Tony Ganios: More Than They Could Chew...

'This boy is deformed!'

Cherry Forever

One of the running jokes in the 1980' Porky's trilogy was about the size of Meat's meat.  We really didn't get a good enough view to actually determine whether it was as 'deformed' as Cherry Forever claims, but we did get a dark and quick view in the original film.  It's just a flash, but long enough to see that although a decent size, This particular portion of meat, might need an appetizer or side dish, to truly fill you up.

Brooklyn born actor Tony Ganios who played Meat, was literally nudged into the entertainment business at18 after his uncle Pete made him cut short a powerlifting workout short to audition for director Philip Kaufman. As a result, Tony made his film debut in 1979 in Kaufman's The Wanderers.  In addition to his role in Porky's, Ganios also co-starred with Sally Field in Back Roads and with John Belushi in Continental Divide.  After a short stint on TV's Wiseguy, the actor's last credited IMDB role was in 1993's Rising Sun.

In 2012, Ganios and some of his Porky's co-stars attempted to raise funs for new teen sex comedy with the working title of Daddie's Girls. Although the money was raised, and a website started, production has yet to officially begin.  A few years ago, Ganios did do an interview with Retro Ladyland discussing his career and his time working on the Porky's series.  Below are some of his comments on the nude scenes in the film.

Porky's (1981)

Your character ‘Meat’ was meant to be… ahem… very well endowed… Did you get much female attention because of this? I’m not going to ask if you actually are, but do people think you are because of Meat?

"Female attention? No. Although over the years the character name has inspired some choice comments from self-styled comedians in neighborhood bars. To attract female attention, my buddies and I had this little game we liked to play in nightclubs. We would target a group of attractive women and immediately begin a loud and spirited argument over which one of us possessed the smallest member. This would usually result in one or more of the gals wanting to render a verdict by viewing our respective packages, and to put it politely, sometimes biting off a bit more than they could chew...

'One thing we all agree on is that no matter how much glee accidental nudity inspires in an audience, being naked on a film set sucks. Absent-mindedly sitting can be a sharp, penetrating experience because you might suddenly realize you’re engaged to somebody’s car keys. Certain body parts adhere to others whose public realignment can be humiliating if not downright dangerous. And for some bizarre reason female crew members with whom you’re barely familiar now feel the need to engage you in rounds of senseless discourse. 

Porky's Revenge (1985)

As the series progress's, Meat's physique certainly gets a wee bit meatier.  Although there were not more frontals from Meat, this scene from the last film indicates maybe his nickname should have been meaty instead of meat.

'For me nudity around the other guys seemed no different than being unclad in a high school locker room. It was the reactions of the crew that made the experience strange. It should have dawned on me that something was amiss when I was repeatedly asked if I needed anything by a wide eyed wardrobe lady who by all logic shouldn’t have been on the closed set, but I guess I was a bit slow on the uptake. Believe me, we wished we could have been more distracted by being allowed to be around for the girls’ shower scene, but unfortunately for us their closed set restrictions there were actually enforced."

We knew the project required nudity the moment we read the script. Disrobing around the other guys was no big deal. Nobody really thought about it. We all shared the same trailer anyway, and getting ready to do the scene was simply a matter of undressing, throwing on a robe and shower clogs, and walking to the set together.'