american gladiators
‘Simon Cowell’s Gladiators’ To Be Even Gayer Than Its ‘American’ Inspiration
8:49AM Seth | The revisiting of gladiatorial TV trends championed by ’80s-plundering perfect exec storm Ben Silverman has proven to be a non-risk worth taking for NBC. Now, with news that a British edition will be following suit, American Idol sourpuss Simon Cowell has announced plans to produce his own version of the arena bloodsport. While details are still under wraps, industry insiders predict Simon Cowell’s Gladiators will veer from the original in several key regards: Cowell and his co-judges can emerge from behind their desk at any moment and bludgeon a contestant to death with a Coca Cola-branded baseball bat. More »
Ryan Seacrest’s Kiddie ‘Gladiators’ Series Resurrected!
4:04AM Mark | The runaway success of NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman’s resurrected American Gladiators, the spandex-clad, suspiciously muscled new stud of his network’s strike-crippled primetime stable, inspired studio MGM Television to scour its back catalog for a way to further exploit the just-revived brand. According to THR, that desperate hunt turned up short-lived 1994 spin-off Gladiators 2000, a Ryan Seacrest-hosted curiosity that pitted pre-teen competitors in scaled-down bloodsports from the flagship show and added educational quizzes about health and fitness (cower before the brain-melting nutritional nightmare that is the Food Pyramid!). More »
5:20AM Mark | The comparison of American Gladiators‘ winner-take-all final event, The Eliminator, to the Harry Potter series’ Qudditich matches never would have occurred to us, but seem pretty apt: Something about the way that contenders with huge leads always seem to collapse in an exhausted heap at the foot of that conveyor belt obstacle to give their opponents catch-up time makes the whole thing feel just as fixed as the fictional contests J.K. Rowling has rigged in favor of her Snitch-collecting wizard. [Geek Toob] More »
America Not Particularly Interested In Billy Bush’s Announcement Of Golden Globes Winners On NBC
6:09AM Defamer Hollywood | · NBC’s Billy Bush-enhanced Reading of the Golden Globes Winners telecast draws just 5.8 million viewers, lower Nielsen numbers than even last week’s public-access-quality People’s Choice Awards delivered to CBS. Meanwhile, the premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was huge for Fox. [THR] Shaking off the disappointment of its Globes debacle, NBC orders another season of Proven Ratings Winner American Gladiators (surely, two episodes is all the evidence one needs to make such a commitment!), though the network is being coy about how many episodes it’s ordered or when they might air. [Variety] Having quietly completed two days of negotiations over the weekend, everyone in Hollywood will be watching the DGA and AMPTP for signs that they’re about to announce a deal. (Especially members of the WGA, who are praying the directors don’t reach an unfavorable agreement that makes their own contract-talk suffering any worse.) [THR] The Producers Guild nominates The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood for its feature film award, jilting both of last night’s Globes winners, Atonement and Sweeney Todd.[Variety] More »
8:32AM Defamer Hollywood | NBC ’s Ben Silverman has heard your cries for more American Gladiators, TV fans starved for anything that’s not a CSI rerun, and is now reportedly mulling how many more episodes of his just-launched hit series to order. (His initial instinct is restraint: “We don’t want to order 60 of them.”) Also, he’s cooking up something so super-secret for the new show’s finale lead-in to his upcoming Knight Rider movie that, “If I [told you], Wolf and Hulk would show up at your door.” Our best guess: a live WGA Nerds Vs. Gladiators deathmatch between scribes kidnapped from the picket line and his well-muscled minions, during which the prom-ruining meanies he so disdains will be pummeled in front of millions of viewers for his amusement. [TV Week] More »
Merciful Hulk Hogan Spares Life Of Hobbled Contestant On ‘American Gladiator’ Premiere
7:30AM Defamer Hollywood | Decked out head-to-toe in the official, patriotically colored, star-spangled spandex unitard (with, of course, the optional “Milita’s Howitzer” crotch-pad) and clutching the bludgeon-at-home Joust cudgel we’d purchased from NBC’s online store months ago in anticipation of the network’s relaunch of American Gladiators, we took in every last minute of last night’s two-hour premiere in gape-mouthed awe. Imagine our delight, then, that it took merely a handful of minutes for the ravenous new Arena to gobble up its first contestant: the plucky Jessie, who was hobbled by Stealth’s knee-decimating Power Ball hit (click the thumbnail to watch the shocking–just shocking!–footage). While in the previous incarnation of Gladiators, an injured player was allowed to opt out of their quest via a tear-drenched interview with the hosts, the vastly improved bloodsport now requires that a contender to participate in the Assault before being discharged from the competition. Naturally, we found it difficult to watch as Jessie collapsed seconds after Hulk Hogan ignored her pleas to return to her family and shoved her into the line of tennis-ball-cannon fire, a spectacle made more disturbing each time her body slightly convulsed upon the impact of each 100-mph Slazenger ricocheting off her prone form. But a miracle of uplifting redemption immediately followed, when a suddenly compassionate Hogan ordered the cessation of the bombardment with a wave of his hand, and, inspired by the crowd’s screams of approval when he dramatically reversed his initial thumbs-down call by pointing his life-sparing digit towards the heavens, carried the fallen Gladiator off-stage himself. If you looked closely enough at a shadow-obscured balcony overseeing the spectacle, you could almost make out Peacock Emperor Ben Silverman nodding his approval of the throng’s generosity, knowing that any disappointment he felt over being denied the honor of a human sacrifice on the show’s debut would be more than balanced by the ratings gain generated by the emotional, watercooler-worthy moment. American Gladiators [NBC.com] ‘American Gladiators’ Shows Ratings Muscle [TV Week] More »
Size Queens Rejoice: American Gladiator’s Gay Porn Past Revealed
7:20AM Defamer Hollywood | Well, that didn’t take very long: The first new American Gladiator with a gay porn past has been revealed by our foam-baton -and- sandal-fetishist cousins over at Fleshbot. As he’s described in his official website bio, Militia is a force to be reckoned with, measuring at “6-foot, 3-inch, 220-pounds,” with “an impressive arsenal of skills at his disposal,” including, but not limited to, the tennis ball cannon he appears to be smuggling in his shorts. Militia is in fact former Colt Studios model Elian Cortez, and an image gallery of the impressively scaled man-warrior, unconstrained by AmGlad-issue Lycrawear, merely awaits your perusal with one NSFW click of the mouse. As it turns out, that was no tennis ball cannon. We’d also encourage you to take a moment to consider that hot-tube-sized manhole cover he managed to unscrew with his bare hands, which offers a good indication of the brute strength we’re dealing with here. Alex “Militia” Castro: COLT’s New American Gladiator [Fleshbot] More »
More American Gladiators
7:18AM Defamer Hollywood | Mayhem: We told you Isaiah Washington would land on his feet. [AmGlad] More »
American Gladiators First Impressions, Continued
6:32AM Defamer Hollywood | American Gladiators first impressions, continued: Toa: His bio states that “with his tribal garb and distinctive tattoos, he may conjure up images of an island paradise,” although not with the force or immediacy that he conjures up images of a late-90’s frat boy getting the “sweet ink” he’ll come to regret when he starts going on job interviews. [AmGlad] More »
