Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener mail. This is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and it's Monday, the day of the week. We read
Speaker 1: back some messages from the mail bag provided by our
Speaker 1: loyal mail bought Carney. Let's see, today's episode is probably
Speaker 1: gonna be heavier with Weird House Cinema responses than usual,
Speaker 1: mainly on account of the absolute del uge of messages
Speaker 1: we have received about Return to Oz. I think this
Speaker 1: maybe our biggest weird house mail bag ever. Yeah, it's certainly.
Speaker 1: It's certainly got a lot of responses from folks, a
Speaker 1: lot of strong memories of the Return to Oz. But
Speaker 1: before we get to that, I thought we could do
Speaker 1: a couple of messages about our episode on whistling. Um.
Speaker 1: Let's see, Rob I'm gonna start off with some selections
Speaker 1: from an email from Lurch, who write it's in a
Speaker 1: good bit. Uh this email had a lot of good parts,
Speaker 1: but it's long, so I'm just gonna pull out a
Speaker 1: couple of sections. Uh. So Lurch rights when I was
Speaker 1: still young. I think this may have been before the
Speaker 1: brothers Graham actually wrote their books. My grandmother used to
Speaker 1: tell me stories at bedtime. One of the stories was
Speaker 1: similar to the pied piper story, except instead of using
Speaker 1: pipes to lure the rats and then children out of town,
Speaker 1: he whistled. I've never heard of this version elsewhere, so
Speaker 1: it may be particular to her Swedish family. Either that,
Speaker 1: or Jacob and Wilhelm had their own aversion to whistling.
Speaker 1: Some years later, I served in the United States Coast
Speaker 1: Guard coincidentally where I met my wife. On my first ship,
Speaker 1: I was happily whistling a tune on the fantail when
Speaker 1: the boson came by and admonished me not to do that.
Speaker 1: When I asked why not, he said it was because
Speaker 1: I might whistle up a storm. He was at least
Speaker 1: half serious, adding some gruesome curly cues krakens sirens end
Speaker 1: I rate chiefs. Well, this is interesting in in two ways.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of that version of the pipe piper
Speaker 1: story before. I always heard of it, uh with a pipe,
Speaker 1: I guess in my brain I always kind of compared
Speaker 1: it to that image of the snake charmer who plays
Speaker 1: an instrument or a pipe or clarinet type instrument of
Speaker 1: some sort um and then uh yeah, and then regarding
Speaker 1: the coast guard, I am kind of surprised to hear
Speaker 1: so recent a story. I assume Lurch, I know you,
Speaker 1: you say you are quite old, but I assume this
Speaker 1: was in the twentieth century at least. Still, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: It wouldn't have to be too long ago, because, like
Speaker 1: like we discussed, you get out on the ocean, you
Speaker 1: get into the wild, and uh, you know, the modern
Speaker 1: brain kind of slips away and you have to to
Speaker 1: fall back on older patterns of thinking. I wonder how
Speaker 1: this relates to military discipline, Like if if a commander
Speaker 1: in the in a military command structure orders you not
Speaker 1: to do something because it may have magical ill effects,
Speaker 1: do you have to obey that order? I guess you
Speaker 1: have to obey, no matter what the reasoning is, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it sounds like, at least
Speaker 1: on TV, that would be grounds for mutiny, right if
Speaker 1: the commanding officer is invoking krakens and sirens, or if
Speaker 1: not mutiny, at least like some sort of official grounds
Speaker 1: for removing them from duty, Like if one's commander tells
Speaker 1: you to stop combing your hair because it will incite
Speaker 1: the wrath of a banshee. Do you have to stop
Speaker 1: good good questions to Paupla. Yeah, I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: All right, here's another one. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Pamela. Pamela Rides High, Robin Joe. I'm a longtime
Speaker 1: listener and love this show and thank you from the
Speaker 1: bottom of my heart for not having seasons and disappearing
Speaker 1: for two months every ten shows. I don't get to
Speaker 1: stop working every two months, so I appreciate you sticking
Speaker 1: it out with me. Well, Pamela, I did want to
Speaker 1: have a note on this. I thank you for saying that.
Speaker 1: But also to be fair to our peers in the
Speaker 1: podcasting space, uh the shows that take time off in
Speaker 1: between season are almost certainly not doing it because they're lazy.
Speaker 1: They've just got they've got different production process. They need
Speaker 1: time to develop a new season of content. We have
Speaker 1: a different production process. Uh so, so just different kinds
Speaker 1: of shows. And they also, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: podcasters out there also have various other things going on,
Speaker 1: or they have they have other gigs, they have like
Speaker 1: their main gig. And yeah, for us, this this is
Speaker 1: our main gig. So you know, everybody's everybody's life, everybody's
Speaker 1: life or balance is a little different. But anyway, Pamela continues, anyway,
Speaker 1: to the purpose of my message. One of the most
Speaker 1: unique whistling pieces I can think of in modern popular
Speaker 1: music is the German band band ram Stain's uh ingle angle.
Speaker 1: To non German speakers, I have attached to I was
Speaker 1: not expecting this uh this sister mail to end up
Speaker 1: in Ramstein territory. Here I have attached a link to
Speaker 1: the official music video with the whistling lead in. What
Speaker 1: makes it so attractive and recognizable is the simplicity. Once
Speaker 1: you here this played through, you can hear the first
Speaker 1: two notes and know what's coming. Okay, I'm going I'm
Speaker 1: gonna listen to it now and uh and see if
Speaker 1: I am familiar with this tune. Rob is doing Ramstein research.
Speaker 1: Let's get some Ramstein research music. All right, Okay, I
Speaker 1: just heard heard it. Maybe we even played a little
Speaker 1: bit of it there, but yeah, yeah, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: Neat starts with the with just the whistling, and then
Speaker 1: here come the beats, here comes the industrial edge. Pamela continues,
Speaker 1: evidently David Lynch was a big Ramstein early adopter and
Speaker 1: had himself as Gordon Cole whistled the intro to Angel
Speaker 1: in a scene in Twin Peaks, but he flutters the
Speaker 1: ending of the stanzas and ruins it. It hurts me
Speaker 1: to watch. Anyway, you guys are the best. I will
Speaker 1: be here hanging near the Capitol, thinking deep thoughts with
Speaker 1: you while I listen. Take care, Pamela. I love to
Speaker 1: get a message from a I think I've said the
Speaker 1: name several different ways now a Romstein fan is it Romstein? Ramstein? Ramstein.
Speaker 1: I've never talked about them out loud before, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm familiar with them through you know, industrial music.
Speaker 1: They've never been a group that I've listened to a
Speaker 1: lot directly, but occasionally they're involved or they have some
Speaker 1: involvement with another act. I think there's a there's a
Speaker 1: Sugar did a remix one of their tracks, or they
Speaker 1: did a remix of a Sugar track years back, you
Speaker 1: know that sort of thing. Yeah. Well, so at first
Speaker 1: I didn't believe this claim about Twin Peaks because I
Speaker 1: was thinking, wait a minute, that that show came out
Speaker 1: before Ramstein was a band or at least before this
Speaker 1: song came out. But then I realized it was referring
Speaker 1: to the recent revival series and it what Pamela says
Speaker 1: is true. I dug up a clip. There is a
Speaker 1: clip of David Lynch in costume, in character as like
Speaker 1: an FB agent whistling this this Romstein song, and that's
Speaker 1: pretty weird. I would have had no idea what kind
Speaker 1: of music David Lynch listened to, but if I had
Speaker 1: to guess, I would think he was, like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: listening to weird experimental music that was just like pitch
Speaker 1: modulation of people screaming. Or you could go totally the
Speaker 1: other way and say it's all entirely like ambient jazz. Well,
Speaker 1: at any rate, Pamela, thanks for writing in. It's interesting. Okay,
Speaker 1: we got a lot of return to OZ to get to,
Speaker 1: so I think maybe we should go straight to the
Speaker 1: weird house responses. Let's do it all right. This first
Speaker 1: message comes from d D says Hello, Joe Robin Seth.
Speaker 1: First off, thank you for the hours upon hours of
Speaker 1: education and entertainment I've gotten. I've been a regular listener
Speaker 1: since I took a job that required a monstrous commute
Speaker 1: back in I still remember the first episode I listened
Speaker 1: to on my first day on the job, Talos the
Speaker 1: On's automaton, and I've been hooked ever since. That was
Speaker 1: an episode I'd wanted to write several times before, but
Speaker 1: but hadn't gotten to it. But your recent Weird House
Speaker 1: on Return to OZ finally pushed me over the edge.
Speaker 1: I believe Robert had asked about people who had seen this,
Speaker 1: notably in the theater, and what their impressions were. I'll
Speaker 1: relate a story as part of that. My parents were
Speaker 1: divorced in the early nineteen eighties, and as divorced parents
Speaker 1: are wont to do, my dad would take me to
Speaker 1: the movies as it was a fun bonding experience and
Speaker 1: he was a fan of Weird House before it was
Speaker 1: a thing, having worked for David Cronenberg in the early seventies. Well,
Speaker 1: that would do it. I can't this is a Cronenberg
Speaker 1: legacy email d continues. The challenge was that his picks
Speaker 1: for child appropriate cinema were suspect, this being the late
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties and his background in the arts being what
Speaker 1: it was. Many selections, even if child friendly, ended up
Speaker 1: being a little too dark he had already caught flak
Speaker 1: in the month prior for taking seven year old me
Speaker 1: to Indiana. Jones and the Temple of Doom, and VCRs
Speaker 1: were an expensive luxury, this being the era when many
Speaker 1: people rented the player as well as the movies, so
Speaker 1: he figured that Return to Oz would be a nice
Speaker 1: safe pick among what was playing at the time. It
Speaker 1: ended up being worse. Seven year old me may have
Speaker 1: thought that Mola Ram's heart extraction scene was pretty cool
Speaker 1: and that the dinner scene was awesomely gross referring to
Speaker 1: a Temple of Doom, but Returned to OZ gave me
Speaker 1: nightmares for days afterwards. I'd kept swearing I'd seen faces
Speaker 1: in the wall paper at night. Mombi's Hall of Heads
Speaker 1: made my hair stand on end, and I still find
Speaker 1: the Wheelies creepy to this day. There was really something
Speaker 1: special about children's films from the late nineteen seventies and
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties. My father, bless him, did rent a
Speaker 1: VCR for our next family movie night, only to unintentionally
Speaker 1: terrify us further with what I think would make an
Speaker 1: excellent weird house selection ninety seventy eight Watership Down, which
Speaker 1: is a quote movie based on a book about bunny rabbits,
Speaker 1: in the same way that Kujo is quote a movie
Speaker 1: based on a book about a dog. He really could
Speaker 1: not win. Regardless, Thank you for the great work that
Speaker 1: you do. I appreciate the thoroughness, levity, and enthusiasm you
Speaker 1: throw into your topics. You're my go to podcast and
Speaker 1: easily top of the heap. Please keep up the great work.
Speaker 1: D oh Well, that that was great. I mean, like
Speaker 1: you said, there's a there's a David Cronenberg connection in
Speaker 1: this email mentioned some other thoroughly strange films in their
Speaker 1: own way. I've never actually, I've never seen Coujo. It
Speaker 1: just never was a film that that called to me,
Speaker 1: nor a book that called to me. And I don't
Speaker 1: think I ever watched Watership Down either, But I've listened
Speaker 1: to the art Garfuncle song from Watership Down, Bright Eyes
Speaker 1: a Lot, That's a that's a real it's a real
Speaker 1: heart wrencher. I haven't seen Watership Down. I have seen Coujo.
Speaker 1: Don't know if i'd recommend it. It's it's not a
Speaker 1: very fun time. Yeah, I mean, does the dog even talk? No,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a movie about rabies. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just it's just not very fun. It's it's so weird
Speaker 1: to look back at those early King novels. Um and
Speaker 1: I don't think that. I think Salem's Lot is the
Speaker 1: earliest King novel I actually read. But you look back
Speaker 1: at some of them and it's it's like, here's a
Speaker 1: guy who had so many ideas and would continue to
Speaker 1: to bust out so many great ideas. But if you
Speaker 1: were just looking at those first few novels, you might
Speaker 1: you might wonder how much was really in the tank, right,
Speaker 1: because it's like the psychic girl Uh novel and there's
Speaker 1: psychic boy in a hotel novel, Killer Dog novel. It
Speaker 1: maybe didn't look like there was like a ton of
Speaker 1: variety ready that you know, inside that head charge to
Speaker 1: to take over the world. But it turns out there
Speaker 1: there was all right. This one comes to us from Beck.
Speaker 1: Beck says hello from Sydney, Australia. I was so excited
Speaker 1: to see this podcast episode. I saw Return To as
Speaker 1: a child when it came out, and it was my
Speaker 1: absolute favorite movie. Even now as an adult, I think
Speaker 1: about saying oz when I see a green figurine. It
Speaker 1: was the right level of scary as a kid, although
Speaker 1: the Wheelers particularly scared me. I had a similar mirror
Speaker 1: to the one Ozma appears in, and I would move
Speaker 1: it like Dorothy did in the hopes she'd appear in
Speaker 1: the mirror. For so long, no one I knew had
Speaker 1: seen or even heard of this movie. I only rewatched
Speaker 1: it again about five years ago, and it was amazing
Speaker 1: to watch it as an adult and pick up on
Speaker 1: so many things I missed as a kid. I also
Speaker 1: also realized the VHS version I had taped from TV
Speaker 1: was slightly sanitized, so I discovered some new scenes, which
Speaker 1: was just thrilling. The movie inspired some of my fan
Speaker 1: art as well. And here's some Labyrinth art too, Thanks
Speaker 1: so much, guys. Cheers back and she includes several pictures
Speaker 1: here from her her Instagram account. Be Beck's a great artist.
Speaker 1: I love these paintings. Oh yeah, there's Jack Pumpkinhead. There's
Speaker 1: Jack Pumpkinhead and Dorothy. Then there's I think Ozma holding
Speaker 1: a Jack o lantern. I think this is from the
Speaker 1: scene in the in the clinic where she like gives
Speaker 1: the pumpkin to Dorothy. There's what Oh sorry, I skipped
Speaker 1: ahead to hoggle. Yeah, from Labyrinth Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the mirror thing is is very interesting. Pusic course, of course,
Speaker 1: That's one of the fun but also kind of haunting
Speaker 1: textures in Return to Oz that Dorothy is in the
Speaker 1: real world trying to reconnect with Oz and the adults
Speaker 1: in her world do not understand this, and they think
Speaker 1: this is a problem. And as a viewer, we're kind
Speaker 1: of we since we don't really see Oz manifest at
Speaker 1: that point in the film, we were kind of led
Speaker 1: to believe this as well, like this doesn't Maybe there's
Speaker 1: the scene is a little creepy early on because we're
Speaker 1: we kind of buy into this idea that the that
Speaker 1: the adults are telling us, like like Dorothy needs to
Speaker 1: get her head back on the ground here because she
Speaker 1: is becoming too fascinated with the imaginary and those attempts
Speaker 1: to reconnect with Os or part of that. I think
Speaker 1: there is something poignant there too. You have the of
Speaker 1: the return to Oz, the desire to return to something
Speaker 1: which as adults, of course, we all have feelings of nostalgia,
Speaker 1: and we and perhaps to more nuanced understanding and realistic
Speaker 1: understanding of what it is to return to. Some of
Speaker 1: these ideas that previously engaged us so and captured our imagination.
Speaker 1: But there is I feel like there is that time
Speaker 1: period as a child where you're still so close to
Speaker 1: the imaginary being real that you can reach back, and
Speaker 1: you can you can the ability to sort of reach
Speaker 1: out and grab hold of these things, uh is is
Speaker 1: more real, you know, because they haven't really drifted that
Speaker 1: far from you. Be at some sort of a belief
Speaker 1: be it's something like the you know, the Easter bunny
Speaker 1: or something um or or something you know more more
Speaker 1: poignant than that, Like you're you're closer to them, You're
Speaker 1: closer to the dream um and and sometimes it is
Speaker 1: an actual dream, Like I remember having dreams, vivid dreams
Speaker 1: as a child, and there was a feeling when you
Speaker 1: woke up from them that they were still within reach. Yes,
Speaker 1: I remember that feeling too. I mean, this is something
Speaker 1: that definitely comes through and I think especially a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, fantasy literature because it is made by adults,
Speaker 1: and a lot of what's going on is nostalgia for
Speaker 1: the child's power to believe that like you, you know,
Speaker 1: you wish in a way that you could at least
Speaker 1: temporarily reoccupy that mind space where things that are impossible
Speaker 1: for you to believe now seemed more plausible. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and occasionally you do find authors that are able to
Speaker 1: really capture all of this. I think there's a Richard
Speaker 1: Matheson short story about a little boy who believes that
Speaker 1: he's a vampire. And of course it's this is Richard
Speaker 1: Mathison story. So it's a it's a it's a chiller,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a it's a horror, it's a thriller,
Speaker 1: it's all that. Uh, he's going for a totally different vibe.
Speaker 1: But if I remember, like it's it's one of these
Speaker 1: short story, but it brings you right to this this
Speaker 1: point in the in the story where you're not sure
Speaker 1: which way is going to go, Like the boy believes
Speaker 1: he has a vampire, and he is either he's either
Speaker 1: about to have that belief crushed by the realities of
Speaker 1: the grown up world, or it's going to go in
Speaker 1: the other direction. It's going to go into that into
Speaker 1: that direction that veers into the supernatural, and you don't
Speaker 1: really know which way it's going to go. And both
Speaker 1: both direction like one is one I guess his heartbreaking,
Speaker 1: and the other is potentially horrific as well, because it
Speaker 1: involves vampires. Right, by the way, I just looked it up.
Speaker 1: I think the name of the short story is Blood Sun.
Speaker 1: But it's been a long time since I've read it,
Speaker 1: but I remember now as being being quite good at
Speaker 1: the time. All right, This next message is from Pat,
Speaker 1: also about return to Oz. Pat says, guys, another great
Speaker 1: weird house. I also feel regret in having missed the
Speaker 1: original release. I remember word of mouth being particularly bad.
Speaker 1: I have since developed a wariness of peer pressure. I
Speaker 1: would have loved this movie. I paused your podcast to
Speaker 1: watch the film for Rusa. Bulk is an actress with
Speaker 1: a special identity who is like her. She's so good
Speaker 1: in this film. If I knew Nicole Williamson was in it,
Speaker 1: I would have seen it earlier. I am a big fan.
Speaker 1: I recall seeing him in a vanity production on Broadway
Speaker 1: which is called Jack a Night on the Town with
Speaker 1: John Barrymore. And by the way I looked this up,
Speaker 1: it looks like it was a one man show with
Speaker 1: Nicole Williamson as the famous American stage actor John Barrymore,
Speaker 1: who I think was active in the in the first
Speaker 1: half of the twentieth century. Pat goes on about Williamson.
Speaker 1: He was powerful and hilarious. I recall a mean spirited
Speaker 1: reviewer referring to his performance as quote one drunk playing another.
Speaker 1: Who is to say, but as a guy who loves
Speaker 1: his whiskey. I thought Nicole was drinking during the performance.
Speaker 1: But Pat goes on, I don't think Returned to Oz
Speaker 1: had very much to do with the classic film. Rather,
Speaker 1: it's a tribute to the original stories. The dual role
Speaker 1: of Warlie and the Gnome King is an opportunity to
Speaker 1: explore fantasy in the mind of a child and adults
Speaker 1: inability to understand. We were all children, but when most
Speaker 1: of us grow, we build barriers to childish fantasy. Not Bomb,
Speaker 1: referring to the author of the books, as always, thanks
Speaker 1: for the great job of analysis. Please do keep it up. Pat,
Speaker 1: that's it. There's a good point about Bomb. Kind of
Speaker 1: a what a William Blake figure in that respect, Man,
Speaker 1: I would love to see a live one man performance
Speaker 1: by Nicole Williamson. It sounds it sounds like it could
Speaker 1: have been a precarious situation that if you don't know
Speaker 1: exactly how it's going to go, but it's but again,
Speaker 1: it was a great actor. So if if he is
Speaker 1: going to excel anywhere, it's going to be on the
Speaker 1: stage or in front of the camera. All right, this
Speaker 1: next one comes to us from Naja. Naja writes, Dear
Speaker 1: Robert and jo I wanted to write into you, guys,
Speaker 1: as I was particularly delighted by your episode on Return
Speaker 1: to Oz, which I was lucky enough to see in
Speaker 1: the cinema way back when I would have been about
Speaker 1: eight or nine at the time, and I found the
Speaker 1: darker scenes at the of the film being deliciously scary.
Speaker 1: They grounded the plot in reality somehow, and even though
Speaker 1: by that age I knew places like Oz or Narnia
Speaker 1: couldn't be real. Starting off the movie from a point
Speaker 1: where Dorothy was under threat from an evil psychiatrist because
Speaker 1: of her delusions seemed a much more palpable and realistic
Speaker 1: threat than a tornado to someone who doesn't live in
Speaker 1: Tornado Alley. At least, by the time I saw Return
Speaker 1: to Oz, I had already seen quite a few disturbing
Speaker 1: adult films such as brazil Um, the Twilight Zone movie,
Speaker 1: and parts of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, So
Speaker 1: Returned to Oz was a fun level of dark atmosphere.
Speaker 1: In comparison, I remember that when the movie came out
Speaker 1: in Perth, the main bookshops stocked reprints of the OZ sequels.
Speaker 1: O MG, I never knew there was more than one book.
Speaker 1: The sequels were never listed in my copy of Wizard
Speaker 1: of Oz in our local library only had the original,
Speaker 1: so I literally never knew there was a treasure trove
Speaker 1: of OZ books. A very happy day for me, indeed.
Speaker 1: Further on OZ media, there is a young adult series
Speaker 1: of books set in the OZ, beginning with Dorothy Must Die.
Speaker 1: In this series, Dorothy and her companions are the evil
Speaker 1: rulers of Oz. The Scarecrow does vile experiments on captured citizens,
Speaker 1: the Tin Man is a slasher, and the Lion and
Speaker 1: Man Eater Momby is part of an underground resistance movement
Speaker 1: fighting the evil regime. OZ characters also make many appearances
Speaker 1: in the Vertico series Fables, and of course there's a
Speaker 1: Jack Pumpkinhead in The Sandman, though he's not a sweet,
Speaker 1: innocent character, more like a groundskeeper Willie. The original OZ
Speaker 1: movie was something I was absolutely obsessed with since I
Speaker 1: saw it on TV when I was around on five.
Speaker 1: I remember checking the TV guide every week to see
Speaker 1: if it would be on again, and every couple of
Speaker 1: years I was rewarded by another showing all the days
Speaker 1: before VCR. However, this brings me to my next movie obsession,
Speaker 1: which was ex Caliber. My uncle, who worked with computers
Speaker 1: and was the only technophile in the family, lent us
Speaker 1: his VCR for a week, knowing I was a kid
Speaker 1: into a Thurian legends. One of the videos he included
Speaker 1: was ex Caliber, which I watched at least once a
Speaker 1: day for that week. The movie completely blew my mind.
Speaker 1: Even the fact of it being a seriously cut down
Speaker 1: version of the original saga couldn't spoil it for me.
Speaker 1: To this day, I can conjure up various scenes in
Speaker 1: my head along with the Wagnerian score, and every time
Speaker 1: I hear Carl Orff's Carmina Verona, I see nights galloping
Speaker 1: on horseback in my mind. I think this movie would
Speaker 1: make a great weird house cinema. It has some great
Speaker 1: actors such as Patrick Stewart and Helen Mirian, and seriously,
Speaker 1: the very best Merlin ever committed to film. Sorry, Sam Neil,
Speaker 1: you were good, but not that good. I never realized
Speaker 1: it was the same actor as the Nome King slash Psychiatrist.
Speaker 1: But to be fair, I was only six or seven
Speaker 1: when I saw Excalibur. The sets and costumes look great.
Speaker 1: In the whole movie is extremely atmospheric. Yes, I've seen
Speaker 1: it since and parts of it have aged a little poorly,
Speaker 1: But along with Monty Python and The Holy Grail, I
Speaker 1: think it's the best adaptation of the Outherian legends. Naja, Wow,
Speaker 1: thanks Naja. So now I'm really starting to feel left
Speaker 1: out not having seen Excalibur. Was that was the same
Speaker 1: director as Deliverance? Right, yeah it was. It was John
Speaker 1: Boorman oh as as Deliverance and same director as The
Speaker 1: Exorcist to yes, that happened? I have no idea. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: a major director. He directed The Emerald Forest. Czar does
Speaker 1: Zar does. That's one when I've I've never seen. It's
Speaker 1: well known for its weirdness, but I don't I don't
Speaker 1: think that's when we could cover on Weird House. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been a while. I recall it having some uh
Speaker 1: some kind of bummer elements if we were to do
Speaker 1: it on the show. But at the same time, it
Speaker 1: does have like the parts that are good are really good.
Speaker 1: It's got Sean Connery and like this weird red speedo
Speaker 1: costume with a ponytail and a mustache and flying heads right,
Speaker 1: big kind of flying flying head in the sky. Oh
Speaker 1: and for a weird connection. Now, maybe you should switch
Speaker 1: off the podcast now if you don't want any spoilers
Speaker 1: for this nineteen seventies movie. But to spoil the ending
Speaker 1: of Czardas it's a movie about a like dystopian future
Speaker 1: with a sort of imposed mythology that is actually based
Speaker 1: on the Wizard of Oz. Zardaws is a short the
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz that's like the twist ending. Yeah, see
Speaker 1: it comes it active what we were talking about in
Speaker 1: the Return to Oz episode. Like you you can feel
Speaker 1: however you feel about the original Wizard of oz Holm
Speaker 1: or the Wizard of Oz books, but like the Wizard
Speaker 1: of Oz has just been so influential, uh in in
Speaker 1: in fiction and fantasy that you can't separate, you can't
Speaker 1: remove it, Like the p is in the pool at
Speaker 1: this point. Yeah, that the p is even in zardas well.
Speaker 1: We'll we'll have to look at I haven't seen ex
Speaker 1: caliber and forever. I'll have to look back at it
Speaker 1: and make sure it's a It would be a good pick,
Speaker 1: but it's it's very shiny. It's a very shiny film.
Speaker 1: And I don't think we've have we covered anything that
Speaker 1: has authority and elements in it thus far. I don't
Speaker 1: know not that Merlin shown up. Merlin showed up in something? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Why not? Surely? I surely Merlin has showed up in
Speaker 1: a weird house film already. I would be surprised if
Speaker 1: he hasn't. Maybe I'm I misremembering. Okay, well, either way,
Speaker 1: I gotta watch Excalibur. But I think that does it
Speaker 1: for today's mail bag. That's right. We're going close it
Speaker 1: up today, but we'll be back, so keep them coming.
Speaker 1: We do listener mail every Monday, and the stuff will
Speaker 1: blow your mind. Podcast Need we do core episodes on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursday's a short form Monster fact or Artifact
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays, and on Friday's we do Weird How Cinema.
Speaker 1: That's our time to set aside most serious concerns and
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film, huge things. As always
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson, if you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hello. You can
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