Joe is my second longest friend in tenure and is a friend of mine for around thirty years, having met him right after Cherie and I were married and Joe was a teenager working at a neighborhood drug store/baseball card shop.
Joe's decided to take Fred's five questions idea, but add his own twist with Five Questions to be answered with my Top Three for each question.
I'm going to answer these as my favorite three, which may or may not be the "best" three in any category!
Here we go!
Joe: Your top three all-time Wrestling Tag Teams
TRS:
1: Midnight Express- Bobby Eaton & Dennis Condrey Version
2: Midnight Express- Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane Version
3: Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson
Honorable Mention: Hart Foundation- Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart
This one was an easy question, yet a hard question as I'll explain shortly.
The Midnight Express is easily my favorite tag team, but the Eaton/Condrey version and the Eaton/Lane versions are so close that I waver between each team as my favorite.
I didn't have actual video exposure to the NWA until after I was married (different cable systems) and that was two months after Dennis Condrey left the team, so my "first" Midnights was actually the second.
Usually, the first act that you see and enjoy winds up being the one you like best (which might be why I'm the only person I know that prefers Dick Sargent over Dick York as Darrin Stevens on Bewitched), so for years I would have picked Eaton and Lane.
However, in the YouTube era, I've been able to see Condrey and Eaton in action and the pure "heat" that Condrey/Eaton and, of course, Jim Cornette had with fans gives them a hairline edge over the terrific matches of Eaton/Lane.
Dennis Condrey was more of a pure heel than Stan Lane and that might be the difference.
Tully Blanchard ranks in my top five favorites of all time and his team with Arn Anderson might be my favorite pure wrestling team.
Tully and Arn didn't have the flashy double-team moves of Eaton and Lane and the pure hatred that fans had for Condrey and Eaton, but an argument can be made for them at the top as an all-around team.
Because of the circumstances with the Midnight Express, I added an honorable mention with the Hart Foundation as my favorite team before I was able to start watching non-WWF products.
Joe: Top Five Defunct Sports Teams
TRS:
1: Arizona Wranglers USFL
2: Kentucky Colonels ABA
3: Cleveland Crusaders WHA
Two defunct NHL teams could have applied for this, but since they technically still exist with the Kansas City Scouts tracing to the New Jersey Devils and the Cleveland Barons having ties to the Dallas Stars, so I eliminated them.
This was a very hard choice, but I gave the 1984 Arizona Wranglers a close decision over the Kentucky Colonels at the top mainly because I watched all the Wranglers games and the Colonels were a radio team only for a seven and eight-year-old.
I've written about the 1984 Wranglers before and the bizarre reasons that saw me root for three different teams in the three years of the USFL.
The Colonels rate second with all-time favorite Dan Issel and I wrote about my Colonels fandom as well.
The Cleveland Crusaders earned the third spot as my favorite WHA team.
Joe: Top Three Comic Book Villains
TRS:
1: Deadshot
2: Riddler
3: Captain Cold
Wow, another difficult question.
The Riddler was my favorite through childhood in the Batman comics and the brilliant Frank Gorshin portrayal in the Batman TV series, but my love of the 1980s comic- Suicide Squad introduced me to Deadshot, who I've written about here as well!
The layers of the Floyd Lawton "character" are many, Suicide Squad is a brilliant comic, and if more comics existed of Squad member Count Vertigo as a solo villain Count Vertigo might have made this list.
Riddler gets second and Captain Cold gets third as my favorite of a deep bunch of Flash villains over Count Vertigo.
Joe: Top Three 1980s Movies
TRS:
1: National Lampoon's Vacation
2: Major League
3: The Survivors
There were movies that I love that didn't make this list, I could likely make a top ten to twenty of these and there was a few that I thought of as "80s movies" that were actually late 70s films.
I kept this list to comedies.
I love the first Vacation and if it's on television, I almost always stop to watch.
Same with Major League and there are so many great quotes from both that I use often with Ryan and the "IFL Guys" (Real Tomato Ketchup, Eddie?).
The third spot goes to the badly underrated The Survivors with Robin Williams and Walter Matthau.
It's sardonic and dry, but if you watch this, get the underlying humor, and laugh like crazy- I think we just might be friends!
Joe: Top Three Defunct Fast Food/Chain Restaurants
TRS:
1: Burger Chef
2: Red Barn/The Farm
3: Arthur Treacher's
This one wasn't close, but I did have some problems closing this list out.
It seems that many chains that most people seem to think are dead still have a few stragglers around in locations that you may not expect.
Burger Chef was not only my first job, but they also had great burgers such as the Super Chef (Quarter Pounder), Big Chef (Big Mac), and the Philly Chef with peppers, onions, and mushrooms!
Burger Chef also was the first place with a "works bar" that you could fix your own sandwich with what you wished to place on it.
My personal favorite was the "Shawn Chef" which was fixed after hours with the Big Chef-style roll with Super Chef meats on each slab with the mushrooms, peppers, and onions from the Philly Chef!
Red Barn, which transitioned to The Farm before going out of business, had great burgers as well with the Barn Buster, Cheese Buster, and Big Barney and the local franchise here was the first place to offer an AYCE chicken and sides dinner.
Although the waitresses took orders for new plates rather than a conventional buffet ( and I look for some places to try this post-COVID), there wasn't a limit on food.
My favorite Chinese restaurant is in the location of the local Red Barn building and it literally is two blocks down the street. Sob.
Arthur Treacher's is still in existence with Wikipedia reporting that only seven locations still survive with one of the seven inside a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop.
Arthur Treacher's had a location in Breezewood, PA and that location was a regular stop of Cherie and mine's coming home (or going to) Ohio for many years.
It was much like a Long John Silvers, so if you like one, you would likely enjoy both.
Thanks to Joe for the questions and I hope you enjoyed the answers.
Back next time with another Friends and Family post unless there is breaking sports news.
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