In case you missed last night's premiere of the American Gladiators remake, let me tell you all you need to know:
1. Hulk Hogan is a natural game show host and totally should have gotten that Price is Right gig.
2. New York City firefighter: 10 trillion; Southern Cali skateboarder: 2.
3. Being gigantic alone isn't enough to make you a gladiator these days. You must also have a vaguely racist Aztec schtick, or boobs, or have been on the original Gladiators.
But other than that little tweak, the show is remarkably faithful to the one in the '90s, right down to the pun-driven play-by-play. The biggest difference we could pick out was that when you get knocked off the tower with the giant Q-Tip, now you fall into water instead of onto bouncy mats. Our intrepid reporter Justin Clark tested out those mats himself, after being pulled off a giant vinyl pyramid by a gladiatorette named Venom and waxing philosophical about what the remake says about how we've changed as a people in ten years. (Short answer: very little.)
And if you'd like to see more of Justin's unflagging intrepidness, here you are.
