Inspired by this thread, I’m thinking of all the cheesy pseudo-sports shows from around the same time period. The granddaddy of them all would have to be the early pro wrestling broadcasts, which continue in mutated form today as shows like Raw, Smackdown and the rest from the WWE. Others off the top of my head include:
Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling: all female wrestlers, bouting and doing comedy bits in between matches.
American Gladiators
Roller Jam: the latest attempt to resucitate Roller Derby for TV. Started a few years after American Gladiators and featured some of the same classic teams like the Thunderbirds as well as new teams created for the show. Apparently so obscure IMDB has no listing for it.
Battle Dome: a cross between wrestling and American Gladiators. Featured a fixed cast of “warriors” and “managers” who would battle contestants but also had stories among themselves.
There was always ABC’s Superstars, where pro athletes (including some big names) would compete in a variety of events. No one could compete in his own sport, and the big event was the obstacle course.
I remember in the first season, they included NASCAR drivers. Now driving is a skill, but NASCAR drivers are not up to the running, swimming, etc. that went into the Superstars competition. They were dropped the next year.
And the cheesiest part was Brent Mussburger trying to pretend that anyone cared about the competition.
How could I forget Superstars? Featuring all-star Simon Says!
And continuing the “stars” theme, I can’t believe I forgot to mention Battle of the Network Stars. Fox actually tried reviving that a couple years ago. It wasn’t pretty.
And tehre was a pseudo-“Battle” circa 1985. It was syndicated. It was teams by show rather than by network. I can’t remember much about it except that there was a team from “Growing Pains” and they had a member who’d guested on the show exactly once. I thought at the time that was sort of cheating, but he looked so hot in his Speedo for the swimming events I didn’t really care.
There used to be a show called Almost Anything Goes. IIRC, originally, it was a bunch of specials where they would go to a town and the teams would be made up of familys from the town that would have to do a series of crazy physical contests.
Later, it became a weekly series called All-Star Almost Anything Goes, where the teams would be made up of cast members of different tv series.
Ok, just checked it out online. Each episode was in a different state and the teams were comprised from towns in that state.
Apparently Regis Philbin was one of the announcers…
I also forgot to mention a current entry in Extreme Dodgeball on GSN. I loved it last season, but this season it seemed like they were taking it too seriously. It was better when they were just having fun.
I’m surprised you watched G.L.O.W., Otto – the only reason I ever watched was for the matches when that “Farmer’s Daughter” girl would wrestle in the half shirt and daisy dukes.
I remember the rollerderby show too. I seem to remember there being six teams and one of the plotlines was that the old grey-haired manager of one team put himself in and got injured.