15 of the 90s ' best games for kids were ranked.
Recall when the television landscape had match indicates aimed at teenagers that genuinely featured youngster finalists? If so, you most likely spent the 1980s and 1990s growing up. We decided to look up on the best games the 1990s had to offer because it seems like there aren't nearly as many boys gameplay shows right now. + 1 to Nostalgia!Before jumping into this ranked roster, a quick note to remember: I'll just been covering United children's gameplay shows that ran from 1990 to 1999. Sorry, but since I didn't grow up with them, it wouldn't be good for me to level Knightmare, A*mazing, Get Your Own Again, 50/50, The Adventure Game, Uh-Oh!, To Me... To You, and other things I didn't even know about on this checklist. Feel free to let us know your classics in the remarks!
This start with two Honorable Cites before moving on to the more serious portion of the 15 Best 90s Kids Game Shows.
17 ) Zooventure at Animal Planet
Initial Run: 1997 - 2000Pet Planet is a networking
Host: J. D. Roth
Premise: Glued at the San Diego Zoo, four kid finalists competed in a series of mental and physical obstacles for a chance to earn the fantastic prize of being veterinarian for a evening.
Rationale for Ranking: Because it was a little chaos, this one receives an Honorable Mention. And since the games consisted mostly of physical stunts ( mixing food in a bowl ), True or False questions, and word puzzles, it was about as boring as you could watch. Verify out an instance below: It was an effort to teach teenagers about species, their treatment, and recovery, all while running them through some half-baked activities. The gameplay present was split into two parts, which were then extended three sessions apart. In order for them to square off in the last round, the champion of the first third had to sit back and watch the champion of the second quarter, which meant they had to wait for each other.
16 ) Video Power
Initial Run: 1990 - 1992Syndicated Network
Host: Stivi Paskoski (aka Johnny Arcade ) and co-host Terry Lee Torok
Premise: This sport present, which largely consisted of four finalists competing in a variety of sessions that consisted of playing video games and answering tidbits, was basically a game display that was only meant to sell video activities to kids. The win was able to move through a maze in a Velcro fit while also securing awards to their brain and hat along the way.
Purpose for Ranking: My following Honorable Mention goes to this clutter because yet through it pre-dated the present video gameplay-watching audiences of Twitch, its prizes and premise were very poor. The animated portion of the program frequently outperformed the brief and uninteresting video game challenges or the live-action trivia rounds. However, it was delightfully 90s.
Watch some examples below:
15 ) Fun House
Initial Run: 1988 - 1991Network: Fox
Host: J. D. Roth and Cheerleader Twins Jacqueline "Jackie" and Samantha "Sammi" Forrest
Premise: Two teams of a boy and a girl competed against one another by answering questions, playing challenging stunt games, and racing around a track. The winners got a chance to run through the final Fun House obstacle course.
Reason for Ranking: Fun House occupies the top spot 15 because it is the first legitimate game show on this list. Fun House incorporated brain games with physical challenges that depended on the team members ' cooperation, much like more well-known game shows that will come out later. The object was, obviously, to win each round so your team would earn points and advance to the final prize round, but also to avoid getting slimed or garbage dumped on you. ( The other team's gunge-centric humiliation was a recurring theme in 1990s game shows. )
After surviving the stunt rounds, each team entered a Grand Prix, i .e. a (occasionally ) relay race in which collecting tokens with various value points was sometimes more important than crossing the finish line first. It was as confusing and forgettable then as now, but the real fun of this show was the prize round in the Fun House itself. ( Points for this final round could be worth more than those for other similar game shows. ) Imagine being a young child who has been given the freedom to run through a stranger's home and not face punishment for it!
I mean, if it was good enough for Leonardo DiCaprio...
14 ) Think Quickly!
Initial Run: 1989 - 1991Host: Michael Carrington, Skip Lacey
Premise: A blue team and a gold team compete in mental and physical challenges ranging from strategy-based competitions to mini-golf and memory games. A Brain Bender round was held after each mini-game, giving the winning team from the previous mini-game a chance to solve a$ 200 puzzle. Whichever team had the most money by the end of the game went on to the bonus round... the Locker Room.
Reason for Ranking: If the title of the show's bonus round makes you uncomfortable, you might be wondering why it's ranked 14th on this list. Think Fast! is only marginally less spooky than having teenage cheerleaders strut around the set. While Think Fast! Despite earning points for its variety and level of difficulty, it doesn't move any further up this list because of the feared locker room. had contestants enter a mock locker room to match two locker doors. The trick is that each door had a puppet which would distract the player with water cannons, confetti, or any number of crazy things.
Watch as host Carrington battles it out with the audience, contestants, and games:
13 ) Treat or Nick!
Initial Run: 1992 - 1997 on HalloweenFred Newman as Radar the Bat, Joey the Werewolf as a hunchback, and Pumpky the Jack-o-lantern are the hosts.
Premise: A call-in show with a Halloween theme where the contestant is a youngster on the phone who must navigate his or her way around a virtual neighborhood to ring doorbells and win prizes all in 40 seconds.
Reason for Ranking: This wasn't a regular game show, but rather a seasonal one, so it won't be ranked as high as the rest of the shows on this list. A typical Nicktoons character would knock on the door and say," Nope! Nothing in this place! I'm just going to waste your time"! Even when kids did win prizes, it was typically garbage, like candy or McDonald's swag, but occasionally someone would win video game systems. The kids ' avatars never moved quickly enough, and they never once had the option to open three doors at most. I never got a chance to play, but man was it frustrating to watch. Despite that, it was a long-running series that gave kids an extra treat every Halloween in the middle of the 1990s.
Watch the 1995 playthrough below:
12 ) Make the Grade
Initial Run: 1989 - 1991Hosts: Robb Edward Morris, Lew Schneider,
Premise: Three contestants from different colors, each positioned at a desk of a different color, responded to trivia questions on a 7x7 game board similar to Jeopardy! In addition to the trivia questions, there were some physical challenges called Fire Drills. Each square lit up when they correctly answered an associated question on their own game board with seven grades and seven categories. At the conclusion of the main game, the goal was to light all 14 squares or at least have the most lit squares. These allowed contestants who otherwise performed poorly at the trivia games to gain ground, since winning a physical challenge allowed that player to claim the desk with the most complete squares.
Even though Make the Grade appeared to be a bootleg version of Jeopardy, why was it ranked? I enjoyed the ability of a contestant to reverse the course of events, but I also found it incredibly frustrating that a smart kid with no athletic prowess ( ie, me ) could be defeated by a jock. Life is cruel., the focus on trivia questions with the added twist of game-usurping physical challenges made this one an interesting watch each episode. Although this was never actually done, it was theoretically possible to win the main game without ever correctly answering a question.
Whoever answered more questions won the main game and advanced to the Honors Round, where they could answer more questions and win more money and a trip to Universal Studios Florida ( where the show was shot )? In later seasons, another bonus round called the University Round was added as a time-filler, since the games were over relatively quickly, more filler was added via footage of Schneider asking trivia questions in public. That's just good TV, folks! Right? Take a listen to the theme song below:
11 ) You're On, OMG!
Initial Run: 1998 - 1999Network: Nickelodeon
Vivianne Collins and Travis White as well as host Phil Moore and a few other remote hosts
You're On! is similar to a Candid Camera-style show, but with a different format. If the kids managed to get someone to do all three tasks in less than 10 minutes, they won a major prize; failing still won them a prize, just a smaller one. Adults who lost this game would end up getting slimed or having to do some other disgusting task. featured kid contestants trying to convince strangers to perform certain tasks while the adults were unknowingly being filmed. The contestants were assisted in the field by remote hosts and were allowed to work together to complete three related tasks, usually silly but harmless things like playing hopscotch. Since the remote tasks were pre-recorded, a parallel game called Runaround involved audience members - kids and their related adult guardian - guessing how many of the tasks each of the contestant pairs would successfully get strangers to complete.
Reason for Ranking: You're On! ) The Candid Camera pranks could only go so far while still trying to keep some semblance of competition, but it's clear that You're On! was a one-trick pony that tried to shoehorn some gunge mini-games in to fill up time. Still, Phil Moore is one of the better game show hosts on this list, so that bumps this one up a notch. has to earn points for changing up the style of play in the game show genre; then it loses those points by teaching kids that it's totally cool to approach strangers and ask them to do weird stuff, like give you a piggy-back ride. (Could you even imagine this game existing today?
Check Moore out in action below!
10) What Would You Do?
Initial Run: 1991 - 1993Host: Marc Summers
CL Report
CL Report
Premise: The live studio audience watched a previously taped segment featuring children or families put in unusual situations, though the tape was stopped before their actions were revealed. Summers then asked the audience what they would do in the same situation or what the outcome would be. to pick audience members to perform gross and silly stunts involving handling animals, playing messy games, painting, dancing or creating sound effects. The votes were tallied before revealing the resolution. Special guests also appeared on What Would You Do?The second season introduced more competitive segments in which two audience members (usually a child and his or her parent) tried to finish a stunt first, such as chugging milk or inflating a balloon until it popped. The end of each episode saw audience members either playing the Medley - in which index cards with various stunts were placed on their foreheads - or the Wall O' Stuff, a wall of 20 doors that hid either prizes or surprises, including more pies in the face. The loser would get a pie in the face or get sent to a pie contraption.
Reason for Ranking: Now we're getting serious. Summers - who publicly announced his battles with OCD, making his career of hosting gunge game shows even more impressive - had great rapport with the contestants and their parents in every show he hosted. This is this the first mention of the most-excellent kids game show host, Marc Summers, so it's fitting that we crack into the Top 10 with him at the helm. , the highlight of the show was getting a contestant - or Summers himself - into one of the many pie contraptions, such as the Pie Pod (picture a barber's chair at the center of multiple pie-launching catapults), the Pie Slide (a playground slide ending in a huge pool of whipped cream), and the car-wash's messy cousin, the Pie Wash. In What Would You Do?
What Would You Do? was pure silly fun. They didn't bother with trivia questions (besides ones about fellow family members) or physically stressful competitive stunts; it was all about getting your mom or dad or brother or sister a faceful of pie by any means necessary. Oh, and that theme song! Check it out below:
9) Get the Picture
Initial Run: March to December of 1991Host: Mike O'Malley
Premise: Two teams of two players each answered trivia questions for opportunities to reveal squares on a 4x4 grid with the ultimate goal of guessing the hidden picture composed of the 16 squares of a video wall. The first round was a version of Connect the Dots, with two chances to reveal a section of the actual image; the second round featured more difficult questions that had multiple answers, but if completed correctly would reveal a portion of the hidden image.
The first season also incorporated physical challenges into the competition. The images would be shown briefly before being hidden again. Six right answers won monetary prizes, the seventh and eight won merchandise, and all nine won a grand prize. The team with the most money (or points, in the second season) would go on to the bonus round, "Mega Memory." This round pitted the winning team against a nine-square video wall that featured nine separate images all related by a theme. O'Malley would then read clues and the contestants had to press the number of the square they thought matched the clue, requiring both memory and logic skills.
Reason for Ranking: Now we get back to real game shows that test the mental faculties of kids in exchange for money and prizes should they prove victorious. (Don't worry, we'll see him again soon.) Get the Picture was O'Malley's first host gig which would kickstart his acting career and open the door to a more popular franchise. Check out O'Malley being a goof below! Even though this game show had a short run, it continued in syndication until 1993 (and of course Nickelodeon's various networks have milked these reruns and others over the years). It's a relatively obscure show, but deserves this spot on the list for its inclusion of technology and original premise. We also introduce another Game Show Host Hall of Fame member (making that up, I think), Mike O' Malley.
8) Figure It Out
Initial Run: 1997 - 2000Network: Nickelodeon
Host: Summer Sanders
Premise: Similar to adult game shows What's My Line? and I've Got a Secret, this panel show featured children with special skills competing as contestants. The contestant wins prizes for each round that their talent goes unguessed, while the panel is subject to getting slimed if they perform a Secret Slime Action (which could be as simple as "Being a Contestant on This Show"). While they stand off-screen and share their talent with the home audience, lovelycheerleaders.com a panel of four Nickelodeon celebrities try to guess the predetermined phrase that describes the contestant's particular skill. If one of the panelists guessed part of the contestant's special skill, that word would go on the game board, called Billy the Answer Head.
Reason for Ranking: Two words for this ranking: Summer Sanders. Yes. Did they give away old game show props as prizes in the early episodes? Yes. But Figure It Out was a great way to flip the script on kids game shows, putting the talents of contestants in the spotlight while having their celebrity peers try to guess, and then admire, their hard-won talent. The show was so popular that a revival of it was launched in 2012; it lasted about a year. Was it cross-promotional advertising at its best? How cool was it to have an Olympic Gold Medal-winner hosting a kids game show? In addition to Figure It Out's host star-power, the main panel of the show was composed of other Nickelodeon child stars, who (contractually) had no problem getting slimed in the name of entertainment.
Watch an episode below and prepare to get nostalgic with the celebrity panel guests!
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