Chillin' with Ice: More Than Her Story In The American Gladiators...

Chillin' With Ice is a new podcast that began in late March and features Lori Fetrick, who played the role of Ice in the popular 90s TV show American Gladiators. 

For millennials and Gen Zers, it's difficult to explain the phenomena that was American Gladiators. Like most of these fads, the show burned brightly for a few years and then flamed out, largely because the producers of the show screwed up a good thing.

 The show concept was inspired. It essentially is the dream of millions of men and women. Compete against world-class athletes and win! Who didn't dream and throwing the game-winning touchdown in the Super Bowl? Or hitting the game winning basket in the WNBA finals?

For those who haven't seen the show, American Gladiators featured four competitors, two men and two women, in most episodes. The players, referred to throughout the series as "contenders", faced off in a series of physical games against each other and against a cast of costumed athletes looking to prevent them from succeeding (the titular "Gladiators"). Each match saw the competitors trying to advance in a tournament, with one man and one woman crowned champion at its conclusion.

 The TV show ran for seven seasons, along with hundreds of live performances around the country. After 30 years, the show has been consigned to the trash can of TV history. But then, Netflix threw the show and its Gladiators a lifeline. In June of this year, it released a documentary called Muscles & Mayhem: An Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators. The show chronicles the meteoric rise, dramatic fall, and gripping behind-the-scenes stories of one of the biggest spectacles on television during the height of the '90s. Told firsthand from the stars who lived through it, this five-part series reveals untold stories of the iconic American Gladiators’ triumph, turmoil, and ultimate price of fame.

Those last words --  ultimate price of fame -- reverberate for the Gladiators and should for us as a loyal audience, or even as arbiters of fairness, if you have never seen the show. 

I watched the show with my two young sons, who loved it and badgered me into taking them to a live gladiators show in Atlanta. I have to admit it. The show sparkled with amped up drama and the cacophony of competition. Gladiator Ice even autographed my son's program, and she was his favorite.

But watching what's missing in the documentary is the driving force behind this new podcast.

In the documentary, the creators and producers of the TV show spoke volubly about the business aspect of the show, from the ratings to costs to the marketing. However, they were silent when it came to the welfare of the actual people who played the Gladiators, other than to decry the use of steroids, which I found wildly hypocritical. 

When the producers sent out the Gladiators for a six-month tour -- which meant constant pounding to their bodies with no rest or no way to train -- steroids offer a way to recover from injury much faster. Grudgingly, the producers hired more Gladiators for the tour when they realized the nightly punishment was too much for even world-class athletes. 

When the Gladiators tried to use their fame to renegotiate their contracts, which offered minimal pay, the producers fired them. What the producers didn't understand was that it was the Gladiators that drove the show's popularity, not just the everyman concept. Remember when the football players in the NFL went on strike? The replacement players were met with a collective yawn, even despite an excellent movie, The Replacements, that said otherwise.

What the Gladiators needed was a Brian Epstein. The manager of The Beatles guided the Fab Four threw their initial burst of fame and offered personal guidance and financial security for the group. The group was never the same after Epstein died in August 1967.

From the documentary, it appeared that no one was looking out for the gladiators -- Gemini, Laser, Ice, Storm, Blaze, Nitro, Titan, and others who came along later. These young people had neither the experience nor the background to get paid their worth at the time and negotiate any financial security. The revamped American Gladiators show in 2013 had no original gladiators even in a cameo role, and shows the disdain the producers had for the performers.

So, it's that kind of exploitation that energizes this new podcast.

Fetrick pitches her podcast like this: "Come chill with your host Lori Fetrick, a.k.a Ice Ice Baby from the American Gladiators, the number one hit iconic TV show of the nineties. Every week while she will share all the details and opens up about her own personal experience in the American Gladiators. From what she ate, how she trained, and how she got ready for every show… get ready to listen to real uncensored conversations that have never been shared before. Join Lori as she goes down memory lane and shares with you the best parts of her life." 

Fetrick, as a host, is true to the advertising of her podcast. She's pretty chill. Her episode about her childhood was riveting, especially her mother's religious cultism. 

Fetrick is open and transparent about being a lesbian. On her podcast, she speaks of it without hesitation, despite a recent homophobic narrative infused with conservative political rhetoric that has invaded our culture.

After the episode about getting into bodybuilding, Fetrick then focuses her next six episodes on former Gladiators she performed with. From Storm to Zap, Fetrick interviews her former competitors and does a commendable job. Despite Fetrick's closeness to her guests, she allows them to tell their own stories, and teases out fascinating stories from her guests.

Although I enjoyed the shows about the Gladiators, I wondered about Fetrick's long-range plan with the podcast. After all, eventually, she would run out of Gladiators to interview. She could, of course, interview some contenders as was done in the Netflix documentary, or better yet, the bus driver for the live tour who I suspect would have some juicy stories to tell.

But Fetrick proved to her listeners that she had more to say than just Gladiators tales. On the June 27th show, Fetrick interviewed a leading sexual wellness expert, Stephanie Wolff P.A. - C. In the episode, Fetrick talks to Wolff about the importance of balancing hormones, so women can moderate menopause symptoms, and key information about hormone therapy.

My hope is that Fetrick steers her show toward a women's health and wellness type of show. I think she has a narrative that women will find compelling, and she has a directness about her that makes Fetrick ear worthy.

 Fetrick is one of the many people who experienced the shooting star of fame, discovered its fleeting and fickle nature, refused to be chewed up by its addictive allure, and made a life for herself, as did many of the other American Gladiators. Many child actors, teenage musicians, and reality stars never recovered from their eventual fall from grace.

I recommend Chillin' With Ice, not only because she lived one of the inside stories of the American Gladiators, but also because she has more to say on the human condition due, in part, to her unique life narrative.

Even 30 years after the American Gladiators, I'm not sure if there's too many people who could go up against Ice in the joust. If it was me up there against her, I'd pretend to slip and fall off the platform before the joust started.