Speaker 1: It's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and carn
S e O and JP sorrows He's a lapsed fan.
In all my years and wrestling, I've never seen anything like.
Speaker 2: Rop kicking.
Speaker 3: It's the laps Fan Man number one in the ring
begin about.
Speaker 4: Osada, a real king of swing when the bell.
Speaker 3: Goes hang and a kick like me throming in the
corner with its rash like stick. Even Jerry King can
say off the crown nodded in his head like Steve
low Brown?
Speaker 4: Would you get low down for me?
Speaker 3: Go even high up?
Speaker 4: Trip you on your head? But you no cool drivel?
Speaker 3: You speaking monology and dragon slits fire if you more
shot than the edge retires dropping more truth than the
conn of sniper unless you would a coconut Roddy Piper out,
Jack and JP. You a j wat d drop a
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from start the close file of Your Benefit fah fickt Polls.
Speaker 2: Welcome back.
Speaker 5: This is part two of our conversation with Brian Penry,
who was the WWF's creative director from nineteen eighty four
to nineteen eighty seven and created so many iconic visuals
that we associate with the absolute boom period of the
WWF and in the mid eighties from the WWF logo
that we all know and a door to the WrestleMania
logo Saturday Night's Main Event logo, as you recall last
time we were with you. That's what put our scent
on the trail of Brian because he's listed in the
credits on the very first Saturday Night's Main Event as
the logo designer. So we simply had to find out
if he was available, and my god, did we luck
out because Brian has fought Boss a font of wisdom
and memories of.
Speaker 6: My god, it's it's absolutely incredible. Some some stories I
was not expecting at all. I mean not that I
was affecting any stories, to be honest, but I mean
just I knew we would go in certain on certain trails,
so to speak. But man, already, I'm amazed at kind
of the the places we've already gone to, and I
can't sound for more such a wild place to work.
If you do want to remind our listeners that Brian
is going to be available, if you want to go
meet him, you can check him out at gamer Con Connecticut.
It's coming up with the Mohegan Sun Casino on Saturday
and Sunday, March fifteenth and sixteenth. Brian will be in
his own booth in the Artists Ali and he'll have
signed to numbered prints of the WrestleMania logo available. So
you really want to stop by and say hi to Brian,
let him know you heard him on the podcast, and
check out his stuff. Just go online to ctgamercan dot com,
Ctgamercon dot com for more information on the venue and
the event, and Brian really looks forward to seeing everybody there. Brian,
we're just getting started. It feels like after a wonderful
array of stories and personalities, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 4: Thanks yet, glad to be well.
Speaker 5: We talked about the creative director role, and I guess
I want to get a little bit more into what
exactly the creative director does. How Titan defined the role,
because honestly, we expected to just talk about low go
in graphic design, but you're giving us hands that you
were involved in designing costumes for some of the wrestlers,
involved in designing WWF's print publications. Now the magazine laid out,
So give us an idea of what all a creative
director does and what Vince tasked you with in these
formative days.
Speaker 4: Well, the term creative director originally comes from the advertising industry,
but you find it in other industries as well. And
ad agencies originally were my background. But you know, in
a typical ad agency you have designers and copywriters who
work under copy directors and art directors, all of whom
work under the guidance and oversight of what's called a
creative director or CD. And I, you know, I experienced
that background. I was far from a CD. I was
a working proll. I was the guy doing paste uff.
I wasn't even a designer when I started out, But
you know, and paste up the term is run over
now by everything being done on computer. So, but my
role at the w w F was really all encompassing.
There was that print design aspect of creative direction. And
you know, there were actually billboards done at times for
the w w F. It was interesting. They weren't they
weren't public billboards that you would see out on the highway,
but they were. They were billboards inside of the ad agencies.
It was really quite interesting. We just did all manner
of kinds of things. But as you pointed out, yeah,
I worked on the WF w w F magazine and
on occasion I illustrated covers. You may recall it as
a cover with sergeants Slaughter and a Christmas sleigh issue.
That was one of my illustrations.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, did you do the rowdy Piper Christmas cover too?
Oh yeah, yeah, and Hogan on the sleigh with all
the baby faces behind him and the Christmas catalog. All
those are wonderful drawings.
Speaker 4: That kind of thank you, that kind of caricature fun
look was was my signature. And yeah, poor Roddy so
longer with us. But uh, I run into Slaughter now
and then at comic cons and so forth, and but yeah,
I would. I would make recommendations on costumes. Uh, you're
just in a in a in a very general stylistic way.
And then you know, sometimes I would go out and
find the actual seamstress or in the instance of the
of the guys at the Equestrian shop to create the
details of a costume and so forth, and I art
directed photo shoots. That that was a big deal. I mean,
the real prose would would would know how to pose
on their own and have their own very distinctive style
of of how they were posing, uh just for solo
shots or in relation to other wrestlers, for promotional shots
for you know, leading up to events and so forth.
But it was it was really fun when when Cindy
Wauper was managing Wendy Richter, things like that, I would
our direct photoshoots with Cindy the guests for various WrestleManias,
including Muhammad Ali. You know, just it was fascinating that
that was a really really fun period working on that.
All aspects like that. But just the fact that I
do illustration and I write copy. I didn't write. I
wrote some of the copy for the original program, the
first WrestleMania one program, but that wasn't something that I
did generally that the public would see. But I would
write copy for what what you would call trade brochures
that went out to other networks to potent sponsors. We
did tremendous amounts of advertising in the trade so to speak,
to attract advertisers, television advertisers to sponsor the shows. That
kind of thing, that sort of copywriting of was in
charge of.
Speaker 5: In addition to the graphic, that's a lot of responsibility. Yeah,
that's wide ranging. We'll get we'll get more into some
of your memories of some memorable w W photo shoots
because there's a lot of stuff that came out of
the magazine and just in pop culture in general. Is
WWF just raised its profile so much that you had
a hand in. So look forward to talking about some
of those photo shoots. But you've mentioned the WrestleMania logo
and we can't leave that unaddressed in more detail. I mean,
that's another one that endures to this day and JP
that WrestleMania logo is where it's at.
Speaker 6: Well again, the shiny metallic look, that chrome look that
you were describing regarding the original WWF logo, it's I mean,
these are these are logos that for me as a
fan from you know, starting in the early nineties, I
was late to that golden era, and these are logos
that I still cherish, like, this is what I kind
of want wrestling and to be all the time. This
is what I want the logos to look like. It's
absolutely spectacular, and you've created designs that are kind of
symbolic for a lot of people's childhood.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, yeah, tell us about that Wrestlming a logo.
Speaker 4: Brian, you guys are making me blush a little.
Speaker 2: It seriously is like, you know, that's that's always it.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll tell you. I mean, designing anything is a
is a process. And typically, if I were going to
design a logo for a company and that that is
pretty much the kind of thing I do all the time.
I'm gonna want to sit down and understand the company
and what they're all about and every little nuance of
what they're about and try to make something that just
at a glance, projects an image that's accurate to what
they're all about. Now, I was already in the game.
I'm behind the scenes. I knew what the product was.
I understood the wrestling and the wrestling mentality, and you know,
let me just talk about that for a minute, because
I think, I mean, this has been said a million
times before and depressed, but I don't think the core
impetus that the emotion behind watching pro wrestling goes away,
and some people just never really think about it. They
just watch it, they love it, they get a kick
out of it. But when you think about it, it
all starts with something like having a brother in law
that you can't stand, like this right. The guy can't
hold a job, he's a jerk, he's not very nice
to your sister. Basically, you want to take him out
in an alley when no one's looking to show him,
but the consequences. And then there's the boss that is
just obnoxious, and no matter how hard you work, that
boss will be critical and just set some sort of
goal that's absurd that none of the employees can you know,
rise to let alone you. So you, similarly, you want
to take your boss out. You just want to haul
off and slug the guy. Obviously there's consequences. You probably
wouldn't be working there much longer. And you know, so
what you align with the babyface, and you confect that
bad guy brother in law, boss schmuck that cut you
off in traffic with a heel, and you project all
your anger and your angst about these jerks in your
life onto these jerks in the ring, and you just
sit back and have a beer and revel in the
fact that the babyface of your choice is just taking
the varnish offs the guy that you can't stand. It's
so great. And here's the big mind blowing thing. This
is the basis of Greek tragedies and plays. Four thousand
years ago, guy in a toga figured this out. So
imagine Vince in a toga.
Speaker 5: WrestleMania nine. I think he wore a toge on TV
one time. I don't know if you know that, Brian.
Speaker 4: It's that basic. It's that basic. And what you're really
doing is you're giving people an outlet so we're not
killing each other daily. It's brilliant. I think, you know, Oh,
what's that Peace Prize out.
Speaker 5: Of Nobel Peace Prize?
Speaker 4: What is it? What do they call it?
Speaker 5: The the Nobel Prize, Bell, the Nobel Yeah.
Speaker 4: They should give the Nobelt Evince. They think not anymore.
Speaker 5: But I take your point. Maybe once upon a time,
but the WrestleMania logo was so reflective of all we're
talking about here.
Speaker 4: I digress. I apologize, but I kind of started at that,
not like, Okay, this is apex, this is the high
pinnacle of wrestling. WrestleMania is going to take all this
energy and all this blood, sweat and tears up to
this high, high, high plateau where this is going to
take place. So this logo really has to be something.
It has to be masculine, it has to be commanding
and exciting, and above all, it needs to be powerful.
It has to look like if it were a hammer,
it could just take you out with one whack. So
I kept with a metallic finish that we had with
the WWS logo, but I stylized it a little more.
I thought, you know, it all starts with an M
and a W. So the M and the W were gold,
and they have these breath growing out of their tops
and bottoms, so that horizontally frames the other characters in
the words WrestleMania. So you know, the R through the
E and the A through the A and Mania are silver,
and so there you've got the contrast. And again, you know,
this photoshop was not even a glimmer in somebody's eye
back at this point. And so I would pencil out
very very tightly the exact dimensions and the with height,
very precise proportions of the type characters, and the original
this thing was maybe twenty five twenty eight inches across.
It wasn't that huge, but I mean, this has to
work on a work on a drawing board. And I
subcontracted an airbrush artist, phenomenally talented guy named James Kritz
and Jim no longer is with us on the planet, unfortunately.
But this this guy allent and his little finger than
most people build up in their lifetime. I mean, he
was just gifted beyond belief. And I'm just joking a
little bit here. I mean, he was a great guy.
But Jim would be the first to tell you that.
And there was there was a joke art director, creative director.
You know, people that did what I did around Fairfield County,
New York, we all would get together, so I used
to blind us some associations of people that are in
the same business. And the joke was, if you want
to know how good Jim Kritz is, just ask Jim.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, no, he was.
Speaker 4: I got to tell you. If somebody was had license
to brag, it was him. He he wasn't obnoxious about it.
He said, Oh, he was the kind of guy he
would come in your office to show you what he
just you're gonna love this, You're gonna love this. He
just wouldn't stop extolling his own virtues, you know that
kind of thing. But when he showed you, you just
felt backwards because he was phenomenally talented. And but but
here was here was the downside. And he had done
several projects building up to WrestleMania for me. But he
was that kind of guy that I learned very quickly.
I had given him a pretty tight deadline on something.
Granted I can't remember what it was, a week, ten
days or something, and this wasn't something you did, did
overnight and brought back. I got what I needed two
weeks later, and I had to reschedule the promotion that
it was for. And you can't. You can't do that
kind of thing. You can't run a business that way.
And I was I was very stern with him, to
the point of just almost threatening, We're not going to
do this again if you can't get this together. And
I didn't go to the length of saying something like that,
but I wanted to make clear that he understood. So
I just sort of played a game I hate playing.
I actually had a four week window to get the
This wasn't the WrestleMania logo itself, but it was the
cover of the WrestleMania program WrestleMania one, with Hulk and
Mister T on the cover. And there's a story right
there about photographing those two. If you recall, on the
inside back cover opposite page. On the left, there's a
photo of Hulk and mister t with the old Twin
Towers in the background. I have a story to tell
about that. Just taking that photo was a feat. But
the cover of that program was was all important, that
that was a big deal it was. It was also
used promotion prior to the show, so it wasn't just
the cover of the program. And I had I had
exactly four weeks in actuality, but I told them I
needed it in two, and I said, don't screw me
around now. I mean, there's a lot of machine machinery
and wheels turning towards this event. It's mind bogglingly complicated,
and you cannot do what you did before and another gig.
I need this art in hand because then I'm going
to do some drybrush detailing on it, and it needs
to be scanned, and it needs to be printed along
with this program. By the hundreds of thousands that we reprinted,
way more programs than just for the event. They were
they were sold as keepsakes and so on and so
forth after the fact. So what happens at the third week.
I'm biting my nails. I'm freaking out I'm like, what's
going on. I'm working on it. I'm working at it,
I kid you, not two days before my drop dead.
And that's if nothing else goes wrong and the printing
plant doesn't burn down while the thing's on press or whatever.
I just I think I started going prematurely gray when
I was thirty nine. That would have been that that time,
thereabouts thirty eight, something like that. I'm like this, this
guy's killing me. And the trouble is he had he
had done some crazy gigs. He painted murals inside the
jets of Saudi Arabian chikhs. They would they would contract
him to do these these Greckel Roman murals on the
inside private jets and these salons, and he'd work on
these for like weeks on end months whatever. And if
the guy had to go somewhere, he use another jet
in the fan or whatever. You know, no problem. I'm
sure you guys do the same thing like I do.
You know, if someone's painting my jet, I'll use my brother.
But that's the world he lived in, and he had
these almost endless deadline things where he just took a
sweet time, and so he wasn't very good about deadlines.
But The illustration was just an utter and complete knockout.
You may recall it. I have all of one copy
in my own personal files. They're hard to come by,
but I'll tell you, he just he just took it
right down to the bare bones. And I'd done a
lot with him. I used him for one project after
that where I didn't have a very tight deadline. But
it just drove me crazy. He was so good, but
and I appreciate all the time and effort he put
into it, but it was it made the thing so
damn stressful. It was. It was really really tough.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the unique thing of working in a creative
capacity at a company like this. There's this like this
day where everything has to be on the rails, and
this is their first kind of venture with this kind
of scale, so everyone's it doesn't necessarily have the reps
in now. Are you describing I'm trying to picture this brighter?
Are you describing the picture of Hulk and Mister t
that's on the cover of the Coliseum video release of
WRESTLINGIA one where they sort of look I don't know,
how would you describe a JP kind of like bronzed.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it looks almost almost like a drawing Photographyeah right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, no it's not a photograph.
Speaker 5: Oh I assumed it was justled over or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, that's krits Is that good? That? Wow? That
was airbrush. That was done airbrush. And then I did
these minute little yeah, pitpoint highlights on top of on
top of his highlights to just contrast it even brighter
before we scanned it. And and that that also has
the ring ropes or red white and blue with sort
of an electrical this thing going down the rope. Yeah. Yeah,
we're talking about the same illustration. Yeah, that that was
There were a few sleepless lights lights there where I
was having bad dreams about running down the streets, you know,
naked being chased by rabbit dot Vincent sicked on me
because I blew the deadline. That was creepy and just quickly.
Speaker 5: You know what I love about this this image because
it's so they've never really tried, and maybe because it's
just the remarkable talents it took to pull it off
to present their wrestlers like this again, you know, usually
the way the rest is are presented, they they really pop,
their eyes are wide, they're sort of they're trying to
basically make these people look like cartoon characters. This is
like kind of more of a class presentation. Like I
was always taken with how Holt's hand is like present
nting mister T. You know, he's not pointing at you,
he's not menacing and growling and snarling. I thought that
was such a cool, kind of counterintuitive way to present
them for this, this this debut of WrestleMania.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, and and and and and in fairness to Jim,
you know, bless his heart. He he drove me a
little crazy, but he also made me pretty happy. He
made me very proud. His work was just extraordinary. He
is to be honored, you know, for what the class
and the and the pomp and circumstance he bought to
the whole thing. He was a hell of an illustrator. Yeah,
he did rob me of some sleep.
Speaker 5: But fair absolutely this is Please go ahead.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you the interesting thing about that photo opposite
the inside back cover. Vince wanted to get some sort
of grand image with New York City in the background, right,
And I mean there's just no no planning here, none,
And it's it's crazy scheduling because you know, hulks in demand.
He's wherever he is for for shows. He's just living
in and out of a car and a plane, going
between point A and point B all over the place.
Same thing with mister t He you know, this was
in the A Team era, and he's he was, you know,
a big deal in his own right. And he was
actually a very nice guy. You know, every time you
see him portrayed in character, he's he's this tough dude
he was. I mean, yeah, he's a formidable character when
you see him face to face. But he was just,
you know, very polite and mild mattered when you you know,
met him in person, and he's he's not in character.
And I think it's like a quarter to four, four
point thirty something like that. In an afternoon, Vince calls
down to my office says, I got Taylor. He's gonna shoot.
I want you to our direct. We're going into the city.
I got a hunk, I got no time. They just
had to move heavy the nurse to get him in
the same place at the same time. We're gonna meet
down at the Empire State Building and shoot on top
of the building. I said, does anybody at the Empire
State Building know about this. No, just get your ass
in there. Yes, that's it. I'm like, what okay, So
I just grab everything, jump in my car, drive down
to the city. Thank god, we actually had the infancy
of cell phones then barely so anyway, Actually, no, I
think I got yeah, I think I think they got
my first I had. I had an in car cel phone.
I think that was that. I got that. Yeah. I
don't think we did have a phone. It was just
it was mayhem.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I'm in the lobby of the Empire State Building
and there are elevators up to the what did they
call it there, there's a there's a term for that,
the this gallery where you could see out around the city.
Speaker 7: They have that's almost yeah, yeah, but they have a
skywalk or something like that where the public goes to
view the city from from the top of the building.
Speaker 4: Very Vince has a whole other vision in mind. And
so I see Vince and Nelson. Nelson's get this look
on the face. Tell me about it. It's like he's
caught off guard. This is one of Vince's last minute
wing dans that you never know what's going to happen.
This is very typical stuff like this would just happen
pretty much all the time.
Speaker 5: So, Brian, did you ride up the elevators with Hogan
and Tea and what did that create a scene?
Speaker 4: Oh well, here's here's the deal. It's thinning out. It's
like quarter to five now, and people are mostly elevators
are just coming down, Tourists are spilling out. Steve's there,
Nelson camera, Cruise sound guy, myself, Vince and Al and Tea,
and Vince pulls out a lot of hundreds, with which
you know, I'm sure like me, You guys, everybody you know,
you get up in the morning, you pick up your wallet,
you pick up your phone, and a lot of hundreds.
I mean, we we all do that, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, the million Dollar Man gimmick was based on
him handing out cash.
Speaker 4: But but seriously, we're just thinking, how are we going
to pull this off? No, no, no formal contact with
anybody that's a building manager. I mean, you don't just
wander into a place like that and take command of
the situation. Uns. So there's this little dude, I don't
even think he spoke English who operated the elevator. He
could barely speak English. Vince whips out a hundred and said,
going up. Wow, guy's got a six inch grin. All
of a sudden, everybody piles into the elevator, the camera crew.
It's just it's just insane.
Speaker 5: Okay, So so Vince glided the path there. You didn't
have to deal with mobs necessarily.
Speaker 4: The guy the guy. But but this is the magic
of this whole kind of thing, because you get to
the top, it opens into that gallery viewing area or
whatever they call it. There's a couple of guys, a
security guy who's all up in arms, then swips out
another one hundred, a couple hundred, another guy like, oh, oh,
there's the mister t They're like, they're all excited. He says,
I don't want to shoot near I want to be outside.
I'm going to go on top where the microwave dishes
are and they'll look at each other. So we have
to go up another flight and thee there and we're
actually on top of the freaking building. And you know,
you see microwave dishes and that kind of stuff all
over the place, and they've been around for decades, but
you can't really safely stand next to these things. They
can fry your gonads.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're making some noise, yeah, some worrying.
Speaker 4: It's sort of like this when you're standing eight feet
away and you got you got dozens of these things
around you and it's just going and you think, oh god,
it's just weird. And Steve's looking at me like I
was planning to have kids, and I said me too.
It's it was really the weirdest. We set that shoot
up faster than you could make a pop tart. I
mean we were we were just scrambling because it's really
not safe to be up there that close to these
things when they're alive. It was just the weirdest deal.
And Nelson his guys, they shot very brief video footage
and I came up with this. I can't remember what
the exact wording was, but the headline on the photo
was the oh yeah, it was the Twin Towers, I mean,
referring to mister T and Hulk with the World Trade
Center in the background. The spoof being that the World
Trade Center was known as the Twin Towers, but in
this case the twins were the boys, so that that
was the caption on the photo in the program. But
just capturing that photo was a matter of paying off
all this all this, you know, elevator operator and security
personnel in the building, and Vince did what he had
to do. But but it was between that and just
the fact that these guys were so enamored that mister
T and Hulk were actually there and they were they
were making this possible. But the hundred dollars uh, you
know payoff was just sort of like icing on the cake.
They were just enjoying being there and meeting these guys.
So it was fascinating. But it's a real name fighter
because I just said, man, if we don't get this shot,
what are we gonna do. We're gonna have to go
to the Syde text machine and guys and you know,
with a stock photo or something. It's just this this
was this this kind of last minute crazy, you know,
do or die approach to doing things was just garby
gur It was you know, a given. It was how
things are done. You know, you got with a program
and became part of it and went along with it
and made it happen, or you get off the train.
Speaker 5: So yeah, it's so funny because you look at so
many of these promotional materials and how they up their
game from a you know, just a promotion perspective around
this time, just you know, everything looked more polished and
professional and you would think that maybe, you know, that's
because now they have more time to be more studious
and planning ahead and taking their time and not at
all now. It's just it's almost a small miracle as
some of the stuff came off with such polish.
Speaker 6: It's it's so surprising that it was such gorilla style,
uh you know production, you know, like just a.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 4: Yah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, They've always kind of and they stuck with that
spirit forever. I'm in sure now it's much more you know,
professionalized as far as like permit pulling and stuff. But
they would just show up and shoot scenes and places
that the people that were there their heads would spend.
They'd be in and out, you know, and shot somebody
going any idea what that was about.
Speaker 4: I don't know that that level of energy and excitement
around this is still there to that level, because I
don't know that you could do this this day and
age unless it was a totally different new shtick of
some sort that somebody came up with that was you know,
just all encompassing for the public's imagination. But these characters
were literally bigger than life. And it wasn't it wasn't
a Marvel comic kind of thing where that's completely contrived.
These are actual people, actual, really big people. And you know,
I mean but that that was just so sensational. That
but between Vince cajoling people with a couple of bucks
here in there, and just the fact that he had
these guys in tow and you could just you know,
see them right there or they shake your hand, you
know whatever. It was just mind blowing and people people
would just pitch in and make it work no matter what.
It was wild. And that reminds me the first time
meeting Hulk. You know, I'm I don't know, I'm about
five five ten, five ten and a half something like that.
I'm not a huge guy, but I'm not little guy.
But you know, the first time I met Hulk and
we shook hands, his grip grabs it's like halfway up
my forearm.
Speaker 5: Wow, and.
Speaker 2: Big dudes, it was.
Speaker 4: It was as comical. I was getting a kick out
of it, you know, And he was as nice as
he could be. And I remember the first time meeting Andrea,
I don't know where my hand went. His group engulfed
my arm practically up to my elbow.
Speaker 5: Well, you're just lucky you didn't get an oil check, Brian.
I don't know if you know what those are, but
Andrea was famous for those.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, no, that I would have been in I
would have been in a jar.
Speaker 2: Well I assume you were familiar with his flatulence.
Speaker 4: Well there, you know, you say that so kindly. Yeah,
you know, I'll tell you something about that guy. He
he was really fascinating in his own way. And you know,
it's just it's kind of weird even I how do
you put it? How do you put it? He he
had a completely different upbringing from ninety nine percent of
the guys that make it into the ring as a programmer.
I'm in whether whether you're with whether you whether you're
with WWF or whichever syndicate whatever. You know, a lot
of these guys came from nothing. They grew up in
a trailer park. They you know, they barely scratched a
living together doing some kind of bront work or everything
from being a lumberjack to a truck driver to uh,
you know whatever. Uh, I'm not knocking that one bit.
You know, their they're you know, salt of the earth guys.
Andre on the other hand, he was born to a
very very wealthy family and you can find a lot
online that they were farmers. Somebody threw in a lot
of crap to uh tone that down. His family raises
the French equivalent of the finest race horses in this
country that you're you're you're going to find at the Belmont.
Speaker 5: Such a huge, huge ranch in South Carolina.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he grew up.
Speaker 4: He grew up in a very well healed world. And
in other words, he didn't come to this because he
had to or you know, it was some sort of
goal he needed to attain to make money. He didn't
need money. It was like reverse psychology. It was it
was like where you know, the the average rust event
is very curious about the guy in the ring and
what they're all about. There. There there's some I don't
I don't mean to make them sound like some sort
of circus attraction, but they are, in a manner speaking,
an oddity of a sort. They're not normal like you
and me. These are big people, and they're people that
are still despite their girth and their height and their weight,
they're still agile. They're able to do things that most
people couldn't do if they worked out twenty four to seven.
They're amazing people, they really are. And Andre suffered from gigantism.
Everybody knows this. He had oversized organs and that's what
ultimately took his life. It's very sad. He had a
very very serious medical condition. And he knew he was
an oddity. That's the thing. He knew. He was a
really strange guy to most people. And he was curious
about the audience's curiosity is intellectual in a way, and
he was sort of fascinated by the fact that he
was fascinating the other pe and he got in the
ring to just sort of see to peer out from
the ring out at everyone else. I mean, think about that.
It's kind of it's kind of wacky. It's interesting, you know.
And I'll tell you the boys are are not a
bunch of choir boys. Let's put it that way, okay.
I mean, it's not unusual to find some of the
guys down on an Eleventh Avenue bar in Lower Manhattan
banging the crap out of each other. Now, the same
thing can be said about major Major League ballplayers. They're
a rowdy crowd, A lot of them, not all of them,
but a lot of them. And Andre, on the other hand,
Vince would would would throw these very elaborate parties for
the employees of the w W. He and Lunda were
very very good about showing their appreciation for their employees
and I mean by the staff people that Bob McMullen's
of the world, and you know, they on occasion, sometimes
annually for a while there would throw a party at
the Rainbow Room in New York, a very swanky place
on the on the top of the city, many flights up,
and they'd have this big swanky dinner in a ballroom
with an MC and a band, a live band in
an orchestra, and just like crazy stuff. And it was
it was sort of like high society out of the
nineteen thirties or something. It was really something that everybody
would be dressed up and sometimes it was black tie,
and you know, you really couldn't expect the boys to
be into this stuff, but he'd could joel a few
of the heavy hitters to show up, you know now
and be part of the festivities. And Andre came to
some of these, and but he had like this little
private bar area at the Rainbow Room where they knew him,
and they had a special goblet for him that was
like ten or twelve inches across and fourteen inches high.
I mean, this is like a wineglass on steroids. And
he drank nothing but chitola feet the rothschild four hundred
bucks or whatever a bottle. It took a bottle to
fill the goblin, and he would have six or seven
or eight goblets in the course of a night. I mean,
Ziz Louise. Most people they're hard for used to drink
a bottle of wine and stand up at the same time. Yeah,
this guy was a big dude, and he had a
capacity for alcohol make a tanker truck look lame. He
just it was utterly amazing. But he was just very gentlemanly,
very composed, very you know, he wasn't rude and boisterous.
It just wasn't his thing. He actually owned a three
star I mean like Michelman Star restaurant in Montreal.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 4: Hear this guy and it's just sort of fascinating. And
you know, he played his character for all all he's worth.
And you know, his role in The Princess Bride is
is kind of you know enshrined in Hollywood lore at
this point. He's just one of a kind in every way.
But I just I'm not a big party person and
at the time I was single. I met my wife
after my time there, and you know, I would just
bring a date to these things, or or I wouldn't
necessarily I just hang out. I would just wind up
and go in and sit next to Andre and shoot
the ship with that.
Speaker 5: Speaking of that, I guess to be kind of tawdry
about it. We asked about flatulence, and that's not a
small part of Andre's legacy. He tended to leave his
essence behind, didn't he, Brian.
Speaker 4: It's honestly not. There's that, Yeah, that's that whole side
of things. But there was one time that Steve and
I had to grab a photo shoot with Andre and
it was just one of those classic fly by night
you know, you've you've got no time, you've got no
forewarning to get anything set up. He was available, you know,
his driver had the car waiting. He had to get
back to the airport to get to the gig. Kind
of thing. You guys have have you know, an hour
or two in between the have a photo shoot. Well,
we don't even need that long, but you know, you
have to set up a backdrop and lights and what
have you. And Steve didn't have anybody being a roadie
for him or anything, you know. I just helped him
put his lights up. And basically we were in some
rented space in Stamford that wasn't really formally a WWF office,
but there wasn't. The place was just crammed whatever office
space they had, it was just clerical stuff. We found
a storeroom on a parking level under this building that
was relatively empty enough. We found a couple outlets we
could set up Steve's lights and power pack and everything
for his camera, and set up a backdrop and do
a quick and dirty photo shoot with Andrea for a
few shots. This is for the magazine or something I
can't even recall, but so Andre just you know, sitting
on a stool. The stool's howling and pain. I'm joking,
but you know, all of a sudden, Steve and I
it's a sound like like a six foot wide water main,
that's correct, and this gush of liquid like thousands of
gallons pouring through it a hour or something, but there's
nothing going on, and we're looking at for the sea.
It's not coming from the ceil, and we're looking sideways,
it's not coming sideways, What the hell? And then there's
this banging, like like you're in a steel mill and
and some guy's banging on the side of a caldron
with a sledgehammer, like that's what the hell, and another
just like me and I were like what, And that's
his gut. That's like some crap going up, you know,
he's hosting a steel convention or something in his stomach,
and it's just I've never heard anything like that before
or since in my life come out I kind of
out of anything, never mind a human being. But this,
this guy's gastric system was was like a cave full
of steel smelting equipment or something. I mean, it was
just bizarre, totally bizarre. And Steve and I were just
like like speechless, like humans can't make sounds like that, right,
And Andre is just like completely unfazed. He just had
sort of like this sleepy look. I think he was
like dog tired. He was just catnapping on cars and
planes between gigs, and He's just like, oh, big deal,
you know. But we were we were just fascinated I mean,
you know, I wanted to. I wanted to you know,
alert the Scientific Press or something and right investigation, you know,
like you have six stomachs and they're made of steel
or so. I don't know. It was just weird.
Speaker 1: Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and and j Bisaro,
The Lapsed Fan Wrestling Podcast, something.
Speaker 5: Like being around these guys, Man, what unique career experiences U.
But we touched on earlier the photo shoot for a
lot of the photo shoots you did. I know you
helped with the wrestling album Okay and this is big.
We can all picture the cover of the wrestling album
that out with in eighty six. I think it was
with Grab Them Cakes and Real American and all kinds
of the songs that they would use and associate. I
think Tutti Fruity by Mean Gi is on their standback
by Vince unbelievable. So tell us about I mean, that
is just like a oh my god, that's like a tapestry.
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 5: A just a whole scene of all these wrestlers faces.
It's like a tableau almost of the era. So tell
us about that one.
Speaker 4: Well, I got to tell you that was a process
that took over a period of weeks, and for those
familiar with it, it's a double album. But when you
open it up, there's a recording moment the Hit Factory
in New York, where you know everyone from Billy Joel
to you name it, major stars. He recorded over time.
Very very few of those people were in that room
at the same time.
Speaker 5: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: And in many instances people were elsewhere. And for example,
when you look on the cover and Vince has his
arm on Geno Glun's shoulder, you're they were shot against
a backdrop and dropped in. They were shot elsewhere because
they just were That was done at a show where
they were Gene was a ring announcer and Vince was
doing commentary and so forth. They were just shot and
dropped in. As most of these people, everyone was a
different wrestling events around the country. Whatever the ticket was,
they weren't going to disturb the flow of events for
wrestling fans. So whenever people were in New York for
a show, or close by, say Poughkeepsie, New York, where
a lot of taping used to be done, we'd send
a driver and get him in town. So some of
these people were actually shot in the studio room, and
it was also done around the time that the studio
was booked for different recordings, so it was a major
feat to put this thing together. It took and this
was all done on this side text machine, so I
can't even begin to tell you how many hours went
into creating this image. But a few of the wrestlers
were actually shot in the room, but we had to
map out where they were going to be and sort
of roughly gauge where they would be, what their stance
would be, what their proximity to the camera would be,
so that when it was all put together electronically, which
even now this day and age in photoshops, this would
be a monster taking to try to do. But it was.
It was utterly mind blowing the amount of time and
resources that creating this image.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I can't believe that it was different places different
I would have swore it was everyone in the same
you know, under the same roof, because they shot that
music video to play on We Are the World and
everybody was there, so I thought they just did it
it that thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I mean, I'm just to give you a
really really really crazy just not go through the whole
Blessed thing. But obviously because you know Jesse Ventura front
and center on the cover and our old buddy Hollie
right behind him holding the mic. You know, the Killer Bees,
Randy Savage, you could pick out your your favorite you know,
wrestler manager whoever throughout some of the some of the
funnier things to me are the uh the gal on
the trumpet at the far left, that was a makeup
artist and an old girl of mine, old girlfriend.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, wow, look out for that.
Speaker 4: She she made scary sounds come out of that trumpet.
We asked her to stop, but to save her life.
You go three people to the right and you see
the gal with the Rickenbacker guitar. That's Cyndi Lauper, Oh wow,
aka Mona Flambay.
Speaker 5: Mona Flambay, right, that was like a pseudonym wearing a.
Speaker 4: Wig, of course, and George the Animal Steel holding a
soprano sacks upside down.
Speaker 5: But yes, of course, what was the reason for Mona Flambay?
Was that kind of like she wanted to mask that
she was on the album or something.
Speaker 4: You know, It was just it was it that wasn't
really even thought out. She just thought it would be
fun to be in there. Yeah, I mean, and yeah,
it was. It was just such a crazy deal. Every
aspect of this thing was was was was really really
comical to me. And what's his name? One of the producers.
I'm just going to the credits. I mean, there's so
much stuff about this. I I I haven't looked at
this in eons until just recently because I was starting
to sort up my flat files I I have. I
have tons of samples of things that I worked on
in these flat.
Speaker 5: Files and very interesting.
Speaker 4: Oh my god. But what's what's his name? The well
Well executive producers Dave wolf Well. That was Cindy's manager
and then boyfriend. Yes, back in the air. Uh but
but but Rick Rick Springfield, Okay, Rick Rick Springfield. He's
the producer you know, screaming on the mic behind the
control board at Rowdy Roddy. I mean, I was in
love of that guy's work back you know, when I
was a teen he did hang on Sloopy. I mean,
so he was behind that band. I mean, it's just
this is like a time machine looking at this because
it h I mean, just because the Hit Factory is
such a cool place and and sort of the home
of of some phenomenal rock. I mean, it's it's just
it's a little bit of musical history and and uh
and a lot of w w F history. But the
way that the way that album cover came together was
was just a mountain of work, absolute mountain of work.
But it was a fun project, you know, I don't
I wouldn't call it one of the greatest pieces of
music I ever put together, you know. Yeah, And I'm
think they were aiming for that either. It was just
a fun thing.
Speaker 5: They were just trying. They were just trying to catch
the wave of licensing opportunities that came their way. We've
talked about this endlessly over the years on the show.
It's like action figure, shore board game, shore lunch boxes.
We'll do it all. We don't care like someone's going
to pay us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. And I think it was it was it
was you know, there was a little bit of Okay,
we're wrestling stars. There's rock stars. Why can't we be
wrestling and rock stars.
Speaker 5: Yeah, with the rock and wrestling connection, it makes a
ton of sense. All of a sudden, You've got people
backstage at the shows in the garden who know how
to put a record out yeah, exactly, wonderful. So mentioning WrestleMania.
We've talked a lot about the preparation you did in
designing the logo and the photo shoot with Hulk and
Mister T and all of that, but you were on
site as well, i'd imagine for the show, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll tell you that was just a blur. There
was a two page spread in Life magazine of a photo,
a two page spread photo of the event of you know,
the action in the ring during the I mean, in
the two page spread, the the rings like two inches across.
It's just it's just this massive people, the thousands of
people that filled the gardens, and it's mostly in darkness
because the spotlights are all on the stage, but you
just see the sea of people out there and it's crazy.
And I was looking around in it and it is
I was trying to establish where I was. I remember
where I was standing, you know, in respect to going
back to the dressing rooms and so forth. And it's
just a weird feeling to see that photo capture that
whole moment and know that you were you were there. Yeah,
it's hard, it's hard to explain, but I mean it
was I mean it was so exhausting. I think every everybody,
including Vince Helen it probably slept for twenty four hours
solid or longer after everyone was just fried to a crisp.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: It was an incredibly exhausting undertaking. Well, but I'll tell
you the most one of one of the most fascinating
things I think about that whole thing, and it's sort
of technical but not really, but every everything was the
show going out to the public. I mean, obviously you
had a full house of the garden that out alone
was a big deal. But this this went to a
million people around the country minimally, I think more and
and and then and ultimately with video cassettes and stuff.
It was it was seen over and over again by
millions more. But the show almost didn't go on, as
they say, due to a technical glitch.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, really tell me more?
Speaker 4: And well what in the build up to this thing,
Vince was consulting people at ESPN and anyone who lives
in Connecticut, you know when you drive by their headquarters
they have this massive compound. You will see these gigantic
satellite dishes of the slang term for them as birds,
and you know you see them twelve fifteen feet across
and sixty feet across, like something that's an antenna farm
aimed at their researching outer space. I mean, they just
they have gazillions of these birds end up at the
sky their various satellites to take signals up and beat
them down to cable networks all over the world. And
ESPN was in its relative infancy then, but they were
really aces at satellite technology. And it was suggested that
Vince not get one bird or two birds, but three birds,
so he had redundancy so that if the first two
went down for any reason, and sometimes their meteorological conditions
or weather conditions can mess with satellite signals, and so
he decided to get six birds. And even Nelson, who's
like Nelson Schwiegeler, was the un staffed TV hauncho who
had been in the business and knew his way around,
and he just ad vinced, it's overkilled. You don't need
six birds. And these things weren't cheap either to rent.
And these are big boys. These are big, big, like
twenty five thirty foot dishes of mounted on the backs
of trucks and they're all lined up outside of Madison
Square Garden and lo and behold. Bird number one went down,
Bird number two went down, and bird number three went down.
Oh my god, foorth bird carried the show and ad
Vince listened to you know, all the prodigal sons and
the and the stock advice and you know the conservative
Oh you don't need that, you need this. It wouldn't
have happened. It wouldn't have gone. It would have been
a disaster, and people who'd prepaid for this, they'd want
their money back. It could just could have been a
financial whole bigger than Vesuvius. And you know, I think he,
I think, for all his uh propensity for you know,
doing things on a fly and crazy notions and doing
things anesthetical to how there's quote unquote supposed to be done,
he was sure enough to know that he couldn't risk
not pulling the trigger on this all the way for
one second and getting those six getting sick birth was
was a big expensive undertaking. But it's safe day, and
it's a it's a really interesting deal. You know, you
don't think about stuff like that. The public would never
know about it in a million years, But I think
back on it, I think that that you know, it
would have people would have just made jokes about the
whole thing and say, yeah they did. They talked a
big blue streak, and they didn't pull it off. It
probably never would have happened again. And here it's happening
over forty years later. It's an annual event, and it's
worldwide now, and you just think of everything riding on that.
I don't think Vincent his wildest imagination, thought it would
get as big and as broad globally.
Speaker 2: As it has.
Speaker 4: But it all hinged, you know, the success in the
momentum that took it where it is today, hinged on
having it get out the door, up to the birds,
down to doors without without any any kind of interruption,
And it could have been quite the opposite, you know,
but his foresight found a way around it, which I
thought was fascinating. I give him credit for, you know,
really really honestly to my way thinking. He is the
father of on demand as we know it. People don't
think of that. They don't equate pay per view with
on demand. Is they're just two different names for virtually
the same thing. And he pioneered it. They're actually people
who explored it before him for boxing. But no, we
are near on that scale. And I kind of take
my hat off to the fact that as much as
we bitch and moan about our cable bills, we wouldn't
even have cabbills if he hadn't you know, pushed this
when he did, And I mean, what it really did
was spur the industry to realize the possibilities and start
investing in it. Because to have what everyone has across
the country in the way of channels and choices, no
matter how much they complain about it at times, that
took that probably more than a trillion dollars of investmental
hold easily to get it where it's where it is today,
in fiber optics, in satellite technology, you name it. And
I'm not saying that WrestleMania is responsible for that, But
what I'm saying is taking the chance to pioneer something
that had never been done before, never mind on that scale,
is what spurred people to think about the possibilities and
go out there and actually do it and convince banks,
big banks, huge banks to bankroll that kind of research
and development and get it out and make it actually viable.
Huge You know, you don't think of somebody like Vince
McMahon having influenced and created the interest in a growth
industry that was back then just people were like, what
what are you talking about? Paper? What? Yeah, I mean
this was so new and now and now we all
come home from work, whatever we're doing, you know, we're
at the gym, whatever, we throw on a sports game, whatever,
it's second nature. We don't even think about it. We
just make the choice and it's there. But it's all there.
And the money was invested to make cable and streaming possible,
spurred on by that event. It's think thing that you know,
consider in that in that bigger framework.
Speaker 6: And you know, I want to say too and pay
you a compliment of this, because you know, I think,
in my opinion, the WrestleMania logo is no small part
to the success of of of WrestleMania as well, given
the fact that and I'm looking at it right here,
outside of two WrestleMania's and well kind of three ish
variation of your logo has been used ever since.
Speaker 4: Right the basic framework of it is still in use.
Speaker 8: Yeah, the main the main difference is the S. The
S isn't The S is not uh uh does an
attach to the R is? The main is like the
main main difference. Other than that, it's like it's got
the same basic design.
Speaker 4: Well, it comes and goes. Actually sometimes they put it back.
I mean, it's it's a weird deal. But yeah, I've
been sort of fascinated by the fact that it you know,
I haven't been in control of the production of it
since the first three years. Sure, but it is they
you know. And what's kind of funny too, is they
they brought me back. This this young gal that that
graduated from Bridgeport University. Her name is w Sir Gallis,
and she I hired her and she was green right
out of quick study night, really nice young gal, and
she became not not a creative director, but the head
of the art department, sort of ad hoc because when
I left there was she was really the next person.
She was still in the process of learning on the job,
but she took the mains and a few years later
she called me back in the early nineties and she
wanted me to kick around Well, I actually no, it's
even later than that. It was, Yeah, it was she
wanted to kick around ideas for WrestleMania two thousand. This
is about a year in advance, and so they hired
me to just you know, they didn't use one of
my designs, but they hired me to just submit some
concepts and I got far and away from my own original.
It was kind of funny. I went off on some
crazy tangents with it. Was like a Salvador DOLLI and
I went whack up. I had some fun with it,
and they didn't do it. I mean they I think
they enjoyed them, but they just decided, let's just keep
mutating the same basic character forms. And I think that
was actually ultimately smart. I mean they, you know, they
paid me for my concepts, and that that's fine. I wasn't.
You can't have an ego about this stuff. Just the gig,
you know, and so you if you're a baseball player,
you win games, you lose games, you keep playing. So
I didn't. I didn't take offense to it or anything.
I just you know, but it was it was interesting.
I had. I did have an opportunity to kind of
you know, direct it a few years later, but but
I'm really kind of glad they didn't go with one
of those, because they just sort of kept the main
theme and just kept tweaking it. So it's kind of cool.
Speaker 5: Brian We started off the conversation talking about your impressions
of Dick Ebersol pulling up in the Porsche, and n
Vince himself would drive some hot rods in his day,
or at least cars that uh that zoom quite a bit.
And I understand that you had a moment where Vince,
I guess, was in a crunch and you got behind
the wheel of Vince's automobile. Can you tell us that
story quick?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well that wasn't That wasn't one of his really
crazier cars. He had some custom made roadsters that were
just outrageous. But this is this was before he got
to that point. But yeah, this was as I recall,
this would have been fall of eighty four or spring
of eighty five. I can't recall honestly, but basically, there
was a a pre show taping, just the promos, the
build up where you know, the guys are shouting each
other off the planet, that kind of thing, and Hulk
had been at the office. Vince decided to ride down
to the gardens with Hulk and his limo so they
could chat up out some stuff. And he came off
and he said, would you mind driving my car in town?
You just leave it at the guards and I'll have
a limo driver bring it, bring it back. And I
said sure, and I got no big deal. And I
had to drop something off in an ad agency that
we were working with in Midtown and he had this Lincoln.
He had this. I've never seen anything like it. It
wasn't it wasn't a lime green. It wasn't dark British
racing green. It was like this loud, like Irish spring,
bright in your face, green, metallic and I I always
draw at the time. I you know, a smaller car
like my BMW, but you know, and I wasn't used
to driving a car like this. This is a big, big, wide,
long Lincoln. And uh it's okay. It was it was
I thought would be fun. So I uh, I'm driving
on the West Side Highway. If anybody knows, you know
you're you're getting in and out of New York. There's
there's basically two ways. You know, You're either on the
east side or on the west side. I'm coming on
the West Side Highway and he's got his headlights programmed
to high beams keep people to get out of the way.
I mean, the minute it sends, it's a car at
a certain distance, it's beaming them and I'm feeling like,
oh man, I must be one of those drivers that
people hate, you know. And I'm trying to turn it
off and I can't figure out how to turn it off,
and people are all moving over in the middle way
and I'm in the left lane and I'm like, okay,
everyone thinks I'm obnoxious. I'm trying to not be obnoxious.
And anyway, so it's it was just a weird, weird
ordeal and totally different feel. I mean, it's plush. It's
like driving a caddy or something that was weird. And
so I had to go into Midtown and you know,
the traffic in midtown Manhattan, I mean, forget it. You
got the nerves of steel. And my wife jokes that,
you know, I'm I'm a camel driver. She calls me, like,
you know, typical uh, you know, yellow cab driver in
the city's honking and running everyone off there. I said,
that's how you drive. You're a camel driver. And I said, no,
I'm not. But anyway, I mean I was driving in
midtown that was not a problem and driving his car
once I got used to it, and for some reason
when I'm off the highway, it's not doing the high
being things. Thank god for that, because I didn't want
some guy to get out of his car and come
back and you know, hit the glenshield with a wrench
or something. So I do what I have to do.
I dropped this thing out at this agency. I had
to go in a car park, get out of the
car park. And I'm in midtown Manhattan, and this is
the era. And some people who have not lived in
a city or may not even know what the term means,
but this was the era of the squeegeye man.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: It's kind of a sad commentary on society. But you know,
we have a huge homeless population and it's only gotten
worse tragically. But the more enterprising of some homeless people,
if you could call it that, I call it piracy.
But they would stand on a busy corner, get in
people's faces, get in their way, in front of the car,
even when there's a green light, and make a big
deal of wanting to clean their windshield, or they just
start cleaning their windshield without permission and demand payment, you know,
a buck, five bucks, whatever. Some people really made it
worse because they fed the situation and they were pussies
about it, and they just succumbed, roll down the window
and give the guy of five or ten or whatever
then the wallet just to make him go away and
don't don't even touch my winshell, just here's the money.
Go away. And that made it worse. That made him
come out of the woodwork like broaches. So you've got
these squeegee guys all over the city, and some of
them got really militant, like the guy that accosted me.
So I'm pulling up to the Avenue of America's, which
I think is also six stave. It's either six or
seventh I can remember, but duel, Yeah, six Staves slash
Avenue of America, same street, so's it's basically going northbound,
only it's one way, and I'm stopped at a light
in the fifties and the cross streets, and I'm going
towards the west side to go downtown a little bit
to drop the car off at the gardens for Vince.
And this squeegeye man probably the most enterprising of the
wall to put it that way. A light's out of
nowhere and he's leaning over the front windshield and he
has his spray cam with the cleaner and the squeegee
gripped in one hand, and then the other hand he
has a can of orange spray paint. You could see
it all globbed up on the kno and he yells
to me, what will it be? And I'm thinking to myself,
I am so screwed. I'm gonna wind up driving into
the gardens and all the personnel there are just gonna
be laughing. Oh look here's Vince scar. That poor sucker's
got a lot of explaining to do because there's a big, like,
you know, spray painted orange blobble over the front or
the hood or the wing shield or the door whatever.
I'm thinking, I am so screwed. What am I gonna do?
And this guy's just like like hovering there, Well will
it be? And so I showed him what it is
gonna be. I did something I've never done in my
life and I'll never do again. I can't believe I
did it. Then I just very gently opened the door
and I could see the light it was. It went yellow,
and then I said, okay, this is my chance. And
the traffic down Avenue of Americas was light. I opened
the door and I just bumped the guy and he
fell backwards and the light.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, wow, in Vince's car opted and.
Speaker 4: See me, I'm praying somebody wouldn't come, you know, trying
to make the light from the other direction and broadside me.
I'm just like, none of that matters. I'm not going
to explain this to Vince and why his beloved Lincoln his.
Speaker 2: Orange of course, yeah, of course.
Speaker 4: And oh my god, that was the worst day in
Manhattan I think I've ever had. And I've had some doozies,
but that was scary.
Speaker 5: Wow. That's uh, that's being an enlisted soldier for more
than you signed up for. But that's that's kind of
the world you joined, and especially back then when you
went to work for Vince. I mean, he's you know,
it's whatever gets to be done at this moment. And
it kind of brings us to where we need to
end up here, Brian, because you've made a couple of
references to the end of your tenure. You know, it's
basically eighty four to eighty seven, and let's conclude with
why you decided to leave the WWF.
Speaker 4: Why and when, Well, it's kind of multifaceted. But you know,
it's funny. I had a lot going on and that
job was all consuming, but even so I kept my
other accounts on the side that i'd had. I was
still working with Infinity and Howard Stern and I somehow,
I mean, I was a workaholic, so I never really
drew the line between the two. But as long as
the WWF deadlines were done, I was back on my
own accounts, which was mostly broadcasting related, and I just thought,
you know, there there were a couple of things going
on that I just I don't know, not to be
overly moral about it, but you know, you remember the
foam hand, the big the Indix finger up experimented for
a while with that with a foam hand that's flipping
it off. And I saw a show, you know, these
little kids, seven eight year old kids. Daddy gave me
a foam hand. I mean, bad taste as a parent.
You buy one of those flip off hands and your
kids wearing it, and it just it really galled me
because that was stopping being family entertainment. I just was
a departure from the norm. They didn't need. It just
kind of bugged me and I don't know that that
had Vince's stamp of approval on it at all. That's
not what I'm saying. But there was a loose about it,
and there was some other things. I don't really want
to go in a great detail really at all, but
I mean there there was. They're not not across the
boards by any stretch of the imagination, but there were
instances of some substance abuse.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well eighty seven is when they instituted the cocaine testing
because Iron Cheek and Joe Duggan got caught in that
traffic stop. So this is kind of the beginning of them,
you know, realizing that we actually have to monitor this
aspect of of what we do here.
Speaker 4: But you know, I just I I had essentially always
worked for myself. I was We'd worked out a deal
where I was a contract worker. I was not considered
an employee. I didn't I didn't have taxes withdrawn. I
was still self employed. I was. I was just base
a consultant, and even though I was really working full time,
so I was free to do what I wanted. I
didn't have an employment contract that I would be violating.
I just missed being my own man. I mean, even
though technically I was, but I was married at that place.
It was all consuming and I enjoyed it, don't get
me wrong, but I just yeah, I just had a
kind of wanderlust that I knew. Infinity was going a
mile a minute and eventually became part of it was
actually the bigger part of CBS Radio when CBS acquired them,
and then they were swallowed by Viacoms. It was CBS
slash Infinity slash Viacom, and thankfully I was invited along
for the ride. I kept working for those companies and
that was huge, and that was and along the way
after that, I designed the style guide for Sonic, the
Hedgehog and the Buckles and that that that. So I've
had a big hand in the gaming world with that stuff.
And that never would have happened if I hadn't freedom
my time, and I just decided, you know, it's time
to move on. And I had some differences with Vince.
You know, he's a funny guy. He would sometimes he
would just put you on the spot and say something
that was a little derogatory or you know, he had
sort of juvenile humor side to it. Sometimes he was
usually okay, but sometimes he would just make a dig
or totally uncalled for a comment, to just see how
you react, and really pushed my button one time. I
just wanted to just say shove it and walk out
the door. But when you have a four hundred pound
custom made drawing board you walk out the door and
a ton of computer equipment. So I said, yeah, I
just I bit my lip. But then I decided a
couple of weeks later, I said, you know, it's always risky.
I'm not gonna I'm not going to have the cushy
guarantee that I that I have what they're paying me here,
but I'm going to take a flyer and go back
on my own. And I did, all right. I worked
my tail off, and that's been my nature all along.
But I went back out on my own, and all
kinds of things happened. This stuff I just mentioned, and
some other opportunities I wouldn't have got if I if
I had been breathing that, you know, twenty four to seven,
living and breathing it the way I had been for
four years. And I enjoyed it. And Vince was very upset.
He was just, oh boy, you know, he he hires
you for life. That's that's uh. You know, he really
wants to feel that, you know, you've joined a family,
and I did feel that bond and I respected it.
But I'm just I just had the drive to want
to go back and be you know, you know, responsible
for my own everything. And Linda was very, very gracious,
very She's a great lady, very professional, and no hard
feelings there. And she actually soon thereafter I got married,
she invited my wife and I down for a party
they gave. They built this phenomenally. I mean, it was
just you can't even call it in the state. It
was like a country club that was turned into a house.
It was just amazing, and they invited us down to
this party and it was like a black tie thing.
It was a big deal. And Vince just he kind
of glanced my way. You know, we never spoke. I
just think he just never let me off the hook.
He couldn't forgive the fact that I wanted to do
my own thing again. And it's unfortunate, but you know,
I stayed friends with everyone there. I made some wonderful
friends there, and life goes on. You know, you can't
win them all, but.
Speaker 5: So well, I think what's fascinating about your vantage point, Brian,
is that you came to work for them when they
were or at least you became acquainted with them when
they were fledgling in the Cape, right and just trying
to see if they could make something of themselves. And
then on the other side, you leave no less than
you know, ten years after you first met them. And
this Vince is just he's in a position to command
lifelong loyalty, or at least in his mind he is,
from his employees. So you must have left a slightly
different Vince than you met having those cocktails in the seventies.
Speaker 4: You know. Interestingly, Vince had had a tough relationship with
his dad. They were I think close in a blood way,
but they didn't see eye to eye about business. And
Vince really thought his dad was weed to the old
world as far as wrestling goes, and he stayed away
from it for a while. He went into construction. He
had a construction company and it failed, not once, not twice,
but he had to, you know, file a third time
because the business just didn't work out.
Speaker 5: That came up during Linda's Senate campaign that she had
bankruptcies in the past.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Linda put her foot down and she said, look,
I know you want to be creative. Construction isn't your thing.
Go to your dad, work with your dad, work it out,
take a hand. And she didn't say take it over.
But that's what he wound up doing very effectively, of course,
and he worked things out and he, you know, his
vision for things like WrestleMania was sort of the manifest
destiny that he's offered the whole thing from the very outset,
and his dad wasn't easily giving up reins. His father
was all about the small venues down south, the beer halls,
the classic old you know in the shadows, wrestling, the guys,
gigging themselves, the whole bit. And Vince just said, it's
a bigger world than that and we can take advantage
of it. And his dad just didn't quite see it
the way Vince did. And Linda, very brilliantly, I think
is the reason that Vince succeeded so well, because she
just said, don't ever sign another check. That's where we
got in trouble. Leave the books to me. I will
take care of the books. She hired Bob McMullen, and
everything changed, Everything changed, and She really really strategized the
the you know, the greedy details of the business details.
Not Vince. He had the creative hand, he had the
eye for what would work creatively, and I give them
credit for that, but what really put things to the
test and made them work financially was Linda's oversight. So
in that sense, they're a great pairing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that's great color. And we can sort of
see the evolution of Vince through while a brief tenure
in terms of working for them, relatively speaking, I'm sure
it felt like a lifetime. But before that, even knowing
them before, they had become these impresarios, Vince in particular,
it's just such a great and rare perspective to find.
So it sounds like you've been busy, Brian, Just tell
our listeners before we part here, what else you've been
up to lately?
Speaker 4: Well, haven't I been up to? Later?
Speaker 5: Yeah, narrowed down as much as you sy fit.
Speaker 4: You know, way back in the seventies when I started
in graphic design, I had my eye back then on music,
and music was was really what I care about and
love intensely, and I've never really had meaningful successful that
I used to sing voiceovers for McDonald's The Back of
my I met a few major artists along the way.
You have been very helpful to me. I left that
alone for a long time, and you know, so workwise
these days, I'm still doing logos. I do a lot
of web development, but I'm back recording songs of my
own composition, music and lyrics. And for anyone who's a
music fan wants to check them out, just go to
my name Brianpenry dot com and that's my music. So
I work with a company based in London that specializes
in sync licensing, which is music for TV and film,
and they're representing me to companies like Netflix and HBO
to create soundtracks and theme music for for shows and
that that's what I'm I'm trying to do and nothing's
really resulted of any mentioned. Yeah, that's that's meaningful in
terms of the kind of stuff I worked on graphically,
but I'm but I'm trying excellent. So yeah, that's what
life's all about now. And I raised two wonderful kids
who are I can't call them kids anymore. There the
early thirties and I just it's like, wow, I still
think of them when they were old tadpoles and I
just left it YEF so life's good, life is good.
Speaker 5: Trying to make an imprint and some other verticals, but
he definitely left his imprint on wrestling by virtue of
the time he came along with the WWF. So it's
been a pleasure to welcome Brian penry On, the designer
of the WWF logo that we all cherish, the WrestleMania logo,
and as we talked about, so many more touch points.
You do want to be reminded that Brian will be
in attendance at the Connecticut gamer Con coming up at
the Mohegan Sun Casino on Saturday and Sunday, March fifteenth
and sixteenth. Find his own booth in the artist's alley.
He'll have signed and numbered limited edition prints of the
original WrestleMania logo. Very cool.
Speaker 4: I'd like to thank you gentlemen for having me on.
I'd like to thank all your listeners for being patient
through this long, never ending diet tribe.
Speaker 5: I've been sure, well, it's it's the full dump. That's
that's where that's where we come in.
Speaker 4: It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 5: Thank you, well, thank you so much. Brian, what is
a production of the LAP Entertainment Group.
Speaker 2: Its content is intended for reven use only really
Speaker 5: Want