With the cancellation of Opportunity Knocks I was recently reminded of another great TV show that J.D. Roth used to host in the late 80’s/early 90’s: the TV version of GamePro! It was totally cheesy with plenty of low budget effects, and his co-host was some Keanu Reeves surfer dude wanna-be. Classic stuff! Check out a few episodes on YouTube:

That also reminded me of another TV show I used to watch called Video Power. It was a game show hosted by “Johnny Arcade” where the winner got a massive shopping spree at the end. Whatever happened to great shows like this?

I had the pleasure of attending a Halloween party last week hosted by our good friends Nuno and Erin, and Chian brought over a classic blast from the past in the form of a board game called Nightmare. I don’t know if anyone else out there remembers this but it came out in the early 90’s and at the time it was groundbreaking (okay maybe I’m the only one who thought it was groundbreaking) because of its so-called interactivity. The interactive portion of the game involves watching a VHS tape as you play and responding to the requests of a creepy on-screen character known as The Gatekeeper.

I remember this game scared the crap out of me when I was younger, mainly because whenever The Gatekeeper randomly re-appears on screen he is accompanied by a loud thunderclap. Guaranteed to make you jump! The Gatekeeper’s appearance also changes over time and gets progressively more demonic. Anyway, the game isn’t all that scary 15 years later… in fact, it’s downright hilarious. He calls players “maggots” and if they fail to answer with the phrase “Yes, my Gatekeeper!” they are banished to the Black Hole. Strangely, I was at Winners the other day and I noticed that the game had been re-released under the name Atmosfear. The only difference as far as I could tell was that it was now on DVD instead of a VHS tape. You’d think they might take advantage of the capabilities of DVD and actually make it interactive, or at least shoot an updated Gatekeeper video but no such luck!

The video clip embedded below is a sample of The Gatekeeper’s intro from the game. An Oscar-worthy performance if ever there was one. Also, if you think you’re man enough, I dare you to try and outstare The Gatekeeper!