I actually came upon your guys' site from a friend of mine; he's just a real computer geek, right? And he loves to play on his computer and he was always, always, always talking about - teasing me about my acting career, because I was always getting calls for these stupid little walk-on roles. Well one day it's like, I always played the guy that was like, "He's down the hall and to the left, sir." Guard number 1, bouncer number 2, or henchman number 5. And he was always teasing me about stuff he'd heard that I was in. And he'd hear some story I was telling, "Dude, I never see you on TV, man, you're full of crap! You weren't on TV." And I told him I did G.I. Joe and he never really believed it. And he was playing around online, woulda been about a week ago or so, and then he sent me this link. He said, "Dude, you gotta check this out! I sat until two in the morning watching these commercials that they had, and you were in most of 'em." And I'm like, "Yeah, well I told you I was G.I. Joe." And I think you'll remember, there is no "G.I. Joe." I mean, G.I. Joe's a group so I was "Duke," because everyone was always saying that, "G.I. Joe!"
We were shooting, and it would've been in '93, I was doing a movie with Richard Greico, the movie was called "Born to Run," and I played this character named Tattoo and we had to shoot all night. And I had to shoot G.I. Joe during the day, and they had me on a real strict schedule because I had to do both at the same time. So basically I was working around the clock. So I'd be doing G.I. Joe all day starting at about 6 am, and shooting 'til it was dark. And then I got on set, two hours behind everyone else, on "Born to Run." Because most of our shots and stuff were shot at night - with all these racing scenes at night. I went to do this, and I had a day off from G.I. Joe, and I got booked on another commercial for Ocean Spray cranberry juice or something. All I remember is that I had to drive this car - no, no, Speedy Brake and Muffler - I had to drive the car, and basically the camera is a jalopy. It's going [makes engine sounds] and making all this noise and it pulls up next to me. And I'm driving this Corvette, and the Corvette doesn't make any noise at all. So basically, you know, and I turn and I give him a dirty look like, "Jeez, man, go to Speedy Brake and Muffler!" I remember I'm shooting this commercial and we were shooting it in this tiny, little neighborhood where it was really quiet. I wasn't getting any sleep, because I'd been working all night the night before. They had a Winnebago so they let me sleep in the Winnebago in-between takes. And I remember I hear, all this noise outside and I woke up, just dead tired - I was asleep but I could hear all this noise, I'd never heard so much noise in my life, and screaming, and I was like, "Jeez, what is all that racket?" And I could faintly make out, "We want Duke! We want Duke!" I'm like, "What the hell?!" And I open the door and there's like a thousand kids out there, surrounding the Winnebago, because one of the crew guys had made the mistake saying we have Duke of G.I. Joe here. In a neighborhood that was like, just had the ice cream wagon go by. So yeah, it was pretty interesting because the word spread like wildfire, and needless to say, we had to shut down the set because we couldn't shoot. So that was my first taste of fame, I think, with G.I. Joe.
'Cause nobody knew me, except for little kids. I'd be in the line-up of a bank and I'd see some woman, and she'd be standing there, and she'd have her little kid with her, and he kid's talking, "Mom, mom, mom! It's Duke." "No, no it's not, leave the man alone!" "No, really, it's him!" And she'd turn around and go, "Um, I'm sorry, sir, but this guy seems to think that you're Duke of G.I. Joe." And I said, "Well I hate to break your bubble, ma'am, but I am." And she goes, "Noooo...." I said, "Yeah, we actually shot those commercials here in Vancouver." So, yeah I was famous between six and twelve-year-olds all over the place, but no one else knew who I was.
YJ: Well that was my age group.
WR: Yeah, fame was kinda cool, I mean I'd walk around a mall or something and a lot of kids always knew who I was.
The first year, I think the most interesting thing that happened with the first round of Hasbro commercials that we made, I think we did eleven that year. That whole campaign got chopped down, and it took them - no, they didn't even show them. That's right, the first year - because the ground war broke out in Iraq. They didn't want, you know, the whole Desert Storm thing to interfere when they thought the G.I. Joe thing, because of Vietnam and everything else had been pretty unpopular. Not cool to bring G.I. Joe out. Remember that happened because they came back the next year and they shot another round of about nine commercials. Which kinda ended up in the same season, but it was actually shot the next year. It was the same continuation of commercials, but they actually hadn't shown the first set of seven or nine that we shot. So we did two years in a row before they ever started airing. And that was because of the war. The kinda started feeling it out, and the next year they didn't even wanna do it. And somewhere along the line at one point they did a consensus or some sort of, you know, study and they figured out that, you know, more Americans were kinda proud at that point. Proud of their soldiers and showing some patriotism so they thought, well maybe it's a good idea and they started to do a study on it and I think at about halfway through the study they decided it was a good idea and they did the next set of commercials. And then they started showing them and they got a really good response from them. Yeah, I remember them being quite scared to show the first set because I was kind of, you know, waiting and waiting and waiting to see the first commercial and I never did.
YJ: Did you ever get a copy of those first commercials? The ones that didn't air.
WR: The ones that they didn't air, no, actually all the copies I got are everything that aired. Believe it or not, I got one tape that may actually - there might be two or a couple on there that might not have aired. Because they sent me a tape. The first year, basically everything I got I taped for myself off a television. I basically set my VCR for, you know, cartoon time....
YJ: Saturday morning or something, yeah.
WR: Yeah, in the morning and in the evenings, hoping to catch one and then I caught it and then I put it on a reel. So that's how I ended up with the first set of commercials. The second set they sent me a tape, an d I belive the third set they did, so I'm not sure how many did air or not but whatever I've got on tape may or may not have aired. I think I saw most of them. The only one I personally never saw was "Real American Heroes don't do drugs."
YJ: Oh, the Drug Elimination Force.
WR: The Drug Elimination Force, that's the only one, and I remember I made 1500 bucks that day and I told Hasbro I was going to donate that 1500 bucks because I was on Big Brothers. I had a Little Brother, I was a Big Brother. So I donated to Big Brothers of Canada and I told Hasbro if they would double it, I'd donate my base pay. And Hasbro agreed. So Little Brothers got three grand I think. 35 or 4500 bucks. It was good because I didn't mind doing that day because it was kinda something I really felt pretty strongly about. When I did do it, 'cause, yeah, it was a campaign I really liked from G.I. Joe - was one of the things I really enjoyed doing. I was just disappointed that they didn't put me in the Navy whites, 'cause they had this really cool thing put out and they just thought I looked too much like a sissy in it, so they just made me wear my regular G.I. Joe stuff. I thought I looked sharp in the uniform, but you know, who am I to say? They pay experts for that. And they pay experts to do my hair.
It was really funny, too, because the second year my hair wasn't done, right? I'd been wearing it in a different style. So I didn't want somebody to cut my hair like a refugee, and basically the woman who was on set that was going to cut my hair, I told G.I. Joe, I said, "If she cuts it and she messes it up it'll never be right. So I said, "You know what? I could just go to a barber - ther's a barber I use downtown. He charges, like, ten bucks. And he cuts my hair perfect, and he's like 60 years old, and he's been doing it for 50 years." And I said, "This is the guy."And it was really, really cool, and so I remember I showed up at 7 am the next morning and they had him there. They actually went down and paid a day off of work for him to come down to set and cut my hair for me. So they actually brought him down to cut my hair so I would look, you know, I kinda go, "Well that's pretty big of 'em," you know? So when it came to doing my hair or fixing my outfits, no problem.
It was fun, and like I haven't really kept up on most of the G.I. Joe stuff, other than like I did Toy Fair in Chicago for the Upper Deck trading cards. I got to meet William Shatner in Chicago. 'Cause he happened to be there doing the Upper Deck for Star Trek. And I also met Glen A. Larsen, from the Far Side. (Editor's note: Actually, Gary Larsen. Glen A. Larsen created "Battlestar Galactica.") He was actually there signing autographs, and... I can't remember his name, the guy who does "Calvin & Hobbes."
YJ: Bill Watterson.
WR: Yeah, he was there as well. And I got a picture with him, and I remember, like, he came up to me with his grandson, wanted Duke to hold his grandson. So he caught a picture of me with the grandson, and then he just goes away 'cause that was my job - was to stand there signing autographs and give out pictures. I remember the girls going, "Oh, you know who that was? You know who that was" I'm like, "Noooo..." And she goes, "That's the guy who does 'Calvin & Hobbes!'" So I called him back and said, "Can I have a picture for myself? I'm sorry I didn't know who you were." So somewhere, yeah, I have a picture of him.
Yeah, it was kind of interesting, and then I got to go throwing a baseball at a White Sox game. Yeah, I used to pitch in little league whe I was younger, and I threw a dirt ball. Can you believeit? I'm in front of like, 30,000 people and I throw a dirt ball.
YJ: Well I'm sure that happens more often than people admit.
WR: So I threw that, and I threw a dirt ball, and I was just, like, "Aw, I can't believe I did that!" So they had some guy sign my ball, and I didn't think that was good enough so I walked over to the dugout and had the whole, entire White Sox team including the Pudge [Carlton Fisk] sign my ball. 'Cause I was out on the field, so I thought, "Hey, I can just walk over to the dugout, I might get tackled by security, but who knows?" So I walked over there, they signed my ball, so that was kinda cool. And then I was doing, in '93 I was doing the third installment of commercials. And they stopped everything right before we started shooting after lunch, and they said, "We have an announcement today." And it's like, "Where's Wren? Get Wren up here." So I walk over there and they said, "We have a presentation for Wren. Because Wren told us how he used to pitch in little league, and he's a championship pitcher and how great he was. Well we have an award for him, it's called the 'Dirtball Duke' award." And they made me this little model with a baseball that was half worn down, in a big pile of dirt. And it was a little plaque. I don't have that any more, a lot of that stuff, 'cause I led a pretty transient life - disappeared, but I wish I still had that today, I'd take a picture of it and show it to you. Hasbro gace that to me - the "Dirtball Duke" award.
YJ: Did you get to keep anything from the filming?
WR: Yeah, I actually did. I kept one of the Plasmatox containers. I turned it into an aquarium - a fish tank. And I got to keep this piece of a wall that had this Cobra head on it. There was like a big, giant piece of steel, but it wasn't, it was obviously just vacu-form. But it was really cool; it was all painted up like it was solid brass or something, right, or something with bronze. And it had these big, red eyes, big cobra fangs, and it was like the big plaque, right? And it fit in this wall in this castle - Cobra's castle, command center. What I wanted was they had these four Cobra heads that were carved out of styrofoam, these giant heads that had they eyes that lit up, and there was four of 'em - one of each corner of the castle. I wanted one of those, but they wouldn't give one to me. They did give me a Plasmatox container, one of the bigger ones. Thing was, I don't know, probably about twenty-five gallons, had a big Cobra insignia painted on the side of it, and I actually was big into fish so I kinda built this big stack in the middle, and designed my own filter for it, and put the top on it, and set a light up inside it, put it in front of this wall. But that's one of the things I did have - it's gone now because, again, moving from place to place I ended up giving it away to somebody. And I gave that [Cobra] plaque to somebody else. I think he threw it out because it gave his kid nightmares or something because the Cobra head is kind of scary looking!
YJ: Oh, what a shame.
WR: I had a t-shirt that they actually made for all of us - "I Survived G.I. Joe," and it would've been the second season, and it had a big Cobra insignia on it and G.I. Joe on top. The first year, I wish I still had that t-shirt. I'm one of those guys who wears t-shirts; I don't save them. I just wore it, and I wore it to the gym and it's gone now, and I wish I still had it. This giant band-aid with the G.I. Joe insignia on it. Said "I Survived G.I. Johnny."
The one stunt man broke his nose, another one of the riggers got hit in the head with one of the lights, another guy got hit in the head with this camera - one of the cameras was on a little bungee system and the camera slipped off the rigging and and the guy was holding it, and it kind of bounced out of his hand. And flew out of his hands because it was on a bungee, right, and he was using it so he didn't have to have the full weight of the camera. Well when he got hit he tripped and he kinda let go of the camera; the camera swung up and flew across the room and hit somebody on the head.
And it cracked a 12,000 dollar Zeiss lens. And I remember G.I. Joe was just choked - Hasbro was completely choked about that. You know, forget the guy who gets nine stitches in his head from the camera, it was more about, you know, his stupid head broke the lens.
The next year was really tough with G.I. Joe, they had little, stricter regulations they had to make that all of us were - they had, um, fire codes because they had a fireman, like, on set because of the first two - they had all these explosions and stuff there that were a little more dangerous; I think somebody squealed. You know, one of the lighting techs, or security guards, or somebody, 'cause, you know, it was a pretty good closed set. You know, the door's opened all the time because they used one of those great, big lift things, two or three of 'em, and they were all propane-powered. So at some point you gotta open the doors to let the fumes out. So they kept cranking the doors open and every now and then someone would sneak in and start taking pictures, you know? 'Cause they were always curious 'cause, I mean, we were the only closed set. You know, they were shooting other Cannel production there, but we were the only closed set.
I had to run through a wall with the Armor Tech gear. They had this wall and they made it out of lead, you know, like a paper lead. They kinda score it up so when I run into into it, and I actually hit it, I break through and the edges of the wall peal outward. 'Cause it's paper lead, so it gives it the impression that I just broke through solid steel. Because I'm flying through the air on my little helicopter, and I basically jump off my helicopter, and jump right through this robot's head. And I go in and I start messing up his brain, right? Well that's how I get into his head is I basically run into him and I fly through his head. Because the Armor Tech gear makes me basically invincible, so I bust through this little wall.
We had this up, we only had three walls - three of these lead walls. And the first one, they hadn't scored it very well. And it was about 6 am and we'd been shooting for about 19 hours straight. I remember I was just exhausted, 'cause half the time I'm sitting around waiting to shoot something while they're setting up a shot, right? And, you know, you're kind of in and out and in and out and, you know, "Five minutes! Five minutes!" You know, "Get Wren up, make sure he's not sleeping," and you know, "Get the sleep out of his eyes. Get him all prepped and ready." And then, you know, an hour and a half goes by. I fall asleep again, and it's like, "No, no, five minutes, five minutes, get him ready, get him ready." So I'm up and ready and still a way's, right? The motorcycle guy's motorcycle kept breaking down. He had to do this jump and I had to do this other thing, so they kept two or three things at the same time to at least keep going. And they would shoot some of these things over and over and over, so the whole time I sat there on set waiting. Some days I sat on set a whole day and didn't shoot at all, but I was sitting around with my gear on, right?
But I remember I'd been waiting all afternoon and then all evening to shoot this one shot, and it turned out that we went right through the night; it was, like, 6 am in the morning. So they get me all in this gear, and the gear is like I told you: painful. But at least I could just wear my suit under it, and then I could put the - I was walking around in a wetsuit which was by no means comfortable 'cause it was hot, and I was sweating like a pig inside this wetsiut. And the wetsuit's mostly for color, 'cause it's blue. And then they put the blue G.I. Joe, you know, foam Armor Tech on me. So I was running around in this wetsuit, because they wanted me five minutes ready. I probably dropped about 30 pounds, just sweating in this stupid wetsuit, 'cause it looked like I was running around in my underwear. And it's a full wetsuit, because it's arms and everything, and then they just basically have all this velcro gear that they put on me. Once it's actually on me, they have to hot glue pieces of it together. So when it's on me, it's pretty much on me, you know, and they can't take it off. You know, several times I would wait with this stuff on for at least an hour. And then finally it's like, "No, we're not gonna get to it," so then they peal it all off me again. The director's, "Oh, is Wren ready? Oh, what the hell happened? He was ready five minutes ago!" Well he's been in the stuff for like, two hours and he passed out from heat exhaustion! And at least if I had the wetsuit on and not the rest of the gear, I could unzip it and pull the wetsuit down to my waist, so my skin could breathe!
So I was really tired, not to mention that I was really dehydrated. And I had to run through this stupid wall; so they get all this gear on me, and I go full tilt. And they're like, "Action!" And they're on the other side, right, and I'm in the back. And I'm running full tilt, as fast as I can, and I hit this stupid wall dead on. And I bounced off it. And fell straight backwards, like thud! Everybody's, "Any day now, Wren!" And I was out cold. Well I was out cold, it knocked the wind out of me. Not only that, it knocked me unconscious 'cause I ran into it at full force expecting I was gonna go right through it. So as soon as I'm semi-conscious, I jump up 'cause I wanna see the rush right away. See what happened, right? So they're like, "Action!" and you see a little "boop." The wall just vibrated slightly. That was it. No Duke, nothing, just a little "boop." And everybody on the back side actually saw that I had hit the wall, boop, just bounced right off it, right? So everybody was killing themselves laughing, and I said, "If you hadn't had the camera on the other side, you woulda had a great time." Because I mean, all the humor was back there, I'm sure. So the next time they scored the wall up and again, I bounce halfway through it. I did get partway through it. And they couldn't get me through it. So the next time they had two stunt guys grab either arm, and they basically catapulted me through it to get me to actually go right through it. So yeah, I got a little scratched up from the lead, I gotta admit. It was all in good fun, I mean, I was young then so I didn't mind doing half that stuff. It was pretty good education.
YJ: You know if they had anything planned for '94? Offhand I know there's at least one commercial they did that had live action, but most of them weren't.
WR: Well from what I knew, they were going to come back, and they didn't.'Cause they basically talked to my agent - we kinda had a bit of a falling out, 'cause in '93 when we were shooting one set of commercials, they basically said that, you know, I'm going to be shooting next week. So I said, "Positively?" They said, "Positively." And I said, "Can you move it back another week?" "Well no, we got millions of dollars in this," and on and on and on. And I said, "Well I booked an episode of 'Highlander.' So I mean, I've gotta do the four days on Highlander, I'm sorry I can't do it." So they said, "Well, you know, we really, really want you to do it." I said, "Fine, you want me to be here, you pay me what I would've made on Highlander." So we went back and forth probably for about four days and I gave up Highlander. G.I. Joe called me the next week and said, "We're not actually gonna need you 'til next week." I said, "Great, I gave up four days on Highlander, thank you very much."
So I didn't get to shoot on Highlander and I didn't get to make the money I woulda made on Highlander, because you know, when you're shooting a union show like "Highlander" or "21 Jump Street" or any one of those shows, you never work just eight hours. You get your eight hours, then you get time and a half, double time, triple time, and you know, it just keeps on adding up. Plus you get your lunch money, you get your costume fittings, and it turns in to be a lot more money than what I would've been making on G.I. Joe. I had to scream and yell and my agent was such a - she didn't do any of this. So I ended up looking like the bad guy. You know, the cheesy little guy - the little actor who wants his money. I showed up the next week and they said, "Well I'm sorry, our producer's rejected your idea." And I remember going, "Oh, that's nice," and I had all my make-up on and my gear on and I went back upstairs. And I came downstairs and I was in my street clothes and I said, "I'll see you guys later." And they went, "What?" I said, "Well, I'm not working today." And they're like, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well you're not gonna pay me for what I would've made on Highlander, so I'm not working." "Whoa, whoa, you can't do that." I said, "Well sure I can. You didn't want to pay me, we had an agreement, and basically now you're saying your producers won't pay for it? Well then, guess what? I'm not here today." I had a check in ten minutes. Only thing is I only got paid for eight hours. And no stunt adjustments or anything else that I would've made on Highlander because basically that's what union rules say. We weren't doing [the G.I. Joe commercials] union. So they could pay me in the amount they really saw fit. So ever since then they were treating me really badly. Anything came up, it was always Wren's fault. And I don't have any hard feelings towards Hasbro, I mean, they did what they did because everything was about money.
YJ: Well they're a business.
WR: But you gotta think of the other guy on the other end - the guy who basically bled sweat and tears for what they got on film. And the second they didn't need me any more, it was like no big deal. So when the next year came around, I'm sure they had a big debate on whether to use [us] or not. I don't know what happened after that, but basically, the whole campaign kinda went south, and I'm not saying that's why it went south, I don't know. I don't know if there's wasn't any money in it or anything, I don't know. If I had it to do over again, I woulda had a different agent, because then my agent would have done the arguing, it wouldn't have been me.
I have some regrets, I mean, that really put me down in this industry. I mean, I shoulda just shut up and smiled. But you know, when you're living from check to check, and you're doing construction work, and you're hoping for that G.I. Joe check to come in, it's pretty hard to do. Really, I mean, I was looking forward to the money and I was looking to what I was gonna get, but I had to fight for every single, little dime. Because that was my next check. These guys were worried about what they were gonna eat for dinner!
They brought me out to dinner once in Chicago and the whole bill for the meal was 6,000 dollars, for nine people. And the only way we got into the restaurant is because I was dressed like Duke. They didn't have reservations. And the maître d' actually had a grandson who wanted to meet me. So he got his picture taken with me and they actually let us in. Here I am sitting in this restaurant, and I think the name of the place was "La Toratze" or "La Torina," or something like that, and once I did get into the restaurant, they actually brought me a tie. I was dressed as G.I. Joe without the grenades and stuff on, I'm wearing this Desert Storm outfit, and they made me wear a tie. Because that was their policy, right?
YJ: Thank you for your time!
WR: No worries.
YJ: I'm sure we'll keep in touch.
WR: Yeah, please do, you know, please do. I mean, you know, I'm more than willing to talk about the good times, and you know, I'll remember other stories. Your site's great, by the way. You guys have made an incredible site.
YJ: Well I wish I could take all the credit for it, but it's been a whole bunch of people over the years.
WR: You know, it really is a pretty amazing site and, you know if it weren't for you I mean, the retro thing kinda makes me somebody again, so you know, I like being who I am. But I also you know, probably one of the best jobs I did was G.I. Joe.
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