The Legend of Legends of the Hidden Temple - S01E01

Ages and ages ago, in a time known as 1993, there debuted the greatest game show of all-time: Legends of the Hidden Temple. It combined the greatest loves of children everywhere - stupid swimming events, fake historical artifacts, Mayan horn music and a maze full of weird pedophile guards that left you alone if you had a medal.

Recently, I acquired the full run of Legends of the Hidden Temple - Three seasons, 120 total episodes. I've decided to use these as a bit of a break from Baggage. While the replay value isn't as high as a show like Wild and Crazy Kids, because the peaks weren't as high, the show was consistently better.

This is apparently even from the start, although as I allude to in my first paragraph, that first water event always sucked. One to three teams would always breeze through the event, while the other kids, who clearly couldn't swim, struggled to paddle their way across a small pool. Likewise, the little quiz they had about the day's relic, Blackbeard's Treasure Map, had kids just randomly guessing, and it took about 40 tries to get the two winners.

Anyway, on to the two winning teams! James is on the Red Jaguars, along with Sabrina, who kind of looks like a boy. (Sorry Sabrina.) They're opposed by the Silver Snakes, which was always my favorite team. The third-round half-medal games are also a bit better, as they rely on pushing a cannon ball up a hill backwards, and climbing up a wall to put together a relic. The medal game, which has the teams working a see-saw pulley to assemble a flag, ends in a tie. Unfortunately, those pesky Jaguars beat my Silver Snakes. (Check Sabrina's papers! I think we have a Caster Semenya situation going on.)

Finally though, we get to the best part of the game - the freakin' temple itself! I always got annoyed at players in the future seasons, who clearly had never ever seen the show, since they would easily get lost. However, since this was the first ever episode, they deserve a break. Sabrina gets an especially tough break, as a guard takes her medal in the very first room, one of the trapdoors she tries to open doesn't work at all, and she gets lost in the temple. James doesn't even get to go in at all. Womp womp womppppp.

Also, is it weird that the grand prize for the show was a trip to the Cayman Islands? The show was shot in Orlando, Florida, so the kids were already on vacation. Why did they need yet another vacation?

Note: Sorry about the lateness of this entry, but I had a trivia contest I was in at a local bar tonight, and it ran late. This entry was supposed to auto-post, but something went haywire. I blame Hurricane Earl.

Jerry Springer fondles your Baggage.

So, after much delay, let's talk about Baggage. It is a goofy idea for a dating "game show" but it works because Jerry Springer is the perfect guy to host it. The premise? A guy is picking from three women, based on the secrets they've revealed about their past. For example, on the show I watched last week, the three (attractive) women revealed their baggage to be:

- I have never had sex.
- I expect my man to wait on me hand and feet.
- I dated a felon.

After finding that out, the guy had to chose one to eliminate, based solely on their baggage. Now, all of the people involved were in their mid to late 20s, so I was surprised when he chose to get rid of the felon girl. After she was eliminated, she explained that she didn't know he was a felon.

I would have been much, much more concerned with the other two! Speaking as a 26-year-old, I think we all have a relationship we'd like to "take back" at this point in our lives. With that in mind, I'd be more concerned about someone who hadn't had sex yet or a high-maintenance drama queen than someone who dated a felon for a little bit.

But anyway, felon girl got eliminated. This left two women who were on opposite ends of the spectrum. One was a mouthy, high maintenance woman who oozed "sex kitten", as long as you didn't cross her. The other was a chaste, gorgeous blonde who revealed that she might NEVER have sex, because abstinence and God played a big part in her life. They both revealed a bit more baggage that wasn't really surprising - Sex Kitten once poured bleach all over an ex's clothes because he cheated on her, while Chastity was a bit OCD or something.

Anyway, the guy picks Chastity, which surprised me. He seemed like a bit of a tool, so why are you going after the sweetest dating show contestant ever? This causes Sex Kitten to react poorly, as she's all finger-snapping and like, "Oh no you didn't!" He then has to reveal his baggage, which is revealed as one of these three:

- I slept with my boss to get a promotion.
- I have been in seven pornographic films.
- I have not made any money the past three years.

Now, dude... Given that you know one of those three things would be revealed, why the heck would you choose the nicest, most precious woman ever? His actual baggage is the first thing, that he slept with his boss to get the promotion, and predictably, Chastity rejects him and says his baggage is too much for her.

However, another odd thing about this show - Chastity's actual name is LaChelle, and she said she is an English professor in the Midwest. This makes me wonder if she realized was going to be on a nationally syndicated game show? Because I am a reporter and naturally curious about these things, I popped the info into Google, and stumbled upon her blog, wherein she talks in great detail about the sex thing.

As a note, game show contestants in general fascinate me. In college, one of my friends had a fake story to impress women - He told them he had been on Nickelodeon Guts, because really, how the heck could you prove this wrong? And seeing as how all the people on Guts and Legends of the Hidden Temple and Double Dare and Arcade are roughly my age, I'm fascinated about how they got on the shows and what they're doing now.

For more on Baggage, check out the show's official site. It is on weeknights at 6:30 p.m. EST.