Tooned In: Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling (1985) (More WWE Vault Uploads)

This week, the rest of the then-Big Three celebrated their Saturday Morning lineup’s 40th anniversaries on this past Sunday, September 14th:

NOW it is officially Rock ‘n’ Wrestling’s milestone, and with it came the Wuzzles, the Berenstain Bears’ weekly series, and it would have been the same for two other shows had they not fizzled into the realm of lost media. That would be the Little Muppet Monsters half of the Muppet Babies, which lasted three episodes and left a messload of unaired footage after. But it wasn’t as bad as what happened with Young Astronauts, which did not air at all because the Challenger tragedy had happened. This season was kind of jinxed for CBS. Over on NBC, we got two new series: the Punky Brewster cartoon and Adventures of the Gummi Bears. Yeah, pretty wild to think Disney shows were on the other networks once upon a time. Come to think of it, if the tapes are intact, Disney+ COULD just go ahead and upload the entire Muppet Monsters series. I think it wasn’t as copyright-ridden as Muppet Babies was. Then again, the Muppets seem to be the black sheep of the Disney monopoly anyway.

Happy 40th to the original Super Mario Bros. game as well. I guess Captain Lou and Mario and all makes this review appropriate??

So back to the crop of WWE Vault uploads. Seeing Junkyard Dog as a scoutmaster intrigued me, so let’s go with The Wrestler’s New Clothes and A Lesson In Scouting.

But first, Mr. Fuji promises Mean Gene a new protein shake that’ll make him as big as Muraco (Non-RNW wrestler named, drink!) and grow hair on his head. Gene sneaks the concoction into the garbage when he isn’t looking, fair enough because it’s historically a bad idea to trust Fuji’s cooking.

THE WRESTLER’S NEW CLOTHES

The gang is on a Greyhound bus because Wendi Richter has a match in her hometown. She’d better not get too overconfident, because that never goes well for WWF/WWE superstars. Oh, who am I kidding, like anyone in the company would ever conspire behind Wendi’s back to screw her out of a victory. And how much do these supposedly famous wrestlers get paid anyway? Or are they just showing they’re not afraid to be people of the people? Well we know Hillbilly Jim is a true man of the people. Anyway, Wendi is excited because this trip doubles as her class reunion, and her friend back then apparently became a popular fashion designer. Or so Hulk says, cause he’s all about glomming onto famous people. (if he was still here, I’d totally buy him claiming “Giorgio Armani was a Hulkamaniac who designed my sleeveless tux, brother!”)

Jim’s pet porcupine comically sticks Andre in the butt a number of times, and during this hedgehog-caused ruckus, Andre’s baggage falls, leaving nothing but his heart-printed boxers and reminding me of Tulip the Giant in the anime version of Jack and the Beanstalk. Yet another item I should consider reviewing, and I haven’t done an animated movie, have I? Mistaking them for the town’s flag, Jim salutes Andre’s shorts, and if the stories are to be believed, thinking about a lot of different things does make Andre wanna fart. But the matter at hand for now is getting Andre proper clothes for the reunion. Giant-type comedy ensues, since regular clothes don’t fit him. So the gang goes to a sporting goods shop and fashion a camping tent into his shirt. Hogan tells “Big Daddy” he has the pants covered…is Hulk watching World of Sport and getting confused? Or is he a Golden Girls fan? (Happy 40th to The Golden Girls too, by the way) Anyway, he makes two sleeping bags into the next article of giant wear. Surprisingly, they don’t get a pair of canoes for Andre’s shoes. No, they go back to legit clothing stores for that, and it doesn’t work out of course. But Saved By The Bell told me Andre had a shoehorn named for him! So the wrestlers are back to thinking outside the box, and that’s what they do at a tire shop Hillbilly Jim insists upon. No wonder Andre no-showed that tag match with him, after putting him through all this tomfoolery. Oh, and on the cartoon, Jim wears sandals, probably because Hogan somehow took back his lucky boots.

So Andre’s ensemble is finished, and he looks predictably ridiculous. Wendi tells him everything’s fine, but then her and Hulk talk behind his back about how he’s going to embarrass everyone. BOBBY HEENAN WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG. But joke’s on them, since Wendi’s friend Lyla is impressed at the avant garde fashion and wants Andre as her next cover boy. Since it can never be about anyone else, Hogan declares that Andre “shouldn’t be the only one who looks cool” as the other wrestlers tear off their formal wear and return to their usual outfits.

Second live action segment….Big John Studd is being groomed…for a driver’s license photo.

But wait there’s more! A third live action segment has Mean Gene, Hillbilly Jim, and Captain Lou camping. Gene remarks how the outdoors are “quiet and serene” …THAT IS, UNTIL BERT RACCOON WAKES UP! Really, this is the third time I heard some variant of that part of the Raccoons introduction; Thanos on the Silver Surfer cartoon too called something “quiet…peaceful…serene…” As did an episode of the Adam West Batman series! Is “QPS” some stock description that’s been around for decades? Anyway, the gag is, Lou says how expensive this cookout was, and it’s because he brought his refrigerator all the way into the woods.

A LESSON IN SCOUTING

At the junkyard, we see an injured scoutmaster…fortunately it wasn’t from getting shot by an arrow. By the way, did I mention that Pete from Ghosts is a wrestling fan? He did refer to Randy Savage at least once…while his cheating wife Carol compared Thorfinn to Hulk Hogan. No wonder their marriage didn’t work out. And of course being a Hulkamaniac leads to one becoming an unfaithful wife!

So the master entrusts his troop, the co-ed Grizzly Scouts, with JYD, Tito, and Wendi. Tito was/is a school teacher, so it checks out. As JYD calls the role, the dreaded DiC Dub Over Music plays, so I wonder if this was one of those times the original cartoon tried to use “Another One Bites The Dust” as background music. The Asian kid of the group is named Taka. Hope he doesn’t do anything evil indeed to the other scouts. They call for a “Donna,” who isn’t there. Until she arrives with her aunt, the Fabulous Moolah. Donna looks like Fantastic Max with a mohawk and all. And hey, it’s big of Moolah to share the spotlight with at least this mohawked character on the cartoon! Her delinquency amounts to her listening to punk music and making cartoon boink noises as she dances. JYD: “I can’t stand the punk!” That’s what Tony Khan said. Then, as JYD pitches a tent in front of the kids, Donna divebombs it with an overhead beehive. Donna: “And another one bites the dust!” Get it? That was his entrance theme! Well it beats cartoon characters telling each other to grab them cakes.

The troop tries some fishing, and Tito baits the lines with tacos, but Donna intercepts all the hooks and latches them onto Santana instead sending him into a tumble. I think all the fish poop from consuming Taco Bell products would be a bigger prank than anything Donna could do. Later that night, at the campfire, Wendi promises a scary story. It’s about spiders, isn’t it? Especially lady spiders. No actually, it’s about UFO’s: cue Mean Gene randomly being abducted. It does give Donna ideas, though, as she makes her own UFO, which hides a frog that scares Wendi. This finally pushes Richter to drag Donna into a cave to give the “making friends” lecture. Unfortunately, they’re interrupted by a bear, and JYD is here to save the day. Wrestling Bears…how carny can you get? Donna winds up doing her inevitable face turn and saves the day for the wrestlers. This earns her a full head of hair and a new positive attitude that includes singing the camp song with the other kids. Only we never see her again, of course. Because when Aunt Moolah caught wind of her changes, she probably forced her to wrestle and give away 30 percent of her earnings.

Usual RNW. Do we know yet why there’s no end credits at all for any of these?