The slime, the bonus rounds, the prize trips to Space Camp. These were the things dreams were made of. For years, Nickelodeon imagineers devised new ways to enter video games, explore Mayan ruins, and splatter pies into your father’s face. Since their early days of broadcasting, Nickelodeon has countlessly found ways to tap into the kid-fantasy zeitgeist. Ask anyone from our generation and they’ll tell you: “Always pick the physical challenge.”

5) Nick Arcade

Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis are fine, if you’re content with playing in front of a glass screen….but if you wanted to get virtual, you needed to get on Nick Aracde.  Though the qualifying games were your traditional fare, ranging from Pong to Bonk’s Adventure, it was the Video Zone that solidified Nick Arcade’s position on this list.  The Video Zone consisted of weatherman-like special effects capable of transporting over-eager fat kids into a shoddy 16-bit adventure.  Here in this pixelated world, they would fail miserably at dodging flying coconuts, slaying rabid polar bears, defeating mega-boss Mongo, and hitting the start button.  Mikey’s going left.

4) Legends of The Hidden Temple – 1993-1995

From the very first image on screen, Nickelodeon set designers strove to answer that age-old question: what would happen if Guts and Raiders of the Lost Ark had a kid.  The answer, of course, was Legends of The Hidden Temple.  Its impressive Orlando-based set featured everything from a swimming pool (gallivanting as a moat) to various bungee-cord based Temple Games.

Between the clever alliteration based team names and the awesome shirt designs, how could you not love this show?  Sure, Olmec was a bit preachy and the Steps of Knowledge were about as valid as the IOWA standardized tests, but I couldn’t trust anyone that didn’t fantasize about taking a shot at the Temple Run.  I realize now that from my living room I had a much better perspective on the maze than the contestants themselves, but when a sucker unknowingly entered a room with a Temple Guard I couldn’t help but hope they were out of Pendants of Life.

And while I’m on the subject of thinking I’m better than the 12-year-old contestants of a bygone game show, I think I could build the Shrine to the Silver Monkey with my eyes closed.

3) Global Guts – 1992-1995

Nickelodeon Guts began as an American event. Three kids as American as Burt Reynolds would go head to head to head in a made-up athletic competition. Soon, Americans got tired of all the infighting and decided to take on the rest of the world. This was when Guts got Global.

Okay, so it was pretty much the same show.  Mike O’Malley was still there, along with the referee Mo, who didn’t lend anything to the show that a good stopwatch couldn’t. The difference was this was all about pride. These kids didn’t just come to Florida for a family vacation, they came for their country. There were kids from Spain, from Israel, from the Outer Banks. They fought for their homeland in Gym, Track, Elastic, Pool, and Field events.

But all that mattered was the finale. Each contestant fought to be the first to the top of the Super Aggro Crag. They didn’t do it for fortune or for glory, they did it for their country. And for a glowing piece of that radical rock.

2) Wild and Crazy Kids

Compared to other Nickelodeon game shows, Wild and Crazy Kids lasted only a short span (two seasons) but it left a lasting impact.  Started in 1990, this game show consisted of three large teams made up of middle-school aged kids (and sometimes their parents or teachers) competing against one another in zany outdoor physical competitions.  The challenges ranged from TP’ing camp cabins to water slide races.  Also there was a water-skiing squirrel.

The competitions often played out like a child-like Caligula, where kids were able to embrace their most uninhibited fantasies (like dumping slime on an unpopular teacher, or strategically driving remote controlled cars and boats).  Where else would you get the opportunity to ride a roller coaster and be judged on how steady you could hold a cup of water?  Wild and Crazy Kids was like Field Day on a sugar rush (everyone knows that Field Day was the best day of the school year) and anyone that had the chance to participate on television should consider themselves amongst the luckiest kids on the planet.

1) Family Double Dare – 1988-1992

Check out this asshole

Sure, Double Dare started it all, but the apex of this rigorous competition was realized when the rest of the family was brought into compete. Nothing was more rewarding than watching some schmuck of a father dig through giant toes filled with the trademark green gak, only to painfully face-plant as he raced to hand the orange flag to his wife. It was the perfect combination of fantasy obstacle courses, and parent humiliation. The money stakes were raised, the physical challenges more demanding, even old Harvey had a bit more fire in his voice. With countless spinoffs, multi-international versions, and play at home merchandise, Family Double Dare was a franchise that helped define Nickelodeon in its early prime as well as inspire all other kid game shows that would follow.

Honorable Mentions

Finders Keepers
Finders Keepers was the early predecessor of the “ransacking room-romp” which would later be perfected by Legends of The Hidden Temple.
What Would You Do?
What Would You Do?, like its host Marc Summers, could never escape the monstrous shadow cast by the Double Dare franchise. Pies are no substitute for slime. Sorry, Marc.