Hogan Knows Nothing
Now it's Hulk Hogan's turn to have his own reality show. I
watched a few episodes and it's okay for what it is, that is,
nothing else is on so I might as well watch this. It's in the
same sort of genre as Newlyweds, with Jessica Simpson and Nic
LaShay, or the Osbournes, with the Osbourne family. In other
words, this show is a sitcom but with real people. The Hulk's
show actually might have made a good TV show if it had been
written by comedy writers and had great actors who knew how to
say their lines. The premise is great: A retired wrestler copes
with life and family after the spotlight has left him. The
problem is that the show doesn't have comedy writers or great
actors.
Hulk Hogan actually does not exist. Never has. The name and the
persona were created by the man who grew up as Terry Bollea, who
then used name and persona in his career in sports
entertainment, that is, professional wrestling. Terry - Hulk -
whatever - has a blonde ditzy wife who looks like she's in her
forties, maybe pushing fifty, a sixteen year old daughter who's
even ditzier than the mother, and a son who's fourteen and a bit
of a smart-ass. They live in Beverly Hills in a cluttered
mansion with several dogs and one rooster.
'Hogan' , now in his late fifties, looks as massively muscular
as ever. But he also looks massively tired and in need of a good
nap. He's still on the steroids, I can guarantee that, because
no human being naturally looks like this, not to mention any
human being who is a card carrying AARP member. On the show he
goes for this tough guy act, the over-protective father,
glowering at his young daughter's suitors. He does that
glowering thing well, by the way, which I can attest to first
hand because I ran across him at a Minneapolis Gym a number of
years ago and every time I felt tempted to walk up and tell him
what a big fan I was, I'd see that glower and I'd go back to
lifting my tiny, miniscule weights.
In real life, I don't think he was ever such a tough guy. Please
don't quote me on that, and especially please don't quote me to
him, because I'm not calling him a pussy, I'm saying he's
probably just a normal guy who doesn't look so much for
conflict. Think about this: He says in High School that he was a
fat kid, and when I saw him in person I thought he was a tad bit
chubby. Didn't tell him that, but he wasn't so ripped. Anyways,
as a fat kid he probably didn't get into so many fights. Then
when he took up the weights and the roids, no other guy, no
matter how drunk would want to fight him. So he probably hasn't
been in many real, non-staged fights, if you think about it.
Hogan Knows Best is mildly entertaining. The story lines seemed
to stretch a bit for their half-hour since it looks very much as
if Hogan and his wife are good parents and they also have done a
wonderful job of raising their kids. A functional family tends
to be not very interesting. It is nice to spend a half hour with
a nice family and that might be the biggest surprise of this
show