On
the first day of Christmas my true love Nickelodeon gave to me: LEGENDS
OF THE HIDDEN TEMPLE!
Many of you may remember this popular Nickelodeon game
show, I know it was one of my favorites! However, you may not quite remember
everything (it was a long time ago after all) so here is an article for you all
about the show to bring back those memories and hopefully teach you something
new about the show you may not have known before!
According to IMDB (Internet Movie Database)
Legends of the Hidden Temple ran on Nickelodeon for only 2 years/3 seasons from
1993 to 1995. The show was first created/written and co-produced by Jed Cohen.
The show was hosted by Kirk Fogg and announced by Dee Bradley Baker. (See the
full cast list here.)
According to Wikipedia:
The show centers around a "Temple" that is "filled with lost treasures protected by mysterious Mayan Temple Guards". A talking Olmec Head "knows the secrets behind each of the treasures in his Temple”. Six teams of two children (one boy and one girl) compete to retrieve one of the historical artifacts in the Temple by performing physical stunts and answering questions based on history, mythology, and geography. After three elimination rounds, only one team remains, who then earns the right to go through the Temple to retrieve the artifact within three minutes and win a grand prize.
Legends was produced by Stone Stanley Productions in association with Nickelodeon and was taped at Nickelodeon Studios at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. It aired on Nickelodeon from September 11, 1993 to 1995 in first-run and through August 23, 1998 in reruns. From 1999 to 2009, reruns of the show aired on Nick GAS. Legends won a CableACE award in 1995 for Best Game Show Special or Series.
In 1996, the Orlando Business Journal reported that Nickelodeon was considering renewing Legends for a fourth season, but according to Scott Fishman, Vice-President of Production Services at Nickelodeon, renewal was "not a sure bet" because Nickelodeon was considering three new game show pilots filmed in Orlando. The series stopped producing new episodes by April 1996.
Prospective contestants for Legends had to be 11 to 14 years old. Those trying out had to compete in several physical tasks, including rope climbing and running, as well as a written test
The set design of Legends was based on the Indiana Jones movies, and Marianne Arneberg of the Orlando Sentinel described Legends as "a combination of Jeopardy and Ark”. The set design has been described as Mayan. It included areas for different types of physical challenges: a broad but shallow pool of water (the moat), a set of steps (the Steps of Knowledge), and a large, two-and-a-half-floor vertical labyrinth (the Hidden Temple) at the back of the stage. At the labyrinth's gate was a talking Olmec head simply named Olmec (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker). Olmec narrated the stories told in the steps of knowledge and temple game challenges (although in a few early episodes Kirk narrated the temple game challenges). Every episode had a theme: a particular legend was picked (written), regarding a certain artifact from around the world that found its way to the Temple (a replica of the actual artifact, if such an artifact existed in real life), and the winning team had to retrieve it. Some artifacts included "Lawrence of Arabia's Headdress," "The Walking Stick of Harriet Tubman," "The Electrified Key of Benjamin Franklin," "The Jewel-Encrusted Egg of Catherine the Great," "The Levitating Dog Leash of Nostradamus," "The Bifocal Monocle of One-Eyed Jack" "The Diary of Dr. Livingstone," and "The Broken Wing of Icarus." In addition to providing an artifact, the legend also was important to other aspects of the show: the Steps of Knowledge used questions based on the historical legend, and the theme of the Temple Games was also loosely based on the legend.
In each episode, six teams of two players begin a three round competition to determine which team earned the right to enter the Temple. Each team is identified with a color and an animal, indicated on their uniform shirts. The following teams were always present:
- Red Jaguars
- Blue Barracudas
- Green Monkeys
- Orange Iguanas
- Purple Parrots
- Silver Snakes
Interesting
Facts:
- · The Temple Guards were actually the stage assistants.
- · Temple Guards never appeared in the Jester's Court or the Pit rooms.
- · The first episode ever recorded was Blackbeard's Treasure Map, identifiable by the lack of footage during Olmec's steps of knowledge speech, although the temple run segment was filmed at a later date.
- · In the "run and jump on a crane" temple game, the statue at the middle of the boom was a Golden Idol from Season One's temple room, The Room of the Golden Idols.
- · The bird-looking Gargoyle from season one's The Room of Three Gargoyles was used as decor outside the temple in Season Two, in the plants in front of Olmec.
- · The "bull with a broken horn" decoration of the side of the Gargoyle Room in Season One was found in the plants of Season Two in front of Olmec.
- · In the history of the show, only two players ever successfully retrieved an artifact from the room at the center of the temple.
- · The quickest temple loss in the show's history was Elizabeth I's Golden Ship.
- · To control the motion of Olmec's mouth, 'Dee Baker' (Olmec's voice) pulled a wire that activated its movement. Olmec's eyes, on the other hand, were voice activated and grew brighter with volume.
- · As many as six episodes were recorded daily.
- · The temple runs were often taped without an audience, especially in the third season. Since tapings lasted until as late as 1AM, and the show taped multiple episodes worth of every segment, by the time the temple runs were taped, the studios had often closed for regular guests and an audience track was used to make it sound like there was an audience watching.
- · During the second and third seasons, Kirk Fogg's entrance was prerecorded, and the same one was played at the beginning of every episode.
- · The day's shows were recorded section-by-section. In other words, every moat crossing was recorded first, back to back; every Steps of Knowledge round was recorded second, and every Temple Game round was recorded third. The Temple Runs were recorded last.
- · The set of the show changed slightly from season to season. In the first season, the helmets were yellow, the moat was pretty much a pool of water, the teams then for the temple games would wear shorts, and they would run the temple with yellow sweat pants on. In the second season, the moat got fog over it, along with other small touch ups, the teams wore jeans for the temple games and temple run, the temple had a gate, and the helmets were a gold-like color. In the third and final season, the gongs had a deeper sound, the steps of knowledge had a small buzzer in the step for easier buzzing. The temple itself had many updates over time, as did Kirk Fogg's entrance.
- · Each contestant was allowed to keep the same team T-shirt that he or she wore during the course of the program. However, contestants on the Silver Snakes team were given facsimiles afterwards since the T-shirts they wore during taping were specially designed to show up better on film.
- · The only room to appear in the temple in every single temple run is the Shrine of the Silver Monkey.
- · The Green Monkeys won 33% of their Temple Runs.
- · The Orange Iguanas made it to the most Temple Runs.
- · The Red Jaguars made it to the Temple Run 17% of the time.
- · The Silver Snakes hold the winning percentage record.
- · The three passwords in the Room of the Secret Password are "Long Live Olmec", "Open Sesame", and "Klatu Barada Nikto." The first is a reference to the show's stone head co-host, the second a line said famously by Ali Baba, and the third from The Day the Earth Stood Still.
- · In the Room of the Golden Idols, no player ever successfully "hugged an idol" to progress downward from the room. Only one player ever tried doing this and the door didn't open. Likewise, in the Treasure Room, the room that replaced the Golden Idols, only one player ever opened the treasure chest to progress downward.
- · Most temple runs ran the full 3 minutes, and thus the closing credits scrolled by very quickly. However, if a temple run was cut short either by a player retrieving the artifact or the team getting caught my 3 temple guards, the credits would scroll by much slower to make up for "lost time."
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