Joe Guire is an asshole. So is his older brother. Neither deserves any sympathy for how they treat other kids.
And yet, one is seen as the bigger villain and, in the end, the only villain. From where I sit, they are mirror images of each other. If they swapped bodies, nothing would change. And no one would even notice the difference.
Joe is the ginger you don’t want to fuck with. The second he lays his beady eyes on you, he already knows how he’s going to torment you. This miserable little shit even wears a “death ring” for extra heel heat. One slug to the gut and you eventually die because the poison the death ring supposedly contains takes a while to work its way into your system. It’s obviously bullshit but you only have two choices: snatch the ring and examine it for yourself or wait until you reach the eighth grade to find out for sure. And it’s easier to wait in fear then get your ass beat.
Silly ring gimmick aside, I knew kids like Joe. They were relentless bullies until an adult would intervene and they would finally back off. One would take pleasure in throwing my hat over a neighbour’s fence that was so high you wouldn’t be able to climb and retrieve it. (He later tried making headphones out of plasticine but they stuck to his ears and wouldn’t come off. Karma can be wonderful.) Another would fill my toque with snow and put it right back on my head. (He had teeth like a beaver and looked like a stereotype.) It has been decades since I suffered from their cruel antics and I hope never to see them again.
Young Billy feels the same way about Joe. He’s the new kid in school and absolutely hates it. Leaving his friends behind because his dad is starting a new job in a new town, from the moment he arrives he is instantly targeted. It does not help that the humourless principal palms the top of his head while introducing him to his new classmates.
During his first lunch break, Billy discovers his thermos has been sabotaged. Expecting to pour out a drink, out come a pile of worms instead. The fiendish Joe is firmly in control or so he thinks. Billy, a dedicated soccer player, does something no one has ever done before. He fights back. He pretends he likes eating the creepy crawlies and then throws one right at Joe’s stupid face. He should’ve thrown the whole lot.
This, of course, does not solve the problem (but it does get him over as a babyface to the whole school). Joe doesn’t take kindly to those who fight back. It only encourages him more. And thanks to his equally bullied co-conspirators (one of whom looks like a young Robert Smith with his unusually spiky haircut), Billy is seemingly on his own. But after his first encounter with Joe, he is befriended by the very tall Erika and shortly thereafter, a dancing fool named Adam. Both will remain loyal, although Billy probably doesn’t deserve Erika’s support the way he treats her sometimes.
Things come to a head when a bike chase leads to a breaking point. Tired of all this bullshit already, Billy makes a terrible bet with Joe. He has to eat 10 worms by 7 p.m. on Saturday, their first day off. The loser has to shove worms down their pants while walking through their school hallway on Monday.
With a title like How To Eat Fried Worms, there’s no room for subtlety or nuance, nor should any be expected. You can’t say you’ve haven’t been warned about the gruesomeness you’re about to subject yourself to.
But since this film deviates so much from its original source material I was very surprised by how triggered I was and how depressing it is to see so much unnecessary, unjustified cruelty in a kids movie. There is nothing funny about any of this.
Erika is repeatedly mocked for her height and her name. ”Erk! Erk! Erk!” Joe and his kowtowed cronies constantly chirp at her. I’m pretty sure they would stop altogether if she brought her bow and arrow to school and threatened to use it. (Billy spots her expertly practicing her archery in her backyard.) Because of what happens during that pivotal lunch period, Billy is forever referred to as “Wormboy.” Even the dopey principal is given a demeaning nickname - Boiler Head – which doesn’t even make sense. ”Pencil-necked geek” would be more accurate.
It’s not just the names themselves that aggravate me so (although they’re obviously not the worst thing you can be called; this is a PG movie, after all), it’s the intention. It’s always the intention. The constant degradation and dehumanizing of these characters makes for an unpleasant viewing experience. You’re not laughing, you’re cringing and getting angrier. Like Billy, you just want it all to stop.
And then there’s the sheer absurdity of the bet itself. Billy, it is established right from the start, has an unusually sensitive stomach. Whether it’s watching his annoying little brother drool or eat disgusting food that somehow remains mostly on his face, following the spin cycle a little too closely while their MILF of a mom does laundry or simply riding in a car, it does not take much for him to hurl.
So how are we to accept the very idea of him eating and swallowing worms without provoking a similar episode? I mean he doesn’t even dry heave! And he’s not eating them raw, remember. The worms are cooked and deliberately covered & mixed in increasingly unappetizing muck to the point where if this was Sal Vulcano being punished on Impractical Jokers, he would quit the show.
By the end, Billy comes up a little bit short because of an unforeseen problem. Feeling guilty for not winning legitimately, he predictably comes up with a compromise solution. All of this only happening because he and the others who have slowly but eventually switched sides see how Nigel mistreats Joe. Sorry, but this little bastard is “a joke”. I certainly wouldn’t be standing up for him. I’d be throwing him in the lake.
Realizing he’s been checkmated by a determined foe while obviously appreciative for the belated support, an embarrassed Joe instantly softens and the bullying stops. And we end with two people humiliating themselves for the sake of fairness before everyone enjoys a collective dance break, only briefly interrupted by the aforementioned scold in charge. Come on. What world are we living in here?
Depriving us of the joy of a true prick getting his comeuppance is the last straw for me. It doesn’t even have to be violent retribution, nor even truly vengeful. It just needs to be satisfying, an exclamation point that more convincingly ends the hostilities. Bullies are a scourge and a cancer and should never be celebrated. And they sure as hell are not your future friends unless they genuinely become better people and stay that way. I don’t remember Joe saying, “I’m sorry,” or even begging for forgiveness.
The message of How To Eat Fried Worms is a cold one irresponsibly masquerading as heartwarming reconciliation. Billy has to literally torture himself just to stop his own torture and make these dimwitted goons his friends. It hardly seems worth it.
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Monday, January 29, 2024
11:01 p.m.
Revisiting Hulk Hogan’s First Year As World Champion (Part Three)
In between his feuds with Orndorff, Studd and Schultz, Hulk Hogan would work short-term house show title programs with a number of other mid-card heels. He first wrestled Greg “The Hammer” Valentine in Cincinnati on April 21 where he only managed a DQ win. The following week in Baltimore, he had a more definitive victory by pinfall.
They would wrestle seven more times between June and October. Just like Dr. D, Valentine would be unable to even achieve a cheap victory. Hogan would win by countout in Niagara Falls in late June and pin The Hammer in every other match-up, although The History Of WWE website does not reveal what happened on August 28 in Glen Falls, New York.
Two of these pinfall victories were captured for posterity and aired on TV. On July 23rd, Hogan beat Valentine cleanly in Madison Square Garden as seen on the MSG Network and later beat him again at the Philadelphia Spectrum in a match that aired on PRISM and also appeared on the first Hulkamania videotape.
After Valentine won the InterContinental title from Tito Santana in September, the title was not on the line during a WWF title match in Ottawa on October 9. Unlike his latter matches with Randy Savage in 1986, Hogan never challenged The Hammer for the IC strap in title-for-title bouts, at least not in 1984.
But he did continue to defend the World Wrestling Federation Championship against a diverse group of opponents regardless of their standing in the company.
Afa and Sika, the original Wild Samoans who were the first three-time WWF tag champs, each had their shot at Hogan’s strap, just before their collective face turns. Afa was pinned three times, including at a March 7 taping of All-Star Wrestling which was broadcast five weeks later, while Sika lost twice in the spring (April 2nd in Buffalo and May 20th in Hartford). Sika would challenge him again during his last solo run beginning a couple of years later but would remain unsuccessful.
During his last full year as a villain, George “The Animal” Steele would have a brief feud with Hogan that began in the summer and concluded in the fall. Two of their matches were taped in St. Louis at the Kiel Auditorium. Thanks to the interference of this then-manager Mr. Fuji, The Animal won by countout during an August 10th taping. But Hogan would get a DQ victory during their rematch on September 1st.
With the exception of a count-out loss on September 30th, also credited to Fuji’s underhanded tactics, in Chicago, Hogan pinned Steele in the rest of their matches (July 22 in Minnesota, October 16 in Oakland, and the 21st in their blow-off battle in The Windy City). Speaking of Fuji, Hogan defeated him on September 28 in St. Louis which wasn’t recorded.
Besides working squashes and title defenses, Hulk Hogan would also be booked in a few tag matches. The most famous one from this period was recorded on August 26 in Minnesota. During his feud with The Animal, for one time only he aligned himself with his favourite broadcaster, “Mean” Gene Okerlund, who he met during their time in the AWA.
To prepare for their tag match against Steele and Fuji, a humourous training segment was later included in the first Hulkamania tape along with the bout. It consisted of Hogan breaking into Okerlund’s house very early in the morning to make him drink raw eggs and forcing the considerably smaller announcer to do rigorous training like carrying his 300-pound body while walking on stairs in the Met Centre.
The training paid off handsomely, even though Hogan did most of the work, as the babyfaces went over the heels in their tag match, much to the annoyance of Jesse Ventura who complained to the referee after their win, as reported by The History Of WWE website, which was excised from Hulkamania.
The Body would challenge Hogan himself in four different title matches, losing clean in three of them from September 8th to the 10th. He also wrestled a dark match on July 31st during a Championship Wrestling taping but thehistoryofwwe.com doesn’t reveal the result.
Ventura was supposed to challenge him far more often but he developed life threatening blood clots during this period, which The Body blamed on his Vietnam experience, which required hospitalization. Therefore, he was substituted by a number of other heels including Steele. Real-life friends at the time (until he learned about a decade later that the champion cockblocked his union organizing), throughout his time as a colour commentator, The Body often threatened to come out of retirement to face Hogan one more time, referring to him as a “paper champion”.
Although it was never shown in its entirety on The Best Of The WWF, Vol. 1 cassette, Hogan teamed for the first time with Andre The Giant for a handicap match against Big John Studd and the tag champs, Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch on July 15 at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, another regular taping location in the 1980s. In a match that The History Of WWE says went over 20 minutes, Andre and Hogan would go on to win by pinfall.
Hogan would also team twice with Mad Dog Vachon. On September 23 in Minnesota, they beat George Steele and Big John Studd, who filled in for an ailing Ventura. And on November 12 in Chicago, they defeated Steele and Mr. Fuji.
In Japan on May 16, Hogan teamed with Studd’s tag partner Ken Patera who would later challenge the champion in 1985. They faced Antonio Inoki and Tatsumi Fujinami which ended in a double count-out. In a six-man match four weeks later during that same tour with New Japan, the WWF Champion aligned for one night with Adonis and the Masked Superstar beating three more Japanese stars including Fuji’s old tag ally Mr. Saito. He also teamed up with the third Wild Samoan Samula on three different occasions which resulted in zero wins.
The only time Hogan didn’t get along with a partner in Japan happened on January 4, 1985. Although his side would win in a six-man affair against a team that included Inoki and Fujinami, both future winners of two separate and now defunct WWF mid-card titles as part of a talent swap arranged by both companies, after securing the victory, he brawled with one of his allies. It would be the first time he would see red against his future WrestleMania 2 challenger King Kong Bundy.
Hogan rarely wrestled on the weekly one-hour nationally syndicated WWF shows that mostly presented squashes and hyped local live events in specific markets. In fact, in 1984 alone he worked about ten times, not counting a couple of additional matches weeks before he won the title at the start of the year.
On March 6th, he taped his first of three matches with Tiger Chung Lee which would air a month later on Championship Wrestling. Then, on April 30, he beat him again in Oakland, California which was not shown on TV. (While the CW match was clearly a non-title affair, it’s not clear if he defended the title in the latter match.) They would square off one last time on August 6 during a Maple Leaf Wrestling taping in Brantford, Ontario. The title was not up for grabs and Hogan would go over clean once more.
A month earlier in the same location, Hogan pinned Hamilton, Ontario native Jerry Valiant, the former tag team champion with kayfabe brother Luscious Johnny, in Brantford, Ontario in a match that aired on the suddenly hated Georgia Championship Wrestling, the once adored NWA show on TBS that Vince McMahon Jr. had taken over but would quickly abandon after Crockett loyalists complained en masse about the change of ownership and what they believed were weaker matches. On September 29, Valiant would put Hogan over again in St. Louis in a fight that aired a month later on All-American Wrestling.
Hogan also defeated another former tag strapholder, Moondog Rex, later the original Smash from Demolition who teamed with Bill Eadie, the formerly Masked Superstar, before being permanently replaced by Barry Darsow, on three separate occasions: June 24 in Jerry Lawler’s territory in Memphis, the 25th in Kentucky and during a Maple Leaf Wrestling taping on August 29th which aired roughly two weeks later. Like Tiger Chung Lee, based on his status as a jobber, it’s not certain if the title was only defended during the untelevised live events.
Rene Goulet, yet another former tag team champion, faced Hogan during another recorded non-title match in Montreal. The Number One Frenchman, later an onscreen authority figure usually brought out to break up brawls involving younger talent, would lay down his shoulders after taking the leg drop, according to The History Of WWE website.
Just before Christmas, Hogan would have two more non-title enhancement matches to end the year. In London, Ontario during an All-Star Wrestling taping, he pinned the veteran jobber Terry Gibbs on December 16th. The following day, he disposed of Johnny Rodz, another longtime enhancement talent, during a Championship Wrestling recording. Both matches would air two weeks apart in the first half of January 1985.
In the second half of 1984, Hogan was supplied with new villains to conquer like Cowboy Bob Orton (their second match on September 7 in Long Island aired on All-American Wrestling a month later) and Nikolai Volkoff who he both defeated on two different house shows apiece. Both would continue to challenge him in the years to come.
He faced Kamala The Ugandan Giant three times. The only result listed on The History Of WWE website is a double DQ finish on August 30 in Hartford. They would also resume their title program two years later.
Over the Christmas holidays, Hogan would give his old friend and on-again/off-again tag partner Ed Leslie his first two shots at the belt. On Boxing Day, he beat him clean in Miami and again in St. Louis on the 27th. Long before he was The Barber, Brutus Beefcake would continue to get championship opportunities in the new year. He wouldn’t taste gold until teaming with Greg Valentine to win the tag straps that summer. Only bad luck would prevent him on two occasions from taking the InterContinental title, as well.
Another future ally who would never betray him would debut in 1984. Pretending to be a fan named Big Jim who sat at ringside for numerous weekly TV tapings, Hogan would give him a pair of wrestling boots and start training him for pre-taped vignettes. He would later be called Hillbilly Jim. They’d start teaming together the following year.
Besides working one-on-ones with Antonio Inoki in Japan (who defeated him for the IWGP Championship that he briefly held simultaneously with the consistently undefended WWF title) among other New Japan workers and a successful one-time title defense in Mexico against the 15-time Universal Wrestling Association champion and luchador legend El Canek, Hulk Hogan’s most important unbilled program would lay the groundwork for an explosive future during the last three months of 1984.
Having already encountered him as the mouthpiece for Big John Studd and “Dr. D” David Schultz at ringside, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper was now ready to step into the ring and challenge the WWF Champion himself. In vintage voiceover audio used in his recent A&E Biography, Piper declared that he wouldn’t “lay down his shoulders for anybody”. But that’s not true, according to thehistoryofwwe.com.
Piper and Hogan had six house show matches between early October and mid-November. During their first encounter on October 6 in the Boston Garden, Piper got a count-out win. But nearly two weeks later at the San Diego Sports Arena, Piper laid his shoulders down.
In Buffalo on the 30th of that month, Hogan would have to settle for a DQ win. In their return match at the Boston Garden on November 3rd, it was the champion who won by count-out, the same result he would achieve a week later at the University Of Utah.
In their final live event match of 1984 before taking a break and then starting the build to the crucial War To Settle The Score confrontation at MSG the following February, Hogan pinned Piper again on Veterans Day, appropriately enough, at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.
While it’s true that Piper never did a televised job for Hogan, he most certainly did so at two unfilmed live events in 1984. After their famous MTV match that ultimately led to the main event of WrestleMania, Piper and Hogan would continue to work together throughout 1985. Incredibly in 1986, they even became unlikely and reluctant tag partners in matches that emphasized their awkward, tense history. And in 1991, after he was attacked by The Undertaker during Paul Bearer’s Funeral Parlour talk show segment which would lead to The Gravest Challenge at the Survivor Series, there was The Rowdy One, along with The Macho Man, coming to his belated rescue.
During the first 12 months of his first reign as WWF Champion, although not entirely undefeated in title matches thanks to numerous count-out and disqualification losses, The Incredible Hulk Hogan was never pinned in North America. Japan, of course, was a different story, one that remains unacknowledged by WWE since all those defeats of various types happened for a different company.
As they started rolling out their first round of Coliseum Videos and extensive merchandising that year, Terry Bollea was front and centre in the WWF’s marketing scheme. In 1985, he made history as the first and only pro wrestler to make the cover of Sports Illustrated, a rare legitimization of a business then dismissed by the mainstream press as a deceptive joke.
But Bollea’s rapidly growing popularity was the real deal. And with MTV and NBC playing major roles in developing prime time and late night programming in the new year, not to mention the monster success of WrestleMania, his stock would skyrocket along with the WWF’s. In one year, despite rampant criticism from the likes of Dave Meltzer and others who were unimpressed with his in-ring work, Hulk Hogan was the face of pro wrestling. And it was only the beginning of an extraordinary ride as champion.
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, January 25, 2024
11:52 p.m.