'Hangout with Yoo?' First Listening Party, No.1 Saturday Variety Show... Peak 5.7% per Minute

The MBC variety show ″Hangout with Yoo?″ showcased the first preliminary listening session of the ″95 Seoul Music Festival″ on the October 10 broadcast. Yoo Jae-suk took on the role of PD to evaluate the participants’ singing skills, and the hit songs from the 1990s evoked nostalgia among the cast and viewers. This episode was the first to air after a three-week hiatus due to the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games coverage. The nationwide household rating recorded 4.5%, ranking first among Saturday variety shows, and the 20-54 age group rating was 2.8%, topping variety programs on the same day. The metropolitan area rating was 4.3%, with a peak minute rating of 5.7%. In the October variety program brand reputation announced by the Korea Corporate Reputation Research Institute, ″Hangout with Yoo?″ secured first place for two consecutive months. The first preliminary round was conducted as a blind evaluation, with participants using nicknames based on popular 1990s variety shows and movie titles. ″Chungking Express″ passed with Kim Gun-mo’s ″First Impression,″ and ″M″ passed with Kim Wan-sun’s ″Pierrot Smiles at Us.″ ″The Bridges of Madison County″ and ″Sleepless in Seattle″ also passed with ″You Reflected in My Smile″ and ″My Love Beside Me,″ respectively. ″Our Paradise″ passed with Kim Min-woo’s ″It’s Only Love,″ ″Moon of Seoul″ with Yoon Do-hyun’s ″Love Two,″ and ″Léon″ with Shin Sung-woo’s ″Prologue.″ The identities of ″Terminator″ and ″Jurassic Park,″ which sparked curiosity, also passed with Park Mi-kyung’s ″Unreasonable Reason″ and Min Hae-kyung’s ″Face I Miss,″ respectively. Notably, the acceptance scene of ″Jurassic Park,″ whose identity Yoo Jae-suk was curious about, was regarded as the best one-minute segment with the highest minute rating. There were also participants who added fun. ″Walking to the Sky″ was eliminated after revealing Yang Sang-guk due to his dialect, and Heo Kyung-hwan received mixed reviews for his singing of ″Stop the Action,″ resulting in a hold decision. Hwang Jae-kyun challenged with ″The Demon’s Diary″ but was eliminated. ″Love in Your Arms″ and ″The Shawshank Redemption″ received hold decisions with rock spirit and prison live performances, respectively, earning chances to advance to the next round. Yoo Jae-suk said, ″I have been sharpening my skills and waiting only for 1995,″ and conducted the preliminaries with Haha, Heo Kyung-hwan, and writer Joo Woo-jae. This broadcast marked the beginning of a project encompassing beloved songs from the 1990s through 1995.