Monday, January 7, 2008

American Gladiators kinda sucks, yet kept me watching


As a kid, I loved American Gladiators. I remember watching that, and G.L.O.W. and Rollergames. Remember Rollergames? The inline skating roller derby with a live alligator pit? That show was awesome...Good times...Anyways...
American Gladiators premiered last night after a draining 2 hours of people opening briefcases and not taking the money and running when they should've. Hosted by Laila Ali and Hulk Hogan, the show was good, but could've been a hel of a lot better.
First problem. In one hour, there was maybe 15 minutes of actual competition. The men and the women were in 4 events each, lasting between a minute and a minute and a half, plus the eliminator which is about 2 and a half minutes. the rest of the hour was filled with commercials and Ben Stiller's character from Dodgeball howling like a wolf.
This show could be improved in so many ways.

Get rid of the sad piano music and the sob stories. Waaaah I missed my chance 15 years ago, and now I'm back. I love my baby girl. waaaaaaaaah.

Get rid of the fake signs planted in the audience. I highly doubt that during the first taping of a show, someone brought a "Marry Me Hellga" sign to the show. No one, (except for maybe some of the weird foot fetish amazon worshippers who were VIP members at her site) even knows who she is. (It seems that her site has been revamped to remove some of the more pervy images, in the last week)

Don't queue up for an event and then cut to commercial right as the event is about to start. End an event, then go to break. How would you like it if during a football game, the ball gets hiked and Just as Tom Brady is about to throw, they cut to commercial, the announcer says "And lets see what Brady does after the break!"? If we are supposed to believe this is a serious sporting event, don't treat it like a crappy game show, or American Idol.

Show more events. Like I mentioned earlier, Considering the fact that each event was around a minute long, there was an awful lot of filler and time wasting, and lame interviews with people who sound like WWE farm league rejects.

Watch Ninja Warrior. - The show is paced better, and is more exciting. The interviews are kept to a minimum, and the show is mostly why you tuned in. To see the events.

Better Athletes- Hopefully this will happen naturally, as I'm sure not that many people even knew about the casting call for this first season. If the show makes it without being cancelled, perhaps there will be much better tougher people trying next season. Here, we can look at Ninja Warrior again. The competitors on Ninja Warrior who make it through the courses would destroy the competitors from last nights AG. They would also make it through the eliminator in about half of the time. No one last night was really fit enough to make it through the course. It was actually pretty pathetic.

Perhaps because I am looking at it through the rose-colored glasses of my youth, I actually liked the show, but it certainly could've been a lot better.

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