Rob Gronkowski Reveals His Favorite Nicktoons and His Worst Crashletes Moment
Photo by Nickelodeon
Rob Gronkowski is a man who wears many helmets. He’s a Super Bowl champion, he’s a GQ cover model, and now he’s hosting a kids show for Nickelodeon.
The Patriots tight end has been tapped to be the host of Crashletes, a new series focused on epic athletic fails and viral sports clips. It’s sort of like a tamer version of MTV’s Ridiculousness, which makes sense since Rob Dyrdek is an executive producer for the show.
“It’s about celebrating the wildest and most outrageous sports moments and just commentating about it,” Gronk said. “We celebrate the most epic sports fails from around the world.”
According to the New England star, a “Crashlete” is more than just players who fumble on the football field. Any amateur or animal can become one, as long as their epic fail has an athletic twist to it.
“It can be, for example, just someone walking down the park and tripping over a little tiny rock and falling,” Gronk said. “It can also be with animals. Two birds in the sky flying, boom, they crash into each other and fall.”
Even though he’s a bona fide pro on the gridiron, Gronk admits that he’s had a few “Crashlete” moments during his athletic career. The Patriots star revealed that his worst sports fail occurred during a basketball game in high school.
“I remember in 9th grade I went for a dunk. Everyone wanted to see a dunk,” Gronk said. “I finally went for one and I dunked it right off in front of the rim. That’s definitely a ‘Crashlete’ moment right there.”
In addition to riffing on sports bloopers, the tight end got the chance to work with a few special guests on the show, including Dyrdek, his brothers, as well as his former teammate Stevan Ridley.
Always looking for a good time, Gronk was psyched to work on the project because it seemed like another fun, enjoyable gig to do in the off-season. He was also pumped to work with his favorite childhood network.
“Nickelodeon was definitely my favorite network growing up and SpongeBob was my favorite show,” Gronk said.
While he had no problem naming his favorite Nicktoons show, the Patriots star did have a little trouble picking his favorite character on SpongeBob SquarePants.
“SpongeBob,” he initially said. “Naw, maybe Patrick. Yeah, Patrick’s great.”
Looking ahead, Gronk hopes to return for a second season of Crashletes and thinks “the odds are pretty good.” If another season gets the green light, he really wants to book his Dunkin’ Donuts pal and Red Sox slugger David Ortiz as a guest star.
“That would be super cool to have Big Papi on,” Gronk said. “He would do a great job.”
‘Crashletes’ debuts on Nickelodeon, Tuesday, July 5, at 7 p.m.
