Behind the Scenes of Wild Jungle

[The Bamboo Forest]

To find more Wild Jungle episodes, click THIS LINK to go to the Official Episode Guide thread!



A montage of different scenes is shown, with the ghosted overlays of players sitting in what appears to be a waiting room, as the Legends theme plays. A voiceover narrates over the music.

“When you watch an episode of Legends: Wild Jungle, you see action, excitement, and hard work by the contestants, but what goes on behind-camera is just as action-packed, exciting, and takes just as much hard work. You are about to go Behind the Scenes of Wild Jungle.” Two halves of a Pendant of Life crash together in the center of the screen to form the show’s logo, which is then pushed back to let the words “BEHIND THE SCENES OF WILD JUNGLE” appear along the bottom of it.

A flash of light segues to the face of the man who had just spoken—Kirk Fogg. “Welcome,” he says. “I am Kirk Fogg, host of Legends of the Hidden Temple: Wild Jungle, and today, I’m going to take you behind the scenes of the show. We’re going to have never-before-seen footage, as well as an exclusive backstage look on our contestants, things that you most likely have never noticed, and finally, secrets that up till now, you will not have known about. So, without further ado, let’s get behind the scenes for some exclusive information.”

A flash of lightning brings us to a shot of Kirk standing atop the Steps of Knowledge. “These are the Steps of Knowledge,” he says, “that test our contestants for their knowledge of Olmec’s legends. Today, Olmec’s gonna be testing me for my knowledge of this show. Don’t look at me, now—I was forced into this… Anyway, let’s get started, Olmec. What’s your first question for me?”

Olmec asks: “How long is each episode of Legends?”

“Now, that is an interesting question,” replies Kirk. “Each episode of the show is about 24 minutes long, but that’s only what you see. If we kept all our footage, each show could be anywhere between 30 to 50 minutes long. Now, if we kept all this footage, our longest episode is to date actually ‘The Incorrect Map of Ptolemy’—our Moat crossing lasted over half an hour, which was later edited down to the three minutes that you see, but this was what really happened—”

We segue to a clip of Kirk standing in front of a camera with the deck of the Moat in the background. “All right, we just finished filming this Moat crossing, and it took us 31 minutes,” he whispers, as we see players being escorted off the stage in different directions. “Our kids seem really tired right now—I don’t even know if it’s from either crossing the Moat, or just standing there, waiting for the last team to hit their gong…” He laughs and then the clip fades back to Kirk standing on the Steps.

“… and because of restrictions, we can never show you all that extra footage in the episode,” he finishes. “But this is our ‘Behind the Scenes’ special, am I right…?”

“We’re looking for  four teams, who’re they gonna be?” The Red Jaguars slam down on their gong, and the camera segues back to the Moat. “We have three teams now, who’s gonna be our fourth?” asks Kirk rhetorically. The camera zooms in on the Blue Barracudas, who are very slowly edging forward along their pole. “Blue Barracudas moving slowly but surely—that might help them!” The girl on the Green Monkeys falls into the water, only about ¼ of the way along her pole, while the girl on the Purple Parrots falls in just a few seconds after climbing back onto her pole. “Purple Parrots are down again!” shouts Kirk.

“… and that was just the beginning,” says Kirk via voiceover as the clip rolls on. “Just look at how tired our players were and how out of breath I was 20 minutes into the round!”

“Ohhhh, this is taking much longer than I expected,” laughs Kirk as the mist on the Moat thins more and more as the seconds tick by. “Oh, it’s getting tougher and tougher!” The Green Monkey boy moves very slowly along the rod, but suddenly slips and falls into the Moat again. “Green Monkeys… oh, he’s tired! But he’s gotta go back again…” The boy begins again, his partner cheering him on loudly. “Here come our Purple Parrots, once again!” narrates Kirk, as the girl on the Purple Parrots tries shooting out onto the rod, but quickly falling in again, causing the last traces of mist under her to dissipate. “Ohhhh, who’s gonna move on?” cries Kirk.

The clip pauses and fades back to a close-up of a laughing Kirk, still standing on the top step. “But all that out there on the Moat was just a fragment of what went on that day,” he then says. “Right after we finished, we found out that the guys up in the booth were arguing about how we might’ve missed a little illegal move out on the Moat.” A muted clip of three men talking, appearing to be slightly aggravated appears briefly. “We brought our judges up, and they gave us the ruling—the Red Jaguars were not sent back when they were supposed to, letting the Blue Barracudas move on to the Steps of Knowledge. At that point, we were already about an hour and a half behind schedule, so when I rushed out to film the next round, some of our cameramen headed backstage to talk with our contestants.”

A clip of a hallway appears, with the hand-held camera moving down to a door that says “Green Room”. A hand reaches out to open the door, and then the camera enters the room, with contestants on couches and chairs around the room, with the faint light and sound of a television evident. It moves over to a Purple Parrot girl sitting on a couch, chatting loudly with the Orange Iguana girl sitting next to her. “Hey, girls,” says an unseen voice. The girl immediately looks at the camera.

“So, you just spent half an hour out on the Moat,” says the cameraman. “How do you feel about that?”

The Purple Parrot girl widens her eyes momentarily, and then breaks out in laughter. “Tired…” she laughs. “I tried to cross probably about 50 times out there and kept falling in…”

The clip fades back to Kirk. “And that’s our proof that there’s a lot of stuff that we do that never gets seen on television,” finishes Kirk. “So, is that a good enough answer, Olmec?”

“Yes, that is correct,” replies Olmec. Kirk laughs, and then moves down to the second step. “So, do you have another question for me, Olmec?” Kirk then says.

“Oh, yeah,” replies Olmec. “What is it like to be a contestant on Legends of the Hidden Temple?”

“Well, seeing that I’ve never been a contestant on the show before, it would be hard for me to answer that question, now, wouldn’t it?” laughs Kirk in response. “But there have been so many contestants on our show—and they know exactly what it’s like to be one. Here’s what some of our contestants have to say.”

A clip of Kirk standing in a plain room slides onscreen. “I’m here backstage at Nickelodeon Studios in California, and today, we’re about to find out what it’s like to be a contestant on Legends: Wild Jungle. And what better way to find out than asking the contestants themselves?”

A Temple Games track begins to play as we cycle through clips of various contestants being interviewed.

“This is the highlight of my vacation so far,” laughs a redheaded girl with a small face, freckles, and wearing glasses and a Purple Parrots shirt, as the words “Candace Garling, ‘The Shark-tooth Medallion of the Hawaiian King’” appear in the bottom-right corner of the screen as she talks. “It’s a really fun experience, and I’d definitely do this again… if I had the chance to.”

We cut to a shot of a Red Jaguar girl with clear blue eyes and cascading dark brown hair, sitting on a couch in a room empty, sans a few stray adults and other contestants walking around. “It was fun, I guess…” she laughs, as the words “Amanda Kestner, ‘The Stolen Shovel of Erik the Red’” appear. “I mean, I haven’t gone into the Temple yet, but it was really fun… and tough… and I really liked the first game, when he had to like, swing across the pool and then land on a slide and go down.” She smiles and laughs as she tries to search for words to continue. “Just… really, really, fun—I love it. Yeah, I just love it!”

The next two players are a pair of Silver Snakes, the boy an average-sized boy with short, slightly curly brown hair, and equally brown eyes, and the girl, small, with black hair and eyes, and small purple-colored glasses—they are Michael Kempton and Iris Hsu from “The Secret Diary of Burton”. “It was amazing,” says Michael. “I mean… we got through it all, and I mean, I’m happy that we got… uh, what did we get?” He laughs.

“Like, a bike, something else, and a vacation, I think…?” laughs Iris in response. “Probably,” agrees Michael, also laughing. “Yeah, I’m happy about that, but it was really more the challenges and the fun of, you know, competing on a game show that really made me excited.”

“For me, it’s the chance to be on TV,” Iris then says. “I’m trying to become an actress, so there’s… like… not really a… worry about being on-camera, in front of an audience, you know...? It’s just that… I’ve never been on TV before, so I’m definitely excited, but to have so much fun doing so, playing a game instead of acting, it’s really… unique, and I really loved it.”

“It’s so much fun,” says Amber Tullos, Silver Snakes, of “The Gold-Lined Gauntlet of Peter the Hermit”, a brunette girl with dark eyes and slightly tanned skin. “I had so much fun at… The Moat, and I loved the game with the ropes—that was awesome. I can’t wait to go inside the maze.”

We then see Kelly Katon, a short Purple Parrot girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, from “The Regal Robes of the Sun King”. “Oh… that was so fun,” she laughs. “It was really tough, like when I had to cross this thing with all these steps that would drop if it was the wrong one, and I fell so many times that I thought I wouldn’t even make it across once, but I put like… one of the crowns on the statues… and my opponent didn’t, so, I’m happy there, I guess.” She laughs again.

The screen transitions to an Orange Iguanas girl with shiny black hair and dark brown eyes, wearing a pair of glasses. “So fun,” says the girl—Tina Wong, of “The Silk Sari of Muhammad Jinnah”. “I fly ten thousand miles for this… so… I thought ‘better be good’, and is good, so… I think is worth it…” She laughs before continuing. “No show like this in Hong Kong, so… we have so many good show and still nothing like this… is very good.”

Two Red Jaguars then come onscreen—the boy short, with black hair and dark brown eyes, and the girl with light brown hair and blue eyes—Wayne Chang and Sharron Turcios of “The Sheathed Sword of George V”. “Well… we made it,” laughs Wayne. “It was really, really tough in the Temple… I think there was this one room where there were all these lions, and I put myself inside, and I didn’t know which door opened. It’s really confusing—I really need to watch this show more.” He laughs again before continuing. “Yeah, I think that’s it. You pretty much have to know everything about this Temple to be the best at it.”

“I actually didn’t have to go inside the Temple,” Sharron then says, “because he never got taken out by the guards, but I did have to do the… uh… games, and I had to spin this giant wheel, and it was so difficult to keep my balance and move the thing, because it’s like on this slope, so I’m already sliding down… and you have to walk on it too? I was like, ‘forget it, how am I gonna do this thing?’ at first, and I actually ended up winning, so I was really surprised. It’s really great. Anyone that has the chance to come on this show should be really happy.”

The next player is a short Blue Barracuda boy with long, curly, brown hair—Matt Caplan, from “The Space Helmet of Yuri Gagarin”. “That… was awesome,” he says, appearing to be catching his breath. “I… am tired… but it was really awesome…” He pauses and pants for a few seconds before continuing. “I can’t wait for the Temple.” The camera then zooms out to show his partner standing next to him, and that they are standing atop a gigantic staircase.

We then see a Purple Parrot girl, average-sized, with long, slightly wavy, blonde hair, and bronzed skin. “Is so fun,” she says with a German accent, as it is revealed that she is Julia Grün from “The Secret Scrolls of Francis the First”. “Zhust… I pley two games already. De first, I slide on dis… paht, and put paint… and zen de secohn one I go zru dis ohbstical. Is fun. I don’t hahf dis in Germany, so…” She laughs, and the clip pauses and then fades back to Kirk, still standing on the second Step of Knowledge.

“When we come back,” he says, “we are going to see more people talk about the Legends experience, as well as see people experience Legends in a way that you will never get to see on television—right after this!” The camera cuts away from Kirk, then moves towards the side of the stage, panning past Olmec and the Tiger’s Den. It focuses on the Walk of Faith as two halves of a Pendant of Life crash together, forming the show’s logo, with the words “Behind the Scenes” appearing underneath, and then we fade to commercial.

[The Bamboo Forest]

When the screen fades back in, we see the show’s logo with the words “Behind the Scenes” beneath it. The Pendant and the words shatter and spin off in different directions to reveal a shot of the Moat, with mist pouring out over its surface, zooms out to show a wider angle, and then fades back to a shot of Kirk standing on the second Step of Knowledge.

“Welcome back to Legends,” he says. “We’re going behind the scenes today, showing you stuff that has never been seen before on television, and one of those things is how our contestants feel about their experience on Legends. We’ve already heard a few speak their mind—but believe it or not, they aren’t the only people to complete the many physical and mental tests of the show. For one, all of our challenges are tested numerous times and we collect the time taken to complete them so that we can assess if it is fair enough to be played on the show. Just have a look at this exclusive footage of testing some new Temple Games for this season.”

We segue to a wide shot of what appears to be an uncompleted Legends set, with Kirk standing on the Temple Games floor, which has all its scenery removed. “We are testing one of our new Temple Games for our new season of Legends,” he says, “and here to test them are Tommy and Jessica—” The camera zooms out to show a short boy with brown hair and freckles, and a taller girl who looks similar, but with longer, darker hair.

“They’re brother-and-sister; we found them in Universal Studios in Hollywood—they agreed to come all the way down to our studio and try out some of our Temple Games,” Kirk then says. He leads them over to a metal frame with dozens of elastic cords stretched between them in a tangled mess.

“All right, we’re trying out this new prop for our new Temple Game in the next season,” says Kirk. “Very simple—I just want you two to—one at a time—go through this ‘jungle’ and back in the fastest time possible. We’ll put 60 seconds on the clock for each of you, and the one with the most time left wins, all right?” The two kids nod in response. “Okay, ladies first, I think, so Jessica, you get in position…” She walks in front of the entrance to the Jungle and gets on her mark. “Let’s put 60 seconds on the clock!”

The clock slams down in the corner of the screen. “On your mark, get set… GO!” On this word, Jessica races straight into the Jungle, pushing away the elastic cords as she heads through. “She’s going right through the cords—she’s doing a great job!” shouts Kirk. [0:52] She ducks under cords, pushing some aside as well, trying to push them out of her face, making her way through slowly. “Okay, she’s out—now time to come all the way back,” narrates Kirk, as Jessica appears to be bending over to try and head through the Jungle faster. [0:45] “Here she comes, back out of there…” says Kirk, as Jessica maneuvers through the last few strands of elastic cords, finally exiting with 37 seconds remaining.

“Okay, good job!” shouts Kirk, as Jessica catches her breath. “Tommy, you get in position… right over here, get behind this area… And let’s get Jessica’s time on the clock!”

The clock drops down again, but this time set at 23 seconds. “On your marks, get set… GO!” Tommy jumps into the Jungle, making his way through using the bottom of the Jungle, where there are less cords. “Oh, nice move—he’s going to use the bottom way to get through that jungle,” commentates Kirk. [0:17] Tommy continues to barge through the cords, scrambling through the cords with his elbows bent and on the ground, exiting the Jungle with 14 seconds left on the clock. “Can he make it back in time?” shouts Kirk, as Tommy quickly begins to make his way back through the mess of elastics, crawling furiously, and poking his head out of the end to stop the clock with nine seconds remaining on the clock.

“All right, nice job!” shouts Kirk as Tommy stands up again. “Tommy—you have set the record, making it through the Jungle and bank—uh, back, in just 14 seconds. That is amazing! Excellent job!” He gives Tommy a high-five, and then Jessica a high-five as well.

“We’ll give you both a Legends shirt each for your efforts,” Kirk then says. “Tommy, you told me you wanted a Silver Snakes shirt, so here you go—” Kirk reaches for a Silver Snakes shirt from the left of the screen and hands it to Tommy.

“—and for Jessica, here’s the Blue Barracudas shirt that you wanted,” says Kirk, handing a second shirt to Jessica. “Nice job! Thanks for coming down to the studio!”

The clip segues back to the shot of Kirk on the Steps of Knowledge. “And, believe it or not, those aren’t the only non-contestants to receive the Legends experience,” he says. “Picture this situation: we’re in the middle of a jungle, and it’s nine o’ clock at night, and none of our crew’s had dinner yet. So what do we do? We get some food on the deck of the Moat and have a pool party, of course. Or… a Moat Party, I guess…?” He laughs.

“Anyway, cameras were rolling, and we managed to capture some footage of a post-show dinner party,” Kirk explains. “Take a look at this footage.”

A flash of light brings us onto the deck of the Moat where the teams begin, with about 30 crew members crowded onto the deck. The camera spins around to show Kirk also standing on the deck, a microphone still in his hand.

“We’re having a pool party right now,” he says, over the noise of crew members talking. “It’s… about 10 to nine right now, and none of us’ve had dinner yet, and we ARE starving, so look at what we’ve got here…” The camera moves along with Kirk along the deck, arriving at a long table, panning through some of the food on it.

“We have… pizza… burgers… fries… and drinks… all sorts of stuff that’s most likely gonna be unhealthy,” laughs Kirk, as the camera spins back round to face him.

“But it wasn’t all about eating,” says the live Kirk via voiceover. “Here’s what we did after our big, greasy, unhealthy meal.”

We fade to a different clip, this time with crew members trying to cross the Moat, using two bars and holding onto each other. “And there they go!” shouts Kirk jokingly, laughing more than actually commentating as the various people on the Moat fall in. “Whoa!” he shouts, as two large splashes indicate that the pair of spotters on the bars that would be the Purple Parrots’ have both fallen in. “And they’re… coming up on this side… this team has gotten across!” Kirk announces, as the camera shakily zooms in on a pair made up of a male spotter and a Temple Guard, who have gotten across the Moat.

“Oh—and look who’s showed up!” says Kirk, as we segue back to Kirk on the starting deck, with a shorter man next to him. “Dee Bradley Baker, voice of Olmec, how are you doing?”

“I’m ROCKING,” replies Dee, in Olmec’s voice.

Kirk laughs. “Haha, I see,” he replies. “Uh… Dee, or… Olmec, can you please tell us how to find… the Missing Pizza of the Legends Pool Party?”

“You could start,” Dee says, still in Olmec’s voice, “by climbing through the Ledges, and climbing down into the Jungle Cre—” He stops and laughs along with Kirk and several other crew members.

“Now, that was a fun day,” Kirk says, as the screen fades back to him standing on the Steps of Knowledge. “So, now we’ve seen non-contestants compete in the Temple Games, and on the Moat… and I’m on the Steps of Knowledge—hopefully I’ll make it all the way down—but… what about Olmec’s Temple? Well, this season, during the testing process, we had a mock-up of one of the new rooms we were going to put into the season—the Forest of a Thousand Dragons, one of the most difficult, I think—and we had kids test it out as well. Take a look—”

We then see Kirk standing in front of “The Forest of a Thousand Dragons”, with the dragons simply being propped up and surrounded by removable plywood walls. “Welcome to the studio where we film Legends,” he introduces. “We have a lot more work to do before the set is complete, as you can see by the conditions of the jungle around me, but here’s the first piece of the puzzle that we’ve completed—or somewhat completed, I guess—The Forest of a Thousand Dragons. Now, in this room, our players are going to have to open up the mouths of these dragons in search of a key to open one of the doors. We’ve brought in some kids who’ve agreed to test out the room for some Legends T-shirts, and hopefully it’ll pass our producer’s tests to see if the room isn’t too difficult to be put inside the Temple.” The camera then zooms out to show a boy waiting beside Kirk.

“You’re up first, so get in position…” The boy gets down on his knees in front of the “Forest”. “On your mark, get set… GO!”

Immediately, the boy opens up the mouth of a dark blue dragon, in search of the key. “No, not that one,” narrates Kirk, as the boy opens the mouth of a red-colored dragon next to the first. “Will this one have it?... Nope, must be a different one…” The boy then moves on to a dragon with dark green skin, opening its mouth and grabbing a small metallic object from it, waving it in the air. “NINE SECONDS!” shouts an unseen voice.

“Nine seconds?” asks Kirk. “All right, well, the first time was nine seconds—maybe our future contestants will be faster, maybe slower. We’ll have to see, won’t we?”

We switch back to Kirk on the Steps of Knowledge. “Now, that looked all right to me,” he then says, “but I bet you’ve always wondered… what would it be like if adults ran through the course?” He pauses for a few seconds and smiles.

“You have that very opportunity to take a look at that right now,” he continues, still smiling. “It’s been a tradition for me to run through all the entire Temple at the beginning of every season since 1993, and I’m still doing it today—although I have to be forced just a little bit.” He laughs. “This is my run through Olmec’s Temple, from the beginning of the season in February, 2009.”

A shot of Kirk standing at the base of the Temple steps slides into the screen as a horn sounds, and he takes off into the Temple as the live Kirk commentates himself. “And right there, into the Bird Room—I whiz right through that one, I think,” he says. Indeed, Kirk does hit the stage-leftmost beak and slams open the door to the Jungle Crevice, and then races down. [2:53] “Across that crevice,” he says, as the video shows Kirk swinging across the pit. “Now, I’m gonna get a little lost here—the route I take isn’t the one that I usually take, but…” With 2:46 on the clock, Kirk crawls into the Lion’s Lair. “All right, those lions gave me trouble,” recalls Kirk, as his onscreen self grabs the stage-left head first and places it on the stage-left lion, following with the stage-right head on the stage-right lion. [2:39] He then switches at the same time, and climbs up the ladder on the back wall. “Now, that was just the beginning of my troubles,” Kirk then says. “Everything got worse when I was in the Sacred Safari.”

We now segue to a shot of Kirk breaking through the stone wall into the Sacred Safari with 1:31 on the clock. “That was probably the only room that gave me trouble—not even the dreaded Silver Monkey wasted this much time!” remarks Kirk. Onscreen, Kirk reaches up the left-side elephant’s trunk, feeling around for a long time before moving on to the right-side elephant. [1:23] After searching around for a few more seconds, he finally retrieves the magnetic key with 1:18 remaining.

“Nevertheless, I did make it out,” Kirk says, as we fade to a shot of Kirk crossing the Temple Gate with 17 seconds on the clock, and then back to the live version of Kirk standing on the Steps of Knowledge.

“So, that’s what being a contestant on Legends is like, Olmec,” he then says. “May I step down?”

“Yesssss…” answers Olmec. “Ho-kay,” laughs Kirk in response, as he moves down to the third step. “When we come back, we’re going to have some more Behind the Scenes footage of Legends: Wild Jungle—right after this!” The camera cuts away from Kirk, drifting its way slowly towards the Temple, with rooms such as the Anaconda’s Sanctuary and the Lion Cave visible. As it slowly zooms in, two halves of a Pendant of Life crash together, forming the show’s logo, with the words “Behind the Scenes” appearing underneath, and then we fade to commercial.

[The Bamboo Forest]

When the screen fades back in, we see the show’s logo with the words “Behind the Scenes” beneath it. The Pendant and the words shatter and spin off in different directions to reveal a shot of an idol sitting in plant growth; the camera then zooms out to show a larger area—an area between the Moat’s deck and the Temple Games floor—before we fade back to Kirk standing on the Steps of Knowledge.

“Welcome back to the Behind the Scenes special of Legends,” he says. “I’m trying to make my way down the Steps of Knowledge, as you can see, by answering Olmec’s questions about some of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, showing you a ton of never-before-seen footage along the way. I still have one more question to go, though, so Olmec, please ask it.”

Olmec asks: “How is the jungle of Legends: Wild Jungle constructed?”

“Well, I’m glad you asked that,” replies Kirk, “because I’ve got an answer all right. This jungle, right here, does not look anything like this when we’re not shooting. In fact, this place is just an empty studio without the slightest trace of a jungle or a Temple, and even the audience’s seating has to be removed.” Pictures of the Temple, the Temple Games Floor, and the Moat are shown, alternating with pictures of the same angle, but of the soundstage while it is empty.

“—and many people fail to notice,” he continues as we fade back to a close-up of him, “that we’re not working in a very large space, here. It’s just one soundstage—no more than that, and we have to fill it up with all sorts of plants and water and rocks and a gigantic Temple? It sounds like a task as physically and mentally challenging as the ones we send our contestants through, perhaps even tougher. But here at Nickelodeon, we have some awesome people and a great crew that can professionally create the entire set and do it easily.”

We segue to a close-up of a man standing on the Temple Games floor with the Chameleon Chamber in the background. “I’m Byron Taylor,” he says, as his name appears on the bottom of the screen, “the set designer of Legends of the Hidden Temple: Wild Jungle. So that means that what you see behind me… is sort of my work of art, if you will. I designed the set back in 1993, and I’m designing it again now.”

We fade to Byron now standing inside a room that resembles a simple office, dimly lit with a large desk and a computer in the far left of the screen. “These are renders of the set that I designed,” he explains, as the camera zooms in on several drawings of the Legends set on the desk. “I’ve probably seen this view so many times before.” An image of one of Byron’s renders—a wide angle of the Temple Games floor with the Temple in the background—appears onscreen.

“I draw almost every angle of the design multiple times, you know, experiment with them—put things in, take things out—until I finally end up with my finalized design, and then I do a good copy. These are my good copies on this desk, but just this angle—” He points at a render of the Moat and audience “—has been drawn about four times before, at least.”

The shot of Kirk on the Steps of Knowledge transitions back. “And so after months of a lot of hard work and design,” he narrates, “we get our beautiful set that the animals that inhabit this jungle call home. But it’s lying in all these bits and pieces, and we have to put them together.”

An animated representation of the entire Legends set comes onscreen. “Now, as you might have noticed by now,” explains Kirk, “the set is made up of various portions: The Moat—” The Moat and the area around it lights up as Kirk says this “—the Steps of Knowledge—the Temple—and the area in between the Temple and the Steps.” Those areas also light up as Kirk announces them, and then we fade back to Kirk.

“—and they are all built on different levels, as you can see there,” he says. “But remember that we constructed the whole thing in this studio, which is essentially just a big rectangular box with no steps, no extra parapets—nothing. I had the honor of being on-set when it was still under construction back in 2007 for the first season of Legends of the Hidden Temple: Wild Jungle, and we did manage to get some footage of that—so take a look!”

The screen transitions to a shot of Kirk on the Temple Games floor, near the end of the Temple, with the camera facing the Temple Gates. “Welcome to the new set of Legends of the Hidden Temple!” introduces Kirk. “It’s now Wild Jungle, so the entire set’s going to be a little different than it was back in the… uh, 1990s, but it’s pretty much the same. Since we’re still building this thing, we’ve got crews down here… they have just 1½ more days to finish it, so let’s take a look at some of the stuff going on here. Over here—” Kirk turns around to look at the Lion Cage, as the camera also spins around, pointing up at his face with the Temple in the background “—we have the new Temple…”

He begins to walk his way down the side of the Temple. “Couple of new rooms here…” narrates Kirk, pointing at the Sacred Safari and the Tropical Forest, “and another one here—The Chameleon Chamber—and I think they’ve done a great job, really. Just look at this detail!” We cycle through various close-ups of things in the Temple: some vines hanging down from the roof of the Tropical Forest, a couple of mossy rocks on one of the Shrine of the Silver Monkey’s shelves, and a long vine wrapping around the broken column in front of the Sacred Safari. “Let’s head up into the Temple to take a look at how things are moving along!”

A new clip slides onscreen, with Kirk now standing in the Vine Drop—still completely empty—and crew members hanging up the vines and decorating the room. “This room is completely empty right now, as you can see,” explains Kirk, “and I think they’ll be putting up some plants and… moss and vines and stuff in this room.”

A flash of light brings us to Kirk with one of the male crew members. “So, what’s your name?” asks Kirk.

“Guy,” says the crew member.

“All right, Guy,” replies Kirk, “tell me a little bit about this Temple. Now, this Temple is actually built right along the wall of the studio, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Guy then says. “It’s really easily removable, and we picked this wall because there’s already this… sort of catwalk along the side of the wall like eight feet up along the wall, so it was almost perfect—we just extended that catwalk by putting these sorts of metal frames up—” Explanatory pictures of the empty studio in a before-and-after fashion come onscreen as Guy speaks “—and then we laid the floor of the second story, and then we put another metal frame on top of that second level, and we put in the removable walls. It’s like building a house, really: you have to put in the framework before you put in the walls and all that, except that all these walls are plywood, and we can just take them down and put them away when we’re done shooting, because, you know, we share the studio.”

“So all the little bits and pieces of the set are actually already… uh… made, so that you can just take them and put them up?” asks Kirk.

“Yes, almost the entire Temple is made of prefabricated pieces,” explains Guy. “The metal frames are created off-site, and then we bring them in on trucks and stuff, and then we just put them up easily. If we built them here, it would probably be either unstable, or permanent, and that’s not what we want.”

“I see,” understands Kirk. “But you also said that you just put the entire second floor on top of the first floor’s frames, and I know that there are some rooms that are higher, some that are lower… tell me about those.”

“Ah,” answers Guy. “This room, which will be called the Vine Drop, is actually higher than the actual second-story floor, which is about the same height as the Shrine of the Silver Monkey, which is right next to us. Basically, what we do is put up these wooden blocks—also made of plywood, of course—and then we lay the floor on top. Everything has to be easy-to-remove, so we went with these blocks, so that we could just put them on and take them off and keep them.”

“How about the doors?” Kirk then asks. “How do those work out?”

“The doors are probably the hardest thing to add to the set,” replies Guy. “Each door has to be wired with cables and all that, and I don’t know too much about how they work, but I think the guys up in the booth, you know, hit a button and the door opens for the player, and to do that, you have to put in the wires for the thing to actually work. So what we have to do is, when we put in the walls between the rooms, we actually make them a little thicker so that we can fit the doors in between them and all the wires are also just put inside there.”

“All right, you’re doing a great job,” praises Kirk. “I think we’ll be having a great Temple this year because of our awesome crew. Thanks so much, Guy!”

We fade back to Kirk on the Steps of Knowledge. “So, that’s the Temple,” Kirk says. “But believe it or not, that wasn’t the hardest part of the set to build—that would be our Moat, which appears to be a swimming pool of some sort. Now, if you know anything about swimming pools, then you would know that they are carved directly into the ground. We could have done that and just covered it up for the next show coming in here, but that wouldn’t work very well, because we only shoot a season a year. So instead, we did not dig into the floor—we simply made the entire floor higher! Check this out…”

We then see a clip of Kirk standing on the Steps of Knowledge, which appear to be finished and painted. “Here on the set of Legends of the Hidden Temple: Wild Jungle, we are constructing the brand-new Moat,” he narrates, “and the work on it is intense. There’s just two more days to finish it, and it’s very difficult, because this is a pretty flat stage, and the Moat is higher than the actual floor and it’s supposed to be filled with water. Let’s have a look at how our crews are doing with it.”

The screen fills with light again, and then transitions to Kirk standing with another crew member on what appears to be the starting deck of the Moat. “I’m here with Mr. Fernando, who’s in charge of building the Moat,” he says. “Fernando, so what exactly needed to be done to create this Moat?”

“Well, it’s a very difficult thing to do,” replies Fernando. “This Moat is actually not a hole in the floor—it is ON the floor. We had to put up these walls around it and then fill it with water.”

“So, tell me more about these walls,” continues Kirk, “I know now that everything has to be removable, right?”

“Yup,” says Fernando.

“But… water would seep through plywood, and it would rot,” says Kirk, “and that’s easily removable—but we can’t use it. So what do you use to build this entire thing?”

“Okay, we start with a metal frame,” explains Fernando, “and they are actually like cube-type structures, and we just put them next to each other, so it looks basically like a normal construction site, you know, for a building. After we do the frame, we put in wooden blocks—not plywood—so that it’s nice and solid. And then we put plaster on the sides of the Moat so that water won’t seep through.”

“All right,” says Kirk. “And then you put the water in after that?”

“Yes,” Fernando says. “We already put in some pipes that will pump water in and suck water back out, like a regular pool filter, and we also have other pipes for some mist effects on top of the Moat.”

“And these are all going through the… wooden blocks that you said there were there?” Kirk then asks.

“Yes,” answers Fernando. “What we do is we cut the wooden blocks to already allow space for those pies—uh, pipes to go through, and so when we put the layer of blocks, we have this channel cut already, so we put the pipes in, and then we put more blocks on top of them.”

“All right, thanks for that information!” says Kirk.

“No problem,” replies Fernando.

The screen fades back to Kirk standing on the third Step of Knowledge. “So, that’s pretty much how the set is constructed,” he says. “Olmec, is that correct?”

“Nope!” replies Olmec.

“W—what?” stammers Kirk. “I thought you wanted to know how the Temple was created!”

“But only I know,” shoots back Olmec. “It’s MY temple!”

“All right, fair enough,” says Kirk, disappointed. “I guess I won’t be making it to the bottom level today. But I know that a lot of our contestants will—not this time, but next time, on another great Legend of… the Hidden Temple—Wild Jungle style! Buh-bye!”

The credits scroll as various ending scenes are shown: some scenery around set, a small waterfall at the front end of the Moat, and views of the Shrine of the Silver Monkey, misters on. Finally, the camera fades out, and the light bulb-Nickelodeon logo is shown as an electric buzzing noise is heard.

[The Ancient Warrior]

Absolutely loved the pool party and the twist ending.

There were a couple name inconsistencies between this and the first special, but overall I loved the amount of detail and information behind everything, and it definitely felt like it could've been the real deal.

Nice work on the specials, and good luck with Season 3!

[The Bamboo Forest]

I was actually waiting for someone to ask about the name inconsistencies so I could explain it (because it would seem out-of-place, anyway). The crew confused them with the other Matt/Erin team ("The Crumpled Sail of Jacques Cartier") and used the wrong names in this episode. Just a little part I thought I'd throw in.