Get Ready to Cringe: Battle of the Network Stars

 

I admit it- I'm easy to entertain. Why? Well, I think growing up in the 70s had a lot to do with it. Certainly everything marketed to kids was cut-rate and depressing, and the adults didn't have it much better themselves.

 

This is a prime example of what the network monopoly system produced- a desecration of the ancient and venerable Olympic ideal that would inspire the Korybantes to descend upon network executive suites in an insatiably murderous frenzy. But these things were hugely popular back in the old days- which just goes to show you how impoverished people's expectations were back then.

Watch this and then go watch a few episodes of Super Friends and tell me that the latest Indiana Jones and Transformers movies were terrible. This is the bloody golden age of everything in comparison to Starsky & Hutch, Hong Kong Fooey and Hello, Larry. 

That's my Cancerian nature; old grudges may smolder but never truly die out. But I suppose these travesties were an interesting foreshadowing of the unholy abomination men call "reality television." Actually, they must have revived the Network Olympics by now, right? I'm so out of touch.