Back in its relative infancy, before Nick Toons populated a large swath of its programming, Nickelodeon featured a bevy of game shows. Some of these shows were good, some of them were awful, but most of them played like cathartic experiences that chipped away at the drudgery of prepubescent youth… or something. The point is, from Double Dare to Guts, these shows mattered. But which mattered most? Aha, there’s the real question that we sought an answer to, so here’s an ode to those programs, and a ranking of the best Nickelodeon game shows from the ’90s and early aughts.
10) Think Fast
Years: 1989-1991
What’s more humiliating than a classmate beating you in a test of general knowledge? Said classmate besting you on TV in front of millions. Think Fast was a game show determined to make the less brainy kids look like dunces, and while competition promotes growth, I’m not sold on the idea of having young kids battle in games of wit on television. Anyway, the winners of each round won some money, which probably wound up in the pockets of greedy parents.
9) Slime Time Live!
Years: 2000-2003
STL! was like MTV’s TRL, but with less half-naked, half-crazy Mariah Careys. And, no music. Alright, so it was nothing like TRL except for the fact that it was live. STL! was a game show where at-home contestants would call-in to play mini-games, and scoring in the games would result in in-studio contestants being slimed with some sort of goo from contraptions known as the “Boosty Blaster” and “Cream Blaster.” There was also, “The Big Shaboozie,” which is a term someone got paid actually money to come up with.
8) Figure It Out
Years: 1997-1999, 2012-2013
This show took the stars of various Nick shows and placed them in a panel where they had to use “yes” or “no” questions to try and guess a specific talent that a contestant had. For every interval where the contestant’s talent was not guessed, he or she would win a prize. It sounds like a dull concept, because it was. This is not a watermark for game shows, but it was better than doing homework after school, so there’s that. FIO briefly made a comeback on the station in 2012.
7) What Would You Do?
Years: 1991-1993
Marc Summers can make a televised game of darts seem like a grand time, and with What Would You Do?, Summers took a dare challenge concept and made it enjoyable. “There’s too much Marc Summers on TV,” said no one not never.
6) Wild & Crazy Kids
Years: 1990-1992, 2002-2003
Remember those fun grade school functions where you got to play tug-o-war and wall-ball for hours upon hours? Wild & Crazy Kids was sort of like that, except much more organized and with an actual play-by-play announcer. Some of the outdoor games included Alphabet Soup and Bouncy Ball Polo, but the real winner here was you. Yes, the show is antiquated now, but back then, it was glorious.
5) Arcade
Years: 1991-1992
Before these young people had their fancy wireless remote controllers, we had to actually go to the arcade to get our video gaming fix. Nickelodeon’s Arcade was a way of living out our quarter-slot dreams vicariously through kids that were matched up against each other in games of digital thumb wars. Cabinet arcade games are a rarity these days, so watch the above video and remember the good ol’ days.
4) Legends of the Hidden Temple
Years: 1993-1996
LOTHT saw contestants wriggle their way through a faux-temple maze that was filled with collectible items. The joy in shows like these came from the fantasy of building one of these sets at home with couch cushions and tennis balls. The sadness? That comes today as you watch the above clip and realize that the line, “That will take him into the pit of despair, he’s gonna have to go back the other way,” feels relevant thanks to adulthood and the rarity of treasure hunting quests therein.
3) Finders Keepers
Years: 1987-1989
For some reason, I was a fan of Supermarket Sweep, a game show where participants had to scour the aisles of a grocery store in order to find specific items. This show was a similar concept, where kids have to scour rooms in a faux-home instead of a supermarket, and it was just as enjoyable, if not even more so because it wasn’t a rerun on Lifetime and had very little to do with the someone’s ability to heave a 20-pound turkey into a shopping cart.
2) GUTS
Years: 1992-1996, (Family GUTS, 2008-2009)
GUTS was the American Ninja Warrior of its time, only with kids and Mike O’Malley doing play-by-play. The ultimate obstacle course — the Crag — made every kid’s eyes gleam with the magical treasure that is the glowing piece of the Crag mountain, but the bungee cord basketball challenge was worth the price of admission alone. A one-time flagship that inspired two spin-offs (Global GUTS and Family GUTS), we are now sadly Guts-free as a generation of children grow soft at the middle, underprepared for the rigors of the kind of Hunger Games-like challenge that GUTS (and some of these other games) trained ’90s kids for.
1) Double Dare
Years: 1986-1993, 2000
On paper, and even in retrospect, GUTS seemed like a pricier version of Double Dare in that it was a more ambitious than the more senior show. But, DD had a certain aesthetic and charm that made it one of the most enjoyable programs to ever air on Nickelodeon, so it gets the edge here. It also didn’t hurt that Marc Summers — a.k.a. the greatest TV host that ever did it — was the ringleader of this show that saw contestants throw themselves into games and obstacles that almost always featured some kind of slime. While it wasn’t the first and it certainly wasn’t the only show to feature slime, DD made the goo synonymous with the kids’ station and helped make the cable channel the popular youth destination that it now is.
