Nickelodeon Game Shows of the Past

I was watching television with my youngest brother the other night and stumbled upon some old re-runs of Nickelodeon game shows. I was reminded of the times growing up, how much my family friends and myself enjoyed these shows, then I was disappointed when coming to the realization that there is nothing like these great game shows on the air anymore. From the mid 1980's to the mid 1990's Nickelodeon was host to the following great game shows involving children as the main contestants.

Finders Keepers - This was a fun show involving teams of two kids, a boy and girl. In the first two rounds the teams would look at a huge picture on a wall and be asked to find a specific object in this picture. The team that did so was rewarded by being given points. The team with the most points at the end of the second round was allowed to search a variety of rooms designed for the show in search of specific objects. Places like Buck Rogers Bathroom, and a Cave Man's living room were common places for these events to take place.

Get the Picture - Teams of two would work together to solve video based puzzles in order to complete a huge connect the dot game. If at anytime during a game the connect the dot picture was guessed then that team would win the round. Also during game play, puzzles such as a scrambled picture, or a frame by frame recap of an object would be shown to contestants. If players guessed the image then they were awarded points to advance to the games final round. Only one team would make it here and they were shown a grid divided into 9 numbered squares. In each of these squares was an object the team would have to memorized, once they saw the pictures the squares were covered up and clues about the objects would be read aloued. Players would then try to match the clues to the specific objects they pertained to, a more complex version of memory.

Guts and Global Guts - A sports based game show like an American Gladiators for children. Three players would compete in an assortment of events testing their physical strength and endurance. At the end of three regular events the three competitors would face off in a race to climb the shows most noticeable and famous attraction, the Agro Crag. As the series progressed the Agro Crag received a few makeovers and the series went global. This allowed kids from all over the world to compete and represent their countries almost like the Olympics.

Nick Arcade - A show based on the aspect of playing video games to win prizes. Teams of two would face off against one another and compete in order to move a character across a video board. This character would land on spaces that would reveal challenges or rewards for the player controlling him. Sometimes you could land on a space earning you 50 points, or a prize, other times you would have to face your opponents in a pop quiz. The favorite challenge of the show was in fact the Video Challenge in which a team would play a video game such as Sonic the Hedgehog or R-Types and attempt to beat a set score in 30 seconds. After two rounds of competition the team with the most points was allowed to enter the "Video Zone" where they would compete in three levels of a kind of virtual reality.

Legends of the Hidden Temple - Stories from history would come to life for teams of two contestants all trying to earn a chance to enter the hidden temple. Six teams would start the show, The Red Jaguars, Blue Barracudas, Purple Parrots, Green Monkeys, Silver Snakes, and Orange Iguanas, and only one would make it to the temple. In round one all the teams faced off in a preliminary event in which they had to cross a moat in a number of ways, two teams were eliminated here. Then the four remaining teams would head for the "Steps of Knowledge." Here Omec, a giant stone head would tell the teams a legend taken from actual events, like the story of Amelia Airheart, King Montezuma, or Christopher Columbus. After hearing this tale the teams were asked questions, the first team to answer three questions correctly moved on to the next round, again two teams were eliminated at this round while two teams advanced. The it was onto the "Temple Games" where the remaining teams would face off in physical challenges, the team who won the 2 or more of the three games was allowed access to the temple. Once in the Temple the contestants would take turns running through the maze of rooms in order to find an item mentioned in the story Omec told earlier on. Each room of the temple has a puzzle the contestants needed to solve in order to move on.

These shows were all great and I enjoyed watching them in my youth, it's just really disappointing that there's nothing like this on the air today. Many of these shows had questions that pertained to history and current events, and that made them engaging as well as fun to watch. I think kids now a days are more interested in the mindless actions of a sponge rather then the competitive intelligent shows of the past, which in a way is a bit disappointing. The good times that these shows brought us in our home is over, but the re-runs are still entertaining, for my younger siblings and even for myself. You can catch re-runs of these shows on Nick's GaS channel (Games and Sports)