Saturday, October 06, 2007

Nick GAS

I think I have found my new favorite channel. Nick GAS, for those unfamiliar with it, is a network that airs many of the classic game shows that mostly aired on Nickelodeon back in the 90s.

To be honest I could not remember half of the ones I watched, and only started to recover the "memory" of some of the more obscure game shows that I may have only watched once or twice as a young kid.

Shows that I have fond memories of are "GUTS", which brings joy almost every time I watch it because I wonder how much Mike O'Malley must have drank before coming out to film episodes (he called Mo - Quirky once, dear lord). The Aggro Crag, which once looked quite dominating and huge, now looks like a cheaply constructed concoction of pannels, that might be 20 feet high and require only minimal ability to reach the top (and this only comes into play in the last 5 feet).

Nick Arcade - an absolutely lovely slice of 1991-93. Horrible clothing, corny graphics (that even though the show spanned more than a year they never got good), and only one or two video arcade games that I knew about even back then (Sonic the Hedgehog for instance). And after re-watching this over the last few weeks, I've come to realize that little game playing actually occurred, I suppose it's all well and good considering that watching someone play games (even different ones) for a near solid 30 minutes would be quite boring. Phil Moore, the host, seems like a kid wacked out on too much Mountain Dew and Skittles. The Nick overlords obviously allowed him to let loose and do just about anything he wanted. He'd ad-lib obviously on-the-spot words to fit the music playing at the time, which is always wonderful because you can tell when his mind drew a blank "Da-da-daaa-da-da-do" would come out instead. Couple all of this with kids that obviously are unable to do the "The Video Zone" (reaching too far to the left/right, dying constantly) makes this game really really enjoyable to relive, too bad it's almost only on at 4:00am.

Of the shows I've caught, I've only come away marginally unimpressed by two, and I figure the reason is because I stopped watching Nick shows by the end of my Elementary school tenure, or around when "Rocko's Modern Life" went off the air.

"Figure It Out" and "Double Dare 2000" leave me scratching my head, "Figure It Out" more-so.

Double Dare itself is pretty universal and ageless (aside from the prizes, which I'm gonna get to later). I'm just not that impressed with the host. He's capable, but he comes off pretty condescending and half the time he doesn't seem interested in being there. Since it's been quite some time since I watched the original, I can't really say whether or not they camped up the shtick as much in the older iterations. It comes across as an extremely forced "cooky" rather than naturally coming. It doesn't help that they get some of the most incompetent families to play, as they are incapable of answering even simple questions. No one ever wins the final Obstacle Course, because frankly I think it was rigged as they've introduced obstacles that could easily be set to not "go off" regardless of how much effort the person trying to complete it can do. On the flip side they also stick wildly inappropriate people to do specific obstacles, I mean, they'll stick the smallest kid on one that makes it so they're even unable to reach high enough to complete it.

"Figure it Out" is just lame. They might as well have called it "Sedo-Olympic gold metal winner treats guest panelists like trash while they guess completely impossible to guess 'talents'." In other words, if the panelists - which was made up of current Nick stars, current young stars, and a few other former Nick stars that couldn't resist a paycheck - could guess your "secret phrase" then you're an idiot and didn't deserve the "15 inch see-through Zenith tv set."


Oh the prizes... the prizes. As a youth no one would realize how poor the prizes really are, or how wildly they range, or that apparently once they select the prizes (most likely randomly), they won't change it. Two boys on Nick Arcade won two extremely girly toys, and a MAKEUP KIT. Great. Other times it ended up being Nesquik or a ring pop/push pop candy. Great, things I can get at any grocery store!

Marginally better prizes were shoes, that's at least talking 60+ dollars (maybe). "SKETCHERS....ITS THE S!!!" I'm sure that's what kids really want. New backpacks (eh, not absolutely horrible), and sometimes even clothing/jackets. And don't forget SPACE CAMP! Dear lord.

I guess I'm glad I'm not a kid anymore, now let me find my LA Lights and box of Nerds while I stare at the speed bump from the set of GUTS I won.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

do you agree with me that they should do a marathon of all the gameshows that were on Nick Gas? If so, then we should protest about it

Chris said...

Unfortunately I think that time has come and gone. The channel was fun while it lasted.