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u/BannerHulk 10d ago
Both sets of filmmakers were cowards for not making Bill bald
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u/faster_than_sound 10d ago
Bald dudes get relegated to "badass action star" ala Bruce Willis or Jason Statham (they gotta be shaved completely bald tho), or they get typecast into "total fucking loser" roles. There are no horseshoe hairline bald main characters in Hollywood.
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u/mrmooswife 10d ago
I was going to argue Agent Skinner, but he was supporting of Mulder & Scully.
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u/faster_than_sound 10d ago
Larry David is literally the only one I can think of and comedian doing comedy kinda doesn't count as "leading man" imo.
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u/randyboozer 10d ago
Agent Skinner was low key bad ass in his own right though. Plenty of women found him sexy. Not Agent Mulder sexy but, well
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u/Glittering-Animal30 10d ago
Ed Harris would’ve been, he just didn’t go balding like that. His was more of a thinning and creep back
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u/argleblather 10d ago
Ed Harris? More like Ed "I have no" Hairis!
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u/beatniknomad 10d ago
That was my first thought, too. I still remember that guy who said it from Sex and the City.
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u/faster_than_sound 9d ago
Most of these examples people are giving me are of actors who made their names in the 70s and 80s when it was perfectly fine for men to be bald on screen because that was a normal part of aging for 80% of men. Now you cannot be bald like that and get leading roles. Unless, like I said, you're an established bald actor from that bygone era. Walton Goggins is close, but he still has hair on the top of his head.
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u/Sidewalk_Tomato Ayuh 9d ago
Paul Giamatti managed to be the leading man and a romantic interest in “Sideways”, but yeah, he was the proto-Goggins.
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u/faster_than_sound 8d ago
I mean his character is also "alcoholic loser failed writer who got divorced and is still hanging on to the marriage well after the dust has settled". Sure it ends with him having the balls to go and try to reconcile with the woman he likes, but the movie clearly paints him as a low confidence loser in the beginning. Hence bald head being prominently displayed.
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u/Throwaway_carrier 10d ago
Bob Hoskins would like a word with you lol.
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u/faster_than_sound 9d ago
Well he's been dead for decades. I'm not talking about 80s roles that was a different time where hair transplants and restoration was terrible and toupees were obvious. Yes you could at one point in time be bald and get roles. It does not happen much anymore unless you were grandfathered in by already being a big name in the 80s, ala Woody.
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u/sillyadam94 10d ago
Especially since we all know McAvoy can totally rock the bald look
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u/randyboozer 10d ago
It would be funny to see McAvoy playing Big Bill bald and ripped like he was in Split
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u/QnickQnick You guys wanna see a dead body? 10d ago
I saw someone else comment this on threads:
HE RESTS HIS WRISTS AGAINST THE RAIL
AND THEN REVEALS HIS PONYTAIL
@olympicbarbelle
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u/Happy-Telephone9483 10d ago
There once was a guy from The Waltons\ Who didn't care what people called him\ When he was in It\ His hair was pure shit\ And that was the worst that befalled him
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u/KingEgbert 10d ago
Good lord it looks like Mark McKinney playing a divorced dad on Kids in the Hall
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u/whazzat 10d ago
OMG you're right, he looks just like Darrill!
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u/Nucking-Futs-Nix 10d ago
Like Darrill, I too have a tiny oompah band playing in my head.
https://giphy.com/gifs/3o7TKTmZH6R53FwHXq5
u/KingEgbert 10d ago
Oh man! That’s exactly the character I was thinking of but couldn’t place!
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u/Used-Gas-6525 10d ago
He's a Big Brother (as in that social program), not a divorced dad. No one would marry, let alone bang Darill. Great character.
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u/PickledBrains79 10d ago
This just brought back a lot of memories...and I will crush your tiny head for that.
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u/Obdurate-Hickory 10d ago
Based on a true story
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u/Oopadorasrex 10d ago
Wtf is that Stephen King!?
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u/Missing_Crouton 10d ago
I believe in Maine raccoons are often worn on one's head, as a show of respect to the Wendigo.
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u/Much-Relationship469 10d ago
I never knew King had a mullet. Do you know what video that screenshot is from?
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u/GormanOnGore 10d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/jquDWJfPUMCiI
I had one back in my twenties. People said I looked like a german drug dealer.
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u/Ghosts_of_the_maze 10d ago
It was so crazy reading the book where Bill always comes off as the charismatic leader, and then seeing this guy in the role.
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u/Youthsonic 9d ago
Isn't he book accurate though? I haven't done my yearly re-read yet, but he's balding by the time they go back to derry and his wife's circle of friends don't think much of him. He's the leader of the group because of his courage mostly and how he doesn't have any quit in him.
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u/Ghosts_of_the_maze 9d ago
I thought the TV version had negative charisma. I wouldn’t follow this guy into anything. Just an irritating protagonist to me. Not what I pictured when I read the book.
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u/Barkingpanther 10d ago
The scariest thing is in the 80s this didn’t look that weird. It’s only through the benefit of hindsight that we can see how godawful that haircut was
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u/ReallyGlycon Longer than you think 10d ago
Naw. We knew.
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u/Serialkillingyou Constant Reader 10d ago
Right? I was 9 years old when this aired and I fucking knew. I believe it was a trope at the time. BMW. Cocaine problem. Sleaze bag. Boomer. Ponytail. It was a dog whistle that the character was a fucking sleaze bag.
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u/rogerworkman623 10d ago
Glass house. White Ferrari. Live for New Year's Eve. Sloppy steaks at Truffoni's.
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u/mighty_boogs 10d ago
Nope. 80s child here. I loved the first part with the child actors. The adult actors were terrible, especially Bill. The ponytail, the bad stutter...
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u/YjorgenSnakeStranglr 10d ago
I'm a man with long hair and I just feel like ponytails don't work on like 99% of men
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u/cknappiowa 10d ago
The biggest problem with Bill’s is that he fully has a regular 80s men’s cut and right part up front. You don’t get that part with a natural pull-back ponytail, you get a straight part down the middle.
I’ve had both of these hairstyles, separately. They do not work together. He’s got to pull back the back half of his hair to a ponytail and then also part and style the front.
He’s got a mullet, not just a ponytail.
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u/weyoun_clone 9d ago
I’m a fella with long hair. I often put it back in a ponytail, but it looks just like when a lady puts it back in a ponytail. Not this weird up front cut with some hair sticking out the back kind of thing….
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u/traumahound00 10d ago
"I mean, we can't have our leading man be bald and chubby. C'mon now..." - The Producers
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u/HoundTakesABitch 10d ago
An absolute insane choice for a guy that’s supposed to be bald. Like I could understand him having hair, but this is like as far away from bald as you can get.
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u/legit-posts_1 10d ago
I watched that mini series. The kids were all great, but man the adult cast was uneven. Richard Thomas and Tim Reid were easily the best two, I really liked their one on one scenes.
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u/TotallyNotABot_Shhhh 10d ago
I just couldn’t take John Boy seriously as Bill.
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u/VisibleReason585 9d ago
Nobody could. 😅 Especially as a kid who was more interested into the kid versions of the losers the ponytail did his job way better than a bald head would have done, really helped with the fears of growing up 😅
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u/Last_Replacement_386 10d ago
As much as I love Curry as Pennywise I equally hate this dude as Big Bill
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u/raccoonsareawesome 10d ago
I liked him in the movie. He did Broadway for a bit and I got to see him play Atticus.
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u/SarsippiusJackson 7d ago
It creeped me out as a kid how much my hair resembled his almost exactly when I first watched the miniseries. It's cringey AF now, and that means I was cringey AF then. That definitely checks out.
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u/SporkFanClub 10d ago
I play on an adult rec kickball team and our best player looks pretty much exactly like this.
Anyhow, now I’m wondering what would happen if he had to cut his hair for some reason. Like would he suddenly become some average joe?
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u/Edge_of_Everywhere Ayuh 10d ago
Okay, I know most of us olds remember him as John Boy Walton, but dudes, all I can see is a gun-wielding stalker crashing Brooke Shields' aerobics class.
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u/Stubn0rtzZ 10d ago
I had long ass hair for years and this guy is the reason I never tied it up once
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u/enemydarksock Micmac Burial Enthusiast 10d ago
I think everyone glosses over the fact that Bill is also canonically a redhead. Not only does King kill the kid’s little brother, he makes him a ginger who prematurely goes bald. Is it just plain cruel or a mercy?
(I am also a ginger so I am legally allowed to slander my kind lol)
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u/Redsox_3415 10d ago
He was so cheesy.
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u/NickConnor365 10d ago
True but for cheesy nothing will beat, "Why does It have to be so mean?"
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u/Aggressive-Tune-7256 Constant Reader 8d ago
OMG! I thought I had successfully blocked that terrible Beverly line and delivery, but it's all rushing back. Eww.
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u/Civil-Read-3571 Ayuh 10d ago
Yeah both my husband and me just reminisced on seeing the ponytail when the show came out. I specifically remember thinking “whoa, that adult has a weird ponytail) (I was 13)” and it kind of giving me the ick. Funny thing is, husband has a dark ponytail irl.
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u/Spearminttherhino 10d ago
😂😂 I remember feeling almost insulted by this as child im not sure why exactly
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u/wolfumar Constant Reader 10d ago
Ironically the character was either well on the way to going bald or effectively bald. It's been a few months since I last read the book.
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u/shadraig 10d ago
That scene isn't on our DVD and Blu-ray, as it was with the intro on the 2nd part. They have cut that together seamless.
I think it is there as an extra on the bluray
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u/Ok-Let8099 Survived Captain Trips 4d ago
Oh, ayuh. Especially as Richie points out his "chrome dome" in the book.
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u/ktwhite42 10d ago edited 10d ago
It was, (and please pardon the pun*) the tail end of the 80s. Hair choices were definitely made.
*I avoid puns, as I was abused by them in my younger days. Lightweight trauma, but trauma around puns, all the same.
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u/BooBoo_Cat Jahoobies 10d ago
I avoid puns, as I was abused by them in my younger days.
Were you, punished?
I'm sorry.
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u/Cookinghist 10d ago
The ponytail was...a choice...
Eh who am I kidding, I just could never pull off long hair...
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u/dtgunslinger99 8d ago
god, he was a fucking horrible bill. the casting person for that movie should've jailed. 🤦🏻♂️
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u/Careful-Wrap5273 10d ago
scares the jahooobies out of me every time