23 Feb 2019

Finding Drago: the search for a mysterious writer

From The Podcast Hour, 12:25 pm on 23 February 2019

 

Finding Drago logo (Supplied by ABC)

Finding Drago logo (Supplied by ABC) Photo: Supplied by ABC

Ivan Drago's the villain of that epic boxing film, Rocky 4. He's a huge, scary, Russian guy, a mountainous man-machine played by Dolph Lundgren who sports a very distinctive peroxide blond flat top, and who kills Rocky Balboa's friend Apollo Creed in the ring.

Aussie film geeks and comedians Alexei Toliopoulos and Cameron James are big Rocky fans, and they got seriously obsessed with some fan fiction that follows the film franchise. It's a book about Ivan Drago's life after Rocky 4 called 'Drago: On Mountains We Stand' and it's written by a mysterious author called Todd Noy.

Image of Dolph Lundgren as Ivan Drago in Rocky 4 in 1985

Image of Dolph Lundgren as Ivan Drago in Rocky 4 in 1985 Photo: By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31854654

Noy seems to be a former sports journalist, he might have won a Pulitzer prize, he's reported to have disappeared in the early Nineties, and he also appears to have a son called Quince.

In 'Finding Drago' they go on the hunt for Todd Noy and explore some of the motivations of the people writing this kind of fan fiction. We play some of Episode 2 'The Search Begins' from Finding Drago from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, presented by Alexei Toliopoulos and Cameron James.