Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ‘Pumping Iron’ Days: 8-Episode ‘Pump’ TV Show On Bodybuilding
For any bodybuilder who has soaked up Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Pumping Iron — Arnold’s cult classic documentary from 1977 — it is good news that Schwarzenegger will return to those bodybuilding days in the TV series Pump. As reported by Deadline, Arnold is producing the Pump TV series, which will last eight episodes that last for one hour each.
Schwarzenegger struck the deal for Pump with CBS Television Studios, but Pump will not apparently star Arnold. Instead, Pump will focus on the wild days of a group of bodybuilders during the 1970s, the heyday of Schwarzenegger and his bodybuilding buddies, as they spent days building muscles in the midst of a hot and happening Venice Beach gym.
The film focuses on the sport of bodybuilding and Schwarzenegger’s path toward becoming Mr. Olympia. Arnold’s focus was so intense upon preparing for winning his Mr. Olympia titles that Schwarzenegger claimed in the below video that he skipped his own father’s funeral due to focusing on his weightlifting desires.
According to Reason, Arnold’s claims about missing his father’s funeral in Pumping Iron were not true. George Butler, the director of Pumping Iron, said that Schwarzenegger used the story from that of a boxer and not his own life.
Either way, Arnold would go on to enjoy the title of Mr. Olympia six times, until 1975.
As shown in Pumping Iron and its sequel, Pumping Iron II: The Women, which was released in 1985, female bodybuilders are also in focus in the weightlifting arena. And there were plenty of women who flocked to Arnold and Schwarzenegger’s bodybuilding buddies in 1975, when the muscles they sported weren’t as common as those sported by men and women in 2016.
Schwarzenegger’s influence became apparent when, as a 20-year-old, Arnold was the youngest to win Mr. Universe. Arnold won Mr. Olympia in 1969. Arnold — who was known as the “Austrian Oak” due to his heritage and size back then — set his Pump TV series in 1973, well before political aspirations were manifested.
Schwarzenegger’s Pump will reflect the days when weightlifters didn’t have a lot of money but those salad-and-egg days were offset by the hours upon hours in the beachfront gym building muscles. Pumping Iron has been viewed as a sort of rulebook movie for those who didn’t know a lot about bodybuilding during those times – a time when not everyone walked around fresh out of a gym wearing yoga pants.
Pump could reveal the unknown antics of Schwarzenegger and his weightlifting friends in 1973 before Arnold would realize the bodybuilding expert and movie star he would become — even though Arnold visualized much of his future successes.
Schwarzenegger noted how Pump will reveal a gym life that was a lot different in the 1970s than in modern times.
“I knew from our first brainstorming session that Pump would be a hit. The ’70s were such a colorful, transformational time, for me and for our entire country. I look forward to bringing that color to people’s living rooms with the fantastic, deep characters and the multi-layered story lines of Pump. I feel so passionate about this project because today it’s easy to take our gyms and culture of fitness for granted, but it all started with this wild group of bodybuilders as a tiny subculture in a little dungeon gym in Venice Beach. I can’t wait to get to work with our great team.”
Arnold can be seen puffing on a cigar in the below photo of Schwarzenegger from March 30, 1988.
