One of the best not-quite-educational shows for kids that we enjoyed in the 1990s was the jungle adventure-themed game show called "Legends of the Hidden Temple." Originally said to be set in a haunted house, the final product that we all enjoyed in the brief two years of its Nickelodeon run was a sort of Indiana Jones on steroids jungle themed adventure. From math problems to wrangling door lock puzzles to running across bridges to braving terrifying giant head statue Olmec, all the trials and tribulations the young teammates went through each episode tested their minds and their bodies.

Turns out, the show tested them harder than you might think. A report by Ranker provided a lot of the details used in this article.

Nearly impossible to win

Think "Jeopardy" is the hardest game show to win? Of all the teams that competed in the 120 episodes of the complete series of "Legends of the Hidden Temple," a mere 32 made it all the way past the final challenge (called the Temple Run), and even a few of them had to have instructions shouted at them by the directors during the shoot, just so there would be someone the showrunners could award their prizes to. Why was it so difficult?

Well, for one thing, all the competitors were kids (of an average age range of 12-14), and as much as it might have seemed a simple thing for them to follow the instructions we all yelled at our TV screens, after a grueling 12-odd hour span of trivia questions and the rigors of a TV episode shoot, by the time any of these children got to the final round, they were beyond exhausted.

Fear doesn't help under pressure

More than a few of the competitors reminisce about their experience there as terrifying. Specifically, the jump-scare temple guards that were cast to, in wild and crazy costumes, jump out at the kids and be obstacles to their progress through the final Temple Run round. These guards were so startling and actually terrifying that most of the child team members would lose their concentration completely (and some guard actors ended up with injuries incurred by scared kids lashing out in their freaked out reactions).

Because of this, and also the utter exhaustion of the trials and tribulations each team suffered before the Temple Run, by the time the potentially winning team got to the end, the constant jump scares and pressure of the time clock managed to scramble the brains of most of the kids competing.

Add to this the often malfunctioning, low budget set and props, you had a pretty much impossible-to-win game show.

Producers would get so frustrated by not giving out their prizes that in some cases the directors and assistants would follow the winning teams, shouting out instructions to the scrambled brains of the competitors, who only very rarely were able to use that to advantage to win. Knowing this, is it still fun to watch? You decide.
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