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Post by arthuradams2002 on Dec 23, 2009 20:03:52 GMT -5
To play devil's advocate, it appears that the intent of the gimmick wasn't to make light of JR's bells palsey, but rather just to spoof how dated JR's commentary was and how wrestling needed a younger, fresher sound on commentary. Ferrara was moking how JR would constantly use goofy cliche's like "gov. mule" "pet coon" and "who's your daddy." He was also making fun of how JR would constantly repeat a move to show the emphasis of the impact. To explain it better, when someone would pull of a devastating move in ECW, Joey Styles would say, "Oh my God!." When someone would pull off a devastating move in WWF, JR would usually repeat it. For example, he would say "Stunner! Stunner! Stunner!" Really, I don't see how the Oklahoma character was taking a jab at bells palsey. At this point, Jim Ross was the most reconised wrestling commentator. In Russo's words, "what wass the difference between Ed Ferrara playing Oklahoma and Will Ferrell doing an impersonation of George W. Bush on SNL ?"
Plus, I think JR can be a hypocrite. He talks about how his daughters cried when they saw the Oklahoma character on TV. Did his daughters also cry when JR went along with a WWF script and let Vince McMahon pull down his pants while the Undertaker shoved Ross' face up McMahon's bare ass on TV ?
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Post by boomhauer20055 on Dec 23, 2009 20:37:20 GMT -5
Ed Ferrara did the same imitation on Raw and no one complained then.
When WCW did it was when ppl complained. I personally thought it was funny and wouldn't mind seeing the character again. Its a double standard that WWE can do it and not WCW, I always find it funny when they make a jackass out of JR
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2009 20:51:47 GMT -5
I know how should someone be upset about being made fun of on live TV especially about a horrible condition like Bell's Palsy? Are you kidding me? They knew what they were doing. And you can't play that well they did it first so it's ok either. It shouldn't have been done either way.
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Post by arthuradams2002 on Dec 23, 2009 21:07:52 GMT -5
But they were spoofing JR because he was JR, not because he had bells palsy. Looks like Ferrara was making fun of the bells palsy more in the WWF version of the parody. He is doing the closed eye and drooping tongue in that clip.
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Post by boomhauer20055 on Dec 23, 2009 21:24:49 GMT -5
But they were spoofing JR because he was JR, not because he had bells palsy. Looks like Ferrara was making fun of the bells palsy more in the WWF version of the parody. He is doing the closed eye and drooping tongue in that clip. Yes The WWF one is in poorer taste and JR is involved in the angle |
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Post by "Playboy" Don Douglas on Dec 23, 2009 21:42:21 GMT -5
I don't care which one of them was doing it. Make fun of the guy's commentary all you want, making fun of the Bell's Palsy is tasteless and pathetic, and not at all necessary to get any kind of point across.
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Post by Them Crooked Tygers on Dec 24, 2009 4:34:44 GMT -5
It was a garbage gimmick that didn't draw a dime. It pushed no one and led to nothing. Period.
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Post by johnnyk9 on Dec 24, 2009 6:55:46 GMT -5
Man Ferrara took a sick bump from Dr. Death
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Post by angryfan on Dec 24, 2009 10:50:53 GMT -5
OK, playing devi's advocate to a devil's advocate. Vince goes to JR and says "we're going to make fun of you on air in an angle" can JR really say "no you aren't"? Throw in the fact that, who's to say JR didn't get pearl harbored with the Bell's Palsy part of it, then go to VInce and give him the "never again"?
Ferrara leaves, goes to WCW and suddenly, he can do the bit whenever he wants, because no one is there to tell him no. If I'm JR, I'm pissed about it too, because, presumably, I've already made my feelings known after the first time.
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Scott Parker
Trap-Jaw
some wrestler you've never heard of
Posts: 264
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Post by Scott Parker on Dec 25, 2009 8:07:33 GMT -5
The impersonation that was used in the WWF was used as part of a storyline about the pain, suffering and humiliation that JR had to go through getting fired because of his illness.
When the impersonation was done in WCW, there was no point to it other than to mock JR because Russo and Ferrara could. It served no purpose, told no story, and the Oklahoma character received never received any kind of comeuppance for his tasteless mockery of a man's illness. This makes the WCW version more offensive.
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Post by xXBigWiggleXx on Dec 26, 2009 4:11:52 GMT -5
Okay, to play devil's advocate to the devil's advocate to Keanu Reeves in the Devil's Advocate, remember that Ferrara's facial distortion was only used the night of the character's debut. Once they dropped that aspect, wasn't the character the slightest bit amusing?
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Post by Them Crooked Tygers on Dec 26, 2009 5:14:16 GMT -5
Okay, to play devil's advocate to the devil's advocate to Keanu Reeves in the Devil's Advocate, remember that Ferrara's facial distortion was only used the night of the character's debut. Once they dropped that aspect, wasn't the character the slightest bit amusing? I just thought it was dumb. It made me want to see the real J.R. instead. Plus, it was a non-wrestler doing non-wrestler things on a show that had too much of that already. |
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Post by navajomartian on Apr 18, 2010 16:12:04 GMT -5
Tasteless revenge by a sore loser. It's what wrestling is all about.
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Post by sunwukong on Apr 18, 2010 23:53:37 GMT -5
Okay, to play devil's advocate to the devil's advocate to Keanu Reeves in the Devil's Advocate, remember that Ferrara's facial distortion was only used the night of the character's debut. Once they dropped that aspect, wasn't the character the slightest bit amusing? No. It was bottom of the barrel crap. |
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Post by Metalheadbanger Man on Apr 22, 2010 8:17:23 GMT -5
Okay, to play devil's advocate to the devil's advocate to Keanu Reeves in the Devil's Advocate, remember that Ferrara's facial distortion was only used the night of the character's debut. Once they dropped that aspect, wasn't the character the slightest bit amusing? Not really, because he had that ridiculous feud with Madusa over the Cruiserweight Title. That was inexcusable. |
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Post by Woooooolhouse! on Apr 23, 2010 12:33:58 GMT -5
In the WWF, JR had a chance to get his revenge with Dr. Death. It's the wrestling rule of "It's ok to be embarrassed, as long as your opponent gets his cumupence."
In WCW, there was nothing JR could do to get back at them. Except help WWF beat them in the ratings every week.
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Post by Icecap on Apr 23, 2010 14:27:51 GMT -5
The thing is, it's both and it's neither.
On one hand, to me at least, it came off as an attack on JR's commentary style, NOT HIS DISEASE. In that respect, sure it's fine. Personally I've never been that big a fan of JR's commentary anyway.
On the other hand, even if it's granted that it wasn't an attack on the man's illness it still didn't add anything to Nitro or the WCW product as a whole.
So while it's not as tasteless as many people today like to pretend it was, it was still a stupid gimmick to stick out there week after week.
Oh, and hi WrestleCrap! Sorry if my first post was a little to opinionated.
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Matt Dunn
Hank Scorpio
It was inevitable.
Posts: 5,596
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Post by Matt Dunn on Apr 24, 2010 16:22:11 GMT -5
Making fun of JR's bells palsy? Bad. Making fun of him calling moves in triplicate (pinata! pinata! pinata!)? Pretty darn funny.
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luiscurse
ALF
Don't puke on my pimp hat Warriah!
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Post by luiscurse on Apr 26, 2010 3:28:12 GMT -5
If it was meant to be a parody on just JR's commentary, Ferrara would have just done the voice in his own regular clothes, if they wanted to make an allusion/parody to JR, Ferrara would have just worn the cowboy hat and black shirts, combined with the voice would have been enough. But he did the bells palsy face as well, obviously he was making fun of his condition. Whats done is done, Ferrara did it, it's irrelevant now but please don't try to sugar coat it and say Ferrara was just taking a shot at JR's dated commentary. He was taking shots at his condition as well, otherwise he wouldn't make such an effort to stretch his face in front of the camera.
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Post by Icecap on Apr 26, 2010 18:27:07 GMT -5
If it was meant to be a parody on just JR's commentary, Ferrara would have just done the voice in his own regular clothes, if they wanted to make an allusion/parody to JR, Ferrara would have just worn the cowboy hat and black shirts, combined with the voice would have been enough. But he did the bells palsy face as well, obviously he was making fun of his condition. Whats done is done, Ferrara did it, it's irrelevant now but please don't try to sugar coat it and say Ferrara was just taking a shot at JR's dated commentary. He was taking shots at his condition as well, otherwise he wouldn't make such an effort to stretch his face in front of the camera. I'm pretty sure JR actually did exaggerate his facial expressions on his own as part of his (dated) commentary style. Really this boils down to one thing, the fact that Russo and Ferrara do deserve a lot of hate. They played a huge role in killing off a company that at one point was primed to be the undisputed number one promotion of all time. So naturally it's our gut instinct to attribute the worst possible connotations to EVERYTHING they did in WCW. The thing is the extreme amount of heat directed towards the Oklahoma gimmick isn't really deserved. Was it stupid? Yes. Should it have been limited to the rare appearance here and there? Yep. Is it as tasteless as many feel it was? No. It wasn't. I never saw it as mocking JR's disease. I saw it as a stupidly funny parody of JR's bad commentary (sorry, his style never did it for me). It was probably a character that was good for one or two appearances, and the fact that Russo kept putting him out there was a bad choice, but it wasn't like the character crossed this sacred line that never should have been crossed. |
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Scott "the Wrestler" Parker: True American
