1. Legends of the Hidden Temple – Imagine if Indiana Jones was a child and then imagine that he was a contestant on Supermarket Sweep and you’ve got a good idea of the premise of Legends of the Hidden Temple.
Legends ran in that golden age of Nickelodeon game shows that included Double Dare, G.U.T.S., Family Double Dare, Figure it Out, Super Sloppy Double Dare, and Wild and Crazy Kids. Olmec, a huge statue, would dish out some (actually real) legend to these kids and the episode would center around that particular legend. The host, Kirk Fogg, would lead the kids through a few physical challenges and trivia questions. The winners of these challenges got to ransakc the temple in search of hidden treasures, which would grant them real-life prizes like Variflex skateboards and trips to Orlando, Florida. Also lurking in the temple were TERRIFYING guards who could jump out of the darkness and scare these poor children at any moment. Seriously, these guys were horrifying.
Legends ran from 1993 to 1995 and then lived on in repeats until 1999. As a kid I dreamed of being a Silver Snake someday, but it was never to be.
2. Coleco Commercial – A fun commercial from the times where Coleco was trying anything and everything to get a leg up on Atari. Here’s their claim that they’re providing an arcade experience…if you significantly dial down the graphics and put it on a small screen and make you pay a bunch of money for a single game…
3. Disney Ad – Here’s a great black and white print ad from the late ’50s promoting Disneyland. The typeface and copy (and the linebreak to allow for the smokestack billows) just make me grin.
4. Pro 200 – “The greatest bargain in computer history”. With new, computer chip technology. It’s also a full functioning calculator.
5. Sabin Suplex – In honor of the twentieth anniversary of Final Fantasy VI, here’s Sabin performing a suplex on a train – possibly the pinnacle of awesomeness in both that game and the entire SNES generation.
-ds