[1996-07-27-WCW-Saturday Night] NWO Paid Announcement

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

15 years later, this is still pretty fascinating and cutting edge.

 

This is two paid announcements on the same show, shown back to back on the yearbook.

 

Hogan, Hall and Nash do promos about various things for five minutes or so, with all sorts of special production effects, shot entirely in black and white. This was pretty eye-catching at the time, and made me wonder why WCW production values were always such crap when they were capable of doing stuff like this.

 

This has the famous line from Nash: "I think the whole world just wants to know one thing about Lex Luger. WHADDAYA BENCH, LEX? WHADDAYA BENCH?"

 

Hall and Nash supposedly complained about Hogan doing hardcore wrestling promos and cramping their style, but Hogan is the best of the three here, even if Hall and Nash are effective.

 

Next, we get a "short film" produced by The Outsiders of them planting an emergency phone call for Lex Luger so they can beat up Sting in a parking lot after a show.

 

The NWO is slowly becoming more of a threat, but I don't think anyone was prepared for what they'd do a couple of days after this.

[Strummer]

Nash quoting the SNL sketch had us all rolling at the time. That sketch isn't *that* famous so the fact that he brings out this semi obscure reference combined with his facial expresssion and tone just killed us.

 

Nash said in his shoot that it took them hours to shoot these because Hogan kept rambling and rambling and he and Hall wanted to talk in "Sound Bytes"

[flyonthewall2983]

What SNL sketch?

[Guest Slickster]

What SNL sketch?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ttvq_ho...ch-ya-bench_fun

[flyonthewall2983]

I remember that one. The Charlie Sheen thing stood out.

[shoe]

Good stuff. Nash seems so outclassed by Hall and Hogan in the promo department. I thought the beatdown of Sting is a nice piece of business and a pre cursor of what is to come.

[El-P]

This was pretty eye-catching at the time, and made me wonder why WCW production values were always such crap when they were capable of doing stuff like this.

 

Probably because they needed a clear vision and direction, which Hall & Nash had at the time.

Yeah, cutting-edge stuff, kinda like ECW was doing at the same time, in a different way. It's also the first time we get to see the nWo logo, which was great and would become a crazy merchandising sale soon. And the first time we hear the nWo theme, which was also great, with those Hendrix samples and loops. Yeah, for a promotion which used generic music and didn't do any great production tricks up 'til then, this was pretty revolutionnary. Gotta love the attention to the details, with the way they introduced those vignettes as being paid for during the TV advertisements by the nWo.

One question : who is filming the Sting beatdown ? Damn...

[PeteF3]

I actually thought Hall was the best of the 3 here, though all of them have something to offer.

 

Next a "short film" that I have absolutely no recollection of, as the Outsiders jump Sting in the parking lot and slam the trunk down on him. I'm not sure this was ever actually shown on Nitro, though I could be wrong.

[soup23]

Pretty awesome to see the genius as this did a lot with the fun black and white graphics and the cut shots that actually work and make the N W O look cool. Interesting that Hall was already talking about building the team in these vignettes.

[tim]

Highly stylized promo intended to be cutting edge and cool ... that actually comes across as cutting edge and cool! Now that's rare. They cryptically hint about expanding the NWO, and give you more of a sense of what their goal is and how they're going to go about it.