An Evening With The Hulkster
I should be ashamed of myself. Last night, at the insistence of a surprise visitor from out-of-town, I tuned in to the NBC premiere of American Gladiators. From what I can remember, the original run of the show was ridiculous enough, but now they’ve turned the show into what amounts to a facsimile of pro wrestling. And hey, what d’ya know? The Hulkster hosts the entire thing!
While I can’t tell exactly what amount of the show is staged, one would have to imagine it’s somewhere around 99 percent. From the forced dialogue to the unbelievable last-second comebacks and sterotypically melodramatic personal profiles, there is virtually no chance this thing hasn’t been pre-decided. One contestant in particular treated us to a sob story about how hard it is to raise three kids with a job selling janitorial supplies. You know what else makes it difficult to raise your kids? Making a goddamn fool out of yourself on national television.
That is, if the kids are even hers to begin with. Many viewers may be sucked in by the show’s pseudo-reality format but after watching Mr. Hogan conduct “interviews” with inane statements—not questions, mind you—that elicit 30-second responses, I’m calling b.s. on all of it. So the winner gets $100,000, huh? Is that paid before or after the shows are filmed?
On the other hand, I doubt the majority of Gladiator viewers are concerned with its authenticity as long as they get to watch competitors mauled by campy, juiced-up meatheads and fake-breasted Amazon women with names like Wolf and Crush. In this aspect, Gladiators works brilliantly as unintentional comedy, much in the same vein as the WWF (or the WWE, or whatever it’s called now).
Either way, the show’s only positive is that you may laugh your ass off for a little while, until you realize that Gladiators might become a hit, or that some people probably take it seriously. So after you’ve gotten your kicks for a minute or two, please do the rest of humanity a favor and stay far, far away from this poor excuse for television.
Hmmm… I actually watched some of this last night. Not because I wanted to relive the boring after-school hours of my youth, but because as I was flipping channels, I realized I actually knew one of the contestants. Chad Knight, the guy in blue on the first episode, is actually a pretty cool dude. We took a class together at MiraCosta. If I talk to him, I will ask him about it being “fixed”. I’m sure he’ll offer up the truth, since if it was a set up, he got the short end of the stick.
But, unless I see any other contestants I actually know, I will steer clear of this TV tripe in the future, for sure.
That’s funny, I’ve been watching The Amazing Race for the same reason–I’m acquainted with one of the guys in competition.
Word on the street is that some reality shows are actually casting a good deal of these parts with actors instead of scooping up “real” people at open auditions. Somehow, American Gladiators reeks of being especially phony… and by the way, contestants are almost always under contractual obligation to not reveal the details, especially who wins, as it greatly compromises ratings, among other things.
It’s all just an elaborate setup so they can eventually do a special on casting the Gladiators.
My husband and I completely agree with your assessment of the show. Being in our mid-twenties, we thought it would be fun to rewatch a show we were mysteriously entertaineed by in our youth….upon returning, it is clear that the show is rigged and ridiculous. The best moments were when the competitors went down over something stupid like tripping on the mat.
We do wish the show had a female competitor with the name “Camel Toe” whose name was announced with pride and masculinity the way other Gladiator’s names are. What would be her signature move, we wonder? For a guy, Thorax! ha!
Honestly we had more fun mocking the show than we had watching it.