Hollywood Tried to Make Hulk Hogan A Comedy Star in the ‘90s
Hulk Hogan, who passed away today at the age of 71, was never funny exactly. But as a talk-show guest in the ‘80s and '90s, the wrestling superstar was entertaining as heck.
His massive size made mere mortals like Johnny Carson appear comically small, for starters. And Hogan was a master showman, flexing his pecs, threatening his rivals and croaking out slogans like, “Whatcha gonna do when Hulkamania runs wild on you?!” Like Mr. T, his co-star in Rocky III, Hogan had a distinctive visual look that was custom-made for the MTV era.
When he co-hosted SNL with Mr. T, Hogan’s “LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, BROTHER!” delivery earned him laughs based on pure enthusiasm. So it’s not hard to understand why Hollywood producers looked at him — especially after Arnold Schwarzenegger scored with Twins and Kindergarten Cop — and thought, “This might be the next comedy superstar.”
Then again, he might not. After goofy cameos in movies like Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Hogan got a shot to lead his own big-screen comedy in Suburban Commando. Opposite actual comic actors Christopher Lloyd and Shelley Duvall, Hogan starred as an outer-space vigilante who finds himself hiding out in suburbia after crashing his spaceship. It’s not much of a premise, but it does give him an excuse to do a lot of “Hulk smash.”
Roger Ebert checked it out. “Somebody was asking the other day, do I ever get tired of going to the movies? Naw, I said, I love movies and so some days it’s not really a job, it’s more of a lucky break,” he wrote. “But I wasn’t feeling lucky the day I saw Suburban Commando, and you know what? By golly, by the time it was over, I was feeling kind of tired of going to the movies.”
But maybe Hogan just wasn’t lucky either. New Line Cinema wanted to try again, so Hogan was given another shot at comedy stardom as a tutu-wearing babysitter.
The trailers for Mr. Nanny and Suburban Commando are surprisingly similar. Both are fish-out-of-water stories featuring a monstrous man who gets quasi-adopted by an average, everyday suburban family. The reviews were similar as well, though somehow Mr. Nanny fared even worse than its predecessor.
“No one goes to see a Hulk Hogan movie for cutting-edge moviemaking,” wrote Variety, “and Mr. Nanny will be no exception.”
“When the lasting image of Mr. Nanny is Hulk Hogan in a tutu,” said Movie Eye’s review, “it’s not a pleasant thought.”
It was Hogan’s last leading comedy role, unless you count what he did in the wrestling ring. His comic aspirations were for something bigger. “I’d like to be the John Wayne of the '90s,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Not in terms of being the macho guy, but as a solid male leading character. Making an action-adventure comedy that kids can see with their families is a natural extension of what I did in wrestling.”
