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Legends of the Hidden Temple
Legends of the Hidden Temple title card
Created by	David G. Stanley Scott A. Stone Stephen Brown
Starring	Kirk Fogg as host Dee Baker as announcer
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	120
Production
Running time	30 minutes (incl. commercials)
Original release
Network	Nickelodeon
Release	September 11, 1993 – 1995

Legends of the Hidden Temple was a physical challenge game show for children hosted by Kirk Fogg that aired on Nickelodeon from 1993 to 1995. The show was produced by Nickelodeon in association with Stone Stanley Productions. Each episode featured six teams of two children (one boy and one girl) competing for prizes. The show incorporated physical stunts, as well as questions based on topics related to history, mythology, and geography. The series won a CableACE award for Game Show Special or Series .

Legend of the Hidden Temple

Legends of the Hidden Temple began airing on Nickelodeon in 1993. The show aired interspersed first-run and rerun episodes until 1995, when all the episodes were reruns. In the late 1990s, the show disappeared from Nickelodeon. However, in 1999, the show once again began airing reruns on Nick GAS, which continues to this day. In May 2007, the show appeared back on Nickelodeon every weekday morning; however it was unexpectedly taken off the schedule the next month. On December 31, 2007, Nick GAS is slated to leave the digital cable channel lineup and become an online-only service on TurboNick.

Theming and premise

The set design resembled various Ancient Central American iconographies, especially Mayan and to some extent Aztec. It included areas for different types of physical challenges: a large pool of water (The Moat), a set of steps (The Steps of Knowledge), and a large, two-floor vertical labyrinth (The Hidden Temple) at the back of the stage. At the labyrinth's gate was a giant animatronic talking Olmec head simply named Olmec (voiced by Dee Baker). 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 Jewel-Encrusted Egg of Catherine the Great," and the "Broken Wing of Icarus." The physical challenges would then be loosely themed after the legend.

Main game

Teams

In each game, six teams of two members each competed in three rounds to get to the temple. Each team was designated a color and an animal, indicated on their uniform shirts:

• Red Jaguars
• Blue Barracudas
• Green Monkeys
• Orange Iguanas
• Purple Parrots
• Silver Snakes

Round 1: The Moat

The first round of the show involved a stunt where the six teams had to get across a narrow swimming pool known as the "moat". Some of the commonly used methods included rafts, ropes, and bridges. All six teams attempted to get both members across according to the rules and push a button, thus setting off the team's "gong". Typically, if a team member fell in the water, that partner (or occasionally both teammates) would have to go back and try again until they could get across. The first four teams to hit their gongs advanced to the second round.

Round 2: The Steps of Knowledge

Olmec begun the Steps of Knowledge by telling the remaining teams the episode's legend. After finishing, he asked the teams a series of questions to test their memories. A team that knew the answer buzzed in by stomping on the button on their step. (If Olmec was still in the middle of asking the question, he would stop talking immediately.) Each multiple-choice question had three possible answers. If the team answered correctly, they moved down to the next level. If a team answered incorrectly or went too long without an answer (three seconds after being called upon), the other teams would have a chance to answer. A question would be replaced if two of its three choices were eliminated by incorrect answers. The first two teams to step down to the bottom level by answering a total of three questions correctly moved on to the next round.

Round 3: The Temple Games

The Temple Games round was introduced as a turning point in the episode away from the unpredictable Moat and mind games of the Steps of Knowledge, where "the glory to the fastest and the strongest." Here, the two remaining teams competed for as many pendants of life as possible in three physical challenges. The Temple Games employed on Legends were many and varied. Temple Game challenges were either untimed or lasted for a maximum of 60 seconds (ending either when time expired or when a team completed the objective). After each challenge, the winning team (the team who completed the objective first, or, failing that, the team who made the most progress) was awarded some portion of a protective Pendant of Life. The first two challenges, which pitted a single member of a team against another, awarded a half-pendant each, and the final challenge, involving both teams in whole, awarded a full pendant. If a Temple Game ended in a tie, both teams were awarded the pendant value of that game. After these rounds, the team with the greater number of pendants went on to the final round.

In the event that the two teams' pendant totals were tied after the three games, Fogg (or, later in seasons 2 and 3, Olmec) asked a tiebreaker question to determine the winner. A "tiebreaker pedestal" was brought out, and the first team to hit the button on top of their gong earned the chance to answer the question. The team would have three seconds to answer, and their first response had to be accepted. A correct answer allowed the team to go to the Temple. In Season 1, an incorrect answer (or running out of time) automatically awarded the other team passage to the Temple, but in the second and third seasons, the other team simply received an opportunity to answer the question correctly.

Round 4: The Temple

In the final round, often known as the Temple Run, the winning team took whatever Pendants of Life they had into the temple (1, 1½, or 2), and attempted to retrieve the day's ancient artifact and bring it back to the temple gate successfully. The player designated to go into the temple first would receive one pendant, and the second player received the remainder of what the team had won in the temple games (no pendant, a half pendant, or one pendant).

The temple consisted of 12 or 13 rooms, depending on the layout, each connected to adjacent rooms by randomly locked or unlocked doorways. The unlocked doors could be opened either by completing a specific task or puzzle within each room, or by simply pressing a button (or actuator). One room in the labyrinth contained the themed artifact; three specific rooms other than the artifact room held Temple Guards (spotters in lavish Mayan sentinel costumes). If the winning team had 1½ pendants, the remaining half-pendant would be somewhere in a room as well. However, if the team had only one pendant going into the temple, no extra pendants were hidden. Often, doors were locked to require teams to make a more indirect and longer path to the room with the artifact.

When a player encountered a Temple Guard, the player was forced to give up a full pendant in order to go on; however, if the first contestant was caught without a pendant, he or she was taken out of the temple and it would be the second player's turn to enter, with all opened doors remaining such. Furthermore, each Temple Guard only showed himself once per run, leaving the second player with a clear route to where the first player was eliminated. If the second player did not have a full pendant upon capture, the run ended at that moment. This placed pressure on the second player to search for the hidden half pendant (if he or she had a half pendant) in order to prevent this. If the team had two pendants, they were guaranteed to not have trouble with the guards, as the first player would remove two (one with a pendant, one with being eliminated) and the second player would remove the third guard with their pendant. Thus, the only way they could lose is by running out of time.

The team had three minutes to complete the temple in its entirety. If either player reached the artifact (being defined as actually grabbing onto the artifact, instead of merely being in the same room with it), all remaining Guards "vanished" and all locked doors instantly opened, allowing the player to escape unhindered. Just for getting into the temple, the team automatically won a prize. If they picked up the artifact, they also would win another prize of slightly higher value. If they escaped with the artifact before time ran out, the team won a vacation (sometimes to another country), or a week at NASA's Space Camp, in addition to the two merchandise prizes. (Although not disclosed in the show, each individual winning contestant would receive two travel vouchers. Destinations varied greatly -- some were within the state of Florida, while others could be in the Caribbean or Mexico. Unlike previous Nick game shows, Legends never deviated from offering a travel prize as the grand prize.)

Episodes

In its three years of production, Legends produced 120 episodes (40 in each of the three seasons). Many historical figures were featured as subjects of legends during the show's run.

Temple Layouts

During the three seasons that the show was produced, the temple contained a wide variety of rooms that contestants had to conquer to win the grand prize.

One of the most identifiable rooms of the Hidden Temple was the Shrine of the Silver Monkey, which was the only room to remain in the Hidden Temple throughout the entirety of the show's run.

References

1. ^ Schwartz, David (1999). "Legends of the Hidden Temple". The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows (3rd edition ed.). Facts on File. p. 124. ISBN 0-8160-3847-3. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessmonth=, |month=, and |accessyear= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) Cite error: The named reference "eotvgs" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
2. ^ The King's Storeroom: Episode Guide Cite error: The named reference "nl-epguide" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
3. While Legends has been on air essentially since its premiere, no new episodes were produced after 1995. Furthermore, since reruns and first-run episodes were often mixed together, it is unclear when the last first-run episode aired. However, studio master evidence shows that new episodes were airing at least through July 1995.
4. Awards won by Legends of the Hidden Temple
5. Schwartz, David (1999). "Appendix E: Game Show Award Winners and Nominees". The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows (3rd edition ed.). Facts on File. p. 305. ISBN 0-8160-3847-3. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessmonth=, |month=, and |accessyear= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
6. The King's Storeroom: Update log with entries about show's return to Nickelodeon
7. "MTV Networks splits Noggin, the N channels". Yahoo!. Retrieved 2007-08-13.
8. ^ The King's Storeroom: Show Format Cite error: The named reference "nl-sf" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
9. ^ "What Is This 'Legends of the Hidden Temple,' Anyway?" from The Room of the Ancient Warriors Cite error: The named reference "raw-ats" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
10. This is according to Fogg's rundown of the rules before a tiebreaker occurred; it is probable that these are the same rules used in the Steps of Knowledge.
11. An episode with Space Camp trip as a prize
12. An interview describing exactly what the grand prize was
13. The King's Storeroom: Hidden Temple Rooms

External links

• Official site
• The King's Storeroom - A fan site with an episode list, picture gallery, interactive game, and interviews with former contestants

Shirt Stores

• Bygoneshirts.com
• Hiddentempletees.com
• Templeshirts.com
• Retroduck.com

• 1990s American television series
• 1990s Nickelodeon shows
• 1993 television series debuts
• 1995 television series endings
• Nickelodeon Games and Sports shows
• Nickelodeon game shows
• Nickelodeon shows
• Children's game shows