American Gladiators sucks

Ben Silverman (NBC programming czar) has been responsible for a number of remakes (Gladiators, Bionic Woman, Knight Rider) in his short tenure at the top. It's a simple formula... take something that was good, update it, and you'll have something good, right? The problem is that the original American Gladiators was awesome and the new version simply feels like an off-brand ripoff. Why?

Annoying Format - Interviewing gladiators and contestants (both corny)... I had the pleasure of hearing "Wolf" talk some trash, non-stop power-orchestra music and cheesy announcer

Wolf... is not gay?


Shitty Eliminator - No Gladiators, the stupid barrel roll part, seemingly no consequences for fucking up on the Eliminator (which happens on every single stage), and amazingly, they didn't bring back the paper barrier ending which was by far the most entertaining part... one woman contestant's winning comment was "it's a lot harder than it looks!"... oh really? It's on TV, so it SHOULD look hard.

You can see the sweet, paper barrier a little after the 1:00 mark


The Prize - Some cash, product placement, and reality component. I mean $100,000 + Toyota Sequoia + Chance to be an American Gladiator. Do we really want to see regular people as Gladiators?

The reason I characterized this as an "an off-brand ripoff" is because I saw RollerJam at Universal Studios back in the day. It actually used the same studio that Gladiators used in its last season. Same roided-out-men-in-tights with extreme sports (roller derby on rollerblades... except for one guy that wore rollerskates) and when I saw it live, it was extremely boring. The new Gladiators rustled up that feeling for the first time in a long time. Can anybody convince me that it's entertaining?

Mark D'Amato, one of the RollerJam headliners, was also known as the "Quadfather" because he used rollerskates

Mobile Post @ MSG

I'm here at the Garden watching the Knickerbockers DESTROY the
Pistons. It defies all logic. Z-Bo is tearing it up and Jared
Jeffries has three highlight-worthy shots. At the the time of this
post, the Pistons are down by 29.

This is truly shocking. Right now, Tayshaun has 0 points and Rip has
3. McDyess is the only Pistons player worth a damn tonight. I've seen
a lot of Afflalo and Stuckey. Maxiell has gotten some time and even
Fabio-style Walter Hermann has gotten into the game. I'm still
wondering who the massive white guy on the Pistons is (later
identified as Brezec). I haven't seen an NBA game since Spurs/Pistons
game 6 of the finals in San Antonio.

I just came within two rows of a catching a shirt slingshotted by the
Knicks City Dancers. I would have gotten physical with the 11 year old
in front of me if it had been shot one row higher. It was very similar
to a Yankee game about ten years ago. The kid in front of me brought a
catcher's mitt. He kept acting out a fantasy where he caught a foul
ball over his head. Make no mistake... had a ball come our way, I
would have elevated to make the grab.

We also saw a sweet wheelchair basketball game. Rest of the shitty
iPhone pics to come later.

FYI - Playboy is likely having two parties in LA and Boston for the
slam dunk/skills on February 16. Be there!