Oh Hell Yes! It Was Just Announced That The Next 30 For 30 Is On 'American Gladiators'
[Source] - A documentary about American Gladiators, widely considered one of the first reality competition series, is set as ESPN’s latest 30 for 30.
Deadline understands that the untitled documentary, which explores the story of the show, which ran from 1989 to 1996 and was later rebooted by NBC in 2008, comes from Vice Studios and ESPN Films.
The project will feature many of the larger than life former Gladiators, as well as Johnny Ferraro, who has been referred to as ‘the Godfather of reality television.”
Now this is a 30 for 30 I can get behind. American Gladiators is an all-time show for me. Young Reags still remembers rushing to the TV to catch Gladiators. We had more important things to do, mom and dad. I remember when they first launched the series, a lot of the documentaries focused on some of the lesser talked about yet extremely interesting stories in sports histories. Then we got a bunch of stories that we already knew with no real new stuff. But this? This is what I needed to see.
I truly don’t know one person that watched American Gladiators and didn’t love it. Anyone like me in our mid-30s tried to recreate American Gladiators in our living rooms. It never worked and typically resulted in broken shit by launching Nerf guns and tennis balls at people. If you didn't recreate it you at least had one of the greatest video games ever with the original Nintendo. Seriously that game was so fucking tough to beat. But it was awesome. It held up too. One of my 5 favorite video games ever.
I know they'll touch on the reboot, but I don't care about any of that. I just want Malibu, Lace, Ice, Blaze, Nitro, Gemini, Laser, Turbo, Jade and Diamond. That was what I grew up on. Shit, I don't care if half the documentary is just showing an old episode. They were awesome. You had unreal events and a damn fine final in the Eliminator. By the way, the official 5 best events (not counting the Eliminator) were:
5. Joust
4. Breakthrough and Conquer
3. Human Cannonball
2. Powerball
1. Assault
Nothing made me laugh more than the stats of how quick the tennis ball was coming out. At the same time you had the contestants wearing a cheap chest protector and goggles. The best. I've said it before where there are a million things that Barstool could pull off - tell me you wouldn't watch Dave be the gladiator mic'd up trying to peg people with the tennis ball gun machine.I'm thankful for Pluto TV because there's a channel just to watch American Gladiators. It's a shame it's not on regular TV anymore. I mean it's one of the greatest shows of our life. We know the reboot failed, so just show us the classics. Give us the yelling of GLADIATOR READY. I'm pumped for this 30 for 30. Long live American Gladiators.
Now your obligatory highlights