Taiwanese Variety Shows: From *Group Star Meeting* to *Kangxi Lai Le*—A Social Stage

Taiwanese Variety Shows: The Social Stage From Group Star Meeting to Kangxi Lai Le

30-Second Overview: In 1962, Shen Zhi (慎芝) and Guan Hua Shi (關華石) brought performances that belonged to radio and cabarets into the newly launched T.V. studio; thus, Group Star Meeting became the first singing variety show in Taiwanese television history. Over thirty years later, after cable channels opened, Taiwanese variety shows entered a boom period, from Link Cannon (連環炮) and Super Sunday to Kangxi Lai Le. They not only manufactured stars but also shaped the way an entire generation chatted, complained about, and understood public events. In the era of streaming and short videos, variety shows have not disappeared; they have simply transformed from a studio kingdom where "everything is a little bit of everything" into a discipline that is more segmented, harsher, and requires redefinition. ¹²³

After T.V. launched in 1962, it introduced Group Star Meeting, which allowed Shen Zhi and Guan Hua Shi to deliver performances—originally happening in aerial cabarets and live shows—steadily into every household television set for the first time. When T.V. later reviewed this history, it directly positioned Group Star Meeting as "the first singing variety show in Taiwanese television history"; it was not just a program but resembled the birth of a new grammar: singing, hosting, performing, and creating stars were all packaged into one media experience. ¹

This is why Taiwanese variety shows cannot simply be understood as "comedy programs." They were originally closer to a TV apparatus that bound together the stage, radio, local performances, the star industry, and daily family life. One could say it sold entertainment, but it simultaneously taught viewers how to recognize who was a star, who knew how to speak, what was appropriate, what was witty, and even what constituted "something Taiwanese people watched together." ¹⁴

If we were to find an counter-intuitive core sentence for this article, it would be: The most important function of Taiwanese variety shows has never been just to make people laugh, but to invent a way of speaking that allows different eras of Taiwan to coexist.

A Table to Understand at a Glance: Taiwanese Variety Shows Did Not Go Downhill, But Transformed

The key to early variety was not having abundant resources, but rather cramming almost all performance methods into a single time slot. T.V. data mentions that after Group Star Meeting, T.V. successively developed different types such as Happy Weekend, Cuidi Silver Zither, and Galaxy Palace: some sent the broadcast van out, some put interviews into singing programs, and some turned magnificent sets and dance troupes into a television spectacle. In other words, Taiwanese variety did not evolve linearly at first; it grew along lines of singing, short dramas, outdoor segments, and talk simultaneously. ¹

Research supplementing the context of early Taiwanese variety also points out that between the 1960s and 1980s, variety shows slowly moved from pure singing toward showmanship and multi-segmentation; hosts were no longer just announcers but had to be capable singers, conversationalists, joke-tellers, and mood-setters. This point seems natural today, but in the era when television was still a new medium, it redefined what "personality on TV" meant. ⁵

📝 Curator's Note: The most fascinating thing about Taiwanese variety is that it never sought to perfect one skill; instead, it mashed together many types of performance until the audience felt, "This is the hottest spot tonight."

From Group Star Meeting, Variety Learned Not Comedy, But Stardom Creation

T.V.'s description of Group Star Meeting is very interesting. It states that in an era before music awards existed, appearing on Group Star Meeting was like being "gold-plated"; the program aired for fifteen years, always live broadcast, with no karaoke or lip-syncing possible. This passage reveals two layers: first, variety shows were initially a mechanism for star certification; second, live-broadcast era variety relied heavily on the performer's genuine real-time ability. ¹

Because of this, Taiwanese variety was not purely an content industry from the beginning; it was also a machine that pushed people out. Who was seen, who dared to make mistakes, and who could carry the live segment directly determined whether they could become a true television star—from singers, actors, or show participants. This ability to create stars later extended to talent shows, hosting programs, talk shows, and reality shows, forming the underlying logic of the entire Taiwanese entertainment industry. ¹⁵

Interestingly, early variety was not completely unrestrained. T.V. specifically mentioned during its review of the 1960s that during the period of white terror, singing could not be random, and speaking could not be random; TV stations even had to intersperse designated songs according to regulations. This means that Taiwanese variety, from birth, lived in a contradictory environment: it was an outlet for popular entertainment yet was highly regulated. Later audiences often found variety best because it wasn't completely free, but because it always managed to sneak in some vitality within the constraints. ¹

The Golden Age After 1993: Taiwanese Variety Brought Society Inside the Studio

If the radio era taught variety how to create stars, then after the significant opening of cable channels in 1993, Taiwanese variety learned how to expand. A review by The News Lens calls this period the beginning of the golden age, listing a series of programs that are still memorable today: Link Cannon (1986), Super Sunday (1994), Guess Guess Guess (1996), Kangxi Lai Le (2004), and All-Out Slapstick (全民大悶鍋). These programs varied greatly, yet they all proved one thing: Taiwanese variety was no longer just moving singing and dancing to television; it could encode every kind of emotion from society into the program format. ⁴

Super Sunday mixed missing persons reports, short dramas, games, and live interaction into a large-scale emotional machine that only TV could produce; Guess Guess Guess turned youth, pop culture, and guessing into a weekend ritual; while Kangxi Lai Le transformed the studio talk show into a linguistic arena, where stars were not just promoting works but testing whether they could stand firm on the fine line between humiliation and humor. The moments when Taiwanese variety was truly brilliant were often like these: it looked chaotic, yet it captured the zeitgeist better than many serious programs. ⁴

This also explains why many people miss old-school Taiwanese shows—they don't just miss a specific host, but a social rhythm of "everyone watching the same thing on the weekend." Variety shows in that era played the role of a common language generator in the family living room. The next day at the office, at school, or while eating dinner, you always had something to follow up on. Today's short videos are also good at creating clips, but they rarely create that experience of simultaneous viewing across generations, regions, and lifestyles. ⁴

📝 Curator's Note: The real golden age was never about every program being rich; it was about everyone knowing what the audience watched the night before.

Why Taiwanese Variety Makes People Feel "The Old Days Were More Varied"

A reminder worth remembering comes from recent articles reviewing the history of Taiwanese variety shows. The article quotes Lu Jie (呂捷): "Today's Taiwanese variety cannot be called a variety show because variety should refer to 'comprehensive arts' or 'comprehensive skills,' not programs that all follow a single theme." ⁵ This statement is not just nostalgia; it points out the real structural change in Taiwanese variety.

What is meant by "the old days were more varied" is not that they were funnier, but that in one period, there might have been singing, dancing, interviews, impersonations, short dramas, and outdoor segments simultaneously, with the host having to connect these scattered elements into a continuous flow. The word variety originally implied mixing, splicing, and arranging; when programs gradually broke down into talk shows, quiz shows, reality shows, and travel shows, many programs naturally became more precise but retained less of that luxurious chaotic feeling of "a little bit of everything." ⁴⁵

From this perspective, the criticism that Taiwanese variety later became poor, conservative, or monotonous is not just a budget issue; it's because the program format itself narrowed. The News Lens analysis points out that after entering maturity, low-cost talk shows were mass-replicated, programs imitated each other, and while market competition was fierce, new ideas were increasingly lacking. This does not mean any specific show was worse, but rather that the entire industry began favoring formats that were lower risk, faster turnover, and easily replicable for the long term. ⁴

The Problem Was Never Just Lack of Money, But the Fear of Inventing New Formats

After the 2010s, "the decline of Taiwanese variety" became almost a consensus, but many diagnoses were too lazy, constantly blaming Korean variety shows, massive Chinese productions, or budget shortages, concluding that Taiwan was destined to lose. These are true parts, but not all. The real difficulty is that when TV stations were forced to pursue high cost-performance ratios (CP), the first thing sacrificed was often R&D capability: new segments, new performance methods, new hosting rhythms, and new post-production language all require time and trial and error, which are precisely the costs most easily cut. ⁴

In discussing this predicament, The News Lens quotes Lin Xinru (林心如) in a memorable way: "Every play doesn't need to be a massive production worth hundreds of millions; if you make sketches, focus on telling the story well and making the quality good, finding suitable actors to perform, things made with heart will definitely be felt by everyone." ⁴ Although she was talking about drama, it applies to variety shows. What Taiwanese variety often lost was not money, but the tenacity to turn limited resources into a unique format.

In other words, the problem was never "we don't have as much money as others," but rather "we still don't believe that small and refined things can develop their own style." The reason Link Cannon survived in its early days was not because it looked lavish, but because it invented sharp content using a very rustic format. This ability is actually rarer today than massive productions. ⁴

📝 Curator's Note: What makes variety shows truly expensive is often not the set design, but someone being willing to risk making something unfunny first, just to try a segment no one has ever done before.

But Taiwanese Variety Has Not Died; It Just Moved House

If we only look at traditional terrestrial or cable television, it's easy to reach an overly pessimistic conclusion: Taiwanese variety is over. However, the recent practices of public media remind us that variety may not disappear; it might just change platforms, themes, and pace. In 2021, when Public Television (PTS) promoted What Do You Know About Taiwan History? Lu Jie Says..., it directly defined it as a "web variety show" and placed it on the PTS+ platform; meaning that historical knowledge could be made into a web variety show episode of six minutes, rather than being confined to textbooks or documentaries. ³

Lu Jie stated very plainly in that PTS press release: "The political infighting in Taiwan is because people don't understand Taiwanese history; because they don't know the past, they cannot understand it; and if they cannot understand it, how can they reconcile?" ³ This statement resembles a new mission for Taiwanese variety after its transformation: it doesn't always have to serve stars; it can also serve understanding; it doesn't always have to be two hours on a weekend night; it can be condensed into a few minutes on a phone.

This cross-platforming is not accidental. The National Communications Commission (NCC)'s industry survey platform now lists "TV viewing behavior and perception," "online streaming video viewing behavior," and "residence viewing source and equipment usage" as a single set of observation frameworks. This official classification itself reveals reality: audiences no longer live on just one TV, and variety shows cannot define themselves solely by a single broadcast channel. ⁶

Looking at the Golden Bell Awards, Variety Has Always Been Part of the System

Variety is often said to be not sophisticated enough, but it has never been marginal in Taiwan. English materials from the Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development show that the Golden Bell Awards were established in 1965, originally focusing on radio, and began including television works after 1970. This means that Taiwanese society early on placed voices and visual content that influenced daily life into a formal cultural evaluation system. ²

This is worth mentioning because it reminds us: variety is not leftover entertainment outside of culture; it is an important part of the official history of Taiwanese television culture. It once created stars, once soothed, once mocked, and once helped viewers practice how to speak in awkward situations, and it also left behind its most unguarded colloquial expressions for an island. To view variety only as a ratings competition is to underestimate its place in the collective memory of Taiwan. ²⁴

So, Is Taiwanese Variety Still Needed Today?

The answer is probably not "to bring back the old style of Taiwanese variety unchanged," but rather to have someone re-answer: In an era where people no longer watch the same thing simultaneously, how can variety still create a sense of shared experience? Can it still take a previously cold topic and make it feel human again? Can it retain the ambition of "comprehensive arts"—bringing together different senses, different people, and different emotions—under conditions of limited budget, segmented audiences, and powerful platform algorithms?

If Group Star Meeting in 1962 was about bringing the cabaret into the living room, then today's Taiwanese variety might be about bringing Taiwan, which is scattered across various platforms, back to the same table. It doesn't have to look like Kangxi Lai Le, nor does it need to reach the scale of Super Sunday; but as long as it has the ability to make someone say, "Hey, did you see that yesterday?", Taiwanese variety is not over. ¹³⁶

Further Reading

• Lin Yu-chia (林宥嘉) /en/people/yoga-lin — The first champion of Super Star Road in 2007, one of the most representative cases of Taiwan's television talent creation mechanism
• Golden Bell Awards (金鐘獎) /culture/金鐘獎 — The award given annually at the program category ceremony for variety shows, evolving from a pure radio award in 1965 to three ceremonies today

References