- Welcome to Wild and Crazy Kids!The show that goes anywhere and does anything to find kids having fun!With your hosts, Annette Chavez/Jessica Gaynes, Omar Gooding, and Donnie Jeffcoat!—Opening Narration for The '90s version
Dubbed as "the show that goes anywhere and does anything to find kids having fun", this Nickelodeon Game Show (term used loosely) from The '90s featured teams of kids playing games ranging from summer camp-style contests to different takes on sports; several episodes also took place at amusement parks or water parks. The games were played strictly for fun with whatever kids they could round up for the day, including locals, members of boys' and girls' clubs, and sometimes even the cast and/or crew's own family members; no prizes were awarded, hence no apparent need for "eligibility requirements". The show was created and executive produced by Woody Fraser, who would later go on to create and executive produce another series for Nickelodeon, What Would You Do? (Nickelodeon). The show was produced by Woody Fraser Productions and Nickelodeon alongside Reeves Entertainment Group, a production company owned at the time by Thames Television.
Revived in 2002 for a brief period, with episode names all containing "WACK". This time, Valencia Entertainment International replaced Reeves Entertainment Group as a production partner, as Thames Television had gone bankrupt in 1992 and was bought out by Fremantle Media.
Game Show Tropes in use:
- Covered in Gunge: Many of the games (it was Nickelodeon after all), especially toward the end of the run, when it was officially named "blap".
- Game Show Host: Annette Chavez (later replaced by Jessica Gaynes), Omar Gooding, and Donnie Jeffcoat on the original. Mati Moralejo hosted the revival.
- Home Game: Inverted; several games were "human" versions of board or video games, such as Battleship (with navy beans dropped onto "hit" contestants) and Space Invaders (with water balloons as ammo).
This show provides examples of:
- Broken Glass Penalty: Inverted with a baseball-themed game where the players hit balls at a whole wall of glass windows, marked with letters indicating the likes of strikes, home runs, and the exception, outs.
- Butt-Monkey: Donnie received the gunge treatment much more often than the other hosts.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Each team had a different colored shirt with the show's logo; these varied per game.
- Crossover:
- Marc Summers (from Double Dare (1986) and What Would You Do? (Nickelodeon)) made appearances on several occasions to play some of the games.
- Another episode had the show's cast as the heads of one team while several of the Salute Your Shorts cast headed another.
- Duck Season, Rabbit Season: One of the opening teasers involve this old gag.Donnie: I love that old Bugs Bunny gag.
- Every Episode Ending: Usually a closing skit similar to The Teaser (see below).
- Evil Laugh: The closing credits ends with REG card, accompanied by a sinister-sounding chuckle.
- Food Fight: A pie fight originally set up to be a structured "kids vs. counselors" contest very quickly turned into a free-for-all.
- Initiation Ceremony: In the final season, the guest cast member had to participate in a messy stunt to earn his or her shirt, with the guest usually getting his or her revenge on the hosts in the closer.
- Pie in the Face: See "Food Fight" above, although that wasn't nearly the only time it was used. Another staple of the show was "Green Pie, Red Pie", which was a standard game of "Green Light, Red Light" where each contestant had a pie that they had to hit themselves with if they were eliminated.
- Also, some of the trademark pie devices used on other Woody Fraser shows such as What Would You Do? and Family Challenge made an appearance in this series as well, notably "Pie Roulette" (similar to the "Pie Face" board game, except, as on What Would You Do?, with the addition of a bucket of pie filling hanging overhead which could be dumped on a contestant).
- Pilot: With three different hosts, different graphics and a different theme song.
- Product Displacement: Somebody really didn't like Nikko—several games involved destroying said company's remote-controlled cars, with said brand name edited out (rather poorly) via a black box that "floated" over it on-screen.
- Recycled Soundtrack: The show started using Alan Ett's music library about halfway through the run; these tracks would later appear on What Would You Do?
- Rule of Three: Three hosts, each of which was responsible for one of the episode's games.
- Special Guest: Many, especially in the very last episodes (Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Michael Fishman, and Lark Voorhies, just to name a few).
- Stuff Blowing Up: One or two games featured sandcastles being blown up; another game had kids pushing random plungers to blow up large balls filled with popcorn.
- The Teaser: Every episode, involving a skit with the hosts talking about the game(s), their location, and/or any celebrities guest hosting.
- Tempting Fate: Jessica remarks at the end of a show featuring Marc Summers how no one got slimed... and immediately all three hosts get drenched in the green stuff.
- Happened also in the episode in which the Los Angeles Fire Department guest starred. At the end of the show, the fire captain mentions how disappointed he is that no one has experienced a pie in the face (hitting Jessica with a pie as he says this) or a gunk balloon or bucket of "blap" (the show's new term for slime) over the head (delivered to Omar and Donnie, respectively, by two other firemen). After Jessica explains that they don't do the messy stuff on every show, the fire captain ends up with a surprise pie in his own face, delivered by another fireman.
- Title Theme Tune: The theme song had an electronic voice mention "Wild and Crazy Kids" throughout it.
- Totally Radical: It was The '90s, after all... one particular contest had a judging system of "Awesome" (the best ranking), "Cool" or "Bogus" (the worst).
- Younger and Hipper: According to a cast reunion at the 2012 Comikaze Expo, Annette was replaced after the first season because she was too old... she was 18. They brought Jessica on at 14 in order to keep the show "kids hosting kids".
