If you don't know what I am referring to, you probably did not see much of GUTS, a sports game show on Nick from 1992-1996. GUTS (and its sister spinoff, Global GUTS) was a show in which kids would compete against each other in extreme versions of standard sports (this was during the infancy of the X movement in sports, but more on that in another article) in order to earn points and reach the final competition, the treacherous Aggro Crag.
Don't the lights and smoke make it scary?
The Crag was seemingly made of metal, glass, and lots and lots of foam. Ten thousand miles high (or so it seemed to my 5 year old eye), the Crag separated the men from the boys, the cream of the crop reached the top of this gigantic structure. Avoiding boulders was the main goal of the scores of athletes that scaled the ominous structure. And what did you win if you avoided the boulders? A piece of the very same mountain you climbed.
Can you believe someone sold one of these for $35,000 on eBay?
Now while the show's competition was captivating, much of the entertainment value came from the host, a young nobody named Mike O'Malley. O'Malley tended to stay away from the competition, only introducing the competitors and interviewing them after their competitions. The job he had to do seemed kinda bland and the only thing that seemed to make his work even necessary was his great commentating he did over some of the strangest competitions outside of American Gladiators. His charisma was evident and I guess TV execs noticed this because he got some pretty decent TV jobs after that. You know, like Kurt's Dad on Glee, a role that lead him to his first Emmy Nomination and his first People's Choice Award
Skinny and Fame-less vs. Bald and Famous
If I had to grade GUTS on a 1-10 scale, I would give it an 8. It was a novel concept; American Gladiators for kids, with no need for expensive prizes to give away. Win-Win
The other two kids clearly look like they wanna beat up the winner of the foam trophy
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