Temple Game Victor, Henry VIII's Great Seal, Season 1
When I auditioned for legends there was a small advertisement in the Orlando
Sentinel newspaper for auditions for a new action/adventure gameshow from
nickelodeon. Once again, I was on the first season and had no idea what I
was getting into. The audition was held in one of the nickelodeon sound
stages on the universal backlot and consisted of a timed obstacle course,
then they counted how many pushups you could do and you took a written test
(which had general knowledge and pop culture questions) they took your
picture and you went on your way. I think it was quite a while before I
heard from them.
I arrived to film my episode on August 10th 1993, I only remember the date
because it was six days before my 13th birthday so I wanted to say I was 13
in the interview since when the episode aired I would be 13. They filmed
either 5 or 6 episodes the day I was there (It was a long time ago) I didn't
realize how long of a day it would be. They don't film the shows all at once
the film them one segment at a time. (moat, stairs, games, temple) When you
watch the show it looks like after you finish the moat you turn around to
the steps when actually it was at least a couple hours later. (notice
everyone is dry)
The first thing in the morning they told all the parents they would have to
spend the day in a seperate green room that had a video feed. There were no
parents in the audience. They took us to a trailer and gave us a quick
breakdown on how the game worked, as far as being an elimination. They then
called out the names of the partners. Nobody knew each other prior to that
day. We got our wardrobe, and no they weren't reebok sneakers they were
k-mart crap and I was upset that there were no high tops left in my size. It
didn't matter anyways we didn't keep anything except for our shirts. (Which
I still have!)
We got to walk through the set for the first time. We then went in the back
and had our mouthpieces fit. The moat was a breeze, however I do feel sorry
for those who lose on it. It makes for a very sad experience. My whole goal
for the day was to make it to the temple games so I would get to be
interviewed. Anyways, a couple hours after we finished the moat we went in
to go film the steps of knowledge, we were all wondering why they made us
keep our helmets on, but as I said earlier it was for the illusion of
continuity.
Right before entering the sound stage for the steps, we got to meet dee
baker the voice of Olmec. He was really funny and talented, he did several
voices for us and explained that he pulled a wire to control olmec's mouth.
Once we started filming the steps it was the first time I actually saw kirk
fogg, up until then I could only hear him. They did a very flatering job
editing the steps, since the made it look like I breezed through all the
questions when in actuality I rang in on a whole bunch more but they were
wrong and no one else would ring in. I think that's why the questions were
starting to get real easy, they were probably running out.
Those of us who made it passed the steps were lucky enough to get lunch. It
was the Pizza Hut Bigfoot pizza which really never did settle very well.
When we were finally ready to film the temple games we got to meet kirk
fogg. He went over what we were going to talk about in our interviews. I
noticed in the later seasons they took this portion out all together. They
showed us our temple games and we got to decide who wanted to do what. Of
course we both wanted to slide around in the mr. bubbles trying to crown the
mannequin heads. However we made the agreement that if I got to do the
messy, more fun temple game then if we made it to the temple she could go
first. (I never thought we would make it to the temple).
My temple game ended up in a tie (I couldn't even beat a girl) however when
it was all done I knocked kirk fogg down while he was helping me up. He
laughed it off on camera, but when they weren't filming you could tell he
was upset that his shorts were all wet. My partner got beat in the bamboo
forest by Jordan from the blue barricudas. (he was really cocky and made us
winning that much more sweet) We somehow pulled off the final temple game
and were on our way to the temple. We actually knew we won before Kirk said
it, because the spotters were holding up the numbers of how many felt pieces
we had on their hands. The shot of the spotters holding the pieces of felt
that aired in the episode must have been filmed later.
They took all of us who made it to the temple for a tour of it. This was
EXTREMELY overwhelming! Every room had a differant way of opening the doors
and we were just trying to figure out the object of the temple. Even when I
went in I still wasn't sure if the seal would be hidden in the room or not.
I guess I had watched too much finders keepers. I also wasn't exactly sure
what a seal looked like.
After the tour while we were in the greenroom they gave us a marker and a
piece of paper with a map of the temple and its rooms. They encouraged us to
map out a path. Both my partner and I agreed it was worthless considering
that if one door didn't open the whole path would be worthless. We did
however make our fatal mistake. We decided to enter in the cave of size. If
you've seen my episode you can realize that there was no way for us to win
once we made that choice.
Right before entering the temple we got to see what we've been waiting for,
the prizes we were playing for. I'll tell you right now that if there was a
camera on my face when the said our grand prize was a trip to Busch Gardens
(60 miles away) it would have been priceless. Considering the show that
filmed before us just won a trip to Jamaica!
Prizes aside, Shay went first and did an o.k. job, the when I heard Kirk
tell me to go I was in a dream. It was bizarre as if I was sitting back
watching myself do this, the whole surrealness of being the center of
attention on a nickelodeon gameshow. Every room I entered all I remember
thinking is "please no temple guard". My first embarassment came when I
couldn't find the silver monkey. I actually looked in the cabinets. My final
embarassment came at the end of my run when I was startled so badly by the
temple guards that I jumped completely out of the temple. To this day I
can't live that down.
There is life after "Legends" though! I did have dreams for a month or two
afterwards about going back on and actually winning. I do still think it was
one of the best experiences of my life. Every part of it was a blast. I've
come a long way from the nerdy 12 year old on the episode, but it's still
cool to meet new friends who used to love legends and get a kick out of
showing them my episode. I still am guarded about who I'll actually show it
too, afterall I think anyone would agree it's not something I'd show anyone
to impress them, but more to poke fun at myself and how young I was. My
fiance always cracks up at my comment about the bungee cord being too short
after my temple game.
Anyways now that I have major typing cramp. If you happen to have any
questions about anything I said or might have left out, please e-mail me. I
think your sites are great and look forward to showing them to my friends.