LAST EDITED ON 08-20-05 AT 01:28 PM (EST)

The golden age of Tinseltown. Well, not Hollywood. Studio spots, like Burbank. But there’s tinsel-like stuff there. And by “golden age,” I’m not talking about times when we had stars like Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich or Ingrid Bergman. Nay, this golden age saw stars like – well, Gabe Kaplan. Farrah Fawcett. Loretta Swit.

OK, so it wasn’t exactly golden. Not even silver. Maybe sort of an off-bronze. But the point is, there’s a legend that tells of an annual great gathering of these stars at Pepperdine University. There, these great gladiators would do battle, fighting for their very survival in order to win… OK, I have no idea what they won. A guest spot on Happy Days?

But honestly. Can you imagine that happening today? Can you see Eva Longoria crawling through the mud? Debra Messing perching herself on the dunk tank? The cast of Lost beating each other with padded sticks? Fie! But c’mon. We’re reviving Bewitched. We’ve just revived the Dukes of Hazzard. Surely this golden off-bronze age can be revived.

Fortunately, a lot’s changed since then. Even if our Kelsey Grammers and Donald Faisons would never lower themselves to the level of their ancestors, we’re lucky enough to have a lower level of DAW, if you will. People who would drink antelope urine while singing A-Ha’s greatest hits (that is, if there’s more than one) so long as to get a few precious extra moments on TV. We call them: reality stars.

And now 32 of them have come together for an epic battle that surely will go down in the annals of our cultural history. And we wonder why the terrorists hate us. Let’s meet the team, shall we? I’ll spare you the false niceties they give each other. The only person in the room they’re truly happy to see is the cameraman.

First we have Team Ms.
Perennial MTV star Mike “The Ms.” Mizanin leads this team, thanks to a victory in a hard-fought game of rock, paper, scissors. The fact that it took a mini-challenge for this time to decide a leader says a lot. If you’ve never heard of Mike, you’ve probably never watched MTV. He’s on every show they’ve ever produced. And yes, he’s this obnoxious in all of them. His teammates:

Dicque. The grandpappy of reality evil. AKA “the fat, naked guy.” He won a million dollars on Survivor, but has been on a downward slide ever since, bombing out in All-Stars and reality editions of The Weakest Link and Dog Eat Dog.

Bradford Cohen OK, here’s the deal. The Apprentice is the most popular reality show that I’ve never watched. But thanks to MTW, Tribe, and Molaholic, I know he’s some loser from the show who Donald Trump fired after he gave up his immunity. Probably because Trump was jealous of his hair.

Ryan Starr. She was on American Idol but apparently sucked worse than Justin Guarini, ‘cause he lasted longer than her. Also did a stint on The Surreal Life.

Charla. Like Gavroche in Les Miserable, Charla has always been trying to prove what little people can do. Except, like, she didn’t get shot at the barricades. Just electro-ma-cuted. And through a mix of plucky and obnoxious that she’s made all her own, she lasted longer than most thought she would on The Amazing Race.

Mirna. Charla’s cousin who probably was as well-liked by her Amazing Race castmates as Romber. Despite Charla’s desire to prove her strength, she and Mirna are not above using it to their advantage. Sadly, no trips to the doctoro will save them in this game.

Valerie Penso. She was on Temptation Island. Her partner, Kaya, was hot. And they stayed together. Damn her. Give me five minutes with him and he’ll be changing his uniform, if you catch my drift.

Burton Roberts. One of two survivors who benefited from the infamous “ghost tribe.” Came back to slay America’s sweetheart, Poopert. Later met his own fate at the hand of a dowdy woman in a scout uniform.

Next we have Team Chipper, so named for its amiable leader, Chip McAllister. Probably the only man to be compared to Winnie the Pooh and George Foreman in the same breath. He’s well-liked by fans, mostly because he triumphed over the waste of DNA known as Team Intensity (Colin/Christie) in The Amazing Race. His teammates:

Kim McAllister. Chip’s wife and teammate. Most known for doing the least of any Amazing Race contestant ever. Yes, even less than Flo. Her laziness was enough that the show changed the rules to require teams to share equally in the roadblocks.

Matt Gould. Joe Schmo. Never watched it. But, according to Estee, he’s a nice enough guy who was duped on Spike TV’s first foray into the reality TV world. Somehow I’m guessing, if they were locked in a house on that show, there wasn’t a lot of gym equipment around. But so far, this team seems pretty likeable. Could they be the ones to root for?

Susan Hawk. Oops. Spoke too soon. Survivor’s first uberbitch made famous by her “snakes and rats” speech. Also hates Dicque. She hates him for screwing her over on the first Survivor and rubbing his, er, namesake on her during Survivor All-Stars. She hates him so much that she keeps going on reality shows with him to prove that point.

Evil Dr. Will Kirby. Probably the only smart player to ever win Big Brother. The producers saw to it that would never happen again. If twins, siblings, or secret partners had been in his house, they would’ve been gone the first week. And the current crop of houseguest would last even less time than that against him.

Nikki McKibbin. Another singer who’s less loved by America than Justin Guarini. Cool hat, though. I remember seeing her sing “Hard Hearted Hannah.” Bea Arthur’s version in the Rusty Anchor on The Golden Girls was much better, if you ask me.

Theo Vonondfddgdn. Like “The Ms.,” an MTV stalwart with an unpronounceable last name. Chipper tells us that he’s won every competition that he’s ever been in. At least he doesn’t call himself “The Von.”

Brian Worth. Average Joe loser whose accent makes Rob Mariano sound like William F. Buckley. As MTW reminded me, his favorite baseball player is Tim Wakefield. He claims to have been the runner up on that show, but I say he placed third. We all know the true winner of that show was the ghost of Fabio.

The third team is Team Whoral. Yes, the brilliant members of this team put witchy Whoral Smith of Real World: New York (the sucky New York cast, not the good one) in charge. She predicts at least an “almost win.” I give ‘em two weeks. The members are:

Will Wikle. Big Brother 5 houseguest who is best remembered for his twinphobia and comparing Carmen Electra to an Aboriginal weapon. Also the least stereotypical gay guy to ever be on Big Brother. Yes, you read that right.

Duncan Nutter. Didn’t watch Showbiz Moms and Dads? No one did. Except me. This dude was invited only after Debb Eaton, Gilligan Gooner and the locksmith from Chains of Love said no thanks. Let’s just say that Duncan is to parenting what Jonathan Baker is to marriage. Oh yeah, we haven’t gotten to him, yet. Patience.

Adam Mesh. If Chipper is Winnie the Pooh, this guy is Eeyore. Average Joe contestant who later got his own show for some reason. Like all average joes, he was strung along and eventually dumped for a hunk. Thanks for listening to him.

Evan Marriott. Joe Millionaire. One of the first of the “hoax” reality shows. Never watched it. I think he pretended to be a millionaire when in real life he ate dirt or dug ditches or something like that. Later did a guest spot on The Simpsons with Tony Blair and Ian McKellan.

Rachel Love Fraser. The Swan. Bashing her would be about like bashing one of the impoverished families on that schmaltzy home makeover show. Next.

Melissa Howard. Another Real Worlder – the New Orleans cast – although not as ubiquitous as most. Struck a blow for race relations everywhere when she withstood a racial slur from some backwoods hick on a swamp buggy. She was overshadowed in her season, however, by wide-eyed Julie and Danny’s blurry faced military boyfriend, Paul.

Heidi Bressler. Another Apprentice. Phew. When I saw the name, I thought I’d be seeing Heidi from Survivor: Amazon. I’m guessing she lost, since Trump only likes women who’ll sleep with him. Or whatever. Like I said, I didn’t watch this show.

And finally, we have Team Thank-God-Jonathan’s-Not-The-Captain. Original Survivor cast member Gervase Peterson is the leader of this one. Gervase was sexist, couldn’t swim and was the original false spoiler, when everyone thought against all reason he was going to win the show. But he claims to be the best athlete there. Good. The first pool event is yours. His teammates:

Tina “Fabulous” Panas. One of a few dozen women lucky enough to have been rejected by Andrew Firestone. She’s from one of those Wisconsin cities that nobody can pronounce. There’s no indication of why she might be “fabulous.”

Brittany Brower. Umm, America’s Next Top Model. Well, she, uh… OK, now I’m going to follow the advice of Dragonflies. She once starred as Nora in a regional production of “A Doll’s House” and likes caramel popcorn. (the advice: “You could just make it up and I would never know the difference.”)

Mike “Boogie” Malin. Big Brother bar owner who bears a frightening resemblance to a homely Johnny Knoxville. He should be right at home in this game, for his business is known for attracting a strange variety of reality nuts.

Chris Russo. Loudmouth Long Islander from The Apprentice who whined about being sick before he got fired. But at least he didn’t have to deal with Regis Philbin in the finale. Much.

Wendy Pepper. Aww. I was hoping this was the Snapple Lady, who technically could be called a reality star thanks to Celebrity Fit Club. But alas, another “top model.” Or Project Runway. Was that the same show? Take it, Ginger! “The Evil Sad Seamstress who came in 3rd in Project Runway, thus eliminating the far more fabulous, albeit waaaay over the top, Austin Scarlett.”

Victoria Fuller. A Playboy Playmate who set the cause of women’s rights back 15 years when she appeared on The Amazing Race. Really, alone, she’s not so bad. The problem is when she’s paired with…

Jonathan Baker. Where to begin. He abused Victoria, his wife, both verbally and with a nasty shove on national TV. Chalked it up to editing and tried to prove he was a nice guy by appearing on Dr. Phil. Failed. Has the energy, look and voice of Richard Simmons and the personality of that cheerleader mom who tried to kill the other cheerleader mom. Managed to make his entire team hate him in a grand total of 30 seconds into the show. Even Victoria said she didn’t want to be on the same team as him.

*pant, pant, pant* Is that all? Oh, wait. The interviewers. I’ll make this quick.
Our host is Mike Adamle. He used to host American Gladiators but he gives us no indication of whatever happened to Turbo, Nitro, Harpo or any of the other hunks from that show. Perhaps Jose Canseco would know. He’ll be helped out by Real World slut Trashelle, Voldemort (fresh from her redemption tour on The Surreal Life) and Bachelor Bob, who, in my opinion, would have fit in better on Average Joe.

1,700 words, and I’m about 10 minutes into a 90 minute show. I hope no one expects me to proofread this.

So now this strange hooked on classics of flash-in-the-pans, has-beens and never-weres must decide who will compete. Our events for the day are an obstacle course, the dunk tank and the joust.

Chipper tries to make the picks mathematically, which I suppose makes sense, while Theo gives his impersonation of Chip. It mainly consists of staring at the camera. The producers declare no more confessionals from him. The narrator for this show, you see, will be shirtless Dr. Will. *cat call* Whoral makes her profanity-laced picks. Charla pleads with The Ms. to be in the joust, and after showing her sturdiness, they decide to give her a chance. Like they had a choice. Could you see here in the obstacle course? Jonathan decides he’s good enough to be his own team and wants to compete in every slot in every event.

So lets go to:
The Obstacle Course
First of all, it’s clear this ain’t Survivor. The show makes this clear by showing the chimp from B.J. and the Bear could handle the challenge. It’s tires, monkey bars, an 8-foot wall and a rope swing over a tiny puddle. Whoo.

Team Whoral faces off first against Team Ms. The Ms. and Whoral exchange words (they hated each other on The Real World, made up on later shows, but I guess they hate each other again). KarmaWill and The Bradford are the first two runners. KarmaWill, who accomplished absolutely nothing on his Big Brother season short of screwing the house out of food with one toss of a rubber chicken, makes a pretty good showing. I’ll bet he’d kick ass against the current Big Brother crew. Then again, so would the B.J. and the Bear chimp. The Bradford lags behind and screws up pretty much every obstacle. The Swan and Mirna are the next competitors. Mirna claims to be a runner but apparently hasn’t learned to tie her shoes before competing. She loses a shoe and tons of time for her team. The anchors are Joe Millionaire and The Ms. The Ms. is unable to make up for the failings of his teammates, and gigantic Joe Millionaire easily brings his team to victory. He pants out his victory speech to Trashelle, something about loving everyone.

(flashback: Penny Marshall and Billy Crystal ran this obstacle course once. If that means Mirna’s going to become a director and Joe Millionaire is going to start hosting the Oscars, I’m moving to Botswana)

Team Chipper and Team TGJNTC, apparently, ran a really boring race, because we see it only through a highlight real. Gervase, Mike Boogie and Chris Russo went against Chipper, Evil Dr. Will and Theo Vonkajlkva. Chipper’s team got skunked, it seemed.

Jonathan blabbers about how proud he is, and Victoria wants to kick some girl’s butt (but she’s not naming Whoral names.

In the final round, Victoria, Tina Fabulous and Wendy Pepper for Team TGJNTC ran against Melissa, Heidi and Nutty Duncan Nutter for Team Whoral. Dorky Bachelor Bob proudly predicts that the mere presence of a penis on Whoral’s team will assure them victory. Sadly, his sexist statement proves true. Victoria runs much better without a backpack and shrieking husband and takes a lead over Melissa. Heidi catches up to Tina Fabulous somewhat, leaving Nutty in a tight competition with Wendy Pepper. Nutty doesn’t even try to swing over the rope and gets a penalty for the team, but an earlier penalty by Heidi cancels it out. Nutty, the little reality star no one ever heard of, wins it all for his team. Wendy Pepper, as punishment for losing, gets an exit interview with Voldemort.

Meanwhile, in a consolation round we don’t see, Team Chipper loses to Team Ms. after applying the brilliant strategy of using up all its athletic men in the first round.

Next up
The dunk tank
First of all, can I say that it’s kinda weird that Target is using “Baby Got Back” for it’s back to school commercials? Hmm.

(flashback: The American Gladiators dude calls the dunk tank the first prime time wet T-shirt contest. A strange comparison, because no one on the flashback was actually wearing a T-shirt.)

In the dunk tank, each team send up two throwers, who get three throws each. Dicque wisely points out not to pick Sue as a target, as she’ll taint the water. Jonathan, meanwhile, wants a piece of Dicque. But everyone else seems to want Whoral, who – and I just noticed this – has enormous bazongas. Freakishly, back pain-causing bazongas. I must be really gay if this is the first time I’ve noticed this. Even Dicque picked up on it before me.

First up, Team Whoral sends Average Adam, who uses the opportunity to make Ryan Not-Quite-A-Starr strip down. Average Adam makes a few girly throws and manages to hit the target once, but without enough oomph to even put Ryan in the tank. He earns 1 point.

Victoria’s up next for Team TGJNTC. Before this, however, Voldemort warns us that the couple is shooting pilots. Arrested Development struggles to stay on the air, but someone’s considering giving these morons a show? Victoria picks Whoral and manages to dunk her twice. Victoria seems to be quite a competitor when her shrieking husband is muzzled. She gets 6 points.

Brian’s up for Team Chipper, and he picks Whoral again. Like Victoria, he dunks her twice, and earns six points. Tim Wakefield would be proud.

Team Ms. sends Burton, who manages to dunk Mike Boogie once. Unfortunately, Mike Boogie’s aviator sunglasses do not sink to the bottom of the tank for good when he falls in. He earns three points.

Team Whoral steps up for her own team and doesn’t even hit the target. Victoria stays dry, and Whoral’s team is left with a single point.

Chris Russo tries to stand up for his beloved Yankees by going after Brian Worth, but embarrasses us Yankees fans by failing to dunk the Red Sox devotee. Team TGJNTC ends the game with 6 points.

Team Chipper sends in Joe Schmo, who does his Macho Man Randy Savage impression by picking The Ms. Joe Schmo unwisely decides to take off his shirt to “woo some women.” The Ms. jabbers some nonsense as Joe Schmo misses twice, but thankfully he dunks him once. Team Chipper ends with 9 points.

Finally, The Bradford steps up for Team Ms. He picks Tina Fabulous. The Bradford misses once, but dunks Tina Fabulous with his second throw. Once again, he chokes and leaves his team with 6 points, tied for second with Team TGJNTC.

Our standings are now:
Team TGJNTC in first
Team Whoral and Team Chipper tied for second
Team Ms. Dead Last

Useless segment time, as Voldemort and Project Runway’s over-the-top Austin Scarlett talk about fashions from the late 70s and early 80s. Over-the-top Austin manages to talk about fashion without even mentioning clothing. For some reason, just saying Farrah Fawcett, Lynda Carter and Tom Selleck is supposed to tell us something about the period. And he pronounces Scott Baio the strangest way I’ve ever heard it said. Actually, I haven’t heard anyone say anything about Scott Baio in 12 years. At least Willie Aames had Bibleman.

Finally,
The joust
American Gladiator dude is right at home in this one. Unfortunately, the teams will not be charging at one another on horses, but swinging padded sticks while perched on a platform, trying to knock their opponent off. BTW – the winner of the day gets a trip to Vegas. Where will they be staying? The Flamingo? Mandalay Bay? Luxor? The Bellagio? Uh, no. The Silverton. Jeez. Why didn’t they just send them to Reno? Or Atlantic City? Uh, never mind. I don’t want these people near me. Especially considering who wins (is that a spoiler???).

Victoria represents Team TGJNTC while Soozin plays for Team Chipper. Gervase astutely points out that Soozin had plastic surgery but forgot to fix the face. Victoria channels Kelly Wiglesworth and Survivor fans everyone as she knocks Sue off the platform. Wow. Who would’ve thought Victoria would be the MVP for the day?

In round two, Joe Schmo plays for Team Chipper while Chris Russo plays for Team TGJNTC. Joe Schmo lasts about 5 seconds, so Team TGJNTC advances to the finals.

Charla goes up first for Team Ms., battling The Swan from Team Whoral. Team Ms.’ strategy at first seems wise. The Swan swings hard, but can’t knock her over. However, Charla also doesn’t swing back much. Her fighting style seems similar to Homer Simpson’s boxing style: Just let your opponent pummel you until he’s so tired he collapses. Unfortunately for her, the joust has a 5-minute time limit, so that never happens and the bout is ruled a draw.

Next up is Dicque for Team Ms. vs. Average Adam for Team Whoral. Soozin points out that she’d love to nail Dicque in the donut sack because, you know, she hates him so much and was so traumatized by her last experience with the donut sack. Average Adam lasts about a second against Dicque, although true to his style, Dicque might have used and illegal head blow to do it. That was not a double entendre.

Ryan Not-Quite-A-Starr is next for Team Ms., going against Melissa for Team Whoral. Melissa goes down, advancing Team Ms. to the finals.

First though, we get the highlights of the consolation round between Team Chipper and Team Whoral. Nikki, who I’d already forgotten was on this show, beat Heidi when Heidi ostened off the joust platform, moving team Whoral to last place. Not even an almost-win, Whoral.

In the finals, team captains The Ms. and Gervase face off. Gervase, seeing no need for a stupid stick, grabs The Ms. by the legs and knocks him in the water. Smooth move, but totally illegal. The bout goes to The Ms.

Now Brittany goes against Kaya’s Significant Other. Brittany wins the round, evening up the round. Did I mention Brittany’s mother is the mayor of Burlington, Vermont?

Pop quiz. Who, of all the competitors, would you like to least see make the game-winning move? Yes, the final round puts Jonathan against The Bradford. Shirtless Evil Dr. Will first reminds us that Jonathan has a big yapper – you know, in case the volume on our TVs failed and we all started experiencing extreme short-term memory loss. The worst happens, and Jonathan wins. Big surprise, especially since the segment previews had already shown every other team voting off a member. Even Voldemort looks a little terrified of Jonathan in the following interview as he finally finds a reason for his bombast. So Team TGJNTC takes first for the day and wins an exciting trip to a third-class casino. Team Ms. takes second, Team Chipper takes third and Team Whoral falls in dead last.

Time for the vote off. Unfortunately, Team TGJNTC stays intact, so one more week of Jonathan is assured.

Team Chipper talks it over. Shirtless Evil Dr. Will is rubbing his hand in anticipation of a vote-off, but not so fast. Kim, for the first time ever on a reality show, volunteered to do something. She offers to quit. Seeing as she hadn’t even appeared on the show since the introductions, no one really objected. Evil (but shirt-wearing) Dr. Will is flabbergasted that nice people actually were on reality shows.

Team Whoral talks it over, but Heidi’s the center of attention for ostening in the joust. Everyone agrees that she’s the one to go, and she doesn’t put up much a fight. But she says it’s more upsetting than being fired by Donald Trump. Personally, I’d be less scared of being locked in a boardroom with Trump than I would be with Whoral.

Finally, Team Ms. does their vote-off by secret ballot. Dicque assures them all that screwing over fellow teammates gets easier with time. Dicque, whose first reality move was taking out an elderly, ukelele-playing cancer survivor, tops that move and helps his team vote out plucky/obnoxious Charla. But Ryan Not-Quite-A-Starr is the source of Charla’s ire, because she was actually nice to her and voted her off! The nerve! The other teams are horrified that Team Ms. would dare vote off the person who would no doubt have the most problems with this purely physical game. Actually, to be fair, it was The Bradford who managed to lose every single game for his team.

But don’t cry for Charla just yet. There’s another twist. The voted-off players aren’t leaving – they just randomly get to draw to join another team. Charla picks and becomes a part of Team Whoral. And she’s got her sights set on revenge for Ryan Not-Quite-A-Starr for next week. Kim picks her own team, so Team Chipper stays intact. Even shirtless Evil Dr. Will is happy. Heidi unhappily joins Team Ms. Next week, Mr. American Gladiators assure us, someone is going home.

Coming up in coming weeks – Nikki whines, Soozin screams and screams and profanity flies. If anyone wants to try to wade through these preview spots for spoilers, then you lead a very sad life.

There you have it. The DAW reunion on acid. If you’ve actually made it this far in reading, you get a cookie. Give me a call. I’ll be spending a few weeks at The Silverton. I hear they have great mocktails and mozzarella sticks.

A kyngsladye/IceCat masterpiece.