Telling Porky's... an interview with Tony 'Meat' Ganios

I looked at my clock, ah crap! It was past ten already, I must have fallen back to sleep.... "Mom" I shouted "Can I use the car?" to which she replied "No! You had it last night and used up all the gas! Your father went nuts when he saw it and took the keys with him to work... So where were you?"

"I told you mom" I replied with frustration "I was delivering meals to the old people!"
"Until 2 in the morning!!!???" She screamed back.
Of course I hadn't been, I'd been out with my pals, hanging around town, but I wasn't going to tell her that.
"Anyway, shouldn't you be a school?"
"Free period" I lied "Mrs Leibowitz is having a catscan"
"A catscan?!" She exclaimed entering my room "I didn't even know she was ill?!" 
"Yeah... But don't tell anyone, she doesn't want anyone to know.... Don't call the school, she would kill me!! Anyway get out! I wanna' get dressed!"
Mum finally exited mumbling to herself something about Mrs Leibowitz being so young and how she seemed fine at last months PTA meeting, but I wasn't listening, I was more concerned with the lie I'd have to tell Mrs Leibowitz, I'd tell her my granma had died, 5th time this year, but who was counting? 

Anyway with no car, it was gonna have to be the bus then....

 I pulled on my pants and had a sniff of my armpits, not bad, this shirt would do for another 24 hours at least, I splashed on a bit of aftershave although had no need to shave... It will grow in... I just had to believe it. I checked myself out in the mirror, adding a touch of Brylcreem to my hair and combing it through... Yeah, I could pass, not a 10 perhaps, but a good 7....

I grabbed my bag and ran out the door, my mom calling after me "Hey, what about some

food?! I'm not running a restaurant here... You gotta eat, you're a growing boy... At least have some fruit......" But as I ran the words tiered of to a inaudible, but still shrill screech... She always worried too much about me, but, hell I was 18, I could look after myself! 

I saw the stop at the bottom of our street, the bus was already there... I chased after it shouting "Wait!! Wait!!", but with a swift one fingered hand gesture out the window, the bus driver was off... I couldn't blame him really, my pals and I were not bad kids, but we were certainly no angels and that poor fella' had been at the wrong end of our pranks more than once... I remember this one time when we left of a home-made stink bomb on his bus... Oh my god it was horrible, people started puking and the bus drivers eyes started burning and he nearly crashed into the Angel Beach Wallmart and lost his job... We'd denied it, obviously, but he didn't believe us and boy, our mom's were maaaad!

I finally arrived, wheezing to the stop and slumped down in the chair, the next bus was  30 minutes away and I had nothing to do, sure I could have looked at the back log of school work I had been putting off, but naaa... I might just sit here and just watch traffic, I thought, that would be more my groove...

After about 5 minutes of busily doing nothing I heard a heavy sigh beside me and then felt a very distinct thud of someone sitting down, now either the Incredible Hulk had started using public transport, or this was a big guy who had just missed the bus too, I wasn't sure, but what I did know about this guy was that he was bigger than me...

Now I had two options, ignore the guy and continue to stare at my feet and pray that he didn't hurt me, or exchange pleasantries and hope I hadn't wronged him in the past... I opted for the later and looked up and smiled.

"Hi......................." I started, but that's as far as I got, because it was at exactly this point that I knew who this guy was... This guy was a legend, for no small reason, this guy was a hero of mine, this guy... This guy.... This guy was Tony Ganios... AKA Meat from the greatest film of my generation... The one and only - you know, apart from the sequels - Porkies... and here he was, chewing on a matchstick and sitting next to me....

Tony Ganios (born October 21, 1959) is an Greek-American actor. He is probably best known for his role as Anthony 'Meat' Tuperello in the 1982 hit comedy Porky's and its sequels. Tony's other well-known role is in the 1979 movie The Wanderers, as the heroic tough-guy 'Perry'. He starred in the 1990 hit film Die Hard 2 as Baker, a member of the terrorists. And he played a former football player turned mountain man in the John Belushi film Continental Divide.

He seemed like such a good guy and hey, this was my perfect opportunity to show those stuck up jerks at the school paper who said I wasn't trustworthy enough for them... Honestly, I really did see an alien outside JC Penny, yeah, he was dressed as a security guard, but you could just tell... There was something in his eyes... and yeah, maybe my grandfather wasn't exactly the inventor of Whiteout, but he did know him and my old boss was Chuck Berry - Not the actual one, but a Charles Berry!... Honest...  Yeah this would show them! So, remembering all the courtesies that my mom had taught me, I politely asked him if I could do an interview with him and got out my pad and a pencil and started asking....  

Now, you are a big guy... But, how tall are you? 

"I’m a bit over 6’ 4” or 193 cm.  I started growing in my mid teens.   Prodigious physical size and strength has always been characteristic of the men in my family.  Believe it or not, of the latter I’m the smallest, the weakest, and the hairiest.  Frailties my Uncle Pete, who was a fairly famous bodybuilder in the late 1950s, always attributed to my mother’s Italian blood. 

Do you think it helps or hinders your career? Are you typecast? 

Career wise, I find physical size to be more or less relative.  While most lead roles are written for actors of average height, weight, and build, there have always been more actors of that type than any other.  Though the quality and depth of the roles available to larger performers was not always present, this has started to change.  To a great extent every actor is type cast.  Can

you imagine Woody Allen playing The Terminator or John Wayne doing the Nathan Lane role in La Cage aux Folles?"

I closed my eyes and imagined it... This dude was funny...

So what was your dream job growing up? ... and up!

"At the age of 18 I was accepted into the School of Visual Arts in New York and seriously considered a career as a comic book artist.  I also had a strong interest in commercial diving and in being a professional chef.  My dream job in the

movies was to play The Punisher.  There is some nonsense circulating on the internet that I was approached by the film’s producers about the role, but turned it down.  This is utter Hollywood horseshit.  I would have loved to have given The Punisher a shot because I was a fan of the character since I was a kid.  I guarantee I could have done the part justice.   The fantasy jobs I entertained after a few drinks were far more interesting.  I totally saw myself leading a Roman consular army against the Carthaginians in the 2^nd Punic War, or going to sea on a 17^th century French privateer whose crew would eventually turn pirate."  

Now I'd read somewhere a story about his uncle literally pulling him out'a power lifting session early to audition for a movie? 

"After a mysterious phone call, he politely asked me to stop training and get dressed, then “insisted” that I accompany him down-town to what was supposed to be a commercial audition.  The latter turned out to be an interview for director Philip Kaufman’s cult classic The Wanderers.  I thought acting was for sissies, but I went anyway.  My uncle Pete was the type of man whose requests were seldom refused... 

 He was my idol, truly larger than life, a Greek hero from the pages of Bullfinch’s mythology.  Tall, powerfully built, with piercing eyes that flashed emerald fire when he was angered, my uncle exuded the raw physical power and iron will of the fighting men of a bygone age.  At 19 he was picked by 
Mae West to appear in her beefcake revue at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas.  Over the next five years he accumulated a slew of impressive physique titles and his bodybuilding success burgeoned into a short-lived stint in modelling and live television.  In 1960 he was offered a contract to appear in a series of Italian sword and sandal flicks by Hercules producer Joseph E. Levine.  Ultimately, his lack of confidence in his command of English would prevent him from pursuing an acting career.  But my uncle always had confidence in me.  Somehow he felt I had the ability to do things he couldn’t.  So on that long ago day in 1978 did my uncle Pete

“force” me down a career path I had never envisioned?  
The answer is yes, but only because he loved me."   

My mom always says that when she wants me to do my homework, I told him...

You were 23 when you appeared in Porkies… What is with the 70s/80s and 20 somethings playing kids? Did you ever stop and think… We don’t actually look 18 (Actually what age were you supposed to be?) 

"I just turned 21 when we began filming Porky’s...

Damn 23?.... Sorry

...and was in fact the youngest member of the principal cast.  There wasn’t much of a teen talent pool in those days, so anyone casting a film or TV show involving adolescents would have had to hire older actors.  Interestingly enough, if you look at the high school yearbooks of the ‘50s and ‘60s (Porky’s was set in 1954) the average 17 or 18 year old senior looked more like 30.  I really hadn’t given the whole age thing any thought back then.  This may have been because by the time most of the guys in my alma mater reached their late teens, they either had beard shadow up to their eyeballs or were already exhibiting signs of male pattern baldness."

Your character ‘Meat’ was meant to be… ahem… very well endowed… Did you get much

female attention because of this? I’m not going to ask if you actually are, but do people think you are because of Meat?

"Female attention?  No.  Although over the years the character name has inspired some choice comments from self-styled comedians in neighborhood bars.  To attract female attention, my buddies and I had this little game we liked to play in nightclubs.  We would target a group of attractive women and immediately begin a loud and spirited argument over which one of us possessed the smallest member.  This would usually result in one or more of the gals wanting to render a verdict by viewing our respective packages, and to put it politely, sometimes biting off a bit more than they could chew... "

Now, you also had visible cuts on your hands… I’ve heard that this was due to knife practice? Can you tell me more about this? 

"As an aficionado of ancient military history and primitive arms, I studied different styles of fighting with edged weapons, including the use of the Filipino butterfly knife.  While practicing the various strikes and openings with both hands simultaneously, I would invariably grasp one of the knives incorrectly or by the wrong handle, which bounced its razor sharp blade against my knuckles and fingers.  This resulted in some pretty nasty wounds, some of which went right down to the bone.  I’d have quit if only I had the sense I was born with.  A word to the wise: Never show off moves with Bali Song blades while drinking with your idiot buddies.  I learned this the hard way."       

One of my favourite scenes in the first movie is when you get drunk and fall in a bowl of chilli and had always wondered was it real chilli that you had to fall into? 

"The chili was definitely real because no one, including me, had the brains to replace it with a non-caustic substitute.  
And how many takes did you have to do?
While I don’t recall the exact number of takes we did, the scene was shot multiple times from manifold angles.  Between the hot pepper in my eyes and nose and the gentleman who played the policeman happily yanking out a handful of hair each time he pulled my head out of the chili bowl, filming it was a little slice of heaven."

The films have gained an almost cult status, did you ever imagine that it would spawn so many sequels and such a following?

"Absolutely not.  The stuff we shot was considered pretty risqué for the time (the first cut of the movie was actually rated X), and I honestly figured the picture would be quietly shelved.  When Porky’s premiered in San Diego (I was in NY at the time), I got these frantic phone calls from Wyatt Knight and several of the other cast members saying that crowds were going apeshit in the theatre.  At the Westwood premiere they said the audience’s laughter was so loud, it drowned out the soundtrack.  I didn’t believe a word of it.  I thought it was just another elaborately staged prank these clowns thought they could put over on me.  When I finally cracked a copy of Variety and checked the box office figures, my jaw dropped.  But I still wondered if these guys could have somehow gotten to the magazine’s publishers... "     

And how much fun was it to film? It really did look fun!  

"It was a blast!  We were young guys that could get an erection from a

passing breeze, with the good fortune to be doing a movie in a sultry, exciting city filled with beautiful women from all over the world.  Talk about lucky stiffs!  In those environs even a corpse could get laid.  To say we went a little whacko in Miami is a definite understatement.  We lived together in a beach house we aptly dubbed Casa del Puerco.  Between the cavalcade of naked girls, the drunkenness, weird guests, practical jokes, and internecine fighting, it was like Fellini’s Satyricon with rum drinks and palm trees.  The remarkable thing was that even though we all came from vastly different backgrounds, we still got a huge kick out of each other.  This quality was very apparent to audiences and in my opinion proved to be a big factor in the success of the Porky’s trilogy."   

It was directed by Bob Clark, what was he like to work for? 

"The term genius is somewhat cliché these days, especially when used to describe filmmakers, but there is no other way to accurately depict the late Bob Clark. A sensitive, insightful man, who delighted in making films about childhood and children, he was a talented writer and director who knew his actors better than we knew ourselves.  He listened to our suggestions, and if something we proposed was better than what was scripted, he had no reservations about letting us use it.  In addition to being the father of the teen sex comedy, Bob also directed the first slasher film, Black Christmas.  Porky’s was an account of his high school exploits in the south Florida of the mid ‘50s.  He told us all the characters except Meat were based on real people.  Over the years we developed a hunch that Bob was the real Pee Wee, an assertion which he denied emphatically."    

I think i'd heard that rumour...

Do you see the rest of the cast these days? 

"Because of the autograph shows we regularly participate in and working on our new film project Daddies’ Girls, we see each other constantly.  For our fans who don’t know, Daddies’ Girls chronicles the comic misadventures of a group of playboys who are paid back for all the women they scammed with a brood of wild and promiscuous teenage daughters.  The idea behind Daddies' Girls is that the guys were die hard drunken pussy hounds from their teens to their mid thirties.  As a result of their mindless womanizing and karma, they simultaneously became accidental fathers, and because no sane female would put up with them, they also became instant single parents.  The film will be shot in 3D and feature an all female principal cast, both firsts in the teen sex comedy genre.  Although the film reunites the Porky’s cast, it has absolutely nothing to do with Porky’s.  The Daddies’ Girls storyline is simply my twisted take on the guys’ insane experiences of raising their own teenage daughters, and the characters we play, idiotic exaggerations of our real personalities.  In addition to the guys, actors Jeffrey Combs, Andrew Divoff, Leslie Easterbrook, William Forsythe, and Jim Youngs have also committed to the project.  For more info check out our web site daddiesgirlsthemovie.com.  We decided to postpone our original May 15 Kickstarter launch, but will be launching a Kickstarter campaign in the near future to complete the project’s financing.  So in the meantime, please like Daddies’ Girls: The Movie on Facebook and follow DaddiesGirls1 on Twitter."

What was Kim Cattrall like to work with? Were you on set for the ‘Wooooooo….’ Scene? And was the laughter put on... or real?  

"Beautiful, urbane, and intelligent, Kim was, and is, a real lady.  She was kind and gracious to everyone on the set, and despite the fact that she was used to more upscale material, was a good sport about the entire project.  I wasn’t on the set the day the Lassie scenes were shot, but I can tell you that the raucous laughter on the soundtrack was not supplied by the actor who played the assistant gym coach, but by Bob Clark himself. "  

Now I know about young guys getting together, (I told him about the bus driver) so were there any pranks played on set?

"No one was safe.  I won’t name names in order to protect the guilty, but being around us was definitely not for the weak.  We urinated in beer bottles then replaced the caps, stole cars, defecated in cars, got people to drive to remote locations on a wild goose chase then disabled their cars, booby-trapped toilets, sabotaged beds, staged Machiavellian frame ups, introduced guys to girls that had VD, and anally adulterated toothbrushes.  All the other stuff I remember is either really sick or illegal.  It got to the point where you couldn’t eat, sleep, talk on the phone, date a girl, or use the bathroom without waiting for the other shoe to drop.  You might say some good came out of all this malicious mischief.  I discovered that before attempting to delve into the “personality” of any strange young “lady” that suddenly showed up at the house asking for me, it was probably best to check under the hood, if you get my drift.  I learned that the hard way, too..."

Ha!

There is a  scene where you all run out naked must have been fun to film… Was it weird being naked with your fellow actors? Actually there was fair bit of nudity all-round, was it ‘distracting’ sometimes?

"One thing we all agree on is that no matter how much glee accidental nudity inspires in an audience, being naked on a film set sucks.  Absent-mindedly sitting can be a sharp, penetrating experience because you might suddenly realize you’re engaged to somebody’s car keys.  Certain body parts adhere to others whose public realignment can be humiliating if not downright dangerous.  And for some bizarre reason female crew members with whom you’re barely familiar now feel the need to engage you in rounds of senseless discourse.  For me nudity around the other guys seemed no different than being unclad in a high school locker room.  It was the reactions of the crew that made the experience strange.  It should have dawned on me that something was amiss when I was repeatedly asked if I needed anything by a wide eyed wardrobe lady who by all logic shouldn’t have been on the closed set, but I guess I was a bit slow on the uptake.  Believe me, we wished we could have been more distracted by being allowed to be around for the girls’ shower scene, but unfortunately for us their closed set restrictions there were actually enforced."

And at  what point did you realise that being naked was on the cards? And what was it like getting ‘changed’ for the scene?

"We knew the project required nudity the moment we read the script.  Disrobing around the other guys was no big deal.  Nobody really thought about it.  We all shared the same trailer anyway, and getting ready to do the scene was simply a matter of undressing, throwing on a robe and shower clogs, and walking to the set together. "

Now there must have been so many, but do you have a favourite moment during filming?

"Man, that’s a tough one.  It would probably be much easier for me to tell you what my least favorite moment was during filming.  I know I speak for all the guys when I say that, even more than the Cherry Forever scenes where we were naked, the night shoots of the exterior of Porky’s in the beginning and at the end of the film where we were stuck in a filthy swamp infested with poisonous snakes, alligators, and snapping turtles had to be the most hated. 

When the 1^st AD insisted being in the swamp was perfectly safe, despite the fact that he never went near it, we retorted, “Sure, Ken.  What did you do, order the cottonmouths and gators off the set?”"

You went straight on to do the next 2 sequels, did it all feel the same? Was it like a reunion?

"It wasn’t like a reunion because we were always together since we made Porky’s.  Over the years we watched each other get married, divorced, and raise kids.  We were never really apart.  As far as it always feeling the same, when we filmed Porky’s 2: The Next Day, we were asked to lay off the practical jokes, ball-breaking, and assholery so as not to offend or frighten the sleazy yuppie studio executives that were now a constant plague on the set.  Acting like adults was pretty hard on us.  But all attempts at maturity immediately ended when we saw our performances suffer for it.  “Hell,” we realized.  ”What’s the point of making another one of these silly things if we can’t have fun doing it?”  "

You were hitting your late 20s when the third one was released, what did you do to appear younger?

"I was actually 25 when Porky’s Revenge was released.  I could tell you I went the typical Hollywood route of plastic surgery, collagen treatments, or eating organic dirt prior to filming, but that would be total bullshit.  In all honesty the thought of trying to appear younger never really occurred to me.  After all, if a 32 year old Kathleen Turner could pull off being a teenager in Peggy Sue Got Married, why couldn’t I?" 

I suddenly became aware of the bus... My bus pulling up at the stop, crap... Damn it, school could wait I'd never get this chance again, I'll just say both my grandma and grandpa died... together in a car crash or something... Yeah, that should work... and so I ignored the bus and after an uncomfortable amount of time, it gave up and carried on.

You’ve done a lot of other things in your career, but I have to ask about Die Hard 2… Another incredibly successful film franchise. How did you get the part in that?

"I’ve never had any luck with agents or managers.  All the acting jobs I ever got were either by sheer accident or through referrals from friends.  The Die Hard 2 gig was no exception.  My buddy John Fasano, the finest screenwriter I’ve ever known, worked on Another 48 Hrs which had just completed principal photography.  Both projects had the same casting director.  So when I told John my worthless agent was too lazy to get me in on Die Hard 2, he had the casting director set up an audition.  I met with director Renny Harlin and was hired the same day. "

What was Bruce Willis like to work with? And as a person?

"I didn’t really spend much time around him, but he was friendly and fun to work with."

Did he socialise with the rest of the cast? 

"It’s difficult to say.  On Die Hard 2 I only worked on the exterior scenes surrounding the airport, and in Bruce’s defence, there was little chance for friendly banter on locations that were 20 below zero (almost -29 degrees Celsius) without the wind chill factor.  When actors weren’t required on the frigid outdoor sets, we spent our down time huddled in our trailers just trying to stay warm. "

You also worked with the late, great John Belushi, being that the two of you had appeared in two cult comedies based in educational institutions (Porky’s and Animal House), did you bond over that?

"Somehow he got the number of the house where we lived and would constantly call to make sure I was OK.  When one of the guys picked up the phone, he was so entertaining that they would wind up talking to him for an hour.  As soon as he hung up they would ask, “Who the hell was that?”  When I told them, they didn’t believe me.  John was curious to know what Porky’s was about, and he cracked up when I told him, “Just imagine Animal House, only dirtier.”"

What was he like? 

"John was a regular, down-to-earth guy that would give you the shirt off his back.  As famous as he became, he was at heart a truck driver from Chicago that never forgot his humble origins.  He cared deeply about his fellow performers and would not allow any actor to be bullied or mistreated on the set of any of his films.  Hands down John was the funniest person I’d ever met, and he was generous to the point of idiocy.  Continental Divide was partly shot in Canon City, Colorado, a one horse berg in the middle of the Rockies whose most famous native was Ann B. Davis (the actress who played Alice on The Brady Bunch).  One day as I made the 2 mile trek through the snow to the tiny gym in the center of town, I noticed a big, black limo pulling up beside me.  It was John.  “What the hell are you doing?” he inquired.  When I told him where I was headed, he actually got angry at me for not using his limo.  “Hey.  Universal gave me this rolling piece of shit and I don’t know what they expect me to do with it.  Why didn’t you call me?” "  

When filming other things, does anyone ever refer to you as Meat?

"Not if they want to stay healthy.  But no matter where I go people still repeat “Leave-the-kid-alone,” which was my character Perry’s catchphrase from The Wanderers.”  The Wanderers was my first film and will always remain the nearest and dearest to my heart."  

I kept thinking to myself had I refered to him as Meat? No... No... I think I was safe... But The Wanderers, a classic piece of film history, we'd even studied it in my media class... The story of High school gangs, tough kids and football... An iconic piece of film history... 

"Filming The Wanderers was an amazing, unforgettable experience that I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.  The whole affair was surreal, nothing like a regular movie, and I felt like I was actually transported to another place and time.  The final fight with the Ducky Boys was absolutely wild.  It was the Bronx version of the battle of Mons Graupius, and for all practical purposes it was real.  For an entire week hundreds of screaming, stunted madmen armed

with real baseball bats, axe handles, and chains hurled themselves at us in wave after wave of unabated Celtic fury.  It got totally out of hand, with the mayhem sometimes continuing for a full five minutes after director Phil Kaufman yelled cut.  Some of the actors and camera crew were seriously injured and had to be hospitalized. 

With talented actors like Karen Allen, Alan Rosenberg, Ken Wahl, and Olympia Dukakis, the Wanderers cast list read like a who’s who of future fame.  Of the film’s lead players, Ken, Jim Youngs, and I had neither acting training nor previous acting experience.  For us three the shoot was one big macho fantasy.  We got a big kick out of the movie and each other.  There was a time when if you spotted one of us at a nightclub or party, the other two were always within a twenty foot radius.  I loved to get to parties early just so I could watch all the hot chicks bill and coo when these two Lotharios made their entrance.  Just so you know, upon my arrival the same girls would hide their purses and move delicate chairs and other breakables out of my way.  Ten years later we would reunite in an episode of Ken’s hit TV show Wiseguy, which he directed.  I don’t know if it was the smell of the Groom and Clean or the ceaseless ball-breaking, but it was like doing The Wanderers all over again. 

Phil Kaufman.  Wow, where do I begin?  A remarkable, highly literate man in a class with directorial legends such as David Lean and Alfred Hitchcock, Phil is a filmmaker/philosopher that has the rare ability to make high concept accessible to the ordinary filmgoer.  I had the distinct privilege to work with him twice.  His gentle style and presence permeates every inch of the set, and his soft spoken guidance is nevertheless delivered with the command and authority of an Old Testament prophet.  He gets to know his actors on an individual basis, figures out what makes them tick, then tailors his direction with pinpoint precision to get the performances he wants.  Never did the motto “Art for art’s sake” apply more to any one person.  Not swayed by the ephemeral glory of Hollywood, Phil is a natural storyteller that shoots what he likes, not what is necessarily popular.  In 1979, he passed over the big-budgeted Star Trek: The Motion Picture (which he knew would be an instant box office slam dunk no matter what) and went to Czechoslovakia to shoot The Unbearable Lightness of Being rather than knuckle under to the witless creative commentary of Paramount execs.  That’s noble character!"   

If they remade Porky’s (And the way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised) who do you think would make a good Meat?

"I don’t believe in remaking a film unless a substantial improvement over the original is possible.  With that said, Howard Stern now owns the rights to Porky’s and has been threatening to do a remake for years.  I really don’t have a clue who should play the character in the remake.  If I was the filmmaker, I would go the opposite route physically from our version and make Meat a thin, nerdy guy with glasses that’s really scared of women,

but who just happens to be hung like a Clydesdale."

And do you think today's high school comedies stand up to the classics of the 80s?  

"With the preponderance of product turnout and talented directors like John Hughes, Amy Heckerling, Robert Zemeckis, and Bob Clark at the height of their creative powers, the 1980s can arguably be termed the golden age of teen movies.  There also seems to have been a greater number of originally themed high school/teen comedies made during this decade than any time before or after, but more original does not necessarily mean better.  Of the more recent films of this type, Mean Girls and Kick-Ass were my particular favorites.  The success of Superbad amazed me because it violated all the conventional rules of screen-writing, and though the creators of American Pie were admittedly influenced by Porky’s, they still managed to put their own spin on the teen sex comedy and made it their own.  So for the most part (I really don’t get Napoleon Dynamite) I think today’s teen comedies do stand up to their classic ‘80s counterparts, but what the hell do I know?"  

So what do you think you would have done if you hadn’t been dragged out of that power lifting session all those years ago? 

"Gee.  I guess I would have had to grow up and get a real job."

He twiddled the matchstick between his teeth, I'd seen him do it in so many movies, that matchstick... 

"I’ve chewed on wooden matchsticks as far back as I can remember.  I wish I had some mysteriously fascinating explanation for this, but I honestly don’t know why.  Maybe it’s because of the soothing effect it has on me, or maybe I enjoy it because it seems to irritate all the right people.  What I do know is that this strange habit proved serendipitous, because Perry, the teen tough guy I played in The Wanderers, also chewed a match.  One of the few times I found myself matchless was during the shooting of Phil Kaufman’s Rising Sun, where unbeknownst to many Wanderers fans, I reprised the Perry role opposite Sean Connery.  In an esoteric homage to The Wanderers, and to the ever-present idiosyncrasies of his anti-heroes, Phil actually held the shot until the crew located some wooden matches for me."    

Then I saw the bus heading up the road towards us, damn, I had some many more questions to ask, but I knew this was the one he was waiting for, so this would have to be my last question.

So quickly, before you have to go... What do you imagine the Porkies boys would be doing now?

"Tommy Turner would have either become a televangelist or a used car salesman, not that there’s much difference.   I could totally see Pee Wee as a gynecologist (or at the very least a guy who pretended to be one at parties to get girls), and Mickey doing a stretch in Leavenworth for insider trading and income tax evasion.  Billy would have metamorphosed into one of those evil math teachers who give out tons of homework right before a holiday vacation.  Meat would eventually be recruited by Arthur Murray’s as a ball room dance instructor, and I believe Tim and Brian would wind up as a married couple.  I think I covered everyone..."        

The bus pulled up and Tony got up to leave, I shook his spade like hand and thanked him before he got on and watched it pull off...  Those dweebs at the paper are never going to believe this, I thought with a smirk, and then as I watched the bus turn the corner I realised something... Something very important... Something that would make my story credible...  I'd forgotten to get Tony's autograph, or a picture, or some proof that i'd met him... Oh crap, they really were'nt going to believe this now...........



For more information on Tony take a look at his IMDB or Wikipedia page, and take a look at Daddie's girls, coming soon!