Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘N’ Wrestling
Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling was an American animated television series that originally aired from September 14, 1985 to December 6, 1986, it lasted for two seasons with a total episode count of twenty-six. It was produced by DIC Entertainment and featured animated adventures of popular WWF stars from the time, including its title character Hulk Hogan and his group of wrestlers fighting against a group of rogue wrestlers led by Roddy Piper.
Rarely referenced, wrestling was simply a device to determine the good guys from the bad guys. The wrestlers themselves appeared in the live-action segments of the show; however, they did not provide the voices for their animated counterparts. These were instead performed by professional voice actors. One recurring live-action segment was the music video for the cover of “Land of a Thousand Dances” recorded by several WWF wrestlers for The Wrestling Album.
Due to the show being animated and the longer production times that resulted, it often failed to keep pace with the events of the WWF at the time. This resulted in certain wrestlers turning heel (or, in non-wrestling terms, a villain) in regular WWF programming but remaining good guys on the cartoon and vice versa. Jimmy Snuka and Wendi Richter’s likenesses were used throughout the series’ run, despite both having left the WWF in mid-1985. It also depicted Hogan as having a full head of hair, as opposed to the noticeably receding hairline he sported in the ring.
WWE (as the WWF was renamed in 2002 after the company lost a lawsuit against the World Wide Fund for Nature) and DHX Media (who own the rights to the DIC catalogue through its 2012 absorption of DIC successor Cookie Jar Entertainment) currently co-own the rights to the program.
Hulk Hogan was the leader of the faces, or good guys; consisting of Junkyard Dog, Captain Lou Albano, André the Giant, Wendi Richter, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, Hillbilly Jim, and Tito Santana.
Roddy Piper was the leader of the heels, or bad guys; consisting of the Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, The Fabulous Moolah, Big John Studd, and Mr. Fuji.
Also, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and “Mean” Gene Okerlund appeared animated in a few episodes.
Brian Zane of Wrestling With Wregret did say that one thing we take for granted about the WWE animated crossover films from 2014-2017 is that they include the authentic voice-acting from actual WWE stars, because you get none of that in this cartoon.
Uncle Phil as JYD, Hogan was voiced by the guy from Everybody Loves Raymond, and David Arquette’s Dad as Snuka.