Monthly Newsletter: The Art of the Schmoedown Entrance by William Bibbiani (Patreon)

The Art of the Schmoedown Entrance

by William Bibbiani

When I first heard that Kristian Harloff was producing a movie trivia game show, I was interested. But when I found out that his contestants got to do outlandishly overproduced wrestling entrances, I drove over to his house and threw rocks at his windows until he finally let me be a part of it. Also I owed him several hundred dollars for the busted windows. It was a rough day for everyone.

My actual record on the Movie Trivia Schmoedown is hardly what you might call Dan Murrell-esque. I stand by my stats, especially my accuracy rate, but it just doesn’t always translate to an actual win because… well, poo happens. Sometimes we just get asked questions about movies we haven’t seen. (Also one time I accidentally kicked a unicorn so I suspect that I might be cursed.)

But I do take a certain amount of pride in my entrances, and I actually have a Schmoedown Award to back that up, so it’s not just me being cocky (well, not entirely). It breaks my heart to watch any competitor simply walk out of the curtain, wave to the audience, and take their seat. That’s like doing a whole Super Bowl halftime show sitting behind a desk. What a wasted opportunity (unless it’s a really awesome desk).

My first Schmoedown entrance was, in many respects, the most straightforward. I was still coming up with who, exactly, The Beast would be. Fun Fact: “The Beast” wasn’t even my first, second or third choice for a Schmoedown nickname. I came THIS close to calling myself William “Sliced Bread” Bibbiani, with the catchphrase “YOU JUST GOT SLICED!!!”, but somebody whose name rhymes with “Schmristian Schmarloff” thought I should go back to the drawing board, and now here we are.

Anyway, “The Beast” it was. Now I had to come up with a costume and a routine, and I’d like to say it was like that scene from Chaplin where Robert Downey Jr. walked into the costume department and the outfit floated into his hands like magic, but it was actually like that scene from Chaplin where he just threw it together in a mad dash at the last minute. Believe it or not, I already had the orange jumpsuit (don’t ask) and the manacles (don’t ask). The only other costume I had was a full-sized penguin outfit (don’t ask), so the “prison inmate” thing seemed like the better of the two options.

I grabbed myself a Hannibal Lecter mask from the nearest costume shop (quick shout out to Make Believe In Costumes, who have supplied quite a few of props I’ve used throughout the Schmoedown), and then I drove myself over to the studio and convinced whoever I could find to put on masks and guard me like some kind of punk rock, geeky Road Warrior security detail. I broke the manacles (permanently, not the way they were actually designed to be broken, ruining them forever), roared my heart out, and Bob was thenceforth your and everyone else’s uncle.

As the game progressed, I tried new things, and I learned new things. And today, after that lengthy introduction, I would like to share what, exactly, I’ve learned, and also share some of the Schmoedown entrance ideas I have had, and which I needed to veto for a variety of reasons.

My second Schmoedown intro, in my match against JTE, was a rather desperate attempt not to pigeonhole myself, and frankly, it was a big mistake. I got all four Horsepersons by my side and forced them to ride hobbyhorses and come out to Danny Elfman’s “March of the Dead” theme from Army of Darkness. It was too much, and it was too random. The music was too recognizable to not have anything to with the costumes or the business happening on stage. There’s no sense in doing a movie reference in a Schmoedown entrance if it’s not going to be the main focus. It was just odd and confusing.

Also, I tried to do a badass guitar jump with my hobbyhorse and my bad knee almost buckled. I’m pretty sure you can pinpoint the exact moment that happened in the video. I tried to do too many things, and it not only made the entrance weird to a fault, but it also became a physical distraction that I had to deal with throughout the match, so that was double-trouble.

After that day, I realized that there are two fundamental rules of Schmoedown entrances: 1. Make it big, and 2. Keep it simple.

I’ve broken these rules here and there, for reasons that made sense to me at the time, but generally speaking these are the guidelines I abide by. 

Make the maximum dramatic and/or comedic impact with the smallest amount of effort on the day. I’ve seen a lot of really great ideas for Schmoedown entrances come up just a wee bit short because they required too much choreography, or they lasted so long that the gag ran out of steam. But the best ones tend to make you chuckle when you realize what the competitor is doing, and don’t distract the competitor too much from their actual competing duties.

One good example of this, and one of my favorite Schmoedown entrances ever, was when Tuff Beats emerged yelling Kevin Bacon’s last line from Footloose, and then everyone in the studio rushed the stage for a dance party. That’s not an expensive or particularly elaborate introduction, but it practically exploded with exuberance. It made you wish you could be there on the set. Or, in my case, it made me kick myself because I was almost on the set that day but couldn’t make it for work-related reasons.

When it comes to Schmoedown entrances, movie references are fun but not entirely necessary. I ran out of the curtain chasing everybody with a chainsaw and that wasn’t an explicit reference to anything, but I think it had a fun energy to it that works regardless. (I did try to throw a little bit of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s Leatherface dance in there, but I’m not sure if it comes across. it was an afterthought anyhow.)

I’m also rather fond of my “Overwatch Summer Games” skin, when I came out in my match with Scott Mantz wearing a bloody chef’s hat and carrying severed arms on skewers. It was summer, I play a lot of Overwatch, and I liked the idea of re-skinning existing Schmoedown competitors in seasonal ways. If I hadn’t been knocked out of the finals long before Christmas, I think I might have done something similar with a roasted reindeer, but I digress.

My Predator entrance last year was another fun one, and like my first introduction, it was born out of desperation. The match came together at a time when I was extraordinarily busy and didn’t have time to plan anything to my satisfaction. So I thought to myself, “Is there any way I can avoid doing an entrance altogether?” Then I looked up at a Predator bust I have on top of a bookshelf, and I asked the Schmoes technical team if they could pull off an invisibility gag. I was worried it might not work out but bless all those talented people, they found a way to make it look really neat.

I have plans for 2018, including a spiritual sequel to one of my more popular entrances from last year (which would, sadly, break one of my cardinal rules), but I don’t want to ruin them by describing them now. Instead, I’d like to talk about a few of the entrances I’ve been tempted to do in my run on the Schmoedown, and which will probably never come together for a variety of reasons.

DOCTOR JEKYLL & MR. HYDE - The gag would be that I came out in a lab coat, drank a smokey potion, and then POOF!, I’m decked out in elaborate monster makeup, evoking Fredric March’s Oscar-winning performance in 1932. However, I wasn’t going to ask any makeup artist to do the work for free, and after doing my research, I realized I simply couldn’t afford to pay the going rate for top quality work. 

This is another important aspect of the “keep it simple” rule. Don’t go bankrupt for a Schmoedown entrance. At least, not if you can avoid it.

FRANKENSTEIN - In this entrance Witney Seibold, my Schmoedown teammate, would wheel me onto the stage in a gurney, and we’d do some lightning effects in post as he raised me from the dead. It seemed pretty manageable until I found out that it costs hundreds of dollars to rent a gurney from a prop house, and well, I just don’t have that kind of money lying around. “Keep it simple,” once again.

MIRROR UNIVERSE SCOTT MANTZ: I came THIS close to coming out in my Scott Mantz match wearing a Star Trek uniform, grey hair, a goatee and a sign that read “La La Land SUX”, but it probably wouldn’t have worked unless Scott was wearing the same outfit, and for whatever reason (I honestly don’t remember the details) it just didn’t work out. 

XANADU: Olivia Newton John’s whole rollerskating routine. I would KILL to do Olivia Newton John’s rollerskating routine. I actually got halfway through the research process on how to get her costume when I remembered that I don’t know how to rollerskate. (Oops.)

THE ROCKET PENGUINS FROM BATMAN RETURNS: I already have a penguin costume (remember?), and it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to construct a rocket that I could strap onto my back. The problem is that I’m just superstitious enough to notice that every time I come on stage to a Danny Elfman theme (see: Army of Darkness, Mars Attacks) I wind up losing the match. No sense tempting fate!

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA: The mask getting pulled off of the Phantom of the Opera is one of the most iconic images in movie history. The problem is that the most recognizable musical riff is from the musical, and the movie version of the musical is, to put it mildly, extremely bad. I don’t mind referencing a movie I’m not the biggest fan of, but I don’t want to endorse a movie I actively dislike. Using different music would muddle the whole concept (see: my Army of Darkness intro, again), so I don’t think I’ll ever actually do this one either.

THE BIRDS: Coming out on stage with a whole bunch of birds attacking me (added in post, or simply hanging off of strings) seemed like a pretty good idea to me but the trick is to make certain it reads as a riff on The Birds. Normally you can make that connection through the use of the film’s theme music but here’s the thing: Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds doesn’t have theme music. Or an orchestral score of any kind. I’m not convinced the entrance can work so I’ve never seriously pursued it.

MANNAJA: A MAN CALLED BLADE: I love spaghetti westerns, and I don’t just love the Sergio Leone ones that everyone knows about. Many of the best spaghetti westerns completely flew under the radar of most American audiences, like Mannaja: A Man Called Blade, which is bizarre and violent and features not one, but two of my favorite theme songs in movie history: Wolf and Snake, both by Guido De Angelis & Fabrizio De Angelis.

The problem with a film like Mannaja is that it’s such an obscure film that nobody would get the reference if I came out dressed like the title character. I’m always tempted to do an intro like this just because it might encourage people in the Schmoedown to track down the movie I’m referencing, but I think ultimately you have to prioritize the audience for the show. It’s hard to cheer for a joke you don’t get, and Schmoedown fans wants something to cheer for, don’t they?