Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind at a
Speaker 2: listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and it is Monday, the
Speaker 3: day of each week that we read back messages from
Speaker 3: the Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address. If you
Speaker 3: have never gotten in touch before and would like to
Speaker 3: try it out, you can reach us at contact at
Speaker 3: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Whatever you want
Speaker 3: to send us fine, We of course especially appreciate if
Speaker 3: you have feedback to recent episodes or something interesting you
Speaker 3: would like to add related to a topic we've talked
Speaker 3: about again, that is contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
Speaker 2: That's right, the absolute best way to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us and or provide feedback on the show.
Speaker 3: Okay, today I was thinking about doing our ordering a
Speaker 3: little bit differently. Normally we talk about some responses to
Speaker 3: core episodes and then we get into some weird house
Speaker 3: cinema messages. We've got a lot of weird house cinema
Speaker 3: messages in the backlog that we haven't been able to
Speaker 3: get to in the past few weeks, so I thought
Speaker 3: maybe we would just jump right into Weird House responses
Speaker 3: and then see what else comes up.
Speaker 2: All right, let's do it. What do we have?
Speaker 3: Okay? This first message comes from Adam. Adam says, Hello,
Speaker 3: Robin Joe. My name is Adam from up in Canada
Speaker 3: and I've been a listener of the show since being
Speaker 3: introduced to it by my girlfriend back in September of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty. The installment I look forward to with the
Speaker 3: most enthusiasm each week is Weird House Cinema, and I
Speaker 3: was thrilled to see you were looking at another Vincent
Speaker 3: Price picture. I think this must have been when we
Speaker 3: did Doctor Five's rises again. Adam goes on. Recently, my
Speaker 3: mother was telling me about which TV shows frightened her
Speaker 3: most when she was a child, leading to my discovery
Speaker 3: of a fascinating Canadian TV show that heavily features Vincent Price.
Speaker 3: And the show is called The hell Hilarious House of
Speaker 3: Frightenstein from nineteen seventy one. I don't believe it was
Speaker 3: very popular, so I'd be surprised if you'd seen it,
Speaker 3: but this odd sketch show might be worth a quick glance,
Speaker 3: not for Weird House, but for the sake of interest.
Speaker 3: The show centers around the titular Count Frightenstein, a green
Speaker 3: skinned vampire whose quest is to electrically reanimate a stitched
Speaker 3: together body. Sketches with him and his servant Igor are
Speaker 3: broken up with those featuring a cast of other horrifying hosts,
Speaker 3: the Wolfman, Griselda, the Witch, the Librarian, and many others.
Speaker 3: This mashup of genre staples is delightfully fun, but another
Speaker 3: aspect I found interesting was the production. They filmed all
Speaker 3: of the shows one hundred and thirty episodes, each taking
Speaker 3: a one hour TV slot, over the course of only
Speaker 3: nine months. Unsurprisingly, over the course of filming this huge
Speaker 3: amount of show, the main actor Billy Van estimated that
Speaker 3: near the end it was only around five percent scripted,
Speaker 3: and I watched a bit of the show. This does
Speaker 3: seem correct based on what I saw. So Adam goes
Speaker 3: on Price's floating transparent head introduces us with sinister laughter
Speaker 3: to each episode. In his role as the narrator. Decked
Speaker 3: out in strange costumes, he recites a short rhyming story
Speaker 3: about each zany parentheses and sometimes unfortunately culturally insensitive character
Speaker 3: that is about to feature in the next sketch. The
Speaker 3: show's creators wanted a big horror name, so they managed
Speaker 3: to get Price in and out of Toronto for his
Speaker 3: scenes at least three unique scenes per episode in two
Speaker 3: and a half days.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, I was thinking for a show of this,
Speaker 2: the obvious limited budget and limited audience, Price was a
Speaker 2: big get. I don't think he worked cheap in the
Speaker 2: heyday of his career.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I guess they had to write all of
Speaker 3: his stuff out in advance for wow, for all of
Speaker 3: these episode, for one hundred and thirty episodes, all of
Speaker 3: the Price segments, and film them all in a couple
Speaker 3: of days. That's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like towards the end of it, you're
Speaker 2: probably just telling Price, Okay, just say something, we'll make
Speaker 2: an episode around it. Just whatever comes to your head.
Speaker 2: We we got five minutes left. Just let it go.
Speaker 3: Adam goes on for anyone interested. There are full episodes
Speaker 3: on YouTube, perfect to be on in the background when
Speaker 3: you need some spooky and silly vibes. Thank you both
Speaker 3: for all you do. And as Price signed off every
Speaker 3: episode of the show, the castle lights are growing dim.
Speaker 3: There's no one left but me and him. And here
Speaker 3: he apparently nods toward Bruce which is the name of
Speaker 3: doctor Frettenstein's monster which is behind him, and then the
Speaker 3: rhyme goes on when next we meet in franken Stone,
Speaker 3: don't come alone. I don't know what franken Stone means.
Speaker 2: I guess that is the castle like Castle franken Stone
Speaker 2: and then frightened Stein's monster. Yeah, that's my limited interpretation here.
Speaker 3: So anyway, I looked up this show and I watched
Speaker 3: some parts of one of the episodes. I think it
Speaker 3: was the first ever episode. Also, I pulled in some
Speaker 3: screenshots for you to look at rob By the way,
Speaker 3: can we get a little sample of that sweet opening music?
Speaker 2: Now, I do really like that, and I didn't get
Speaker 2: a chance to more than glance at this show, but
Speaker 2: i'd love that theme song.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the opening shows us a couple of signs,
Speaker 3: like on a fork in the road. One way points
Speaker 3: to Transylvania twelve thousand kilometers and the other way points
Speaker 3: to Castle Frtenstein. I guess suggesting that Castle Frightenstein is
Speaker 3: far from Transylvania, and our heroes here who are from
Speaker 3: Transylvania are like exiled.
Speaker 2: So yeah, now I don't know what Frankenstone could possibly be.
Speaker 2: Maybe Frankenstone is a state of mind.
Speaker 3: Franken Stone is like a cool hookah bar that all
Speaker 3: of the monsters go to. But yeah, so we pan
Speaker 3: over some some grave markers and dead trees, and then
Speaker 3: we get a translucent, floating Vincent price head reciting some
Speaker 3: rhyming poetry about I don't know, just about things that
Speaker 3: are scary are gonna happen. The font for the title
Speaker 3: The Hilarious House of Frightenstein is very goose bumps in nature.
Speaker 3: It's that like dripping ooze font. And then Rob I
Speaker 3: pulled in some screenshots for you to look at of
Speaker 3: the opening sketch, which is just sort of some banter,
Speaker 3: some hilarious banter between Count Frightenstein and Igor. Here, Igor
Speaker 3: is like a large bald man with very bushy eyebrows
Speaker 3: and a very bushy mustache, and he's got like a
Speaker 3: garden hose around his neck. I think this is part
Speaker 3: of the skit where he's claiming that he was out
Speaker 3: on the lawn pretending to be a sprinkler. I don't
Speaker 3: fully understand that. But then in the scene, the Count
Speaker 3: suddenly demands that Egor raise the flag, and behind them
Speaker 3: they have a flag on a flagpole that what can
Speaker 3: I see on it? It looks like I see a
Speaker 3: bat and a storm cloud with lightning coming out of it,
Speaker 3: and maybe a wolf's Frankenstein head too. Oh okay, okay.
Speaker 3: But so they've got a flag, and so the count
Speaker 3: says raise the flag, which causes Egor to lower the flag,
Speaker 3: and then he tells him to sing the national anthem,
Speaker 3: and Igor begins to sing a song that sounds to
Speaker 3: me like it's being made up on the spot. It
Speaker 3: is to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the
Speaker 3: Republic or John Brown's Body, and the lyrics here are gory,
Speaker 3: gory Transylvania, the werewolves and bats will always maim.
Speaker 2: You Sorry, the Residence of Romania.
Speaker 3: To me, it gives a strong impression of improv comedy,
Speaker 3: like it has that rhythm where there sort of pauses
Speaker 3: between everything where they're thinking, thinking of the next thing
Speaker 3: to say, and the introductory poem read by Price obviously
Speaker 3: seems scripted. I mean, he's not making that up on
Speaker 3: the spot, so you know he's got these rhyming things
Speaker 3: to read. But once the characters come out, it really
Speaker 3: feels like they're just winging it, or maybe they've got
Speaker 3: a few scripted beats here and there, but they're stringing
Speaker 3: them together with improvised stuff in between. Oh but then
Speaker 3: I thought there was an interesting thing. So it's got
Speaker 3: these different skits and segments, And the very next segment
Speaker 3: that came on on the show, they bring on Vincent
Speaker 3: Price to say some more stuff, just say some rhyming
Speaker 3: couplets while he's wearing a cape. And then after that
Speaker 3: there's a science education segment. They go to one of
Speaker 3: the characters in the castle who is he is the professor,
Speaker 3: And there's like an animated segment which it shows like
Speaker 3: an animated hand coming in and pressing a button on
Speaker 3: a machine that says the professor. But then when he
Speaker 3: comes out, he sort of dressed up as a mad scientist.
Speaker 3: But this host is a real scientist and science educator
Speaker 3: named Julius Sumner Miller, and he's just doing He's like,
Speaker 3: I'm a mad scientist, but he's just doing a straightforward,
Speaker 3: real world accurate science lesson about why and how you
Speaker 3: can cause metal pipes to sing by applying thermal energy
Speaker 3: to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was just looking this guy up. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: was a physicist at one point. He had a Carnegie Grant.
Speaker 2: I mean, not for this show, but for other things,
Speaker 2: like in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 3: Apparently I'm wondering about the conceit though, I mean, I actually,
Speaker 3: I guess it's not unique to hear. So he's playing
Speaker 3: a mad scientist, but he's giving real science lessons. I
Speaker 3: think there were sort of TV science show hosts like
Speaker 3: was I don't know, like Beekman's World or whatever. Was
Speaker 3: He supposed to be like a mad scientist in a way,
Speaker 3: except he taught real science. There's a weird blurring there.
Speaker 2: I think. So mister Wizard, I guess he was a wizard,
Speaker 2: but you know, still there's a little crossover between wizards
Speaker 2: and mad scientists. And having always been a fan of
Speaker 2: mad scientists growing up and at one point wanting to
Speaker 2: be a mad scientist when I was a child. That
Speaker 2: was probably the earliest thing that I said I wanted
Speaker 2: to be when I grew up, and I found I think,
Speaker 2: a reasonable compromise on that ambition. But you know, it
Speaker 2: was even though mad scientists, as we often discuss, you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of it has it has its roots and
Speaker 2: fear of science and scientific development. You know, to a
Speaker 2: kid like it is. It is kind of a perfect
Speaker 2: angle to get in on to get kids excited about science.
Speaker 2: You know, it's mad scientists are scientists. They're just really
Speaker 2: fun and they make monsters for crying out loud, which
Speaker 2: is a good thing if you're you know, eight twelve.
Speaker 3: Right at that age. I mean, the very logic of
Speaker 3: the show seems to make sense, though it's also weird
Speaker 3: because Count Frightenstein here is a vampire, but he's trying
Speaker 3: to he is also a mad scientist because he's trying
Speaker 3: to reanimate this corpse. Yeah, they're they're stitching together some roles,
Speaker 3: some archetypes as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you're a vampire, you got time to
Speaker 2: apply yourself to the mad science as if you're so inclined.
Speaker 3: You know, I've always thought if one were to obtain immortality,
Speaker 3: it'd be great to go back and like, you know,
Speaker 3: get different branches of education, you know, educate yourself and
Speaker 3: several of the sciences and whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Satlle vampires are rarely so farward thinking. But anyway,
Speaker 2: this show looks like it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: I can see where if you were exposed with us
Speaker 2: early on, it would have had an impact on you
Speaker 2: I was looking into it a little bit on Wikipedia.
Speaker 2: It looks like it was ONCTV in Hamilton, Ontario, so
Speaker 2: that's not I wasn't exposed to this when I lived
Speaker 2: in Canada because I only had CBC. But it looks
Speaker 2: like I mean, I'm assuming you can get this on
Speaker 2: YouTube or somewhere, but Wicki says that you can or
Speaker 2: could get it on two B so it's probably out
Speaker 2: there in some form or another for folks that want
Speaker 2: to stream it. Can you should you watch all one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty episodes? I don't know. We leave that
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 3: Can your heart stand the shocking facts of Frtenstein? Okay,
Speaker 3: let's see Rob. Do you want to do next? Message here?
Speaker 3: Take your pick?
Speaker 2: All right? This one comes to us from Andrew. Andrew says, hello, gentlemen.
Speaker 2: As always, thanks for the pod and for the thought
Speaker 2: provoking content. I had quite a backlog of pods to
Speaker 2: fill my ear holes, but I did catch up on
Speaker 2: most of your listener mail to make sure I'm not
Speaker 2: doubling up Number one. I was shocked, shocked, I say
Speaker 2: to hear the shade throne at my guy Hans Zimmer
Speaker 2: during one of the Dune weird House episodes.
Speaker 3: I don't remember us throwing any shade at Zimmer. I
Speaker 3: thought our comments about him were pretty much totally positive,
Speaker 3: weren't they.
Speaker 2: I think as I remember it, our main comment was
Speaker 2: that Hans Zimmer has scored a lot of films, not
Speaker 2: all of which are anything you want to see. I understand, okay,
Speaker 2: but there are definite high points in his career. And
Speaker 2: I loved his work on Dune. I was listening to
Speaker 2: it in isolation there for a while, and I love
Speaker 2: all the Dune memes that make use of that resurrection
Speaker 2: theme from it with the vocals. But anyway, Andrew continues
Speaker 2: as a movie score nerd. His work in multiple Christopher
Speaker 2: Nolan films, The Dark Knight and Inception in particular, is
Speaker 2: some of my favorite recent Ish movie music. Don't forget
Speaker 2: the certified banger, that is, he is a pirate or
Speaker 2: He's a Pirate. Side note. The song works well if
Speaker 2: you sing the title to the beat of the music.
Speaker 2: Second side note. I saw a live performance of this
Speaker 2: last summer at an outdoor concert venue. Two young boys
Speaker 2: started fighting with foam pirate swords immediately after the song began.
Speaker 2: Their timing was superb. Third side note I did watch
Speaker 2: the entire Doom mini series on VHS a long time ago,
Speaker 2: after picking it up from the local library. Even as
Speaker 2: a twelve year old kid, I could tell it was,
Speaker 2: let's say, not good. You know, Hans Zimmer is he's
Speaker 2: touring right now. I you know, free plug for the
Speaker 2: Hans Zimmer concert experience. But he's like he's like coming
Speaker 2: into coming to our neck of the woods.
Speaker 3: Composers go on tour.
Speaker 2: If you're Hans Zimmer, you do, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, how does that work? Like you like he tours
Speaker 3: with an orchestra or does he can believe them?
Speaker 2: I think both is the case. Yeah, okay, yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean some form of Tangerine Dream still tours, no original members.
Speaker 2: But you know Goblin has toured. You've seen Goblin?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah yeah, but but Goblin, I feel like it
Speaker 3: is more like it's a band, you know. Yeah, They're
Speaker 3: like there's there's crossover between like the people who wrote
Speaker 3: the songs and are playing the instruments, or there's some
Speaker 3: amount of crossover.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not exactly sure how this goes down.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming orchestra, but is it traveling orchestra? Do you
Speaker 2: use like regionally available orchestras. I don't know the zimmer
Speaker 2: fans Zimmerheads, I guess right in and give us more details. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Andrew is not finished yet. He has more to say
Speaker 2: Number two. During the Flash Gordon episode, there was mention
Speaker 2: of the soundtrack by Queen. There was also talk of
Speaker 2: not knowing any other movies where an original soundtrack directly
Speaker 2: relates to the characters on the screen. For that, I
Speaker 2: would like to present yet another wild eighties movie with
Speaker 2: the Queen's soundtrack, and just a quick note, it is
Speaker 2: key that they're There is a difference here between the
Speaker 2: Queen's score and soundtrack that is Flash Gordon and what
Speaker 2: is about to be mentioned that is a Queen's soundtrack.
Speaker 2: It is, of course nineteen eighty six is Highlander. Maybe
Speaker 2: it doesn't quite meet the letter of the rule, but
Speaker 2: I believe the intent is there also. It wasn't until
Speaker 2: later I realized your coverage of Highlander and Highlander two
Speaker 2: was in a regular episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind,
Speaker 2: not Weird House. That set. Apologies for yelling Highlander at
Speaker 2: my car stereo during the episode.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for feeling the quickening. Now I am
Speaker 3: not sure about this. I wonder because what was really
Speaker 3: unique it seemed to me about the Flash Gordon soundtrack
Speaker 3: was that it was Queen wrote original songs for the
Speaker 3: movie that had lyrics about the characters and plot of
Speaker 3: the movie. Is that the case with Queen's music and Highlander? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it? Oh, ok, yeah, I mean you
Speaker 2: have track. I mean it's a kind of magic. Maybe
Speaker 2: feels a little bit vague, but it does get into
Speaker 2: some of the plot elements, and I think is essential
Speaker 2: to understanding the plot the first two movies. But then
Speaker 2: you have you know, gimme the prize. You have don't
Speaker 2: lose your head? Who wants to live forever? I mean
Speaker 2: these are all bangers. I love this this soundtrack.
Speaker 3: Okay, I didn't realize that. Yeah, well, I'm glad both
Speaker 3: of the examples we can think of now are by Queen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gimme the prize. One of the like I think
Speaker 2: the like the heaviest, most metal Queen songs, but not
Speaker 2: everyone's favorite. My wife does not like it. Freddie Mercury
Speaker 2: reportedly was not crazy about it either. But I love it.
Speaker 2: I think it's great.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: But on the other note, here about us talking about
Speaker 2: Highlander and more specifically Highlander two in a regular episode
Speaker 2: of Stuff to Blow your Mind. This is true. This
Speaker 2: was before Weird House existed, and we have discussed the
Speaker 2: possibility of coming back and giving at least Highlander to
Speaker 2: a proper Weird House treatment. There are issues, of course,
Speaker 2: with the sourcing of the true cut of Highlander two,
Speaker 2: which of course for us is the theatrical cut Zeist cut.
Speaker 3: Yes, some fans on the internet call it. Yeah, there
Speaker 3: are They tried to re release Highland or two with
Speaker 3: supposedly superior cuts of the film that take out a
Speaker 3: lot of the best stuff. I guess the idea is
Speaker 3: to make it less ridiculous, but all they really did
Speaker 3: is made it less amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So that's that's our view on it.
Speaker 2: So on one hand, part of part of a part
Speaker 2: of me, I want to I want to wait for
Speaker 2: Highland or two to the z Ice cut to really
Speaker 2: be released in a format that I can get behind.
Speaker 2: I think we were looking into it and at least
Speaker 2: for a window there. Maybe still if you were in
Speaker 2: the UK, you can stream the ze Ice cut on
Speaker 2: Amazon Prime, but I don't know if that's still valid.
Speaker 2: That might have been like a brief mistake, But there
Speaker 2: is as yet like no cut outside of a VHS
Speaker 2: tape that you can really watch it officially. But on
Speaker 2: the other hand, we might just go for it and
Speaker 2: maybe in our own small way we can help push
Speaker 2: a proper release of the Zece cut in to existence.
Speaker 3: I mean, I have a VHS of the correct cut,
Speaker 3: just a question of can we watch it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but can.
Speaker 3: You imagine the audacity of someone trying to re edit
Speaker 3: Highland or two and say, no, no, no, this movie
Speaker 3: is not claiming that they're aliens from another planet the
Speaker 3: gall I can't believe it.
Speaker 2: All right. Now back to Andrew's message. Let's see he
Speaker 2: has a bit about Wikipedia Brown. I don't know, all right,
Speaker 2: are we done talking about Encyclopedia Brown and Wikipedia Brown?
Speaker 2: I can't decide. My heart's not in it.
Speaker 3: Read as you feel, rob Okay, I'm.
Speaker 2: Gonna say I'm gonna skip the de vowed and interesting
Speaker 2: comments though about Encyclopedia Brown and get to point four
Speaker 2: in Andrews's email. Four finally some updated Sammy Terry Google
Speaker 2: News and I feel if you have a note of
Speaker 2: context on this, Joe.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, just to remind listeners, Sammy Terry came up
Speaker 3: in previous listener mail. It came up because we were
Speaker 3: talking about TV horror hosts, people like you know, like
Speaker 3: al Lewis as Grandpa Munster and and you know a
Speaker 3: Vampira and el Vira, these people who would host TV shows.
Speaker 3: Of course Boris karlofft did this with Boris called Carloff's Thriller.
Speaker 3: They would host TV shows where there would either be
Speaker 3: originally produced sort of segments or they would just show
Speaker 3: pre existing films and that you know, the horror host
Speaker 3: would be there in some kind of creepy costume to
Speaker 3: introduce them. And Sammy Terry was one of these. He
Speaker 3: is a local TV horror host based out of Indianapolis, Indiana,
Speaker 3: a sort of grim reaper figure with a pet spider
Speaker 3: named George. And I think Andrew in particular had written
Speaker 3: in about Sammy Terry in the past.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, and I believe in reference to the place
Speaker 2: that he's about to mention here. Scarlett Laine Brewing, whom
Speaker 2: I am fond of mentioning, updated their tap room last
Speaker 2: October and it is now the Sammy Terry Dungeon see attached.
Speaker 2: It's the best kind of kitch. Since I already made
Speaker 2: reference to a scholastic book fair above. We skipped that one.
Speaker 2: I should also say the brit that the brewery did
Speaker 2: a scar elastic book fair last month, which featured a
Speaker 2: number of independent horror authors. It was only the second
Speaker 2: year for the event, but it drew uppards of seven
Speaker 2: hundred attendees. We had a great time.
Speaker 3: Is that scare elastic book fair? Scare?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess scare scare elastic or scare elastic as
Speaker 2: opposed to what scar elastic, which I don't I like scarlastic.
Speaker 2: It also sounds to that thing, but at any rate, yeah, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, Andrew does attach some pictures here. I guess
Speaker 3: this is a brewery where people hang out try the
Speaker 3: different beers. I don't get a flight of beers and
Speaker 3: hang out in this area that looks like a museum
Speaker 3: of Sammi Terry. There's like a wall up with clippings
Speaker 3: all over it and shots from the show and full
Speaker 3: full sized real life stand ups of Samit Terry in
Speaker 3: full costume. They've got a recreation of the set from
Speaker 3: the show, so it's like a an interior of a
Speaker 3: castle wall with shield and Haraldry hung up and then
Speaker 3: skulls in the fireplace.
Speaker 2: Very nice, very nice.
Speaker 3: That makes me want to try an ipa.
Speaker 2: All right, Joe, what else we have here in the
Speaker 2: old mail bag?
Speaker 3: Okay, we got more about Vincent Price Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is from Don. Don says. As I was listening
Speaker 3: to this episode, the episode on Doctor Phib's rises again,
Speaker 3: I remembered watching part of a horror movie on TV.
Speaker 3: I snuck out of my room late at night to
Speaker 3: see my older brother watching a vins In Price movie.
Speaker 3: The scene I saw had a man in a truck
Speaker 3: being blasted by sand, seemingly coming out of the Vince.
Speaker 3: He has killed and reduced to a skeleton. I couldn't
Speaker 3: watch anymore. I was horrified. I never saw the film
Speaker 3: again and never learned the name of the movie, but
Speaker 3: the scene was etched into my memory. I would occasionally
Speaker 3: think of it and get a chill, probably why the
Speaker 3: Saw films put me on Thanks to this episode, I
Speaker 3: feel confident this is the movie that burned its way
Speaker 3: into my memory. I can now put a name to
Speaker 3: the sand blasted face. Thank you enjoy the show, Don Well,
Speaker 3: thank you, Don Man. I still can't. It came up
Speaker 3: in the episode itself. The comparison between Doctor Fibes and
Speaker 3: Saw because they both do involve absurd, elaborate murder traps.
Speaker 3: But man, I could not think of movies that make
Speaker 3: me feel more differently. As I said again, I don't
Speaker 3: want to spoil anybody's fun. If you like them, that's cool.
Speaker 3: But I can't stand the Saw movies. They just feel
Speaker 3: so grimy and depressing and bad. It's just a bad
Speaker 3: time all around. Whereas the you know, the Vincent Price
Speaker 3: murder traps are just they're an absolute joy. They're funny,
Speaker 3: and they're light and playful. It's you couldn't imagine a
Speaker 3: more different tone to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. My friend Dave, who has guest hosted
Speaker 2: on Weird House a couple of times, I think both
Speaker 2: times that he's come on the show, I've had to
Speaker 2: ask him about his Saw fandom, because he's seen them all.
Speaker 2: He's one of these guys who will once he starts
Speaker 2: watching a franchise, I think he feels compelled to finish it.
Speaker 2: But he's not a fan of like the actual torture
Speaker 2: kills in the show, but he likes sort of the consistency,
Speaker 2: and there's one in particular I can't remember but he's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like a message movie. It's about the healthcare industry
Speaker 2: in the US, and like the killings are all like
Speaker 2: morally based. And also it's like, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 2: can That especially makes me realize, Okay, there's some shared
Speaker 2: DNA between these two franchises. But yeah, I'm on team Vibes.
Speaker 3: You know, there was a time when I would do
Speaker 3: the same thing, where I'd start watching a horror franchise
Speaker 3: and I just have to finish the whole thing. We
Speaker 3: may have talked about it back when this was years ago. Now,
Speaker 3: I can't imagine making time for it now. But when
Speaker 3: I watched the first hell Raiser movie and then I
Speaker 3: was like, I guess I got to watch them all. Man,
Speaker 3: that was not a good use of my time. Beyond
Speaker 3: I don't know. There's some funny stuff going on in
Speaker 3: the early set, in the early half, but like as
Speaker 3: it goes on, it just gets more and more into
Speaker 3: kind of how I feel about the Saw territory. It's
Speaker 3: just grim and dark and depressing, and there's not very
Speaker 3: much funny to balance it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with hell Raiser, you know, I'll go three and four,
Speaker 2: I'll even go five. But but That's that's.
Speaker 3: It for me. Three has it's not great, but it
Speaker 3: has a bit of a charm about it in that
Speaker 3: some of the cinnabytes it's got like a technology angle.
Speaker 3: So some of the cinnabytes are like CD head and camcorderhead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then four is just a mess in outer
Speaker 2: space and across time. Very ambitious and creative and it
Speaker 2: doesn't make a lot of sense. But yeah, I feel
Speaker 2: like if we were to do a Hell Razor film
Speaker 2: on Weird House, it would it would be three or
Speaker 2: four for sure.
Speaker 3: Which is the one that has the motorheadzone.
Speaker 2: Oh that's three? Yeah, it's like what it's a Motorhead
Speaker 2: cover of an Ozzie song?
Speaker 3: Right? Oh maybe I don't know, Uh, Hell Razor that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Let's see what else do we have here?
Speaker 2: You know, we have a lot to talk to kick
Speaker 2: Let's see, I'm gonna go down to this one from Uh,
Speaker 2: here's one. It has to do with Star Trek. I'll
Speaker 2: read this one since I've been watching it. We've been
Speaker 2: watching a fair amount of Star Trek recently. Let's see.
Speaker 2: This one comes to us from Lee. Lee says, greetings, Rob, Joe,
Speaker 2: and JJ. Just a note to throw a film your
Speaker 2: way for consideration. The movie is the nineteen seventy four
Speaker 2: made for TV movie The Quester Tapes. The film is
Speaker 2: based on a story by Gene Roddenberry, and he wrote
Speaker 2: the teleplay with Gene Kuhn. Kuhn was heavily involved with
Speaker 2: Star Trek. The novelization was written by D. C. Fontana,
Speaker 2: also known for work on Trek. Anyway, I saw the
Speaker 2: movie on TV when it came out and later stumbled
Speaker 2: upon the novel. I recently rediscovered the film online as
Speaker 2: well as the Star Trek connections. The movie was a
Speaker 2: nostalgic rewatch and even if not for the show, it's
Speaker 2: a worthwhile experience. Love the show. I always look forward
Speaker 2: to each episode. Keep up the great work. Sincerely, Lee.
Speaker 2: And Yeah, I wasn't familiar with this, but I look
Speaker 2: with this particular film, but I looked it up. Stars
Speaker 2: Robert Foxworth of Death Moon Fame, Oh the work Beast, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Death Moon Fame for us. Death Moon is not I think,
Speaker 2: widely known outside of weird house cinema and like deep
Speaker 2: cuts of like TV made for TV horror movies, but
Speaker 2: it also has John Vernon and Walter Koenig's it looks.
Speaker 2: It looks interesting, So color me interested.
Speaker 3: You know, Death Moon was not a great movie, but
Speaker 3: I feel like it it's so important that we did
Speaker 3: it on the show because everything now, especially anything that's
Speaker 3: like made for TV at all, makes more sense in
Speaker 3: light of Death Moon. Like Death Moon is sort of
Speaker 3: a keystone of understanding that allows you to better see
Speaker 3: and process all of the rest of low budget and
Speaker 3: made for TV cinema.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's an example of a movie that we
Speaker 2: watch for Weird House that I don't think has ever
Speaker 2: had I don't remember specifically, but I seem to recall
Speaker 2: it has not had anything beyond a VHS release. Version
Speaker 2: we watched was ripped off of what Dutch television.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it had a hard baked Dutch subtitles to explain
Speaker 3: the inside jokes if you weren't around then the movie
Speaker 3: feature is a character Robert Foxworth, being called a workaholic,
Speaker 3: and the Dutch translation of that in the subtitles is
Speaker 3: verk beast.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, what else do we have here?
Speaker 3: Oh, we have a message from Katie that's going to
Speaker 3: bring up an interesting possibility. Katie says, Hi, there, let
Speaker 3: me first just start by saying, how much. I love
Speaker 3: your podcast, both the main feed and Weird House. I
Speaker 3: look forward to listening and learning with you every chance
Speaker 3: I get. Yesterday, I thought to myself, i'd try writing
Speaker 3: to suggest a movie to cover, which I have done
Speaker 3: once previously. Before I could sit down and do that,
Speaker 3: I listened to a recent listener mail request that I
Speaker 3: needed to catch up on, and in it you read
Speaker 3: another listener's email requesting the five Thousand Fingers of Doctor t.
Speaker 3: You mentioned that someone had requested that before, and they
Speaker 3: had because it was me. This tickled me almost as
Speaker 3: much as when a couple of years ago you read
Speaker 3: my listener mail requesting return to OZ. I just thought
Speaker 3: that was a silly coincidence and wanted to let you
Speaker 3: know that it made my day. Oh I guess we
Speaker 3: did return to OZ on the basis of your message.
Speaker 2: Then, Oh yeah, there we go. That one was fun.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Katie goes on. I stand by that suggestion as
Speaker 3: a Weird House injury. But what I really wanted to
Speaker 3: request just now was Dark City. I know you have
Speaker 3: mentioned it before, and I think that Rob has liked
Speaker 3: it in the past. Although somewhat mainstream, I think it
Speaker 3: is strange enough to qualify it's one of my favorite movies.
Speaker 3: But having three kids now I pretty much only get
Speaker 3: to watch family content. I love to get my fix
Speaker 3: of strange cinema through listening to YouTube. Thanks for everything
Speaker 3: you do, and I hope you both are having a
Speaker 3: lovely spring. Best Katie now, Katie, that is a really
Speaker 3: interesting idea. I also very much loved the movie Dark
Speaker 3: City for a while. It was kind of obsessed with it.
Speaker 3: I think when I was my late teens or so,
Speaker 3: I saw it for the first time and I just
Speaker 3: was I was like, wow, it captured my imagination. I
Speaker 3: haven't watched it in a long time now, but it
Speaker 3: seemed to me back then to be a movie that
Speaker 3: was really sort of overperforming its cultural reception. Not that
Speaker 3: people generally thought it was bad, but it just seemed
Speaker 3: to me not a very much noticed movie, and it
Speaker 3: was like way more worthy than it got credit for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it did seem to be like weirdly under the radar,
Speaker 2: or it had that feeling. Anyway, it definitely had its champions.
Speaker 2: I remember Roger Ebert was a huge fan of Dark City,
Speaker 2: and yeah, his review was glowing. I think he might
Speaker 2: have even been on a commentary track for it, you know,
Speaker 2: he was that big of a fan. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: love Dark City. I'll still stand by it being a
Speaker 2: great movie, but I haven't I haven't watched it in
Speaker 2: about ten years, and it's probably longer than that since
Speaker 2: I gave it like a dedicated proper viewing.
Speaker 3: It's also one where I know that there are a
Speaker 3: couple of different cuts out there, and the different cuts
Speaker 3: have the people who like them better or worse like
Speaker 3: they're I think with the sort of director's cut or
Speaker 3: whatever it's called, like it omits the voiceover narration from
Speaker 3: Keefer Sutherland's character. And that's a thing that some people
Speaker 3: they used to like say, oh when you show people
Speaker 3: Dark City and the original cut, like mute the audio
Speaker 3: during the opening narration because it spoils so much. And
Speaker 3: I don't know. I saw it with the audio and
Speaker 3: I liked it fine, But that may there may be
Speaker 3: something to that. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, I already know the twists that
Speaker 2: are coming, so I don't know that that would greatly
Speaker 2: benefit me at this point, but worth keeping in mind anyway.
Speaker 3: Good suggestion, Katie, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Keep the suggestions coming. You know, we've a number of
Speaker 2: our our entries in Weird House Cinema have been based
Speaker 2: on listeners suggestions. Sometimes you know that suggestions, don't they
Speaker 2: just sort of remain somewhere on the list. Other times,
Speaker 2: you know, we really got to check him out. I
Speaker 2: know we've had a few different people calling for Demon
Speaker 2: Seed from the seventies. I remember being impressed by the
Speaker 2: robot in this, But I don't know, I'm gonna have
Speaker 2: to I'm gonna have to take a look at Demon
Speaker 2: Seed before we can commit to talking about it on
Speaker 2: an episode of Weird House.
Speaker 3: I feel like that's come up as a possibility and
Speaker 3: I glanced at it and I was like, that looks
Speaker 3: kind of gross. I don't know if I want to
Speaker 3: talk about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it is. I was looking up a little
Speaker 2: information about it. It is noteworthy that Robert Vaughan is
Speaker 2: the voice of the robot and he literally phoned in
Speaker 2: his performance allegedly. I haven't done a lot of fact
Speaker 2: checking on this, but like, this was the seventies and
Speaker 2: you know, there was obviously there was no zoom or
Speaker 2: what have you, and he just straight phoned it in.
Speaker 2: So kind of admirable.
Speaker 3: I have to say, did we previously do a segment
Speaker 3: when Robert Vaughan was in some movie we covered about
Speaker 3: his about his like lawyer spokesperson gigs.
Speaker 2: We did, Yeah, what was it? It was the space.
Speaker 3: Movie, Oh a Battle beyond the Stars.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, we talked about him in that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Somewhere around the house here, I've got a magnet, like
Speaker 3: a fridge magnet that's got Robert Vaughan on it, looking
Speaker 3: like Polly Walnuts from the Sopranos. And he's wearing a
Speaker 3: suit and he's saying this, whatever you know, Johnson and
Speaker 3: Johnson will fight for you. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then the small Texas lawyer may not look like this.
Speaker 2: A lawyer may not resemble Robert Vaughn. Robert Vaughn is
Speaker 2: not a lawyer and should not be a legal advice
Speaker 2: should not be accepted from Robert Vaughn personally.
Speaker 3: But he does look like he means business. Okay, we're
Speaker 3: gonna need to call today's episode there I believe.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna go ahead and shut the book on
Speaker 2: this episode, but keep them coming if you have thoughts
Speaker 2: on past, present, and future episodes of the Core. Stuff
Speaker 2: to blow your mind, episodes, Weird House Cinema episode odes,
Speaker 2: Monster fact artifact, Aamalia stupendium, other listener mail episodes, or
Speaker 2: just generally things you think we might be interested in
Speaker 2: write in. We would love to hear from you. Listener
Speaker 2: Mail publishes on Mondays in the Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 2: Mind podcast feed.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.