I've always gotten along better with guys than girls

I don't watch a lot of television, but last week I watched the semi-finals of American Gladiators. My mother and I had a little tradition of watching the old reruns on the USA Network during summers when I was young. She'd go to work after and I'd try to go running or get a baseball game together or agonize over having to mow the lawn. But the morning hour from 10-11 was probably the best part of the day.

If you'd told me a year ago that they'd bring it back, I could have told you just how they'd fuck it up. The flashing lights, pounding music, drastic camera angles, mile-a-minute cuts, stupid choreographed screaming crowd. All the futuristic crap that some moron producer thought would appeal to a modern audience. It's the same wrong idea that makes bad filmmakers think that 100 years from now, the most popular sport will be RocketLaunchMoonBallExtreme. Nope. It'll still be football basketball baseball soccer golf tennis. And it's because those sports are timeless, and if they're complex, it's only a complexity that's laid on a simple frame, and so the complexity becomes elegant.

Anyway, the new AG is about 8 levels beneath the original version, but it's still okay to watch because the concept is great.

Here's what they've done right:

1) Keeping Assault. This was by far the greatest game on the original, and it's still the best. There's something primitive and awesome about having to dodge the projectiles of an overlord while you scurry between protective boundaries and try to take him out with a lucky shot. It's the ultimate underdog game. When I was a kid staying at my dad's for the weekend one winter, we set this game up in the front yard. It had just snowed, and it was packy, so we built a series of boundaries in a zig-zag pattern. Each one had a single snowball behind it. Then my dad had his station, in front of a garbage can, with thirty or so snowballs stacked up. I had to run between the snow walls while he tried to pelt me, and if I hit the garbage can I won. Some of the most fun I've had. At the same time, this game is hilarious. You have this huge gladiator, probably on steroids, posing and posturing and talking shit and being all physical, and when the game starts, he's behind a gun. It completely nullifies any strength he has, and you could bring in any random redneck who's hunted his whole life to do a better job. It's the only AG game like that.

2) Having the Gladiator shot backward into the water if he/she loses at Assault. Fucking awesome.

3) The water motif in general. Great call.


Here's what they've done wrong, and how to improve it:

1) Making the Gladiators into posturing villain types. Listening to these idiots make puns on their own names gets old about halfway through the first time. Nobody wants that. It just makes the Gladiators look ridiculous.

How to fix it: Give the Gladiators masks and don't let them talk. Think about it. How badass would it be if you never saw a Gladiator's face, or heard him speak? It would add an amazing element of mystery, and would make them ten times more terrifying. Instead, we have to listen to shit like "JUSTICE IS ABOUT TO BE SERVED," and think "oh, I see, he's just a moron."

Additional idea: Have a Gladiator coach. A small, brooding, mysterious figure in a suit. When a Gladiator wins, he walks through a tunnel back to Gladiator base, and the coach gives a little nod. When a Gladiator loses, he walks back with his head slumped, facing the coach's withering gaze. Basically, I want the Gladiators to be like my idea of sports teams in the old Soviet Union.

Also, before each event, the coach looks at a clipboard in front of the tunnel, then turns and gives a secret signal, indicating which Gladiator he wants. Then, boom, the music starts and Titan runs through the tunnel. This would make it more personal, like the Gladiators were really a team who wanted to defeat the contenders at every event, and not just a bunch of individuals who would talk some shit but not really care if they lost.

2) Speaking of music: the loud blaring rock that plays after every event is completely ineffective. So are the swooping shots of the audience giving the thumbs-down in rhythm to the beat. Watching some grinning disney-land dad cheer with his two spoiled kids is the exact opposite of badass.

How to fix it: Give each Gladiator specialized introduction music. Sure, some could be rock, but there could be variety. As my friend Brandon once told me, for example, the best serial killers always listen to classical music. Imagine if you had a Gladiator strutting out to Bach while some contender stood shaking on the Joust platform. That's scary shit. It gets psychological. Also, the audience should be audible only. Black them out. They should be trying to re-create the howling masses of the original Coliseum, and showing the actual crowd makes it painfully clear that it's onlay a bunch of over-fed Americans.

3) Gladiator names. Boring, predictable.

How to fix it: Instead of the usual fare of Titan, Siren, Venom, Justice, etc., how about something that personalizes them a little more? What about Gladiators from different nationalities? What about identifying characteristics? Couldn't you have a Gladiator called Saint Christopher, who wears a cross around his neck and a long white cloak? Or one from Samoa who does a tribal dance before every event? (editor's note: apparently they have this. oops.) The closest we come now is Wolf, who has his howl, and Helga, who I guess is from Germany.

Another great idea is to have Gladiators specifically suited to each event. Like one called "The Spider" who is ridiculously fast on the wall, or "Tarzan," who dominates the rings. Or, like I said before, a redneck type called "The Sniper" behind the gun in Assault. The downside to this is that it'd be really tough for the contender to ever win.

Additional idea: "The Sniper" could have a hunting dog with him. Actually, every Gladiator could have an animal. I want one called "The Shepherd" who wears tattered clothing and leads around a lamb.

4) Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali. Completely unnecessary. They add nothing.

How to fix it: Have a single, unobtrusive host. Someone out of the Jeff Probst from Survivor mold. The host is not the show, and all their bits are just designed to waste time. I do, however, like the fat referee. It's one of those inexplicable decisions that gives a show character.

5) Interviews with contenders. Over-talky, useless. More times than not, they make me dislike the contender.

How to fix it: Show two heavily produced bios at the beginning that make the contender seem likeable. Show them at home, doing their thing, helping kids, training, whatever. Do NOT interview them during the show. I hate that for the same reasons I hate interviewing football coaches as they jog to the locker room at halftime, or baseball managers in the dug-out in the fourth inning. It's even worse for a contender, because they're actually playing. They should be focused completely on the task at hand, and it spoils the tension of competition to get their thoughts on every single aspect of what they go through in the arena. That shit is sacred.

6) Only five events.

How to fix it: They have eight events to work with. Use all eight. There's definitely enough time, even with commercials. If they cut all the interviews and the posturing and the crowd shots, they could roll through, and it would be better. More people would watch.

7) The Gauntlet. Stupid event. New, I think.

How to fix it: This is where a contender tries to run through a narrow alley and reach the end line while being shoved and pinned by Gladiators with mats. There's zero sophistication to the game. It's a football drill. Get rid of it.

Instead, bring back the game where you jump on a rope and grab balls from the hanging pod at the center! That was great! Also, the roller ball game where you move inside huge spheres and try to settle on a pod while the Gladiator tries to knock you off. Those two games were clearly hatched from the mind of a demented genius! And they replaced them with the fucking Gauntlet? Come on!

Basically, it comes down to substance and personality over empty style. By catering to their notion of what America is like, the idiotic writers and producers created a boring, predictable show full of masculine cliches. What people really want is something mysterious and original. And American Gladiators isn't a show like Arrested Development where that kind of originality would hamper its chances; it has a basis of competition, which everyone can relate to, and was already popular years ago.

Viewers need to feel that real victory is at stake. By distancing the contenders and Gladiators, and creating an atmosphere of mystical, almost cabalistic gloom, the perceived triumph is greater. That's how you make American Gladiators great.