‘American Gladiators’ - Youth will be served. Really.
July 7th, 2008, 11:07 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Albert Ching
I watched an entire episode of “American Gladiators” tonight, for the first time in months. Partly because really, truly, there’s nothing on (”Celebrity Circus”? “Wipeout”?). But also because I was drawn in by one of the contestants - 52-year-old Yoko Ohigashi, pictured.
Going up against the rather annoying 20 -year-old Bostonian Annie Castellano, it was clear what the producers were hoping for - that the Yoko, who clearly was an impressive enough athlete to get through the tryout stage (I was there, it’s fairly strenuous), would defy her age and show the younger contender a thing or two about a thing or two.
It didn’t work out like that.
In the first two competitions, Joust and Pyramid, Yoko was completely dominated in every way, being knocked off the Joust platform in about 10 seconds, and tossed around at will by Crush on Pyramid. Basically, she looked like a 52-year-old lady that was attempting to do these things; giving a valiant effort, but far short of some sort of transcendent athlete that would have made for truly compelling television.
Apparently, Yoko did much better in the next two events - winning Hang Tough and Snapback, but those were only shown through clips (which is fine with me - Snapback sucks bad). Still odd, though, that these would be the ones they skipped, since evidently they were the only flashes of competence Yoko showed all night. The last pre-Eliminator event was Sideswipe, where she did get one point before being knocked into the water - the same as her opponent. She ended with only a one point disadvantage, meaning Annie got just a half-second head start on the Elminator, so at that point I was like “OK! Now Annie is really going to get a chance to shine!”
Well, no. She was quickly outpaced, and showed her greatest struggle on the hand bike, which I knew would probably be an issue for her. Almost immediately, she fell into the balloon pit below - as did Annie, to be fair - but instead of getting up and climbing back onto the course like you’re supposed to, she just laid there for way longer than was comfortable. Even the announcer made note about it. Eventually, she did get up, and finish the course, but it was approximately a half hour after Annie finished.
Now, Yoko surely did better than most people would have, and was really nice and friendly the whole time. And her parents, who by math must be at least 200 years old, were there in attendance, which was sweet. But come on. What did this prove? That a 52-year-old woman can…perform much worse in an athletic contest than a 20-year-old? Didn’t we, y’know, know that already?
It’s even weirder when you consider that the winners of the season become Gladiators for the next season. What would Yoko’s nickname have been? The Silver Fox? The Boniva Bombshell?
But anyway, good for her. Honestly. She looked like she was having fun. Maybe the next installment of “The Bachelorette” can star the old lady from “Titanic.”
