Nickelodeon GUTS

Nickelodeon GUTS premiered on September 19, 1992, as the network's answer to the era's extreme-sports obsession — "Do you have it?" The formula was simple: three young competitors faced over-the-top athletic events, many rigged with bungee harnesses that let ordinary kids dunk from midair. Host Mike O'Malley (who would later star as Jimmy Hughes on CBS's Yes, Dear and earn an Emmy nomination as Glee's Burt Hummel) called the action, while British referee Moira "Mo" Quirk officiated — her accent became an essential part of the show's sound.

But the real star was the Aggro Crag: a 28-foot glowing mountain that all three competitors scaled in every episode's finale. As seasons progressed it kept getting upgraded — the Mega Crag in season 3, then the Super Aggro Crag — but the basic promise never changed. Kids wanted that gold GUTS medal and, above all, the glowing piece of the Crag itself, the most coveted trophy on 90s television.

For its final season, Global GUTS (with episodes beginning September 5, 1995), the show went international, pitting young competitors from the US, Mexico, Great Britain, Israel, Germany, Spain, Portugal and beyond against each other on the same mountain. The show ended December 10, 1995, after 160 episodes across four seasons, leaving behind a generation that still measures childhood glory in pieces of glowing rock.

Nickelodeon revived the format with My Family's Got Guts, which debuted September 15, 2008 with host Ben Lyons. But for 90s kids nothing matched the original run — the neon, the bungee rigs, Mo's whistle, and the sweet promise of taking home a piece of the Crag.