It’s always interesting going back and looking and characters I inducted in the early days of the site. I often wonder, “Was this really THAT bad? Was I overreacting? And most importantly, can I cobble together some new content that won’t tick people off?” We find out today, as I go back and grade Dean Douglas and his infamous Report Cards!
This would be of course the series of introductory vignettes for the character, as he would look at various wrestlers in the company and grade them on whatever various merits he deemed fit. The graphic you see above isn’t from some edutainment CD-ROM of the era, that right there is what the mighty World Wrestling Federation presented to viewers to introduce each skit. And if you think that looks ghetto…
…you really ain’t seen nothing yet! Check out Dean’s “classroom”, a tiny little stage with various bits and bobs scattered here and there in the most Ed Wood looking thing ever. Better yet, Dean lectures his class, one that is never shown. Why? Because they don’t exist of course! Somehow thought Dean determines that his invisible students aren’t paying attention and he does the only thing he can – run his fingernails against the chalkboard.
For his very first class, our educator comes out and, well, attempts to educate us. He does so by loudly (yet very stoically) exclaiming DEFINITION! He then explains to us exactly what the concept of knowledge is. No offense, but how dumb are these kids that Douglas is teaching? They’re new to the concept of KNOWLEDGE? If their knuckles are dragging the ground that low, they probably shouldn’t be wasting so much time watching pro wrestling.
And indeed, he chastises the entire room, explaining that they’re all a bunch of cheats and will likely flunk. He then takes off his glasses and looks sternly at the ghost children once more. Those worries I had about this not being induction worthy? Those are long gone.
With his own introduction out of the way, we get to the first grading of a WWF superstar, namely the “Beast from the East” Bam Bam Bigelow. Dean helpfully gives us the definition of what a BEAST is. Apparently a beast is a contemptible person. Wait, weren’t you guys in a faction together? Or I guess that comes after this. Hopefully Bam Bam doesn’t hold it against you that you said he looked like a walrus with no tusk. That’s not nice at all! Also Bigelow gets an F which is also not nice.
Next up, Dean tells us he has been hearing a lot of students talking about how Shawn Michaels exemplifies the meaning of the word “charisma.” Therefore, DEFINITION! Apparently that means to incite a crowd to action. I’ve never heard it described that way, but I’m not a Dean so I guess I will defer to Mr. Douglas here.
Using that as his base, Dean rightly points out something – laying on your back and getting legdropped is decidedly not very charismatic. Kinda hard to argue that point to be honest. Therefore, Shawn gets a big ol’ fat F-! I think I’m starting to detect a trend, see if you follow me here. See, Dean Douglas is a heel and therefore he flunks every babyface. This is to make us hate him. Got it!
Continuing on, Dean gives his appraisal of the 1-2-3 Kid. Apparently this guy is so ghetto he isn’t even worthy of an actual grade, getting an Incomplete instead. Is that worse than an F? I’d think that’s better? Also, don’t you dare smear white ink all over that CRT TV Dean! Those are going to be worth something someday. There’s a whole geekdom of vintage gaming nerds that would pay top dollar for it!
Whow whoa whoa, are we seriously also covering ALDO MONTOYA?? Never thought I’d live to see the day I was writing about the definition of man-of-war, but apparently such is my lot in life. But on the plus side, Dean is giving Aldo the grade of A. Wait, not just A, but AA.
But we’re not talking Arn Anderson, no no – instead this Man of War is Absolutely Abominable. I can’t say I would argue with that one.
Now let’s talk about the WWF Champion, whom some of the riffraff Dean is attempting to educate are saying is “cool”, namely Big Daddy Cool himself, Diesel. I like that Douglas starts mocking them for attempting to be cool themselves, apparently talking like a bunch of hipsters…quite poorly, we are told. Thus, DEFINITION: COOL. Apparently that’s SLANG. Good to know!
But get this – Dean isn’t going to give Diesel an F, instead he’s the highest ranked Superstar so far, getting a D…no wait, make that BIG D. Why? Because he’s defeatable. Maybe even by himself! Can’t you picture Dean Douglas as the WWF Champion? No? Don’t worry – no one else could either.
Back to the classroom we go and I honestly have no earthly idea what Douglas is going for with that ensemble – he looks less like a professor than a farmer. Heck, he’s just a bowtie away from being the pro wrestling version of Orville Redenbacher. Anyway, today we are learning all about EXECUTION.
Dean rightly points out that MR. HART isn’t executing very well – he doesn’t even bother to hook his opponent’s legs which Dean illustrates by circling the jobber’s kneepads. Somewhere I have no doubt Gorilla Monsoon is just waiting for Dean to give someone an F for not properly applying an abdominal stretch. Also Dean points out that when MR. HART doesn’t get the three count, he goes after a WWF official. And with that Dean is forced to give a grade of F – for FOUNDATION OF FAILURE.
Next we leave the classroom as Dean welcomes to “one of his many offices”, so come in class, single file please. And what an office this is – it has a COMPUTER! Sadly he doesn’t turn it our way, as I have $20 saying that monitor was amber and not green. IFYKYK as the kids say these days!
Our definition this week is redundant, which is appropriate. Like seriously, how many of these stupid things did they do? They just go on and on forever it seems. And this time we’re getting a midterm grade for one of the Superstars he gave an incomplete to earlier, that being the 1-2-3 Kid.
Dean notes that while Kid did well with his spin kick once, he went back to the well one time too many – hence, redundancy led to his downfall. I mean it didn’t – I’m quite confident he didn’t lose to Bodydonna Skip. But it did give the cameraman a good excuse to give us some Tam eye candy. Crazy she went from that…
…to this. I mean we all get older Khan, but most of us don’t go completely off the deep end and wind up in the slammer. Still, we’ll always have this.
So Dean tells us the Kid is no longer an I for Incomplete. Nay, now he is an H I…for Hopelessly Incomplete. Wait, now you’re repeating the same dumb jokes? Like I know there’s more of these, but you can grade me incomplete as well. You seriously think I’d stoop to repeating MY lame jokes over and over?
Hey old friend – where you been?