Hulk Hogan Worked With Barbie's Director On A Forgotten Sitcom

Hulk Hogan died at the age of 71 on July 24, 2025. He leaves behind a massive legacy within the entertainment industry, from helping to put World Wrestling Entertainment (then World Wrestling Federation) on the map with his charismatic performances in the ring to fighting (and beating) Marvel Comics to starring in a vast range of movies, from "Rocky III" to "Gremlins 2: The New Batch." However, many of his projects flew under the radar, including one particularly odd animated role where Hogan starred in the same TV series as Greta Gerwig, the director of 2023's "Barbie."

Hogan voiced The Dean on the Adult Swim show "China, IL," an animated series that follows the absolute worst college in the country. It's a school where everyone from the students to the faculty would rather get drunk than learn anything, featuring absurd plotlines involving a giant baby, a dead professor returning as a ghost, and a "Running Man"-esque competition. That goes double for The Dean, an overly macho alpha male who falls perfectly in line with Hogan's real-life sensibilities. Meanwhile, Gerwig voices Pony Merks, a history department teaching assistant who probably gets the closest to actually doing her job well at this school.

"China, IL" generally flew under the radar, but it ran for three seasons between 2011 and 2015. It was overshadowed by other Adult Swim fare during that time, like "Rick and Morty," despite critics raving about it. Clearly, only a show as bizarre as this could bring together two personalities as disparate as Hogan and Gerwig.

With Hulk Hogan voicing a recurring character on "China, IL," his daughter, Brooke Hogan, wanted to get in on the action and in an interview with Fan Voice, Brooke explained how she fully leaned into nepotism to get the gig. "My dad was actually doing the voice for the cartoon for a while, and he was doing the voice of the dean," she explains. "I had always wanted to do cartoon voices so when I heard that my dad was doing voices for Adult Swim, I was like, 'Dad, you have to tell them that I do voices too!'" The "China, IL" bosses must've liked what they heard because Brooke voiced a good half-dozen characters throughout the first two seasons.

Hulk Hogan wasn't just another voice actor for the show. He was an institution, as "China, IL" executive producer Daniel Weidenfeld told CBR: "A lot of famous people pass through ... But he was the Pied Piper. When he came, there was a line of 3,000 people just following him around. I had never seen anything like it." That's really saying something considering the host of big names who were also part of the "China, IL" cast, like Donald Glover, Jeffrey Tambor, Hannibal Buress, and Chelsea Peretti.

After popping up in films and television shows throughout the 1980s and '90s, Hollywood didn't want much to do with Hulk Hogan after that. Because of this, "China, IL" remains one of his final acting performances. You can watch the entire series for free on Adult Swim's website.