Funny / American Gladiators

• "You a southpaw, buddy?"
• Before competing in Breakthrough and Conquer, Greg Pruitt had to "take on" Gold and Diamond. Here's the clip.
  • Hell, the first Pro Football Challenge of Champions had a number of Funny Moments, mainly involving Larry Csonka's former teammate, Jim Kiick. These include Mike Adamle warning Csonka that Kiick was going to get back at him for getting him to do the show, Kiick glaring at Csonka when he had to face off against Thunder and Tower (the show's two biggest Gladiators) in Breakthrough & Conquer, and then, after losing the Joust against Gemini, Kiick using a pugil stick to "beat up" his ex-teammate.
• On one occasion during the first season, Mike Adamle demonstrated the Assault course while Joe Theissman fired the tennis cannon (and even donned the shades). Needless to say, Adamle is a lot better at Assault when he isn't being fired upon.
  • Hell, pretty much any time Mike demonstrated an event and failed epically, such as both times Adamle swung against his co-hosts (Theissman and Christensen) in the Human Cannonball and failed to knock them off.
  • Plus, on one occasion in the second half of the first season, Mike demonstrated the entire Eliminator course, and unlike the first half season demonstration (he ran the course from the commando ropes to the end, where he avoided encountering Malibu), Mike went through the paper door, only to be blocked by Nitro, Gemini, AND Titan.
    Mike: Now, for a contender to win this, he's got to be quick, he's got to be agile, and he's got to be in a lot better shape than I am. Todd? (collapses)
• One Women's Assault course had a Contender grab the rocket launcher and accidentally hit the trigger, sending the projectile into the netted audience, getting laughs from the audience, the hosts and the Contender herself.
• In the first season's Eliminator, contenders had to swing on a rope over the wall after the commando ropes. On one occasion, however, contender Joanna Needham swung INTO the wall, knocking it over.^note (This was the same episode of the infamous Human Cannonball with Malibu.) It even made the opening title sequence.
  Public Address Announcer: For Joanna Needham, 30 seconds (to complete the course), but a twenty-five point penalty for damaging the wall...(audience laughs)
• One game of Hang Tough had Nitro pulling the shorts off Joesph "Bamm-Bamm" Mauro, with Mike and Larry joking about it (Larry stating Nitro was trying to raise their rating from "PG" to "R"). Nitro even swung the shorts around in his hand after it ended!
• At the end of one Gauntlet in season six, Hawk accidentally shoved the contender right into referee Larry Thompson. During the subsequent interview, Thompson jokingly disqualified Hawk and gave himself the 10 points (complete with graphics that read Hawk—DQ, Larry Thompson—10).
• One later episode began with Larry Thompson reading poetry about the show; he was depicted as sitting in a fancy chair wearing a robe, in the darkened Arena. It was as weird as it sounds.

---