Monday, April 16, 2007

Who Was Afraid of Men in Silly Costumes?

On Saturday morning, Moonshot and Little Lutine let me sleep in just a bit. Not more than a half hour or so, but it felt utterly glorious to stretch out in the bed for a brief moment. I tend to go to bed later than my wife and rise at least an hour before her. An unoccupied mattress is a rare thing.

At any rate when I eventually slid on my robe and stumbled my way down from our converted attic bedroom, I was greeted by a long forgotten by instantly recognizable theme song from the living room.

American Gladiators.

Moonshot shrugged sheepishly. “There was nothing else on.” But I didn’t need any explanation. I’m as big a fan of nostalgic schlock as anyone. Bring on Nitro, I thought as I prepared myself for mind-numbery. But as I stood there, a thought occurred. And that was a bit annoying on a Saturday morning. But, once it had sprung into my head, I had no choice but to chase it down like a white rabbit. And having chased it, I had no choice but to comment to my wife about it…thereby dragging both of us away from our brainless Saturday and into yet another sociological discussion.

It’s what I do.

I remember when American Gladiators first hit television. I can recall critics bashing it, saying it was another step toward the downfall of our society. Anyone who would root for such barbarism, they said, was just like the Romans who screamed for blood at the Coluseum. Now, even at my young age, I knew these folks were going off the deep end with that kind of talk. But I accepted, even as a fan of the show, that it probably appealed to the worst in humanity and represented a bad trend in American culture.

Standing there in my bath robe almost 20 years later…it looked positively adorable. It looked simplistic and silly. I tried to remember a society that would be offended by this level of “brutality.” I tried to recall a me that believed that grown men in flashy costumes shooting tennis balls at each other represented a base and degrading element of our society. I tried to recall what made this so offensive. Goofy….sure. Offensive?

No one was getting voted off the island, ala Survivor. No stripping games to titillate, ala Dog Eat Dog. No blood and barbed wire, ala WWE. No back-stabbing masking as entertainment through camera confessionals encouraging contestants to bad mouth their opponents, ala just about every reality game show out there. Just people trying to best each other in straight-forward and silly physical competition.

With the light of hindsight it seemed almost pure.

I stood there and wondered what sort of entertainment Norah would someday gaze at nostalgically. I felt old.

So, having chased the thought to its age-spotlighting conclusion, I shut off my brain and let Norah climb on me while I remembered how much I had always wanted to play some of those cool Gladiator games.

Suddenly, it felt like Saturday again.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jaded, aren't we?

Simon said...

I used to look down my nose at that show the same way I do most reality shows these days. Of course, it still didn't prevent me from watching when I happened across it. And then watching through to the end, you know, just to see if the guy got past all the gladiators.

My strongest memory was of this guy who had to do the football carry past a couple gladiators and ended up doing a front flip over the head of a gladiator who was anticipating an easy waist tackle.

Good times.

Mind you, I prefer the nostalgia overall. That's why I'd rather reminisce about shows like Airwolf and The A-Team; because if I saw one today I'd realise how very much they sucked, and that would ruin everything for me.

Moksha Gren said...

Emilie - Jaded? I don't think so. I hope not. Just intrigued by the way these things change. What was offensive two years ago seems pedestrian today. I heard Alice Cooper as Muzak on an elevator a few months ago and wondered if Norah would someday be listneing to Mariyln Manson or Eminem as Muzak. It's just interesting.

Now some trends, the nastiness of some of the "reality" shows for instance, I'd be very happy to see reverse themselves.

Si - I've tried to watch A-Team recently...couldn't do it. It's interesting what stands the test of time. I used to love the movie Krull. Having stubled across it recently, I stopped long enough marvel at a young Qui Gon Jinn and then kept right on flipping.

Simon said...

Dude! I LOVED Krull! Are you telling me that Liam Neeson is in that? I had no idea. It's been so long. (The first exposure I recall having to him was Darkman.) I see Krull every now and again when I browse at Blockbuster, and am always tempted to grab it, you know, for old time's sake. I never do.

I think now that I'd probably be just as disappointed in that as I am when I catch the A-Team.

**sigh**

John Haney said...

I'm having flashbacks. All my sibblings and I would watch American Gladiators, and we were always disappointed if they didn't do the tennis ball gun game. Something about that "zhoop" sound...

Well, if you need a fix on some old tv, there's a site with info and usually videos from just about any show you can think of, like A Team and American Gladiators and more...

Mark said...

My brother, our father, and I used to watch wrestling (the folding chairs and foreign objects kind) religiously when I was an early teen.

While I've only caught American Gladiators a couple times, I would much rather watch it now than wrestling. At least it doesn't seem totally fake, and isn't nearly as violent.

Krull! I remember watching it in theaters when it came out (sorry if some of you guys are too young to have experienced that). My friend and I rushed from the theater straight to the mall kiosk that was selling throwing stars. We almost shredded the 2x4 that we propped up as a target, and the next day we felt like we had pitched a double-header.

Anonymous said...

FreddyJ and I are Krull fans too. (Although I first saw the flick at the ripe old age of 25 or so, because I was too little to be interested when it first came out. I still liked it.) We've been on a "movies from childhood" kick lately - we've watched Cloak and Dagger and The Last Starfighter over the last couple of weekends, and Flight of the Navigator is on tap for Friday night. Whoo hoo!
I've been trying to get him to Netflix the She-Ra box set, but with no success so far. Moonshot and I loved She-Ra when we were in grade school.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mouse -
As I recall, we both preferred He-Man to She-Ra. But of course we had to stay up on our She-Ra lore because neither of us wanted to be He-Man or Skeletor when we played out action sequences. I mean, seriously, we were little girls:) Remember how we used to use twirling batons as swords? That was really an accident waiting to happen.

Teacher Man said...

Excellent entry. I, too, looked down on programs like these. And I've never even seen American Gladiator.

When I was a lad of 9 or 10, I loved Buck Rogers. (Erin Gray!) Anyway, caught an episode a year or so ago on SciFi and it was freakin' awful.

Oh, and I've never see Krull.

Anonymous said...

Moonshot-
Did we prefer He-Man? I'll trust your superior memory. I'm suprised neither of us lost a finger to those batons.
Can you remember the name of the She-Ra character that I always pretended to be? She had butterfly wings or a peacock tail or something.

One Wink at a Time said...

Hmmm,I commented here a couple days ago. (It must have been offensive and Mokker deleted it. Must have been the Leave it to Beaver reference I made.) Sorry, that's all I remember...
Now let me see, where is the Publish button? Oh, there it is. It's a pretty color. I think I will click on it this time.