wearing all white with her arm ramrod straight up. To the surprise of her friends, he makes a beeline right for her.

"What's your name, and where are you from?"

"I'm Lizzie, and me and my three girlies just drove in from Minneapolis!"

"Minnesota, terrific!" Marc says. "In that case, would you four please join me as well?"

The girls are all in shock. Of the hundreds of people in this audience, they were handpicked for the chance to win the coveted VIP passes. It was a long, long three days. They felt they deserved them, and that Marc was just in finding and rewarding them.

Not one of them recalled that vague warning. If you get picked, be prepared for just about anything.

Turns out there was a reason Marc sought the most fatigued folks from the audience, the ones who came from the furthest away. For one, a long road trip meant their minds wouldn't be at 100%, which played right into his game. For another, he figured they probably had to squeeze themselves and four days of supplies into some tight little sedan, and likely didn't bring enough spare changes of clothes to compensate for what this game involved.

Perfect for his sinister intentions.

The eight contestants assembled into two teams on stage, where they were met with a giant 3x3 tic-tac-toe-like board. The What Would You Do logo was in the center square, with the words Mystery Board and numerous question marks in the margin above the squares. The squares themselves are numbered 1 through 8.

Marc joined the two groups on stage. He approached the guys first, asking them to introduce themselves.

Ricky is Mexican-American, 5'10" and toned with tan skin and close cropped dark brown hair. He was the one sporting the Toon Squad jersey. He paired it with maroon and gold basketball shorts with the Arizona State trident logo on them.
Charlie pandered to the area by wearing a pink and black Inter Miami jersey with Lionel Messi's name and #10 on the back, with light blue denim jeans. He looked every bit a soccer player, shorter and more slender with a well-built lower half.
Jason is jacked, Italian-American and introduced himself with a strong, borderline grating Staten Island accent. He further cemented his bro-y look by parting his hair to one side and holding it in place with hair gel. He looked like he just finished a workout at the outdoor gym on the beach, what with his royal blue skintight tank top with the Superman logo on it, his slim fit running shorts falling gently on his muscular thighs. He was a walking stereotype.
And finally, Ben, a striking 6'4" with a blonde ponytail and pecs for days beneath his unbuttoned baseball-style button-down shirt. Like Jason, Ben's thighs were basically popping out of his jorts. Though he was an international student from Sweden, Ben had quickly assimilated to Arizona State's hard-partying reputation. This transformation made him basically fearless.

After they introduced themselves but before Marc could walk away to let the girls introduce themselves, Jason grabbed the microphone. He growled, "And we're frat brothers in Pi Delta Alpha! P-D-A, baby, let's goooooo!!!"

Tepid applause greeted their introductions. These guys were already tough to take.

The attention shifted to the women.

Lizzie is a member of the school dance team and had the slim, ballerina-type body to prove it. She was cute as hell with long dirty blond hair and oversized gold-framed eyeglasses, but she contrasted that with an outfit that showed off her fit body: a white cropped 3/4-sleeve shirt and matching white leggings, which covered a skimpy white and blue striped bikini top and a matching thong underneath.
Nicole is somewhere between a blonde and a redhead; she, too, is very in shape, 5'5" with a runner's build and with much less on than Lizzie: all she wore was a sky blue sports bra, tie-dyed white and sky blue short bike shorts that accentuated her big butt and powerful glutes, and a pair of running shoes.
Maddie was the Barbie of the group, blonde hair, blue eyes, and a petite build. She wore a pink bralette underneath a magenta cropped hoodie, pink yoga pants covering her long legs. She even had pink nails to match her outfit.
Of course, in her American flag bikini, black crop top, skirt, and stockings, Bea was the most put-together of the group, totally oblivious of what might happen to her carefully curated outfit. Otherwise, she probably wouldn't have had a mile-wide smile as she introduced herself and gave the camera a sultry pose as she brushed her wavy dark brown hair back behind her ears.

For their part, before Marc could explain the game, Lizzie made an attempt to one-up Jason, grabbing the microphone and squealing, "and not only are we members of Omega Delta stand up O-Delts! but it's also my birthdayyy!!"

Lizzie had always been the ringleader of the group, for better or worse. She rallied everyone's interest in the festival, engineered the road trip, and, of course, was the reason they were on stage right now. It was at this moment that Nicole suddenly remembered seeing GIFs on Twitter of contestants on this show being turned into memes. The one she recalled in particular featured one girl in a dunk tank, plunging 15 terrifying feet into a vat of pie cream. Suddenly, she didn't want to play anymore. Her daydream/nightmare was interrupted by Marc, addressing her directly as he introduced the game the four girls and four boys were about to play.

"Nicole," Marc said, "Are you in Florida, or in la la land?"

The audience chuckled. Nicole shook herself out of her stupor and asked, "Sorry, what was the question again?"

"I said, how well do you think you know the lineup to this year's Life's a Beach Festival?"

"Pretty good, I think!"

"Excellent," Marc replied. "Because that's the premise of our first game today.

"We've got four of you on each team, and one team is walking away with some VIP passes to the festival, while the other will walk away with absolutely nothing.

"Or maybe not nothing, but I'll tell you what, it won't be VIP passes," Marc said in a sinister voice.

"Here's how it's gonna work. It's very simple. There are four of you on each team, and there are four days of the music festival. So you'll each be given one day of the festival, and you're gonna go head-to-head against a member of the other team, with each of you naming artists performing on that day, until one of you can't, or until one of you gives me an incorrect answer.

"Now you have to name artists only on your specific day. So if you're assigned Friday, you tell me Ariana Grande well, she's playing Sunday, so you would lose the round, okay? Any questions?"

Marc is met with mostly smiles, head nods, and shakes of the head. He proceeds.

"Now you might be wondering about our Mystery Board here" Marc gestures at the tic tac toe board that had already been on stage "Whoever loses each round is going to pick a square from this board, and I can assure you, you don't want to be picking from this board.

"Robin, can you show them why?

Right on cue, Marc's longtime assistant appears from offstage, wheeling out what's becoming the most dreaded set piece for any participant on the show. The audience, many of whom had never seen the show and so were unfamiliar with the ritual faux executions that took place, began to yell ohhhhs and whoaaas, with a few incredulous laughs mixed in. The few who were familiar with the show immediately break into applause, as they know this is the part where the messy ammo comes out.

And sure enough, a bakery cart as tall as Robin makes its way onstage, stacked high with full racks of gigantic cream pies, several sheet cakes, and even what can only be described as an industrial strength water gun, connected by a plastic line to a very large bucket with a lid on it.

Both teams are beside themselves. Some of the boys turn away, some chuckle. Lizzie throws her hands up to the sky in exasperation, figuring her white outfit may not stay white for long, while the others simply cover their shocked mouths with their hands.

Marc stretches his arms out and pushes them downward in an attempt to regain control of the crowd. They oblige.

"That's right, guys," he says. "The loser of each round will pick a square, and you'll have to do whatever it says. Some of the penalties could be for you, could be for you and a friend, or they could be for your entire team. Each square has a certain number of skulls on it. However many you see, that's how many people have to take the penalty. So that means even if it's not your turn, if your teammate loses, YOU could be punished!

"Or, and this is the silver lining they could be reversed, meaning your opponents have to take the penalty!"

More ohhhs and applause from the crowd. Everybody loves a good swerve. Anything could happen to anyone at any time! It's anarchy!

"There are eight squares on the board, and one of them says 'Game Over'. Whichever team picks that square loses the game, giving the VIP passes to their opponents and earning every member of their team a trip to one of our world-famous pie devices you see around our studio!"

The audience erupts again. As has become de rigueur on the show, not only are contestants at risk of getting messy in the actual game, they'll get finished off at one of the Saw-like contraptions ringing the studio.

The combo Pie Pod/Pie Slide combo named The Torture Machine. The Pie Coaster. The Pie Slide. The Dunk Tank. The Human Fondue. The Cruci-Pied. Usually only one or two of them would get activated each show, but this crowd would be treated to four of them.

Marc hears a squeal come from the girls' side off-mic. "I'm sorry, what was that, miss?"

"I don't wanna play anymore!" Bea says. She spent all that time in the car making herself look perfect. Some silly VIP passes weren't worth it for all of this. It wasn't even her idea! Lizzie was the one who raised her hand!

"I'm sorry Bea, that's just not an option! But if you want, we can just send YOU to the Dunk Tank and get this over with!"

"No!" she barks. She crosses her arms and stomps her right foot in protest.

"That's what I thought," Marc says condescendingly. His true nature is starting to emerge.

"Think of it this way," he continued. "You don't even need to have encyclopedic knowledge of this festival. You just have to not be the one to pick the Game Over square!

"Everybody good? What do you say, audience, are we ready to play this game?"

They're absolutely feral. Based only on the obnoxious way the guys introduced themselves and their overall bro-y look, they seemed to be on the women's side, but the girls were all so hot, it'd be a shame to not see them get absolutely demolished. Even if they weren't as outwardly grating as the guys, they each seemed like the kind of girl you'd try to approach at a party, but the others would box you out before you got the chance to even so much as say hi to the one you were attracted to.

"Lizzie and Ricky, can you join me up front here, please?"

Lizzie looked radiant in her bright white body hugging shirt and yoga pants, while Ricky looked like he just threw on the first thing he grabbed from his duffel bag. He offered his outstretched hand, and she shook it.

"Aww, a little sportsmanship, Marc said, mildly surprised by the gesture. "Great job, you two."

What Marc didn't see was Ricky winking at Lizzie, overtly coming onto her. What Marc didn't feel was Ricky's handshake, so hard that Lizzie pulled away, feeling like her hand was about to get crushed. The combination of these two things turned her off immediately. Was this psychological warfare?

"Lizzie, ladies first. Here we go with Round 1. On your mark. Get set. Go!"

A thumping dance beat started to play as each of them began reciting names as best they could.

Her: "Billie Eilish."
Him: "Diplo."
Her: "Portugal. The Man."
Him: "Noah Kahan."
Her: "Um" She still feels the tingling of Ricky's handshake, and it's distracting her. "Carly Rae Jepsen."
Him: "Key Glock."
Her: "Uh um"
Marc: "Need an answer, Lizzie. 3 seconds."
Her: "The 1975?"

BUZZ.

"Oh no!" Marc says. "I'm sorry, The 1975 is performing Friday, not Thursday!"

OHHHH goes the audience.

Lizzie clenches her teeth and both fists, while Ricky punches the air and yells, "YEAH, BRO! LET'S GOOOO!" He daps up each of his teammates. The girls are immediately put off by his excessive reaction.

Marc says. "Lizzie, I'm gonna need a number from our Mystery Board. 1 through 8, what's it gonna be?"

"I guess, I dunno number 4?"

"Everybody, can we get a slow clap going?" Marc asked.

The crowd obliged as Robin slowly approached the board. Lizzie clasped her hands together at her mouth as if in prayer. The claps became faster and faster. Robin gripped the velcro number, and slowly, agonizingly, pulled in back.

The crowd roared as a camera zoomed in and the screens above the studio revealed the result.

CAKE IN THE FACE! With one skull: the spotlight will be solely on Lizzie.

Lizzie is heard off-mic shrieking "Oh my God!"

Ricky rubs his hands together, a sinister smile on his face as Robin delicately hands him a 13" by 18" sheet cake decorated with a red, white, and blue American flag for the holiday. As always, the cakes look less like cakes and more like vehicles for massive amounts of colorful whipped frosting, designed to do maximum damage to the hair, clothes, and especially the face of its recipient.

Except Lizzie won't go down without a fight.

"I'm sorry, what's that?"

"I said, you wouldn't cake a girl with glasses, would you?"

Marc considers this for a moment. His eyes open wide when the idea comes to him. He calls an audible.

"You know what, you're right, Lizzie. We'll let your face off the hook this time."

She is seen mouthing thank you.

"Now turn around," Marc commands.

More rapturous cheers. The crowd senses where this is going.

Lizzie protests some more, but her complaints fall on deaf ears. Robin is heard saying, you heard him, honey, let's see that butt! She takes her by the shoulders and turns her to face the crowd, her rear end in plain view of the cameras.

Another wide smile creeps across Ricky's face. He stares long and hard at Lizzie's small but shapely ass, thinking of all the things he might do to it if given the chance. He knows what he's supposed to do.

"Ricky, I want you to show Lizzie what happens when you try to weasel your way out of a penalty on this show.

Then, Marc twists the knife on his victim.

"Lizzie, wow, this cake is look at this thing, it's red, white, blue. And that's such a beautiful white outfit you've got on. Any last words before we add some color to it?"

"Please, I don't want this!"

Marc is unmoved. "On the count of three, audience, let's give Lizzie what she deserves!"

ONE! TWO! THREE!

BLOOK! A silly sound effect plays as Ricky grips the dancer at the waist with his left hand and doesn't hold back with his right. Lizzie screams as she feels the cake slam hard into her butt, with such force that she shuffles forward several steps. Her pristine white leggings are instantly ruined under a slurry of gaudy colors. Her butt, upper thighs and exposed lower back are absolutely smothered. Chunks of cake tumble down her legs, leaving more stains on her calves and at her feet.

The crowd loves it.

And still, Marc doesn't move on. "Now Lizzie, I understand you're on the school dance team. Would you care to do a move for us?"

Just wanting the cameras and the attention to finally shift to someone else, she obliges. She bends her knees, swings her arms behind her, and pushes off the ground, completing a backflip with ease, even as globs of cake fly off her body. She looks over at her friends, who are applauding her even as they look pained as they see her go through this.

Except it's about to get worse.

"That was really impressive!" Marc says. "Thank you for that! You know what, I've got a reward for you, Lizzie. Wanna know what it is?"

She eyes him warily.

"Bring me another cake please. Can we get another cake?"

The cameras catch Lizzie as she falls into an exasperated squat. But they quickly shift, as coming out from behind the cameras is a very special guest. Is that?

"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome festival performer and world-famous DJ, Steve Aoki!"

The man known as much for caking audience members at his shows as he is for his DJ-ing comes out with his right hand waving, amping up the crowd, another sheet cake in his left hand.

"Lizzie," Marc says, "I know it's your birthday, and what's a birthday if we don't have some cake to give you?"

Lizzie is back on her feet, but her shoulders drop and her face shows the defeat she feels.

Marc takes her glasses and prepares the crowd to see her get caked a second time. Cheers rise as a snippet of his song "Cake Face" plays, louder and louder, as if reaching a crescendo. It's the build-up to the song's world-famous drop.

Marc yells over the song. "Steve, when the beat drops, do your thing!"

The crowd claps to the song. It plays louder and louder, the studio lights dancing along with it. The tension rises, rises some more, until finally

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