I recently saw a film called They Live. I'd never seen it before but knew of it so I was excited to see it.
Essentially They Live is about an alien occupation of America. The aliens are disguised as humans and living among us. No-one can see the aliens except for a few resistance fighters who wear special glasses, through which their faces appear like thinly muscled skulls. The blurb to the movie calls them ghouls but I can't verify this as I have no idea what a ghoul is meant to look like although I did appreciate the use of this underused horror trope. It was released in 1988.
One of the resistance is played by Roddy Piper the WWF wrestler and his character John Nada is the film's leading role.
When John wears his specs he sees a cityscape of subliminal commands to OBEY and a world full of skull beings. Unfortunately for him they know he can see them!
Very much of the ilk of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Futureworld, John Carpenter gave us a neat new slant on the sub-genre, creating a kind of socio-economic critique of Eighties America. In this sense it reminded me of Romero's Dawn of the Dead without the grue.
The version of They Live I saw was on You Tube and a Monster Vision showing. Monster Vision must have been an Eighties US cable TV station ( anyone remember it? ) as it had its own host who popped up every now and then to crack jokes. He even interviewed Roddy Piper, which was fun. Roddy had the most perfect set of top teeth I've ever seen! Sadly Roddy died in 2015 aged just 61.
Consulting my well-thumbed guide to loose action figures I noted that Roddy came as a plastic figure back in the day and sported a red tartan kilt. He was part of that initial muscled flush of famous WWF wrestlers who were made into toys during the Eighties wrestling craze headed up by Hulk Hogan. Sadly this passed me by completely but I often saw whole heaps of these figures wrestling in boxes at car boot sales in the Nineties. Should I have invested in wrestlers like Roddy, IRS and Mr. Perfect I wonder?
Does anyone collect old wrestling action figures? Have you seen They Live?
I first saw They Live back in the rented VHS 80s. I was surprised and pleased to catch up with it again on the Horror Channel a couple of weeks ago, Woodsy. It seemed like the 80s was a pumped-up moment when a number of colourful pro-wrestling celebs made the leap from the ring, to the Hollywood movie set, and the toy store.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know it was on the horror channel Tone! I saw it on You Tube. Very political and very topical I would have thought. I was really quite sad when I read that Roddy Piper had died so young at just 61. I thought he did a fine job as the lead in They Live.
DeleteYes, I agree Woodsy. His early death was sad. I'd seen interviewed him on a couple of programmes and he always seemed like a very likeable, humble and inspirational fella - someone who worked very hard for what he'd achieved in life. You're right, he did a great job as the anarchic lead character in Director, John Carpenter's a socio-political criticism.
DeleteSorry about garbled typo! It should read - 'I'd seen him interviewed on a couple of programmes...'
DeleteMonsterVision is shown on a channel called AMC(American Movie Classics)around Halloween time,when they're showing scary movies pretty much around the clock.About Wrestling action figures;there is huge,I mean HUGE piles of wrestling action figures from the last 30 years at my local flea markets,and people still clamor to buy them,and brand new ones being churned out and sold at Toys R Us as we speak.Mr. Piper was one of the original wave of figures, made by LJN,in mid to late 80's.I watched Wrestling as a child in the 70's(pre Hulk Hogan)and I remember wishing that a company like Mego would make action figures of my faves,like Andre the Giant,Chief Jay Strongbow,Killer Kowalski and so on.It seems I was ahead of my time in the idea department, but I still say,Mego could have made a fortune off of a kids dream.
ReplyDeleteYes I'm surprised Mego didn't grapple with some wrestling figures. Maybe it was too late for them. I can imagine eager collectors searching through those huge piles of figures looking for that special one missing from their collections. Pity it all passed me by completely. Checking my action figures book an Andre the Giant action fig came out in 1990 along with Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper et al. As you say Brian, the original toys. The wrestlers' names are brilliant. I love Mr.Perfect and The Million Dollar Man.
DeleteUh, Oh,correction time.It seems that Monstervision was a trademark of TNT network, not AMC.AMC uses the title Monsterfest.Easy to get the two names confused, my apologies!
ReplyDeleteCheers for that Brian. We never really had independent channels like Monster Vision here in the UK. Pity. We have the Horror Channel, which is free. That's about it for dedicated horror and monsters.
DeleteHi Woodsy,
ReplyDeleteI saw They Live at the theater on the big screen when it came out. Was also a big fan of WWF (wrestling, not the wildlife foundation!) from that era and had many of the figures. Still have many figures in the original packaging. I got quite a few as presents from friends and family, and some of them were duplicates. The duplicates I put in a box. The Godfather, Million dollar Man, Jake the Snake Roberts, Macho Man Savage, Rowdy Piper, Hillbilly Jim. As usual, that was a great time.
Jim
Sacramento, CA.
Sounds like you had a great time too Jim! The excitement of youth and collecting is a great combination. Do you swap your duplicates with other wrestler collectors? I wonder if there is a decent book on collecting these figures like a Schiffer or similar?
DeleteDidn't really swap or trade them. Haven't run across any collecting books on just the wrestling figures. The closest that I've seen for that was from a toy magazine, Action Figure News and Toy Review. It ran for many years but is now out of business. It would publish, usually in each issue of the later ones, a Guide to one toy. These would be in color and show the different toys of that line. Larger lines, like Kenner Star Wars, would be spaced out over one or two or more issues. They also published a price guide each month in the middle of the magazine covering all the toy lines and their current prices.
DeleteJim
Was that magazine by Tomart? I used to buy Action Figure Digest in UK shops that stocked US mags. I even had a subscription for Toy Shop, the large vintage toys newspaper, which I adored. It was like Ebay on paper before the internet came along and changed collecting forever. Come to think of it I have tons of US toy mags and books going back to the Eighties. I am currently browsing through my copies of the Monster Magazines Collectors Price Guides, one from 1988 and one from 2000. Fantastic stuff.
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