@’s by MikeTyson!!!
The Kid Marvel here with another interview from NYCC. With the season premiere of MIKE TYSON MYSTERIES finally on Adult Swim, I figured it was the most appropriate time to finally get the round table interview with Tyson up on AICN, from the NYCC press panel with the show's cast and writers I got to attend. I do realize it has been couple weeks after the Con but, I do have a life and as a full time intern, senior in college and working a part time job, it can be difficult to find time to get these things done. Plus, this is an unpaid gig and I will admit laziness did play a factor. However, I thought getting the article up with the premiere, was as good a time as any to finally get it posted. So enough pointless talking and let me get to it:THE KID MARVEL (KM): How did the show get started, was it your idea to do a cartoon show?
MIKE TYSON (MT): Warner Brothers actually approached me, with something like Scooby-Doo meets the A-Team pretty much. I said listen that’ll be good, then they said oh their not paying me much and I was like oh that’s great. And had to have my wife explain to me, cause they were talking about some Adult Swim and at the time, I really didn’t know what Adult Swim was. I was thinking it was a whole bunch of old, rich white guys in some exotic lake and they would become young again. And my wife explained no, it’s not that, no. They said you can curse, so I said that’s something I’ll do, I like to curse. We did a couple episodes and I really didn’t like that, so then I saw the rest popping and I said woah! Let’s do the episodes over, now I’m going to do them with some more accelerated enthusiasm. Yeah, cause it was dynamite. I’m really proud of this project, I’m really proud of it, I enjoyed really doing it and I had no idea that the footage was going to be so clear. I thought it was going to be like a Chinese movie, a bad Shaw Brothers movie. You killed my mother [reenacting bad dubbing], no it wasn’t. I thought it was going to move slow like an old 60s cartoon, no it was boom, boom, quick, quick action. I said yeah…I’m a cartoon character.
Listen you have to think about it, 25, 26 years ago when I’m at my meanest. I’m making 30, 40 million dollars a fight. I’m a big star, I can do whatever I want. I have cars, I got my plane, I got my boat and cartoons wouldn’t touch me with a million foot pole back then. You think everybody would want me? They didn’t even want to touch me and just to say I’m at this stage in my life now, getting international shows and international movies, just doing so much there was no way, there’s no way, I would have been able to do this when I was fighting. I was such a megalomaniac, it just wouldn’t have happened, just would not have happened. It just being humbled in life, it’s given a lot of opportunities to clean my life up, to clean your soul and your spirit up, that’s what I think pretty much happened.KM: I wanted to know, since we’re at Comic Con, what was your favorite comic book and who were your favorite Comic Book characters?
MT: I read a lot of wrestling magazines back then. Wrestling magazines and Marvel comics pretty much, and Space Ghost.
KM: I know the first season is probably already finished at this point but, in the future if Nintendo was ever willing, what would an episode entail with Little Mac from Mike Tyson’s PUNCH OUT?
MT: Yes, we did the second as well [in reference to how much of the season is done]. But hey listen, I’d be really interested in doing that. I was also thinking about reinventing it and doing a Mike Tyson PUNCH OUT 2. Except it be Big Mac!
KM: Who’s idea was it to get you to sing “Ain’t Got No Time For Bird Sex” and are you going to sing more of it in the series?
MT: Yes, I sing some gospel hymns and stuff, alittle erotic gospel hymns.
KM: Besides you, who’s your favorite character on the show?
MT: Umm, oh man, umm Hee, my little adopted Chinese daughter who I found out is Korean, so yeah she’s my favorite character. And the pigeon is just a retched, disgusting little bad guy, yeah he’s a bad guy.KM: Who would you like to guest star on the show?
MT: Hey listen, it’s going to be an array of people. I may have Bishop Magic Juan, I may have guys from Pimps Up Hoes Down, I may have Flava Flav. I’m gonna have Bobby Brown in there, were gonna do dance with ‘Every Step You Take’.
KM: Mike you’ve done TV, sports, is there anything you would like to try to do, that you haven’t actually put your hands into as of yet?
MT: Yeah, yeah a musical. A musical…yeah.
KM: Mike, you’ve been such a huge inspiration for me because primarily, I lack alittle bit of confidence sometimes. So what do you say to people like me and people who hear my podcast, who are missing alittle bit of confidence in their life and need that spark, what do you say to them, who look up to you and want to be like you?
MT: Listen, you know everyone as human beings, we have to have self-doubt. You can’t be a human being without self-doubt, that’s how we challenge ourselves. We all have fears, like one day my wife might leave me and I might be broke and homeless or something. We all have those fears, you know what I mean, but we have to believe in ourselves. And I know it’s hard to believe in ourselves but, we have to believe in ourselves and sometimes I see people, I know people who have nothing. They have nothing, but their confidence is sky high, then I know people who have everything, they’ve got the world and they have no confidence. Their self-esteem is so low. It’s just you have to believe in yourself and say I deserve a beautiful life, I’ve done nothing wrong to nobody and I deserve to have a good life. I deserve to have a wife, a girlfriend that doesn’t cheat on me, I deserve that. I don’t deserve to take any kind of umm, bad treatment from anybody. I deserve a good life and I never thought, and I was successful, I had hundreds of girlfriends and hundreds of millions of dollars, cars, I had everything.
But I didn’t think I deserved it, but I realize now I deserve a great life. I suffered for it, I deserve a great life and I’m not going to tolerate anything less than a great life. Even if I deal with adversity now, I’m going to get a great life, cause it’s all about how you feel about yourself in life. You know we want people to like us, but no one is going to like us if we don’t like ourselves. You don’t think people can see through your self-esteem and that you don’t feel good about yourself? They’ll see and won’t treat you good, if people see you feel good about yourself and love yourself and you’re kind to yourself, people will be kind to you. People will treat you how you treat yourself. So if you treat yourself like you don’t deserve shit, they’ll take from you. They’ll just be like give it to me, that’s just what it is.KM: So from that, we’ve got the possibility of a Mike Tyson’s PUNCH OUT 2, maybe Mike Tyson musicals in the future, insight on the show and Tyson himself, along with some nuggets of wisdom from the former heavyweight champ. As for the show itself, I hoped you guys liked it. I thought it was pretty freaking awesome, with this interview pumping me way more than I already was, even before the premiere. Overall, my first time at NYCC was amazing and I had a phenomenal time, while also getting to meet and interview some great people. Thank you Adult Swim for the opportunity and thank you Mike Tyson for your time. If you haven’t done so already, check out MIKE TYSON MYSTERIES now available for your viewing pleasure.
Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
