5. Rick Rude And Bobby Heenan On Live With Regis And Kathie Lee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7mVrDtYF_Q This appearance was set up to promote SummerSlam '89, where Rude would be defending the Intercontinental Championship against the man he defeated, The Ultimate Warrior. This was back when Rude was at his most intentionally sleazy looking with his gigantic mop of hair. It's pretty standard fare until the end of the segment: Rude announces "This one is for 'The Giff-er" and takes his robe off, unveiling tights with Kathie Lee's face airbrushed on the front and Regis's on the back. Kathie Lee completely freaks out, runs up the on-set stairs, runs back down when Rude follows, her and then runs into the crowd. Rude is clearly being good-natured about it, but she's completely horrified. A few years later,
Kathie Lee talked about the incident in her book. Here are a few choice excerpts:
Then there was the "animal" known as Ravishing Rick Rude. Now, I have a problem with Reege's wrestling thing. We aren't exactly McNeil-Lehrer out there, but I think the wrestlers' shtick lowers the quality of the show a notch or two. Some of them are pretty sleazy. Rick Rude was about as low as the get, right down there with the Bushwhackers. [...] Young women are hand-picked to go into the ring with him, where this muscle-bound baboon embraces and kisses them until they just pretend to faint dead away with ardor as he stands over his latest conquest. It's a pathetic spectacle, so of course Gelman booked him. [...] Rick gave a woman in the audience an "awakening" to stripper music and then dropped his robe in front of me. I was standing off now to the side. I didn't believe what I saw. This was absolutely unscripted. On his clingy nothing-left-to -the-imagination Lycra tights, he had painted my face over his crotch. He stood there, hands behind his head, thrusting and flexing, half naked. It was so gross I didn't know what to do or where to go.
While I can see why she'd react badly, I'd hope that the modern, less buttoned down version of Kathie Lee can see the humor in what happened.