Let\'s think twice about what we\'re nostalgic for

NBC's revamped version of "American Gladiators" launched last night, and the general consensus is that it sucks humongous cock — like Militia!  Zing!  Among the chief complaints are: Hulk Hogan is terrible, Laila Ali can't speak, one of the female gladiators is a poorly disguised man, and the show is driven into the ground by constant camera cuts and excessive production.

Awful Announcing has video of the debacle, while My Brain Says Rage (now with more rage and less editing) has a full by-event review that's somewhat less than flattering.

Apparently Hogan also went to the Mike Adamle school of announcing, where he just makes statements or inane rhetorical questions and puts the mike in the person’s face. “So Bob, you score 4 points brother!” And then nothing. Holy fuck is this show bad.

I watched about five minutes of it, and yeah, it sucked.  But all of the changes are on par with how American TV has changed in the last 15 years; the show itself really isn't considerably worse.  What people aren't taking into account is that their taste sucked back when they saw the original show.  You can never underestimate how shitty kids' tastes are.  There was a time in my life when I thought my older sister's Pixies album was stupid because it wasn't as good as MC Hammer.  I also liked the original "American Gladiators."  Connect the dots.