The Hello and welcome to Citation Needed.

The podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts.

Because this is the internet, and that's how it works now.

I'm Eli Bosnick and I'll be hosting this Battle

Royale. But I'll need some shredded monsters of the battlefield of James, Noah, Cecil, and Tom.

As long as I get to shoot tennis balls at you, I am fine.

Before I begin tonight, I'd like to thank our patrons.

Patrons, without you, long ago, work would have bifed us into the foam cube of life.

But no, your money presses us forward onto glory, and if you'd like to learn how to join

their ranks, be sure to stick around till the end of the show.

And with that out of the way, tell us Tom,

what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon,

or event we'll be talking about today.

Very excited, we will be talking about American Gladiators today.

Yes.

Yes.

Amazing.

You remember this show's premiere from your early 40s.

I'm sure you're coming folks at home. All about when real men had hair.

Okay, the last part, that last part I am.

Okay, so yeah, so as you may have guessed, Bill Bryson never wrote a book about American Gladiators.

So he's not even here, Noah.

...