Remember when the television landscape had game shows aimed at kids that actually featured kid contestants? If you do, you likely grew up during the 80s and 90s. For whatever reason, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the number of kids game shows today, so we decided to take a look back on the best ones the 90s had to offer. +1 to Nostalgia!
Here’s a little caveat before you dive into this ranked list: I’ll only be covering American kids game shows that were on the air from 1990 to 1999. Sorry to our international fans who were hoping to seeKnightmare,A*mazing,Get Your Own Back,50/50,The Adventure Game,Uh-Oh!,To Me… To You…and more I don’t even know about on this list; it wouldn’t be fair for me to rank them since I didn’t grow up with them. Feel free to let us know your favorites in the comments!
And now, before we get into the meaty part of the 15 Best 90s Kids Game Shows, let’s start with a pair of Honorable Mentions.
17) Animal Planet Zooventure
Initial Run:1997 - 2000
Network:Animal Planet
Host:J.D. Roth
Premise:Taped at the San Diego Zoo, four child contestants competed in a series of mental and physical challenges for a chance to win the grand prize of being zookeeper for a day.
Reason for Ranking:This one gets an Honorable Mention because it was a bit of a mess. It was an effort to teach kids about animals, their care, and rehabilitation, all while running them through some half-baked games. The game show was split into two halves, each of which were further divided into three rounds. That means that the winner of the first half had to sit around and wait for the winner of the second half just so they could square off in the final round. And since the games amounted to basic physical stunts (i.e. mixing food in a bowl…), True or False questions, and solving a word puzzle, this was about as boring a show as you could watch. Check out an example below:
16) Video Power
Initial Run:1990 - 1992
Network:Syndicated
Host:Stivi Paskoski (aka Johnny Arcade) and co-host Terry Lee Torok
Premise:Essentially a game show that existed only to market video games to kids, this show saw four contestants compete in a variety of rounds that consisted of playing video games and answering trivia. A final prize round allowed the winner to run through a maze in a Velcro suit, sticking prizes to his or her body and helmet along the way.
Reason for Ranking:My second Honorable Mention goes to this mess because even through it pre-dated the modern video gameplay-watching audiences of Twitch, its prizes and premise were pretty weak. The animated portion of the show was often more entertaining than the live-action trivia rounds or the brief and boring video game challenges. It was, however, delightfully 90s.
Watch some examples below:
15) Fun House
Initial Run:1988 - 1991
Network:Fox
Host:J.D. Roth and Cheerleader Twins Jacqueline “Jackie” and Samantha “Sammi” Forrest
Premise:Two teams comprised of a boy and a girl on each competed against each other by answering questions, playing in messy 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 Housecan be considered the first legit game show on this list at spot 15. Much like more popular game shows that will appear later,Fun Housecombined brain games with physical challenges that relied on the team members' cooperation. 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 gunge-centric humiliation of the other team was a staple of 90s game shows.)
After surviving the stunt rounds, each team competed in a Grand Prix, ie a (sometimes) relay race with or without a vehicle in which collecting tokens of varying point value 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 being potentially worth more than other game shows of the same time.) Imagine that you’re a kid and you’ve just been given free rein to run through a stranger’s house, stealing thousands of dollars in cash and prizes with no consequences!
I mean, if it was good enough forLeonardo DiCaprio…
14) Think Fast!
Initial Run:1989 - 1991
Network:Nickelodeon
Host:Michael Carrington, Skip Lacey
Premise:A blue team and a gold team squared off in mental and physical challenges ranging from memory games, to mini golf, to strategy-based competitions. Each mini-game was followed by a Brain Bender round, which gave the previous mini-game’s winning team a chance to solve a more challenging puzzle worth $200. 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 name of the show’s bonus round creeps you out, then you can understand why it’s ranked 14th on this list. Only slightly less creepy than having teenage cheerleaders running around the set,Think Fast!had contestants run through a mock-up locker room to match a pair of 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. WhileThink Fast!gains points for its variety and difficulty of its levels, it doesn’t climb any higher on this list thanks to the dreaded locker room.
Watch host Carrington struggle to wrangle the games, contestants, and audience in this episode:
13) Nick or Treat!
Initial Run:1992 - 1997 on Halloween
Host:Fred Newman as Radar the Bat, Joey the Werewolf, a hunchback person, and Pumpky the Jack-o'-Lantern
Premise:A Halloween-themed call-in show in which the contestant is a child on the telephone who has to navigate his character around a virtual neighborhood to ring doorbells and get prizes, all within 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. That being said, it was quite the long-running series, giving kids an extra treat to look forward to each Halloween in the mid-90s. I never got a chance to play, but man was it frustrating to watch. The kids' avatars never moved fast enough and they only ever got a chance to open three doors at most. Usually, a Nicktoons character would answer the door and just be like, “Nope! Nothing here! I’m just going to waste your time!” Even when kids did win prizes, it was usually garbage like candy or McDonald’s swag, but every once in a while someone would win video game systems.
Watch a playthrough from 1995 below:
12) Make the Grade
Host:Lew Schneider, Robb Edward Morris
Premise:Three student contestants, each situated at a desk of a different color, answered trivia questions from a 7x7 game board similar toJeopardy!Their own game board had seven grades and seven categories, with each square lighting up when they answered an associated question correctly. The goal was to light all 14 squares or at least have the most lit squares at the end of the main game. In addition to the trivia questions, there were some physical challenges called Fire Drills. 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.
Reason for Ranking:Even thoughMake the Gradeappeared to be a bootleg version ofJeopardy!, the focus on trivia questions with the added twist of game-usurping physical challenges made this one an interesting watch each episode. It was theoretically possible to win the main game without ever answering a question correctly, though this was never actually done. I liked the show for the ability of a contestant to pull a reversal, but also found it incredibly frustrating that a smart kid with zero athletic ability (ie, me) could be trumped by a jock. Life is cruel.
Whoever won the main game then went on to the Honors Round, during which they could win more money and a trip to Universal Studios Florida (where the show was filmed…) by answering more questions. 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! Right? Take a listen to the theme song below:
11) You’re On!
Initial Run:1998 - 1999
Host:Phil Moore and remote hosts Vivianne Collins and Travis White
Premise:Similar to aCandid Camera-type show,You’re On!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. 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. 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. Adults who lost this game would end up getting slimed or having to do some other disgusting task.
Reason for Ranking:You’re On!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?) TheCandid Camerapranks could only go so far while still trying to keep some semblance of competition, but it’s clear thatYou’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.
Check Moore out in action below!
10) What Would You Do?
Initial Run:1991 - 1993
Host:Marc Summers
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. The votes were tallied before revealing the resolution. Special guests also appeared onWhat Would You Do?to pick audience members to perform gross and silly stunts involving handling animals, playing messy games, painting, dancing or creating sound effects.
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 loser would get a pie in the face or get sent to a pie contraption. 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.
Reason for Ranking:Now we’re getting serious. 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. 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. InWhat Would You Do?, 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.
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 1991
Host: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 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. The images would be shown briefly before being hidden again. 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. Six right answers won monetary prizes, the seventh and eight won merchandise, and all nine won a grand prize.
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. We also introduce another Game Show Host Hall of Fame member (making that up, I think), Mike O' Malley. (Don’t worry, we’ll see him again soon.)Get the Picturewas O’Malley’s first host gig which would kickstart his acting career and open the door to a more popular franchise. 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. Check out O’Malley being a goof below!
8) Figure It Out
Host:Summer Sanders
Premise:Similar to adult game showsWhat’s My Line?andI’ve Got a Secret, this panel show featured children with special skills competing as contestants. While they stand off-screen and share their talent with the home audience, a panel of four Nickelodeon celebrities attempt 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. 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”).
Reason for Ranking:Two words for this ranking: Summer Sanders. How cool was it to have an Olympic Gold Medal-winner hosting a kids game show? In addition toFigure It Out’shost 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. Was it cross-promotional advertising at its best? Yes. Did they give away old game show props as prizes in the early episodes? Yes. ButFigure It Outwas 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.
Watch an episode below and prepare to get nostalgic with the celebrity panel guests!
