American Gladiators!
One of my favorite TV shows is back!
American Gladiators was a staple in our house. My family would order a pizza or something and we'd eat in the family room on a picnic blanket so we could watch the unimaginably huge gladiators take on the hungry contenders. It was a great weekly bonding event :) I remember waiting on bated breath to see what challenges would be met each week. Assault, Hang Tough, Joust, The Gauntlet, The Wall, and the great equalizer, The Eliminator.
Assault was one of my all-time favorite challenges. The contender starts at the back of the arena and the gladiator is atop a pedestal near the goal. The gladiator fires tennis balls from a gun as the contender scrambles to and from each of the weapon stations on the way to the goal. If the contender can hit the target above the gladiator's head, the contender picks up full marks. If the gladiator hits the contender, no points are awarded. It was a great combination of skill, patience, accuracy and persistence. The new version is pretty good too, even if it feels a bit smaller. The contenders haven't figured out how to fake out the gladiator so much yet, which is really the key to winning that event. That way, the gladiator wastes a shot before you actually leave your current station and has to reload while you're on the way to your next one.
The new Eliminator is just insane. It's about the same length as the original, and it has pretty much all the same obstacles, but they changed the order so that it's so much harder on your body. The sequence used to be travelator (uphill conveyor belt running opposite to your direction), balance beam, handbike (think bike pedals, except you turn them with your hands to move forward as you hang suspended over a pit), something else, cargo net climb, zipline, then a wall scale. Now it's balance beam, wall scale, barrel roll, underwater swim, cargo net climb, pyramid climb, zipline, handbike, and travelator. It's nuts. The two guys last night almost died of a coronary at the end.
The gladiators themselves are just as scary as the first round. Justice is just gigantic. Wolf is hilarious (and just a bit frightening). I laughed a bit when they introduced Helga, then I stopped laughing when she started beating the crap out of one of last night's contenders in The Gauntlet. Crush is very capable in Joust. Toa is crazy.
So to close, yes. I love it. Monday nights are officially American Gladiators nights at my place. I'll be DVRing the show so the myriad commercials will not be an issue. I'll send out reminders the day of.
CONTENDER READY? GLADIATOR READY? *whistle*
American Gladiators was a staple in our house. My family would order a pizza or something and we'd eat in the family room on a picnic blanket so we could watch the unimaginably huge gladiators take on the hungry contenders. It was a great weekly bonding event :) I remember waiting on bated breath to see what challenges would be met each week. Assault, Hang Tough, Joust, The Gauntlet, The Wall, and the great equalizer, The Eliminator.
Assault was one of my all-time favorite challenges. The contender starts at the back of the arena and the gladiator is atop a pedestal near the goal. The gladiator fires tennis balls from a gun as the contender scrambles to and from each of the weapon stations on the way to the goal. If the contender can hit the target above the gladiator's head, the contender picks up full marks. If the gladiator hits the contender, no points are awarded. It was a great combination of skill, patience, accuracy and persistence. The new version is pretty good too, even if it feels a bit smaller. The contenders haven't figured out how to fake out the gladiator so much yet, which is really the key to winning that event. That way, the gladiator wastes a shot before you actually leave your current station and has to reload while you're on the way to your next one.
The new Eliminator is just insane. It's about the same length as the original, and it has pretty much all the same obstacles, but they changed the order so that it's so much harder on your body. The sequence used to be travelator (uphill conveyor belt running opposite to your direction), balance beam, handbike (think bike pedals, except you turn them with your hands to move forward as you hang suspended over a pit), something else, cargo net climb, zipline, then a wall scale. Now it's balance beam, wall scale, barrel roll, underwater swim, cargo net climb, pyramid climb, zipline, handbike, and travelator. It's nuts. The two guys last night almost died of a coronary at the end.
The gladiators themselves are just as scary as the first round. Justice is just gigantic. Wolf is hilarious (and just a bit frightening). I laughed a bit when they introduced Helga, then I stopped laughing when she started beating the crap out of one of last night's contenders in The Gauntlet. Crush is very capable in Joust. Toa is crazy.
So to close, yes. I love it. Monday nights are officially American Gladiators nights at my place. I'll be DVRing the show so the myriad commercials will not be an issue. I'll send out reminders the day of.
CONTENDER READY? GLADIATOR READY? *whistle*