Running Man Mission: Impossible

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Episode 95:
Location: Seoul (various locations).
Cameos: Sistar (Hyorin, Dasom, Soyu, Bora), 4 members of MBLAQ (Lee Joon, G.O, Thunder, Seungho) and Manchester United soccer player Park Ji Sung.
Episode (joke) mission: Seven former secret agents of "R" agency, who have been living out anonymous civilian lives, are recalled by the agency to complete a new mission.
Jegi-dong market impossible mission: Running Men are given 3 contact passwords-responses ("bird-chirp chirp", "chicken-cluck cluck", "giraffe-betray betray"). In disguise, they must find the "8th Running Man member" within one hour by finding the shop owner in the area who can give all 3 proper responses to the passwords. If a member of the public out on the streets recognizes them and calls out their name or if 5 members of the public recognize them and follow them, then they're out for the round.
Myongji University impossible mission: With all of their feet tied together, the Running Men must capture and tear the nametag off of the "9th Running Man member" within 40 minutes. In 10 minute increments, they are unbound in groups. (NB: the English translation of Haha's "dissipation" perhaps should be Haha's "disposition").
Sangam-dong impossible mission: Protect Ji Hyo from getting her nametag sprayed with water by assassins waiting along a route in a Sangam-dong neighborhood that the Running Men must cross, at the end of which Ji Hyo must score a goal with the soccer ball with which she's entrusted to obtain the "10th Running Man member".
Pantech office building (Sangam-dong) mission: Out of six briefcases obtained in the previous missions and distributed among the members, three contain clues which must be used in conjunction with each other (they don't know that) to find the final destination of the "11th Running Man member", but only one member can win. 
Comments: The "nth Running Man member" are not people, just indications of completing the mission.
- Despite the high profile of the cameos, they're not really "guests" participating in the episode, and are more just special appearances as foils for the Running Man missions. Lee Joon and Hyorin's second appearances. The caption "It's War" during MBLAQ's segment is a double entendre referring to going to battle against the Running Men as well as to their song from early 2012. Lee Joon is reputed to be a bit absent-minded and clumsy and ... does nothing to refute that.
- It looks like the final segment was shot at 9 AM on May 20, the same day as the broadcast for this episode. If so, they would have had to rush the introductory footage, including preview clips from principal shooting for the next episode, back to the studio and edit it and combine it with the rest of the show, presumably shot the previous Monday, ending with the winner walking through the door, in time for the 6:10 PM broadcast! And, of course, they would've been instructed to remember to wear the exact same clothes.
- The satellite pictures in this episode of the locations are more recent than the ones on Google maps, which show a lot of construction sites in Sangam-dong. The playground where Ji Hyo has to complete the Sangam-dong mission is across the street to the southwest from the Pantech building.

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Episode 96: part one
Location: (May 20) Park Ji Sung Youth Soccer Center, Suwon; (May 21) Incheon.
Guests: Park Ji Sung (soccer player (footballer)), IU (singer).
Super power soccer game: Park Ji Sung chooses one person to be on his team versus Jong Kook and everyone else. Everyone except Park Ji Sung gets a super power. Gary has a lot of balls. Ji Hyo can handle balls 10 seconds at a time. Haha can get high during the game. Jae Suk can turn fans on. Jong Kook can eliminate anyone on his own team who is awkward, and big . . . like him. Suk Jin can make the goal go both ways. Gwang Soo makes the other team freeze up (for 30 seconds, one time per half). IU is joined by 5 men (one time per half).
Race mission (Incheon Complex Fish Market): In teams (green Park Ji Sung-Jae Suk-Jong Kook; blue IU-Haha-Gary; white Ji Hyo-Suk Jin-Gwang Soo), drive to the fish market and have a meal at a restaurant with their crews. Afterwards they are told they have to sell as much seafood at stalls in the market equal to how much they and their crews ordered. Receive money cases in order of completion.
Tug of war tournament (University of Incheon, Songdo-dong): Drive to the university, find three people wearing the same color as their team to assist them in a tug-of-war competition. The first to form a team and arrive at the Running Man banner goes straight to the final round. The following teams compete in the semi-final round. Receive money cases in order of standings.
Comments: IU's third appearance. The joke about her super power is that she is reputed to have a lot of middle-aged "samchon" (uncle) fans. The super powers, of course, are in reference to the ep. 74 Running Man Battle Royale #2, where they were all given "super powers". The day one Suwon shoot was finished by around noon, judging by the length of the game and the angle of the sun, so it seems the production team had the entire afternoon to edit footage for the conclusion of the previous week's episode. No wonder Gary's still single; complains about Jessica, gets frustrated with Hyomin, makes Krystal feel bad for eating, and now nails IU with a soccer ball (and he later whacks Gwang Soo right in the nuts, so you know he has good aim!). He's a good rapper, but, geez, got some women issues (j/k). And sorry about the super power descriptions, hope I didn't offend anyone in more conservative countries. But the super powers were rather ridiculous and trying to describe them seriously was turning out to be really dry. Part of what makes that segment funny is that they all can't stop laughing at how ridiculous the super powers are.

Asian Dream Cup 2012

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Episode 97: part 2
May 21: continued directly from previous episode shoot.
Location: Posco building, Incheon.
Guests: Park Ji Sung, IU.
Race mission: Find the final race mission hidden under someone's nametag. Hints around the building point to who it is.
Find the Spy: Eliminate the spy by tearing off nametag. Spy can recruit one other person and must eliminate everyone else to win.
Comments: The money prizes in Thai baht were kinda red herrings as they have nothing to do with any missions in Thailand, aside from the money being donated there. I don't understand how Ji Hyo is "single". Maybe in Korea as long as you're not married, you're considered single? (correction from comments: the clue says or suggests "not married").

May 22, 23:
Location: Bangkok, Thailand.
Guests: Park Ji Sung; cameos: Jung Dae Sae, Rio Ferdinand (soccer players), Song Joong Ki; Jae Suk absent.
Episode mission: Survive the elimination rounds to participate in the Asian Dream Cup charity soccer friendly between Park Ji Sung & Friends vs. Thailand All-Star teams. Two Running Men will participate.
VJ arm-wrestling elimination round (Chatrium Hotel): Running Man members' VJs arm-wrestle to determine who is eliminated. Member of the losing VJ is eliminated.
Find the Item elimination round (Wang Lang market): Find the item, whose name is given in Thai, in the market and buy it. Last place is eliminated.
Retrieve the ball elimination round (Vachirabenjatas Park): Park Ji Sung kicks 3 signed soccer balls, the member who is unable to retrieve one is eliminated.
Red card nametag elimination round (Thunder Dome Football Park): The first person that Jung Dae Sae rips off both nametag and yellow card nametag is eliminated. The 2 survivors get to play in the Asian Dream Cup game.
Comments: The Asian Dream Cup was established by Park Ji Sung's JS Foundation to promote soccer and support youth soccer talent in Southeast Asia. This is the second Asian Dream Cup, the previous year was in Saigon, Vietnam. The "Friends" of the Park Ji Sung & Friends team include Park Ji Sung's pro soccer friends, but he taps the popularity of Hallyu stars to help promote the charity. Good man, supporting youth in Korea and Southeast Asia with what he knows and does best.
- LeeSsang's 8th album "Unplugged" was released on May 25, and several tracks are used as BGM in this and the previous episode, along with the usual LeeSsang songs used when Gary is on-screen. Which reminds me, IU also released her single "Spring of a Twenty Year Old" on May 11 and the track Every End of the Day was used as BGM in ep. 96.
- Song Joongki's connection to soccer was established in ep. 2, when it is mentioned pro soccer player Jung Sung Ryeol coached in Joongki's amateur soccer club.
- Confirmed: the Running Man crew have an opticopter (sometimes called an octocopter for its 8 propellers), seen flying overhead in the hotel segment right after Park Ji Sung enters, but only footage over the Chao Phraya (NB: another translation error, the Chao Phraya is a river, not a lake) and Vachirabenjatas Park is used.
- After shooting 100 episodes, the producers chose the Park Ji Sung episodes as among their top 7 favorite episodes.

Running Man Zombie Apocalypse!!

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Episode 98:
Location: Incheon, Muuido island.
Race mission (Jayu (Freedom) Park): With an introductory pretext that students of "Running Man High School" are on a field trip, each member chooses an individual mission to complete in the park and then return to the General MacArthur statue. The first two to arrive will receive gift certificates. Four members receive secret items from mysterious schoolgirls.
Race mission (Muuido island): Find the hidden quiz questions with "R" stickers. The first two to answer the quiz questions get gift certificates. Remaining members receive secret items from mysterious schoolgirls.  
Zombie Spy mission (Tesco Homeplus Training Academy, Muuido): With the Running Men deceived into thinking they're hunting for treasure on a high school field trip, the zombie spy mission starts. Zombie spy rips off nametags to create more zombies. Surviving Running Men must use the secret items to locate water guns and a special liquid to eliminate zombies by spraying their nametags.
Comments: The Jayu Park mission and winning gift certificates are red herrings and have nuthin' to do with nuthin'!
- The Muuido mission's "finding the quiz questions" and gift certificate prizes are also red herrings and have nuthin' to do with nuthin'. They don't even bother showing any of the mission being done and even the mission instructions are cut off and are only recognizable from incidental dialogue as being the same as a mission in ep. 80. In the final edit for broadcast, the scenes look like they were staged just for the remaining members to receive secret items (otherwise how did the schoolgirls know where those remaining members would go?). Jong Kook recognizes their Muuido destination from having approached the same ferry recently in ep. 92. Muuido is hardly "uninhabited", and indicating it as such in the captions and by the PD is nonsensical and inane, which completely fits the episode's horror movie artifice.
- Ji Hyo first danced to 4minute's "Hot Issue" when she guested on Family Outing season one (Jae Suk and Jong Kook were cast members on that show, too), eps. 58 and 59, August 2009.
- The show looping on the TV monitors is the broadcast of the SBS show "You and I" hosted by Lee Hyori (ep. 1 guest) and Jung Jae Hyung (eps. 88, 89 guest) with guest Baek Ji Young among others, aired the day before this Running Man shoot.
- The instructions for eliminating the zombies, according to the water guns, are that the zombies' nametags also must be torn off after being sprayed. Apparently the zombies weren't given this memo, as they all just roll over and let their nametags be removed.
- The concept of the high school field trip morphing into a zombie apocalypse scenario follows a generic bad horror movie template, but the high school field trip pretext is completely discarded by the final mission. The high school personas for the Running Men are mostly immediately discarded, although it may have been funny if they tried to stay in character.
- Jong Kook mentions the "Incheon landing operation", which was a successful strategic operation early in the Korean War by General MacArthur that led to re-capturing Seoul from the North Koreans and prevented them from winning the conflict outright.

Kings Race

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Episode 99:
Location: Seoul (various locations).
Guests: Im Ho, Lee Tae Gon (actors who have played kings).
Team choosing (mostly edited out): Kings each choose two servants, the three not chosen form their own country (Gon kingdom (green): Lee Tae Gon-Jae Suk-Haha; Ho kingdom (red): Im Ho-Jong Kook-Gwang Soo; Song kingdom (dark blue): Ji Hyo-Gary-Suk Jin).
Territory conquering race: Conquer as many of 9 territories as possible by completing challenges in each territory. Only one team can win each territory: (hair salon comb wrestling challenge: for 5 seconds, resist the mixed martial arts PD from moussing their hair into a 2:8 part, two out of three members must succeed to win the territory; bookstore challenge: completely edited out; cafe cat challenge: persuade the cafe's resident cat to climb onto their laps, all four paws must be off the ground; traditional-style restaurant challenge: one member must describe a certain dish by taste while eating it and the other two must guess what it is; art gallery challenge: speed drawing relay; convenience market challenge: two members lift up the third member who eats a popsicle and then must throw the stick into a bin from a distance; guest house rooftop challenge: multiplication quiz (answer 5 equations in 30 seconds while getting water slaps for wrong answers); noodle house challenge: unexplained and mostly edited out; laundry rooftop challenge: the two servants start by jumping rope together and the king must enter separately and all must successfully skip rope 5 times.
Unification elimination: Each team places the territories it has won under the nametags of members of their choice. Tear off nametags to acquire other teams' territories.
Comments: The MMA PD also appeared in ep. 90 in the Jungle Mouse race. Ji Hyo is wearing a bead bracelet commonly worn by Buddhists (not implying anything, just sayin'). Brilliant Detective Jong Kook's power of deduction is so keen that he knows when what he's deducing doesn't make sense and needs more thought to balance logic, evidence and what he wants to believe (NB: "what he wants to believe" has the lowest priority). Jae Suk's not too bad, either, considering Jong Kook was lecturing him about the art of deduction in the previous episode. There is some questionable confusion over whether the spy mission subverts the unification mission with the focus on the spy mission superceding the unification mission and whose territories go to whom, but I think the mission design actually does hold up and the spy mission works perfectly fine with the unification mission.