Nickelodeon’s ‘Legends of the Hidden Temple’ is coming back to TV with adult players

Millennials will have the chance to see one of their favorite ’90s TV game shows back on the airwaves when The CW Network revives Nickelodeon’s “Legends of the Hidden Temple.”

ViacomCBS, which partially owns both The CW Network and Nickelodeon, announced on May 11 that it would take over a reboot of the beloved show, this time with adult contestants competing in a real “jungle” with challenges and prizes amped up to an adult level.

“Every episode is a hero’s journey through a mysterious jungle,” the new show’s press release said. “Five teams begin the journey, but only one is ‘strong enough and smart enough’ to enter the ominous Olmec’s Temple, avoid the ‘dreaded’ Temple Guards, retrieve a lost treasure, and return it to its rightful owner.”

Quibi, a short-form video streaming service, originally planned to make the adult version of the show. But the platform quickly fizzled before a “Legends of the Hidden Temple” reboot could debut. Perhaps that’s a good thing in the end because this amped-up version of the contest feels like it needs a larger viewing screen than your mobile device.

The original “Legends” aired on Nickelodeon between 1993 and 1995 and had 120 episodes. It continued in syndication on and off for many years, and a 2016 TV movie turned the concept into fictional film form on Nickelodeon.

Contestants, who were between 11-15 years old, were on teams named the “Purple Parrots,” “Blue Barracudas,” “Orange Iguanas,” “Red Jaguars,” “Silver Snakes” and “Green Monkeys.” The reboot also promises to keep those names plus Olmec, the talking Mayan head, and other elements of the original show.

Original “Legends” host Kirk Fogg hinted recently that he may play a role in the reboot, according to a video interview he gave to TMZ.

“All I get from everybody is, when are we going to bring back the show,” Fogg said. He added that he’d love to see some of the original kid contestants come back on the revival now that they are adults.

You can see the interview below on YouTube:

The OG “Legends of the Hidden Temple” combined stories of real-life historical figures and places with mostly made-up objects that contestants had to find in a temple maze before time ran out or temple guards grabbed them. (Who else jumped every time a temple guard popped out?!)

Before teams could become the final duo to run the temple obstacle course, they had to win physical challenges and answer trivia questions correctly.

The themed episodes were called things like “The Golden Cricket Cage of Khan,” “The Bonnet of Dolley Madison” and “The Snow Cone of Mount Kilimanjaro.”

In case you’d like to refresh your memory about the way the show works, here’s the first episode of “Legends,” entitled “Galileo’s Cannonball,” as posted to YouTube by user The Perihelion 0-(^_^0).

When it debuted, the show was described as “a combination of ‘Jeopardy’ and ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.'” And in fact, the “Indiana Jones” movies along with the classic Nintendo video game “The Legend of Zelda” inspired the concept.

“We wanted to do an action-adventure game show — sort of like a live video game for television,” Scott Stone told the Orlando Sentinel in 1993. His company, Stone Stanley Productions (now known as Stone & Company), originally produced the show and will also produce the revival.

The new series does not yet have a premiere date. But if you can’t wait until the new CW version, you can watch all the original episodes of Nickelodeon’s “Legends of the Hidden Temple” on Paramount+. The TV movie is also available there.

And if you’re over 21 and can be available in July to shoot episodes of the new “Legends” in the Los Angeles area, you can even apply to be a contestant!

Were you a fan of the original Nickelodeon version of “Legends of the Hidden Temple”?