American Gladiators

Viewing 10 posts - 11 through 20 (of 27 total)
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  • #121392
    BlackKusanagi
    Participant

    Just such awesomeness.

    #121402
    y498yates
    Participant

    Boy that takes me back! If anyone remembers Action Park – pretty much the sickest park ever – they had “The Eliminator” set up there for a season. Seriously. They thought it would be a great idea for drunk fat dudes to run across a spinning cylinder, jump over a wall, try to climb up a cargo net, then zipline over a ball pit. Trust me – you never wanted to land in the ball pit.

    #121469
    Grandmaster
    Participant

    I use to videotape the show in secret…

    Why did it have to be in secret?

    #121470
    AlexG
    Keymaster

    Thought I’d pass this along. B)

    Have this only on an ancient Xerox copy, so I’ve transcribed instead.

    TV GUIDE October 28, 1989
    The Scoop – Jane Marion

    Zap

    Why She’s Not Saying, ‘Coffee, Tea or Milk?’

    “The guys from Samuel Goldwyn Television just freaked out over THE MUSCLE,” says Raye Hollitt of her reception at a casting call for the syndicated series American Gladiators.

    Hollitt’s on-screen handle is Zap. Zap as in “someone who is like lightning striking. It’s in and out real quick, but it does extreme damage,” she says. Somehow it seems an appropriate moniker for the high-school prom queen, raised in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.

    Hollitt once planned on exercising her muscle in another way – she wanted to be a flight attendant. “I made it down to their training camp, and they [didn’t give me the job] because at 5-feet-6 you have to be something like 120 pounds. I was heavier because of THE MUSCLE.”

    THE MUSCLE fully developed after high school. Hollitt dated a bodybuilding bouncer who encouraged her to try out for amateur weightlifting contests. After three months of lifting, she captured the crown in a local competition and moved on to conquer California, where she won the Miss Los Angeles title. She now works out two hours a day, seven days a week and weighs in at a very solid 150 pounds.

    “People say, “How do you stay so pretty?’ I’m like, ‘Am I supposed to be ugly because I have muscle?'”

    Hollitt wants to make one thing perfectly clear (and we’ll be sure to listen): she’s not just a woman with a bulging bicep who can bench press up to 275 pounds. She’s a legal aide, a professional trainer and a serious actress who would like to follow in the footsteps of former “Mr. Olympia” Arnold Schwarzenegger. Aside from a few bit parts in such flicks as “Penitentiary Ill” and “The Impostors,” her biggest part to date has been in “Skin Deep,” playing one of John Ritter’s lovers.

    Her first love, though, is still bodybuilding. She explains her passion: “A man can drive a Ferrari and work his butt off to get that Ferrari, but once he gets out of it, you don’t know what he’s got. A person can work out in a gym and be very nice and muscular or toned and have a very nice face, and you’re going to be recognized for the dedication you put into it.”

    “I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
    ~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

    #121489
    khuddle
    Participant

    Why in secret? Because I was a teenager at the time living with my parents.
    And I certainly didn’t want my parents to know that I was attracted to
    fbbs.

    #121535
    pelourinho
    Participant

    Ommigod! Funny you mention that. I took my daughter there this summer–well, sort of. That park and the name are resurrected, although it is not quite the same as back in the day. I showed her some youtube videos of the old AP commercials, because to people born after 1990, the old Action Park sounds made up. My little lady thought the current park, though not as wild, is still more edgy than most other fun parks still in business.

    Yeah, the reckless disregard was amazing back in the good ol’ days. As if the activities weren’t dubious enough, many of the patrons and employees were intoxicated. Good times!

    Boy that takes me back! If anyone remembers Action Park – pretty much the sickest park ever – they had “The Eliminator” set up there for a season. Seriously. They thought it would be a great idea for drunk fat dudes to run across a spinning cylinder, jump over a wall, try to climb up a cargo net, then zipline over a ball pit. Trust me – you never wanted to land in the ball pit.

    #121536
    pelourinho
    Participant

    I can relate. I had to record my own amusement in secret, too. The good news was, in those days MuscleSport USA and ESPN bb comps were usually on late at night, when everybody else was asleep. Unbelievable the lengths you had to go through in those days to indulge weird fetishes (which I just accepted that they were).

    Why in secret? Because I was a teenager at the time living with my parents.
    And I certainly didn’t want my parents to know that I was attracted to
    fbbs.

    #147530
    unkn0wnx
    Participant
    #147532
    Bane Dorrance
    Participant
    #147533
    Bane Dorrance
    Participant
Viewing 10 posts - 11 through 20 (of 27 total)
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