This radio interview was conducted on September 29, 2006, by Leon Ferri of WCDB in Albany, NY, alongside Chris Spahr. The names have been color-coded for your convenience, with occasional timestamps.
Download the interview here! (MP3, 33:43, 30.88MB)
Kirk Fogg, Legends of the Hidden Temple Host
[0:00] Leon: WCDB, 90.9, Albany, New York, and I have Chris Spahr with me--
Chris: How's it goin', Leon?
Leon: --and, Kirk Fogg... Are you there?
Kirk: Howdy! You have Kirk Fogg?
Leon: I do have Kirk Fogg, as a matter of fact.
Kirk: Oh my God, that's really weird.
Leon: That's crazy.
Kirk: Yeah. How's it goin'?
Leon: Ah, really great. Um, attention Albany, our vanguard of the Hidden Temple, Kirk Fogg. Excellent. I'm so glad we could do this interview. This is really something else.
Kirk: I'm really glad too, that you called me up and decided to ask me to do this. So, everybody still watches the show?
Leon: Yeah, it's on this channel, Nick Games and Sports, I suppose. The people with the digital cable get it. I'm not part of that crowd, but it's real popular, Kirk.
Kirk: I actually get that. I get it, I know, because I have a boy who's four years old, and he's kind of freaked out by it right now.
[1:04] Leon+Chris: (laughs)
Chris: Yeah, I could see that.
Leon: What gets him, it is the Mayan temple guards? Or--
Kirk: No, it's the fact that I'm sitting there watching it with him, and he sees me over there, and it kind of freaks him out, so he has to kind of check in on it.
Leon+Chris: (laughs)
Leon: That's really interesting.
Kirk: (in child's voice) "That's you, that's you there, but, you're... sitting with me."
Leon: (laughs) Yeah, that's crazy.
Kirk: "I'll explain it to you later," I said.
Leon+Chris: (laughs)
Leon: That's great. So anyway, we got a few questions that have been compiled throughout the last week and a half from people from Suny Albany, here, and people all over the world alike. I put this up on that Facebook social networking site and a lot of people were--I got a lot of positive responses and a lot of questions offered to me. But we got it down to about ten questions, and I think there are some real, solid, awesome, provoking... maybe not world-changing, but--
[2:04] Chris: Inquiries though. They're good inquiries.
Kirk: Yeah, but for me it's an emotional catharsis because it's something I've been holding onto for so many years, so I think I need to get this off my chest--
Leon: That's beautiful. (laughs)
Kirk: --the answers to whatever these questions are.
Leon: Wow, alright. Well! Anyway...
Leon, Chris+Kirk: (laughs)
Leon: That was quite a Hallmark moment, Kirk.
Chris: Indeed.
Kirk: Yeah, exactly.
Leon: Alright, so the first question--this is Jerry, from Florida--would like to know, is Kirk Fogg your real, legal name?
Kirk: You know, it is. It is my real, legal name.
Leon: That is... That's crazy.
Kirk: Isn't that bizarre?
Leon: It's beyond mere mortals. Wouldn't you say, Chris?
Chris: I would say it is certainly beyond mere mortals, perhaps even beyond talking stone Olmec heads.
Kirk: (laughs) Yeah, it was just kind of lucky that I got the name, you know, I think.
Chris: I, actually--since the years when I was watching the show when I was little, I always thought that was like, the coolest name ever. And I was pretty sure it was fake, but I really feel better knowing it's an awesome real name.
[3:07] Kirk: You know, every once in a while somebody will come up and go, "why don't you change your name?"
Leon: What!?
Kirk: I don't know, I just went with it. I mean, there's a lot, a lot of worse names out there, you know.
Leon: It's Kirk Fogg, it's--
Kirk: Some people are really hanging with it--
Leon: --mono-syllabic heaven.
Kirk: Huh?
Leon: It's mono-syllabic heaven.
Chris: Indeed.
Kirk: (laughs) Exactly.
Leon: It's beautiful. Alright, anyway, well, just between you and me... okay, Kirk?
Kirk: Yeah--
Leon: This is just--
Kirk: Right, right.
Leon: --just us.
Kirk: Um-hm?
Leon: Did you have a favorite team?
Kirk: Ahh... you know I really... ahh, man, I, you know, I might have had a favorite color... I kind of liked... you know, I kind of liked the Silver Snakes.
Leon+Chris:Ohh, really!
Leon: Both of ours.
Chris: Wow.
Kirk: They were kind of working class. You know, they were kind of, they all--
Chris: They were definitely the Proletariat.
Kirk: Yeah, they were like, they were just kind of just rag-tag and they just somehow kind of hung around and always kind of hung in there, and, you know, there was nothing fancy about them, and I don't know, I just--and you know, the color was just kind of like, drab, and... I just kind of liked it.
[4:11] Leon: Nobody ever gave them enough credit. I have to say--
Kirk: No they didn't.
Leon: --I'm not running up to the mike to just claim this and be popular--I actually was a Silver Snakes supporter. Lifelong.
Chris: Honestly, I was too. And I'd always run with the best one that made it over the moat, but, Silver Snakes was always my first pick.
Leon: Yeah, the thing was, the Silver Snakes, they never listened to Olmec, so when they were on the steps, they never had anything to say; they never got the questions right. So--
Kirk: (laughs)
Leon: --after that, I just didn't want to get up and do my homework or anything, so I just kind of stuck with the team that came after that which was usually the Orange Iguanas, but then they never beat it. So, it was really--
Kirk: Yeah, the Orange Iguanas, they were--you know, I can't even remember--who won the most, you know?
Leon: Um, actually, that was on Wikipedia. Chris, do you, uh--
Chris: [utterance]
Leon: Yeah, there were actual--I do know about this. Have you ever visited the Wikipedia article for Legends?
Kirk: I have not.
Leon: Oh, you gotta read it. You'd get a real kick out of it.
[5:01] Leon: It's very, um, extremely thorough. It's every single, minute detail of every single minute of the show.
Kirk: By the way, on Wikipedia, it says that I'm from Marion, Indiana, and I'm not.
Leon: Ooh. Did you know, you can change that.
Kirk: I know--and I tried, and it switched back.
Leon+Chris: Aww.
Leon: It switched...
Chris: Whoa.
Leon: Wow. Popular consensus.
Chris: You should say, "hey, hey"--
Leon: You were born there.
Chris: --"hey, I'm Kirk Fogg, I know where"... Where are you from, exactly?
Kirk: L.A.
Chris: You're from L.A. originally?
Kirk: I was born in L.A.
Leon: Hm.
Chris: That's a--
Kirk: I'm a fourth--I'm a generation L.A.
Chris: Wow.
Leon: Generation L.A. Beautiful.
Chris: Hm.
Kirk: Yeah. So anyway, who won the most?
Leon: I think it was the Green Monkeys.
Kirk: Yeah.
Leon: But the Silver Snakes had, like, the highest percentage of wins; you know what I mean?
Chris: Was it they made it the most or they won the most when they got there?
Kirk: Oh, they did?
Leon: I'm not sure. Yeah, one got in more often, but the other one won more.
[6:00] Kirk: But you said, "who was your favorite color?" it kinda, one of my answers--I thought about it--well, usually, anybody who made it through--that was my favorite color because it was like--
Leon: (laughs)
Kirk: --so hard to get through that thing.
Leon: Yeah, seriously.
Kirk: It really was. It was a really tough, tough maze. And believe me, I was there--I know.
Leon: You were there.
Chris: Well, that brings us to our next question quite nicely. Coleen Gunning from somewhere--we're not really sure, sorry Coleen, but we're hoping you're listening. She wants to know if you--could you, or have you ever, made it through the temple yourself and back, in three minutes?
Kirk: I am so glad that someone actually asked me that question, because I made it--I'm not lying--I swear to God on Olmec's... mouth.
Leon+Chris: (laughs)
Kirk: And that slight tear that he had in the corner. A little bit of a tear in that first season, in that corner, if you look.
Note: This is "tear" as in "rip," not "teardrop." Chris: Oh yeah?
Leon: [Unknown utterance]
Kirk: But--and with that tear, and we had to continue to kind of mend it. But, I swear to God, I used to start off the season and see if I could make it through the temple and out within three minutes.
[7:06] Leon: And did you?
Kirk: I did every single year that I'd shot that show.
Leon: Ooooh, wow...
Kirk: I did it, but let me tell you something--I would want to throw up after doing it, because--
Leon: (laughs)
Kirk: --it was really, really hard, and I didn't have to even deal with temple guards.
Leon+Chris: Wow.
Leon: Temple guards...
Kirk: It's a really hard thing to get through, and plus, I was taller, so, or at least I looked like... Sometimes those fourteen year-olds were taller than I was.
Leon: (laughs)
Kirk: You got some monster fourteen year-olds.
Leon: Yeah.
Chris: I've seen them, yeah, it's scary.
Kirk: (laughs)
Leon: Gene pool. Crazy.
Chris: Crazy. Um--
Kirk: I knew when the nine year-olds, I said, were not getting to the temple--
Leon: (laughs)
Chris: Yeah.
Kirk: --no doubt.
Chris: Yeah. There was--
Kirk: They weren't going to get there.
Leon: Yeah, that was--I gotta say, out of all the shows I've seen, as far as game shows are concerned, that was really the toughest... the toughest to beat... you know?
Kirk: Yeah. It was... Tougher than the mountain in GUTS?
Leon: The Aggro Crag.
Kirk: The Aggro Crag? Yeah.
Chris: The Aggro Crag, yeah.
Kirk: The Aggro Crag...
Chris: It looked tough, but at least there somebody always made it first, but I think timing it really... kind of put a cap on what you could do.
[8:02] Kirk: Yeah, you gotta understand, that maze was... I mean, you can't believe how hard it was to get that show up and running. In that first year, man, doors were breaking down... It was just... It was Hell. We did the first--we did one... We would do four shows a day, but we would do... The first show we ever did--we only did one show, I mean, the first time we did it--and it took us eighteen hours to do the show.
Chris: Wowww...
Leon: Eighteen hours?
Kirk: The kids were so wiped--
Leon: Awww...
Kirk: --wasted when they had to come through, they didn't want to do it--they were crying, they were weeping, before they even got to--because it was like, 11 o' clock at night and we were running them through the temple.
Leon: Thought: do you think that's why the win ratio is so low at the temple because it was always done at like, 11:30PM?
Kirk: No it wasn't, because we got better at it, so we actually got it--we did it on time--
Leon: Oh, well.
Kirk: --and well, we were trying to work out the kinks of the show. It was really hard--it was a very high production value show so it was really hard to get it working right, and doors would break down, and stuff like that.
[9:01] Leon: Ahmm...
Kirk: You know, you'd have to stop the show, and--
Chris: That's crazy.
Kirk: --film it. Yeah.
Leon: Oh, jeez...
Kirk: Ooh! Inside, that's kind of inside--
Leon: Ooh, yeah.
Kirk: --that's inside stuff.
Leon: Oh yes, we like that; that's the inside scoop. That's what we're after here.
Kirk: Yeah.
Leon: Alright, well. How about this? Mike D from Albany, Suny, would like to know, when you were done filming--done for the night--I don't know if it was 10 o' clock, you know, all the kids and their parents are going home--did you ever party with the Mayan temple guards and Olmec?
Kirk: (laughs)
Leon: You know, the set's to yourself, you've got this beautiful hidden temple right in front of you...
Kirk: Yeah, no, we... Yeah, no.
Leon: Just left?--
Kirk: Yeah, we never... no--
Leon: --Just closed the doors? Gone?
Kirk: Yeah, we pretty much... We would leave, but I tell you--let me tell you something, though, because I really didn't party that much, because I'd already done that, before--
Leon: Hmm. That's nice...
Kirk: --so I had to retire, so, um... but let me tell you something--the temple guards would party. They would--
[10:00] Leon: Really?
Chris: (laughs)
Kirk: They would party.
Leon: (laughs)
Kirk: I mean these guys were real... but they worked their butts off during that show, though.
Leon: Wow, so just like, wow.
Kirk: And Olmec himself, uh... uh... I would hang out with him. Yeah, I'd hang out with him.
Leon: Hang out with Olmec.
Chris: He's a cool guy.
Kirk: Yeah, and as a matter of fact I just had coffee with Olmec the other day!
Chris: Really!
Leon: Really!
Kirk: Yeah, I told him... I also told my son that, and that freaked him out.
Chris: (laughs) That would freak me out more--
Leon: Yeah, that's really tough--
Chris: seeing dad on TV, yeah.
Leon: Yeah, that's really funny.
Kirk: He was picturing him at Starbucks, and he couldn't do it. He was--
Leon: (laughs)
Kirk: --it came to his mind. But I did, I saw Dee Baker, and he's doing really, really well. He's got a really... quite a great career.
Leon: That's great. Yeah, I would actually... I was planning on getting Olmec, as well, but I couldn't get a hold of him. I guess he's very... popular, as you say.
Kirk: Oh, you know what... if you get--afterwards you can talk to me or e-mail me and I'll give you his phone number--I'll get it in touch with you, with him. So...
Chris: Ohh--
Kirk: He's kind of a snob, but--
Chris: --that would be great.
[11:01] Kirk: He's kind of a snob, but he'll talk to you.
Much more to come to this transcript--check in often.