WrestleCrap crapThis week's inductionsHeadliesIt Came From YouTube!Somone bought THIS!Rewriting the BookJobber of the weekForumQuakeContact the Crap

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Straight to Video Movie Release, 1996
Text by Harry Simon

Note from Triple Kelly: Direct-to-Video Hulk Hogan flick that took Harry Simon a month to finish writing up for the site because he could only watch it in 10 minute increments. We can't blame him in the least.

Man, was 1996 a great year to be a wrestling fan.  A wise king preached from the book of Austin 3:16.  Humanity heard the call and bought the t-shirt.  Meanwhile, in Philly, a young man named Tommy was quite literally unsuccessful in his quest to pin down his archenemy, Raven.  So Tommy got revenge by knocking up Raven's old lady, instead.  And way down south, pro wrestling good guy icon-of-icons, Hulk Hogan, spoke into a microphone at the Bash At The Beach PPV.  Hulk suggested that his legion of fans 'stick it,' and thus, turned heel on a shocked generation who had grown up with the Hulkster, saying their prayers, taking their vitamins, and trying to make sense of that one episode of 'Hulk Hogan's Rock n' Wrestling' where Junkyard Dog, Superfly Snuka, and Andre The Giant wound up going over a waterfall in a barrel.  Seriously, what the hell was that?

The point is that like many other pro wrestlers, 1996 was a banner year for Mr. Hogan.  That's probably why a certain 1996 Hulk Hogan movie slipped through the cracks.  Almost.  As any Hulkamaniac knows, Hogan has always wanted to make it as a movie star ever since he got a taste of the glitz and glamour with a memorable small part as 'Thunderlips' in 1982's Rocky III.  (And given the fact that Hogan would later admit under oath to a history of steroid use, I'd suspect that more 'small parts' were to follow.)  You can easily access a list of Hogan's movies at www.imdb.com, www.amazon.com, or better yet, use the same webpage that I did. 

Ah yes, like a terrible repressed memory, it's all coming back to you.  Mr. Nanny, Santa With Muscles, and Three Ninjas On Mega Mountain, just to name a few.  Today, the Hulk Hogan wing of our video library is joined by this thing I just watched called The Secret Agent Club.  Here's the propaganda from the back of the video's box:

To the world Ray Chase (Hulk Hogan) is nothing more than a klutzy, overgrown toy seller whose wife passed away a few years ago; and his only son Jeremy doesn't get to see him very often because he's always away on 'business trips.'  What no one knows – not even Jeremy – is that his dad is a secret agent who flies all around the world, completing highly classified missions for a top-secret peacekeeping agency.

Unaware of his dad's dangerous, yet exciting, secret identity, Jeremy's world is utterly normal.  But all that changes when Ray returns from a mission, bringing with him a high-powered laser gun he stole from a treacherous female foreign guns dealer.  Ray tells his son the gun is only a toy, but his secret comes out when the dealer sends her henchmen to capture Ray and retrieve the gun.  The nasty henchmen get Ray, but Jeremy escapes with the wanted firearm.  After he learns how to use the laser gun, Jeremy gathers his friends, and together they hatch a clever plan to rescue Ray.

For the love of Bruiser Brody's bushy beard, where do I even start?  For one thing, Ray's friends and neighbors sound like a bunch of assholes.  'Ha!  Look at the klutzy, overgrown toy-seller!  AND HIS WIFE IS DEAD, TOO!!  BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!'  Then there was the fact that they saw fit to tell us that nobody on earth – 'not even Jeremy' – knew of Ray's terrible secret.  Gee, thanks for clearing that up, guys.  Now the flame wars over whether or not 'no one' does or does not include Jeremy can finally come to an end and the healing can begin.

Elsewhere, the box also threatens, 'True Lies' meets 'Home Alone!'  Meaning what, exactly?  Joe Pesci does a seductive pole dance in a hotel room?  That visual (you're welcome) is slightly less appealing to me than a picture about Hogan exploiting the trust of his motherless son and stealing things from treacherous females.

Anyway, we begin with Treacherous Female peddling her wares, which happens to be a clunky, junky 'laser gun' that would have been laughed out of the 80s, back when laser guns were the height of kiddie action film cool.

But what's all this then?  A masked interloper crashes the party and chokes out a henchman in a manner so precise, the dude went down faster than Richard Belzer!  Who is this man of myster-- Oh, it's just Hogan.  My first clue was when he unmasked not four minutes into the flick (and the first two were opening credits).  I dunno, I've never tried my hand at espionage, but I'd think that when one is clad head-to-toe in black, trying to slither amongst the shadows of night, one would at least have the common sense to KEEP HIS FREAKIN' MASK ON.

Way to go, Agent 00-Ego.  From there, Hogan's stunt double climbs a fence with ease, gaining access to the perimeter while simultaneously insulting the intelligence of anyone who happened to see the infamous Hogan vs. Roddy Piper 'Age In A Cage' match from Halloween Havoc 97 (voted Worst Match Of The Year by readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter).

Meanwhile, at the auction house, Treacherous Female summons Wrecks, who will be our grunting, punting, big angry mean guy for the evening.  The role of Wrecks was played by the great Richard Moll, best known as Bull from Night Court.  However, many (okay, just me) consider his finest work to be his superlative voicing of Harvey Dent/Two-Face in Batman: The Animated Series.

Wrecks' gimmick is that he has a metal boot or cyborg leg or whathehellever that causes him to limp/stomp menacingly.  Why only one leg?  Did they blow the prop budget on the lamer gun?

Speaking of which, Treacherous Female then demonstrates her new toy by vaporizing a mannequin and thus, robs the scene of its most charismatic character.

While outside, our Not-So-Secret Agent knocks out a senior citizen with an electric Vulkan nerve pinch, and proceeds to remove the man's trousers.  Thankfully, they didn't show that part in full, but still, not six minutes into the thing and we already seen Bionic Bull intimidate spectators with his evil hobble, and now we have Hogan pulling a JBL on some poor geezer.

So Hogan claims his victim's uniform, and of course, it fits like a glove despite the fact that their builds are nothing like one another's.  Man alive, I did laugh hard when Leslie Nielsen did the exact same gag in The Naked Gun, which was eight years before SAC.

Scoffed at by a skeptic, Treacherous Female uses her lamer gun to blow up his helicopter.  Mind you, this was after she already killed one of her own servants to make a similar point.  The way I hear it, that's pretty much how Nipple H handles her writers meetings, too.  Treacherous Female starts the bidding at ten billion dollars, then leaves the room with her buyers in tow.  The gun is left under the protection of her steel-toed sentinel.

Amidst all the inaction, Hogan cunningly breaks away from the pack, knocks out Wrecks with three punches, then gloms the lamer gun and cheeses it.  Yeah, okay, sure.  He can punch out Bullborg with his bare hand, but he needed an electro-glove to take down General Grandpa minutes earlier.  That's Hogan booking for you.

On the way out, our hero assaults another goon, and – get this now – proceeds to unravel the lad's turban and use it as a rope to descend the wall to safety.  Ain't no comedy like ethnic slur comedy!

Hogan's escape is cut short by Treacherous Female, who of course, is unable to control her lust for the Hulkster and begins seducing him.  Ye Gods, woman!  He just finished off an old man outside the building not five minutes ago!  Hulk's not a machine!  Treacherous Female is horrified to find that Hogan is NOT happy to see her, and in fact, that IS a gun in his pants!  Hogan eludes his would be attackers amidst the world's slowest chase scene ever.  For a high-level spy, the guy sprints like Yertle The Turtle.  Nevertheless, Hogan successfully makes it to his hidden jetski and glides away to freedom.  I'm sure there's a Thunder In Paradise joke to be made, but I'm 14 minutes in, and I already just don't give a rat's ass.  That's a new record, even for Hogan.

Our minor-league movie then redundantly darts to a little-league ballgame.  Hogan's son is crestfallen because dear ol' dad has no-showedÉor has he?  Hogan does a drive-in, removes the small woodland creatures from his head and upper lip, and takes the field!  Wait a minute, since when are adults allowed to drop by a little league game and join it in progress?  What the hell is this, WrestleMania IX?  What kind of umpire would allow such madness??

Oh, no wonder.  The umpire is that Hulksuckin' Nasty Boy, Brian Knobs.  It's probably my fault for asking.  I suppose I should just be grateful that kids who struck out were not subjected to the Pit Stop (aka Pitty City).

Junior dreads the idea of Hogan taking the field.  His fears are reinforced by the other parents laughing at Hogan's inherent dorkiness.  A pop fly goes sailing toward klutzy Hogan and you're never gonna believe this, but...

...Hogan caught the ball and won the game for his team. Come on, are you new around here? Were you really expecting anything other than Hogan going over and hoarding the spotlight? Crap like this is exactly why 'The Heatburglar' is just one of the colorful nicknames out there for Mr. Bollea.

Off to Hogan's toy shop, where we meet Mr. Yamata, a proverb-spouting lickspittle in Hogan's employ, who comforts young Jeremy by talking about his dead-ass mama, and suggesting that he is a selfish swine for not putting Hogan's feelings ahead of his own.

So Jeremy makes a beeline for Hogan's office and sees the top-secret lamer gun in Hogan's briefcase, spread-eagle on his desk. Once again, that's some great espionagin' there, Hollywood.

A car chase ensues, with Jeremy marking out for Hogan going all GTA on the city. I dunno, for a super spy thriller action sequence, I've seen nastier car chases in Assisted Living parking lots. Hogan finally kicks Jeremy to the curb, tosses him a cell phone, and tells him that he can trust Max Simpson. Jeremy then grows to adulthood on the mean streets, where he gives handjobs to strangers to afford enough mac-and-cheese to stay alive. Nah, not really. Now I'm just being a prick (TM Sean Carless).

The chase comes to an abrupt end when Wrecks lives up to his name. After Hogan is apprehended, Wrecks makes an angry face upon realizing that the laser was nowhere to be found. Well, it would have been found had his goons been arsed to take a gander in the fake-ass looking hidden compartment in the backseat, where Hogan hid it. But instead, Wrecks spots Jeremy, and decrees that for not having the common sense to run away, the boy must die. Actually, he's got a point there.

 

Is it just me, or is each chase scene actually slower than the last? Wrecks tracks Jeremy to a nearby rooftop where Jeremy apparently plans to elude the behemoth BY SODOMIZING A GIANT INFLATABLE BEAR.

Despite being an inanimate object, the horrified bear tries to escape by diving off the building. Both Jer and bear hit the pavement, and in a double tragedy, the bear has committed suicide and Jeremy is completely unharmed.

As with any Goonies wannabe, Jeremy turns to his youth group for help. While first they scoff at his story (join the club, kids), they quickly come together by getting loaded and trashing his place in a drunken frenzy.

Meanwhile, Wrecks hunts down Hogan's toy store and runs afoul of Yamata. Despite Yamata displaying a mastery of the martial arts not seen since Becoming The Dragon, Robo-Bull soon gains the upper hand and throws Yamata a whuppin'. You know, just like how Zeus beat down Hogan's little brother in No Holds Barred.

Deciding to act before the buzz wears off, our plucky young heroes abscond off to Hogan's toy store, where they are joined by Yamata's grandson, just in time to find Yamata paying homage to the Wicked Witch Of The East.

From there, we join Hogan and Jeremy at the dinner table for a brief moment of Rockwell-esque tranquility. But things soon go to pot when Jeremy goes cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and starts screaming at Hogan.

'YOU UNCONVINCING, OVERPAID, NO-BUMPING, WASTE OF LIFE!! YOU PROMISED ME THAT I'D GET TO MEET STING, BUT SO FAR ALL I'VE SEEN IS THAT CREEPY BISCHOFF GUY SMILING AT ME IN A DISTURBING MANNER!!! MY TESTICLES HAVEN'T DESCENDED YET, AND MY CAREER IS ALREADY OVER THANKS TO THIS PIECE OF HELL!!!! I HATE YOUR ORANGE ASS, HOGAN!!!!! I HATE YOUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!'

 

One cutaway later, and we see that actually, Hogan is being tortured by a bizarre virtual-reality whoosafudge that forces him to suffer through a mind-numbing experience from which there is no escape. Whitey The Mad Scientist had a convoluted explanation for this process, but I can sum it up in one word.

'Karma.'

Wrecks phones home and informs a displeased Treacherous Female that he has thus far been unsuccessful in his efforts to accomplishÉwell, anything in the whole damn movie. Aggravated, Treacherous Female vows to bring in 'Scarletti' to do the dirty deeds done dirt cheap. (Seriously, I found this thing in a bargain bin for like $1.99.)

As Yamata does a stretcher job, Yamata Jr joins the kids. More ethnic hilarity ensues as the kids are vexed by YJ's bizarre bowing. Now that their numbers are complete, the rascals come up with a master plan to save the day: They're going to break into the car impound lot and recover the lamer gun from Hogan's Volvo! Wait, dowhutnow?

Oh oh, here comes trouble! As Wrecks storms the lot, his cybernetic roach-stumper suddenly makes perfect sense. To understand a Hogan film, we must think like Hogan. When it comes to giving your villain a finisher, what could be more devastating than the BIG BOOT?

As Wrecks closes in, the kids begin to panic. I can only imagine the stark terror when a murderous half-bailiff-half-machine comes after you and you're completely and utterly defenseless except for the ENORMOUS DEADLY F**KING GUN IN YOUR HAND. Trust Hogan's son to be the one youth in modern-day America who doesn't know how to cap one's ass.

 

And you thought Brooke and Nick led sheltered lives.

In a fiendishly clever plan, Sly (the black kid) amcrays with the gun, leaving the other four kids behind as decoys. In doing so, Sly instantly became the second likable character in the picture.

The kids can only stall Wrecks for so long before they're saved by a friendly fella in a white van who rolls up and does a drive-by on Wrecks. 'Quick, into the van!' orders this mysterious marksman. Not thinking twice, the kids excitedly pile into the stranger's white van. Great message to send to your young fans, Hogan.

Jeremy concludes that this just be Max Simpson, and even long after 40 minutes worth of SAC turned my mind to pudding, I could still see the swerve coming a mile away. Anyway, Chester takes the kids to his home and entertains them with black magic.

Oh, and while Jer was marking out for Papa Shango II, his pop was still hallucinating, this time featuring Jeremy blaming Hogan for his dead-ass mama. Yamata was right; Jeremy is a selfish little bitch!

Meanwhile meanwhile, 'Max' casually tells Jer about his dad's secret double-life. You'd think that Jer would question why Uncle 'Max' would be so nonchalant in blowing his dad's cover in front of him, two of his friends, and Yamata Jr, who they met for the first time about 10 minutes ago. But hell, anything that inches this turd closer to the finish line is a good thing. Like a pig in a shootfight against the Iron Sheik, Jeremy squeals, revealing the whereabouts of the lamer gun. 'Max' reassuringly tells the kids to sit tight and bamfs away with a sinister giggle. I was actually hoping that the giggle would turn out to be Chucky, who would then cut a promo on Rick Steiner, but no such luck.

Meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile, Whitey grows increasingly frustrated with his inability to find out just what's going through Hogan's mind. Dude, how do you think we've felt for all years? Anyway, it is here that Whitey decides to bam it up a notch, which would turn out to be his undoing. You see, Whitey's last resort to break Hogan was...

...sticking a gigantic needle in his arm. Um, aren't scientists supposed to be smart? Whitey might as well have tried to tried to drown Popeye in a swimming pool full of spinach. One Hulk-up later, and Hogan is on the loose!

 

Alas, Hogan's emancipation lasts all of 49 seconds before the big dummy gets corralled in a laughable trap that wouldn't have caught Wile E. Coyote unaware.

Treacherous Female then uses Hogan's cell-watch to make a prank phone call to Jeremy. 

'I'm sorry, Mrs. Gruberman, but I can assure you that we don't have an Adolph Hitler costume for you to rent. Have you tried calling JBL?'

But the action doesn't stop (or start) there! A guy who bears slight resemblance to Jason, The Sexiest Man On Earth, from ECW fame, comes bursting in on the children! Alas, his mercenary training and gun-that-shoots-bullets is no match for Yamata Jr's anti-gravity educated feet! For the sake of bandwidth, I'm going to leave out how this was the real Max Simpson while the friendly driver-byer was the nefarious Scarletti. 'Sides, if anyone hadn't already figured that out by now, how much would an explanation really help?

Meanwhile, back at the Hall Of Indifference, Sly is using his master-hackery skills to, um, hack. And what he hacks up is a bio on Hogan. You know those neverending promos where HHH runs down the list of wrestlers he's buried? Well, this is almost as bad. Turns out Hogan is the baddest mofo on the planet and he's also responsible for promoting world peace. How? By stealing weapons? That defense didn't work for Ollie North, and it ain't gonna work for Hollie Wood.

A tense standoff ensued as Scarletti forced Sly to lead him to the hidey hole where he stashed the lamer gun. Well, I wasn't feeling the 'tense,' but I sure was relieved when it made it to 'past tense.' To wit, after a mishap with the lamer gun, Scarletti met his demise, but not before amusing the viewers with an impression of this movie's plot.

Jer enthusiastically led the gang to Hogan's rescue. As the final climatic battle took place, Jer found himself going midget-y-mano with Wrecks. With no bears to play catch with (ahem), all seemed lost for Jer. But don't count him out just yet! When all seemed lost, Jer pulled out a slinky and lobbed it atop a conveniently-placed high voltage generator. As the slinky um, slunk, downward, it zeroed in on Wrecks' mecha-leg and electrocuted the sumbitch.

Slinking a guy to death? That's hardcore. I now understand that Pearl Jam song.


This all leads to a standoff where Treacherous Female holds Jer hostage in demand for the lamer gun. National security be damned, Hogan folded like layers of Nipple H's flesh after a jaunt to Krispy Kremes.

Sooooo...after the gang escaped to safety by using a slip-n-slide, they – Hey, stop looking at me like that. I'm not making this up.

Blame Hogan.

Anyway, they learned that that sneaky Hogan switched on the lamer gun's auto-destruct feature! (Hey, just like he did to WCW!) The evildoers perish in an explosive fireball, but not before Wrecks does a tasteless impression of Kerry Von Erich.

After sharing a hearty laugh at their mass murdering rampage, our tale ends as the kids are honored by the President, receiving the distinguished 'Intelligence Cross' medal. Sadly, the fact that I voluntarily sat through this thing permanently disqualifies me from ever achieving that honor myself.

Wanna hear something pathetic? This induction should have been finished a month ago. The reason it wasn't is because it was THAT HARD TO SIT THROUGH. Y' see folks, before I was officially opening the velvet ropes to induct WrestleCrap into our hallowed halls, I was shoveling the 'Crap into compilation tapes for archiving and fun. Thus far, I've logged over 200 hours of the golden brown. Yet throughout all the Gookers, Shockmasters, and Art Donovans in the world, IT TOOK ME AN ENTIRE F**KING MONTH TO SIT THROUGH 'SECRET AGENT CLUB.' That's how bad it truly was.

Still though, I learned something from today's crash course in Hulk Hogan filmography. Like most famous geezers, Hogan has endured his share of 'old man' jokes over the years. People happily swipe away at Hogan's recurring flare-ups of Alzheimer's, senility, and complete loss of contact with reality. But credit where it's due, the Hulkster has squashed one aspect of senior-citizenship like it was a young up-and-coming WCW wrestler. I speak, of course, of incontinence. By the grace of God, I hope that when I reach 163 (or however the hell old he really is), I can still plop 'em out year after year like Hulk Hogan.


Harry Simon is a trivia-fueled wisenheimer who has been writing about pro wrestling off and on for 16 years and counting. In addition to writing trivia columns for both the Wrestling Observer and Live Audio Wrestling websites, Harry has also written for Pro Wrestling Illustrated, and even contributed a ton of research to fellow Las Vegan Mike Tenay in preparation for the first NWA TNA PPV in 2002. Harry has also done play-by-play, color commentary, and ring announcing for indy promotions. Harry's disturbingly popular column, Clustershmazz, appears at http://www.thewrestlingfan.com/clustershmazz.html. (WARNING: Clustershmazz contains foul language and tasteless humor, and should not be handled by pregnant women.)