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 David J. MacNeil. |
It is obvious to an adult that MacNeil has done his homework on the tough guy, French Canadian accent and mannerisms. "I grew up in a house that was half Anglo, half French-Canadian. I went to French schools until I was in Grade 10. So tapping into the whole French Canadian character is pretty easy for me," he said. MacNeil graduated from the University of Ottawa, having studied Communications and Theatre. From there, he enrolled in broadcasting at Algonquin College, and graduated in 1995. One of his classmates there was the now infamous Tom Green; "He's done well for himself." MacNeil has been in Toronto for eight years, acting, writing and freelance broadcasting for TVO in the promotional department.
Knowing a little about promotion, before the Bad Dog Tremblay skits hit the airwaves, he set out to warn the Vachon Brothers themselves. "Before it was launched, I tried to find either one of the brothers on the 'Net, and I found Paul's site, Butcher's site, and sent him an email," MacNeil explained. "I said, 'Hey, I've been working on this character. CBC wants to air it. I just thought I'd drop you a line and tell you about it.' He responded right away and said that was neat, would I be interested in swapping links to get a little bit of traffic going to each other's sites. That kind of thing. He was good enough to send me pictures and stuff. Beyond that, I don't know him very well. But he was very cool about the whole thing."
But the man behind Bad Dog Tremblay has no illusions about becoming a real pro wrestler. "I recognize that these guys are pretty talented individuals. I certainly, at this point, don't possess any of those talents! We keep the camera pretty tight and I do stuff in a pretty controlled environment when we do shoot."
RELATED LINKS
Greg Oliver founded SLAM! Wrestling with John Powell way back in 1996, and has been writing about pro wrestling since 1985. He is the author of the recently published book The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Canadians from ECW Press. Order it from the SLAM! Wrestling Store. He can be emailed at goliver845@gmail.com.
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