Trading cards.  Just about every good exploitable franchise becomes them. Some are games, some are just for trading.  And some even come with a stick of pink concrete called "gum." I can't help but picture all the great baseball legends turning over and over and over in their graves in a continuous spinning motion regarding what has become of what was originally exclusive to their art form. 

Today, kids are playing Yu-Gi-Oh, Bakugan and Magic the Gathering in their mom's basement instead of trading rookie cards with Big League Chew in their mouths.  And somewhere in the middle of those extremes lies a little something called AMERICAN GLADIATORS TRADING CARDS. 

American Gladiators was one of the greatest programs on television, and was second to Double Dare as my personal favorite.  It was a novelty sports competition that ran from 1989 to 1996 (before being revived in 2008).  Mortal contenders showed up to Gladiators Arena to battle the likes of Nitro, Turbo, Laser, and Gemini.  Or, if you pee sitting down, Zap, Lace, Ice and Gold.  Contenders and Gladiators went head to head in events such as "Assault," "The Joust" and "Powerball" and ultimately ended up in a stamina-testing course called "The Eliminator" to narrow two down to one. 

I personally went above and beyond with my Gladiators devotion (or, simply Glads as we called it).  So help me, at the age of 9, I threw an American Gladiators party.  And I'm not talking a party where 5 kids showed up and we watched some episodes and ate a cake with a crudely recreated logo on it.  No, I set out to recreate the whole blasted show in my backyard.  I kid you not, I assigned kids to be Gladiators and kids to be contenders.  I made fliers, so they knew weeks in advance.  I went so far as to have a separate male and female competition. 

The events were as made with the resources available to a 10 year old and a bit of imagination.  In other words, "do not try this at home" meant absolutely nothing to me and it's a miracle no one went to the hospital that day.  We played Powerball with water balloons and cardboard boxes with holes cut in the top.  We Jousted on top of long-ways turned red and blue water coolers.  We even played Assault with 5 different stations, each with their own weapon, while the Gladiator stood in a tree house lobbing water balloons (I didn't know the Assault gun toy existed). 

My Gladiator name was "Lightning" and I wasn't messing around.  I was there to pummel my friends, who that day were nothing more than crapfaced scum who dared face the almighty Lightning.  So there I was, in my red wifebeater with puffy paint designs I put on it the night before, and short shorts, ready to deal out some beat-downs in my own backyard.  I had the most hometurf advantage of everyone and I was ready to show everyone what Lightning had.  You might say I was...

I swear, I thought of everything right down to recording the theme music off of the show to play on my karaoke machine.  Lightning was an obsessive perfectionist.  And as I write this at the brink of 4:00 am on a Monday night, I'm so thankful I work in the entertainment business and don't have to have a day job.  Suckers. 

I'd like to think that had the Samuel Goldwyn Company been aware of such a stellar performance, they would have offered me a spot on the team and with that would have come an action figure and a trading card.  Not to mention some sweet spandex to replace my wifebeater and short shorts.  But, because obviously my letter got lost in the mail, that never happened.  And I firmly believe that's why there was never a second series of American Gladiators trading cards. 

American Gladiators trading cards were released in 1991 by Topps, during the show's third season.  The show was riding high at peak popularity and this was the point when merchandising such as action figures and toy versions of the show's props (pugil sticks from The Joust, foam ball gun from Assault) began.  There was already a game for the NES, and Super Nintendo and Sega games quickly followed.

The trading cards feature publicity photos and scenes from the show on one side, and captions and commentary on the back.  There's also a series of cards that fit together to make a poster.  These same poster cards have stickers that peel off of the back of them.  Individual packs sold for a mere 55 cents, and a full wax box cost $13.75, a freakin' steal by today's standards.  But, I just can't picture anyone having a Turbo profile card under glass in their basement memorabilia collection next to Goose Gossage's jersey and José Canseco's bat, so I guess the low cost is justified. 

The best part of these cards is the goofy titles each one is given.  Obviously at this point, they were aware their biggest audience was kids, even though adults somehow still volunteered to go get their butts kicked by Gemini and Thunder every week.  It's impossible to think that there was an adult somewhere who collected cards with Lori Fetrick's spandex-clad image on it that read "Ice Ice Baby." Actually, there probably was, and I'm sure I'll get a nasty email from him live from his mom's basement.  Let's take a look at some of these cards.

WHOA!! (Here we have Diamond).  She was introduced in the second season of the show and for some reason, was a British American Gladiator, and was scary-looking as sin.  In fact, in season 4, she had a lot of plastic surgery done and didn't even look like the same person.  Anyway, the Gladiator Paparazzi was around to capture this moment to put on a trading card of her getting ready to put an old fashioned cat-slappin' on a fully padded contender.  I don't remember why Diamond was so bowed up, but judging by the way referee Larry Thompson and an elementary school PE coach are stepping into the line of fire, it had to range somewhere between a "yo mama" joke and getting in a sucker punch during Powerball. 

Here's Gemini doing a little Assaulting during Hang Tough.  Roll that one around in the noggin while you look at this if the clever hilarity didn't register the first time, because I'm really proud of that joke. Clearly this one was either accidentally put into the mix, or someone at the company thought they were hilarious because grabbing some Lycra glute in Hang Tough was definitely not Gemini's style.  This photo is from season 3, and Gemini was known all season for sucking in Hang Tough.  He was bigger, older and less graceful than all the other Gladiators in this event, and I guess in this case, he had to get his man even if it meant catching a watermelon smuggler on national television.  Tag that. 

Doot doot doo, doodoo doooo doo...doot doot doo, doodoo doooo doo...STOP, collaborate, and listen...moving right along...

Here we go.  NITRO.  You didn't want any of Nitro.  You still don't want any of Nitro, because Dan "Nitro" Clark is still out there lurking in the shadows, or, maybe writing a book.  Either way, he was a bad to the bone mother crusher who had an attitude worse than his outfit.  Even though always respectful, Nitro still had no qualms about giving contenders a trick joint for the rest of their life, or, in this case, giving them the Heimlich in the middle of Powerball.  What a guy.  Laser appreciates it so much, he's giving Nitro a hug.  Grip it and rip it.

Here we have Gemini again.  This picture is obviously not from Gladiators Arena; in fact, it's in front of a backdrop.  So while the essence of this photo is staged, I had to include it.  You know what I'm talking about.  Your eyes immediately went there.  If I were ever to get the crap kicked out of me, I would at least hope I'd get the satisfaction of seeing that expression between blows to the face.  How on earth could you take a serious beating when the guy was giving you a look like that? RAWRRRRRRR. 

Last but not least, one I'm actually not going to make fun of.  This was hands down the best moment in American Gladiators history.  It was the season 3 grand finale, and Joseph "Bam Bam" Mauro and Mark Ortega (red) had returned as first and second half champions to go for the big one.  Joseph had the lead up until the very bitter end when, out of nowhere, Mark came flying over the last wall and over the finish line a split hair before Mauro.  It was a beautiful moment to behold and truly worthy of being on a trading card.  Okay, enough with the sap. 

Josh, 12/9/08

BACK