Figure It Out
A kid with a weird secret talent, a panel of Nickelodeon stars guessing it word by word on Billy the Answer Head, and the ever-looming Secret Slime Action ready to douse someone for "looking to the left." Summer Sanders kept order; nobody stayed dry.
Premiering July 7, 1997, and hosted by Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Summer Sanders, Figure It Out mined Nickelodeon's own talent pool for a panel show. The format was disarmingly simple: a kid arrived with a hidden talent or achievement, and a panel of four Nick stars asked yes-or-no questions, guessing the secret phrase word by word on "Billy the Answer Head." Every round the panel failed to crack meant another prize for the kid. Danny Tamberelli, Amanda Bynes, Kevin Kopelow, and Irene Ng appeared across every season of the original run, with All That's Lori Beth Denberg a constant fifth face on the panel; the show taped at Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando.
The controlled chaos was the point. The "Secret Slime Action" was a hidden trigger — sometimes as petty as "looking to the left" — that doused a panelist or the audience in slime mid-round, keeping everyone tense and the crowd roaring. The "Charade Brigade" acted out clue words when the panel was hopeless. Because the panelists were the faces kids already watched every afternoon, the show felt less like a celebrity panel and more like the school lunch table with a slime budget.
The original run ended December 12, 1999, closing with the decade. A 2012–2013 revival with host Jeff Sutphen taped in Los Angeles proved the format still worked, but the 90s version — Sanders, the All That crew, Orlando — is the one the generation remembers.
Similar items
Double Dare
Nickelodeon's messiest game show: take the money or take the physical challenge — and the physical challenge always meant getting slimed. Marc Summers, the giant obstacle course, and the human nose you dug through.
All That
A live-action sketch-comedy show on Nickelodeon that functioned as "Saturday Night Live for kids." Premiering in April 1994, All That launched stars including Kenan Thompson, Kel Mitchell, and Amanda Bynes while anchoring Nickelodeon's beloved "SNICK" Saturday-night block with its irreverent humor and memorable recurring sketches.
Nick Arcade
You remember it running for years — it was actually two quick seasons, all in 1992, kept alive by reruns until 1997. Phil Moore sent kids "to the Video Zone!", the green-screen finale where you physically jumped around inside a video game and almost always lost. The dream of every kid with a Genesis and a dream.
What Would You Do?
Marc Summers hosting a half hour of pure audience mayhem that was, at its core, an elaborate excuse to pie people. The Pie Pod, the Pie Coaster, the Pie Wash — Nickelodeon built an entire arsenal of whipped-cream machinery and pointed it at anyone standing still.