Attempting Gladiators

American Gladiators was an institution in my late 80s / early 90s home. My brother and I leapt into each other’s arms every time Mike Adamle and / or Larry Csonka announced that “Assault” was coming up next. (Tennis balls fired from a pneumatic cannon at much smaller and skinnier people.) In fact, my family was so into American Gladiators, my parents convinced my little brother that my father was going to try out for the show. (Funny story: Tryouts actually came to Louisville, my dad put on a t-shirt and went, my 6 year old brother told everyone on the way in that “MY DADDY IS GONNA BE ON AMERICAN GLADIATORS!” He did not actually try out.) So when a commercial touting an update on the spandex and cheesy names (Turbo, Ice, Thunder, Blaze to name a few) came on my 2.5 channel television, I nearly did the Joust all by myself. When the premiere went down last Sunday evening, I felt like I had gone a round in the Eliminator. By the time one pre-match interview consisted of one gladiator howling and the other dancing around screaming ooga-booga, I tapped out.

The show can’t decide whether it wants to be serious or campy. The “trash talk” between gladiators and competitors was forced and dumb. Hulk Hogan has become a caricature of himself (Actual quote, to a competitor named Venus, “The sun was aligned, the planets were aligned, the moon was aligned, the stars were aligned, and Venus was aligned baby!”) and Laila Ali has a bit of difficulty stringing two coherent sentences together.

It seemed forced, all of it, and the competitive kitsch that made the first American Gladiators so endearing was lost in the contrived trash talk, grunting, and ooga-boogaing. Would the new AG have been a hit had it been truer to the original? I can’t say. I can say that the 90s have passed, the world has changed. And sadly, this is no world for the indubitable Malibu.

SWEET!