As Christmas of 1984 rolled around, I was well aware that Mick Foley had dropped the ball. It was high time that the Dude picked up the damn thing and ran with it for a while.
The Loved One was taped in the three days spanning January 11-13, 1985. In addition to being historic for giving birth to the “roof” dive that was later seen by millions on World Wrestling Federation programming, it was one of the best times I can remember. It was like a great party for me and a bunch of my friends. My friends didn’t know their lines, so they had them taped to wrestling magazines, and even with the verbiage right in front of them, their performances were so poor that they made Pete Gas look like Sir Laurence Olivier by comparison.
My parents were away for a few days, which meant I had room to let my creativity run rampant, which I did in a highly inebriated state. Like I said, I’m not a very regular drinker, but if anyone wants to get a look at Mick Foley when he’s drunk, The Loved One is your chance. With the exception of the famed “backyard match,” I’m hammered in every scene.
The Loved One was essentially a retelling of the Frank Foley movie, but with several added plot twists, and much greater technical expertise. It was still so bad that I have never allowed my wife to see it, and when the World Wrestling Federation years later wanted to put the Dude tape on the tube, I gave them access only to the wrestling scenes. Actually, the entire movie was recently screened at Danny Zucker’s house in Seattle, and was a great hit, but when it comes to The Loved One, I like to think it has a limited audience of about the five people who were in it and their immediate families.
The film starts out as Danny Zucker walks hand in hand with my friend Felice, sits down at a picnic table where Felice’s lines are taped to firewood, and asks her to marry him. Danny is disguised with the classic Groucho glasses with the big nose, furry eyebrows, and mustache, but even the getup can’t hide his pain as she tells him, “No, Danny, I can’t marry you because I feel like you’re hiding something from me.”
“All right, Felice, I’ll tell you,” Zuck said, “I guess we’ll start at the beginning.” With that, the scene-complete with gentle love music in the background-fades out, and the strange saga of Dude Love unfolds.
Mick Foley is my character in the beginning, a tortured soul who is still trying to put the embarrassment of his suicide attempt behind him. Like many survivors of suicide and incorrect name calling from the woman of his dreams, Mick is without ambition, as he sits munching salty snacks amid his concerned friends. “Why don’t you go back to wrestling?” John McNulty helpfully suggests.
For a moment Mick’s face lights up as he says, “Do you really think so?”
“Sure,” John fires back, “you were winning almost fifty percent of your matches, and the fans really liked your clean-cut ways and sportsmanship.”
Mick is interested, but has a few reservations, as he states, “But everyone knows I tried to kill myself, if I show up to wrestle, I’ll be laughed right out of the ring.”
“Why don’t you wear a mask?” Cortland dropout Scott Darragh chimes in.
“Yeah,” Mick is quick to answer, “but what will I call myself? I’ll need a cool name.”
At that point, a bunch of names are fired at Mick, which he quickly shoots down. Finally, Scott, who in real life seemed to live to argue about everything and anything, stepped in by firmly stating, “Come on, Mick, stop arguing, all you ever do is debate.”
With that word, a light bulb seems to go on in Mick’s head. “Debate, debate, that’s it!” he yells triumphantly. “I’ll call myself the Masked Debater.”
Pretty cool, huh? Actually, don’t be surprised to see a “Masked Debater” making his way to World Wrestling Federation rings soon, as the gimmick has money written all over it.
Unfortunately, things do not go well for the Debater, who is dressed in a blue polo shirt, a Baltimore Orioles ski cap (to hide my hair) and a sparkling mask that looks like Julie Newmar’s Catwoman disguise in the Batman series. I wonder if Julie watches wrestling, because man, I’d like to … Never mind-I don’t know if we need to get into my fixation on seventies sitcom stars, and my theory that I might be able to nail some of them now that they’re sixtyish and I’m on TV. I’ve actually got permission from my wife to hammer Barbara Eden if I ever get the chance.
The Debater gets a little down when an anti-drug talk he’s giving leads to disrespect. “Dammit, Scott, nothing’s really changed, I still don’t get any respect,” Mick sneers angrily, before adding, “I’m sick and tired of being treated like a dog-get me something to eat.”
“How about a Milk-Bone, Mick?” Scott replies, and then proceeds to make the poor Debater beg, roll over, play dead, and drink water out of a bowl on the ground, before finally giving him the crunchy canine treat.
“There’s only one person who can help me,” the distraught Debater declares, and opens the yellow pages to the Grand Lizard of Wrestling.
In the next scene, the Debater shows up at the Lizard’s door, which oddly is just to the side of the Foley living room, with pictures of Mick and John Foley hanging in the background. The Debater throws himself at the mercy of the Lizard, who after lambasting him both verbally and physically, admits that he sees that “eye of the tiger” in Mick and agrees to take him under his wing. First the Lizard (who is actually Dan Zucker without the Groucho glasses) tears off the Debaters “preppy piss rag” and says, “Here, wear this, it’s your first pajama top.”
The action picks up as Mick’s swinging friends are sitting on a couch reading wrestling magazines, wondering where their buddy has gone, and mentioning they haven’t “seen that rat Zuck around either.” All of a sudden, the Dude appears. He has entered the building alongside his manager, the Grand Lizard of Wrestling. The Dude is looking good with his long hair wig, pajama top with matching headband, long underwear with shorts over them, and work boots. He also is now wearing a goatee. (In a display of cinematic genius, the Dude scenes were filmed first, and then a clean-shaven Foley and Debater did the rest.) The Lizard looks resplendent in a New Year’s Eve party hat and bedspread wrapped around him.
Together, the deadly duo insult the swinging wrestling magazine readers, prompting a “Who are you?” from Tim Goldstein. After a bunch of incoherent drunken slurs, I was able to spit out “Dude Love.”
“You’re Dude Love?” Tim suddenly gasps. “The master of the spinning sidewinder suplex, the man who’s been terrorizing the Midwest for the past four months?” (Remember, back then professional wrestling still had many regional territories, instead of two national powers.)
The Dude then launches a verbal diatribe, which ends with “We’re here for one reason, and one reason only: fame, honor, glory, and fortune; to destruct, to destroy, and to take the World Wrestling Federation belt-the ten pounds of gold-from around the fat waist of Ishmala the Puerto Rican Giant.”
With that, the movie segues into a music video that is actually a good piece of storytelling, chronicling the Dude’s rise to glory in the World Wrestling Federation. Combining interviews, locker room pull-aparts, and wrestling matches that took place in the snow in my front yard next to our big pine tree, the segment ends with a “busted open” Dude taking the gold from Ishmala. I think The Loved One’s greatest achievement is that we were able to get the real-life, five-foot- eight, two-hundred-and-eighty-pound Ishmala Lozada to wrestle in his underwear in seventeen-degree weather. I also should point out that unlike today’s backyard wrestlers, who foolishly maim each other, no one was hurt during our wrestling sequences. Plenty of fake punches, though, and the Dude’s ever-present “palm to the forehead thrust.”
Unfortunately, success seems to have gone to the Dude’s head as he shows up at a party in the Foley living room, where the swinging party animals are still sitting on the couch flipping through their wrestling periodicals. The Dude is now smoking stogies and throwing down brews, as he sports the same tinfoil belt around his waist that the original Dude wore in Frank Foley. The Dude is rude and crude, b
ut seems to be especially intent on ruining the life of John Imbriani, once he’s informed that “Imbro’s engaged to a nice Irish girl.”
“Oh, really?” asks the Dude.
“No, O’Riley” comes the answer. The Lizard then offers the Dude a hundred spot if he can steal poor Imbro’s girl.
“How can you do that to him,” a peeved McNugget yells, even managing to get up off the couch for a moment, but still holding an open wrestling magazine. “Ya never liked John anyway.”
The Lizard hears this and is perturbed. “Yes, I do,” he states. “And I even wrote a piece of poetry about him.” With that, Zuck then proceeds to read a piece of poetry that I had actually written two years earlier. I guess you could say that John was kind of like my Al Snow back then, and I’m sure he’s going to love seeing this in print.
About Imbro by M. Foley
One day while walking, I overheard some girls talking, about John so I listened real close.
They said John Imbriani has a half-inch salami, hes short, hes Italian, hes gross.
To see if its true, I took a good view, in the mirror at his full-length reflection.
What he saw made me flinch, it was a half inch, and thats when he had an erection.
With that, Imbro, who was five feet four and 200 pounds, jumped off the couch. As a running back in junior high school, he had once rushed for 350 yards in a single game and had a compact, muscular body somewhat like former wrestler Ivan Putski. Like Putski, Imbro attempted to level the Lizard with a “Polish hammer,” but the 130-pounds-soaking-wet Lizard was able to avoid the horrible-looking hammer, and sent Imbro to the ground with a flurry of elbows to the head. As he worked over a stunned Imbro, the Dude made his move, and with a simple “Play your cards right, and with the Dude you’ll spend the night,” walked away with the poor little Italian guy’s girl.
Tragically, Imbro, who in real life was a junk food junkie, was found in his bed (the Foley couch) amid a plethora of Ding-Dongs, Fritos, and candy bars, that had been handed to him in a dream by the Dude, who was brandishing a guitar and singing a touching ballad entitled, “Hey Imbro.”
Hey Imbro by M. Foley
Hey Imbro, give this chocolate fudge cake a try.
Hey Imbro, you know I want you to have a piece of this apple pie.
Forget that youre a short little Guido, have another bag of these Fritos
Have another soda, because nutrition is a dirty word
Oh yeah, hey Imbro, Oh yeah, hey Imbro
Hey Imbro, I think that youve been acting awful rude.
Hey Imbro, dont be disturbed, because you lost your girl to the Dude
Sit here and have another soda. [At this point, I forget the words and ad lib]
Your dads as old as Winnie Winosa,
Have another Ho-Ho, cause nutrition is a dirty word.
Oh yeah, hey Imbro, oh yeah, hey Imbro
With that, Imbro is handed the dreaded snacks that lead to tragedy. Scott Darragh was the first to find him, and immediately spotted lines of a white substance on a mirror on the ground. A simple test revealed his deepest fears. “Oh no, Imbro’s back on the sugar,” he cries. “I’d better call an ambulance.”
The next short shows a haggard Dude, presumably after a night of erotic pleasure, still dressed in his Dude wear and mirrored shades. He turns on his radio and immediately hears a news flash about his deceased little buddy. The touching scene fades out as a guilt-ridden Dude weeps openly into his hands.
A press conference is called, and Dude (who is now clean-shaven, due to the fact that the climatic wrestling scene was filmed last) admits the error of his ways, and dedicates his big “backyard match” to the memory of Imbro. In a tribute to Jimmy Snuka’s legendary nonsensical interviews, I used an exact Superfly quote in admitting that “I can break a bone out there, and I’m talking about any part of a bone.”
It was time for the fateful match, set in the Zucker backyard, as passing cars whizzed by us on that cold January morning. The Grand Lizard was calling the action along with Steve Zangre, and the Lizard had a list of thirty wrestling cliches on a piece of paper to refer to liberally throughout the match. My opponent for the big match was Danny’s younger brother, Teddy, who was using the name Big Dick Zuck and who used wrestling’s most devastating maneuver-sodomy. “Welcome to the backyard match,” beer-toting referee Scott Darragh began, “rules, are there are no rules.” With that, the match began, and Dude fought off a Big Dick slap to the face with a flurry of really fake offense, culminating in the deadly palm thrust. Things were really going the Dude’s way until a big “Dude Love, you suck” echoed in the chilly East Setauket air. Uh-oh, it’s taunting by Ishmala, Zangre informed the audience. It was true, the former champion had made his way to the Zucker backyard, and as Dude turns his attention to the fat bastard, Big Dick seized the opportunity and leveled me with a wiffle ball bat to the head. A hell of a swing, too. For the Dude to get out his blood supply, which was in a Jif peanut butter jar, Ted was supposed to parade around with the bat, so that the camera could get off the Dude, who needed his privacy. But he forgot, so the Lizard’s commentary was a little suspicious as he said, “Look at Zuck, he’s parading around with the bat. Teddy, Teddy, parade around with the bat. Ted, you need to parade around with the bat. He’s parading around with the bat. He’s showing the fans he’s number one.”
When the camera goes back to the Dude he is “busted wide open.” With the Loved One in trouble, Big Dick proceeded to grab him in what the Lizard described as “the big ball grab.” “He’s really got a handful there,” Zangre expertly added. Even with his testicles in turmoil, the Dude had the presence of mind to feel the warm flow of blood streaming down his face, and when he touched the juice and saw the red residue, his scrotal suffering seemed to disappear. With that, I wound up a punch that missed by about six inches, and began a comeback that was Ricky Steamboat-like in its intensity.
Using his hidden resources of strength, the badly bleeding Dude was able to counter with a backbreaker that left Big Dick twitching. Off camera, someone snapped a twig on cue, leading Zangre to speculate, “I think he broke his back on that one.” Even with the taste of red food coloring and corn syrup dripping into his mouth, the Dude was able to continue on, and carried the wounded Zuck to his landing pad of mattresses and cardboard boxes in the middle of the Zucker driveway.
“Look at this,” the Lizard yelled. “A lot of guts, pride, and intestinal fortitude.” Then the Dude pulled the ladder from the side of the house, and began climbing slowly as the camera showed Big Dick on the landing pad. “Look at Zucker, he’s busted wide open. This is a … vendetta,” the Lizard screamed, as he searched for a cliche that hadn’t been used yet. Also, Big Dick was definitely not busted wide open, even though the Dude was about to be … again.
“Look at Foley, he must be fifty, sixty, seventy feet in the air,” Liz dramatically stated, in what had to be one of the greatest exaggerations in sports-entertainment history. “He will die tonight!” With that, the Dude took off from the roof of the circa 1878 Zucker house, which was probably a legitimate thirteen feet in the air. The dive was completely inspired, and was actually performed without a whole lot of fear. The fact the Big Dick rolled out of the way and avoided certain injury did nothing to taint the beautiful leap.
With Dude in a daze, Big Dick covered the champ, and referee Scott Darragh put down his beer in time to make the three count. There was a new champion, but he wasn’t done with the Loved One just yet. In a flash, he bent Dude over, pulled down his shorts, and appeared to violate the former champ with one quick thrust. “Oh, it’s the sodomize. Dude Love has been sodomized,” a frantic Lizard yelled, as his man rolled around in agony, having been “busted wide open” in a sense never meant for pro wrestling. Thanks to the magic of clumsy editing and my trusty Jif jar, it appeared as if blood was soaking through the Dude’s long gray underwear and shorts ensemble.
Like most people who are the victim of an uninvited anal intrusion,
the pain the Loved One was feeling was at least fifty percent mental, and in his shame, he takes off through the woods, while the Lizard follows, shouting “Dude, Dude, come back Dude,” as my friends laugh hysterically.
As the camera faded out, you could hear the faint voice of cameraman Ed Fuchs saying, “That sucked.”
“What do you mean?” I asked Ed. “I thought that went great.”
“Yeah,” Fuchs admitted, “but you jumped too soon, I didn’t get it.”
“Too soon?” I whined. “I told you to zoom out as soon as I flashed the Snuka sign.”
“Hey I’m sorry,” Ed apologized, and then added, “Do you want to see it?” Sure enough, the Dude’s awesome leap was but a blur, and a few minutes later, I found myself on the Zucker roof again, but this time suffering from a severe case of testicular nonfortitude.
Yeah, it’s true, the Dude was chickening out big time. The roof looked a lot higher, the landing pad looked smaller, and I really didn’t foresee a happy ending to this take. In truth, the boxes that had helped break my fall were now crumpled and almost useless. Finally I got the nerve and jumped, but it was far from the dynamic leap of minutes earlier. No height at all. But at least we had our dive on tape. It’s just too bad that the World Wrestling Federation didn’t see the first dive, and it’s also unfortunate that many Internet people incorrectly assumed that the stain on the Dude’s shorts was a big poop stain from the impact of the fall, instead of a bloodstain from the impact of a weenie.
The next scene is a tearjerker, as Dan and Felice are shown at their picnic table after sharing the whole sordid story. “There’s one thing that I don’t understand,” Felice asks. “From what you’ve told me, you and Mick Foley weren’t even good friends, and when Dude Love was around, I thought you were in Ethiopia, teaching women how to give blowjobs. Why are you so upset?”