American Gladiators II

Man, I have to say that I was excited for this. I used to watch the original every Saturday night at 1:00am at my friend’s house after watching Saturday Night Live. Which was an excellent combo, because this was when Mike Meyers, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, and clan were immortalizing characters and skits such as Wayne’s World, Church Lady, and Toonces. A golden time for that show.

11:30. “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!”. We had our Domino’s ordered with our six pack of Coke. We would laugh our asses off and do our best to try an immitate the characters we just heard. “I am Hanz”. “And I am Franz”. “And we’re here to pump” (clap) “You up”. Rip open a few more Cokes on top of our bloated pizza stomachs and…

Da na na. Da da da da da da da na na. American Gladiators was on. Yeah. We were psyched. Nitro, Zap, Thor. All these overpumped dudes and dudettes, back in the day when muscle-bound individuals were still somewhat of a rarity.

Yet we weren’t rooting for these mountains of muscle. We were rooting for the contestants.

And Billy. What a badass. Remember him? He was the legendary contestant. Had some Native American blood I think. He was the ultimate competitor. Not enshrouded in over-sized pumpitude, yet still was victorious over the Gladiators, time and time again.

And the hand-cycle thing. Billy, was a total blur of hands using that thing. That’s how I would do it when I get older, I thought. Dusting everybody else in speed and agility.

And now I’m older. Probably around Billy’s age. Maybe a few years older. But the old show has been off the air for quite sometime.

But then a few months ago. Da da na. Da da da da da da da na na.

It’s frickin’ back.
The new American Gladiators.  Holy shit.

I wish my old friend was still around so we could laugh about it.

Anyways, I just checked it out tonight. It somehow slipped my mind on Sunday but this is the day of the internet, so I was able to watch the episode online. Come to think of it, I should have ordered a pizza and poured out a Coke on the carpet for my homey.

But, I have to say, I got some goosebumps seeing it come on again, but shit man, they made some poor choices remaking this show. For one, they have Hulk Hogan co-hosting and every line is a “Brother!” line which is truly stupid. I do like Hulk, but he needs to host as himself, Terry Bollea, and not stuck doing his Hulkster Schtick. It’s distracting and was played out three minutes into it.

And I have the same problem with the contestants. They seem to be force-fed a bunch of lines and fake smiles. I am relying on the them to be the natural, normal part of the format. What made the original show successful was that they had normal competitors and normal announcers in a totally abnormal environment. That is what made it successful.

Anyways, I hope they can revert back to what worked back in the day, and couple it with all the improvements of new courses and bigger gladiators of today. Otherwise I feel this show will disappear before we know it…even though I know this show wont last regardless.

In the meantime, maybe I should consider trying out for this one. Maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s my calling. I think a bit of the spirit of Billy may live inside me. I’ll give it some thought.

BN