2 Days & 1 Night

Although there were multiple member line-up changes through each season, 1 Night 2 Days has mostly kept its format. The cast members take various trips throughout South Korea, including many offshore islands. While doing so, members also perform missions at a certain mealtime or point of the day to earn rewards (ex. foods that are famous in the region they visit) and to avoid punishments (ex. going into the water). Guests can be invited not only by the production team but also by the members themselves if they meet the criteria of the episode's concept (ex. ep 396-399).

Before 2 Day 1 Night was first aired, it was preceded by Are You Ready which featured most of the 2 Day 1 Night members — Kang Ho-dong, Lee Soo-geun, Kim Jong-min, and Eun Jiwon. Are You Ready was canceled due to low viewership ratings and was replaced by 2 Day 1 Night after 12 episodes.

Singer and actor Lee Ji-hoon was offered to join the cast of 1 Night 2 Days but rejected the role to take a role on MBC drama New Heart instead.[4]

2 Day 1 Night premiered with cast members Kang Ho-dong, Lee Soo-geun, Kim Jong-min, Eun Jiwon, Noh Hong-chul, Ji Sang-ryul, and Sanggeun the dog mascot on August 5, 2007. The show later experienced a number of cast member changes.

Season 1 broadcast its final episode on February 26, 2012.

Season 2 premiered on March 4, 2012 with returning members Lee Soo-geun, Kim Jong-min, and Uhm Tae-woong, who were joined by new members Kim Seung-woo, Cha Tae-hyun, Sung Si-kyung, and Joo Won. Kim Seung-woo left the show in March 2013 to re-focus on his acting career. He was replaced by fellow actor Yoo Hae-jin.

On November 24, 2013 2 Day 1 Night Season 2 officially wrapped up season two with a final goodbye from the members. Similar to the show's signature opening in which the members gather together to introduce the episode, it was fitting to see the members gather one last time to bid farewell to its audience.

Season 3 of 2 Day 1 Night premiered on December 1, 2013, with returning members Cha Tae-hyun and Kim Jong-min and new members Kim Joon-ho, Kim Joo-hyuk, Jung Joon-young, and Defconn. As of November 22, 2015, Kim Joo-hyuk left the cast of season 3 on their two-year anniversary, as he filmed his last episodes on November 20 and 21.[5] Yoon Shi-yoon was then rumored to be in talks to join the show and officially became the new member in April 2016.[6]

On September 29, 2016, Jung Joon-young left the show due to his scandal.[7] (regarding a "sexual offence" charged by his former girlfriend, of which he was later cleared of), but on January 7, 2017, a production member confirmed that Joon-young will return to the show, already having recorded an episode the previous day (which was broadcast on January 15).

In 2018, the show received a Presidential Commendation from the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for the show's effort of promoting tourism since 2007.

On March 12, 2019 Jung Joon-Young was permanently removed[8] by the production team due to his[9] involvement in the Burning Sun scandal concerning non-consensual filming during sex and covert distribution of said illegal videos). As a result of that, KBS announced on March 15 that they are halting the production and broadcast of “2 Day 1 Night” until further announcement is made.[10] The chatroom exposé also affected members Cha Tae-hyun and Kim Jun-ho with allegations of golf gambling in large amounts, resulting in both of them quitting all their television programs, including 2 Days & 1 Night where they were cast members with Jung, with immediate effect.[11][12] This marks the abrupt end of Season 3, unlike the two previous seasons having traditional farewell episodes. This also marks the end of Defconn and Yoon Shi-yoon's run with the show.

On November 5, 2019 Season 4 of the show is confirmed, with Kim Jong-min returning, plus new members Yeon Jung-hoon, Moon Se-yoon, Kim Seon-ho, DinDin and Ravi (VIXX).[13] The members filmed the first show on November 12, 2019 with plans to air the first episode of the season on December 8, 2019.[14]

KBS Drama, KBS Joy has often aired re-runs of 1 Night 2 Days. U-KBS HERAT, a DMB, a digital radio transmission technology developed by South Korea, channel aired the show daily from Monday to Friday at 8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. and recorded the show as one of the "fun to watch" re-runs. KBS World, the international broadcasting service provided by KBS, also started airing English-subtitled episodes (usually 2–4 weeks after the original broadcast) of the show starting from Episode 35 titled as 2 Days and 1 Night.

With 1 Night 2 Days being well received, KBS Joy launched a "female version" of 1 Night 2 Days called 다녀오겠습니다. The first season aired between January 12, 2009 and April 29, 2009. The first season's members were gagwoman Kim Sook, Kim E-Z (former member of Baby V.O.X.), Jeong Jung-ah, Bronwyn Mullen (Afrikaaner ethnicity and member on Global Talk Show), Polina Lipina (Russian ethnicity and member on Global Talk Show), and Kim Ji Hye (member of Korean girl group Cats). Season 2 aired from June 3 to September 16, 2009 with two members from Season 1, Kim Sook and Kim E-Z, and new members, actress and singer Yoo Chae-yeong, movie actress Seo Young, gagwoman Kwon Jin-young, and Kang Ye-bin.

During the early days of 1 Night 2 Days, the show was heavily compared with SBS's Good Sunday's Family Outing and MBC's Infinite Challenge, particularly because Noh Hong-chul was part of both 1 Night 2 Days and Infinite Challenge (which aired on Sundays and Saturdays, respectively).[32] However, the concept of the three shows is different. The concept of 1 Night 2 Days is traveling on a trip with families and friends, while Infinite Challenge is a challenge-based variety program with 7 men competing in games.[33]

The episode which aired on July 6, 2008 gained a lot of criticism from viewers because of a smoking scene.[34] On their trip to Baekdusan, Korea, a scene of MC Mong smoking in the bus was not edited and was aired. In 2004, all 3 major broadcasting stations, KBS, MBC and SBS, agreed to prohibit smoking scenes being aired before midnight.[35] The variety program's directors made an official apology on July 7 for not properly editing the scene before airing the program and it will never occur again.[36][37] This also caused a craze among MC Mong's fans because he promised on another variety show a while back that he would quit smoking.

Viewers protested about the "violent scene" on episode 51, which aired July 20, 2008. The scene was a hidden prank of Kang Ho-dong and Kim C getting into an argument to fool the new director who had joined the show. The production team stated that the fight was not intentional and it left good memories.[38]

On episode 53, which aired August 3, 2008, viewers noticed a caption error when a local area in Inje, Gangwondo was incorrectly titled. Under protests from viewers, the production team posted an official apology on the Happy Sunday website.[39][40]

Another controversy was made on the September 19, 2008 episode, which was filmed during the Lotte Giants & Doosan Bears baseball game. One of the issues was that the staff occupied a large section of seats (50 seats) for the six members. The other issue was not allowing other ticket holders to get to their seats. The production team has explained that it was to protect the safety of the six members and they did not mean to stop people from getting to their seats.[41] The day the game was broadcast, SBS Sports said the visit of the 1 Night 2 Days team brought a positive mood to the people in Busan. On the other hand, MBC ESPN had negative remarks regarding the 1 Night 2 Days team.[42]

The next controversy was on the episode aired September 21, 2008. Scenes of Lee Soo-geun smoking in the village was caught on tape and aired.[43]

On the episode aired December 7, 2008, more drinking and smoking scenes appeared. It was deemed unsuitable for families watching the show with their children.[44]

More controversy surfaced after the airing of the March 15, 2009 episode. It was said that Kang Ho-dong had uttered the profanity "XX-bitch" in one of the scenes. But the production team denied that Kang Ho-dong had said such a thing on the show and that it was just noises during the car ride.[45]

Another controversy was when MC Mong's manager, Lee Heon-suk, said "육사시미", when it was more appropriate for him to say a similar saying that was of the Korean language.[46]

On the episode aired October 4, 2009, some of the members met the 1988 Summer Olympics opening ceremony ring-boy, Yoon Tae-woong during their hike in the mountains. Viewers wrote on the show's message board that "it was a set-up" and "how can it be a coincidence."[47]

Another controversy emerged when Lee Seung-gi was indirectly promoting beer he endorsed when he made his beer-can chicken on the episode aired November 11, 2009. Although the brand name was blurred at times, the name of the beer was still seen.[48]

The second subtitle controversy was on the episode that aired November 15, 2009. The production team made an apology on the message boards. As for the re-runs of this episode, the subtitles have been changed.

It was announced that on March 9, 2010, the cast and crew of 1 Night 2 Days will take a trip to Antarctica to visit the King Sejong Station. Viewers' opinions were mixed, with some thinking it will be a great experience while others think they should not go.[49] Nonetheless, the production team still had plans to leave on March 9 for the beginning of filming. A small group of the production team even left in February for Chile to prepare for the trip, but they had no choice but to leave and return to Korea after staying in Chile for a week. The reason was due to a blizzard that prevented them from taking a flight to Antarctica from Chile. The production crew had bought brand new HD cameras, lighting equipment and microphones to film the beauty of Antarctica and bring the best resolution to viewers. However, due to the 2010 Chile earthquake on February 27, the production crew had to search for alternate routes to get to Antarctica. Unfortunately, it was announced that the crew had decided to cancel their trip.[50][51]

On December 27, 2008 at the 2008 KBS Entertainment Awards, all six cast members were present at the award show and performed "No Matter What" by Park Sang-chul. The show took home five awards – Best Newcomer (Variety), Best Variety Show Writer, Top Popularity Award, Viewer's Choice Program, and the Grand Prize (Daesang).[52] In the Top Popularity Award category, three out of the four nominees were from 1 Night 2 Days – Eun Jiwon, MC Mong, and Lee Seung-gi, for which Lee won the award. The Viewer's Choice Program was based on viewer's votes through surveys and SMS. Happy Sunday ended up with 108.3% of the votes, and trailing behind them with 40.3% of the votes was Happy Together (Gag Concert with 33.1% of votes, A Chat with Beauties with 12.9% of the votes and Sang Sang Plus with 5.3% of the votes).[53][54]

2 Days & 1 Night's third season received much positive response. The first episode of 1 Night 2 Days received very high viewer ratings of 14.3% when it first aired in December 2013.[3] At the end of 2014, Happy Sunday segments (1 Night 2 Days and The Return of Superman) wrapped up with ratings of 17.9%, followed by SBS Good Sunday (K-pop Star 4 and Running Man) with 12.1% and MBC Sunday Night (7.8%) with Real Men and Dad, Where Are You Going?[55] In March 2015, KBS's Happy Sunday was in first place in terms of viewer ratings with 14.7%, beating out SBS's Good Sunday (Running Man and Take Care Of My Dad) with 11.1% and MBC's Sunday Night (Animals and Real Men) with 8.4%.[56]

A digital single of the show's theme song was released on March 29, 2010 and was first heard on episode 135, which was aired March 28, 2010. The title of the song is called "Let's Go Paradise" and is sung by Gil Hak-mi (a contestant on Mnet's talent show Superstar K Season 1) and Han Bora (from AB Avenue).

On the episodes 486-488 which were aired March 5, 12, and 19, 2017, Season 3 members had been given a mission to make an OST for their 10th Anniversary. With the help of several musicians, they succeeded the mission. Producing 3 songs, namely "Remember Each Member", "Day Off", and "Kkanaricano".[57]

• List of 1 Night 2 Days episodes
• KBS2 Happy Sunday
• 2 Days & 1 Night (Chinese TV series)

• Happy Sunday official website (in Korean)
• 2 Days & 1 Night on KBS World