American Gladiators is back baby!

As a kid, I grew up watching American Gladiators every weekend. I LOVED that show. Over time it faded and I forgot about it until our good friends at NBC decided to cash in on the idea of bringing it back. This time, the action is very similar but obviously kicked up a notch or two. Same ol' games - gauntlet, joust, pyramid, etc. Lets not forget "The Eliminator" at the end, a name which is spot on perfect because of the way it chews up, digests, and eliminates its competitors. I literally thought one woman was gonna die (I'll get to more on her in a second).

The best new feature of the show though has got to be The Hulkster as host. Pretty much anything this guy says is hilarious, first because of the gimmicky sayings (like saying "brother" at the end of every sentence when speaking to a male contestant), secondly because the only adjective he uses to describe anything is "awesome", and third because his voice sounds like he's constipated all the time. Leila Ali acts as co-host, which added comedic value when she made one of the male contestants nearly crap himself:

Contestant: *jokingly enters a fighting stance towards Leila*

Leila: Uh, you really dont wanna do that...

Contestant: *remembers she is a professional boxer and he has a child to feed and lowers his fists with a quivering laugh*


Adding to the comedy of the Hulksters gimmicks is the horrible, cheesy, acting that the contestants/Hulkster/Gladiators put out there. Everything is overacted and hilariously dramatized. The little Asian girl who had an improbable comeback to win had the whole "Im going to keep on trying or die!" mantra going throughout the whole show. She started screaming something when she won, mostly because she was a minute away from needed to be resuscitated. When this happened I thought to myself, "Wow, imagine if that was your girlfriend? Man, that relationship would have to involve a lot of alcohol and the sex would have to be incredible..." The best part came after she won though. The Asian girl was trailing BIG TIME but the girl that was winning couldnt get up a treadmill. As the Asian girl is pulling herself up a pyramid at a snails pace, the other girl is repeatedly slamming against the ground, so many times I thought it was planned. It was pretty funny knowing that she was gonna lose and watching her repeatedly slam against the ground. Eventually the Asian girl blows by her and wins, which leads to our first hilarious part of the episode. The other girl was also on that incredibly positive mantra kick, so she just HAS TO finish the race to be a "true competitor". As the Hulkster is interviewing the winner, they keep cutting to the loser who is STILL SLAMMING AGAINST THE GROUND!! I could not stop laughing! The poor girl finally gets up the treadmill and then crashes through the pads only to get knocked over and land on her neck. The final shot showed her just lying there with the pads on top of her. It was awesome.

Other great cheesy plots included "the female ex-marine" but my favorite was the "guy who was supposed to be on the show 14 years ago but it didnt happen" plot. Apparently this guy was supposed to be on the show 14 years ago but he got stuck in LA traffic and missed his shot. He talks about it as if it was a turning point in his life, like being on the show now is his dream come true and the Hulkster says, "Wow, you really are a loser, brother." Ok, I made that last part up. The announcers are laying it on pretty thick too, constantly talking about this "14 year gap" and so on. So, the guy is in the eliminator and loses to this scrawny little dude which crushes him. Hulkster is interviewing him about the loss and his first sentence had to set the record for shortest sentance with the most amount of "brothers" in it. Here was the conversation that had me on the floor laughing:

Hulk: What was the toughest part brother?

Loser: *tears welling in his eyes while weeping* Waiting 14 years... Im just happy, uh, Im happy I can see...and that the American Gladiators...gave me a shot to come back after 14 years?!? This means a lot to me. And uh, I wanna say thank you. And I wanna thank my mom and my dad for coming out. I wanna thank my family and friends. And most of all, I wanna thank my beautiful wife and our beautiful baby.

Hulk: Like I said brother, nothing for you but respect for you brother. I love you to death...

So we have a loser who's life dream was to be on American Gladiators have his dream smashed and there is the Hulkster saying he'll love him to death. Awesome. I cant wait for the next episode!