During the latest edition of his “Something to Wrestle” podcast, Bruce Prichard commented on the inspiration behind The Godfather character, the introduction of the Ho Train, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the inspiration behind The Godfather character: “The Godfather was The Godfather. You like at Godfather’s previous life, he worked in gentleman’s establishments. He was a manager and part owner of one, and he was kind of like The Godfather in Vegas. That’s who he is. So, the character was just an extension of his ordinary self, and actually, probably amped down a little bit.”
On the introduction of the Ho Train: “A lot of this stemmed from a documentary that was on HBO at the time. It was called Pimps Up, Ho’s Down. A lot of the machination of The Godfather came from that documentary that followed a bunch of pimps to a pimp convention. So, Godfather was the ultimate pimp. They were portrayed as these mythical beings almost that were revered in their world. The woman that they pimped were referred to as ho’s, so in pop culture, everybody was talking about [the documentary]. Ice T was a mainstream rapper and television star and movie star, so Hollywood embraced it….the whole thing was just a peek inside that culture that people were fascinated by.”
On the character switch to The Goodfather and the PTC trying to get WWE kicked off television: “It was [a response to the PTC complaints]. It was the ability to portray characters to how we saw them. The PTC – I believe the guy’s name was L. Brent Bozell – and as I said, I think he was allergic to fun. They were the heels in our world, and we portrayed them as we saw them. They became the heels to our audience. We made characters because these people were tremendous heels in real life. So, when you make characters around them, the audience obviously really gravitated to that because they understood who the heels were. No one like to be told what you watch, what you can do, what you can wear, how you can act – nobody likes that. So, you have a character constantly telling you what’s good for you. These people were very overzealous in their quest to get us off the air and tried everything to do so, including slander and falsehoods about what it was we were doing. When people actually watched, they were going, ‘Okay, it’s entertainment, and by the way, it’s television. If you don’t like it, you can change the channel.’ I wasn’t a big fan of the PTC or Mr. Bozell, but to each their own.”
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(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
