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Access Atlanta > Blog > Archives > 2007 > February > 06 > Entry
“Hogs” stars ride into town
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bless our hearts. Whether it’s “Gone With the Wind,” “Song of the South,” “City Slickers 2” or “Lost in Space,” we love to stand outside and swoon over Hollywood stars when they come to town to hawk a movie.
On Tuesday, hundreds turned out on Washington Street downtown outside the state capitol to welcome John Travolta, William H. Macy, Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence, the stars of the upcoming Touchstone Pictures middle-aged buddy comedy, “Wild Hogs.”
Clad in leather jackets, the Hollywood actors gingerly rode into the event on Harleys.
In what we construed as a way to somehow account for the taxpayer expense of re-locating half of the state’s motorcycle police force to downtown in exchange for a eight-minute photo op with the actors, Governor Sonny Perdue happily proclaimed it “Wild Hogs Motorcycle Safety Day” as he presented the actors with Harley-Davidson biker vests.
Perdue, who once drove a race car around the Capitol, wore a dark suit and refrained from hopping on a Harley.
Perdue rattled off some scary highway accident stats (“1700 Georgians were killed on our roadways last year”) and promised the introduction of a “Super Speeder Bill” in the state legislature Thursday before handing over the microphone to his guests.
Hundreds of onlookers taking photos clustered to take in the scene, many of which were motorcyclists sporting leather jackets emblazoned with slogans like “Riding for Christian Motorcyclists Association“ and “Bad [posterior] Girls Ride Bad [posterior] Toys.”
“Although it looks like we sometimes we don’t know what we’re doing, we had a month of training for this movie,” Travolta reassured the assembled.
Some one in the crowd shot back, “Way to go, Vinnie Barbarino!” referencing the actor’s 1970s sitcom past on “Welcome Back Kotter.”
Referring to his co-stars as “Johnny” and “Billy,” Allen told the crowd that he and Macy have a new love of motorcycling, thanks to “Wild Hogs.” Added Allen: “We did have some mishaps on this movie but Billy and I dig this now. I don’t like the helmet but I wear it.”
Citing exhaustion, Buzz gave up before getting an exact count of all the officers present and their flashing police motorcycles brought in from Cobb, Calhoun, DeKalb and Fulton counties. “Wild Hogs” arrives in theaters March 2.
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