Pieing Lou Ferrigno

Let me start by stating that Lou Ferrigno might be a fantastic guy and I might never even have the urge to pie him, let alone actually do it. I use the theoretical Lou Ferrigno as an example of the pumping iron mentality of the seventies and eighties.

If you don’t remember, Lou Ferrigno played The Incredible Hulk in the eighties TV show. Mild mannered Bruce Banner would get angry and his body couldn’t stop the change. His shirt and pants would split as he became an angry and very strong, green monster. Of course nothing less than an extreme body builder like Lou Ferrigno would do as the monster. The monster’s skin was green as per usual from the Marvel comics.

Coincident with the television series was the once yearly show, the Battle of the Network Stars. Lou Ferrigno used to participate and at his first appearance I almost thought that his network had picked up the Incredible Hulk TV show for the express purpose of winning the Battle of the Network Stars. If anyone seemed more of a ringer than Lou Ferrigno, I didn’t know who it was. With all those well built muscles he had the strength to outperform everyone.

Except. Except when it came to running. The fast women could beat him at running. The slow men could beat him at running. The slow women could beat him at running. Apparently body builders went for musculature in their legs and this does not transfer over to speed.

So thirty years too late I came up with the idea of pieing Lou Ferrigno. Imagine the embarrassment of being able to beat up any enemy if only that enemy didn’t run away. That would be Lou Ferrigno’s quandary 30 years ago after I pied him and immediately took off. His only solace would be if the pie tasted good.

I wouldn’t stop there. No. I would go for the pumping iron triumvirate. I’d pie Mr. T. And of course Arnold Schwarzenegger. Far and wide the lesson would spread. Weight lifters are powerful but they are slow.

I would stop there. Because it was also known in the eighties that the fastest man on steroids was Ben Johnson. It’s believed that steroids made him so muscular and he was that way at his fastest. In other words fairly big muscles don’t mean slow at all. It’s just the quest for the largest possible muscles in your legs means slow running.

After the humiliating pieing, the triumvirate would realize the error in their ways and perhaps train their legs in a different way.

But that never happened. So now, if you’re an average speed human being, just remember if you are ever challenged by a huge weightlifter, you can always challenge him to a race. Lou Ferrigno knows the results of that type of competition.