random thoughts: Suburban Commando
I was thinking earlier about Suburban Commando. You know that one. It was Hulk Hogan’s second starring movie role where he plays a bounty hunter from outer space and crashes on to earth and does a buncha goofy stuff. A movie that you could probably only get away with in 1991. Great cast too! Christopher Lloyd, Shelly Duvall, The Undertaker, even Michael Faustino (yeah, Bud Bundy’s brother!). Anytime after 1991, this would’ve been an even bigger disaster. And I say “bigger” because it was not good then or now in retrospect. Sure, as a little kid who was a casual Hulkamaniac, I was excited. It looked fun, I loved sci-fi movies even then, I was 8 and WWF was my life. But…much like Super Mario Brothers, I walked out of the theater very disappointed. But then again…hey I was 8. I also thought I’d have a chance with scoring a date with Kelly Kapowski.
That does come to the point of this entry. It’s weird to me sometimes that Suburban Commando doesn’t carry the same nostalgic weight that No Holds Barred does. I feel like that would be the wacky favorite but then again it’s just an awful movie and we didn’t see get a storyline like we did with Zeus for 6 months. Would it have been crazy and unrealistic to see Hogan as Shep in the middle of the ring in his gear? Yeah but it would’ve been pretty memorable as well. I’m not saying I wish he would’ve but still…
Then again there’s a lot of factors. It seems WWE has a lot more control over the movie No Holds Barred, the characters of Rip and Zeus, so they’re allowed to make merchandise when they want to. I do believe Warner owns Suburban Commando and as much as Warner loves to merchandise there catalog I don’t see that ever being a movie high on their licensing and merchandising priority list.
On the flip side of the coin, I can’t imagine a Shep Ramsey Hasbro figure, even if it were a mailaway exclusive in 1991, wouldn’t have been an awesome looking figure even now. And I have seen some amazing customs through the years but just imagine how cool that mailaway could’ve been!
Hogan had also been losing steam in wrestling and the mainstream was all abuzz over the steroid allegations that had surfaced in recents months, so it’s not like this movie was destined to become a favorite by any means. On top of that, Hogan is kinda acting like a cheesy parody of Arnold. Whereas in No Holds Barred, he seemed more in line with who he’d be outside the ring (or at least the character he wanted to portray on tv) .
Look I’m sure there’s a LOT more factors and I’m convinced Suburban Commando is meant to just go by the wayside. Maybe it’s not fair to compare the two movies but it was just something I was thinking about. We as a pop culture devouring society love embracing those “so good it’s bad” movies but this is one that’s just so bad it should be forgotten.
Just a random thought for the day.
-Chad
