

The new series cast pairs of two people who know each other, like on The Amazing Race, and many of them are fans of the original.

On the original series, producers just paired two kids the morning of taping, and despite being strangers, they had to work together to win all kinds of fun 1990s prizes. So, we had zero real effect of COVID other than the expense of testing people every day.” How was Legends of the Hidden Temple show cast? “We were very, very, very careful about it,” Stone told me, “and we only had, I think, one or maybe two people that ultimately tested positive, but they didn’t infect anybody on the set, and they were gone and came back later. “We were shooting right as we thought COVID was going to go away, and then it didn’t,” Stone said.Īll contestants had to be vaccinated, and everyone was also tested. The competition filmed in July in Southern California, on a massive outdoor set dressed to look like a jungle rather than the desert. Where did Legends of the Hidden Temple film? I am so glad we’re not watching an 8-minute version! The reboot is actually the opposite: What was a half-hour episode on Nickelodeon is an hour-long episode on The CW, though it retains essentially the same format. “I always jokingly say that it went from the steps of knowledge to the step of knowledge,” he added. “Imagine taking the format that we have and trying to suck all the extra oomph out of it, and really make it into eight minutes, because we really did try to keep all of the elements, in one form or another, in the show, in eight minutes. “One of the things that we really had agreed to do-and it was not easy-was to do standalone eight-minute episodes,” he said. Had Legends of the Hidden Temple been on Quibi, Stone told me that it would have been “very different.” Some Quibi reality shows were effectively just half-hour shows chopped into three pieces others were compact, efficient competitions (like this show that I highly recommend). Quibi itself didn’t even last six months, and Legends never aired, but thankfully The CW rescued the reboot this year.Īnd I do mean thankfully. The revival of Legends of the Hidden Temple was initially announced in 2019 by Quibi, which was then still months away from launching. How did Legends change from the Quibi version? The original production company, Stone Stanley Entertainment, went on to produce another beloved reality competition this new version is produced by Stone’s Stone & Company Entertainment.

To learn more about The CW’s version-and, it turned out, the original Nickelodeon version-I talked to executive producer Scott Stone, who created the original with David Stanley and Stephen Brown. I’ve seen one episode so far, and it grew on me during the episode: The closing image of the temple reflecting in the moat at sunset is gorgeous and really sells the environment the Temple Run is very similar of the original, and I was yelling at the contestants just like I did in the 1990s and the opening Moat challenge and its editing were quite clunky, as is Olmec’s mouth.

The voice of Olmec is the same, while Cristela Alonzo is now hosting. It’s moved from a soundstage in Orlando to an expansive outdoor set in the Los Angeles area, but retains the same general format. Unlike the Nickelodeon reboot of Double Dare, which was for kids, The CW’s Legends of the Hidden Temple (Sundays at 8) is targeted at those of us who grew up with the show, who are also the contestants. Five years ago, there was a scripted film version, and today the actual competition series is back. Legends of the Hidden Temple is back! The 1990s Nickelodeon game show aired just three seasons, but its 120 episodes have lived on, in reruns and now streaming.
