We're pre-empting the next chapter of the Ackerman/Schwartz/Bradbury story to bring you this more timely anecdote from my past…

Believe it or don't believe it but I have a story about Terry Gene Bollea, better known as the superstar wrassler, Hulk Hogan. In 1985, CBS debuted a cartoon show on Saturday morning called Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling. I had absolutely nothing to do with the show but I was the writer and co-producer of a prime time special CBS ordered to promote the shows on that season's Saturday morn schedule including Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling.
The special was a co-production between Sid and Marty Krofft's company and a new TV production company co-owned by Cyndi Lauper and a gent that Wikipedia describes as "Lauper's boyfriend and manager at the time." The show was to be hosted by another superstar wrestler of the day, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Ms. Lauper and her boyfriend-manager had some interest in Mr. Piper's career as well as many connections to Vince McMahon and the organization then known as the World Wrestling Federation. Mr. McMahon was not credited on the show but he was on the premises as a kind of shadow producer. (In case you're wondering, I thought he was one of the smartest people I ever met in television and he has the bank account to prove it.)
One of the problems the show had may have been too many people with "producer" in their titles: Sid, Marty, Cyndi, the boyfriend-manager, the shadowy Vince, myself and a wonderful producer (who also directed) named Bob Bowker. We all got along famously except that Cyndi was later very unhappy (justifiably) with a number of things for which she wrongly blamed Bob and me. That still bothers me because I always thought she was a wonderful performer and I am unsurprised that she has become such a wonderful writer.
For the cast of the show — and this was all decided before Bob and I signed on — we would have, in addition to Roddy, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Patti LaBelle, Pee-wee Herman, the rock group New Edition, Captain Lou Albano, Hulk Hogan and Hervé Villechaize. When I appeared on Gilbert Gottfried's podcast, the first questions Gilbert asked me were about working with Hervé Villechaize. Once hired, I added a few other bodies to the stage including Gary Owens.
I have many, many stories about the production of this odd production but this is about Hulk Hogan…
Since he was the "star" of the cartoon series being promoted, he had to be on the special. This created two problems, one being that he was booked solid with wrestling gigs and it would be hard to get him into the studio. The other problem was that when we did get him into the studio, the star of our special could not be in the studio.
The hatred that Hulk and Roddy Piper had for each other in the wrestling ring had somehow bled over into real life. Roddy — who turned out to be a very nice guy, by the way — told me that happened…often. You're hired to feign beating the bejeesus out of some other guy when the TV cameras are on and the crowd is cheering…
…and pretty soon, you really, really do want to beat the bejeesus out of the other guy. Often, like everything else in Pro Wrestling, it has a lot to do with money.
So it was up to me, the writer, to figure out how to have Hulk in the show without Roddy around. We wound up sending Roddy off the lot to a restaurant while we taped a spot in which Gary Owens did a locker room interview with Hulk. But there were other problems. Hulk would be coming to us, literally, between planes. He had to fly from one city in which he had just wrestled to another city in which he would wrestle that night. We had him for about an hour…and not a second more.
We were all set up when he arrived but there were all sorts of delays in getting him to the set. One was that to appear in "character," his muscles had to be glistening and that meant he had to be rubbed with oil. I have no idea why he couldn't oil his own shoulders but a make-up person had to do that…and when it turned out that our make-up person was male, Hulk refused his services. We had to wait until a female make-up person could be located, hired and arrived to apply the oil. We couldn't even get him to rehearse, unoiled.
This is the kind of thing that TV producers have to deal with. On this show, I also had to handle the problem that every time Hervé Villechaize had a wardrobe change, he was unable to zip up his fly. He demanded that the wardrobe ladies do it and they (rightfully) refused.
Finally, we got Hulk in front of the cameras and we did Take One of the script. He changed the words a lot and did it without sufficient "Hulk" enthusiasm. I think Vince McMahon ordered another take even before our director could. Hulk then did it again — not my words but more Hulkish — and he headed for the door. We asked him for a Take Three but he said, "I've got a plane to catch" and that was that. He also refused to stay so we could shoot the scene again with the camera focusing on Gary Owens — a shot over Hulk's shoulder as Gary asked the questions.
No, he wouldn't do that either so we needed a Body Double and amazingly, that turned out to be me. I took off my shirt, put on one that matched what Hulk had been wearing and the makeup lady applied bronzer and oil to my shoulder. Then they put me on a box. I'm 6'3" and Hulk was 6'7" but they made me even taller since it made for a funnier shot of Gary. I scrunched up my shoulder trying to make it look more muscular but…well, I'm a pretty bad actor and I was even lousy at that. We ended up cropping the shot in post-production so less of me showed.
And that was how I played Hulk Hogan for a few seconds of screen time. I'm sorry the other man who played that role has left us because he could be awfully entertaining. And then there was this…
A year or two later, I did a job for the animation studio that produced Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling. It was an unhappy project and it ended with one of those awkward situations where I said the equivalent of "I quit!" and they said, roughly, "You can't quit! You're fired!" I've been in a few of those and they sometimes end with my lawyer fighting with their lawyer over what I am to be paid for my truncated services.
My lawyer at the time was Henry W. Holmes, a name which may resonate with those of you who followed the many lawsuits of my friend and his client, Harlan Ellison. Henry is retired now. I had him on last year's Jack Kirby Tribute Panel at Comic-Con International since he helped Jack on some matters. He was a helluva lawyer and we're still good friends. And here's the kind of thing that proves a lawyer is a helluva lawyer: He got the animation studio to agree to pay me every cent my contract specified and they further agreed to deliver the check to him within 48 hours.
After 48 hours passed with no check appearing, Henry called me and said, "Well, we have two choices. I can sue them…"
I asked, "What's the other option?"
He said, "Well, Hulk Hogan is also a client of mine and we had problems with that studio paying him, too. I mentioned to him the problem I was having on your case and he volunteered to go over there, smash in the door, shatter a desk or two and demand your check. Do you have a preference?"
I said, "I like the second option best, especially if I can be there and watch!" We decided Henry would call them and threaten that but — and this was a real disappointment for Henry and me — my check arrived before he could even make that call, let alone unleash The Hulkster.
A couple years later, I was at the Licensing Show, a gathering where people sell and buy the rights to put out merchandise based on the intellectual property of the sellers. I ran into Hulk Hogan, told him my name and reminded him about the show we met on. He didn't remember me or the show — the result perhaps of some drugs ingested in the dressing room — but he did stare at me for a long minute…
…and then he said, "Are you the dude I was going to go over to that fucking cartoon studio and get the money for?"