If you guys went to the taping, you'd have a different mindset. The whole thing is ruined for me now, including my 90s memories. What you see live, and what you see on tv is so completely different. For one thing; the audience. The tapings were in the Dome, which is a pretty big place, so it can fit a lot of people. Except only about 100 tickets were available for each session, so we, and the rest of the audience, were forced to get up and move each time they changed the camera angle (and considering they did multiple tapings of each 'challenge' to get the most 'exciting' one, this happened a lot).
Which leads to the next disappointing thing: the staged 'challenges' and re-enactments of falls/big 'hits'. I must've watched one Challenger get pushed off a dueling platform by 'Tank' in the EXACT same way at LEASt 6 times, until they got the right shot. They would also give the challengers post-challenge scripts to read (but considering that these guys aren't actors -or charismatic- the deliveries were sickeningly bad), and the Gladiators would do take after take of one-liners that would make an 80s action hero groan.
And then there was the 'crowd's' reactions. Before the taping began, we were instructed to scream as loud as we could, clap, cheer, whistle, gasp, moan, and laugh. Now, since we were excited about what was to come, we complied. However, once the games started, no-one screamed. No-one clapped, cheered, whistle, gasped, moaned or laughed; we just sat there, wondering how something that had once seemed so magical was in reality so terrible. Then about 2 hours later when they show a 'highlights' package of the day's events so far, we discovered that they had recorded the prompted reactons from before the taping, and used those to make it seem as though the crowd was having a good time.
We weren't.
I was there for just over 4 hours, and saw about 4 minutes of action all up. The rest of the time was spent waiting, complaining, swearing, watching take after take of tough talk, interviews and the hosts (who are those guys anyway?! Definately not professional presenters) doing their host thing, and a LOT of time watching countless lackeys erecting/removing the different sets for challenges, as they would only have one set-up at a time.
Pitiful.
I almost forgot about the '1, 2, 3, 4' system. They split the crowd into 4 groups, and whenever the crowd-warmer would say a number, that group was mean to 'go wild'. He would've said those numbers on average about every 5 minutes. Sooooo tedious.
And the posters! More lackeys walked around with posters and banners made to look home-made (you know, finger paint and the like) and handed them out to every 3rd or 4th audience member* and implore them to 'wave them crazily about'. Then at the end of the taping, they took back the posters! El cheapo, much?
*I'd say spectator, but to me a spectator is what you are when you're at a sporting event, not a scripted stage-show.
*responds to some questions*
We did (walk out), eventually. As soon as we saw the Pyramid event (our favourite part of the 90s version), we were out of there. Mind you, the ticket said the session was 3hrs, and by the time the pyramid came out we had already been there for almost 4. We travelled a fair way to get there, and waited patiently, no way were we going to leave in less time than it took to get there.
A lot of the other people there left at the 3 hour mark, most probably because the parking during tapings was free for under 3 hours.
