Suburban Commando

Suburban Commando (1991, New Line Cinema)

In 1991, the winds of cultural change were upon us. The age of ’80s excess was over and the country was headed for a recession. Despite all of this, the Hulk Hogan vehicle Suburban Commando made its way into theaters that June and then received a wide release in October. It is a family comedy/sci fi action movie with a decidedly goofy “eighties” feel featuring a good guy intergalactic warrior stranded on Earth who ends up renting a room from a family and the typical fish-out-of-water comedy and chaos ensues. Of course, there is a heartfelt message underneath all the humor as the muscle-bound Shep Ramsay character and the Wilcox family all come out better people who having known each other.

Yes, I guess you could say this is a “kids” movie. I certainly remember dragging my mom to the theater to see it when it came out. Maybe it’s just nostalgia but I still find some parts of this movie funny. Maybe not laugh out loud funny, it’s all very hokey and Hulk was never a great actor but the movie still has some charm to it and sometimes clever writing.

According to Wikipedia, the movie was originally title Urban Commando and the roles of Shep Ramsay was offered to Arnold Schwarzenegger while family man Charlie Wilcox was offered to Danny DeVito. Both passed and ended up making Twins together instead. The script was later bought by New Line and Hogan was plugged into the role. I’m not sure how much of the script was changed since Hogan came on board but watching the movie now, it is obvious this fun romp could have been improved greatly if a better actor was in place as Shep. Christopher Lloyd’s performance on the other hand is just fine.

As a kid though, I didn’t think about casting choices. I was just excited to see Hogan on the big screen. Then (and now) I think he looks pretty cool in his body armor. Man, I wish this movie would’ve been a hit so I could’ve had a Shep Ramsay action figure or even a Suburban Commando 2. I remember desperately hoping a sequel would come about only that time I would have wanted it to take place in space and be more of an sci fi action/adventure film. I really enjoyed the opening minutes of the film when it actually did take place space (where now it’s pretty hilarious to see Shep leave the planet’s president for dead). I wanted to see what Shep could really do out there across the galaxies! My thoughts on Christopher Lloyd at the time were that I thought it was extremely weird seeing him in a role other than Doc Brown.

I rented this movie a lot when I was younger but never owned it until about 2002 when I special ordered a VHS copy from the video I worked at… It’s still sealed! It was released on DVD later that year much to my dismay (I wasted five bucks!) but I haven’t upgraded yet. I’m sure I could head over to Walmart right now and a find a copy in their $5 DVD bin. It’s also available on one of those 2 movies in 1 DVDs along with Mr. Nanny (which is another fish-out-of-water family comedy starring Hogan) but Mr. Nanny was awful.

Now if only New Line could release No Holds Barred… I still can’t figure out why they haven’t.

WWE Raw House Show Report – 2/19/10

After skipping out on us for 2009, World Wrestling Entertainment finally came back to Michigan State University’s Breslin Center in East Lansing, Michigan this past Friday night as a part of their “Road to Wrestlemania” tour…

Pretty entertaining show. The last time they were here was Mother’s Day 2008 (also a Raw-branded show) and there weren’t many stars and a few advertised wrestlers & matches never happened (with no explanation). That main event ended up being DX vs. Umaga & JBL. The turnout then was probably about 4,000 and that’s being generous.

Friday night was a different story. Everyone you’d expect was there really, with the exception of Orton & Big Show (who weren’t advertised anyway). The top section was closed off, but I overheard the rest was a sellout, so attendance was probably in the 8,000-9,000 range.  Crowd was hot the entire night. Mostly made up of kids and families in Cena & DX gear (no surprise), so they kept the energy flowing all night. It was pretty fun listening to them.

Xanta Klaus is comin’ to town!

In 1995, World Wrestling Federation overlord Vince McMahon decided he needed a new gimmick-tastic villain, but not just any villain would do, no sir! He didn’t need another evil plumber, evil clown, evil dentist or evil school teacher. Taking inspiration from the upcoming holiday season (and the Mario/Wario dynamic), Vince decided what his company needed was an EVIL SANTA CLAUS! I give you…

XANTA KLAUS !!!

That’s right! There can be nothing so vile, so repulsive or so despicable as an evil Santa Claus. But this wasn’t Santa gone bad, this was Santa’s EVIL BROTHER and he lived at the SOUTH POLE and instead GIVING presents to children on December 25h, he TOOK them from them.

Quite odd that their parents would name one Santa and the other Xanta, don’t you think? Wouldn’t that have been confusing? And what’s with “Klaus” and “Claus”? Maybe Xanta has a little more respect for his family roots than his North Pole-based brother does.

What’s really funny is that the WWF seemingly tried to give this gimmick a bit of credibility by pairing him up with then-manager  “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase and placing him in the Million Dollar Corporation. Granted, the MDC had Nikolai Volkoff in it — but c’mon, as poor of a wrestler Volkoff was, he wasn’t 100% pitiful gimmick.

Obviously, Xanta had an incredibly short shelf-life, lasting only a matter of weeks and just handful of appearances before never being mentioned again. Was there any other way? Did Vince imagine this character wrestling at Summerslam or something? And if he didn’t , why even bother to take the time to create this character and hire future ECW legend Balls Mahoney to play him (who left as soon as this character was done)?

1995 was a pretty bad year for wrestling, in my opinion. In fact, from 1993 to Summer 1996 was just terrible, but I remember thinking when I first saw this guy that the WWF had stooped to a new low and that whatever genius label Vince McMahon once had no longer applied.

WCW Halloween Havoc: 1989-1994

For you wrestling fans out there, maybe the VHS box art will refresh your memory even more of one of the coolest wrestling pay-per-views from back when I was a young street tough…. HALLOWEEN HAVOC!

1989

To be honest, I’m not too familiar with the inaugural edition of the show. I wasn’t really into wrestling until 1990 and before that I pretty much only knew about the WWF’s cast of cartoon wrestlers. I didn’t see this until a couple of years later.

Match Highlights:

Lex Luger vs. Brian Pillman – Fantastic match with Luger defending the United States title against Pillman. This was one of those matches that really made you think Luger had “it”. He didn’t, of course, it was his opponents that usually did.

Ric Flair & Sting vs. The Great Muta & Terry Funk – Ah, the Thunderdome Match. A fun, goofy gimmick match to cap off Halloween Havoc.

1990

I have a lot of fond memories of this pay-per-view because I was so into the hype for it at the time. How could our superhero world champion Sting possibly overcome the odds against the unstoppable monster Sid Vicious?

Match Highlights:

The Steiner Brothers vs. The Nasty Boys – United States tag team title match. Yes, the Steiners were so good they got a great non-brawling match out of the sloppy Nasty Boys. I think the Hart Foundation is the only other team to do so. Pretty much the swan song for the Nasties in WCW, they shortly popped up in WWF.

Doom vs. Ric Flair & Arn Anderson – World tag titles. I can’t remember the details, but I was really into this Doom/Four Horsemen feud. I thought it was really cool to see heel vs. heel, or as I would have called it then — “rulebreaker vs. rulebreaker”.

Lex Luger vs. Stan Hansen – I HATED Stan Hansen, he was such a disgusting looking and acting man, surely the company’s #2 superhero “good guy” come overcome him? Nope. Shockingly, Hansen won the U.S. title from Luger, and shockingly, he did it convincingly. I was DISTRAUGHT over this one.

Sting vs. Sid Vicious – World title. Sting *almost* lost. The Four Horsemen concocted a plan to switch Horsemen member Barry Windham with Sting during the middle of the match and have him let Vicious pin him. The real Sting was able to make his way to the ring though and ended up beating Vicious. Kinda silly looking back, but at the time, I ate it up.

WCW Halloween Havoc

Being a wrestling fan, I cannot put off discussing the obvious this month — World Championship Wrestling’s Halloween Havoc pay-per-view! Halloween Havoc is dead and gone and so is WCW (bought from AOL Time Warner by World Wrestling Entertainment in 2001), but back when I was a young misfit, this was one of my favorite PPVs each year and it was certainly one of WCW’s signature events.

Halloween Havoc was WCW’s annual October (duh!) PPV and it always featured some cool props. For instance, the first year or two, the ring canvas was orange, which was just so cool when any other time of the year all you ever got to see was a blue or gray canvas. WCW also did a pretty good job of making the entrance look really fun and spooky with tombstones, skeletons and what have you throughout the years. People knock WCW for their low-budget and technical mishaps, but they usually hit the nail on the head for the look of the show up until the late ’90s.

This year is the twentieth anniversary of the very first Halloween Havoc, but the first show I remember is the 1990 edition where Sting defended the world title against Sid Vicious (not the punk rocker!). I didn’t see the show (I wouldn’t get PPVs until later in the year when I discovered an old black & white UHF TV we had could pick them up for free), but I remember being on pins & needles wondering if Sting walked out that Sunday evening with the belt still in his possession.

In those days, if I didn’t catch the show, there was no way of knowing the details until the next batch of wrestling shows come around, which in the case of WCW, wouldn’t be until the following Saturday! Then, if I wanted an even more in-depth analysis, I’d have to wait about a month or two until the wrestling magazines covered it with a more unbiased eye (would I would usually beg my mom to buy me on our weekly trip to the grocery store). Then, it’d be maybe 3-4 months before the show would be released on VHS so I could FINALLY see it for myself.

At first, WCW tried to do gimmick matches that would fit the Halloween/horror theme of the show like 1990′s Thunderdome match, 1991′s “Chamber of Horrors” match and 1992/1993′s “Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal” match but once the mid-90s hit, the Halloween theme because less and less important. It had really been reduced to being just another WCW pay-per-view by then, but the show gave me a lot of great memories as a kid and even creeped me out with this promo for the 1990 show:

I intend to get a bit more in-depth with the shows later in the month, but until then, you can get your pro wrestling & Halloween fix by reading these:

Monsters of Wrestling
Monsters of Wrestling II
Monsters of Wrestling III