"You know, Stone Stanley got the show kind of on a whim too and they sort of had to scramble. It was a really, really difficult show to do," he said. "We shot the whole season in two or three weeks because there were 40 episodes a season. No combat between us."ĭespite the fact that the talent was getting along swimmingly, Fogg admitted that the show itself had more than a few bumps at the beginning, especially since they were filming about five shows a day. "I'm not sure if they tried me and Kirk working together," Baker added of the audition process. So what does that sound like? 'It's a big booming voice like that.' I think we found it pretty quickly just because it's kind of obviously what it needs to be: this big, booming, loud, god-like voice.
You look at it and go, What is it? Well, it's a giant talking rock head that looks very authoritative and it is. "I tried using the different voices that were in the legend and they liked what I did. I went in and just started reading some of the legends," Baker said. "I was with a voiceover agency in Orlando and I think they got the call.
So I just pulled a little bit of that out and he was like, 'Oh, you know how to do that!' I'm like, 'Yeah!'"įinding the voice of Olmec, a large faux rock being that presided over the temple and had the "secrets" to the legends, proved slightly more challenging, but for Dee Bradley Baker, it was just another audition.
I went in with co-executive producer Steven Brown and he literally just had a camera on and said, 'Can you read this play-by-play?' It was the run through the temple and I had no idea what he was talking about, but my brother and I used to do that all the time we would make up football games and we used to do our own play-by-play. They picked me out and they called me over. "Back in the day, they used to have this Screen Actors Guild directory and they were looking at pictures.
"It was a fluke," he said with a laugh of the gig he won't ever live down.
Some might call it destiny, but Fogg called it something else. Today, Legends turns 20, and in honor of the milestone anniversary, host Kirk Fogg and the voice of Olmec, Dee Bradley Baker, spoke to BuzzFeed about getting cast on the show, the disastrous first season, the contestant who vomited, the seemingly innocuous Shrine of the Silver Monkey, who exactly was behind those Temple Guard masks, what you'd find in Fogg's belt pack (besides that coveted Half-Pendant of Life), and much, much more. The Mayan temple-set game show - which tested preteens through both physical and mental challenges, centering on the "legend" of the episode in hopes of winning a trip to space camp - has prompted fan fiction series, Facebook groups pleading for its return, and many a Halloween costume. But there's one show that seems to still permeate current conversations more than any other: Legends of the Hidden Temple. Sure, you still fantasize about holding up a glowing piece of the Aggro Crag while glitter whirls in the air and Burt Hummel Mike O'Malley applauds your efforts, or fishing that coveted red flag out of a giant nasal cavity while trying not to slip on shaving cream as Marc Summers cheers you on. In the '90s, Nickelodeon was dominated by game shows like Double Dare, Wild & Crazy Kids and GUTS.