Focus: Which kids-centric game show would you most want to be a contestant on? 1) Double Dare Pros: I think they played for real money. Get to play around in messy/gross stuff. Obstacle courses are awesome. Mark Summers was a friggin' badass. Cons: Might have had to play with your family. If your family were idiots, you didn't get to play the final obstacle course, thus you were a loser who didn't get to have any fun. 2) Legends of the Hidden Temple Pros: Badass challenges. The hidden temple obstacle course. GREEN MOTHERFUCKIN MONKEYS. Cons: More contestants, higher chance of not making it past the first round, therefore not having any fun. That goddamn monkey shrine/statue puzzle makes people look like epileptic retards on national tv. I heard they didn't let the contestants keep their badass team shirts. Assholes. 3) Guts Pros: Lots of cool bungie-cord related events. Kids could jump around like goddamn moon men. MOON MEN! Got to climb a mountain. Sweet. Got to be physically better than other people and look down on them while holding your giant neon rock trophy. Awesome. Moira Quirk was hot. Cons: Actually had to do physical activity. Lame. 4) Nick Arcade Pros: HOLY SHIT I'M IN A VIDEO GAME! Cons: ... This video game that I'm in is terrible.
What the HELL are these shows? Where the fuck is Funhouse and Kid Street? My childhood fantasy was to go on Funhouse and win hundreds of dollars in prizes.
Seriously. All I ever wanted when I was little was to be on Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego. So help me, I was finding that red-coated bitch. Blue Dog's from somewhere-deep-in-the-bayou. I'm surprised his game shows didn't all involve gators and "da swamp".
I wish I could pick two options. I would totally be on Legends of the Hidden Temple and Guts. Not Global Guts. I always knew I could school those kids in putting together that damn monkey. Seriously, the producers must have told them to make it look hard. Also the fact that the contestants barely made it to the monkey in every episode is hokum. It definitely wasn't that hard. And the fact that Mike O'Malley went from hosting Guts to playing the freeloading brother-in-law on Yes, Dear is just disgraceful. Double-Dare never intrigued me because I'm an only child and who wants to go on a game show with their parents? Dumb concept.
What a Loosiana child's program may look like: I grew up with PBS and local stations because my parents didn't want to pay for cable. All of those programs above are as foreign to me as the pull out method. Whatever show it is where they douse you in Gak, even as a kid I couldn't imagine a more odious "honor." American Gladiators looked fun as fuck though. That's what I watched as a kid. You keep that pansy Nickelodeon stuff while I dodge nerfballs fired from a high powered air canon by a jacked up dimwit in a spandex thong. Goddamn the 80s was gay.
The game I most wanted to get on was Video Power. The final round had you going through a maze where you just took games out of the walls and stuck them to yourself (the games had a velcro strip and you were given a velcro vest and helmet). Plus they sometimes had consoles hidden. In one episode they had a motherfucking Neo-Geo. And yes, I would've made it to the final round because, if I was losing, I would've murdered the other contestants during a commercial break. Out of the ones that BlueDog posted Legends of the Lost Temple looked like fun, but the finalists always enraged me. It's like they went out of their way to pick retards that couldn't put the silver monkey together. It's got three freaking pieces! Seriously?
How is this even a contest? Motherfucking Legends of the Hidden Temple. But I think there must have been restrictions on your IQ to be on the show, because no one could put together a goddamn three-piece statue.
I don't think anyone won the grand prize on LHT. That shit was rigged. Double dare was awesome, but Nick Arcade was absolutely mind blowing to me as a kid. I wanted to be on that show so much.
What kid didn't dream of getting picked and then walking down and kicking ass on those 6 wimpy red buckets. If I was picked, I would have walked away with that 'crisp' *SNAP* fifty dolla' bill and that bitchin' banana-seater Schwinn along with all of the other shitty prizes.
See, that's why my plan would have been to fake semi-retardation during the signup period so the producers would think "gee, thar's sure a kid who ain't gunna put together that dang monkey!" And then I would have used my superior mental facilities to crush everyone who has trouble with a 3 pieces statue where ONE OF THE PIECES IS THE HEAD AND THE OTHER IS THE FEET HURR DUURRRRRR
I'd have to agree that Video Power was the greatest game show simply because you got to go through a store and pick out all the cool nintendo games if you won. Fuck getting a casio electronic piano or some shitty bike. As far as the actual poll, LHT was by far the best show out of the bunch. DD you had to play with your mom and that's just lame. Nick Arcade would have been cool if all they did was play video game challenges and the host was buried alive and forced to cry over the shitty jokes he made. Guts was somewhat cool, but the challenges mirrored a 5 minute 3rd grade gym class. Plus, the white kids almost always won. It got boring if there was only one white kid on the show because you knew who was going to win before it even started. *edit I almost forgot...Do they still do the Toys R Us sweepstakes where you get to run through the store for 5 minutes and you get to keep whatever you can fit into your cart? I wanted to do that SOOOOO badly when I was a kid.
Other: Funhouse All that I can remember about this show is BK Knights shoes, the fat guy jumping out of a locker and how I would have done anything for a chance to run through that funhouse at the end of the show.
In the groovy 70s our choices were limited to Wonderama and Romper Room. Who wouldn't want to play "Snake in the Can"?
Another vote for Funhouse. Who didn't want a pair of British Knight sneakers "with the super cool gold BK button" on them. I always thought they had the most un-athletic (that should be word if it isn't) kids on that show. Once you fell in the pool you were fucked.
Legends of the Hidden Temple was the shit. The temple guards never ceased to scare the piss out of someone during the temple run. I agree with Roxanne, there must have been an IQ limit. No one could ever put that fucking statue together. My brother and I were armchair quaterbacks of that show. They always took a dumbass way to get through the temple. GUTS was also pretty fucking cool. I really wanted to climb that damn aggro crag and win one of those awesome glowing rock trophies.
So wait, was it actually filmed in that cylindrical water tower that was always shown before the show like I always believed???? I'd go with Guts just because the bungie cord events looked awesome and were the closest to my ultimate childhood dream of being on American Gladiators. I could give a fuck about swinging on the rings or The Eliminator I wanted the obstacle coarse where you ran to the different guns while the gladiators shot tennis balls at you. Then turning the tables and blasting those preening muscle bound pansies with all the fury of John Mcenroe.
I was the At Home Player once on the Bozo Show. The kid that played got to the 4th bucket. I got a package of Archway cookies, a couple of gift certificates to places in Chicago (useless to me since I live in Kansas City) and a terrible board game I had never heard of.
I think the main issue with putting that stupid monkey together was that the kids were in a serious rush. Adrenaline is pumping, you have to reach up high go get each part, and then you can't really see what you are doing, so you freak the fuck out and just start trying to force the random pieces together. In the heat of the moment, you don't know what the fuck you are doing. Anyway, here is a compilation of kids being spastic on LOHT:
Oh man, those buckets, and those fucking idiots kids. My sister and I used to set up pails in our family room and throw ping pong balls into them. We got to be fucking ACE at that shit. Unfortunately we never got the chance to go, much less participate. FOCUS: Guts for sure. LOHT was amazing, but Guts let you have some absolutely ridiculous nickname those dipshit kids clearly gave themselves like "The Machine" or "Lightning". Also, I was always amused cause you could pick the winner before the competition even started. Psst, here's a hint, it was never the girl. And I agree it was minor league ball for American Gladiators. I think 75% of my childhood injuries resulted from getting hit in the face by projectiles trying to replicate Assault and my neighbor definitely dislocated his shoulder when we set up garbage cans in the yard and played Powerball.