Wrestlers have long sought to add a little colour to their adopted personas by invoking the image of a fearsome animal in their ring names. Wrestlers such as Tiger Jeet Singh, The Wolves, Rhino, Jake The Snake Roberts, The Junkyard Dog and, um, Shark Boy (amongst others) have all implied a ferocity and power that can only be found in the animal kingdom, through the use of such names. Thats all well and good, but who, in their right mind, WANTS TO BE A F*CKING TURKEY!? The Gobbledy Gooker first appeared as a giant egg, which was then present at WWF shows for several months. As announcers speculated as to what could be inside this giant fibreglass egg (yet resolutely failed to ask who was transporting it to arenas it across the country, and, crucially, why), the audience were presumably wondering what would stop curious parties from simply pushing it over and having a look underneath it... The egg hatched at the 1990 Survivor Series, revealing a wrestler (it was Hector Guerrero) dressed as a giant turkey. We have no idea why. Response to The Gooker was overwhelmingly negative; as fans had no desire to see a wrestler dressed as a giant turkey...The idiotic character disappeared from WWF TV, but has made sporadic appearances since then, usually still played by Hector Guerrero, a man who, obviously, has a fantastic sense of humour.
I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction.
I don't generally read or reply to comments here on What Culture (too many trolls!), but if you follow my Twitter (@heyquicksilver), I'll talk to you all day long!
If you are interested in reading more of my stuff, you can find it on http://quicksilverstories.weebly.com/ (my personal site, which has other wrestling/comics/pop culture stuff on it).
I also write for FLiCK http://www.flickonline.co.uk/flicktion, which is the best place to read my fiction work.
Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that!
Finally, I sincerely appreciate every single read I get. So if you're reading this, thank you, you've made me feel like Shakespeare for a day! (see what I mean?)
Latcho Drom,
- CQ
