When people are starting out their modeling careers, they have to take whatever gigs they can get. They’re the people you see smiling in photo frames at Walmart or looking ravenous (or perfectly satiated) on the cover of waffle iron boxes. Even Fabio paid his dues on the cover of a Nintendo game. Some product models go on to celebrity status. Others fade into obscurity. But not this guy. We’ve all seen him at our local gun range: the angry fellow menacing us with his revolver. It’s a picture taken decades ago. I’ve often wondered who the fellow in the picture actually is . . .

I imagine the gentleman in the photo was lured into the target business. “I’ve got a gig for you. You need to show up looking real tough, like a bad guy,” said his agent. “No, it’s not a movie. But you do get to hold a gun.” Mullet Man probably had to wear his own clothes for the gig; fashionable at the time. He probably never imagined his tough-guy visage would become a frozen relic. How tiring to be forever stuck in late 1980s fashion.

To my mind he’s not trying to mug us, but coercing us into putting him out of his misery. A poetic “suicide-by-cop.” To put me out of my misery, I placed a couple calls to distributors enquiring about the subject in the photo. I was curious as to his real life ID and if his career went beyond that gig. Nothing. So ask you, TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia, do you know this man?

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79 COMMENTS

    • Speaking of Dog, I haven’t watched his show since the first or second season, so I had only a recollection of his appearance. He had a short cameo in one of the last couple episodes of Hawaii Five-0, and boy does he look rough. He was never a prize, but the last decade has not been kind to that guy.

  4. Hope he got paid. He’s a slightly more ugly version of Joe Dirt LOL. BTW I’ve never seen this image in any range in Illinois or Indiana

    • That’s because it’s a little “too close to home” in IL and IN… Half the people walking the streets there look like this guy.

      • Can’t say I’ve seen a single individual with such an 80’s buddy cop bad guy look in Illinois in my 28 or so years here.

        • Calm down, guys, it was a joke. I grew up in Illinois, lived in Indiana for several years. Left for warmer climes a long time ago, but I still visit family there frequently.

          However, I don’t know where you guys are in Illinois, but in central IL, I’ve definitely seen this guy. Recently. He’s not wearing acid-washed jeans with an elastic waist anymore, but that haircut is definitely not extinct in that habitat.

    • He kinda reminds me of Nancy Pelosi, before her “work” was done. Maybe it’s just the eyes though.

      • You know the thing about Nancy, she’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. When she comes at yer second amendment rights, doesn’t seem to be livin’. Until she votes to take yer guns away and those black eyes roll over white…

    • I was thinking he looked like the “basic pleasure model” replicant version of Leon (Brion James) from the beginning of Blade Runner. “Let me tell you about my mullet.”

  7. That mullet is the paragon of mullets. In 1988, I would have been quite envious. Nowadays? Not so… well, okay, maybe still a little jealous but only because I don’t have enough hair left to grow a mullet if I wanted to.

      • Since the dawn of photography, when our ancestors first discovered the photo-sensitive power of silver halide crystals and light waves, awful photographs have been spread in the name of everything: from school memories to justice records to simple, narcissistic selfies.

  10. I always figured it was Joe Biden before he jumped on the double barrel shotgun wagon.

  12. Not all that menacing with an empty revolver. Whoever he is. “If I had a son he would look like mullet man.”

  14. I think I know this guy. Never saw him at my shooting range, but I did see him at WalMart recently. He is now bald and has a full beard. He paid with an EBT card.

  15. Info’s right in the image. Call up LE Targets, inc. See if they have a record of his name.

  19. I think he is/was NYPD back when that hair style was in fashion.

    Any of you guys try to run down that sweet shirt and magnificent hair-there are either pictures of you from the time where you don’t look half as good, or in 2034 your kids will be laughing at how bad the clothes and hair you are rocking now look.

  21. If the “model” was also wearing skinny jeans, his photo would be a monument to forty years of stupid.

  22. The story I heard was that it was the owner of the company that printed the targets.

    • Wonderful! I like the zombie targets personally, first time I saw one I thought I would laugh myself to death.

  24. cuz it’s still okay to call white trailer trash criminals, but if ya put one mugshot of the typical inner city gang banger thug with his du-rag, Raiders cap on backwards and pistol held sideways, every nutball starts screaming “racism” and has any range that dared allow such a target branded “white supremacist”.

    So ranges around here allow NO human targets at all. Some allow zombies. But the county owned range? not even a silhouette.

    • One afternoon back, in the seventies, I was with friends at a range in Granite City, Il., while the security staff from Granite City Steel were qualifying. They had just taken on their first black armed security officer, and as he advanced to the line, he was handed a custom made white on black background silhouette, with congratulations on his promotion.

      The thing to emphasize is that the presentation was made with genuine good will, everybody cracked up, and nobody’s feelings got hurt.

      The question, then, I guess, is whether we were all just insensitive to what may have been an uncomfortable situation for the black gentleman – or are we all just kind of thin skinned nowadays?

  28. I actually borrowed Wizards and Warriors II from a friend on the NES, wasn’t bad from what I remember. Fabio was a great visionary in the side-scrolling platform video game industry. His portrayal of Kuros on the front of the box was nuanced and evocative.

  32. I’ve shot 100 on him a couple of times. There’s now a guy who sort of looks like Prince Charles printed on the LE targets – maybe done by an Irishman?

  33. I’m pretty sure it’s Billy Ray Cyrus because he appears to have an achy breaky heart.

  37. I graduated high school in 1984. I’m not sure who he is but he’s in my yearbook!…..on every page!………atleast twice!!

  38. First time I’ve seen this target. The local ranges I have shot at do not allow human image targets because they are not politically correct.

  39. Hey Stinkeye I wasn’t offended. I’ve seen this guy in Hammond Indiana DOZENS of times! LOL

    • That’s funny as hell, because Hammond is where I used to live! Just off of Hohman Ave, couple blocks from the state line. Just looking at him, you can tell this dude is definitely from Da Region…

  40. Don’t know who that guy is on that target, but the woman on the zombie targets with the cell phone is my ex-wife…

    • Piscopo targets…… yeah, I can see that. Ol’ Joe could probably use the money from royalties at this point in his career.

  45. My girlfriend and I wonder the same damn thing about target “models” when we’re at the gun shop. This post is too funny.

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