Uncle Grandpa

“History of Wrestling”
Season 2, Episode 5
9/11/2014

A character named Uncle Grandpa immediately draws to mind inbreeding. Luckily, that’s not the case, but he’s definitely out there. Given that the “History of Wrestling” is the extent of which I am able to judge Uncle Grandpa on, I’m going to go out on a limb and also say it’s kind of stupid. But hey, I’m not the intended demographic and I liked Beavis & Butthead growing up, so what the hell do I know? I will say that Uncle Grandpa’s treatment of professional wrestling wasn’t that bad. For a stupid cartoon. So there’s that.

If you thought WWE produced some quality documentary DVDs, you’ll love Uncle Grandpa’s retelling of “the nuttiest match ever.” Unlike those WWE documentaries this story isn’t quite as one-sided. Chicken Man and The Best are the animated grapplers at the focal point of this exposé. They’re the Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan of the UGWF. Well, I’m assuming the Chicken Man is the Hulk Hogan due to the Fu Manchu mustache he’s sporting. The Best is basically a slice of pepperoni pizza cosplaying as Ric Flair. We even get Chin McDimple as our Vince McMahon stand-in, complete with butt chin. He looks like a jerk and talks with that same Mr. McMahon raspy voice. And let’s not forget Mysterious Gus, the giant dinosaur who dreams of becoming a pro wrestler but is stuck selling peanuts. And sounds like a black dude with a deep baritone voice.

There’s not much to the angle other than The Best calling the Chicken Man a “chicken, man.” Even Mr. McDimple admits it wasn’t a very good storyline. Something we’d never hear the real McMahon admit to. By the way, props to the cartoon for including an old-school style UGWF backdrop during the promos. The match takes place, but according to accurately-drawn Ric Flair circa 1986, The Best sucked at wrestling. And not in that Hulk Hogan “his move-set is limited but he’s a great showman” kind of way. He actually sucks at wrestling and is getting his ass handed to him by Chicken Man. We get Cesaro-like swings and Boston crabs all at the expense of the The Best’s tiny greasy body.

Chicken Man delivers a splash from the very top rope. Which is situated at the very top of the coliseum. Which is expected from a cartoon. Also expected? Talking turnbuckles. Who don’t like being pecked at by the Chicken Man. Imagine if the WWE turnbuckles could talk? They probably wouldn’t since they’d all be still mourning the loss their of fallen brethren who were viciously torn to shreds and eaten by George “The Animal” Steele.

The combatants go off-script as McDimple points out which goes to show how far we’ve come along in terms of destroying kayfabe. It’ll never be real to this generation of children, dammit. Ric Flair calls out The Best for being in his car and sporting his hair. We’re to assume that’s also Ric Flair’s mansion, but real wrestling fans, and anyone who’s read David Shoemaker’s Grantland article on Flair, know that that’s probably not the case. Given Flair’s financial woes for all we know that’s The Best’s mansion and Flair’s just squatting. Unless this cartoon is set in 1986 seeing as this animated Ric Flair looks nothing like 2014 Ric Flair.

Chicken Man and The Best convince Mysterious Gus to take their place after angering wrestling fans for having stolen all of the arena’s peanuts. Which goes to show what kind of a person Uncle Grandpa is. And when’s the last time anyone saw somebody eating peanuts at a wrestling show? The fans riot. And not in the ” if Cena wins we riot” furiously tweeting and typing on wrestling message boards way. They stampede to the ring only to get clotheslined by Gus. Yes, he clotheslines everybody at once.

With no fans left to make money off of McDimple fires them all in classic McMahon fashion. Kind of like in real life, after the WWE realized it didn’t have enough wrestling fans to break even with the WWE Network and laid off wrestlers and office personnel.