Imagine a giant playground decorated in The Sharper Image disco-style toys and friendly bullies trying to push you off every strobe-lit jungle gym, and you have the inkling of "American Gladiators" oversized appeal. The supersized and allegedly squeaky clean athletes have knocked out some hard-hitting buzz since its January 6 primetime debut on NBC, and search numbers in the past 7 days puts the reality competition in the top 2,000.

Its out-of-the-gate success already has the network casting the second season, scheduled as (of all things) a summer lead-in to the Olympics. Too bad producers didn't hold auditions in top gladiator territories: Pittsburgh has led show queries in the past week (which makes sense considering it's the City of Champions), followed by Louisville (Kentucky), Denver, Salt Lake City, and Columbus (Ohio).

As popular as scantily-clad Greco-Roman outings have been in the past year, from "300" to its latest parody, can the gladiators keep a fickle public entertained? Its ratings slipped just a tad (viewership registered at 10.1 million, down from 12 million at its debut), and searches have dropped by half since the first showing.

The key may lie with the ladies. While Hulk Hogan does command the most buzz of the show's crew, cage fighter Gina Carano, aka Crush, lives up to her name in squelching her fellow gladiator's online appeal. Focusing on Gina and her rear naked choke would probably lead to many willing submissions. Gird thy loins, and see how the other postmodern-day gladiators register on the Buzz Richter scale.