Underrated:: The Yankee Post Roast Book of Awesome Underappreciated Stuff

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American Gladiators

(TV show, 1989–97)

What is it?

A television show pitting two average citizens with a masochistic streak against each other in a tournament-style contest, in which they showcased their athletic abilities by competing in various made-up sporting events against superhuman freaks of nature who only had one name.

Why is it underrated?

Remember the glory of Saturday morning when you were a kid? You woke up as early as possible, ran into the kitchen to make yourself a punch bowl full of cereal, headed into the living room, plopped down in front of the TV set, and burned your eyes out watching cartoons. It was the morning that you looked forward to all week, when you were under no specific orders to do anything productive whatsoever, and you loved every minute of it.

As morning turned to afternoon, the tenor of the programming shifted. The animated superheroes that you’d just spent five hours consuming were gone, and they were replaced by cartoonish characters of a different kind, ones that each went by one ridiculous name: Gemini, Nitro, Turbo, Ice, Lace, and Diamond. These were the American Gladiators: muscle-bound genetic freaks hired for the sole purpose of preventing the average Americans that joined the competition from scaling a wall or slamming a soccer ball into a bottom-heavy receptacle. The goals they defended resembled the Bop Bag/inflatable clown thing you could hit in the face fifty times in a row without knocking it over.

Almost famous

Season 2 men’s runner-up first-half champion Rico Constantino went on to become well known as a professional wrestler in the WWE under the name of Rico.

When it first appeared, American Gladiators was awesome because it was almost like the parody of future sports that you’d see in movies come to life in the kind of setting you’d see in the distant past. The Roman Coliseum meets The Running Man on your TV set every Saturday afternoon, minus the laughable Austrian accent or the potential to get eaten by a lion at the end.

With that atmosphere surrounding the show, it tapped into the most basic of human emotions: the desire to watch another human being get the crap kicked out of him or her, or as an Austrian psychologist who smoked a cigar that he insisted wasn’t phallic called it, the id. Watching American Gladiators gave us a rare opportunity to completely subjugate our superegos and allow ourselves to stand up and scream.

Holding the show together was host Mike Adamle, a Kenny Albert–looking sportscaster-type best known before Gladiators for his work as a sideline reporter at two Super Bowls and best known since then for his work with Vince McMahon’s XFL as a play-by-play guy. Joining Adamle was Super Bowl VIII MVP and moustache aficionado Larry Csonka, ostensibly to add some credibility to the broadcast. When you’re turning to Larry Csonka to add credibility, it might be time to reevaluate.

The most interesting element of the show was that the competition had a dual focus. Abstractly speaking, the two contestants were competing against each other, but they never actually engaged each other in any event. More than anything, you were competing for points against yourself. The other person’s good performance didn’t affect your performance negatively. You still had the same opportunity to garner points. It’s like on the SATs, where they didn’t penalize you for guessing.

In fact, more often than not, the contestants would embrace after each event, suggesting that they had developed a mutual fondness or respect for one another. More immediately, the contestants competed against the gladiators for points by jousting or outrunning them, dodging flying debris, and hitting a target or scaling a wall.

From the gladiators’ perspective, it was a different story entirely. They didn’t want to beat you. They wanted to destroy you. Think about the relationship between competitor and gladiator as being like that between bully and nerd. There was no respect at the end. The gladiator wanted to beat the hell out of you before and after the competition. It wasn’t fun and games to a guy like Nitro, who was probably headed toward a career in gay porn if Gladiators didn’t pan out.

Despite the superior physical condition of both competitor and gladiator, the events all seemed do-able to the average home viewer. Not only that, they seemed fun as hell. Who wouldn’t want to try to knock a freakishly large human off a podium with a gigantic, Nerf-encased jousting stick or swing right into them on a giant pendulum?

And in that context, the contestant could unleash the thing they’d wanted to let out since they were little kids: their inner superhero. Meet Frank Peterson: slightly flabby, balding client-service specialist by day; Nerf-joust-stick-wielding hero by night.

Gladiators had several primo opportunities to gain the national consciousness again after its last episodes stopped running in syndication in the late ’90s. For instance, when the film Gladiator came out in 2000, the show’s producers had a perfect opportunity to capitalize on the name and get back on their airwaves. They passed. Around the same time, Survivor hit the air, and these days reality TV is as pervasive as Internet snapshots of Maddox Jolie-Pitt. People beat the hell out of each other on TV almost daily. Why not throw them into a ring, and let Gemini have at it? It’s a fair bet that he could use the work.

NBC agreed on some level, and greenlit American Gladiators as a 2007–2008 midseason replacement. But the new Gladiators is nothing like the old one. The new show is a product of the 21st century, favoring violence over sport and true competition. Plus, the new one has all kinds of shit that no one cares about, like backstory and the contestant’s training regimens.

Angus

(movie, 1995)

What is it?

Angus is a 1995 movie starring Charlie Talbert, Kathy Bates, and George C. Scott.

Why is it underrated?

Remember high school? Remember how awful and cliquey it was? Remember how you were so fucking jealous of all the people that walked around school, were popular, had no zits, and seemed to handle everything that life threw them with no problem? Remember how good they were with girls, how they didn’t trip over their tongue every time they tried to talk to Jessica Feldman? Oh God, remember Jessica Feldman? Remember that crush you had on her? Remember how hot she was? Remember those dreams that you used to have about her at night, and when you’d wake up in a cold sweat, totally pissed off because that asshole Jeff Carter got to make out with her behind the bleachers while you were stuck doing laps around the track, while that freaking bully of a gym teacher Mr. Scarpulla rode behind you in a golf cart, screaming into a bullhorn how the F he was going to give you would keep you from graduating and ...

The quotable Angus

Superman isn’t brave ... He’s smart, handsome, even decent. But he’s not brave. No, listen to me. Superman is indestructible, and you can’t be brave if you’re indestructible. It’s people like you and your mother. People who are different, and can be crushed and know it. Yet they keep on going out there every time.

—Grandpa Ivan

Um, sorry. Angus. Right.

Angus is a movie about an underdog, but the truth is Angus (the person) isn’t just an underdog; he’s representative of everything that’s truly horrible about your early high school years. His appearance is different (he’s fat). He struggles with his changing body (he’s awkward). His mind works differently (he’s a total science geek). His home life is challenging (his father is dead, his mother’s a truck driver, and his grandfather is one z short of a Scrabble set). His days are marked by an asshole and his friends following him around, insulting him, and embarrassing him just about any way they can.

To top it all off, his best friend gets his ass kicked and sells him out to that same asshole and his friends. As if it can’t get any worse, that asshole is played by James Van Der Beek in an acting turn that can only be described as Vanderbeekian. He’s got the full-on Van Der Beek/Dawson face going on for pretty much the entire movie, where he looks like his nuts have been cut off and he got the wind knocked out of him at the same time.

Add it all up, and Angus is a character we can empathize with, in an era where movies frequently have characters that we’re supposed to relate to on some level, but couldn’t sniff with Judd Nelson’s schnoz. They’re either disproportionately wealthy or pretty or have a full head of thick, lustrous hair. Angus is normal because he’s abnormal, just like the rest of us, and that’s what makes him so appealing.

What the F?

Charlie Talbert, who played Angus, was discovered in a Lake Forest, Illinois, Wendy’s when, while waiting for his burger, he started ranking on the director of the film, who was waiting for his French fries. Coincidentally, Clark Gable was discovered in a similar fashion. He was in a Los Angeles-area Der Wienerschnitzel when, while waiting for his Turkey Chili Cheese Dog, he made fun of Louis B. Mayer’s toupee.* *This is not true. Well, the Charlie Talbert part is, not the Clark Gable part.

There’s a lot that’s predictable about Angus. The person that Angus is closest to (his grandfather) dies during the film. The general plot is of the outcast overcomes obstacles to win acceptance variety. But there’s also a lot that isn’t like other movies. Angus wins in the end, sure, but he doesn’t win the girl. What he wins is perspective, the perspective that his grandfather had been trying to give him all along. It doesn’t matter what you look like or where you come from. The only thing that matters is that you keep going out there and taking your cuts, whether you hit a home run every time or not.

That may sound hokey, but if hokey weren’t true, it wouldn’t be hokey. It would just be ignored.

And not only that, Angus gets to break Van Der Beek’s fucking nose. Sweet.

Arsenio Hall

(has-been)

Who is he?

For a while in the late 1980s, Arsenio was recognized only as Eddie Murphy’s friend in a fame relationship of the DeNiro-Pesci mold. As the decade closed, he parlayed that slice of notoriety into a huge career as actor, comedian, talk-show host, and boyfriend of Paula Abdul (when she was famous the first time). With a high-top fade giving him Gumby’s silhouette, Arsenio was the face of New Jack Swing and self-proclaimed voice of Black America—an outrageous brag, but not completely unfounded. And then—poof—he slid from ubiquity to obscurity.

Why is he underrated?

Not just because he’s a really funny and incredibly underused actor: Arsenio played four roles to Eddie Murphy’s five in Coming to America—and his swearing, sweating, animated Reverend Brown might be the funniest character in the movie. And devoted Dog Pounders will remember him from the crop of soon-to-be-famous young actors in the mishmash Amazon Women on the Moon (itself an underrated alt-comedy film in the Kentucky Fried Movie vein), or perhaps recognize his voice as that of Winston Zeddemore, the blue-collar Ghostbuster in the syndicated cartoon. After his supporting role(s) in Coming to America, Arsenio could have become a huge movie star, but Harlem Nights bombed and maybe he stopped trying ... instead finding himself literally changing the face of late-night television.

Before Leno and Letterman famously duked it out for the top spot, The Arsenio Hall Show was there opposite Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, and it was decidedly nonmainstream entertainment. While Letterman was still in the superlate hour, catering to stoned college students and depressed insomniacs, Arsenio went up against Carson and completely deflated the reigning corporate-casual atmosphere, thereby paving the way for all the good and bad lowbrow late-night programming to follow in his wake.

His show got little respect for changing the face of late-night talk shows, but he brought music to America that had no other venue—virtually every single hip-hop and R&B act in existence performed on his show, from New Edition to N.W.A., TLC and Eazy-E, M. C. Hammer and Tony! Toni! Toné!, not to mention bands like Radiohead and the Chili Peppers, who are mainstream enough now but couldn’t exactly stroll onto the Tonight Show back then.

Yes, The Arsenio Hall Show gets little respect in hindsight, and is greatly overlooked for its huge impact on the television landscape, except ... Arsenio himself was not a good talk-show host. In fact, he was terrible at it. He was not confident in his monologues (rightly so—they stunk), could never conduct a decent interview, and didn’t know how to behave with his guests—fawning over some, fumbling over others, faking it with those whose work he clearly didn’t know.

Arsenio should’ve stuck to what he did best—comedy acting. Playing characters, instead of himself. Perhaps more sketches could have saved his show. Instead, his greatest legacies—neither all that positive, both having eclipsed the show—are an uninspired refrain that inspired a C+C Music Factory dance track (Things That Make You Go Hmmmm) and an unruly audience that sucked the life out of the home viewer. The fist-pumping, hooting-and-hollering Dog Pound was funny because of its shocking incivility, but quickly degenerated into annoying assholes stage left.

Arsenio’s show birthed many strange moments in television history: he invited Louis Farrakhan to rant against whitey; he invited lip-synching pariahs Milli Vanilli on to actually sing; Mary-Kate and Ashley only smiled and nodded during their awkward interview (circa Season 3 of Full House); Andrew Dice Clay scarily broke down into tears during his appearance. Arsenio somehow assembled the Rap All-Stars—a supergroup featuring the Wu-Tang Clan, KRS-One, A Tribe Called Quest, Naughty by Nature, the Fu-Schnickens, and many more, who all shared the stage to sing a song about ... Arsenio. It was kind of like We Are the World, only hyping a celebrity instead of combating hunger. Still, exciting for hip-hop fans.

But Arsenio’s greatest moment, of course, was when he allowed a shades-wearing politician from Arkansas to play the saxophone on his show. Arsenio is often cited as having helped to elect America’s first rock-and-roll president, allowing the Pepsi generation to witness firsthand how much hipper Bill Clinton was than old fuddy-duddy George Bush.

Sure, Arsenio still acts, invisibly, as a voiceover actor for children’s cartoons, but he’s pretty much faded into has-been oblivion. He tried to resurrect his career a few times around the millennium—host of the new Star Search, teaming up with some Chinese guy on Martial Law—but both went belly-up appropriately fast.

Maybe if Eddie Murphy could satisfy his latex fetish, he’d stop hogging all the roles in his bloated, soggy movies, and Arsenio could work his way back into the public eye. There’s no reason Arsenio couldn’t have played a decent Klump, Bowfinger, or even the fat woman in Norbit. Eddie’s career has been a bloated, soggy mess for many years now. Coming Back to America, anyone?

Big League Chew

(shredded gum)

What is it?

A sack of sugary shredded bubblegum, made to resemble chewable tobacco, invented by former Yankee and Ball Four author Jim Bouton and his Portland Mavericks teammate Rob Nelson. It is delicious and fun.

Why is it underrated?

It’s kind of amazing that they allowed this product to exist. Ostensibly, it was supposed to serve as a sort of confectionary methadone to help tobacco-chewing ballplayers get off the junk. But really, all it did was introduce the concept of chewable tobacco to kids. Let’s face it, chomping shreds of anything is kind of fun, and it made bubblegum feel like a junior training shred, so you could look forward to the real deal when you grew up. Still, gateway chewable wad or no, Big League Chew was (is) awesome. You don’t have to unwrap individual pieces as with standard sticks or squares of chewing gums, or pop them out of their little plastic cocoons. You just shove your hand in the bag and snatch a fistful of sugary shred and stuff it all in your mouth. There is no serving size here, just grab as much as you can and stuff your face. And once you masticated the shred into a cohesive glob, you could dip your dirty mitts back into the bag for more, and keep shoving Big League Chew into your mouth until the bag was empty or you’d dislocated your jaw.

Big League Chew was not just for baseball games—you ate it anytime you could, in outfields and bleachers and schoolyards and parking lots, and shared it with other kids—friends and strangers dipping their own filthy fists into the bag and fingering the wad. It was practically competitive, as each of you tried to get as much out of the bag and into your face as possible. And because you chomped as much as would fit in your maw, you could blow some Hindenburg-sized bubbles with the stuff. Bubble Yum, Bubbli-cious, Hubba Bubba ... so many gum makers worked so hard for advances in plasticity that would allow for the ever-increasing bigger bubble, oblivious to the obvious: just chew more gum!

Most overrated gum

Conversely, baseball-card gum is a horrific mistake that pretends to be gum. It’s in many ways the complete opposite of Big League Chew. Instead of a mess of gum bits, there was one perfect, flat rectangle, and instead of being fun to eat, it was painful. The thing would snap into shards whose pointy edges would pierce and slice your inner cheek. And the gum was coated in a film of powdered sugar so flimsily nonadherent that by the time the gum reached your mouth, the powder was left on your fingers, in the bag, and on the cards, leaving the gum itself tasteless after two solid chomps.

The old packaging of Big League Chew even encouraged you to shove your face full of it by highlighting the man-sized wads of gum inside. Yes, this was no child-sized wad of gum. It was man-sized. Right beside the sketchy illustration of a burly, steroidal ballplayer, the stay-fresh