Boo.
CONTEST WINNER!
RETRORATING: 14
OFFICIAL
- HOME
- YOUTUBE
- ARTICLES
- VIDEOS
- THEATER
- CLASSIFIEDS
- VHS COVERS
- CEREAL BOXES
- GAME BOX ART
- READ ALONGS
- PODCASTS
- FORUM
- FAQ
- POINTS STORE
Don't mess
with the bull.
JOIN!!!
5 Pro Wrestlers In Prime Time
Professional wrestlers are some of the most entertaining
people on the planet. Big personalities often accompany their big muscles,
which creates a spectacle in and outside the ring. So it’s only natural that
some of our favorite grapplers would choose to cross over into mainstream
entertainment. While The Rock is probably the most successful example of a
wrestler crossing over into Hollywood, looking back to the 80s and early 90s
there were quite a few attempts at giving wrestlers acting jobs on TV, with mixed
results. So let’s take a look at 5 Pro Wrestlers In Prime Time.
Roddy Piper, Robocop: The Series
Do you recall the small screen adventures of everybody’s
favorite cyborg police officer, Robocop: The Series? I do, because the action
figures for the unfortunately named villain, Pudface and generic Sgt. Parks
cluttered the aisles of Toys R us for years in the 90s when I was a major
collector. It did work as a form of low-level marketing though, causing me to watch
a handful of episodes during the shows short single season run. One of which to
my surprise featured the "Hot Rod" himself, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (R.I.P.).
Roddy played the pied piper (how appropriate) to
the children of Detroit, convincing them to rob and riot through subliminal
advertising while munching on their Commander Cash breakfast cereal. It was fun
to see Roddy playing a delusional character obsessed with “Cartoon Justice”,
rather than his usual loudmouth tough guy. I’m not saying the episode was
particularly good, but to a young wrestling fan, it was a a cool crossover. Speaking of which, Robocop himself eventually made a guest appearance on WCW (World Championsip Wrestling) to awkwardly rescue Sting from a literal steel cage.
Jessie Ventura, Small Wonder
As wrestlers go, Jesse Ventura was always better on the mic
than in the ring, so it made sense for him to get speaking roles in movies like
Predator and The Running Man, but I’ll always remember his guest starring role
on the goofy syndicated sitcom Small Wonder. You remember this show, right? Basically
it’s the tale of a suburban Dad that creates a monotone voiced android daughter
who lives with the family and uses her robot powers to cause wacky hijinks.
Well in this episode we learn that Ted and Joan Lawson (the
parents) went to college with Jesse “The Body” Ventura, only back then he was a
nerdy loser named Wally who was picked on by Ted. Jesse is in town for a match
and comes over for dinner to give Ted a taste of his own medicine. Jesse actually
plays the part very sweet and you can imagine him having been a dorky kid who
took the Charles Atlas comic book ads for weight lifting courses seriously.
King Kong Bundy, Married with Children
Sharing his name with not one, but 2 iconic characters in
the world of entertainment, King Kong Bundy was a huge, balding monster who
once terrorized Hulk Hogan in a steel cage at Wrestlemania II. I owned his LJN
WWF Superstars toy back in the day, which required a ridiculous amount of molded
rubber to portray his girth in 3 dimensions. His toy was even bigger than Andre the
Giant!
Though he never got to star alongside his banana loving namesake, he did appear on TV screens with characters sharing his surname. That’s right, King Kong Bundy found his way onto two episodes of the FOX sitcom, Married…With Children which starred the Bundy family. First he appeared as Uncle Irwin, one of Peggy’s kin from Wanker County in a 1988 episode called “All In The Family”. Then showed up again in 1995 playing himself and wrestling Bud in a Bumblebee outfit. He really did have a unique look, so I can see why they would bring him back.
Hulk Hogan, The A-Team
Hulk Hogan is THE icon of wrestling and honestly has more
credits than any other wrestler of his era because of it. Who can forget his
cameos in Rocky 3 or Gremlins 2? He even had something resembling a film career
as a leading man in movies like Suburban Commando and Mr. Nanny (the less said
about this film, the better). But he also had his fair share of prime time
appearances back in the day, eventually getting his own weekly adventure show, Thunder In Paradise, which could have been the source of this list for all the wrestlers who appeared on that turkey.
Airing a few months after Mr. T’s guest appearance as Hogan’s
tag team partner at the inaugural Wrestlemania in 1985, I remember catching
this wrestling based episode of The A-Team and thinking it was so cool that
Hulk was stepping into Mr. T’s world now. They even brought Hogan back for a
return appearance on another episode in 1986 when Wrestlemania II was fresh in
everyone’s minds and Mr. T. made his second appearance in a terrible boxing
match against a previous entrant on this list, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Some pretty good
cross promotion there between Universal Studios and the WWF.
Vader, Boy Meets World
Now here’s a show that really has a strong following. It
even got a sequel series for a new generation recently. Boy Meets World definitely
had my attention the first few seasons and the recurring role of the pro
wrestler known as Vader had a lot to do with it. Vader aka Big Van Vader was
well known in the wrestling world (especially in Japan), but never had that
mega-star status of say, Earthquake in America. Still he was a dangerous dude
and a curious casting choice for the ABC family sitcom starring Ben Savage.
It was just so hilarious that Vader was playing himself, but
as the father of the gentle and poetic behemoth known as Frankie, played by
Ethan Suplee. You would have thought it would just be a funny one and done
appearance, but they kept bringing him back to further develop the members of
the Stechino Household, eventually introducing Frankie’s Younger brother Herman.
I lost interest when the gang went off to college, but Vader was always a
welcome face during what I consider to be the golden years of Boy Meets World.
Did you have a favorite wrestler who showed up on the tube?
Wait, let me guess? It was Bret Hart’s guest starring role on Dr. Quinn,
Medicine Woman, right?
Hoju Koolander Posted on Mar 07, 2016 at 04:58 AM
All great mentions of additional wrestler appearances on TV. I think there were also quite a few cameos on an 80s wrestling based sitcom called "Learning the Ropes" starring former pro football player, Lyle Alzedo, forgot to mention. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yeqBYt5aEA
mickyarber Posted on Mar 06, 2016 at 06:30 PM
One of my favorites was the Pilot for the Roddy Piper / Jesse Ventura show called Tag Team. It featured Piper and Ventura as wrestlers who stopped a crime, and then decided to go into the detective business.
The pilot wasn't bad actually, but it was just never picked up.
massreality Posted on Mar 06, 2016 at 02:14 AM
I loved the WCW episode of Baywatch. Vader, Hogan, Savage, and Flair were all in the episode (and a few others.) I'm also partial to Bret and Owen Hart's appearance in Honey I Shrunk the Kids.
Vaporman87 Posted on Mar 05, 2016 at 12:29 AM
Casting King Kong Bundy in Married With Children was a stroke of genius on the part of Fox. But the role given to Piper just seems odd. More like something that would have appeared in the live action Tick series.
Also... Pudface. Just... Pudface. LOL
It's time to shine a light on some long-forgotten cereals. Cereals forgotten by many... but not by us. Big Mixx (1990-1992) A...
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series had kept its signature art style as well as its lighthearted humor for a whopping seven seasons, but a...
Of all the Nicktoons that aired on the Nickelodeon channel in the late 1990s there wasn't quite a gem in the lineup as Hey Arnold. A series that gave ...
When Super Mario 64 launched with the Nintendo 64, it paved the way for 3D platformers in the mid to late 1990s. Bringing together elements of prior M...
Originally, I was going to make a list of the top 500 reasons we went out of business after 5 fruitful years renting VHS tapes and Nintendo games in W...