From The Back Of My Closet: The Bobby Heenan Show

I know it’s been a while since my last review. Everything I write for this site in a week’s time adds up to more than Tuesday’s with Morrie (credit to Edwin MacPhisto, all rights reserved). However, I return with a truly back of my closet pick with the entire run of “The Bobby Heenan Show,” all four episodes plus bonus footage. Most fans know that Vince McMahon has always been obsessed with crossing his wrestling product over into the mainstream and have it be viewed as more ‘entertainment’ than ‘wrestling.’ To this end when he first went national was the variety program “Tuesday Night Titans” featuring wrestling stars in a talk show type setting. In the late eighties and early nineties, manager and commentator Bobby “The Brain” Heenan began getting some mainstream media exposure thanks to appearances on “Family Feud” where he became friends with host Ray Combs and on Nickelodeon where he became friends with channel personality Marc Summers. McMahon decided to capitalize on Heenan’s potential by giving him his own talk show in 1989 immediately following “Prime Time Wrestling” on Monday nights. The show was bizarre, esoteric, winkingly bad and self-referencing on par with Heenan’s trademark sense of humor.

However, before we get to all that we have to watch Hulk Hogan whipping up some of his patented python shakes to give him the strength to fight Terry Funk and Jesse Ventura and Roddy Piper making fun of the Hillbilly Family swimming in the kiddie pool. Why yes, that is the intro to “Saturday Night’s Main Event” from January 1986. What does that have to do with the subject at hand you might ask? Because the episode features Heenan’s debut as a color commentator in the World Wrestling Federation. Jesse “The Body” Ventura is coming out of retirement to team with Piper and Bob Orton against Hillbilly Jim, Cousin Luke and Uncle Elmer. He knows Vince McMahon can’t handle the commentating duties alone, so the Body has asked the Brain to fill in for him.

BONUS MATCH ONE: RODDY PIPER, BOB ORTON AND JESSE VENTURA VS. HILLBILLY JIM, COUSIN LUKE AND UNCLE ELMER

Heenan’s barbs lack some of the wit and timing he would later show, but he does get in some of his classic heel comments like noting that the hillbillies should have to wrestle in standard issue tights and boots like everyone else instead of “dirty levis.” His chemistry with McMahon is a bit shaky, but it would improve over the years as early episodes of RAW with them on the mic would prove. Now to the match.

Ventura starts out with Elmer. He pins him in the corner and clubs him down. Elmer breaks a choke and bonks Jesse on top of the head which he sells in comical fashion by tripping across the ring and smashing into the opposite turnbuckle. Elmer choke tosses Ventura and then picks him up to drive his face into Hillbilly Jim’s boot. Tag to Jim who takes over with a side headlock. Jesse powers out and whips Jim into the ropes. He catches him coming off with a knee and tags Piper. Tag to Cousin Luke. Piper offers him a friendly handshake. Luke takes it, only to beat Piper at his own game by kicking him in the gut and wailing on his head with punches. Clever spot, because the fans all knew what was coming from Hot Rod. This only enrages Piper who fights back with a flurry of punches and tags Orton. Double back elbow off the ropes puts Luke down. Orton goes to work with his famous cast and stomps Luke on the mat. Tag back to Piper. Double throat thrust and he follows with a rising knee lift. He spits at Jim to tick him off and keeps on Luke with a bell ringer. Tag to Orton. Luke fights back with a head butt and some right hands. Bob tags Jesse and snatches Luke’s leg to prevent him from tagging. Snap mare leads to Ventura walking on Luke’s face. He tags Piper. Notice that Ventura is working as little as possible here, namely because a heart attack forced him out of the ring in the first place.

Ventura holds Luke so Piper can paintbrush him with bitch slaps. Tag to Orton who comes in with an elbow off the second rope. Great team work by the heel side. Piper back in. Luke bearhugs Piper and bullies him into his corner. Ventura expertly distracts the referee so he misses the tag. Orton comes in with a body slam and then tags Piper back. Luke just shrugs it off and rushes to his corner to tag Elmer, making the whole heat segment leading to the hot tag moot. Piper backs off a bit as the fans are going nuts. The two get into what one could call a ‘slobberknocker,’ which ends with Elmer hoisting Piper above the mat in a bearhug. He rakes the eyes to break. We’ll keep the clichйs flowing as a pier six brawl breaks out. The heels conveniently regroup on the floor so we can head to commercial.

Back from break has us right where we left off with everyone fighting in the ring. Piper and Jim wind up being the legal men as matters calm down. Piper takes control with biting to the head and punches. He makes the mistake of headbutting Jim, who doesn’t have anything up there to hurt and he no sells it. Jim headbutts Piper to take over and gets a wristlock. Unable to make the tag, Roddy tries a different tactic by bitch slapping Jim in trying to make him lose his cool and release the hold. Jim doesn’t fall for it, but Piper is able to get on the other side of him and push Jim into the corner for the tag to Ventura. Forearm to the back doubles Hillybilly Jim over and he holds him for a running forearm to the back by Orton. Tag to Piper. They trade punches with Jim once again no selling Piper. He tags Luke who goes to town with double axe handles, way laying Piper and knocking the other heels off the apron. Luke goes for a body slam, but Piper maneuvers out and slips behind for a sleeper hold. The faces try to save, but the heels cut them off. Everyone fights again. Orton clocks Luke in the back of the head with the cast in the melee and Piper acts like the sleeper put him out. This is one of the few times you will see the face’s arm drops three times. The heels pick up the win and run off. * Ѕ Piper’s hijinks and great ring generalship was the glue that held the bout together and made it mildly entertaining.

Ventura reclaims his spot and congratulates Bobby on what he is sure was a great job. He tells McMahon to watch himself or Bobby will take his job and force him into the unemployment line. Cute.

We then fast forward to Prime Time Wrestling in 1989 with Monsoon holding court next to an empty chair. He explains that Heenan is no longer with the program and shows footage from the previous week. Heenan had finally had it with Gorilla Monsoon and the crew of Prime Time making fun of him. He had gone to the top brass at the USA Network and they have decided to give him his own show. Heenan goes on a verbal tirade that results in him committing the horror of horrors by DESTROYING THE BANANA PHONE! Fans of Prime Time will cringe at that. Monsoon welcomes his new co-host, oddly it’s Roddy Piper. At the time he was a goofy face so manic that Robin Williams would tell him to lay off the coke. Piper’s work here is a far cry from the great heel commentating he did on the last volume of Turnbuckle Memories I reviewed.

We cut to Piper and Monsoon discussing the Ronnie Garvin as a referee angle, and I have to admit I was a huge Garvin mark as a kid. Monsoon then notes that not only did Heenan leave Prime Time last week, but also gave up his duties as analyst on Wrestling Challenge aside Monsoon and skinny, porn mustache bedecked Tony Schiavone.

BONUS MATCH 2: MR. PERFECT VS. SOME JOBBER IN RED TRUNKS

Ironic that Heenan’s big blow up would come during the match of a guy he used to manage. They do a crisscross sequence that Hennig ends with his double shoulder hook snap mare. The bout is secondary here as Heenan finally explodes over having Schiavone come onto the team and reduce his role. God love Tony, he’s actually trying to call the match and ignore the chaos, in contrast to his later days in WCW where he would talk about everything else but the match at hand. Heenan rips off his headset and takes off. Monsoon says not to worry, he’ll be back. In the ring, Hennig gets a standard snap mare followed by the running neck snap. He knees the jobber in the head and then pulls him up for a chop and some punches. Rising knee lift and Curt bellows “now you know why I’m perfect.” He chops Jobber McJobber into the corner, but gets a whip reversed on him. He bounces off the turnbuckles to eat a body slam. He drives Perfect into the corner with punches and whips him to the opposite end. He stupidly charges and Hennig meets him with both feet in the air. Heenan returns to yell at Gorilla some more and plug his new show, which allows us to miss the Perfect-plex for the win. ј * I didn’t see enough of it to grade the match fairly, but it seemed like Hennig’s standard, energetic squash for the period.

We then go to Bobby in the makeup chair readying for his new show. He takes digs at Gorilla and Piper before hyping how everyone is talking about The Bobby Heenan Show and how he will stun the humanoids with his lineup of guests. Piper shows his true wit by putting on a Frankenstein mask and pretending to be Heenan by making out dated references to Thunderbird wine.

Another hype segment follows with Heenan working on adjusting the lighting. The “greatest moment in the history of television” is coming up! Piper quips that Heenan has to do everything himself, because no one will work for him.

THE BOBBY HEENAN SHOW EPISODE ONE

The show starts on the right foot with the standard cheesy music and revolving clip montage of Heenan in all his glory. Lord Alfred Hayes is the announcer and refers to Heenan as the “Maharaja of repartee.” Hayes’ over the top intros were one of the best parts of the show. Bobby welcomes us to the show and introduces his ‘Oinkettes;’ Namely three fat women in swimsuits that will escort the guests out. “I know what you people are thinking right now, you smell something on the stove and bacon is cooking. Nah, it’s just that the lights are hot.” Heenan chats up the Oinkettes and has them turnaround to show off the merchandise. “Look at those backs, anyone want to play handball?”

We cut to commercial and come back to meet Heenan’s first guest, Jamison Winner. Alfried introduces him as a former NASA scientist who is now the chief air traffic controller at LaGuardia airport. Some diehard WWF fans might remember Jamison showing up here and there after The Bobby Heenan Show went off the air. He was played by comedian Andy Kindler who has hosted various talk shows of his own here and there along with playing the reoccurring character of Andy on “Everybody Loves Raymond.” The character of Jamison is your standard nerd in a bad suit with taped up, thick glasses. I took some improvisation courses in college and the first thing you learn is to always agree with your partner. Any idea they throw out you run with it. Jamison denies almost everything Heenan gives him. They yak a bit about Jamison’s step cousin Francesca that he lives with and discover that Vince McMahon called Jamison to come down for a job. He then goes to cross his legs and kicks his shoe across the room. “Your shoes are nice.” “Yeah, and I own them.” Heenan asks him what his idea of a good date is and he says bowling. Last time he went Jamison got a three hundred, over six games.

They cut to commercial with Heenan still grilling Jamison about his love life. “Jamison you ever been swimming in Alaska?” “No.” “I was wondering about the oil in your hair.” Heenan then asks Jamison about his favorite food and they talk about chicken. They talk about music and Jamison sings some Doors. “I thought you would like that group the Greyhounds.” “I’ve never heard of them.” “Really, I see their tour bus all over the country.” This whole segment is as fascinating as it sounds. I get the idea of Jamison as the perfect foil for Heenan to ridicule with his trademark humor, but the guy just can’t keep up. I’m not sure if they wrote this all out before hand, because it seems very off the cuff. It wouldn’t surprise me if they winged it. “The couch is starting to smell funny, you have to go now.”

Heenan’s next guests come out. A mother and daughter comedy act named Koko and Penny. These bitches couldn’t get into “The Gong Show” auditions. Here’s a sample gag. “These people can read you like a book.” “Then they know on the inside I’m the Joy of Sex.” “And on the outside you’re the Joy of Cooking.” Bobby looks ready to put a nail gun to his head and end the pain. “How is that liquid diet?” “It’s hard to get a Big Mac through a straw.” Jamison plays with his tie. Heenan checks his watch. He finally gets them to stop and sit down. “Just off the cuff, that stunk.”

For historical purposes the address to be on the Bobby Heenan Show or “if you know someone who deserves to be on the Bobby Heenan Show” was PO Box 3857, Stamford CT 06905. Promotional consideration was paid for by Rolaids, Rascals candies, Clorets mints and Peak antifreeze. The comedy act plugs their upcoming performance dates and Heenan makes small talk with them until the credits. The lights fade to black and Heenan turns his chair around on the guests, which is a great outro.

I am then thrilled to all hell to have the old opening to Prime Time Wrestling on the tape. The theme song was bitching. Monsoon and Piper greet the viewers and talk about what a train wreck the first episode of Heenan’s program was the week before. Piper molests a Hulk Hogan teddy bear.

We get a vignette of Heenan telling his cameraman to make sure to get nothing but close ups of him. He hypes the show. We jump to another hype segment. I don’t think Piper has a lot of room to mock Heenan when the running gag throughout the episode of Prime Time appears to be that he drinks a whole lot of water and then has to go to the bathroom really bad, but can’t leave the set while the show is on. I’d rather watch Jamison.

THE BOBBY HEENAN SHOW EPISODE TWO

Lord Alfred introduces “the prince of verbal perfection” himself. Heenan brings Jamison back out as his permanent sidekick. Ok, maybe I would prefer Piper doing the pee pee dance. Bobby puts himself over as a great humanitarian for giving Jamison a job.

We go to break and return to Jamison snoring on the couch. “Believe me he’s better like that.” The first guest is an 84 year old stripper named Leona Harlow. She’s dressed like an old west showgirl, which Bobby picks up on. “Welcome to Bonanza.” She made the dress herself. She plays the clarinet. She started stripping when she was 81. Jamison wakes up and thinks it’s his grandmother. Leona says she wants to live to be 110. “Great we’ll have a big party for you. All your friends can come by. We’ll dig them up.” Leona sings an old burlesque tune and Jamison dances with her. Bobby promises that she’ll strip after the commercial. That is supposed to make us keep watching?

“Now you’re going to see what this lady does best. Quit her grinnin’ and drop her linen.” Leona does her strip tease bit. She goes to an outfit that a middle school tap dance student would wear. Heenan asks if that’s it. “Well, I didn’t know I could go this far in Connecticut.” Great line.

We get another commercial and Jamison is whispering to Bobby about how he would like to ask Leona out on a date and he encourages him to go for it. “You’re the kind of guy that on your honeymoon that would put your pants to bed and hang yourself over a chair all night.” The next guest is Jim Grosso. He whistles through his nose. He’s British. He has very shiny shoes. He’s been whistling through his nose since he was eight. It’s no nasal disorder. He’s had no practical training. He whistles a tune through his nose. Bobby waves a hand under his nose and his heavy cologne makes him cough. He does “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” next. Bobby gives the old ‘p-u’ sign and Jamison salutes. “Would you like to stand up, drop your pants and yodel me something.” We go to break.

“Welcome back to death row.” Jim reveals his trick by saying that he can sing without moving his mouth. See, he’s a ventriloquist and can throw his voice, so he just makes it look like he’s whistling through his nose. I have to say that he’s a lot better than others I’ve seen, as his lips don’t move at all. He sings the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” He gets the stripper to dance. He has Jamison boogie with an Oinkette. He brings up the other girls to dance. Bobby punches how his show packs in the entertainment.

Monsoon and Piper trash the show some more. Piper hears that Rick Rude has the hots for one of the Oinkettes. They show the now standard Heenan hype segments where he puts himself over and plugs his stellar guests. Heenan takes a swipe at Piper for wearing a dress. He reminds the Brain that he had his own show four years before he even heard of Bobby Heenan (I’d assume he means Piper’s Pit, but his time frame is off). He says that he’s the legend killer because he’s bumped more guys off than anybody. Now we see where Randy Orton got the gimmick.

THE BOBBY HEENAN SHOW EPISODE THREE

Lord Alfred introduces the man “with the electric mind that confuses the intellectual and overwhelms the plebian.” He gives a passing nod to Jamison and the Oinkettes and then calls for the first guest. Please welcome belly dancer Kareema Asqui. She’s either 65 in heavy makeup or a dude in drag. “Just think, if you married Buckwheat, you’d be Kareema Wheat.” She does her dance, “make ‘em bounce, make ‘em bounce.” She finishes up, Heenan tosses a couple softball questions her way and we hit the break. Back from commercial Bobby has Kareema teach Jamison how to belly dance. More so she just dances over him and ties veils to his head. She walks on his back. “How about I get on your shoulders Kareema?”

The second guest is Jacob Blinbech the Brooklyn hypnotist. He’s been doing it for twenty years. He doesn’t use the watch. He mostly helps people to lose weight and stop smoking. Jacob gives Jamison a test to see if he’s a good subject. Basically he just tells him to lean back and he catches him with his palms out. Whatever. “I hear to be hypnotized you need to have the IQ of a pair of galoshes.” The expert says that intelligent people actually make better subjects. We go to commercial and come back to Jamison getting hypnotized. Heenan wants him to bark like a dog. Jacob puts Jamison to sleep and Bobby steals his wallet. Classic. The post hypnotic suggestion is that his glasses are X-ray and he can see everybody naked. Jamison sells that as well as Undertaker getting clotheslined by a cruiserweight.

Our third guest is Marie Chaveau. She’s a Frenchwoman that keeps pigeons. She’s actually the best guest Heenan ever gets because he has tons of material to throw at her and she seems oblivious to it all. “Let me ask you a question. When you put them in that bag of shake ‘n bake there isn’t much meat on them is there?” She wants to stop the reproduction of pigeons. As near as I can decipher you feed them something first thing in the spring and first thing in winter and they won’t mate for six months. Heenan can’t understand her either. “You don’t think a nice 46 oz Louisville Slugger would stop them would you.” “Wouldn’t it be better to raise that tail and put some super glue there?”

We hit our last commercial. Chaveau expands on the fact that treating pigeons her way will also keep them from crapping all over everything. “I hear they’re going to put a statue of a pigeon in a park and every year a bunch of generals will come by and…you know.” Kareema and Jamison dance more and Bobby has the doctor try and hypnotize the bird. “Until next time, take your bird and you know what you can do with it.”

All we get from Prime Time is Gorilla throwing it to Heenan at the end of the program and it’s magic time.

THE BOBBY HEENAN SHOW EPISODE FOUR

It’s a pity this is the last episode, because it’s by far the best as everyone including the guests start getting into the spirit and attitude of the show. Lord Alfred gives us the “man whose incredible knack of voicing the appropriate phraseology in the most acute of verbal situations has placed all other talk show hosts on a plateau of mediocrity.” Those are the best damn intros ever. We get to the first guest off the bat. It’s Morris Katz, a speed painter who looks like Frenchy Martin’s closet blew up on him. Katz puts himself over as an artist and television show producer and would like to do some specials on Heenan’s greatness. Later he will paint the house where Heenan was born. He says he’s Bobby’s biggest fan and wishes he could speak English as well as he. This guy is a slicker conman than the Brain himself. “Your beret’s too tight, you ever think of that.” The trick to the speed painting is that he does it with toilet paper. “You’re not finicky are you? Nah, that’s another Morris cats.”

Katz goes off to paint and second guest Heather Hunter comes out. If you recognize the name, shame on you. Hunter is a porn star. They get into an interesting dynamic here as Jamison knows who she is and Bobby doesn’t. It’s the first time the nerd has ever been one up on him. They talk about her movies, including Cuming on America which Heenan mistakes for Coming to America and he brags about how he’s buddies with Arsenio Hall. Heenan wants to know what it’s like to kiss Robert Redford and Heather says she wished she knew too. They kind of pussyfoot around the romantic scenes issue. Finally Jamison pulls Heenan aside and tells him what’s up. Believe it or not, but Bobby is speechless and tosses it to break.

Back from commercial Katz already has three paintings done. Heenan has recouped and says he’s glad to have Hunter for a guest. She doesn’t have a boyfriend, but does own a rabbit. At no point do they say that she’s in porn. Heenan asks about whether she dates any of her ‘leading men’ and asks if she would do a ‘love scene’ with Jamison. She thinks he’s kind of cute. She likes the spit curl. “Would you like to do a love scene with him? Anyone have a paper bag.” Hunter reveals that it takes about one day to make a movie and there are very little overhead costs. Bobby asks if she has any other talents. Heather says she dances and struts her stuff to “Real Love” by Jodie Watley. She’s not half bad honestly. “We better put Alfred in the other room. I don’t think his heart can take it.” Hunter finishes by flashing Heenan and he does a backwards header in his chair off the stage. Yeah, that’s a cue for a break.

We’re back. Katz has about a half dozen pictures done. They’re not bad. Something you’d find on the wall in a cheap motel. The last guest is Jean Beckwith. She a brittle old lady who blows smoke bubbles. She has a yellow suitcase with her, “just in case.” She learned how to blow bubbles from her goldfish at the University of Wisconsin. Jean has done movies. Bobby asks if she’s ever done any with Heather. I’m not watching that one. She lights a cigarette and Heenan pops open a beer for her. “We’re going to sit here and watch you die.” Heenan fills times as she tries to get going. She said it can take awhile; she wasn’t able to do it on “The Letterman Show” or on tour in Australia either. Bobby gets so bored that he opens her suitcase to find Dinkem the stuffed platypus. Time to pay the piper and I don’t mean Roddy.

The show picks up with Jean still trying her damndest to get a bubble out. Apparently she got one out during the break. She finally spits one out and it’s disgusting. With that triumph we hit the big finish. Smoke bubbles are blowing. Heather is dancing with the Oinkettes. Katz has his tenth painting rapping up. It’s a nice seascape. He gets up on stage and dances with it.

Cut to the next Prime Time Wrestling. It’s a three hour special and The Bobby Heenan Show is canceled for the week. The bad news is that Heenan will be joining them from his set in studio B. Bobby comes on and tells Piper that he has arm guards manning the studio doors so he can’t get to him. Heenan is still the host of Prime Time as far as he’s concerned. Monsoon didn’t find someone to fill his shoes, just a guy to fill a skirt. Heenan threatens Piper with violence. Piper scoffs, “You’re as exciting as watching the Waltons sort cranberries, you know that Bubba.” “If I gave you a dollar for every minute you could last in the ring with me you couldn’t buy lunch at McDonald’s.” “Where?” Heenan’s never heard of it. They really lay into each other throughout the program. They talk about the Brainbusters cheating to win the tag titles and how Rick Rude will put the IC belt up against the Ultimate Warrior at SummerSlam.

The Brainbusters taking the tag titles off of the Hart Foundation in a best two out of three falls match is shown. Unfortunately we don’t have the match on the tape. Apparently from the commentary, Heenan tampered with the tape to cut off the interference from Andre the Giant. Piper runs off to the editing room. He finds the real footage and they play that. Heenan steers the conversation back to SummerSlam while Piper continues to lay the barbs to him. They show something that really ticks Bobby off, but they don’t explain what. Finally, Rick Rude shows up in studio B and chews out Piper. He goes nuts and runs off to fight Rude. Rude runs off to find Piper. Piper shows up in Studio B while Rude pops up on the Prime Time set. They yell at each other some more. Piper says not to move an inch, he’s on his way. Rude threatens Monsoon and Roddy runs in for the save. Heenan shows up and production personnel hold Piper and Rude apart.

Fast forward to the summer of 1993. Vince McMahon and Bobby Heenan hype the next episode of RAW. The Smoking Gunns and Adam Bomb are on the card. Gnarly. Gorilla Monsoon, who had recently become the commissioner of the WWF comes out to confront Heenan. He yanks the Brain up by his jacket collar and marches him straight to the back. Enough is enough after all these years and he tosses Heenan to the curb with all his bags. Dirty underwear and toilet paper goes flying. Heenan in tears trips off into the night and heads straight for Turner land and a job with WCW.

I would love to have had all of that Saturday Night’s Main Event episode and some more of the Prime Time matches, but that wasn’t the point of the tape. Some people might get glassy eyed trying to watch “The Bobby Heenan Show,” but if you get the concept and enjoy that type of consciously so bad it’s funny humor then you should get a kick out of it. Heenan walks a brilliant line between being earnestly interested in his guests and a mocking jerk that holds proceedings together and really demonstrates why he is one of the greatest personalities ever in the wrestling business.