[1991-10-14-WWF-Primetime Wrestling] Randy Savage protesters

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

A mob gathers outside insisting that Randy Savage be reinstated. Poor Bobby Heenan is just trying to get to work.

 

Savage shows up in the studio and campaigns for a moment.

 

"I'm not a Republican. I'm not a Democrat. But a lot of people say I'm very, very, very, very, very independent."

[PeteF3]

Heenan is swarmed by protesters on behalf of Randy Savage, and suspects that one of them swiped his watch.

 

Savage browbeats Heenan into holding one of the Reinstatement signs. 1-900-ATTACHED? Really?

[Kevin Ridge]

Fans demonstrating for reinstatement of Randy Savage. They block Heenan’s car from getting through. He just has to ditch his car and walk the rest of the way in. Savage going all out to get the support to return to the ring. Call the hotline!

[soup23]

Mooney is your host of Primetime now. Was this Vince selling the chair shot? Macho is great in the primetime setting glad handing, selling his point, and clowning on Bobby. Jameson is still a thing as well.

[garretta]

No, Soup. The smart money says that Vince ditched the show due to falling ratings. I can't confirm this independently, but I know that Prime Time switched to its final format, the roundtable, not too long after this. If you remember, Vince left the dying carcass of TNT in Okerlund's hands so Gene could be blamed for its cancellation, and it wouldn't be a shock if Sean was the designated patsy here. He's not at ease, barely interacting with Heenan and still sounding for all the world like he was running down the next big local show in the Events Center. Why Vince insists on using him for play-by-play and host roles that require him to have chemistry with someone other than Lord Alfred (who can work with anyone) I have no idea. Just keep him in front of a teleprompter; it's where he works best.

 

As for the segment itself, it's a two-man show with Savage and Heenan. Plants or not, you can feel a genuine connection between Randy and the crowd, and he works them expertly. Yes, the signs and chants were obviously preplanned, and Heenan having to go through the crowd of protesters was funny, but not much else. The strength of this segment lies in the studio, where Savage makes a fool out of the Brain in every possible way, right down to sticking him with the check for the lunch date with his contest winner. If Vince and Gino aren't going to be around to play off of Heenan, the guests need to pick up the slack, and Randy does so spectacularly here. If he and Jake were actually engaging right now, I might say that hijinks like this were taking away from the feud, but since they're not, and since we all know that the drama will be turned up to eleven in a matter of a few weeks, I find it all perfectly acceptable.

 

By the way, kudos to Bobby for knowingly playing the fool so well. It had to be hard for him to do stuff like this knowing that he couldn't get his heat back anymore, since he wasn't actively managing except for occasional appearances with Flair. But he does what needs to be done, holding up the "Reinstate" sign like a trooper and allowing himself to be punked. The difference between stuff like this and his other humiliations is that he knows in character that he's being humiliated and that there's no one coming to save him, which makes the whole thing even funnier. (I hope everyone gets that I'm talking about the Weasel character being humiliated and knowing it, not Heenan the performer, who's always been in on the joke.)

 

I didn't know that Randy and Liz had a hotline of their own. Boy, Vince really tried his best to separate the little Hulkamaniacs from their piggy banks, didn't he? A better number might have been 1-900-OHH-YEAH, though.

[dawho5]

The hotline thing cracked me up. Those things are all the rage in 1990 and 91. Bobby does play a great victim here and Macho is all kinds of awesome. Why is Sean Mooney on my TV?