Cultural References
Rondo Hatton's likeness from The Brute Man inspired the appearance of one of the villain characters in Dave Stevens' Rocketeer comic book as well as the 1991 film adaptation, The Rocketeer. In the film, the seven-foot-tall Tiny Ron Taylor portrays Lothar, an ugly and murderous henchman for the story's antagonist. Rick Baker, the special makeup effects artist that worked on the film, designed the character's facial make-up resemble Hatton's Creeper character, and Lothar dresses in a dark coat and hat similar to his clothing from The Brute Man.
In 2002, the founders of the website The Classic Horror Film Board created the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards to honor horror works in film, television and publishing. The awards were named after the actor, and award recipients received statuettes with miniature busts of Hatton as he appeared portraying the Creeper in House of Horrors and The Brute Man. The statuettes were sculpted by illustrator Kerry Gammill and cast by modeler Tim M. Lindsey.
The Brute Man was featured in a seventh season episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a comedy television series. In the show, the human character Mike Nelson and his two robots friends, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo, are trapped in a satellite and forced by the mad scientist Dr. Forrester to watch bad films as part of an ongoing scientific experiment. In order to get through the experiment, Mike and the robots make jokes mocking the film as they watch. During the episode, their silhouetted images are superimposed over the film to give the impression that they are sitting in a movie theater as they make their jokes. The Brute Man was the second episode of the seventh season, which was broadcast on Comedy Central on February 10, 1996. The description for The Brute Man in The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide, a book by the cast and writers of the series, reads: "A dark film about dark things. Rondo Hatton's swan song; he died just weeks after the film was completed. So murky and dark, it makes M look like Mrs. Doubtfire."
Michael J. Nelson, the show's head writer who also plays the character of the same name, said the staff initially felt strange making jokes at the expense of Rondo Hatton and his real-life illness. However, Nelson said, "Then you realize it's the whole point of the movie: he's a guy with a big ugly face. And he is a terribly bad actor." Paul Chaplin, another writer with the series, said of the actor's acromegaly: "That fact opens up a large irresolvable issue concerning the movie industry's use of this poor afflicted fellow; he was paid, after all, and movie work is nice work. Yet it can seem exploitative of misfortune." Due to the short running time of The Brute Man, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode also included The Chicken of Tomorrow (1948), a short film about advances in chicken and egg farming. The Chicken of Tomorrow was included in the DVD "Short Collection Volume 1", which itself was included in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection Volume 2 DVD boxset.
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