Google’s dratted AI instant answers, which I have not yet learned how to switch off, tells me that Hungary’s Spencer worship is a manifestation of a love that “stems from his plebeian appeal and the exotic settings of his films, which offered a rare glimpse of life outside communist-controlled societies during a time of restricted travel.”
Additional Googling revealed that Hungarians warmed to Bud because of his ability to laugh in the face of all-pervading criminality and the fact that he was a pro water polo star. Hungarians love water polo and are extremely good at it; it enjoys a popularity here that far exceeds anything I have witnessed in other countries.
According to Dénes Kemény, who coached the Hungarian men’s national water polo team to a hat trick of Olympic gold medals between 2000 and 2008, quoted on the “Time” magazine website, it’s because of the enormous number of thermal springs in this country.
When the sport, which began in Great Britain in the late 19th century, arrived here, players were able to train in the warm water for longer than in other countries.
“If you can stay in the pool to practice when the water is 80, 85 degrees, your fundamentals, movements, and coordination will improve a lot. We had this advantage over countries who could play in sea, lake, or riverside only four, five months a year,” Kemény explained.
Fittingly, Spencer played his last professional water polo game against Hungary in 1967. In that same year, the big bear, born in Naples in 1929 as Carlo Pedersoli, was spotted by Italian film director Giuseppe Colizzi and offered a role in Spaghetti Western movie “God Forgives.… I Don’t!”
The movie, which U.S. showbiz bible “Variety” described as “long on action, short on storyline,” paired Pedersoli with an actor named Mario Girotti for the first time. Carlo was renamed “Bud,” after Budweiser beer, and “Spencer” after tough guy American actor Spencer Tracy. Girotti was given a list of 20 names and 24-hours in which to find his new identity, and went for Terence Hill because he liked it the most and it reminded him of his mother’s initials.
The pair would make 18 more movies together, with Spencer playing, as a German magazine wrote in an obituary for him, a “phlegmatic, grumpy strong-arm man with a blessed, naive child’s laughter and a golden heart.” Hill would become a successful television director as well as an actor.
Feeling a bit like a student who’d cheated on an assignment by getting AI to write it, I did some good old-fashioned journalistic legwork and asked my Hungarian wife why the Spencer cult came about. She simply says, “He looks Hungarian.”
Indeed, the statue of Bud unveiled in 2017 at Corvin Sétány in District VIII makes him look exceedingly Hungarian, remarkably like a friend of mine named László, if László had trimmed his beard. The inscription on the statue is a quote from the eulogy given to Spencer by his buddy Hill: “Mi sohasem veszekedtünk” (“We never argued”).
The marketing character created by the iconic Hungarian brand Trapper Jeans when it launched in 1978 bears a marked resemblance to Bud Spencer, but was based on Hungarian actor Mihály Kocsis, sometimes called Trapper Misi.
There was a summer Bud Spencer & Terence Hill film festival from 2007 to at least 2017 on the shores of Lake Velence. Not surprisingly, Bud Spencer and Terence Hill movies were a staple of the festival, along with beans. Given that their movies are uniformly awful, you’d have to be a serious fan to give up a weekend of your life.
“Bud Power,” is the trademarked name for the range of canned beans launched by Spencer’s enterprising grandsons Alessandro and Carlo Pedersoli Jr., who followed in his grandpa’s sporting strongman footsteps by becoming a mixed martial arts fighter. The menu of the Bud Power website also lists a Bud Power beer, but the page is “404 not found.”
Perhaps the Spencer boys ran into problems from notoriously litigious U.S. American beer giant Budweiser, which has been battling the Czech Budweiser Budvar brewery since 1907. To date, there have been more than 100 court cases around the world concerning the battle for market dominance between the two. Currently, Budweiser Budvar has the right to the name “Budweiser” in Europe, while the U.S. company goes under the name “Bud.” In the States, Czech Budweiser is “Czechvar,” which hardly rolls off the tongue and down the gullet.
But, I digress. The beans come in three varieties: Original, Tex-Mex and BBQ Sauce. Original is “Authentic, Italian.” With Tex-Mex, “the legend just got spicy.” BBQ Sauce is “perfect for any grill or campfire feast.” Reading that, I couldn’t help but remember the legendary farting scene from Mel Brooks’ 1974 comic masterpiece “Blazing Saddles,” which satirized precisely the kind of movies Spencer and Hill made.
Somewhat oddly, each variety has precisely 1,250 reviews from Spencer fans. Valerio M. loves them, writing cryptically of the Original variety, “And we all know, even angels eat beans. Especially since Bud Spencer taught them.”
I must confess, I’ve yet to try the beans. But, and I say this without any trace of irony, I admire the Bud Power brand’s proud claim to be “the companion of those who face life like Bud Spencer: with their head held high, a smile on their face, and perhaps…. a pan of steaming beans in their hand.”
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of April 10, 2026.
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