Former "Legends Of The Hidden Temple" Contestants Are Sharing What It Was Like To Be On The Show

"I just stood there."

There are few chances in this world to behold a real treasure. Kids of the '90s who watched the iconic television show Legends of the Hidden Temple know this truth well.

Nickelodeon / Via yayomg.com

That's why it's hardly a surprise that Reddit is FILLED with AMAs and accounts of people who had the first-hand experience of being on or working on the series, which aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon.

To prep for the new series reboot, we took a deep dive into these stories to remind ourselves just what to look forward to:

1. "I was little and way too young — I was that idiot who didn't know what to do."

@nickelodeon / Via gifer.com

"I had to run and get puzzle pieces from another side of the stage, and the other kid on my team who got picked was like, DUDE WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS RUN AND GET THE PUZZLE PIECES — I'LL PUT IT ALL TOGETHER. I just stood there like some idiot."— u/isellthings

2. "I thought the moat challenge was fun, and we happened to make it across first. The episode of older kids that filmed right before us (and had the same moat challenge) was so terrible that everyone was so soaked they had to change clothes and reshoot the entire sequence."

@nickelodeon / Via trending-gif.blogspot.com

"I remember not liking the steps very much, but that's probably because we didn't win. I remember knowing all the answers but not being able to 'stomp in' fast enough. Obviously, I would have loved to have competed for the whole show. Instead, I am left to live vicariously through my classmate who did make it to the temple...and then lost." — u/hclarklsu

3. "I was on the King Henry VIII episode (Season 1, Episode 16). I made it to the semifinals (didn't get to run the temple). I don't remember the moat depth at all."

@nickelodeon / Via stonetv.com

"As to Kirk Fogg, if I hadn't re-watched the video recently, I doubt I'd have even been able to recognize him on the street. Really don't remember what he was like. We didn't really interact with him much beyond what was filmed.

Wish I had more interesting recollections; I think I mentioned anything relevant in the previous comment. The prizes shown on the GAS re-air aren't the original prizes, so I don't even know what I would have been playing for had I made it to the temple. Maybe my parents have the VHS in some box somewhere of the original, who knows." — u/Psifertex

4. "We never saw the host off camera. He never came to our holding room to introduce himself, and never spoke to us on set unless they were filming. As for the lag time — there was A TON. They film four episodes at once."

@nickelodeon / Via tvinsider.com

"And I'm assuming because of the constraints of the set size/setup they filmed each sequence of the four shows together before moving onto the next. So four moat scenes, four temple scenes, etc. The shows contestants were separated by age, and I seem to recall my show being a particularly young group. One of the older groups had to shoot their moat scene twice." — u/hclarklsuOP

5. "According to the broadcast, I won a game called 'Magical Maze.' What actually arrived on my doorstep was Moon Shoes. I'm not sure if there was a mix-up or if they just randomly plug certain products as 'prizes' for marketing purposes."

@nickelodeon / Via micdotcom.tumblr.com

"Either way, I was pretty pumped about the moon shoes. I loved the show as a kid. I also really liked Guts and Double Dare, too. It was definitely in my top five. I would totally do it again. It was fun! and I got to miss a day from school — every middle-schooler's dream."  —u/hclarklsu

6. "We had to arrive at 6:30 a.m. I was released from filming in the early afternoon. They fed us breakfast and lunch. So yeah, for roughly seven or so minutes of fame it took about eight hours."

@nickelodeon / Via legends.fandom.com

"I lived in Orlando at the time, and one afternoon during the overhead announcements, the principal said LotHT was looking for contestants. If we were interested, we should call this number. So I called when I got home and was given a time to come in and audition. Pretty simple actually. :) Most of the kids in the shows are local. —u/hclarklsu

7. "At least one-third of the contestants never saw the show before they were contestants because each season was completely filmed before each one aired, and there were 3 seasons of 40 episodes each."

@nickrewind / @nickelodeon / Via giphy.com

"Specific games that were played multiple times through a season were filmed together, which decreased the likelihood of contestants having ever seen that game played/activity done before. The exception to this are a number of Temple Run rooms that stayed the same throughout the series.

That's what happened when I attended a live recording. They ran the same game/activity many times but for different sets of teams. In this case, it was an intro race where they'd have to go across a moat in a raft and the bottom half of the teams would be cut.

If it wasn't for the fact that I loved the show and I thought it was amazing to be at the set, it got kinda boring after a while. Cheering for people doing the same thing over and over, especially when you're 3+ minutes into it and still having to cheer on the few remaining slacker teams that are going to be cut anyways." — u/Renegade_Meister

8. "My friend was a contestant on that show. He said the temple guards were kind of pushy jerks." —u/bmoviescreamqueen

Nickelodeon / Via syfy.com

9. "There was a former Legends of the Hidden Temple contestant interviewed in some magazine many years ago, and I know they talked about the temple guards. I have been looking for that magazine article for years."

@nickelodeon / Via giphy.com

"It was very long and basically answered all of my questions about the show. If I recall correctly (doubtful), the temple guards were just stagehands/production assistants. I also remember the article mentioning that parents had to watch their kids from a different room in the studio (via live feed) during filming." —u/CheesyVomit

10. "I used to work for a construction company that would be contracted by Nickelodeon for building/dismantling some of their TV sets. Legends of the Hidden Temple was actually one of the sets we did."

@nickrewind / @nickelodeon / Via giphy.com

"We got started dismantling the set literally an hour after they had finished taping their last episode, so people were still hanging around. I got to meet Kirk Fogg, Dee Baker (Olmec), and even some of the guards.

The guards were cool. I asked them about what it was like, and from what I could tell, they really knew their South American Indian history. Apparently they had to really get into the character; it wasn't just grabbing kids as they ran through the maze.

Anyway, I excused myself to have a smoke break. When I came back, the guy in charge of the set asked, 'Aren't you going to move those?' I asked, 'Move what?' He motioned to a set of stone temple guard statues standing in the exact same spot I had just left." —u/ Really_Im_OK

11. "The producers coordinated with talent to decide who was going to be on which team. I was mostly working with the technical aspects of the production. I got to know those folks but didn't work much with the kids." —u/LegendsGutsArcade

@nickelodeon / Via trending-gif.blogspot.com

12. "One of my challenges was to tie all the elements together: computers, audio/MIDI triggers, and video graphics."

@nickelodeon / Via giphy.com

"The editors at Nick would see me in the hall and hug me. I was the first TD to package a show there that only took an hour to pull up to time. Standards and practice was always watching, so we were not able to change the outcome with editing." — u/LegendsGutsArcade

13. "I was at the taping of Legends for the first season, so we didn't know WHAT to expect."

@nickelodeon / Via tenor.com

"They kept doing close-ups on this creepy open-mouthed statue, and the production assistant in the green room kept explaining everything as if we knew what the show was about. Things like, 'OK, first they'll have to cross the moat [What the hell is the moat?]. After that Olmec [Who the f@$& is Olmec? The host? I thought that was Kirk.] will give them their first clue to finding the artifact [What's the... never mind, go on...]. At this point, they'll make their way down the steps...' Bob's team aced the moat crossing, and then they reset for the Steps of Knowledge round. He was killing it, and they made it to the final step first. Then, Kirk asked, 'What part of the body is named for the Greek hero Achilles?' Bob stomped the button and excitedly shouted, 'OH! OH! The... The... The part... at the bottom... of... your foot...' There was a very long, awkward pause. 'I'm sorry,' said Kirk. 'We were looking—' 'HEEL. ACHILLES' HEEL.' '... Uh, no. We were looking for 'tendon.' The Achilles' tendon. OK. Moving on..." That completely shook all of Bob's confidence, and his team didn't get another question, and they were eliminated that round. He got some sort of consolation prize, I think. Plus he got to keep his team shirt. I think they were the parrots, maybe?" —u/FartPoopRobot_PhD

14. "A few years ago, at a summer nerd camp I attended, there was a girl who introduced herself to everyone as a former contestant on Legends of the Hidden Temple. This is probably the best way of making friends with dorks who feel nostalgic about the '90s, bar none."

@nickrewind / @nickelodeon / Via giphy.com

"She was later discovered to be lying, as she was about 5 when the show was taken off the air, but no one could really hold it against her because she was, by then, the most popular and envied person at the camp. True story." — u/cinnamontoastPUNCH

Were you or someone you know on Legends of the Hidden Temple? Let us know in the comments.