6.6 /10 1 Votes6.6
7.1/10 TV Created by WWF Final episode date 18 October 1986 Program creator WWE | 6.2/10 IMDb Genre Animated Series Developed by Jeffrey Scott | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Voices of Brad GarrettCharles AdlerLewis ArquetteJames AveryJodi CarlisleGeorge DiCenzoRon FeinbergPat FraleyRon GansAron KincaidErnest HaradaChuck LiciniJoey PentoNeil Ross Cast | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling is a French-American animated television series that originally aired on CBS Saturday mornings from September 14, 1985 to December 6, 1986, with reruns airing until June 27, 1987.
Contents
History
Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling was animated and produced by DIC Entertainment. It featured animated adventures of popular WWF stars from the time, including its title character Hulk Hogan and his group of wrestlers fighting against a group of rogue wrestlers led by Roddy Piper. The show followed cartoon archetypes concerning good characters triumphing over evil-doers in wacky situations, typical of children's cartoons in the 1980s.
Rarely referenced, wrestling was simply a device to determine the good guys from the bad guys. The wrestlers themselves appeared in the live-action segments of the show; however, due to their busy travel schedule, they did not provide the voices for their animated counterparts. These were instead performed by professional voice actors. One recurring live-action segment was the music video for the cover of "Land of a Thousand Dances" recorded by several WWF wrestlers for The Wrestling Album.
Due to the show being animated and the longer production times that resulted, it often failed to keep pace with the events of the WWF at the time. This resulted in certain wrestlers turning heel (or, in non-wrestling terms, a villain) in regular WWF programming but remaining good guys on the cartoon and vice versa. Jimmy Snuka and Wendi Richter's likenesses were used throughout the series' run, despite both having left the WWF in mid-1985. It also depicted Hogan as having a full head of hair, as opposed to the noticeably receding hairline he sported in the ring.
WWE (as the WWF was renamed in 2002 after the company lost a lawsuit against the World Wide Fund for Nature) and the Cookie Jar Entertainment division of DHX Media (who own the rights to the DIC catalog) currently co-own the rights to the program.
In April 2015, WWE announced that the program would be added to the WWE Network, making its premiere following the April 20 episode of WWE Raw. On July 24, 2015, Hulk Hogan was fired by the WWE and references to Hulk Hogan including Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling were removed from the WWE network.
Characters
Hulk Hogan was the leader of the faces, or good guys; consisting of Junkyard Dog, Captain Lou Albano, André the Giant, Wendi Richter, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, Hillbilly Jim, and Tito Santana. Roddy Piper was the leader of the heels, or bad guys; consisting of The Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, The Fabulous Moolah, Big John Studd, and Mr. Fuji. Bobby "The Brain" Heenan and "Mean" Gene Okerlund appeared animated in a few episodes as well.
Music
The theme to Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling is "Hulk Hogan's Theme". The theme was composed by Jim Steinman and adopted as Hogan's entrance theme prior to "Real American" by Rick Derringer. The vocal version of the song is called "Ravishing" which is sung by Bonnie Tyler. It was featured on her album Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire (1986).
Episode list
Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling aired for 2 seasons beginning in 1985. Each episode was 30 minutes in length (including commercial breaks.) Some episodes contained one 30 minute title while other episodes contained two 15 minute titles. Over the two seasons, there were a total of 26 episodes with 39 titles.