10 Times WWE Treated Its Audience Like Children
8. Gobbledy Gooker
A gigantic egg probably should have raised more eyebrows than it did in late 1990; in retrospect. A brand new killer character was hardly going to hatch from it, especially in the family-friendly WWF environment of the Golden Era.
Still, few expected the monstrosity that did; the Gobbledy Gooker, and this was as fatalistic as the pro wrestling industry gets, was an enormous turkey. This was a different time. Fans didn't chant "This is awesome!" at the sight of some impossibly athletic sequence. They enthusiastically counted to 10 as a babyface delivered light blows to a heel who would invariably sell in a wildly exaggerated manner. Expectations were different - and the Connecticut crowd still rained down jeers at this terminally dumb thing with massive golf ball eyes, gobbling non-speech, and bird-legged dancing.
The character was mooted to be a big hit with kids. It wasn't. Kids are far more critical than they are often credited.
The thought process behind such a creation is inscrutable, but one thing is clear: only the most undiscerning of comedic minds could have created it. And he did: this was Vintage Vince, whose company entered a sharp downturn in commercial fortunes mere months later, funnily enough.