Nick Arcade is an American children's game show created by James Bethea and Karim Miteff and hosted by Phil Moore, with Andrea Lively announcing, that aired on Nickelodeon from 1992 to 1993 (in the first season, the shows were taped in December 1991 and aired in early 1992), airing originally during weekend afternoons. It was taped at Nickelodeon Studios at Universal Studios Florida in Orlando.
In Nick Arcade, two teams of contestants played two initial trivia rounds, with the winner advancing to the "Video Zone" to play against the virtual "Video Game Wizard" of the day.
The show's format combined video game trivia with contestant-interactive virtual reality. The virtual reality games were designed by Bethea and Miteff for Bethea/Miteff Productions and programmed by Curt Toumainian for Saddleback/Live Studios and Dean Friedman (for InVideo Systems). The show was the first in America to regularly intermix live action with animation using a bluescreen. (Knightmare was the first show worldwide.) (The InVideo game, "Eat-a-Bug!", which aired in Bethea/Miteff-produced segments during 1989 on Nickelodeon's Total Panic, was one of the world's first regularly televised virtual reality games.)
The program's theme music and game music was composed by Dan Vitco & Mark Schultz, and produced by Schultz. Additional music for the games was composed and produced by Dean Friedman. Mikey's "walk" melody was composed by James Bethea, who also sketched the original designs for the characters of "Mikey", the Wizards and several game "enemies".
All of the custom games and contestant scoring used on Nick Arcade were implemented on Amiga computers.
Read more about Nick Arcade: Gameplay, Notable Celebrities