Blood, Sweat & Gears: a VHS that CRUSHES while Sgt. Slaughter SHREDS!!
The name's Jacob Gustafson, and as much as I try to deny it, I’m a redneck at heart. No, I don’t chew tobacco or drive a firebird T-top. I do love me some 80’s action flicks and racing, though. But I first must say that I find no interest in NASCAR. It’s not trashy enough for me. Too much gloss. I love the real redneck races. My Dad used to take me to monster trucks, mud bogs, tractor pulls, speed boat races… I even went to a demolition derby once, and I love all of it.
As a kid my second favorite section at the video store (after horror, of course) was the sports section. Not for the football, baseball or wrestling videos, but for the racing videos. Specifically a series called And They Walked Away. These were a series of videos with insane racing crashes where we were lead to believe that the drivers were just fine. Sure, after a race car running on alcohol bursts into flame like it was a beach in Vietnam, we’re supposed to believe they were A-ok. As a kid, I bought it and I loved watching the destruction. I even edited (VHS to VHS) a music video in high school with all sorts of crazy crashes for my video production class. And as it turns out, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as both of my children love monster trucks and fast cars. My eldest had been begging me for a monster truck video and after searching high and low at dumps and thrift stores, I finally relented and checked out what Amazon had to offer. What I found was Blood Sweat & Gears.
There needs to be a quote under Slaughter's pic that says, "BUY OR DIE, YOU MAGGOT!" He just looks SO pissed (as usual).
Produced in 1987 by the Hot Rod Racing Association (and released by Scimitar Entertainment that same year), the video plays like an infomercial for their events. It has old-school monster trucks, back when they were actual trucks lifted to the sky rather than the quarter million dollar fiberglass engineering feats we have today. Also featured are tractor pulls, complete with a Chevy Astro van tractor-puller, mud bogs, a jet quad, stunts, and chicks in bikini bottoms rubbing down exhaust pipes. I’m not sure which age group this video is for as most of the stuff seems to appeal to kids, but maybe the bikini chicks are for the Dadswatching? It’s also funny to see how large a role tobacco and beer played in sponsoring these early events. Ever heard of the Copenhagen Crusher? Or the Budweiser Master? Pretty funny stuff.Yeah, that's right! Friggin' MONSTER TANKS!! Shitchyeah!
The highlight of the video is the appearance by WWF wrestler and G.I. Joe spokesman Sgt. Slaughter. He and his band of steroid pounding muscle heads play a game of tug of war with Bigfoot. It’s pretty awesome. The video culminates with a song that I believe the words are “Big, Bad and Blown”, sung by the bikini bottom babes, with Sgt. Slaughter shredding on an impossibly 80’s guitar in the background, inter-cut with awesome monster truck/tractor pullin’ and mud boggin’ action. Oh, did I mention there’s monster trucks with tank tracks? Yeah, there’s those, too.CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE TO SEE SGT. SLAUGHTER MELT YOUR FACE!
The whole video, from the cheesy music, the big hair, the ridiculous vehicles, to Sgt. Slaughter, is 40 minutes of total redneck fun. And I got it for a mere $2 plus shipping, and it was still shrink-wrapped! My kids love it and beg for it every day. No joke. My youngest cried this morning when I turned it off. Loving cheesy motor sports is just like loving horror or heavy metal. It’s in your blood and either you get it, or you don’t. Thankfully I get all three. Ed. Note: Does anybody else out there feel like Slaughter's guitar is a custom Budweiser Ribbon Logo? If not, it's damn close. Either way, I want it.