Growing up I remember frequently watching American Gladiators and enjoying it immensely. I guess this goes in the same vein as Airwolf, A-Team, Miami Vice, Knight Rider, etc.

ESPN Classic has old school American Gladiator episodes available and I had my TiVo nab 10 of them. Kim gives me the evil eye when I turn one on so I have been watching them when she isn’t around. Today I dropped her off at the transit station at 6:30 and I decided to get a couple of episodes in before I had to leave for work.

The opening lines of the show are fantastic:

“This is Malibu: the cool, laid back surfer at home on the beach. You’re looking at Lace: feminine, sexy, but always a lady. This is Gemini a split personality, calm one minute and violent the next! This is Zap, strong, silent — the Terminator (as they show a shot of her pumping her biceps wearing Terminatorish glasses) You’re looking at Nitro: cocky, explosive, and always aggressive. And this is Sunny: the all American woman!”

“These are the American Gladiators and the events that they compete in are fast-paced, exciting, confrontational, (my personal favorite) visually interesting, action oriented, and capable of producing emotional moments!”

The best part of the show, now, are the absolutely cheesy quotes that the Gladiators are coming up with after they win or lose their events. Honestly, looking at it now, a lot of their theatrics really remind me of WWF and that some of this shit might really have been staged — at least partially.

After competing against two former college football players and losing to one of them in Breakthrough and Conquer Nitro said, “The first guy, he must have had the gods with him because no man can beat Nitro alone.” ROFL! Zap, following a hard beating in Power Ball, said with the most serious face (how she did it w/o laughing I’ll never know), “I may be black and blue but I’m an American Gladiator through and through!” LOL! LOL! LOL!

I cannot believe that I watched this show religiously (along with many of the others I listed above) for so long when they were obviously SO lame :)

What were your favorite cheesy shows growing up?

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