Wrestling In Other Venues

As big of a part of pop culture as professional wrestling is, it's always fun to see the business outside of the squared circle. While wrestlers can hold their own with icons and celebrities from across the spectrum, it's interesting to see how they interact. Sometimes it's the wrestlers themselves "visiting" in other forms of entertainment. At other times celebrities from outside of the ring will try their hand. Still, in other examples, various genres attempt to incorporate wrestling into their own brand, often with mixed results.

Wrestlers crossing over into non-wrestling television shows has been a staple since the '50s! It was then that Lou Albano "wrestled" the legendary Jackie Gleason in a sketch on the comedian's popular program. Three decades later, as Gleason and "The Honeymooners" were seeing a resurgence, The Captain appeared in an issue of a comic based around the beloved sitcom. In the story Albano is a relative of Ralph Kramden's neighbor Mrs. Manicotti. This, of course, leads the blustery bus driver into the wrestling ring.

Many wrestlers appeared on shows of all types, comedy, action, and drama alike. Hulk Hogan made many guest appearances during the '80s boom period as did Jesse "The Body" Ventura, Rowdy Roddy Piper, King Kong Bundy, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan to name a few. Andre the Giant appeared famously as Bigfoot on an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man. His appearance even spawned a magazine cover and an action figure! Later on, Andre would provide a giant challenge for The Greatest American Hero before landing his most famous role as Fezzig in the film The Princess Bride.

It was not unusual for shows to have wrestling-themed episodes as well. Family Matters, Laverne & Shirley, The Munsters, Boy Meets World, and That '70s Show are ventured into the squared circle, but my favorite has to be the episode of Mama's Family entitled "Mama Mania." GLOW's own Queen Kong and Mt. Fiji guest star as "The Masked Mabels," a corpulent female tag team who end up battling Mama and her daughter-in-law Naomi. The episode captures everything fun about the wrestling boom of the period.

In the '90s, Bret "The Hitman" Hart famously guest starred on The Simpsons. While his appearance on the animated hit was brief, it was memorable. Several years ago when toy company NECA unveiled a line of action figures based on famous guest stars who showed up in Springfield, "The Hitman" was one of the highlights of the collection.

But The Simpsons aren't the only cartoon characters who have encountered wrestlers. While I don't believe that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ever tangled with wrestling in their cartoon or comic book, the action figures are a different story. There have been figures of the Turtles dressed as WWE favorites over the past few years, but the first TMNT-wrestling hybrid figure debuted in the original line by Playmates Toys. "Shell Slammin' Mike" takes the orange-masked Michaelangelo and transforms him into a caped competitor complete with belt and pet snake.

Last but not least, we look at a man...err...bear who is a champion of children, and adults, everywhere. He may not be "The People's Champion" by name, but he certainly is in our hearts. Is there anyone who doesn't love this guy? Yes, he's the "Hundred Acre Wrestling Federation Champion" according to his belt, and I would imagine he rumblies...err...rumbles over the competition. Who else could it be?

Oh bother!

From The Musty Yellowed Pages--GLOW Magazine April 1988

And now, for something just a tad bit different.  Whether you liked the concept or not, Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling is a memorable portion of 1980's wrestling.  They were successful, had a large fan base, and are still well-remembered today.  It's actually amazing that Vince McMahon didn't try a similar spin-off product himself.  Some may argue that various concepts seen every Monday night nowadays are done in the same vein as GLOW, but that's not the direction that we're going.  Instead, we're going to dive into what was probably GLOW's biggest merchandising venture, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling Magazine.

Produced independently from any other wrestling publication of the time, GLOW Magazine is a surprisingly well done product.  Tons of color, mostly glossy pages, and high-quality photography isn't something that you might expect from this magazine, but it's all here.  This particular issue, April 1988, is from later in GLOW's television run but is apparently only the third issue of the magazine.  A cross between Mad Maxine and the Road Warriors, the mohawked and painted Beastie is this month's cover girl.  This proves that the folks behind GLOW, while obviously interested in marketing the sexier members of their roster, had no problem highlighting the more vicious of the bunch as well.  GLOW's top star, Mt. Fiji, was both intimidating and one of the biggest fan favorites of the company.  She's featured several times throughout the magazine including a full page color photo with fellow fan favorites Tara The Southern Belle and Debbie Debutante.

Similar to a lot of today's wrestling product, GLOW seemed to have as many skits as it did wrestling matches on their programming.  Many of these skits are shown here and the photos seem to be pulled right from the shows themselves.  A feature titled "Glowlines" highlighted both kayfabed and real-life adventures of the GLOW girls, including television appearances on other shows.  It's a shame that the magazine wasn't around in 1987 when Mt. Fiji and the evil Queen Kong appeared on my favorite episode of "Mama's Family" as the Masked Mabel's tag team.

While the company was initially exclusive to their own television show, the girls eventually began touring.  A two-page full color spread in the magazine announces the GLOW World Premiere Tour which was to begin in January 1988.  Towns in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Florida are listed as stops on the tour.  By this point, the company was dealing with a lot of new talent which could have made these live shows interesting to say the least.

Although gimmicks and outrageous characters were penetrating the wrestling world everywhere at this time, GLOW seemed to thrive off of them.  The magazine, of course, was a great place to show them off as was obvious with the Beastie cover feature.  Inside we meet many more of them including Colonel Ninotchka, Dementia, and my personal favorite GLOW gimmick, The Housewives.  These two dowdy, cold cream-faced ladies later transformed into "The Heavy Metal Sisters" Spike and Chainsaw, but the Housewives gimmick was much more innovative if you ask me.

As mentioned earlier, this was the era of GLOW in which the company was deciding to go on tour.  Near the end of the magazine, a GLOW Tour Program page is included with a complete rundown of the live events.  All seven matches, participants, and even the intermission are listed here.  This does not seem to be a show-specific program and I'm guessing that GLOW ran the same lineup every show.  In wrestling, the same house show night after night is not a big deal, but it's the openness of it here is sort of shocking, even twenty-five years later.

The GLOW Magazine is a fun product representing a unique notch in '80s wrestling, but it came along a bit too late.  If this is indeed just the third issue, the company's founder David McLane was already building another promotion.  With him went many of the top names including Queen Kong, California Doll, Amy The Farmer's Daughter, and my all-time favorite "GLOW Girl," Tina Ferrari.  Any fan of the WWF "Attitude Era" remembers Ferrari as Ivory, and it's surprising to think that more of these girls didn't end up in the WWF/WWE eventually.  The recently released documentary about GLOW shows exactly where many of these girls did end up.  It's a surprisingly engrossing and touching movie that I'd highly recommend to any wrestling fan. 

The GLOW Magazine issues aren't easy to find, but are worth picking up for a trip back to the neon, spandex, and so-bad-it's-good comedy from all of those crazy Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling!