Finger Blast from the Past: Gladiators

Fingerbust, fingerbust. Fingerbust found the past. Right, Lucy, you did do a poll about this and the unanimous decision from the voters of Instagram. was that this little snackette, or little breakaway, or little whatever we want to call this, should officially be finger blast from the past. That's it.

I was, when you first came out with this name, I thought, oh, this feels a little bit, a little bit close to the bone. But no. And I thought, let's just check. Let's just check we're not offending anyone. But no, everybody, I think the only person that voted for Fast Blast was me because I was like, I feel like maybe we should play safe here. So I voted for Fast Blast than anyone else.

I kind of feel, though, that if you listen to one normal podcast, though, you're not going to be the kind of person who gets offended easily. Do you know what I mean? And if I was just scrolling for new podcasts and I sort of think about it, I might be intrigued. I might give that a little go. Just make sure, fellow listeners, just make sure you tell your pals that it's not about fingering. It is. It's about nostalgia. It's about what our fingers were initially meant for.

pointing at things and phoning home that's what they were originally made for and the finger blasting was just when we all discovered what else we could do with our hands so you know um right

Got a corker this week, Luce. Got a corker. Okay. Are you ready? Gladiators. it is back it's back for 2024 Now, I didn't watch it. No, I didn't. I have to say, because I was out dressed as a slutty share. So I didn't actually see it. But I'm going to watch this with the kids. And I was telling them, I was trying to get my mum and dad because they were babysitting. I was like, you need to get them to watch Gladiators. Jack was like, what's Gladiators?

And I was trying to explain this to him and the concept. And as I was saying the concept out loud, I was like, this sounds ridiculous. I was like, it's like really jacked up people and members of the public. have to just try and get past them. Just, just... just really massive people with like sticks and things and and if you are a normal person you just have to be able to run around the side of them and then there's a big travelator at the end and you've got to run up it and if you run up it

then you've won and he was like well it just sounds mental I also maybe sound maybe made it sound a little bit like you know like when you get off the tube and you get out the tube station there's those people like charity people try you know trying to get you with their clipboards I also kind of made it sound a little bit like that like you got to avoid if you can get back

the charity muggers uh watched a little clip a little a little snippet of um the sort of opening credits and it just took me right back saturday night saturday night tv was banging wasn't it it was like They had this packed out NEC. I'm assuming it's still done in the NEC in Birmingham. I haven't seen it, but who's presenting it? It's not Ulrika, is it? Obviously it was Ulrika and John Fashadu. Yes, it was. Yeah. Who was your favourite gladiator off of the day? Who was your favourite?

was it jet jet jet was my favorite like jet was the one that i aspired to be but but wolf was my favorite yeah wolf was my favorite because i thought that he just yeah what about you but did you fancy no i didn't fancy him because like he was the least i would say like the least desirable as a 12 year old or however old I just thought that he was I think it was because he really embodied

He embodied the character of a wolf. The spirit. Yeah, he did. He got really into it, didn't he? I imagine he was a little bit like a poor man's Dwayne The Rock Johnson. You know, when The Rock wrestled, he kind of embodied that spirit.

wasn't he in terms of the personality and the character you know he wouldn't break would he be in the dressing room just growling at people who was who was your favorite okay so my favorite was the favorite female gladiator was jet um because i aspired to the hair flex really um i quite like who was the um oh night was it nightshade quite like nature was it deadly nightshade i remember lightning yes like you look back at all our names and i was like it's like it's like paw patrol isn't it

Wolf, Jet, Saracen, Hunter, isn't it? But, um... oh yes yep the night nightshade nightshade yes judith judith this is the funny thing when i was looking at looking at them and imagine if they were real names it's like ace who was a really sexy one he was called warren Doesn't have the same appeal. So come on. Come on, Warren. Come on, Warren. Who was the one that... It was rumoured that Ulrika had a thing with. Was it Hunter? Was it Hunter?

He was the cheeky sort of flirty one, wasn't he? But Jet as well. I love the fact, can you imagine if they were like, and now on the podium, we've got Diane. with amazing hair just swooshing it around just for us all to objectify and do you remember um oh who was the female um a eunuch That's not what I thought you were going to say. Oh my goodness. Eunice. Her name was Eunice, wasn't it? The girl from Live Up. Not Eunice. Eunice is something so different.

Those of you who don't know what a eunuch is, go and look it up. It's a Shakespearean term. Eunice, she's the Scouse girl. And she like went on. Because if you managed to get through Gladiators and you got up the travelator, then you were like bonafide celebrity. It was basically like the first... love island like in terms of reality not love island in the sense of dating reality tv reality stardom

that came from from gladiators if you want so it was it was Eunice Eunice was one of them she was I feel like there was a bloke as well that got really famous off the back of winning gladiators um I always wanted to do the travel um apparently one of them married one of the winners who was it was it was it lightning maybe I think she might have married one of the winners but I remember there was

this um night in berwick where i'm from and it was like around bonfire now and it's called night of the thousand guys and i think it ran for a few years but there was always like a celebrity guest of good few years running it was a gladiator and it was you would think that blimmin' Justin Bieber had rocked up a Berwick. It was a big old tie. Oh, my goodness me.

I did always want to go and watch it. I wondered what it was like live. With the fingers. Never went. Never went. With a big phone finger. Another one bites the dust. Yeah. What was your favourite game? I quite liked a bit of Hang Tough.

Because I just thought it was hilarious that, like, you just... There'd just be some poor soul just hanging on. And someone just, like, literally humping them down. Yeah, some, like, fucking... ginormous bodybuilder is pulling them this is what I feel like when my kids are hanging off my legs when they want a snack and I'm ignoring them and they're just like hanging off me just trying to like pull me to the ground you could you could you could probably look at

I wonder whether the producers of Gladiators were inspired by parenting. By parenting. Yeah. So, you know, you've got, what was the other one? The parenting one where you had to just smash them off the podium. Imagine us. Yeah. Yeah. yeah you've got the one what was the one called um where you had to just dodge you had to try and dodge past that's like when you're trying to get your kids to go and like brush their teeth or something in it they're just like

And then the travelator basically is just every child who's ever been near an escalator in a supermarket or a shop and they're trying to climb up it the wrong way. And you're up there after them trying to drag them down while they're trying to run up to the top. the eliminator that last game where it was you know like just like oh the eliminator that's almost just like essentially this the morning getting ready for school routine isn't it all of the challenges pretty much um i'll tell you what i

I used to quite like the wall as well. The wall used to panic me. Can you imagine the panic of being on the wall? And they did get a little bit of a head start, didn't they? Depends on how many points that they had. And then if the wolfman was coming up the wall after you were like, what?

absolutely terrifying it's like i sometimes have dream like nightmares and being chased by by by probably now a 60 year old man in spandex called dave what was the wolf's name um he was he was he was called michael michael okay yeah do you know how old he is now Is he about 60? 71. Oh, my God. Well, to be fair, he probably was, yeah, wasn't the youngest, was he, of all the gladiators back in the day?

He had a great wet perm. Obviously, that's terrifying. Nothing more scary than a man with a wet perm chasing after you. Did you watch... Did you used to watch it? And like, for example, Hang Tough. I remember watching it and I used to think like lightning used to make it look so easy. She flew through the sky, didn't she? And then I remember going and trying the monkey bars. Yeah. Jumping up and falling.

I've never been able to do them in the past. No, I've got no upper body strength. To this day, and even though I've henched up a bit, and I'm quite happy with my upper body, how it looks and everything, and I've got muscles in places, but to this day... I would not be able to do one monkey bar swing to save my life. Like if somebody said to me, what, the kid's life depended.

on you being able to go across those monkey bars I could not do it I could not do it did you find though as a kid some of your mates were just amazing at them yeah like and just it looked so easy but I just literally I would I would get on and just fall straight off. I think it's genetic. But I look at my kids, right? Evelyn can do it. And she swings across. Jack gets to the first one and he's like, oh!

and I don't know whether it's like it's weight dependent or if that would make sense but you know what I mean like or density of your bones or something you just can't just can't do it maybe

But that's the only reason that you can't be on the new series of Graduators. I mean, there are so many reasons, if we're being honest. I'll tell you the closest though that I am to Gladiators. So the company that made all the Gladiators' new costumes is a company called... burnt soul and

they've made well i'm not like custom i bought it from their website but one of my um show outfits is from there that you're essentially a gladiator effectively a gladiator base because you know our outfits are made by the same people so yeah i mean that is i don't know what that says

about me that my stage outfits are mostly just like spandex and razzle dazzle if I wanted to I could scale a wall being chased by a 70 year old wolf man with a weapon if I so desired that's spoiler alert guys that's the climax of the show Tickets are still available.

what a blast from the past. What an epic finger blast from the past. And I am going to go watch Sladiators now. I'm going to do it with the kids and they're just going to sit there and go, what the fuck is this? And then I'm going to show them on YouTube, the old school version. Then they're going to go even more. What the fuck is this? Can't wait. Lovely. Right. Lou, same time, same place next week. Finger blasts, finger blasts. Oh, finger blasts from the past.