NICKELODEON Arcade

Hosted by: Phil Moore

Hosted by Phil Moore, Nickelodeon Arcade was the first game show strip to incorporate virtual reality technology in the United States. Nickelodeon Arcade put two teams against each other in various video game challenges. The team with the most points at the end of two rounds entered the Video Zone, a bizarre CyberSpace that resembled popular video game environments. On the last stage of the Video Zone the players faced the day's "Game Wizard"(information below), one of three evil superbeings with the power of teleportation and mastery of the elements.

Three pilots and a total of 84 episodes were shot at Nickelodeon Studios. The show premiered on the Weekends and quickly gained the highest ratings it's time slot had ever seen. The show became a daily strip in Nickelodeon's Prime Time block in 1993. The show continued airing on the Nickelodeon cable network well after it's initial run on weekend mornings until October 1997. Today, the show can still be seen twice a day of Nickelodeon Games and Sports (GAS) Network.

The Game Wizards are the fictional nemesis of both the contestants and their video mascot Mikey. The challenge these villains present is the common thread that ties the show's diverse elements together. For example, during a Video Challenge, the wizards will task a contestant to surpass a difficult score in a video game competition. They are also the final obstacle the contestants must overcome to claim the grand prize in the bonus round. There are 3 game wizards, each with a different sphere of power: Mongo, a large brute who hurls bolts of naked energy, Scorchia, an agile sorceress who has tamed the element of fire, and Merlock, a genius magician with mastery of lightning and electricity. The wizards are greedy denizens of a video dimension who have found a gateway to our world and Mikey's world by way of the VideoZone, which intersects with all worlds. By using a delicate configuration of 3 magical crystal orbs, they have crossed into the VideoZone. If unchecked, they will conquer first Mikey's world, then our own. The only way to stop each wizard is for someone to enter the Videozone through the Nickelodeon Arcade's giant Video Doors and destroy the 3 orbs, sending the wizards back to their own dimension.

The Faceoff Games, were head-to-head, two-player video games used at the beginning of each game round to determine which team has control of the game. These 30-second games are for coin-toss purposes only and do not have to be thematically linked to the rest of the episode, however the same game should be played in both rounds. 5 custom face-off games were made for Season 1 (42 episodes) and 3 new games were added for Season 2 (42 episodes) of Nickelodeon Arcade. These are accompanied by FACE-OFF TITLE SCREENS which appear whenever the rules of each game are explained by the show moderator. These games may be substituted for, or augmented by any other available head-to-head games.

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©2002 The "Official" Old School Nickelodeon Reminiscence & Recovery Site.
Nickelodeon Arcade is property of Bethea-Miteff Productions and Nickelodeon, no copyright infringement implied. Pictures ©1992 Nickelodeon.