History YMMV / AmericanGladiators

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: That triumphant Music/BillConti theme. Nitro has said he heard the theme in his head ''when he was having sex''.

** Not to mention that the spinning cylinder was replaced in these seasons with...a Chuck E. Cheese-esque ball pit. Not only did it take forever for the contenders to wade through them, it added more than a dash of {{Narm}} to the proceedings.

** When they switched to the more modern-looking set halfway through Season 1 and increased the lighting, the last few rows of "spectators" were shown to be ''cardboard cutouts''. (According to [[https://tv.avclub.com/american-gladiators-gave-misfit-athletes-a-second-chanc-1798281251 this AV Club article]], the tapings went long because of difficulties in both taping the events and filling the seats.)

* [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic Crowning Music Of Awesome]] / EarWorm: That triumphant Music/BillConti theme. Nitro has said he heard the theme in his head ''when he was having sex''.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome / EarWorm: That triumphant Music/BillConti theme. Nitro has said he heard the theme in his head ''when he was having sex''.

* AwesomeMusic / EarWorm: That triumphant Music/BillConti theme. Nitro has said he heard the theme in his head ''when he was having sex''.

** When they switched to the more modern-looking set halfway through Season 1 and increased the lighting, the last few rows of "spectators" were shown to be ''cardboard cutouts''.

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* EarWorm: Music/BillConti's original [[https://youtu.be/Q8HIAvySdbQ opening theme]].

** The revival's Eliminator was even longer and more soul-crushing, albeit for a different reason. The first obstacle was an underwater swim under fire jets and right after that, there was a 30-foot cargo net climb. Most competitors were ''completely'' drained from those two back to back obstacles and from there, they would move sluggishly throughout the course and would practically collapse at the end. The first season had it the worst, the competitors had to climb an 8 foot wall first before jumping in the pool. This is most likely why the wall was removed in season two and the contestants would do the underwater swim at the start.

** The revival's Eliminator was even longer and more soul-crushing, albeit for a different reason. An underwater swim under fire jets was at the beginning of the course and after that obstacle, most competitors were ''completely'' drained. From there, they would move slowly throughout the course and would practically collapse at the end. The first season had it the worst, the competitors had to climb an 8 foot wall first before jumping in the pool. This is most likely why the wall was removed in season two and the contestants would do the underwater swim at the start.

** The revival's Eliminator was even longer and more soul-crushing, albeit for different reasons. The biggest reason for this was the underwater swim under fire jets at the beginning; most competitors were ''completely'' drained after that obstacle, and would move very slowly throughout the course and would practically collapse at the end. The first season had it the worst, the competitors had to climb an 8 foot wall first before jumping in the pool. This is most likely why the wall was removed in the season two and the contestants would do the underwater swim at the start.

** The revival's Eliminator was even longer and more soul-crushing, albeit for different reasons.

* EarWorm: Creator/BillConti's original [[https://youtu.be/Q8HIAvySdbQ opening theme]].
* RetroactiveRecognition: Plenty of Gladiators made this their first "acting gig". Probably the most notable is Lee Reherman, aka "Hawk". Lynn Williams (Sabre) would become Jax in ''MortalKombat Annihilation''.

* EarWorm: Creator/BillConti's original [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfMoiN6Duk0 opening theme]].

** Contender Wrestling/RicoConstantino would later become a Wrestling/{{WWE}} pro wrestler while Mike Adamle became General Manager for the Raw brand and arguably one of the worst wrestling personalities in the history of the organization.

* SeasonalRot: The production values dropped noticeably in Seasons 6-7 (1994-96) and made some awful set design changes, the quality and range of events decreased, and the Eliminator was changed to start with a Versaclimber (boring, difficult to catch up on) instead of the travelator/reverse treadmill (moved to the end...which was, in fairness, pretty cool).

* SpecialEffectsFailure: When they switched to the more modern-looking set halfway through Season 1 and increased the lighting, the last few rows of "spectators" were shown to be ''cardboard cutouts''.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Several times.

* EarWorm: BillConti's original [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfMoiN6Duk0 opening theme]].
* TheScrappy: Viper, who was usually booed anytime he showed his face. Whether this was because the crowd just loved to hate him or if they [[XPacHeat genuinely disliked him]] (he was a noted dirty player) is unclear.

* TheProblemWithLicensedVideoGames: American Gladiators was available for the Nintendo, Genesis, Super Nintendo, and PC. Probably the nicest thing that could be said for them was the biographies of the Gladiators.

** One of the rules for Power Ball was "no tackling around the head" for safety reasons. Fair enough, but at one point in Season 1 they actually made it illegal to tackle the contenders ''at all'', which left the Gladiators trying to strip the ball or just shove the contenders out of bounds. Not only did this cause the Gladiators to flounder in their attempts to stop the contenders, taking the aura of might away from them, but the contenders went down to the ground several times anyway, and in one instance in the women's event two of the Gladiators were disqualified, leaving just one of them to defend against the two contenders. Thankfully, this was quickly done away with.

** Might've been because he was supposed to be the replacement for the original "dirty player", Nitro, who was well liked but left for unknown reasons (only to return in season 6). Some might've not liked the "Nitro-lite". He also wasn't that great in the events: he sucked at pretty much every event.

* SeasonalRot: The production values dropped noticeably in Seasons 6-7 (1994-96) and made some awful set design changes, the quality and range of events decreased, and the Eliminator was changed to start with a Versaclimber (boring, difficult to catch up on) instead of the travelator/reverse treadmill (moved to the end...which was, in fairness, pretty cool).
** Not to mention that the spinning cylinder was replaced in these seasons with...a Chuck E. Cheese-esque ball pit. Not only did it take forever for the contenders to wade through them, it added more than a dash of {{Narm}} to the proceedings.
* SpecialEffectsFailure: When they switched to the more modern-looking set halfway through Season 1 and increased the lighting, the last few rows of "spectators" were shown to be ''cardboard cutouts''.
** In one game of Atlasphere, the smoke that would come out anytime a contestant scored failed to work.
* TheScrappy: Viper, who was usually booed anytime he showed his face. Whether this was because the crowd just loved to hate him or if they [[XPacHeat genuinely disliked him]] (he was a noted dirty player) is unclear.
* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Several times.
** One of the rules for Power Ball was "no tackling around the head" for safety reasons. Fair enough, but at one point in Season 1 they actually made it illegal to tackle the contenders ''at all'', which left the Gladiators trying to strip the ball or just shove the contenders out of bounds. Not only did this cause the Gladiators to flounder in their attempts to stop the contenders, taking the aura of might away from them, but the contenders went down to the ground several times anyway, and in one instance in the women's event two of the Gladiators were disqualified, leaving just one of them to defend against the two contenders. Thankfully, this was quickly done away with.
** The shortened Season 7 (which included claims that they would return) had two ball pits replacing the spinning cylinder in the Eliminator. This new obstacle was tremendously-difficult to wade through, took forever, and blew up the contenders badly, turning the Eliminator into an overly-long nightmare that you would think they tried no practice runs on.
** The revival's Eliminator was even longer and more soul-crushing, albeit for different reasons.

* EarWorm: BillConti's original [[www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfMoiN6Duk0 opening theme]].

* EarWorm: BillConti's original [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBHg6RlcZzw opening theme]].

* TheScrappy: Viper, who was usually booed anytime he showed his face. Whether this was because the crowd just loved to hate him or if they genuinely disliked him (he was a noted dirty player) is unclear.

* SeasonalRot: The production values dropped noticeably in Seasons 6-7 (1994-96) and made some awful set design changes, the quality and range of events decreased, and the Eliminator was changed to start with a Versaclimber (boring, difficult to catch up on) instead of the travelator/reverse treadmill (which was moved to the end... which was, in fairness, pretty cool).
** Not to mention that the spinning cylinder was replaced in these seasons with... a Chuck E. Cheese-esque ball pit. Not only did it take forever for the contenders to wade through them, it added more than a dash of {{Narm}} to the proceedings.