I take offense to the comment on the last post. I have never claimed to be a “good” reviewer. You’re talking about someone who a) can barely write a complete sentence, b) has no comprehension of even the concept of paragraphs and c) once had a friend threaten him with physical violence if he didn’t figure out the difference between there/their/they’re. Hell, I paid forty bucks to go see Weird Al in concert. If you’re looking at me for cogent criticism you’ve come to the wrong place.
But maybe I was mistaken. From the back of the room it looked like he broke a string (not a bad thing) at the end of the first song. If he didn’t then I’m sorry for the misstatement. I still think his set left a lot to be desired but the fun part of music is that people can have divergent opinions and both be correct. As always, I don’t care what people write in the comments but yowza, that was a little harsh.
On to a much more important issue: the relaunch of American Gladiators. Here’s my play by play of Monday night’s episode.
We start with Hulk Hogan cutting a promo. Most people who know me as a wrestling fan would think that I would be psyched to see the Hulkster on television. Except that I hate Hulk Hogan. Every hardcore wrestling fan hates Hulk Hogan, who was an egotistical bastard who would never give up his spot while more worthy wrestlers toiled in the undercard. I got tired of his act twenty years ago. Don’t really need to see it again.
Let’s meet our Gladiators: Titan, Venom, Wolf, Siren, Justice, Fury, Mayhem, Crush, Militia, Stealth, Toa, and Hellga. There are apparently two l’s in Hellga for a reason I can’t quite put my finger on at the moment. I am rather upset that they couldn’t find a role for Nitro from the original series. If he could do celebrity bullriding you’d think he could still swing a pugil stick. One of the male contestants is a rad tech. I used to work with those guys back in the day. Not a tough job but you lack fear in that position. The other guy is an engineer for Boeing. It’s a rather brainy group of contestants.
First event is the Gauntlet as they are taking on Titan, Mayhem, Toa and Justice. Goal is to run past all four of them in a row while wearing a backpack for no apparent reason. Rather boring event on the male side as it consists of guys running and getting hit with blocking pads. With controversy at the end as one of the Gladiators wasn’t playing fair. They should have learned from the original show, dump the bad pro wrestling aspects pronto. No one cares about the Gladiators as characters. The women go up against the female gladiators and Hellga, who I really think we need a ruling on. We are talking East German swimmer here.
(First random comment: the play by play announcer sounds like the guy who used to do Robot Wars. Probably ok given that this show is basically Robot Wars with humans.)
Next event one of my old favorites, The Wall. Basically rock climbing while being chased (an event Laser used to kill at. Bad Sign #1 for the show: when the rad tech reaches the top of the wall he does a victory scream that is so staged that you can tell that someone told him to stand there and act like he had won. People can notice this fake stuff a mile away.
Ladies do Joust, the fabled q-tip battle. We’ve lost the original scaffold and now the platforms are above water for no reason other than it looks vaguely cooler. Bad Sign #2 for the show: We don’t keep a camera angle for more than three seconds. It’s like watch American Gladiators crossed with Blair Witch, you get a headache just by watching the show. I counted 15 different cuts in a 27 second bout.
New event with Earthquake, which is the old conquer game suspended in the air. Last time they did that it was torn knee ligament central. Actually, this is the first event that looks pretty cool just because there seems to be some skill and strategy involved. They also brought back Hang Tough, maybe the worst game ever. It’s people swinging across rings with usually most people having no clue how to actually do this. They’ve greatly reduced the number of rings though making contact between the contestants almost a certainty.
(Second random comment: Please don’t have the contestants talk. Or if you do, stop giving them lines to read. This is sad. I’m just going to fast forward through the talking parts. Yep, someone’s going to make a comment on that line…)
Finally, after suffering through a show that is making me regret wasting my youth we get Assault. The greatest game ever invented. Dodge tennis balls fired at 100 mph while trying to hit a target. It’s brilliant in its simplicity, much like a spider’s web or an Adam Sandler film. Crappy weapons for the contestants, though. A slingshot? What the hell? Also, I really regret that they got rid of the bombed out village set that they used to use. It made no sense given that they were inside a television studio but it added to the “Oh what the hell, if it looks cool let’s use it” sense of the original show. How else does one create Atlaspeheres?
(Third random comment: I demand Atlaspheres! You can not have American Gladiators without the human hamster balls.)
Mercifully we get to the Eliminator, which seems to be designed by the creators of Ninja Warrior without the sense of style. Or at least they used the rolling log though no one seems to know how to use it. It’s basically a lot of running and climbing with no interaction from the gladiators. Oh how I long for the days when the contestants would get creamed by medicine balls. Also, what is the logic of having contestants swim then try to run up a sloped treadmill when they will obviously have wet feet?. Other than watching them slip for a minute in pretend drama?
Wow, that was an hour of my life I’m not getting back. When I say something like that you know it’s bad. Hell, I would watch the reruns on ESPN Classic every once in a while. This show is simultaneously taking itself too seriously and not seriously enough. You have high production values for a show where parts are obviously preplanned. Not the events but all of the talking bits before and after. Then you have the Gladiators with their pro wrestling personalities except that we are talking about guys who would be wrestling in the high school gym as opposed to the big stage. It doesn’t have the fun of the original in any sense of the word. Unless Billy Wirth makes a surprise comeback as a contestant I think I’ll be skipping this.
But maybe I was mistaken. From the back of the room it looked like he broke a string (not a bad thing) at the end of the first song. If he didn’t then I’m sorry for the misstatement. I still think his set left a lot to be desired but the fun part of music is that people can have divergent opinions and both be correct. As always, I don’t care what people write in the comments but yowza, that was a little harsh.
On to a much more important issue: the relaunch of American Gladiators. Here’s my play by play of Monday night’s episode.
We start with Hulk Hogan cutting a promo. Most people who know me as a wrestling fan would think that I would be psyched to see the Hulkster on television. Except that I hate Hulk Hogan. Every hardcore wrestling fan hates Hulk Hogan, who was an egotistical bastard who would never give up his spot while more worthy wrestlers toiled in the undercard. I got tired of his act twenty years ago. Don’t really need to see it again.
Let’s meet our Gladiators: Titan, Venom, Wolf, Siren, Justice, Fury, Mayhem, Crush, Militia, Stealth, Toa, and Hellga. There are apparently two l’s in Hellga for a reason I can’t quite put my finger on at the moment. I am rather upset that they couldn’t find a role for Nitro from the original series. If he could do celebrity bullriding you’d think he could still swing a pugil stick. One of the male contestants is a rad tech. I used to work with those guys back in the day. Not a tough job but you lack fear in that position. The other guy is an engineer for Boeing. It’s a rather brainy group of contestants.
First event is the Gauntlet as they are taking on Titan, Mayhem, Toa and Justice. Goal is to run past all four of them in a row while wearing a backpack for no apparent reason. Rather boring event on the male side as it consists of guys running and getting hit with blocking pads. With controversy at the end as one of the Gladiators wasn’t playing fair. They should have learned from the original show, dump the bad pro wrestling aspects pronto. No one cares about the Gladiators as characters. The women go up against the female gladiators and Hellga, who I really think we need a ruling on. We are talking East German swimmer here.
(First random comment: the play by play announcer sounds like the guy who used to do Robot Wars. Probably ok given that this show is basically Robot Wars with humans.)
Next event one of my old favorites, The Wall. Basically rock climbing while being chased (an event Laser used to kill at. Bad Sign #1 for the show: when the rad tech reaches the top of the wall he does a victory scream that is so staged that you can tell that someone told him to stand there and act like he had won. People can notice this fake stuff a mile away.
Ladies do Joust, the fabled q-tip battle. We’ve lost the original scaffold and now the platforms are above water for no reason other than it looks vaguely cooler. Bad Sign #2 for the show: We don’t keep a camera angle for more than three seconds. It’s like watch American Gladiators crossed with Blair Witch, you get a headache just by watching the show. I counted 15 different cuts in a 27 second bout.
New event with Earthquake, which is the old conquer game suspended in the air. Last time they did that it was torn knee ligament central. Actually, this is the first event that looks pretty cool just because there seems to be some skill and strategy involved. They also brought back Hang Tough, maybe the worst game ever. It’s people swinging across rings with usually most people having no clue how to actually do this. They’ve greatly reduced the number of rings though making contact between the contestants almost a certainty.
(Second random comment: Please don’t have the contestants talk. Or if you do, stop giving them lines to read. This is sad. I’m just going to fast forward through the talking parts. Yep, someone’s going to make a comment on that line…)
Finally, after suffering through a show that is making me regret wasting my youth we get Assault. The greatest game ever invented. Dodge tennis balls fired at 100 mph while trying to hit a target. It’s brilliant in its simplicity, much like a spider’s web or an Adam Sandler film. Crappy weapons for the contestants, though. A slingshot? What the hell? Also, I really regret that they got rid of the bombed out village set that they used to use. It made no sense given that they were inside a television studio but it added to the “Oh what the hell, if it looks cool let’s use it” sense of the original show. How else does one create Atlaspeheres?
(Third random comment: I demand Atlaspheres! You can not have American Gladiators without the human hamster balls.)
Mercifully we get to the Eliminator, which seems to be designed by the creators of Ninja Warrior without the sense of style. Or at least they used the rolling log though no one seems to know how to use it. It’s basically a lot of running and climbing with no interaction from the gladiators. Oh how I long for the days when the contestants would get creamed by medicine balls. Also, what is the logic of having contestants swim then try to run up a sloped treadmill when they will obviously have wet feet?. Other than watching them slip for a minute in pretend drama?
Wow, that was an hour of my life I’m not getting back. When I say something like that you know it’s bad. Hell, I would watch the reruns on ESPN Classic every once in a while. This show is simultaneously taking itself too seriously and not seriously enough. You have high production values for a show where parts are obviously preplanned. Not the events but all of the talking bits before and after. Then you have the Gladiators with their pro wrestling personalities except that we are talking about guys who would be wrestling in the high school gym as opposed to the big stage. It doesn’t have the fun of the original in any sense of the word. Unless Billy Wirth makes a surprise comeback as a contestant I think I’ll be skipping this.
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