There is a vintage Washington Redskins poster called Hogs Night Out, circa 1984. It featured members of the legendary Super Bowl–winning offensive line, The Hogs: Jeff Bostic, Russ Grimm, Joe Jacoby, George Starke, Mark May, Rick “Doc” Walker, Don Warren and Fred Dean.
They were all dressed in ill-fitting tuxedos, white gloves, and top hats. They are posing around a table full of champagne and lobsters. A 700-lb award-winning hog named “Worthy” graces the poster, at a farm in Leesburg, Virginia.
It is in a word – epic.
You’ve likely seen it:
How Hogs Night Out Came About
The original idea came from a Redskins fan named Walter Reed. He pitched an idea to Doc Walker about creating a poster to immortalize the Super Bowl winning Redskins offensive line. The deal was that in return for introducing Reed to Starke – Reed would give Doc a golf lesson. Head Hog George Starke would then in turn hopefully help gather the guys for the photo shoot.
Which he did.
Starke would also be responsible for them partnering with Peoples Drug stores to distribute the poster.
The elder statesmen for The Hogs, Starke was a very astute businessman. He had each of the members invest and they formed the corporation Super Hogs, Inc. It was one of the first athlete-founded marketing collectives. The first athletes in football history to market themselves outside of the NFL oversight.
Super Hogs would go on to create a clothing line, a beer company, and produce two of the most successful football posters of all time, Hogs Night Out and The Grave Yard Hogs.
Story Credit Where It’s Due
The lore of this great story came to pass thanks to a guest post many years ago on a blog called Mr. Irrelevant. That blog was run by the Mottram brothers – Jamie and Chris – two great Redskin fans. You can find the blog on the Wayback Machine. The blog ran a contest to see who could guess the closest score in a 2012 Ravens versus Redskins game. The winner would be allowed to make a guest post on the Mottram’s blog. That winner was Phil Reed.
Phil Reed is the son of Walter Reed – the man who had the Hogs poster idea in the first place.
Phil had a tale to tell:
On that day in May, after their morning practice, eight world champions met on a hog farm in Leesburg, Virginia. They dressed in top hats, tails and white gloves and arranged themselves behind a 700-pound, award-winning hog named “Worthy.”
As the crew was assembling the table and arranging the lobster, champagne glasses and candelabra, I noticed that some of the Hogs were missing their bow ties. I scrambled back to the car to search under seats and in the mess of boxes in the trunk. I found the ties in a bag that had fallen on the ground and ran back to the shoot, only to find the crew was done for the day. “Worthy” was done eating her feed and wouldn’t be sticking around for an attempt at another shot.
With that, the “Hogs Night Out” poster was born.
Worthy was indeed a 700-pound, award-winning hog. She was set on doing her own thing and couldn’t care less about being in the photo. All she cared about was getting as much feed as she possibly could.
Some on-the-spot tailoring had to be done to a few players’ outfits, but when it was all said and done, everyone was fresh and dressed to impress.
Hogs Night Out Poster Sales
Reed also relayed the story of how a buyer named Ralph Gittesson from People’s Drug – which was a predecessor to CVS – bought 50,000 posters from Starke on first sight! And placed subsequent further orders.
Reed remembered fondly staying up late with his dad and helping him roll posters. They stuffed them into tubes as they came off the printing press.
“As a 13-year-old at the time, I was thrilled to help (and to get to stay up into the wee hours).”
Reed also proudly stated that LIFE and Sports Illustrated magazines featured the poster as a “Picture of the Year.” He also said that a photo shoot aired on local stations. It was picked up by Monday Night Football, along with commentary from Howard Cosell.
Behind-the-Scenes
Years later, Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post wrote a DC Sports Bog about finding a behind the scenes shoot of the entire debacle. In it, Steinberg notes Doc Walker’s playful introduction: “Welcome to the productions of Super Hog Inc.… a major production titled, Hogs Night Out.”
It’s hard to beat this archival YouTube footage of the shoot if you’re a fan of The Hogs. And set to Irving Berlin’s Top Hat, White Tie and Tails? Come on.
Russ Grimm: “Will somebody please give me some clothes?”
YouTuber @deangiamette8367 says Vox Cam out of Silver Spring shot the video. Shout out to them.
Legacy & Cultural Impact
Some consider it one of sports photography’s vintage gems.
There’s even a recent 40th anniversary reissue, with proceeds benefiting charity, sold under “The Original Hogs Night Out” branding.
Original signed posters still surface on auction platforms like eBay and LiveAuctioneers. They sometimes fetch $200–$500 depending on condition and signatures. Collectors especially prize a signed 1983 original.
Reed also stated in his blog post that there were later ideas for follow-up posters, that never made it to production.
“Our Darrell Green races a Ferrari idea, was one that I wish had been published, after having the rookie over for the initial test shots in our apartment parking lot.”
Those test shots would be fabulous to see.
With the fame that followed, Hogs Night Out, there were inevitably copycats: There was, Machine Gun Jim Kelly, and the Chicago Bears’ Black and Blues Brothers and a host of others.
None were ever near as successful.
There was only one original.
Notes:
I couldn’t find any contact info for Chris Mottram, Jamie Mottram or Phil Reed. I hope they’re all well and don’t mind me citing the original blog post. They can find me at @TheHogsdotnetV2 on X.
#FlashbackFriday
Also, on that original blog post, Phil Reed later posted the following comment:
Just as a follow-up to my blog post, my neighbor read the post (a big Redskins fan himself), was moved by the story and kindly took it upon himself to hunt one down over the course of months. Eventually found one on EBay, and gave it to me this week.
HTTR