Nostalgia is a powerful feeling. In hindsight everything is clearer, except for probably things you revered as a child but haven't revisited recently. Growing up, Nickelodeon was a powerhouse of a television channel with cartoons like Doug, Hey Arnold!, and Rocket Power. It also had many great live game shows as well.
Legends of the Hidden Temple and Guts were two physical game shows they had, complete with obstacle courses and awesome prizes like Nintendos and trips to Space Camp. If you were a kid with even a small interest in athletics, these shows were what you wanted to be on, especially because you always felt you could do way better than the foolishly inept contestants that sometimes were featured. My question is which was better, both as a show and as a contestant.
Legends pitted 6 teams against each other in a series of physical and intelligence tests: Red Jaguars, Blue Barracudas, Green Monkeys, Purple Parrots, Orange Iguanas, and the Silver Snakes. The best team according to me is the Silver Snakes (apparently they also won 38% of the time) and I didn't remember the Red Jaguars and Orange Iguanas (I assumed they were Orangutans) prior to watching an episode, so were going to say they were the worst. The best teams on the show were mixed 1 boy and 1 girl, as girls usually were typically better at answering the intelligence questions of the show. Unfortunately, neither boys or girls could solve the shrine of the Silver Monkey.
Despite having a cool host and a talking stone face, Legends of the hidden temple seemed nearly impossible to actually win outright. It's final obstacle, the "Temple Run"was extremely difficult, not only because they had to find elaborately hidden buttons, but because temple guards could end a run without warning. The other biggest flaw in the show for me growing up was that it was a team show, and I had no interest in relying on a teammate I'd never met prior to filming.
Guts was my dream show of choice, and a better show overall. It was a purely athletic competition revolving around hand-eye coordination and planning, and featured Mike O'Malley (Glee) as its exuberant host. It featured three teenagers competing in different sports that all had some kind of extreme aspect added in, usually involving bungee cords. The challenges never looked particularly difficult, but frequently that didn't stop the contestants from failing miserably, in the episode I watched the winning score for the "dunk" a basketball was 2 or 3 and the other contestants tied with 1 a piece, which you'll agree is bad once you consider they shot at east 8-10 times each.
The climax of awesome on the show was the Aggro Crag and the glowing "piece" of the Aggro Crag you took home if you emerged at the top victorious. The crag was a 28' vertical obstacle course of neon chaos, confetti, and falling boulders that the contestants had to navigate while hitting actuators (terrible name) on the way to the top. The Aggro Crag was the great equalizer, giving even the most previously futile contestants a shot at redemption.
In the end Guts was the superior show for a few simple reasons. The host was far cooler on Guts, Mike O'Malley was into the show and the sidekick/"referee" was foreign and not a talking stone face. Guts was simpler, blunter, and easier to relate to and evaluate contestants as the challenges were everyday sports like soccer and basketball. Most importantly, you were a solo contestant on Guts while on Legends you were forced to rely on a teammate to not hold you back and lose you your trip to space camp and Hush Puppy shoes.
Matt Brickell is managing editor and knows he would've won had he known how to apply to the shows above.
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