Músculos e Confusão: A História Por Trás de American Gladiators

But in the end, it did just that. The fun, light-hearted nostalgia-filled romp through the late 80's and early 90's carries the first few episodes. I enjoyed these as much as any, but the shining star of the series for me was saved til the last.

I couldn't help but smile as names and faces of original Gladiators floodes back to memory and left me reminiscing of lazy Saturday mornings. Sure the TV only went up to channel 13 and the only other options were fishing or cartoons, but it's hard to express just how special and unique this idea was for it's day.

The doc does a great job of taking a cast of characters who were obnoxious, egotistical, and somewhat laughable on the show and captures everything great (and at times dark) about the real people behind the characters. By the end, I was tearing up by myself in the dark as gladiators shared personal struggles and victories to wrap up a surprisingly loveable series.

For those of us who grew up during the era in which this show aired, the nostalgia comes rushing in whilst watching this new series documenting American Gladiators.

I'll admit I was smiling through and through whilst watching this series. Initially, I hadn't even noticed my facial expression till the moment I happened to glance over at the mirror near the television and that's when I had decided I should actually write a review.

This is only my 2nd review ever -despite being on IMDb for 10+ years. Now was the original American Gladiator my favorite show? Not even close. Is this series my new favorite? Nope. But all-in-all, the telltale sign was that I enjoyed it so much that I was actually smiling and wasn't dreadfully checking to see how much longer till it's over (we all know how disappointing that feeling is when you realize something you're watching has let you down).

This series was made with the viewer in mind, which isn't so common nowadays. It's fun and exciting. What you'll really enjoy is that the episodes are short and sweet.

Too many productions have been packing shows and documentaries with fillers and B-roll just to extend them which leaves the viewer annoyed. This series, however, did the right thing, which was to get to the point but to tell the story in a fun way.

Give it a go!

Watching this documentary reminds me of the time when I showed my kids an episode of He-Man. And the cartoon looked so old. I was never very into the American Gladiators program, but I remember watching it from time to time and thinking that it looked very good. I mean aesthetically it looked very good. But clearly I was mistaken. It does not look good at all. About the actual events of the story, I'm struck by a few different thoughts. The first is that it was really strange how concerned the production was that their athletes might have been using steroids, when they did not care at all about basic safety procedures to protect their athletes. And the other thing is that the show was only on for seven seasons, but it could have kept going if the company had wanted to keep investing in its development. They had a chance to create a new sport entirely. It seems like they were only interested in squeezing out as much money out of the idea as possible in the quickest amount of time. So it's kind of strange how they sacrificed a lot of potential money for a little bit of real money. As for the athletes themselves, only a few seem to be sympathetic characters, but that doesn't mean that they deserved to be exploited and after watching this series that's exactly what seems to have happened. So if you watched the show when you were younger, or you want to have free good explanation of a pop culture phenomenon from 30 years ago, it's a good watch.

Amerian Gladiators was a neat sports competition/game show I used to watch, but like every other competition, it is bound to have some dark secrets.

A five-part documentary mini-series looking into the original incarnation of the American Gladiators that aired for seven seasons from 1989 to 1996, the series feature some of the original Gladiators like Michael Horton/Gemini, Danny Lee Clark/Nitro,and Ray Hollit / Zap, to even some of the show's staff and crew, as they talk about the history of the show, from the troubles filming the pitch pilot, to the struggle with the first season,to even some other behind the scenes stuff and incidents on the show.

To me, this is a neat documentary, as a fan of American Gladiators, as the interviews with Gladiators and crew members shed some new insight on the show. The documentary stays on topic, showing scenes from other media in order to prove that American Gladiators was made in an era where bodybuilders were popular stars, and even went into details with the show's various controversies, from the steroid use that led to the show's downfall to some of the Gladiators from the first season being let go after suffering horiffic injuries as well as controveries and bad behavior.

The show first of all gave a good sense of the late 80's early 90's things WERE different then. Schrezegger and Stallone ruled at the movies American pride and nationalism were high so this was the right show at the right time. Now its interesting because it really foretold all the competition reality shows we have now days. They dont gloss over the sterorid abuse but at that time it wasn't the same issue as it would be today. Steroids were not well known outside of high end competitive athletes and rules were just starting to go into place mainly due to what was happening with baseball at the time. The big lesson here and you can see it when they interview the producers is hollywood will squeeze and squeeze and then blame it all on the people that had no control. Im betting those producers just moved on the athletes didn't And I remember this show very much they started out when I was in College and the whole football team would get together with woman from Track, basketball and swimming to watch in one of the big training rooms. We loved it. But when they fired everyone (which I just found out is what happened) most lost interest because it was about the gladiators they had been set up like pro wrestlers so they had a certain character and personality and when they dumped those people everyone lost interest. They absolutely if done right could still be going to today. Sam Goldwin Jr. Seems to be the biggest villian in this story for not giving them better money and part of the merchandising and he basically ran over the goose who laid the golden egg.