Speaker 1: For a time. We tried to contact him by radio,
Speaker 1: but no response. Then they attacked a town, a small town,
Speaker 1: I'll admit, but nevertheless a town of people, people who died.
Speaker 1: Ephemeralist production of My Heart three D A for full
Speaker 1: exposure Listen was that phones. Every so often an artist
Speaker 1: comes along who challenges the core tenets of their medium,
Speaker 1: raising questions like is there such a thing as objective
Speaker 1: quality in art? What makes something good art or bad are?
Speaker 1: And who's to tell the difference. One such figure was
Speaker 1: director Edward D. Wood Jr. A legend of genre films
Speaker 1: from the nineteen fifties and sixties. Some would say he's
Speaker 1: the worst director of all time. Others might label Edward
Speaker 1: as a groundbreaking visionary who did things no other Hollywood
Speaker 1: contemporary could do. Some are still not sure what to
Speaker 1: think today. Ephemeral producer Trevor Young takes us on a
Speaker 1: journey through Woods filmography and wades into the decades old
Speaker 1: debate on the director's unique output. It was the year
Speaker 1: nineteen Hollywood filmmaking was at an all time high, with
Speaker 1: releases that year including The Shining I Said I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna hurt you, I'm just gonna bash your brains and
Speaker 1: star wars. The Empire strikes back equally you I am
Speaker 1: your father. But despite the recent abundance of fantastic cinema,
Speaker 1: film critic brothers Harry and Michael Medved decided they would
Speaker 1: highlight something else, the worst of the worst in film.
Speaker 1: So that year the Medved brothers published a book called
Speaker 1: the Golden Turkey Awards, featuring winners for categories like worst
Speaker 1: performance by a politician, Well you can't you tell me
Speaker 1: here now, or I'll drag you up before the Senate
Speaker 1: and you'll tell me there. And most embarrassing movie debut.
Speaker 1: How could you a Roman magistrate believe that perjurer? A
Speaker 1: sniveling little toady look at him fawning on Linus, waiting
Speaker 1: for his reward. The worst director was Edward D. Wood Jr.
Speaker 1: And the worst film was Wood's nineteen fifty nine sci
Speaker 1: fi film Plan nine from Outer Space. Greetings, my friend,
Speaker 1: we are all interested in the future, for that is
Speaker 1: where you and I are going to spend the rest
Speaker 1: of our lives. And remember, my friend, utual events such
Speaker 1: as the will affect you in the future. But despite
Speaker 1: being labeled as the worst director and having the worst film,
Speaker 1: of all time. Edwood is insanely popular even today. His
Speaker 1: films are still played in theaters around the country and
Speaker 1: they appear regularly on TV. Tim Burton directed a biopick
Speaker 1: about would aptly called ed Wood, starring Johnny Depp. Well,
Speaker 1: Mr Wise, look no further. I'm your man. I worked fast,
Speaker 1: and I'm a deal. I write and direct and I'm good.
Speaker 1: I just did a play in Hollywood, and Victor Crowley
Speaker 1: himself praised its realism. And on the Internet you'll find
Speaker 1: legions of Wood fans dedicated to talking about his work
Speaker 1: or collecting Edward. I myself find his work inspirational because
Speaker 1: he did so much with so little. He had so
Speaker 1: many things against him, but he was able to create
Speaker 1: films that tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: people saw in their initial release, not even counting the
Speaker 1: revival of them later. So he's a figure whose work entertains,
Speaker 1: who's worked, his thought provoked in and who inspires people
Speaker 1: to create today. What more could you ask for for
Speaker 1: a legacy? My name is Bill Shoot, poet and professor
Speaker 1: of English at San Antonio College, and I wrote the
Speaker 1: introduction to the new book by Edward Jr. When the
Speaker 1: topic is sex. A five hundred forty five page collection
Speaker 1: of Woods non fiction articles for nineteen seventies adult magazines
Speaker 1: published by Bear Manner Media. As you can tell Bill
Speaker 1: Adores Edwood. I discovered edwoods work in the late sixties
Speaker 1: or early nineteen seventies as a child, watching low budget
Speaker 1: films and horror films on UHF television and independent TV stations.
Speaker 1: The films I saw on television prior to any Edward
Speaker 1: revival were, of course, Bride of the Monster and Plan
Speaker 1: nine from Outer Space, and I certainly knew that those
Speaker 1: were unique works. I probably saw them at least a
Speaker 1: half dozen times on television, So when Edwards started getting
Speaker 1: attention in the late seventies, I was very excited to
Speaker 1: see more of his films and to learn more about him.
Speaker 1: Bill sites those two films, Bright of the Monster and
Speaker 1: Plan nine from Outer Space as his favorites by Edwood.
Speaker 1: In Plan Nine, there was just something special, almost dream
Speaker 1: like about that film. It puts you almost in an
Speaker 1: alternate state of consciousness. People turning south in the freeway
Speaker 1: were startled when they saw three flying saucers high over
Speaker 1: Hollywood Boulevard. Bride of the Monster was a more conventional
Speaker 1: film than Plan nine from Outer Space, but that had
Speaker 1: some amazing sequences in it. I Haven't No Home like
Speaker 1: Bella Legosie's soliloquity where he talks about I have no Home.
Speaker 1: I think that moved me to tears as a child
Speaker 1: when I saw that on television living like Animal Jungle,
Speaker 1: that I will show the world that I can beat fasta. So,
Speaker 1: just from being introduced to those films, I knew Edward D.
Speaker 1: Wood Jr. Was someone I wanted to see more of
Speaker 1: and no more about. Those are glowing reviews you might
Speaker 1: not expect for someone commonly regarded as the worst director
Speaker 1: of all time. So what's going on here? Who is
Speaker 1: Edward really? And how did the director of low budget
Speaker 1: sci fi films from the nineteen fifties become such a
Speaker 1: cult phenomenon. Well, let's start by learning a little bit
Speaker 1: about what's background. Well, he was from Poughkeepsie, New York,
Speaker 1: which is upstate. After serving in the Marine Corps in
Speaker 1: World War Two, he went to Hollywood, as so many
Speaker 1: people did, and he had some background in drama. He'd
Speaker 1: written to play Casual Company. Do you believe in ghosts? Tommy?
Speaker 1: That's just kiddie spook stories. Once You're dead, stayed dead.
Speaker 1: I don't know Bill on that battlefield today, I saw
Speaker 1: this woman and dressed in white floating above the dunes.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it was just fatigue, or maybe it's the
Speaker 1: indignities of war, or maybe it's something else. He went
Speaker 1: to Hollywood and did sort of day work around the studios,
Speaker 1: and he started a production company in nineteen forty seven
Speaker 1: or nine with a man named Crawford John Thomas. They
Speaker 1: made a short silent called Crossroads of Laredo, which has survived,
Speaker 1: and it looks very much like a low budget sound
Speaker 1: western of the early thirties or silent from the late twenties.
Speaker 1: Wood grew up on that kind of thing, and he
Speaker 1: used a lot of supporting players who had been in
Speaker 1: little budget independent westerns in his films. Throughout his career,
Speaker 1: he also made some commercials which are rather novel. He
Speaker 1: and Crawford Thomas came up with an idea for doing
Speaker 1: little dramatic commercials that did not actually have the name
Speaker 1: of the sponsor. Just one thing before you shoot, but yeah,
Speaker 1: bury me with my boots on okay tech, Say what
Speaker 1: do you get some boots? Mighty fine looking Footwell, why
Speaker 1: I got these at the bus shoe store in town
Speaker 1: and had a mighty fair price through Well, bar gone
Speaker 1: about putting me down to that shoe store right now.
Speaker 1: It would be like an ad for jewelry, and it
Speaker 1: would be about a diamond or whatever, and the local
Speaker 1: sponsor would cut in their name to this, and now
Speaker 1: we would sail away. Then we will be the only
Speaker 1: ones to know where that fine turns your chest of
Speaker 1: jewelry is buried. One day we'll come back and dig
Speaker 1: it up and live like Queen Rye passing Kitty. That
Speaker 1: test is checked full of the most beautiful jewelry in
Speaker 1: all the world. Sure hope that story never runs out
Speaker 1: of that fine stuck And he made some other short films,
Speaker 1: and he made some pilots for television, things that were
Speaker 1: aired locally. Industrial film work, the usual things that someone
Speaker 1: does as they're working their way into the lower wrong
Speaker 1: of independent film and genre filmmaking. Tegot the old timer,
Speaker 1: I'll get a doctor, I Am for me to. Edward
Speaker 1: wrote and co wrote some westerns during this period for Again,
Speaker 1: an independent low budget film Cowboy, by the name of
Speaker 1: Johnny Carpenter, and Carpenter later appeared in Edward Films. They
Speaker 1: had a long relationship. No Timer, I'm not writing. I'm
Speaker 1: going to stay here and find out what's going on
Speaker 1: at the Double D ranch. Around this time, Edwood met
Speaker 1: Bella Legosi, known best for his iconic role as Dracula
Speaker 1: in the film of the same name. I Am the
Speaker 1: document Listen to Them Children Off the Night what Music named.
Speaker 1: Legosi was one of Wood's childhood heroes, so Wood befriended
Speaker 1: him and asked Legosi to star in one of his movies.
Speaker 1: At the time, Legosi was older and mostly out of work,
Speaker 1: so he agreed, and with Legosi on board, Edward was
Speaker 1: able to secure funding for his first feature film in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three, Glenn or Glenda Man's Constant Growthing of
Speaker 1: Things Unknown, drawing from the endless reaches of time brings
Speaker 1: to light many startling things. His first film, Glenn or Glenda,
Speaker 1: made for the producer George Weiss. Weiss had previously released
Speaker 1: a film called Test two Babies that he had produced
Speaker 1: the Doctor Wright. Has there been much work done in
Speaker 1: this artificial examination field? I mean, is it just to
Speaker 1: be a radical thing or has it been done before?
Speaker 1: A tremendous amount of work has been done an artificial exsemination.
Speaker 1: Mrs Bennett, I'll admit it. Up to the past few years,
Speaker 1: a great majority of it has been done with livestock.
Speaker 1: And in a sense, glennar Glenda was mining the same
Speaker 1: vein as that. A kind of salacious, exploitative title. And
Speaker 1: glennar Glenda was originally conceived as a film about Christine Jorgensen,
Speaker 1: who had had a sex change operation and was in
Speaker 1: the news at the time. She did not care to
Speaker 1: work with George Weiss on a film, so Edwood and
Speaker 1: Weiss came up with the concept of dealing with a
Speaker 1: cross dressing in individual. He dares to enter the street
Speaker 1: dressed in the clothes he so much desires to wear.
Speaker 1: Glenn is engaged to be married to Barbara. Glenn's problem
Speaker 1: is a deep one, but he must tell her soon.
Speaker 1: She's begun to notice things. And of course ed Wood
Speaker 1: was a person who dressed in women's clothing in his
Speaker 1: own life. Anyone who has seen the Tim Burton film
Speaker 1: ed Wood is likely familiar with this fact. I like
Speaker 1: to dress in women's clothing your fruit, No, not at all.
Speaker 1: I love women. Wearing their clothes makes me feel closer
Speaker 1: to them. No, I'm all man. I even fought in
Speaker 1: w W two. Of course, I was wearing women's undergarments
Speaker 1: under my uniform. One of Edward's most interesting quirks was
Speaker 1: his subversive and public desire to wear women's clothing what
Speaker 1: today we might call drag. Back then, they might have
Speaker 1: used the outdated and somewhat derogatory term transvestite. Nature makes mistake.
Speaker 1: It's proven every day. This person is a transvestite, a
Speaker 1: man who is more comfortable wearing girls clothes. The term
Speaker 1: transvestite is the name given by medical science to those
Speaker 1: persons who wear the clothing of the opposite sex. Many
Speaker 1: a transvestite actually wishes to be the opposite sex. The
Speaker 1: title of this can only be labeled behind locked doors.
Speaker 1: Give this man satin undis, a dress, a sweater and
Speaker 1: a skirt, or even the lounging outfit he has on,
Speaker 1: and he's the happiest individual in the world. He can
Speaker 1: work better, think better, he can play better, and he
Speaker 1: can do more of a credit to his community and
Speaker 1: his government because he is happy. So he basically wrote
Speaker 1: a film that dealt with that, but at the same
Speaker 1: time dealt with the sex change element. Because of Christine
Speaker 1: Jordan's a lot of people who see Glenn or Glenn
Speaker 1: to feel that it's kind of schizophrenic in this sense
Speaker 1: that cross dressing and sex change are kind of not
Speaker 1: the same thing at all. But in a way, the
Speaker 1: film really explores gender identity and gender fluidity, which of
Speaker 1: course can't be narrowed down to a couple of simple
Speaker 1: terms or a couple of simple categories. But glennar Glendo
Speaker 1: was his first feature film as a director, and my opinion,
Speaker 1: if he never made anything else, he would still be
Speaker 1: remembered well, just for that film. In the ed Wood fandom,
Speaker 1: there are some interesting theories as to where Ed's cross
Speaker 1: dressing originated. So supposedly Ed's mom wanted a girl, and
Speaker 1: as a young kid dressed Ed in girl's clothing. Others
Speaker 1: say that one of his favorite things as a young
Speaker 1: child was a soft fur sweater. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was an Angora sweater, something soft and furry, that
Speaker 1: kind of at that pattern for that fetish for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life, for his fetish Friendora, But that
Speaker 1: was a part of him. My name is Bob Blackburn.
Speaker 1: I was a friend of Edwards widow Cathy Wood, and
Speaker 1: technically I am one of her airs, which makes me
Speaker 1: one of Edwood's heirs. Bob has a ton of insight
Speaker 1: into the personal lives of Ed and Cathy would He
Speaker 1: says that before Kathy, Ed had a girlfriend named to
Speaker 1: Lauras Fuller, who actually started Glenna Glenda. Those fingernails have
Speaker 1: got to go, you know, I didn't realize there as
Speaker 1: long as they are. My goodness, they're almost as long
Speaker 1: as mine, maybe even prettier. We'll have to paint them
Speaker 1: sometime just for the fun of it. Will trim them,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. The two of them fell in love
Speaker 1: and they moved in together, and she actually had a
Speaker 1: couple of kids from a previous marriage, so it was
Speaker 1: kind of a messy situation, kind of up until Doris
Speaker 1: found out that Ed was wearing her Anglora sweaters. She
Speaker 1: didn't know if that might be gay, might be a pervert.
Speaker 1: I mean, in her mind he was a pervert. Therefore
Speaker 1: she just she kicked him out. But then Wood met
Speaker 1: Kathy O'Hara. The night that they actually met and got together,
Speaker 1: she went home with him to his apartment because did
Speaker 1: the old you know, hey, you want to see my
Speaker 1: scrap books, And he really did have scrap books of
Speaker 1: his films and stuff like that. And she went in
Speaker 1: to use his bathroom and she noticed there was like
Speaker 1: women's lingerie hanging off the show art pole, and so
Speaker 1: you know, she thought, oh god, he's got a girlfriend.
Speaker 1: So she comes out and she says, hey, I do
Speaker 1: you have a girlfriend? You know, I kind of don't
Speaker 1: want to get too far along here if I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get in somebody's way. So Ed confided the first night
Speaker 1: to Kathy, the first night that they actually met, that
Speaker 1: he liked to sometimes wear a women's clothing. Do you
Speaker 1: if you have a problem with it, well, you know,
Speaker 1: here's your chance to walk out the door and whatever.
Speaker 1: And she thought about it, and here's a woman from
Speaker 1: provincial Canada, Vancouver. She'd been a corporate secretary, has seen
Speaker 1: a little bit of the world if you can call
Speaker 1: Canada and Toronto, New York and then l a a
Speaker 1: little bit of the world. And she accepted it, and
Speaker 1: she accepted it for the rest of their time together.
Speaker 1: She wasn't maybe always happy with it, because he kind
Speaker 1: of flaunted it from time to time. In the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: glennar Glenda raised a lot of questions about Ed's sexuality.
Speaker 1: I asked Bob for his take on the matter and
Speaker 1: to clear it up for us. He was not gay,
Speaker 1: he was not trans. And it's kind of interesting the
Speaker 1: gay community kind of has him as a bit of
Speaker 1: an icon. So many of his friends, Paul Marco, Criswell,
Speaker 1: other people, and his circle of friends were gay. Because
Speaker 1: he himself was such an outsider, he attracted outsiders who
Speaker 1: knew that he would be a steadfast friend, and he
Speaker 1: had his alter ego named Shirley. Ed wasn't averse to
Speaker 1: going out in public as shortly. Cathy told me stories
Speaker 1: that they would go to Hollywood parties where there would
Speaker 1: be some stars all dressed in dragon they'd be talking
Speaker 1: about their big, nice long gloves and their first soles,
Speaker 1: and you know, the him and their stockings and whatnot. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, Eddie was really a pioneer, especially because in
Speaker 1: the fifties in early sixties you could get arrested for
Speaker 1: that here in California, in Los Angeles. But by the
Speaker 1: mid late sixties it became legal. And he mentions that
Speaker 1: in some of these articles about transvestives, and and he'll say, well,
Speaker 1: now that California has legalized it, you'll see a lot
Speaker 1: more men being dressed as women walking parading around the
Speaker 1: streets of Hollywood, which is what he did. According to
Speaker 1: Bill Shoot, that struggle for acceptance is explored in a
Speaker 1: surprisingly well and nuanced way in Under Glenda. One thing
Speaker 1: that makes glennar Glenda quite different from the sex exploitation
Speaker 1: films of the late forties and nineteen fifties is that
Speaker 1: it doesn't have much of a slee's factor to it,
Speaker 1: and the empathy that it has for the subject is unique.
Speaker 1: And again, to have the director himself play the lead
Speaker 1: character and do a good portion of the film and
Speaker 1: drag himself is an amazing accomplishment. Forty three. I was
Speaker 1: put in jail recently. Why because I, a man, was
Speaker 1: caught on the street wearing women's clothing. This was my
Speaker 1: fourth arrest for the same act. In life, I must
Speaker 1: continue wearing them. Therefore, it would only be a matter
Speaker 1: of time until my next rest. This is the only
Speaker 1: way let my body rest in death forever, in the
Speaker 1: things I cannot wear in life. Why are you taking
Speaker 1: that gun? Why? I might be walking down a dark
Speaker 1: street and then robber might jump at me. I want
Speaker 1: to be protected. I just paid a thousand dollars bail
Speaker 1: because you carried one of those things tonight were sisters.
Speaker 1: I was very sisterly on it. You know that gun
Speaker 1: is jail baiting. Edward's next feature film, Jail Bait, was
Speaker 1: a little different. Who was about a young man who
Speaker 1: gets involved with a dangerous criminal, resulting in a robbery
Speaker 1: gone horribly wrong. I thank you thinking get away with it.
Speaker 1: Let us worry about that, but come through tonight man,
Speaker 1: I'll be on. Most of edwoods films are the ed
Speaker 1: Wood attempt to work in an existing genre, and of
Speaker 1: course this would be the crime film. It's certainly a
Speaker 1: novel film. The ending of it is unexpected. It's a
Speaker 1: strange film in that the soundtrack, the kind of flamenco
Speaker 1: guitar and keyboard soundtrack, is kind of off putting. And
Speaker 1: also so much of the film is murky and dark
Speaker 1: and either shooting at night or looking like it's shot
Speaker 1: at night, that it creates a kind of dream like
Speaker 1: fuel to it. And it's a unique product. I've probably
Speaker 1: watched it fifteen or twenty times over the years, and
Speaker 1: I always find it fascinating. Had I seen that on
Speaker 1: a double bill and four or fifty five I would
Speaker 1: have thought it was a satisfying and different kind of experience.
Speaker 1: I think it definitely succeeded. And while it has a
Speaker 1: lot of the tropes we associate with ed Wood, on
Speaker 1: its own it's an interesting, low budget crime film and
Speaker 1: it works on that level. Basically, you're as finished as
Speaker 1: a kid is. I wasn't in on your job. I'm
Speaker 1: not in trouble. Why should I used to go on
Speaker 1: and take what's left? What is left has been with
Speaker 1: a gun, has been, baby, I've only just begun. I
Speaker 1: didn't set you up in all this luxury just to
Speaker 1: have your walk out on me. I pulled you out
Speaker 1: of that main street dive and made something out of you. No,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna walk out on me. Try it nice
Speaker 1: where you'll never walk out on it. And again, so
Speaker 1: if they do pick me up, it's only a robbery rap.
Speaker 1: I didn't kill that cop. Nobody will know about the
Speaker 1: kid there. Next up was one of bill favorites, Bright
Speaker 1: of the Monster. What are you doing to me? We
Speaker 1: would assumed as speak of the giant straight a waity
Speaker 1: men like all the others did. That was a film
Speaker 1: that was shown a lot on television when I was Young.
Speaker 1: It's a classic independent, low budget horror film. I think
Speaker 1: it's very much rooted in the Bella Legosi Monogram films
Speaker 1: of the early forties, and I'm sure Edwood loved those
Speaker 1: films because it's very much like them, and it's like
Speaker 1: the roles that Legozi played in those films. They were
Speaker 1: like a step above what Edwood was making in terms
Speaker 1: of budget, but they were still very low budget quickie films.
Speaker 1: I'm really happy that he had the opportunity to do
Speaker 1: a starring vehicle for Bella Legosi where he could be
Speaker 1: at his best. I am I'm not the Eric ornav
Speaker 1: You had a severe How did I get here? Oh
Speaker 1: that's not important for the moment. What you need now
Speaker 1: is rest rest. He was clearly a friend and supporter
Speaker 1: and fan of Bella Lagosi, and I'm sure it made
Speaker 1: would extremely happy to give him a vehicle where he
Speaker 1: could do his thing. If you look at the trailers
Speaker 1: for that film, whoever wrote the copy refers to Legosi
Speaker 1: as the screens master of the Weird, so he knew
Speaker 1: what a gift he had with Bella Legosi. He created
Speaker 1: a great low budget laboratory and of course all you
Speaker 1: need is, the flashing lights and some beaker's. It was
Speaker 1: a classic mad doctor's laboratory. And of course you had
Speaker 1: the amazing Toward Johnson. Toward Johnson was a Swedish wrestler
Speaker 1: and actor who would discovered and befriended. At six ft
Speaker 1: three and over four hundred pounds, Johnson's hulking figure made
Speaker 1: him perfect for the monster rules in Woods movies. So
Speaker 1: you had a monster in it, you had a mad
Speaker 1: doctor in it, you had murky lightning, flashing, and all
Speaker 1: the kind of set pieces that you would need for
Speaker 1: a horror film. Now it had some quirky elements to it.
Speaker 1: It also had the earnestness that you see in some
Speaker 1: of the Edward films where he had a message, he
Speaker 1: managed to shoehorn in some of his philosophical gropings into
Speaker 1: the dialogue and into the themes, and he certainly did
Speaker 1: that with Pride of the Monster. Twenty years ago, I
Speaker 1: was banned from my homeland, parted from my wife and son,
Speaker 1: never to see them again. Why Because I suggested to
Speaker 1: use the atom elements for producing super bees, beings of
Speaker 1: unthinkable strength and size. I was classed as a madman,
Speaker 1: a charlatan outlawed in the world of science, which previously
Speaker 1: honored me as a genius. Now Here in this fars
Speaker 1: shaken jungle, hell, I have proven that I are right.
Speaker 1: The following year would begin production on what would become
Speaker 1: his magnum opus, Plan nine from Outer Space, originally titled
Speaker 1: Grave Robbers from Outer Space? My Friend, Can your Heart
Speaker 1: stand The Shocking Facts about Gray Robbers from Outer Space?
Speaker 1: He had plans to include his friend and frequent collaborator,
Speaker 1: Bella Legosi, but Legosi passed away before primary production began. However,
Speaker 1: Edward was able to shoot a few scenes with Legosi
Speaker 1: before he died. The home they had so long shared
Speaker 1: together became a tomb, a sweet memory of her joyous living.
Speaker 1: This guy to which she had once looked was now
Speaker 1: only a covering for her dead body. It grew out
Speaker 1: of wood having footage of Bella Legosi that he had
Speaker 1: shot and feeling he could make a film around that.
Speaker 1: He sometimes had existing footage that he would hope later
Speaker 1: to build a film around. There was a project called
Speaker 1: Hellborn that never came to fruition, and some of the
Speaker 1: footage that was kind of like a j D Juvenile
Speaker 1: delinquent thing. Some of That footage was used in other
Speaker 1: Wood films from later years, and other filmmakers have done that.
Speaker 1: Fred Ole and Ray shot footage of John Carradine. I've
Speaker 1: been waiting for you. I came as soon as I heard,
Speaker 1: you know, exactly as instructed, not knowing exactly what he
Speaker 1: was going to use it in, but because he had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to do it, he had a creative mind
Speaker 1: can do something like that. God bless them. Bill says
Speaker 1: that Edwards the use of recycled material was central to
Speaker 1: his style. I was watching an Edward documentary and Vampira,
Speaker 1: who certainly knew Edwood well, described his work as decoupage
Speaker 1: in the sense that he had pieces that interested him,
Speaker 1: and he would assemble those chunks and just sort of
Speaker 1: put a veneer over it to united he thought in
Speaker 1: terms of individual set pieces, not so much in terms
Speaker 1: of the overall work. That cardboard headstone tipped over this
Speaker 1: graveyard is obviously phony. Nobody will ever notice that filmmaking
Speaker 1: is not about the tiny details, It's about the big picture.
Speaker 1: I was just reading Wood's book, Hollywood Rat Race, and
Speaker 1: in that he says that he generally did not have
Speaker 1: endings to his films. When he started them, and he
Speaker 1: just kind of saw what would happen. Usually for budgetary reasons.
Speaker 1: Wood was also well known for padding out his movies
Speaker 1: with cheaply acquired stock footage. This is fantastic. What are
Speaker 1: you gonna do with it? Probably follow it away. I'll
Speaker 1: never see it again. It's such a place. Why if
Speaker 1: I had half the chance, I could make an entire
Speaker 1: movie using the stock footage. This is especially true in
Speaker 1: early movies like Glennar Glenda, where you might see the
Speaker 1: same shot of highway traffic multiple times. The world is
Speaker 1: a strange place to live in, all those cards, all
Speaker 1: going someplace, all carrying humans which are carrying out their lives.
Speaker 1: The patchwork film has a long history in low budget
Speaker 1: and exploitation films, going back to the silent and early
Speaker 1: sound era, where a film would be caught up and
Speaker 1: re contextualized and sold over again. So of course that's
Speaker 1: an important aspect of the Wood style. One other thing
Speaker 1: you might notice about woods films is that he uses
Speaker 1: a rotating cast of friends and other trusted actors, almost
Speaker 1: like a Wood verse. Some were famous, like Bella Legosi
Speaker 1: or Vampire Round, others were just friends. He got some
Speaker 1: of his regular crew together along with colorful figures like
Speaker 1: John Bunny Breckon Ridge. I have need of your other
Speaker 1: ships elsewhere. Even though you have risen three of the
Speaker 1: Earth did the plan is far from successful, and you
Speaker 1: Eros has proven an operational success the for more time
Speaker 1: energy ships and your countrymen maybe spent on it. And
Speaker 1: Paul Marco, did you do that thing? Did you get it?
Speaker 1: Wait at it? Well, it didn't fall like fired everyple
Speaker 1: that I had Lyle Talbot. Of course you realize, Mrs Gregor,
Speaker 1: that if your brother fails to show up for trial,
Speaker 1: you will forfeit the bail money inspector does no criminal Well,
Speaker 1: that will be established later. He was carrying a gun.
Speaker 1: There are much worse crimes. Carrying a gun can be
Speaker 1: a dangerous business and of course unique people like Vampira.
Speaker 1: What I need is a vampire cocktail to settle by.
Speaker 1: It will not only settle them, it will petrify toward
Speaker 1: Johnson finding a mess like this? How to make anyone? Try?
Speaker 1: Have one other boys, technical guy and a girl. Back
Speaker 1: to Tom. You take shots, okay, Inspector, what are you
Speaker 1: going to do? Look around? Pretty dark out there once
Speaker 1: you get beyond the range of those lights. You won't
Speaker 1: be able to see your hand front of your pain.
Speaker 1: I will get one of the lash light from the
Speaker 1: patrol car. Be careful, played, I'm a big boy, not Johnny.
Speaker 1: So you have a mix of industry professionals mixed with
Speaker 1: non professionals, mixed with people who were starting out in
Speaker 1: the industry. Oh look, tennant. Maybe this doesn't mean my
Speaker 1: but Jamie Meat found a great that looks like it's
Speaker 1: been busted into what where? What? What? Come on? Man?
Speaker 1: Odd with it? We haven't got all dataway? Just over
Speaker 1: there beyond the crip, all right, show us away. So
Speaker 1: you get a lot of people who are interesting personalities,
Speaker 1: who may not be professional actors, and who may basically
Speaker 1: bring their unique persona. But many directors, Fellini among them,
Speaker 1: worked in that way and liked a good face or
Speaker 1: a good presence and didn't worry about the person's ability
Speaker 1: to perform Hamlet. That's something that Edward brought to his films.
Speaker 1: Family friend Bob Blackburn says Wood was less focused on
Speaker 1: who was right for the part and more focused on
Speaker 1: having a family of filmmaking friends. I don't think he
Speaker 1: was looking to get anything from these people besides their friendship.
Speaker 1: You know, if they wanted to act in one his movies,
Speaker 1: or they want to go out and have a drink,
Speaker 1: totally cool. You know. I don't think he was going, oh,
Speaker 1: there's vampire writing, you know, I want her to be
Speaker 1: in my film. I don't think that came about that way.
Speaker 1: Ed loved hire. These older actors had had a name
Speaker 1: Kenny Duncan, who was one of his favorite Western guys,
Speaker 1: or Tom Osborne, or some of these other people who
Speaker 1: Ed knew and who were I don't want to say
Speaker 1: they were down on their luck, but they were in
Speaker 1: between jobs, will put it that way. And if Ed
Speaker 1: could offer them a couple hundred bucks for one day's
Speaker 1: work or a couple of days work, sure, why not?
Speaker 1: So he would go back to those people. Plan nine
Speaker 1: was like a who's who of Wood's best friends and
Speaker 1: closest collaborators. According to Bill Shoot, It's also where he
Speaker 1: took his wacky ideas and went in full force. You
Speaker 1: had the kitchen sink surrealism of Ed Wood really at
Speaker 1: full killed. I want to ask you about your strange
Speaker 1: experience the other night when you saw the flying stater.
Speaker 1: After that the police brought me home. I hope I
Speaker 1: never see such a side again after you were forced
Speaker 1: to the ground. But that blast of wind, was it
Speaker 1: a hot or cold blast? It's kind of hard to explain.
Speaker 1: It wasn't hot, wasn't cool, Just to terrific force. We
Speaker 1: couldn't get off the ground. Who I blinded me so badly.
Speaker 1: I couldn't see a thing. We could only feel the
Speaker 1: pressure of the wind until it was gone. When the
Speaker 1: glare left us, we could see a glowing ball disappearing
Speaker 1: off in the distance, which way towards the cemetery. The
Speaker 1: other most obvious characteristics of woods films are the low
Speaker 1: budget and the technical areas, and this becomes the most
Speaker 1: contentious element of woods work. I really truly love parts
Speaker 1: of his movies, I don't love the overall experiences of
Speaker 1: watching them. My name is Katherine cold Iron and I'm
Speaker 1: the author of a monograph on Plan nine from Outer Space.
Speaker 1: Catherine's book looks at the numerous glaring technical problems and
Speaker 1: Plan nine, as well as explores why we enjoy watching
Speaker 1: quote bad movies. I asked her how she sees Edward
Speaker 1: as a filmmaker. I think of him as an auteur
Speaker 1: because he's one of those guys who has to right direct,
Speaker 1: produce everything himself. What quality of art here he is
Speaker 1: is much more mysterious, and I think he's proof that
Speaker 1: autiers exist at all levels of quality in the cinema.
Speaker 1: Where he is in terms of bad cinema is a
Speaker 1: little bit more difficult to estimate, I think, but he's
Speaker 1: I would say, the most famous bad film aut here,
Speaker 1: probably in wider culture. I also ask Catherine what she
Speaker 1: sees as edwards shortcomings. Edward doesn't know how to block
Speaker 1: at all, and by that I mean he'll sort of
Speaker 1: have characters coming onto the screen in the same direction
Speaker 1: and running in circles in the cemetery, and you don't
Speaker 1: really get a sense of where anyone is in space.
Speaker 1: I mean he has some knowledge of how to do
Speaker 1: time in film, in that the scene on the porch,
Speaker 1: he knows that you show the passage of time with
Speaker 1: a push in by the camera and then a pull
Speaker 1: out by the camera. He's aware of that, but he's
Speaker 1: not aware, for instance, that dissolving means that time passes
Speaker 1: and cutting means that time doesn't pass. So there's a
Speaker 1: scene where a car pulls up to the cemetery and
Speaker 1: it's clear to him that a certain period of time
Speaker 1: has passed between the last shot and this one, But
Speaker 1: because it's a cut instead of a dissolve, the audience
Speaker 1: doesn't realize it. But unless that bag of bones over
Speaker 1: there can reassemble itself, it's all they're running out. His
Speaker 1: lighting is very harsh and uniform across the film. It's
Speaker 1: always very bright, and that's actually, I think, better than
Speaker 1: a filmmaker who just turns the lights down and you
Speaker 1: can't see anything. But it also means that day for
Speaker 1: night is a joke in Plan nine? Then how about
Speaker 1: when the policeman arrived in daylight but now it's suddenly night?
Speaker 1: What do you know? Haven't you heard of? Suspension of disbelief?
Speaker 1: And the way that he draws connections between things leaves
Speaker 1: a lot to be desired. I think that you're supposed
Speaker 1: to know that the aliens are involved with the cemetery
Speaker 1: business early in the film, but the film doesn't, like
Speaker 1: very literally make those connections until way later. What plan
Speaker 1: will you fallow? Now? Plan nine? It's been absolutely impossible
Speaker 1: to work through these earth creatures. Their soul is too controlled.
Speaker 1: Plan nine, ah, yes, Plan nine. Deals of the resurrect
Speaker 1: of the Dead long distance electrode shottened opinion of pituitary
Speaker 1: glands of recent dead. So the plot is hard to
Speaker 1: follow because there's so much irrelevant stuff that's sort of
Speaker 1: jammed in there that the way that an American audience
Speaker 1: can normally follow a film is just not present in
Speaker 1: plan mind from matter space, Catherine says that for her,
Speaker 1: it's less to do with woods budgetary constraints. To me,
Speaker 1: it's his his incapacity to see when he should have
Speaker 1: done better. Like a movie maker like Roger Corman is
Speaker 1: always doing the best with the resources he has, and
Speaker 1: the resources he has failed him. There is meat here
Speaker 1: killing go back. No. I came to find the truth alive,
Speaker 1: the old stories, the ancient law. We came to hunt,
Speaker 1: not to destroy the word. But when Roger Corman has
Speaker 1: given a little bit of a budget, like he can
Speaker 1: do amazing things, that's where something practical is inhibiting you
Speaker 1: from making something good. Whereas with would you could give
Speaker 1: him all the money in the world and he wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to make a good movie. It's just not
Speaker 1: in his wheelhouse. So what sets him apart for me
Speaker 1: is not that he doesn't have the resources to do it,
Speaker 1: and not that he doesn't have the time and energy
Speaker 1: to do it, but instead that he simply doesn't have
Speaker 1: the capacity to do it. Like if they flow the line,
Speaker 1: like retake the scene now you can bring the total
Speaker 1: destruction of the entire universe served by our sun. As
Speaker 1: you might guess, Bill Shoot has a completely different opinion
Speaker 1: on wood style, low budget filmmaking and independent filmmaking. You
Speaker 1: have to bring to that when you watch it willing
Speaker 1: suspension of disbelief. People don't have a problem with that
Speaker 1: when they see a play. When you see a play,
Speaker 1: you know that's a painted backdrop. You know that you're
Speaker 1: not looking at a courtyard in New Orleans or Paris
Speaker 1: or something like that, and you can accept it. People
Speaker 1: who used to go to these kind of films, or
Speaker 1: even people who watch low budget straight the video product today,
Speaker 1: you just accept that this is not a hundred million
Speaker 1: dollar film and that things represent the reality of the situation,
Speaker 1: and you don't have a problem with that. So I
Speaker 1: don't really focus on the things that people make fun
Speaker 1: of in Edward films, because you see that in a
Speaker 1: wide variety of low budget product. When someone's making a
Speaker 1: feature film for twenty dollars or less that comes with
Speaker 1: the territory. I think some of the people who pick
Speaker 1: on that sort of thing haven't seen a lot of
Speaker 1: low budget product and they don't know that that's what
Speaker 1: the marketplace was like, and that's what the typical product
Speaker 1: was like. I don't think that's an excuse when you're
Speaker 1: making work, especially if you're making a movie, Why would
Speaker 1: you give it anything less than you're all. Something that
Speaker 1: I realized when I was researching is that most genre
Speaker 1: movies from the late fifties are crap, Like, most of
Speaker 1: them are not good. It was just a genre that
Speaker 1: sort of didn't have good quality films until late sixties. Really, however,
Speaker 1: there are movies from that period that stand out, like
Speaker 1: The Incredible Shrinking Man. But even as I touched the dry,
Speaker 1: flaking crumbs of nourishment, it was as if my body
Speaker 1: had ceased to exist. There was no hunger, no longer
Speaker 1: the terrible fear of shrinking. And then the fly. I
Speaker 1: saw that funny looking fly again, which shall we go to?
Speaker 1: You saw where it is going to get it by
Speaker 1: the bench in the garden. Oh yes, they have bad
Speaker 1: quality ease sure, and the special effects are not great,
Speaker 1: and there are all these reasons why they're lesser, but
Speaker 1: the fact that movie makers could make those at the
Speaker 1: time means that the vast majority of movie makers who
Speaker 1: made impermanent art to turn a quick bucke at the
Speaker 1: box office and then be forgotten forever. It's just no excuse,
Speaker 1: Like you could still do a good job and you
Speaker 1: chose not to. So perhaps whether one enjoys Wood is
Speaker 1: a matter of subjective preference and whether you find his
Speaker 1: technical errors to be charming or distracting. But despite her criticisms,
Speaker 1: Catherine also enjoys some things about woods movies. Oh, I
Speaker 1: delight in how unstudied everything is. I love really really
Speaker 1: bad performances in his movies, like the actress at the crypt.
Speaker 1: First his wife, then he tragic tell me something. Why
Speaker 1: was his wife buried in the ground and he failed
Speaker 1: in a crypt? Something to do with family today, a
Speaker 1: superstition of some sort. Oh, she's just she can't even
Speaker 1: deliver the word oh properly. Like I think that's super
Speaker 1: delightful and enjoyable. And the mechanism of enjoying bad movies
Speaker 1: is something that I've studied a lot, but I haven't
Speaker 1: quite figured out and what that is when you look
Speaker 1: at something that's incompetent and you laugh, but you're not
Speaker 1: like actively making fun of it when you're enjoying it
Speaker 1: because it's bad, but not thinking of it as something risible,
Speaker 1: something to you know, tease. That is a mystery to me.
Speaker 1: What I think it is is that bad movies are
Speaker 1: endlessly surprising, because if you've seen any number of movies
Speaker 1: in your lifetime, you will recognize what a three x
Speaker 1: structure is without having to be told what it is.
Speaker 1: You'll recognize that the peaks and valleys of mainstream commercial
Speaker 1: film are very engineered that everything about them you know.
Speaker 1: From minute to minute, you know exactly what the experience
Speaker 1: is going to be, and you can broadly predict what's
Speaker 1: going to happen in the movie. Even if it has
Speaker 1: twists and turns, you can still figure it out. Bad
Speaker 1: movies just don't follow those rules, either because the filmmakers
Speaker 1: never learned those rules or because they don't really care.
Speaker 1: The films are always gonna show you something that you've
Speaker 1: never seen before, and even if that thing is incompetence,
Speaker 1: at least it's surprising. It's not the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over again. Catherine is getting into a phenomenon largely
Speaker 1: pioneered by ed Wood, that focuses on bad film as
Speaker 1: its own form of entertainment. You've probably heard of films
Speaker 1: that are quote so bad they're good. The other most
Speaker 1: notable example is Tommy Wise, Oh is the room right?
Speaker 1: Can I help you? Can? I have a dozen red roses? Please? Hi, Johnny,
Speaker 1: I didn't know was you here? You go? That's me?
Speaker 1: How much is keep the change? Hi? Dog? You you're
Speaker 1: my favorite customer. Thanks a loud bye. I do not
Speaker 1: believe it's a schadenfreude instinct. I think that there are
Speaker 1: two distinct types of bad movie watchers. And there's the
Speaker 1: type that has schadenfreuda and they want to laugh at movies,
Speaker 1: and then there's the type that is just genuinely delighted
Speaker 1: by bad movies. I don't understand the mechanism, even though
Speaker 1: I'm one of them, of people who love bad movies
Speaker 1: because they're delightful. I think what keeps us coming back
Speaker 1: to these movies again is just their ability to surprise
Speaker 1: and to be nothing like the pattern. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit like, do you want to listen to pop singers
Speaker 1: like Britney Spears and Taylor Swift or do you want
Speaker 1: to listen to Radiohead? And like, maybe there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of difference between them in terms of career structure,
Speaker 1: but there's a huge amount of difference in how they
Speaker 1: pass in and out of your brain. It's much more
Speaker 1: difficult to listen to Joanna Newsome than it is to
Speaker 1: listen to Britney Spears. And there are moods for both.
Speaker 1: You know, there are nights when I want to watch
Speaker 1: a really good movie, and then there are nights when
Speaker 1: I want to watch a movie where I can turn
Speaker 1: my brain off, so I'll watch a Marvel movie. And
Speaker 1: then there are knights when I want to be challenged
Speaker 1: and also laugh, and so I'll watch Neil Breen. You know,
Speaker 1: I think that there are people who want very narrow
Speaker 1: artistic experiences, and then there are people who want a
Speaker 1: wide variety of them. And I think the latter category
Speaker 1: is much more interested in that film. Here's Bill Shoot's opinion.
Speaker 1: I am a total opponent of the bad film phenomenon.
Speaker 1: I'm a champion of low budget artists in many different genres.
Speaker 1: If you take the small labels of the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: and sixties, there would be a lot of things that
Speaker 1: were considered technical flaws as opposed to something recorded in
Speaker 1: l a by the wrecking crew that was professional in
Speaker 1: every way. But you had people with enormous creativity and
Speaker 1: limited budgets trying to capture what was in their mind,
Speaker 1: trying to capture the vision that they had with the
Speaker 1: limited technical facilities that were available, in the limited funds
Speaker 1: that were available to them. I've onto showings in Austin
Speaker 1: of low budget horror films, indie films of all sorts,
Speaker 1: and there's always some people in the audience who were
Speaker 1: making fun of the filmmaker and pointing their fingers at
Speaker 1: the kind of things you see in low budget films,
Speaker 1: And to me, as I said earlier, on some level,
Speaker 1: it's I don't think they've seen a lot of those
Speaker 1: films to know that that is not uncommon. But there's
Speaker 1: also a kind of elitism that I find kind of
Speaker 1: offensive anyone who's worked in the arts as I have.
Speaker 1: With limited money and limited technical facilities, you do what
Speaker 1: you can to kind of fake an effect. I grew
Speaker 1: up during the punk rock era and the kind of
Speaker 1: cut up xerox esthetic of punk growing out of you know,
Speaker 1: Warhole William Burrows, that sort of thing was also a
Speaker 1: way of using very minimal budgets and kitchen sink abilities
Speaker 1: to create something that was transcendent because you didn't have
Speaker 1: access to the technology. So when I see a film
Speaker 1: of that sort from an independent filmmaker, whether it be
Speaker 1: Edwood or Bill Robaine or Larry Buchanan, I'm just amazed
Speaker 1: at what they can do on such a low budget.
Speaker 1: I just take my hat off to that kind of
Speaker 1: inventiveness and creativity. As far as quote bad film creators go,
Speaker 1: Catherine believes there's one positive quality that sets Edward apart.
Speaker 1: Edwards sincerity is part of what makes his films fun
Speaker 1: to watch instead of unfun to watch. For instance, the
Speaker 1: output of the Asylum that they made, Sharknado, and like
Speaker 1: a bunch of movies like that. I know you're scared.
Speaker 1: I'm scared too. They're sharks. They're scary. No one wants
Speaker 1: to get eating. But I've been and I'm here to
Speaker 1: tell you it takes a lot more than that to
Speaker 1: bring a good man down. Those films are not as
Speaker 1: much fun to watch for me because they're very cynical.
Speaker 1: They think that they're laughing at themselves, but they're actually
Speaker 1: not they're more making cynical trash. What's charming about Edwood
Speaker 1: is that he has the love, but he has no skill.
Speaker 1: He has the will to make a film, but he
Speaker 1: doesn't have the talent to make a film. That's kind
Speaker 1: of like watching little bitty kids play soccer trying to
Speaker 1: kind of kick the ball around the field, but they
Speaker 1: don't have the capacity in their arms and legs to
Speaker 1: have that kind of coordination. So watching them is kind
Speaker 1: of cute because they're trying really hard, but their bodies
Speaker 1: are failing them, and Wood's talent fails him, and that's sweet.
Speaker 1: You know, it's sad a little bit, but also kind
Speaker 1: of lovely to witness. So between Catherine and Bill, we
Speaker 1: have two very different opinions on the matter. But before
Speaker 1: we move on, I want to share one more approach.
Speaker 1: Here's family friend Bob Blackburn. Again, I'm right down the
Speaker 1: middle of this, to be honest with you. There was
Speaker 1: a book, The Cinematic Misadventures of Ed Wood. I think
Speaker 1: it was where the guy took a very scholarly approach
Speaker 1: to all Ed's films, and I went, WHOA, you're really
Speaker 1: reading some stuff in there that I just don't see
Speaker 1: or whatever. But I appreciated the fact that somebody took
Speaker 1: ed that seriously to actually write it. Now, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I would assume that in some film schools Edward
Speaker 1: is taught, maybe at U c l A Film School
Speaker 1: or USC Film School. There's a class and so bad
Speaker 1: it's good. I would hope it's so bad it's good thing.
Speaker 1: I kind of shake my head at it. I don't
Speaker 1: see it. It didn't study film, he didn't go to
Speaker 1: USC Film School. He didn't apprentice for a famous film director,
Speaker 1: even though he may have worked at universally. It's like
Speaker 1: in the prop department, you know. He was smitten with movies.
Speaker 1: So his knowledge was from what he saw and from
Speaker 1: people he met, people he talked to and trial and air.
Speaker 1: If you see his very early things like cross Roads,
Speaker 1: Avenger Crossroads or Laredo or any of the the TV things,
Speaker 1: the cardboard, very short coffin, things of that nature, people
Speaker 1: getting off a horse on the wrong side. He wasn't
Speaker 1: a technician at all. It's easy to laugh at the mistakes,
Speaker 1: but you have to kind of understand why there are
Speaker 1: the mistakes, you know, and again there's other people that
Speaker 1: were learning how to make movies. Ads they were making them.
Speaker 1: You know, there's always going to be those kind of people,
Speaker 1: for better or worse. Plan nine from Outer Space was
Speaker 1: edwards boldest most artistic statement, but it was far from
Speaker 1: the end of his career. Edward would go on to
Speaker 1: make six more movies throughout the nineteen sixties, and he
Speaker 1: also wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and other adult content.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Ephemeral, We're going to dig
Speaker 1: into Ed's later work and tell the story of his
Speaker 1: final years, and we'll talk about Woods cult revival, the
Speaker 1: eventual Tim Burton biopic, and how he reached new heights
Speaker 1: of fame after his death. This episode of Ephemeral was
Speaker 1: written and produced by Trevor Young, with producers Max and
Speaker 1: Alex Williams. Bill Shoot is a writer and professor of
Speaker 1: English at San Antonio College. He also wrote the introduction
Speaker 1: for the new book of posthumously released essays by Edwood
Speaker 1: When the Topic Is Sex. Bob Blackbird is a family
Speaker 1: friend of the Woods who edited and compiled the stories
Speaker 1: for When the Topic Is Sex, which you can find
Speaker 1: on Bare Manner Media's website or wherever books are sold.
Speaker 1: And Catherine cole Dire is author of the book Plan
Speaker 1: nine from Outer Space. See more of her work at
Speaker 1: k cold Iron dot com. We'll be back in two
Speaker 1: weeks with part two of our dive into ed Wood.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, find links to these and more on
Speaker 1: our website, Ephemeral dot Show. And while you're there, check
Speaker 1: out my conversation with Movie Crush host Chuck Bryant about
Speaker 1: Tim burton biopic ed Wood. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.