…this lousy blog post. There’s been a horde of blog posts floating around about the new incarnation of American Gladiators. Most of them are so alarmist that you’d think this was national security crisis or something. It’s a freaking game show people. Get some perspective. It’s not like there was ever a “sanctity of the game” argument for AG or anything. I loved the show just as much as everyone else when it was on the USA network 15 years ago. I think I bought into its “authenticity” more back then because I was a younger, naive middle-schooler. It’s a good thing blogs weren’t around back then to ruin the show like they are now.
Now, that’s not to say I don’t have my objections to changes they’ve made to the Hogan-Ali version we have today. The fast camera cuts during the first episode’s Power Ball really detracted from the action of the game. The contenders don’t seem to be quite as physical as they were on the original. I think that’s because the reality TV boom has really sapped the talent pool for the kind of individuals that are willing to pull on patriotic spandex and get shoved around by out-of-work body builders twice their size. MTV’s Real World – Road Rules Challenge has had the best “amateur” athletes on TV over the last decade. If we had contenders like The Gauntlet II’s Alton competing against the Gladiators, it would be a better show. But we’ve got the leftovers from RWRRC, the Amazing Race, Survivor, and whatever else is out there (I’m not an expert on reality TV).
So, yeah…the show is just a show. Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali can’t hold a candle to Mike Adamle and Larry Czonka. (You don’t think the Czonk wouldn’t have been up for a cameo appearance?) The cuts are rough and the gladiators are comical. But weren’t they always pretty goofy? Malibu was a tool. I loved Gemini when on the old show, but he really didn’t have much personality…unless kicking ass is a personality trait. And Nitro, what an incredible bag of douche. He was a slimeball in the most perfect sense of the word. And be real, you all had to be dying during the first episode when one of the female contenders was hanging on for dear life at the reverse treadmill while the other woman trudged on by her to win. I don’t care who you are, that was great television.
Anyway, I went to a taping of the show here in LA about a month ago. I didn’t write about it then because I didn’t want to spoil the show for anyone…or maybe I was too lazy. That’s neither here nor there. Anyway, one of my good buddy’s coworkers is apparently a friend or two removed from Fury, one of the Gladiators. She’s got a myspace too.The thing is, we showed up on the day they were filming the Eliminator. The single event when there are no Gladiators are involved. So when we told the PA’s that we were guests of a Gladiator, they must have known we were full of it. But they let us in the VIP area anyway. Maybe that was because the VIP area consisted of bottles of water and peanut butter crackers. Not quite the high rollers room at The Wynn. We got to the Sony Studios at about 5pm. After talking with a PA that was on hiatus from Two and a Half Men (writers strike casualty) I learned that filming was scheduled to start at 7pm. But no one pays attention to schedules in Hollywood…or Culver City.
A quick note: Apparently when they film the show, they run all the contenders through one event at a time for the entire season. That way they don’t have to constantly be rearranging the sound stage after every event. So they were scheduled to run something like 8 pairs of men and women through the Eliminator that night.
Before they got close to starting filming, they had a couple guys who I can only describe as interns in contender outfits do a few run-throughs of the Eliminator. It became immediately apparent that this was the first time anyone had tried the event at full speed when they got to the reverse treadmills at the end. After swimming through the “flaming” pool, the interns’ sneakers were too wet to make it up the treadmill. They tried slowing down the treadmill. But there was no way these guys were making it up that thing. So all these stage hands had a pow-wow at the bottom of the treadmills and looked as surly as possible. They finally decided to attach a rope to the top of the treadmill so that contenders could grab on and pull themselves up the ramp.
During all this prep-time there was this fat loudmouth (who was probably drunk) that walked around with a microphone and tried to entertain the crowd. He pulled people out of the crowd to sing…badly. He tried to get the various sections of the crowd to do the wave and to have chant wars back and forth. By the way, if you’ve never been to a show taping before be aware that they’ll take just about anyone in the crowd. Joining us that night were two homeless shelters (Golden Palms was one of the shelters I believe) and the Garfield High School marching band. The only thing keeping me going were the bottles of water and peanut butter crackers.
When the filming finally started around 8pm we were all pretty relieved. We thought the action was about to begin once Laila started interviewing the first contender, Molivann Duy (or his myspace…lots of pictures). As it turns out, Laila is very bad at reading queue cards and had to do the interview about five times. Fortunately, when she interviewed the next contender, Jeff Keller (who happens to work for 93.1 JackFM), it only took her about four tries to interview him. Moli was a ham and kept hitting on Laila, saying things like, “Boy o’ boy Laila! You look great in black!” and such. Jeff was…well…Jeff was depressing. He had been waiting 14 years to be on American Gladiators and described it as “the final piece of the puzzle.” This guy has a job, a wife and a kid…but this is what was missing in his life.
Jeff had a little bit of a head start going into the Eliminator. But he was gassed just climbing the cargo net and it just got worse from there. He fell into the pit below the hand bike. You didn’t see this on TV, but when he was climbing out there was a fluorescent light bulb attached to the scaffolding that he was climbing on and he smashed it in his hand as he tried to climb out. It was inside a plastic bag or something though, so the shattered glass didn’t go everywhere. Anyway, by the time Jeff got to the reverse treadmill Moli was just finishing. Jeff tried at least half a dozen times to get up that damned reverse treadmill. Even with the cheater’s rope, he still couldn’t do it. He was nearly ready to give up when my buddy DBo started the chant, “DON’T GIVE UP! DON’T GIVE UP!” The whole crowd got into it, high schoolers, homeless people, everyone. By this point Laila has had a couple run throughs on Moli’s interview. Jeff finally makes his way up the treadmill, although it suspiciously looked like he grabbed the rope and walked up the platform NEXT to the treadmill. For the cherry on top of his embarrasment-sundae he cried during his debrief interview with Laila. Don’t forget that he waited 14 years for this opportunity!
Then we waited about 25 minutes.
Finally, the female contenders were due up. I don’t really remember much from their multiple interview attempts (led by Hulk this time) because we were pleading with one of the PA’s to let us leave. He was hesitant because they didn’t want the crowd to look too thin. Also, you can only leave at certain breaks in the shooting. From what I could tell, it was almost all breaks and very little filming. It was probably about 10:30pm by this point and they still had an entire season of contenders to run through the Eliminator. We stuck around to watch the women do their thing. The best part was when Bonnie Blanco (or her myspace) smacked her face on a bar in the pool and bled from her forehead for the rest of the race. A little blood goes a long way towards making something like American Gladiators feel like a real athletic competition. Shanay Norvell (or her myspace) ended up winning in a fairly close race. Bonnie was a Marine and Shay is a Life Wellness Coach/Adolescent Guru. Do you think Bonnie’s leatherneck friends are going to let her live that loss down? I don’t. We made it out of there shortly after the female contenders were interviewed. It was about 11:15pm. Don’t forget, they still had to run through the interviews and the Eliminator for 7 more pairs of guys and gals each. Yikes.
Final notes:
- Going to a TV taping really ruins a lot of the “magic” of a show. However, sitting in the arena we were not subject to shaky camera cuts and the poor post-event “announcing” that was dubbed over the footage for the TV broadcast.
- Hulk and Laila are not adept at off the cuff interviews, to say the least.
- There are NO gladiators during the taping the Eliminator. None.
- I forgot to mention this above, but there were some Gladiator dancer “girls” bouncing around in shiny silver jumpsuit things. To say that they were “beat” would be generous. The grill on one of them was reminiscent of Jamie Foxx’s Wanda from In Living Color.
- Apparently Fury was sad to hear that we came to support her and it was a night when she wasn’t even there. Who says Gladiators don’t have a soft side? She also said that many, many of the contenders puked after they ran the Eliminator. After we left that night, the Fire Department apparently shut down filming. Probably because of the flaming pool of death.
Though the new show may not be as likable as the original it still has some entertainment value. Until the writers’ strike is over, it’s better than a lot of other garbage on television. I guess this is the part where I am supposed to tell you to turn off the TV and talk to people or read a book. So if you haven’t read the Kite Runner yet, it’s comes with the “Lunchbox Seal of Approval”.
I love Crush. I’d let her Eliminate me.