Everything about that night went wrong in a hurry, and Alex Karras (Mongo in Blazing Saddles) admitted that he should have known better.
He shouldn’t have put any money down on football games. He shouldn’t have gotten in so tightly with the Butiscaris brothers and discussed buying into their place in Detroit, the Lindell Bar. He shouldn’t have agreed to work as a kind of celebrity bartender.
More than anything, he should have known better than staging this hokey wrestling stunt which hinged on Dick “the Bruiser” Afflis not flying into one of his Looney Tunes rages.
-WiscoDave
My dad worked at Detroits' Olympia stadium in the 50's and 60's. Olympia was home to detroit hockey, basketball, rodeo's, wrestling, ice capades- you name it. My dad who thought wrestling was totally bogus, he would see the wrestlers choreographing their bouts during the day, knew Dick the bruiser was a real tough guy. One day as dick was entering his Cadillac behind the stadium, a couple of guys tried to rob him, dick beat them both into the hospital. It was graphic and gory. Dick slammed the car door on one guys hand several times.
ReplyDeleteGreat story.
ReplyDelete"Mongo only pawn in the game of life" is probably the greatest movie line ever.
ReplyDeleteI use that one a lot in my normal life!
DeleteCool story, never heard it before but he will always be mongo to me
ReplyDeleteWhy do I hear Billy Joel singing that?
DeleteWiscoDave
Dick the Bruiser was one of my favs back in the day. He was very convincing, with a voice that sounded like square bearings in a red-lined V8.
ReplyDeleteThat was a story well told
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid in the early 1960s, my grandfather would take me to live wrestling shows in Detroit. One year, just before Christmas, the local TV show "Big Time Wrestling" announced that for the upcoming bout at Cobo Arena that kids 12 and younger could get in free with every adult who bought a ticket. But then Dick the Bruiser comes on the TV to warn us, "Every kid that gets in for free takes money out of my pocket! Kids! I'm gonna be waiting for you at the ticket window, and I'll make you buy a ticket!"
ReplyDeleteWell, I was really afraid of meeting up with Dick the Bruiser, but my grandfather took me to that wrestling event anyway. But if I would have seen the Bruiser anywhere near the ticket window, I would have run away in fear!
Dick the Bruiser wrestled in my hometown of Mattoon, IL. He was past his prime, and I was just a stripling.
ReplyDelete