My friend Bob – and many others – will tell you that it is my own, dumb fault. That if I wasn’t willing to pay it, I shouldn’t have. But the truth is that I grew up watching the TV show The Incredible Hulk– and I found the ugliness of this green monster both captivating and positively frightening. The actor who portrayed him, Lou Ferrigno, may not be as frightening, but I’m inclined to believe that he’s just as dumb. I already had the autographed photo at right in my collection. Bob had gotten it for me years ago. Ferrigno’s prices on signatures aren’t that outrageous and I have no objection there. It’s the picture with him, man…the picture with him.
For three shows now I have tried to bargain with one Lou Ferrigno to be more reasonable when it comes to getting a photo taken with them. You have exactly two choices: get a signed Polaroid picture with him for $30 or a picture with your own camera for $30. I held out for two shows: Chiller in 2009 and the Hollywood Show later that year. I opted for the third choice: walk away cursing this stubborn lunk.
It’s sad. He seems like he should be a nice guy. He overcame his handicap (hearing loss) to become a famous body-builder and television star. Even with a speaking role, he did an admirable job and contributed nicely to The King of Queens, in which he played himself as the Heffernans’ neighbor.
I’m all about having no regrets, and just as soon as I passed up getting a photo with Lou Ferrigno once again at the Hollywood Show on April 25, 2010, I could envision him going out and getting hit by a bus or a meteor and me left regretting that I passed up the chance to get a photo taken with him. So like a lunkhead myself, I finally closed my eyes tightly and instead of just walking away and leaving the Hollywood show behind, I chose to offer my patronage to my last two of the outrageously priced celebrities of the show, Peter Fonda and Lou Ferrigno. I reluctantly paid the $30. It was sickening. Made me turn green myself. But here it is: this is what it looks like when two lunkheads meet and hold up a poster of a very green, muscular lunk of monster.
This concludes the celebrities of the Spring 2010 Hollywood Show. Return to the show here…
Brad, as you may recall, I worked with LF on the Z-grade opus “Hell Comes to Frogtown II,” which was eventually released as just “Return to Frogtown.” The man definitely had an abundance of tude. He wasn’t mean by any means, just gruff and a bit impatient. What didn’t help matters was his character was being turned into a frog, so he had to wear green makeup all day, something he hated. He was trying to get away from the Hulk character then. Anyway, I got a few pictures with him during this time (no charge). 🙂
Jim Harwood
June 28th, 2011