So I've been sitting on these for a while.... But considering the state of the world, I figured this was the perfect time to drop some mainstream clip goodness that (hopefully) a lot of you have been waiting for!
Full disclosure: These clips, a series of "pie blackouts" that wrestler Vicky Victory did over the course of numerous episodes from the show G.L.O.W., were one of my Holy Grails. I caught (and recorded) a handful of the later ones before the show went off the air. (I think I offered that clip for free at one time.) Years later, a terrible quality compilation of MOST of the clips showed up on a Hurley cliptape. (That got put on the YT channel too.) Ever since I saw the Hurley version, my quest was to find ALL these clips.... in decent, non-cruddy-VHS quality. And finally... 20+ years later.... Success!
1) The first clip has the COMPLETE bits.... including all the setups, and Vicky's insult rhymes, and that terrible music. So just be aware that the pies are just one element. 2) The second clip cuts out all the excess and has JUST the hits and aftermath. This is probably best from a "rewatchable" standpoint. 3) A very nice YT user started uploading complete GLOW episodes some time back. I don't know where he got them from, and I didn't ask, but he's the reason I have all of these. He only uploaded them in 360p, which is a shame, but the quality is so good I don't think it matters. (These were only 480p SD to begin with.) 4) Lately he's been uploading Season 4 clips... but NO complete episodes. And the clips he has are mostly single matches in bad VHS quality. When the Vicky bits appear (which is rare), they're just reruns from earlier episodes. Also, the few clips I recorded back in 1990 were from Season 4, but they all appear here. 5) My best guess? "Vicky" shot all her bits for Season 3 over a few different dates. (You can tell when they changed the camera setup, and I tried to "group" the clips together that way, rather than in strict episode order.) And then these same bits were just reused for Season 4. I actually spotted a Season 3 bit in a Season 4 episode, and it's weird.... They're identical, but they messed with the footage so she's a little more "close up" in the Season 4 one. So I guess they just repurposed the existing footage for Season 4 to save money.
6) Finally.... I went back through my archives and discovered there's one "missing" one in this collection. So they might've shot a couple unique ones for Season 4. In this one, the pie misses her face and hits her forehead and hair, so no big loss. In total, I think it's something like.... 26 or 27 unique bits? Meaning the girl who played Vicky took more pies than Lucille Ball, or Cybill Shepherd, or Natalie Wood.... or practically any "mainstream" actress ever!
Also, I guess I never realized these were all shaving cream pies. Funny how we weren't as discerning back in the pre-Internet, pre-WAM-producer days!
littlebp2001 said: Was Cheyenne Cher in any of these? Or did I just dream of that in my early fantasies?
Can't wait to watch this here in a bit. Thank you!
NONE of the other wrestlers were ever pied in bits, as far as I know. In the ring, an earlier version of Vicky ("Americana," maybe?) was pied twice in the earlier seasons. Those clips are on YT in a few places.... They're not bad.
There was a recurring bit where various wrestlers pied an unseen dude.... Good if you like watching a female dish it out, and surprisingly bad for fans of male WAM, since they shoot it from behind the guy's head so you never see his face before or after.
Rich, truly this is a dream post. SO many of us remember the Vicky Victory pies with such fondness and it's been great to see them reappear more and more over the past few years. This is the apex of all the years since their original airings.
I recently watched a bunch of original GLOW episodes that are on Tubi (I think they're listed as "The Original Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling") and since they're mostly all Season 3 I figured most of the Vicky scenes were there so I found myself fast forwarding to the Mirror Mirror bits and was pleasantly surprised to see so many of them (and in great video quality), having not seen them anywhere else over the last 30 years. Still one of my all-time favorite pie targets and set-ups.
I agree that it appears that she has taken more scripted mainstream pies than anyone else I can think of either (thanks for including the pie she got while wearing the GLOW crown during Run for the Rubies!). She was beautiful and a great sport (and since her character was a total jobber too, this was even further comic punishment for her). Thank you so much for sharing especially during such an anxious time.
How great to have these all in decent quality and collected in one place. Thank you!
I remember that Hurley and a couple of his associates tried for some time to track down the actress who played Vicki to ask her a few questions about G.L.O.W. You would think someone with the unique name of Peach Janae would be relatively easy to find, but no luck. She had no further acting credits beyond G.L.O.W. (nor, for that matter, before it). That show was taped in Vegas, and many of the women who wrestled on it were probably not full-time actresses (the general level of acting skills in the non-wrestling skits would seem to bolster that notion), but models, escorts and etc. who were attractive and physically fit, with thespian talents ranking low on the scale of requirements.
However, a few years ago, while scouring the Internet Archive's "Wayback Machine," I found an old, defunct G.L.O.W. fan forum in which Ms. Janae had actually posted something. At this point, she had a young daughter who didn't believe that Mom used to be a lady wrestler on TV. (One can imagine anyone being dubious about such a claim!) She was seeking any copies of G.L.O.W. episodes in which she appeared. Given the date of the posting, before the turn of the Century, I don't think any of the shows were available commercially, and sites like YouTube had not yet come along. (As most Internet connections were dial-up then, one generally did not find more than short video clips online - an entire show could take half a day to download.) There were no responses, which is not too surprising as the board was already in zombie status, and appeared to have been mostly idle for some time.
Anyway, it was an interesting little find, and seemed to confirm Hurley's suspicions that Peach/Vicki had left acting and turned to more domestic pursuits.
Two or three of these I havent seen since I watched them live! Fave in that category would be where she takes three pies. First side hitter that missed a bit far right, then one that doesnt stick and then blammmo! Reactions great throughout.
Geezer confession: I actually met that girl and a few others at the press conference for their Vegas live tour's stop in Atlantic City.
Thanks all! From what I've heard, Peach Janae is done with G.L.O.W. and doesn't participate in the reunions or anything else. But a LOT of the girls are out on the Net again, especially after the Netflix series shined new light on the original show. (Watch the Netflix series! It's not supposed to be "accurate," but it's really good.)
-- There is at least one clip missing. I only saw it once, but she did the ol' "block pie with an object (in this case, a piece of plywood) - lower object and smile triumphantly - get nailed with a second pie" bit.
-- IIRC, did the "Run for the Rubies" promo predate the "Mirror, mirror" blackouts? I know in the former, her hair is different (not as red or as teased) and it looks like possibly whipped cream, not shaving cream. I always thought they had her take a pie as a one-off gag for the Rubies promo, then someone (probably one of our ilk) said, "Hey, that's cute - let's come up with a running gag and have her take one every week!"
-- How did you first encounter or hear of these clips? In my case, I'm chilling on a weekend night with the TV on (G.L.O.W. happens to be on, but with the sound muted) around 1 a.m. I had seen a little of the show previously, but had probably not even watched a single complete episode. Glanced up at the screen to catch literally the last few frames of a VV pie bit. "Whoa!! WTF?!? Did I see what I thought I just saw?" Grabbed TV Guide, noted a different station in a nearby market carried G.L.O.W. an hour later, tuned in hoping it would be the same episode, started the VCR, and stared, astounded, with dropping jaw at one of the best of the VV pie hits. "OMG, this looks like a regular bit.....they do this every week??? Holy shit!!" And I thereafter regularly endured the other 59 minutes of crap to see/tape that one minute of messy bliss each week.
It's a bit weird that in the wrestling she is Vicky Victory, a face, but in those skits she is Vicious Vicky, a heel. I wonder if none of the proper heels was willing to take a series of pie hits?
-- There is at least one clip missing. I only saw it once, but she did the ol' "block pie with an object (in this case, a piece of plywood) - lower object and smile triumphantly - get nailed with a second pie" bit.
Nope, you can spot it at 3:46 of the first clip (the "long version"). I cut out the plywood part for the "hits only" version, so that might've been the confusion if you only watched that.
Cement said: -- IIRC, did the "Run for the Rubies" promo predate the "Mirror, mirror" blackouts? I know in the former, her hair is different (not as red or as teased) and it looks like possibly whipped cream, not shaving cream. I always thought they had her take a pie as a one-off gag for the Rubies promo, then someone (probably one of our ilk) said, "Hey, that's cute - let's come up with a running gag and have her take one every week!"
In terms of episode order, no. "Vicky Victory" starts doing the pie bit at the beginning of Season 3, when her character is introduced. Run For The Rubies doesn't happen until midway through Season 3. Every character gets their own short RR "promo".... wearing the crown with the same slo-mo and background. I would have to assume they'd already established the pie bit by then.... as the ONLY reason for Vicky to get pied in the RR promo is an acknowledgement of this recurring gag. But who knows? Watching these in "episode order" made me realize that they clearly weren't shot separately every week, as the framing (and Vicky's hair and look) is identical for multiple bits shown weeks apart.
Cement said: -- How did you first encounter or hear of these clips?
Same thing. Caught a bit of GLOW one Saturday afternoon on the local Atlanta station, having no idea what it was, and just happened to spot the pie bit. Of course I was then watching the show with my finger on the VCR "Record" button from that point on! I quickly realized two annoying things about Season 4: 1) The Vicky bit was almost ALWAYS at the end of the hour (going back to Season 3, although I didn't know that) so I was sitting through that same 59 minutes! 2) They only did the Vicky spots every other week in Season 4.... so some weeks I'd suffer through all 59 minutes for.... no payoff at all.
-- There is at least one clip missing. I only saw it once, but she did the ol' "block pie with an object (in this case, a piece of plywood) - lower object and smile triumphantly - get nailed with a second pie" bit.
Nope, you can spot it at 3:46 of the first clip (the "long version"). I cut out the plywood part for the "hits only" version, so that might've been the confusion if you only watched that.
My bad -- I did only watch the "hits only" version
Watching these in "episode order" made me realize that they clearly weren't shot separately every week, as the framing (and Vicky's hair and look) is identical for multiple bits shown weeks apart.
Definitely. With any running gag with the same costume and setup, it's pretty standard to shoot multiple bits all in a bunch. In fact, another old Pie Mafioso who loved looking for clues among the minutiae of a clip scrutinized them, and he believes they shot perhaps 3 or 4 at a time. He claimed her earrings were the key -- he believed that clips with the same earrings were shot the same day. I don't know if that's brilliance or B.S. as I've never looked at them that closely. He also said he was certain she sat on a stool (as opposed to sitting in a chair, or standing) and could tell that somehow from the cam angle, lighting, her body english, etc. (Maybe one could tell that from a full-frame image, but in that little "mirror" insert?) With all fairness, this guy DID work in the business (mostly as a writer, but he had directed and shot some stuff himself) and I guess knew what he was talking about, but still...
Well, I didn't feel like going into THAT much analysis....
But after I put all the clips on the same editing timeline, it was fairly obvious which ones matched up, in terms of framing, look, etc. So I tried to lump those together. Putting them in "strict" episode order would jump around a lot more. (Also, they were repeating the bit as early as Episode 4, although future episodes in Season 3 had "new" bits each time, I think. One episode in particular had THREE different bits, for some reason! That was awesome. Those are the ones where she doesn't even get to do her rhyme before getting nailed.)
The one that stands out is the bit at 2:55 on the long version. Shot in a tighter close-up that most, and the only one featuring a pie with "color." (Not sure if that's an actual filling or just some red food coloring.) No other bit looks quite like that one, although (as per that other guy) she IS wearing the same earrings in other ones.
OK guys, don't freak out over the dead links above! Thanks to PieSplatt's offhand remark, I went to my Tubi account and yup.... ALL the GLOW episodes from Season 3, plus a few from Season 4 too. Looks like the YouTube account I found was simply uploading these same streams, but lowering the quality to 360p for some reason. (WHY can people STILL not figure out how to upload in the highest quality??)
ANYWAY. I'm a little OCD about stuff like this, so yeah.... I went ahead and downloaded all 29 episodes (OK, a few of them don't have Vicky bits or just repeat them, so I skipped those).... and redid both compilations from scratch. The good news? I added the "missing" bit. (They also "miss" her face, so yeah... More a completist thing.) The better news? 480p "full" SD quality.... so these will almost definitely be the best available versions out there now. (Unless GLOW goes back to the masters and fixes some of these exposures and.... nah....)
And people feel like they're not accomplishing anything during this quarantine! HA!
The majority of people in the wrestling business at the time hated GLOW. They felt it made a mockery of how they made a living. Um, I believe you could turn on the "serious" wrestling of the era and see a bald man with a green tongue eating the foam turnbuckles. Let's not throw stones.
HappyCamper said: The majority of people in the wrestling business at the time hated GLOW. They felt it made a mockery of how they made a living. Um, I believe you could turn on the "serious" wrestling of the era and see a bald man with a green tongue eating the foam turnbuckles. Let's not throw stones.
If that's what the majority of folks in the "wrestling business" thought about GLOW, unless they are referring to ACTUAL Olympic wrestling & high school & college wrestling, then that majority are a bunch of fucking shitheads. Their "business" is just brainless easy no-stress entertainment. And FUCK any political correctness. I don't have to believe their bullshit false stories that their job is "hard" in anyway.