Superheroes, Nickelodeon games and pirates showed up to Thon this weekend -- all part of several theme hours to keep dancers' spirits high.

As dancers plugged on through the weekend, different theme hours offered entertainment and a brief reprieve from the thoughts of achy feet.

Early Saturday morning, morale committees gathered in different corners of the dance floor with their own renditions of classic TV shows Double Dare, Salute Your Shorts, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Figure It Out and Hey Dude -- all part of the Nickelodeon theme hour.

"It just gets their minds off of their feet -- I danced last year so I know [it's important]," Chris Lucas, a moraler, said.

As dancer Kristyn Babiak (senior-marketing) participated in the Double Dare challenge, she clipped on her helmet and took her stance -- bending down to catch tennis balls in the funnel that was duct-taped to her helmet.

After catching two in a row, Babiak's excitement was obvious.

"I was kind of getting bored and looking for entertainment. [After playing], I am more energetic," Babiak said.

Across the dance floor, dancers who sported T-shirts for the Green Monkeys or Blue Barracudas competed in Penn State trivia in an elaborate setup of Legends of the Hidden Temple. "[The games] are definitely important. It keeps you busy and is something fun to keep your mind off of how long you have to stay awake," dancer Joseph Pearson (sophomore-bioengineering), who won for the Green Monkeys team, said.

Another game took dancers to the ranch of Hey Dude as they attempted to lasso a cardboard horse.

Dancer Michael LaButis (senior-accounting) swung a lasso like a professional, exclaiming, "I won!" as he roped the cardboard.

"You have to keep moving around and having your attention distracted, and besides I loved Hey Dude as a child," LaButis said before moving on to try another game.

Dancers also reminisced about their favorite Nickelodeon shows by trying to guess a moraler's secret talent in Figure It Out and decorated construction paper shorts as if it were a true Camp Anawanna arts-and-crafts hour.

Also occurring throughout Thon was All University theme hour, College Night Out theme hour and pirate theme hour.

Pirate theme hour consisted of a nine-step scavenger hunt. Participants went from station to station answering Thon trivia questions, making pirate mustaches for themselves and sending mail to kids at Hershey via a message-in-a-bottle system.

During the College Night Theme Hour, dancers could play water pong, horseshoes or cards.

One of the more popular events of the night allowed dancers to poke fun at a controversial call that helped cost the Penn State football team a win against Michigan in 2005.

"Here, you can see that we're playing 'Pin the Glasses on the Blind Ref,' the blind Michigan ref," Julie Kosovec (freshman-bioengineering) said. "It's very popular, they enjoy the joke. It's great. I think it helps them keep their minds off their feet."

Staff writers Andrew McGill and Johnna Scrabis contributed to this report.