Culture: Here’s why Captain Lou Albano was a great cultural icon
- Wild and crazy guy Albano is the weirdest guy to have cultural relevance in the 80s – saying a lot considering the pop stars of the era – but the edgy delivery of everything he was involved with, even an ad for a 900 wrestling hotline , sticks with you more than an Augustana song does.
- Straight-talkerDespite spending much of the late ’80s as a kiddie icon, he never lost his edge as a wrestler. In this anti-drug PSA (done in his Mario getup), he tells kids that if you use drugs, “you go to hell before you die.” Which is an awesome thing to say to impressionable kids.
- Kitsch iconAround 2001, Albano was sucked into Animutation, a crude, Dadaist style of Flash animation that could be seen as the precursor of much of Adult Swim’s humor style. The vocal track is real – all the stuff happening around him was made up. And boy, is it awesome.
