Episode 10: Mikuroman vs. Plan 9

Cambridge. I'm Shawn is a weirding Way Media podcast. Hello and welcome to Cambridge and mashaon a podcast by two weird guys about the weird things that they like. I'm Ronnie, otherwise known as Exkelevator on YouTube, and this is my co host, Mark Bigley, the host of Wake Up Heavy, and We've got some weird obsessions to talk about today, and I'm excited. This is something.

I'm not going to say anything about what I chose yet because I definitely want to hear which you've chosen first, but I'm really excited to dive into this territory. So would you pick? Mark? Well, I had something that I shared with you that I picked, but I'm going to spend the next twenty five minutes talking about a major plastic rock ball update. Oh twenty five minutes, all right, No, I'm just kidding.

I've got my coffee, so I'm ready. The sound you just heard is our ten listeners shutting off the podcast exactly. That we're up to ten. That's fantastic. I don't know how many.

I have no way to track that. Actually they're probably a couple of ways, but anyway, No, I'm just joking, and I am not talking about that today. I'm diving into action figure territory, which I think I've only done once before with the Tomlin Cyclops. Haven't gotten into the big hitters yet, but this is sort of a minor league player for me, and it's got a great story. So I'm going to get into the story of these figures first and then I'll talk about my childhood with them.

I gotta say, I'm excited because you sent me images and I was like, I've seen these before, but I know nothing, yeah about this particular line, and so I'm really excited to find out it was a big hit but short lived. This is not unlike Transformers or Shogun Warriors in how they made it to the States coming from another country. Things that Mattel or Hasbro or whoever brought here that are well transfer are still very popular. Chauvin Warriors not so much. But Super seven has put out some jumbo figures over the years, so this is like that, but even more interesting to me because it actually starts here in the States.

So here's the history, which I think I discovered maybe ten or so years ago and thought was just extremely fascinating. In nineteen sixty three. Stan Weston, not Stan Winston, although that would be really cool. Stan Weston created a quote unquote doll for boys, and I'm using that turn on purpose to piss people off. Interesting anything, No, sir, I didn't see you playing with your dolls again.

Good No dolls direction figures. They're totally dolls. Using a twelve inch figure dressed in military clothing. He sold the idea to Hasbro for one hundred thousand dollars, which roughly translates to almost million dollars. In twenty twenty three, and America's movable fighting man was born.

Gi Joe, as he would soon be known, was licensed around the world, most notably maybe for me, just because I'm familiar with these in the UK as Action Man from Palatoy. Oh yeah, and Palatoy they distributed a lot of Migo stuff, and I think they might have had the Star Wars line in the UK. I could be wrong about that too, but they were pretty big in the UK, and I think in Canada and in Japan it was marketed as Combat Joe by Takara or Takara as most Westerners call it. Takara. Yeah, I mean that's what I hear online all the time.

Oh yeah, it's closer to takata. And I'm probably still not pronouncing correctly, so I'll put in a little clip if I can find one of someone's saying it correctly. Here Takata. Those Combat Joe, those their head sculpts are like a million times better than Gi Joe. G I Joe always had a weird face to me.

The eyes are strange yep, kind of droopy turned down eyes. Sad, Yeah, sad, they look off anyway. That was early I think early seventies for the Combat Joe line, and they had four or so figures that were WW two based, so they had a German soldier, an American soldiers, and a Japanese soldier. I think. I guess the military figures didn't prove very popular in Japan, probably for good reason.

They took those Combat Joe molds and created a translucent body and inserted these chrome plated metallic parts inside robot or computer parts and called it pension cyborg, which means transforming cyborg. So they had all these inner workings, these guts inside, and a little robotic heads so you could actually pull the translucent head off and there'd be this tiny little robot head with glowing eyes. They just used the same molds, but they were manufactured slightly differently because you could pull off the arms and legs and add all these attachments to them. For the legs and the feet. You could put on one of them is a little flying saucer type disc that rolled, and another one looked like spacey roller skates, and the arm attachments you could put all missile launchers and all this stuff on them.

That was twelve inches like a Gi Jo figure, and then they made a smaller one that was supposed to be a boy called shown in Cyborg. The size of those was prohibitive, and I think this is kind of the same thing for Gi Joe Plus. In seventy three, we had the oil crisis, and like you and I have mentioned, I think in the past briefly, these things are petroleum based. The plastics that toys are made out of are petroleum based, and so they decided to shrink the figure down to a three and three quarter inch size, and the Microman line was born. Oh yeah.

They pretty much copied the idea of the hinchin Cyborg in that the first versions of these were translucent bodies and instead of inner workings. They had little chest plates that kind of replicated that idea that they were robotic in nature, and they would have little chrome heads. I believe the first one was just called Microman from my little well for a lot of research just looking at pictures online. Most of them came in four vers, so there would be four different colors, and they would have a designation like M one zero one on through to M one four, and they'd all have names. They'd all have the same first letter starting their names.

This obviously was cheaper to produce, but it also meant that they could make sets at a cheaper cost as well, because if you're making a set for a twelve inch figure, it's going to be gigantic or even just vehicles like you know for Masters of the Universe, which are half that size, like six inch figures, those playsets are huge, so you're talking about for Gijo or even for Mego large scale sets. So these didn't require that. So because of that crisis and because of people not being able to afford huge toys and huge sets, they shrunk it down and could make sets and vehicles much cheaper. It was very popular in Japan and in nineteen seventy six, Abrams the president of Migo. Good old Marty, Yeah, good old Marty.

You've probably seen it. I think that's the first episode of the Toys That Made Us. It's in that first season. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure about that guy.

Yeah, he's a little strange. He's got an interesting personality and it's hard to tell where his motivations are. I think that's that's the interesting aspect of him. I don't know that it that he puts himself just on his own in such a great light. But anyway, So Marty Abrams was on a trip to Japan and saw this line of Microman figures that Takara was making and decided to license the product for America, and thus was born microns for children with imagination.

In the world of the micro nuts, Spaceman robots, vehicles, some with magnets, some with batteries, and all with interchangeable parts, so your child can create dozens of different toys. And when micronauts start a child's imagination working, it can create just about anything. Oways that climb, toys that spin, toys that float, toys that stimulate young minds, whip behind me, Micronauts by mego. I'm a little fuzzy or hazy on the timeline here. A lot of things I read said they didn't start in America until seventy seven, But looking at the dates listed you know, on things like Wikipedia, so take that with a grain of salt.

It had a lot of them, the first line of Micronats being released in seventy six, which means that he would have had to have been over there at least early seventy six, if not seventy five. And the reason I'm bringing that up is because there's an apocryphal story that during this trip to Japan, a young George Lucas and twentieth Fox were shopping around to all of the toy makers their line, or proposed line for figures based on this little movie that he had made. Because Abrams was gone when they went to Migo, there was no one there to look at it or make a decision or whatever, so they went on to the next oh Man toy company. I've heard that a lot. I've heard that that was part of their downfall as far as Migo goes, that they didn't get that license.

I don't think so. I think the downfall really was just that he was evading taxes and went into bankruptcy and the place shut down. And I also I am not sure that they would have been shopping around the Star Wars figures that early. It may have been in seventy six, but it probably would have been later. I know that the movie was supposed to come out December of seventy six, and they missed that because of trying to edit it into a comprehensible story.

You know, that's a whole other thing. But I don't know if I buy into that. Obviously, Nego did not get the Star Wars license. I don't think that was their downfall. So they basically just used the same early figures that Takada had already created.

Their Microman figure became the Time Traveler. Here, just a basic figure. Nothing came with it except this little peg that you would put in its back to fit it onto vehicles, because if it didn't have something to attach it, the figures would just fly out. So they all come with a little I think five millimeter hole in the back and this little elbow like plug. As Takada would release things, they would get that figure and americanize it.

They had, Oh, I don't know, like four or five figures probably to start, and then they brought the vehicles over to I don't think they any of the sets over. I believe Migo made their own sets for the toys. They vehicles and figures for the most part, were the same for at least a year or so, and then I think Migo started producing them themselves in Hong Kong. I know the answer to it, but it always surprises me. And these stories of bringing these toys over.

Why don't people just import these things? I mean, I guess it's just the import cost alone that prohibits that. Right. It makes me think of foreign movies. You know, there's this successful foreign movie and then America has to leap frog on it and make their own version.

I understand that even more because most people, unfortunately aren't going to go see a movie that they have to read subtitles for, which is stupid in my opinion. We haven't let go of this archaic idea that the actors need to be speaking English. I think there's popular subtitled shows on Netflix enough to equal the amount of English speaking shows. I just think the movie companies are stuck on this idea that they've got to remake a thing with starring Naomi Watts and you know somebody that's recognizable. Probably that's the same sort of stinted mindset that applies to the toy making well, you know, and stuff has to be geared toward us.

That's the American mindset, really, the American way. I'm sure that a lot of those shows that you're mentioning, and I watch many of those, but I guarantee you that most people are choosing the option of having it dubbed rather than subtitled, which Netflix allows you to do on most shows. I haven't done that yet, but imagine that must be funny. They're not very good. So we got quite a few of the figures from over there, the same figures.

Then they took unrelated figures that I believe were still made by Takada and forced those into the Micronot's line. Most of them are plastic, but a number of them were die cast metal or die cast and plastic. But they introduced these two larger figures that were I want to say that they were all die cast, and they had magnetic points so you could remove the arms and legs and a head and swap them out and change them around, and there was a bad figure called Baron Carza, and then good figure I think it was called Force Commander, and they came with horses and you could take the head of the horse off and put the bodies of the figure on there, so it was kind of like a centaur. Oh, that's so cool. They didn't really match the rest of the Micronauts, but whatever, Migo created some of their own figures called the Insectoids, which were weird looking, insecty creatures that looked nothing like the other figures.

And I never had any of those, And when I look at it now, it's like those aren't in place with the rest of the line at all. I guess instead of starting a whole nother line, you might as well just insert them into one that you have the story. I may get some of this wrong. I think for Microman they were represented as two scale, so they were actually supposed to be three and three quarter inch. Oh, that's why it was called Microman.

That makes sense. In America they took it a step further, and I think this started with the comic book which Marvel licensed. They had them as microscopic figures, weren't actually to scale. They were oversized, so they were supposed to be infinitesimal you can only see with a microscope, and lived in this alternate world, and when they got forced into our world, they upscaled, but they only upscaled too three quarter inch scale. You know, it's kind of a little bit convoluted.

I kind of love that. That's fantastic, makes sense in a way, I guess. So there's still too scale as three and three quarter inch figures for me. When I was a kid, I know for sure I had a time traveler, so the basic little figure, and I believe I had him an orange, which I have replaced. I think back in twenty sixteen one of the things that I would search for online, and they were much more affordable to get then, especially loose that was probably fifteen dollars or something.

They're very delicate. I mean, this little guy is super skinny. The joints always break. I think I had him sitting on a shelf and he fell off, and I may have reattached the arm because it doesn't move anymore. If you can find them with their unbroken feet and hands, you know you're consider yourself lucky.

And the chrome is usually rubbed off the most. This one's actually in really good shape now that I look at them. The chrome is all there. I don't think somebody rechromed this, but it's possible it's factory made. So I got that little guy, and then I may have gotten him because of this or shortly thereafter.

Hasbro, who has the license now, released a special set for Comic Con in twenty sixteen. I think I remember seeing that came in this huge box. Oh yeah, the Interchangeable World of the Micronauts Classic collection, and it came with three figures in this big box. And I forget the artist's name. I'll have my thought, insert that famous either comic illustrator or toy packaging illustrator instead of employing the AI chatbot.

This is Mark breaking in to make this correction and or addition. The artist was Ken Kelly, and this is important because he was the original artist for the Mego Micronauts line. He was also well known for his album artwork, including covers for Kiss and numerous other hard rock acts. He depicted Conan the Barbarian and Tarzan in print, and was one of the cover artists for horror magazines such as Creepy and Eerie. He was Frank Frizetta's nephew, his wife's nephew, and unfortunately he passed away in June of twenty twenty two.

So it came with Feroid, which is another one of the figures I had as a kid. I had the orange Pheroid. This comes with a blue one Galactic Warrior and Orbital Defender, although I don't think that was his name originally. Orbital Defender is amazing. Comes with this little hood.

He's got swords and guns and these little things that attach on his legs and arms. Pheroid comes in a sarcophagus, which I absolutely love. This is so cool. Little wing things on his legs he can hold and look like some kind of phaser or something comes in this. And I definitely remember having the orange one, and then because of that, so Cleo would have been This was seven years ago, so she would have been nine.

On Amazon, they still had Talko to re released Microman stuff over the years, and in the late nineties and the early two thousands and later two thousands, and I believe this is from ninety nine or maybe early two thousands. It's basically the same kind of figure, but it's the only female figure they made, and she's in a little Statue of Liberty case. Oh wow, this is Lady Command and she's got wings and everything like the other figures, but hers go on her back, so she looks like she can fly. In Japan. There were three other cases.

So one is the I'm not sure how to pronounce it, the Moi the Easter Island figures, so it looks like an Easter Island head. And then a Japanese dope goo which are those If you look it up, you'll recognize the little Japanese deity figure that's got these big round eyes. Oh yeah, kind of an oval head, and then the arms are crossed like this. So one of them came in a case like that, and like I said, they all you know, there were usually four versions for different colors, four different names. We didn't get any of that stuff over here.

And I just looked this up the one I got on Amazon for Cleo. Back then it was like sixteen or seventeen bucks, and if you try to find them now you're looking at fifty dollars even for the re release stuff. Wow, my days of collecting micronots or micromun are over. It's so funny how that shift happens. I've seen it go in waves, so maybe at some point they'll go back down in price.

I wonder what's causing the price to go up. I guess this was still pretty close to when those re releases happened. I mean, if you look on Amazon now, you're not even going to find these figures right right. I believe they had all the color variations for that Lady Command figure, and they probably had the Time Travelers and other the feroids and stuff as well. I just got that for her to go along with the ones I had.

The line was immensely successful for Migo as well. I read in multiple places that it made up a third of their total profits. Oh wow, for the time that they were selling them. But they both died out. Both lines in Japan and in America pretty much died out in nineteen eighty two in America because Migo collapsed and went bankrupt, and in Japan it was just you know, changing tastes, so they would.

They made numerous changes over the years to the Microman line. I think it was an eighty three they changed the name to micro Change and the figures were little cassettes and other everyday items that you could transform into a different figure. You're getting where I'm going here. Oh yeah, So this micro Change line, along with another Japanese toy line by Takata called Diaclone, becames yep. Like I mentioned at the beginning, it's it's similar to the Transformer story.

I mean it comes from the same source basically, and the Shogun Warrior story where someone goes over there brings this over over here, but it actually started here with Gi Joe. That's the extra right oll circle aspect of these I forgot to mention. I also think I had the baddy of the original micront line. I always want to pronounce it acro Year because that's how it's spelled, but it's a Kroyer. He was one of the Microns figures that was actually kind of transformable.

You can't transform the Ferroid at the time traveler, but he came with wings and these spinny wheels, and his feet were like roller skates, and you could pop those things off and reconstruct him so that he was almost like a vehicle. Oh that's I remember having that one as well. None of those toys survived unfortunately. Actually, I'm sure most of them broke when I had them. As a kid, they're o ring oh yeah, assembled, so those things always break.

And I've been watching toy Ploi on YouTube. Oh god, I love toy Poloi, and he has fixed a lot of Microman and or micro figures. They actually went to the UK via Migo, but they also had some of the early Cyborg the hinchin Cyborg things, the smaller figure they had those imported from somebody else. We never got the Cyborg figures here in the States. Those are also very expensive and have been re released over the years, but they're really cool.

So I went down that toy Poloi rabbit hole. But also, like you mentioned, just looking at accounts on Instagram that collect the Microman figures, and if you see a group of them together, even the solid figures. Forget the translucent ones, but there's like solid yellow and red and blue, and they're amazing looking together in collections. I don't know how many sets or series they made, but look them up on Instagram or look up Microman commercials on YouTube, and their commercials are amazing too. They could kind of fudge things.

They utilize stop motion and all that and make it it's not a kid going hey like a shoot a rocket. They make the thing do all the stuff it can do, which here you'd probably get in trouble for because you're misrepresenting the toy kind of it can't actually fly through the air, so you can't show that. So they've got them flying and shooting all these lasers and blasting stuff and drilling holes in a mountain and that's so cool. They're amazing. And that's the music, by the way, that we'll be opening the show as from All yourss and it fucking rocks hard man.

Yeah, you sent me that and I was like, this is the this is one of the greatest things I've heard all year. It's like amazing prog rock. Yeah, yeah, inspiring. In fact, these are fantastic because I'd heard about micronauts and I'd seen images in the past, but it never really struck a chord with me. Now that you've planted that seed, these are so cool.

They're gorgeous little figures. They're gorgeous figures. Yeah, exactly, And what a brilliant concept and weird design choices. I love that stuff. I love that stuff.

They've all got like little seventies hairdoos. It's so cool. It's great, especially this feroid. He's got this almost mullet hair, it's kind of slipped back, and just the chrome faces and all that. It's just they're really really attractive figures, and the vehicles are really cool too.

I saw toy ployd fix a Hi did he fix a hydrocopter? That was one of the toys that Migo had in it. Again, interchangeable so you could construct it into a variety of toys. But it was a helicopter that you know, actually worked, but then it could go on the water and would move in the water. That's so cool.

But battery some of them had batteries. Some of them were like wind up toys. Yeah. Some of the cars were the pullback cars and really cool stuff. I love it.

How are you surviving with this itch? Are you investigating a few of them on eBay? Yeah? I have one that I've saved. I guess I've been waiting for like an offer, and they have come from either of these two.

The only one I'm really hoping to get is the Easter Island version of this in a solid red. It would have to be a reissue. How about a career Yeah, that figure doesn't really appeal to me anymore. It's really those like some of the ones I sent you, where it's just a guy in a colorful suit, and maybe some of them had stickers, and they almost all generally have some kind of chess plate. But it's really just the color and the design of them that's appealing.

Most of that stuff on eBay is one hundred and twenty dollars or more. Yeahoza, there ain't no way I'm doing that. No, We're a little piece of plastic. And that's why I look at some of the guys that I follow out on Instagram that are taking pictures of four figures from the same series. Yeah, but they have dozens and dozens of those pictures of different series, and I realize that they're in Japan and they're much more maybe not affordable, but available there in all of their vintage toy places.

But I'm thinking, how much are you spending just on that one picture of four figures together. I don't got that kind of money, no, And that's the thing. When you start following collectors on Instagram or wherever, YouTube even and looking at their collections, it's pretty apparent the amount of money they're spending on things, and that can be shocking when you start calculating some of the prices and comparing it to stuff on eBay. But you know, those are dedicated collectors, and I'm sure they're partitioning off funds and sacrificing other expenses. It's an interesting decision to make.

They may be quite affordable there. I don't know one of the toy ploy videos he mentioned getting some figures from somebody. I mean, he goes to Tokyo and buys toys, but I think he got a few in trades or something. And I don't know how old the videos were. They may have been five or six or more years old.

I know at one point when he converted the yen to pounds, I want to say, he said six pounds and not sixty. I rewinded it a couple times, and I'm like, did he say six pounds because that's onbably like twelve bucks for a fa right, that's really cheap. I believe that's what he said, And some of the other ones were not much more than that. Like I said, I don't know how old that video was, but I'm sure if you're there, they may be a Diamo dozm right not here, though, I'm really intrigued by what is so appealing about vacmetal chrome action figures, and these are a good example of how that works so successfully. And I just think, like the first time I saw a non vackmetal C three PO, so that would be like ninety seven.

I think when they came out with just sort of the gold plastic CE three PO and the penel of the forest line, I just remember feeling a sincere disappointment that kind of paint application or whatever process they use to create the sort of the metal illusion is something that really is awesome, and when it's used, it's so special. There's a lot of controversy about Super seven making their version of silver Hawks, and silver Hawks was a big mid eighties popular toy line that all those figures were backmetal, and they came out with non back metal silver Hawks, and I think that if anyone were to redo this line, they'd have to go with the back metal because it looks so good against that translucent right color.

Yeah, it's esthetically very very pleasing. I think all of the heads on all of the different series of Microman figures are chromed heads. I want to say all of them are. That's so cool. I mean Hasbro's got the license and obviously maybe this set didn't sell all that Well, that was seven years ago and I don't think that they've released anything since then.

Well, I hope they do something with it, because that would be great to see how they move that into the contemporary toy market, what changes they'd make to it. Maybe they'll be six inch figures, I don't know. It'd be really cool to see what they do. I hope they do something. They probably won't.

They've talked about doing a movie and TV shows and all that, and they've never panned out. Yeah, I think it would be wildly different from not only the original Micromansters, but even from micro Nots themselves. Yeah, but who knows. They've got a bunch of other toy properties set up to be made into movies. So Yeah, as all the Masters of the Universe fans are crying into their pillows because no movie can ever seem to get off the ground.

With the Barbie movie being so successful, you never know. I feel like we might move into a new era. I could see the success of comic book movies transitioning over to a good run of successful toy movies. They just have to have the right people involved, and well Mattel has a bunch planned. It's true of some questionable properties.

I might add, is that going to be a movie? But whatever. This is the world of the Micronotes. A Kroyer, the Enemy, and the Micronauts Space Warriors, all sold separately. Space Gliders, Galactic Warrior, Time Traveler made to fit the Micronot vehicles.

Like a photon swim. You can stage make believe battles against a Kroyer. Like all Micronauts, Kroyer has interchangeable parts so you can create your own toys. Micronauts made of plastic and die cast metal, each sold separately by Mego. Speaking of forthcoming movies, the next thing I'm about to talk about.

In doing my research, I found out that there were some could potentially be some forthcoming projects from studios, but I doubt that they'll actually come to fruition. There is no good transition from what you're talking about to what I'm about to talk about. There's no similarity here today, no similarity. Although I did see that there is an action figure of Vampire available now through Tony Terrors, which is very cool. Well, and doesn't Super seven have one?

Oh? Yes, Super seven has a reaction one that's right. So that means I'm hoping that this sort of resurgence of interest in a personality like Vampire's might lead to some other things in regard to what I'm about to talk about. So, Ronnie, what's your big item for episode ten? Ten?

Can you believe it? This is airing in November, So right now I'm in the midst of my seasonal monster movie excitement that never really leaves me, but I love the season for horror movies and horror icons, and it just so happens that it's also Bela Lugosi's birthday, October twentieth, which just passed. Every once in a while, I return to ed Wood my b read. Can your heart stand the shocking facts about Great Robbers robot us Base? Ever since the movie came out, the Tim Burton movie came out in nineteen ninety four, I have a deep appreciation for this guy's body of work to a certain extent, and I'll get into that in a little bit such as it is.

Every once in a while, I'll get back into it. And what always triggers this is rewatching Bela Lugosi's Dracula and sometimes if I catch it, or if I search it up online watching White Zombie, then I start thinking about Edwood again. When I saw the movie in ninety four, I knew what Planned nine from Outer Space was. I do know that, and somehow, and I can't remember the exact parameters of this, but probably my dad, because I went to see the movie with him, and he had the Cult Movie book or the Midnight Movie Book, and Plan nine from Outer Space was in there, as well as all the other Edwood movies. But for some reason, I think it was seeing the Tor Johnson rubber mask in Starlog and Fangoria magazines.

I recognized that as something that was familiar because I believe it was Tor Johnson's face in the image in that Midnight Movies book. Probably it's so iconic, and so when the movie was announced, my dad and I sort of bonded on that and went to go see it, probably right away, right when it came out, because when we went to see it, there were quite a few people in the movie theater walking into that. I immediately thought, really, yeah, this is interesting, Like I didn't realize that there was such a sign significant audience for this stuff. I just thought it was something that I appreciate it, especially for a black and white film. Yeah, black and white film, regardless of the content, or even Johnny Depp being a pretty big name.

Yeah, I'm going to a theater. It was festival cinemas, back when festival cinemas existed over there. It's a car dealership now or used car dealership or something. Yep. Saw many movies there me too.

I saw Godfather three there and what a grand disappointment that was. Went to go see it and, you know, surprised that there was such a huge crowd of Fresno people interested in seeing this movie. It was a blast. It was a great movie, and it was the first time I'd seen a Tim Burton movie without a Danny Elfman soundtrack and without the extreme, extreme Burton sort of esthetic. He gets to showcase that in the spook House ride through right that he goes on, but few Burton esque creatures pop out of there.

He got to do his whole Burton thing there. I felt a deep level of respect for what Burton was doing with this story. I was actually is one of my first moments of found out about the movie. So I started to do a bunch of research on ed Wood and his movies, and I watched Plan nine from Outer Space before the movie came out, and I was genuinely getting worried about Burton being too heavy handed with it, And then when I saw the movie, I was really impressed. You and I were texting about this, and you made the joke his last great effort or something like that.

Yeah, And I wrote back and I said, for both Depp and Burton, and you said, exactly, that was the joke, which is am I talking about? Yeah, exactly exactly. I still feel that way. I mean, Depp has done some interesting things since then, and Burton has done a few interesting things since then. I don't want to discount everything that they've done after that, but I feel like that was, like it still is, sort of the peak of their work together.

Sleepy Hollow is a good time, But yeah, it's not an ed Wood. I really do think it's his last great movie because it's not that rampant Burton style combined with CGI the Willy Wonka movie is. Oh, I can't I can't even I can't even do that if we ever. I mean, I'm sure Burton will come up in conversation again in the future because I've went through a very deep obsessed stage from when Beetlejuice came out, and I've already talked about him with the Batman eighty nine movie, when CGI entered Burton's realm, I feel like, even though I love Mars Attacks, it does not serve his movies well the CGI aspect and Mars Attacks is a good one with so much of that CGI it just I accept it, but it's sort of a hard pill to swallow.

And you're right, it feels the Edwood movie feels like an Edwood movie in that there's a lot of and I'm going to say this, and I know that there's some people out there that might feel differently about this, but Edwood's movies are his earlier films. I have to be very careful about how I talk about this. His earlier films have a lot of love in them. There's a lot of passion. There's a lot of love in his urgency to be a filmmaker and to be the next Orson Wells.

There's a lot of passion behind these movies. I feel like Burton emulated that successfully, whether he felt that kind of passion or not. About the Edwood story, I kind of feel like he did. And does that really translates quite well. The connection for me is they both have a lot of heart.

Those early Edward and his Edwood movie have a lot of heart. Sugar coated the Edwood movie, the Burton movie. Oh yes, sugarcoated. We don't get into his troubles. It stops before it enters the dark territory.

Yeah, but I still think he even had some troubles early on too. It's a goofy Edwood that's just all smiles and full of heart. Yeah, it makes sense because that's how he was approaching his films. So yes. In fact, I in rewatching because I rewatched it in preparation for today's recording, and I'm realizing there are layers of sadness and hints at the alcoholism Baila Lugosi's journey with addiction in the movie.

All serve to sort of tell the true story of Edward while emphasizing the camp that is sort of the frosting on the cake. I realized that the sadness of Bunny Breckenridge too, that character played by Bill Murray, and his disapp pointing journey as well, It's all there in the movie. In rewatching, it when you watch it the first time, or the second time, or the third time, even you might just be focusing on the camp. All the hints are there that showcase, showcase is not the right word that educate us about the demise to come and the demise of the folks involved. And what happened to me in my relationship with this sort of story was that I realized this is after I'd sort of gone through my horror movie obsession and interest in special effects, makeup and all that stuff, but right in the middle of my feelings of excitement regarding the process of filmmaking and art making.

It really struck a chord for me in this particular way, and that is there's a scene in the movie, in the Edward movie where he's visiting his friend on the studio a lot who is the archivist of found footage or footage that is discarded. So the discards and how ed Wood would take those discards and use them later on, has transitions between scenes as explanations padding the padding to bring in military scenes, to bring in atomic blasts underwater. So you're talking about this stock footage. Stock footage is the word the phrase I was looking for, Yes, Yeah. The act of using that not as the way that depth portrays the Edward character in that particular scene.

It's not like, oh, yeah, that's something that I can use as a sort of last resort. It's an excitement to use it. Yeah, Like, oh, I can already see a whole movie around this stock footage of buffalo and an octopus under the water. Right. That really resonated with me, and why I do feel that his early movies do have a lot of heart.

They come from a place of I'm gonna fuck and do this no matter what, without any money or scrounge up the change I can find, get the stuff out of the trash, so to speak, and make this thing. As you're saying that, I'm thinking it's that cart before the horse mentality that still gets used mostly by low budget yeah studios or producers or whatever where And I'm thinking of stuff in particular New World Pictures or oh, what's the company that Charles banned? But they would create a poster yes, yeah, yeah, and sell that yep, and then have to make the movie. It's much the same as where oh, here's some stock footage of an octopus that was shot for a nature documentary. I can write a scene around that and even makes me think of David Lynch.

His big thing is catching fish. You catch these ideas an ear in a field, a guy spying on a woman in a closet. Oh, those two ideas become blue velvet. I think where he takes those ideas maybe lead to a little more interesting places than the octopus did for ed Wood. But it's the same idea and people still do stuff like that.

It's true. I mean, I mean the artist who has an open mind to that happenstance and then uses that mentioning Lynch again, the legendary story of the guy working on the set of Twin Peaks and is peeking from behind the bed and there's there is Bob Right Lynch being willing to use that element, that happenstance moment to create a plot point in the movie. The willingness to use the situation as it presents itself to your creative advantage is something that really resonated me about the work of it would and made me appreciate helped me understand why Timberton would make a movie about this guy. There is a whole other side to Edwood that I feel is deeply sad, and that is how he felt misunderstood, and I, as a high school kid, I felt misunderstood, so I resonated with me.

We have very different stories, but the fact that he was kind of a figure out of place, out of time, and I think that if he existed today, he would probably feel a little more included or welcome based on his feelings of needing to wear women's clothing and wanting to explore that side of himself and feeling very excluded from and putting an air quote society or you can say, quote unquote, oh yeah, quote unquote again as you're saying that, it's bringing another person into my head who had a two people that had oddball troops around them, who made a name for themselves in out places. John Waters, Andy Warhol, oh total factory. Absolutely, Yet they converted it into something else. They converted those outlier feelings and outlier people into a successful, well, yeah, avant garde massive thing.

Maybe not so massive for John Wallers when he's making pink flamingos with these people, but he's had a long sustained career and oh yeah, Andy Warhol was the it guy for years and years and years based on kind of the same feelings and surrounding himself with the same kind of people who society was rejecting, and also using appropriating from the world around them to create these things this art. That's why I feel like ed would it's sad to me that he was born in nineteen twenty four. If he had been born at a later time, perhaps he would have had a different experience. When we think about Andy Warhol, you know, in his life span, and we think about Edward and his lifespan, we're talking for Edwood nineteen twenty four to nineteen seventy eight, that's not too far off from Warhol's lifespan.

And that's where I feel like it really tells a lot about our societal perception of gender identity and expression through art and sexuality that has changed so much in such a short amount of time. And John Waters wouldn't probably, and he might agree with this, that he exists in part because of Edwood and that territory was explored by Edwood previous to John Waters jumping in. It's a sad story, but it's also an exciting story too that I feel like, thank goodness for people like Edwin. There are more. You know, we could go into the whole Roger Corman thing too.

There are people out there that were pushing the boundaries and we're taking chances. We're making be movies because they just Roger Corman, probably more so than Ed would wanted the money, but the creative act, being the driving force behind all that stuff. Plan nine from Outer Space, even though it's voted the worst film of all time, I feel that label needs to have a subtitle, and that is the worst film of all time, but also one of the most heartfelt films of all time. You feel in that movie a sense of love for Bayla Lugosi, a love for science fiction, and a love for ghouls and ghosts and cemeteries, and even just a love for doing the thing exactly he loved making movies. Now, you could argue that all of those other people that were grouping with them, Waters, Warhol and Corman maybe had a touch more talent than Ed would.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. That may be the only difference. That is exactly a success on his ultimate failure. I mean, he never succeeded on the thing that he was so determined to do. And it's interesting when I think about talent as a person who makes things I think about.

I look back on my body of work and I see things that are hit and miss. And I'm sure John Waters looks back on his body work and he sees things that are hit and miss. And I'm not comparing myself to John Waters in any way, shape or form, because the guy's a master. But I do know that talent is a difficult thing to pinpoint because what might work for one might not work for another. And I'm talking about the person preceding it or the audience that's engaged with it.

Someone looks at a Jackson Pollock and might think their kid can make that painting. And someone looks at at Jackson Pollock and has a revelatory spiritual experience. How do we define talent? It gets really complicated. Edward's talent, if he had one, was to identify an idea within the materials at hand and then execute it with balls.

Glenn or Glenda is a spectacular movie because it's so gutsy and super weird and disjointed. I'm going to tell you this story using only these five elements like you have, and that's an admirable choice to make. And maybe the talent isn't in the quality or the execution, but in the guts to do it with the materials at hand. I think about his journey a lot. I don't want to spend too much time talking about his later years, because he spiraled into alcoholism and pornography and pornography and couldn't escape that kind of trap.

That's the saddest part that the only way he could make money was by or survive was to do what he was There's no way to really justify it. You just made bad decisions. That is the sort of It's the sadness of Bela Lugosi's journey too. People make these decisions and they go down a path. You can blame the world, but really it comes down to that person making the bad decision themselves and then living with those decisions.

I don't want to get depressing there, but you know, when you think back at those early films, on those early films, there's some exciting stuff there. Right of The Monster and Plan nine from Out of Space are two of my favorite movies because of their uniqueness. And that's a generous word, but there's a lot of heart in those movies. I will say this because you mentioned Plan nine way back. I don't remember what we were talking about, that idea that being the worst movie.

I've seen much worse movies. I've seen much worse movies by Edwood himself. Oh yeah, dead as a slog. Oh it's horrible. It's impossible to get through, at least Plan nine.

It might put you to sleep, but you're, you know, when you wake up from your brief nap, interested in what you're seeing. I always think of the scene in Burton's ed Wood where he's constructed the cockpit as sort of the barometer for successful low budget movies versus unsuccessful low budget movies. I just watched a movie and talked about it for an episode of The Projection Booth called Walking the Edge with Robert Forrester. Low budget movie made in the eighties, so definitely more budget than ed Whatever saw in his life. But at one point, Robert Forrester is walking through a club and there's people doing the tango on this little stage and the wall behind them is obviously sheet rock.

Knowing what you were going to be talking about this episode and watching that fairly recently, it just made me think of the cockpit set in that movie and how some people like Roger Corman hiring really talented people on a shoe string budget, where you can construct sets out of styrofoam fast food packaging and make it look convincing, or you can construct a cockpit that doesn't resemble a cockpit in the least bit, like ed would did. I mentioned Lynch with the eraser head and how all those sets were constructed on money from a newspaper route, But you can't convince me that that's not Henry's studio apartment. I don't watch that movie and go that was constructed on this mansion in Beverly Hills and the stables there obviously constructed on zero budget, but there's just something a little bit more there than that cockpit set or the use of stock footage saying that that makes edwards stuff worse.

It's just I think for the time, that's the difference. Like people recognize that maybe more than they would something that was constructed in much the same way for the same kind of budget, but had that level of talent for artistry to make it to fool you, to fool you into thinking it's the cockpit of a plane. I think what hindered Edward's talent was impatience, the need to just get it done, as opposed to caring about how the scene was lit. Right. I mean, you can have some drywall, some sheet rock and a couple of chairs and a framed picture and it will look like an office or it all depends on how you light it and how much time you take to pay attention to how it's going to look on film.

That's the difference. I think Lynch can make anything look good. Here's an example. The third season of twin Peaks, the charcoal Abraham Lincoln character that is wandering through I forget which episode, maybe it's a couple of episodes, episode episode eight. Anyone else without the Lynch eye would film that and it would just look like a dude wearing a bunch of charcoal makeup and looking lame, and it would just not work.

But because he spends so much time with the lighting, with the details, with the sound, with the framing of the scene, it doesn't look like a guy in a costume. It has this otherworldly feeling. That's just one example. You could take all the atrocious CGI in that season of but then and I think that's a case of I don't know if it's on purpose or not, or if it was a budget thing. But then on that same episode eight, that atomic bomb explosion, Oh yeah, is masterful.

It's beautiful CGI. You can just watch that on a loop and have like it's like looking at great art that affects you and in a particular way because that was important to the story that that looked good. So I don't know if all the CGI budget went to that one scene or if the other stuff is bad on purpose. You're watching a TV show. This is a construct.

Who cares what Matthew Lillard's blown off head looks like? Because it looks bad. There's no getting around it. There is some bad CGI season. CGI is really the worst, isn't it.

It really screws things up sometimes. And that also might be the commentary. You know, this is CGI. Why make it look good? You know, I don't know why it's bad, But there is some awful CGI in that third season of Twin Peaks, And it's funny because I feel like it's one of the best things he's done.

Oh yeah, And you know, you might be onto something and maybe it is here we are talking about Lynch. Maybe it is something he's conscientious of and doing on purpose. Try to get him to talk about it. That's not gonna happen. No, No, The Razorhead is my most spiritual film.

Elaborate on that. No, No, God, I love Java Lynch because of ed Wood and because Tim Burton made that movie. I spent many years after that really spending a lot of time with B movies. I explored most of Roger Gorman's early films. I tried to watch all of Edward's movies.

I'll always have an appreciation for a good B movie with a lot of heart because of Tim Burton inadvertently getting me interested in Edwood and his body of work. And I'll always have respect for the artist that is honest and puts a lot of heart into their work, even if it doesn't quite have the talent quote unquote talent that we expect from what we deem as high art or something that's esthetically pleasing. I'd much rather watch Covin than the Twilight Movie any day. Remember Covin. I follow that guy on Twitter.

Yeah, he's an interesting guy. It just makes me laugh that he chose to pronounce it as Covin. That's how he pronounced it. That all part of that movie is is great I just love that you say oven or oven. He's like, so that's the kind of true to oneself attitude that I appreciate.

It is not coven. It is covin, because that's how he says it. Yeah, it's not pronounced any other way in his world. If anybody's not familiar with what we're talking about, check out American Movie. Yes, it is a documentary about the making of a low budget film called Covin.

That's right, or covenant to pronounce it correctly, and it's an absolut delight of a film it is. It's a great documentary. And watch it with the commentary too, Watch it one straight through and then watch with the commentary, because it's a whole other experience. Yes, it's like meta meta meta. That's another thing too.

If ed Wood were around today, if he were around during the era, not today, but during the era of commentary, when DVDs were first being released and special features were suddenly becoming a big draw for people to buy a movie, if he had been around to provide those commentaries, that would have been really interesting to hear his perspective on things, because again, we're just sort of interpreting. And if he were in a state where he was capable of making commentaries. I think he would have to have been in a different Yeah, I have to pair that with the hope that he would go through some sort of recovery stage. But that just didn't happen. You see, you see your stupid minds.

Stupid stupid. That's my obsession for this episode. But I do know that we have both chosen some local locales to discuss. So what did you pick mark for this portion of our program today? Well, I picked this one not because it's near and dear to both of us separately and together, but because of another place it I'll probably bring up on a different episode.

Carlita and Cleo went to see the Taylor Swift film, Oh, a couple of weekends ago, maybe it was last weekend. So I was on my own that evening, and I went to a local place, different local place, and bought myself an individual chicken pot pie for that inspired Carlita to order Costco's chicken pot pie the next day, which is gigantic, and we between the three of us have for two nights because it's so huge. So I inspired her to do that. I inspired myself to think, Hey, wait a minute, I need to add this location to my list Grammars Chicken Pie Shop. Oh my gosh, thank goodness, thank goodness, you chose this because well, first, I'm surprised I didn't think of it.

I was like, I wonder if we're going to pick the same thing today, and I'm glad that we didn't. I'm so glad you chose it because you and I have a very wonderful relationship with this particular restaurant quote unquote restaurant more of an iconic staple of the Fresno area that is no longer around. Yep. So sad it's gone, but take it away. I didn't do any research or anything just to find out when it started, and that was in nineteen fifty six, so it lasted four sixty three years.

They closed in twenty nineteen. Yep. I don't think I actually went there though, until I lived in the Tower district in mid nineties, and I think that, if I were to tally it up, I went there the most with you. Yeah, me too. I don't know that the first time I went there was with you or not, probably predated us meeting.

I think I always just assumed it was a dump, and that it probably didn't have very good food. Even back then, the exterior was not ever really well kept all that much. There was always a part of the original sign that was missing. And you know, the Tower District can be sketchy. Not that it doesn't have good eating establishments.

It always has. Once I did though, I had the thought, boy, I should have come here much sooner. And it was usually for breakfast. It was one of those hangover cure establishments where you could get a big, old, greasy plate of breakfast food to get your energy back, settle your stomach. Although I guess for some people that might not settle your stomach.

But it was mostly a breakfast place, and I know that early on I would get one of the egg platters, you know, two eggs over medium hash browns. I think I started off getting a linguisa because they had it as an option, and I love linguisa. Oh yeah. I always got linguisa and eggs from there. Always always a side of biscuits and gravy.

Yeah, Why would you get toast if you can get biscuits and gravy for the same price, Why would you get toast on board? With you there and a cup of Endless Coffee. We're going to talk about their gravy and just a little bit. You brought up the chicken pot pies is what they were known for. They were delicious, but they took me a back visually because of the fluorescent yellow gravy gravy that they used that they did not use on their biscuits.

It was a different although you probably could use that gravy on biscuits and green, but that's biscus and gravy is generally a sausage gravy. Yes, that's just what they did. Yeah, what's really fantastic about that restaurant. What was fantastic and what kept us going back was not only the reliability of a greasy breakfast, but also the interiors never changed. Yeah, they never updated the old vinyl seats.

They never updated the wall decorations, which was apparent by the layers of dust on it. Absolutely, they didn't really clean anything above the floor, so and there was very high ceilings and the ceiling other than the tables, I mean they cleaned the well, yeah, of course, I guess anything above the seats. How about that, anything above the tops of the seats. But the floors were always polished and clean, even though the tile was ancient. Yeah, I was an old place, so it looked probably dirtier than it actually was, just from years of foot traffic absolutely rubbing the countertops.

And it was just an open space and like you said, large ceilings so you could see the kitchen. It had a horseshoe bar type area where people, you know, the old guys, would sit a bunch of booths, few tables, generally would set it a booth green two shades of green or green and brown embroidered vinyl booth seating. The logo inside was the same as outside, and it was again missing letters, and I think a piece of the chickens back feathers were broken off, and how do you replace that stuff. Over the years, multiple times would threaten to close and would always get resurrected and or somebody would buy it up and keep it open. And I think that was the hope for this last bid, and it just didn't happen.

Yeah, we went there a lot before and after you left, you know, either to La or New York, would meet there. When we started hanging out and doing the movie watching and all that stuff. I don't think I had a chicken pot pie until just a few years, probably before they closed. I would always get the breakfast stuff. Yeah, and I only had it I think twice.

Yeah, I only had it a couple times too. It was good. Yeah, but I usually got breakfast. I know, my mom would go when some of our family from Oregon came. They would go and buy their biscuits for dinners and they were delicious too.

Well, we had those with the breakfasts. Yes, always breakfast, or ninety percent of the time breakfast. Even though they were known for it, it was always that for me. It was always the sort of like looking at it and thinking, that doesn't really look that appetizing, but there must be some magic there, and there was. Yeah, they were good.

They were good. Then they were legendary. I'm going to go back a little bit too. Part of the legend of this place too for me because I went there once as a kid with family, but didn't go until I started going there with you. So there was this long period of time that I didn't indulge.

When I was in high school and I was discovering poetry covering Charles Bukowski, but I was also discovering the Central Valley poets. Junior in high school. Senior in high school really dove in deep with the work of Philip Levine and some other people that Chuck Molten and Luis omar Selena's used to hang out in the Tower district. So seeing them was like seeing for those of you that have no idea who I'm talking about, those two were local, pretty special local poets. And then Philip Levine went on to become a poet Laureate of the United States, but he was also sort of the voice of the Central Valley, but also Detroit where he grew up.

So Detroit and the Central Valley. I would hear stories of them all hanging out of the Chicken Pie shop at those U shaped booths and talking about poetry. For a kid who's just coming off of the discovering who the beat Nicks were and discovering Charles Mkowski and Pablo ne Ruta and the exciting world of poets, I was just super intrigued. It's a little sad to me when I think about places that are designated as of historical significance in the Central Valley and how that place just sort of disappeared. It was an exciting and unique place David Lynch would have definitely put it in a movie if he knew about it.

It could have played Winkies in Mulholland Drive. Oh my gosh, yes, absolutely. In fact, the dumpster person was constantly behind the chicken pie shot. Yes, there was a creepy little back area between that and the post office. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, I hated walking by at night. Oh goodness, gracious. Yeah, those areas are still like that. Oh yeah, very cool. I hope that I never see that face outside of a dream.

The place I chose has less of a significance in that kind of way, but more of a It was more of a mystery to me as a kid, and that is because we didn't go there. That is Blackbeard's Family Fun Center or Family Entertainment Center as it's called now. I didn't end up going to Blackbeards until much later on in my twenties to play miniature golf. I don't know if you ever went with me. Did we go?

I don't think so. I only went like twice, but when I was a kid, so that's the least important part. I will always have a deep love and appreciation for miniature golf courses because I love constructed facades and miniaturized environments, and I just love the idea of miniature golf. Blackbeard's Family Fund Center was an arcade. It was a miniature golf course.

They had like bumper cars. They still have these things, bumper cars and mini race cars and a batting cage, and they were known mainly for the miniature golf but also for their water slides. I've never gone on the water slides there, but when I was a kid, my stepsisters told me about their experience going to Blackbeards and going on the water slides, and they described their experience as sliding down the slide into a They described it as like a cave. Inside the cave under the water where the water slide lets you out and you splashed into the water. Underneath the water at the bottom of the pool was Blackbeard.

I had this image in my head growing up that this was this Pirates of the Caribbean type of experience right here in Fresno, and wasn't until later on when I investigated images that I saw that it's just a painting of the Blackbeard's logo at the bottom of this dinky little pool. I was deeply fascinated by it. You could drive by it in going into Clovis. I would drive by it when I was working at the movie theater out there in Clovis. Every time I would drive out to work, I'd drive by and I would just be fascinated by the goings on in there.

It's sort of fallen apart, I guess over the years. I don't know what it's like now, but I've been wanting to go back and play mini golf with the family, but I'm hesitant to do so because I'm not sure exactly if it's if it's great anymore. The times that I've been there to play mini golf, it's very cool. It's one of those strange places that's still around. Don't look up.

I learned that you shouldn't look up the opening date online because apparently, according to the only information I could find online is that it opened in nineteen fourteen. I highly doubt it. Seems more logically that's a typo, and then maybe it was nineteen seventy four. That sounds right to me, because it definitely has the arcade has a seventies feel. Yeah, you know, mini golf I think probably started in the fifties in America and sort of died off after in the eighties.

I don't know the history of mini golf in America, but maybe I should learn that because it's super interesting. Well, maybe don't present things as facts on here that you don't actually know exactly. It could have started in the thirties eighteen hundreds, now that's interesting. Yeah, that would be very cool if it did. I do have fondness for Blackbeard's Family Fun Center because of that those years spent imagining it to be a greater place than it really was.

Well, I can tell you I went there numerous times as a kid. Much like Pizza and Pipes, it was where you had your birthday. Yes, I probably had one there myself. I don't know, but I know I went dozens of times. I don't think I ever went on their water slides.

I know I played in the arcade. I know I played miniature golf, and I think I might have done the bumper cars. As I've mentioned on the show before, video games were not really my thing, so I spent most of my time playing air hockey. Oh yeah, nice, which I was capable of doing fairly decently. Were you a pinball guy?

Uh, not really, but more so than video games. Was a little more adept at that than video games. Was never good at video games, and it seemed like a waste of money to me do something that you're not very good at. I was never good at video games either. I love pinball because it's that same thing that miniature golf has, which is miniaturized environment that you're interacting with, and it's all three dimensional, and it's built by somebody.

Our mutual friend Wade, he's an egg spurt pinball what do we call a pinball artist. He makes the wood for the well, what's the term. I want to say panels, but I'll just say panels for now. He makes those screen prints them and does the die cutting for you know, all the slots and stuff. He doesn't construct the machines themselves.

I don't believe. Yeah, if you have a pinball machiner and it needs to be refurbished, he's your guy. Amazing stuff. I just love seeing things that look like they were made by hand. Video games just don't have that appeal to me, but I can appreciate the artistry behind making those digital images interact with you.

That's what I chose for my locale for today's Blackbeards and for those of you that are traveling through the Fresno area. You can't go to Chicken Pie Shop anymore, but you can certainly stop off at Blackbeards. No, I can't guarantee you'll enjoy yourselves. I haven't been in decades. Yeah, so yeah, that's it.

Yes, Where can people find you? Mark? They can find me on social media at wake Up Heavy, on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, I don't post much on Facebook. Letterboxed if you want to see what I'm watching, and you can find this show and my other show, Wake Up Heavy on Wordingwaymedia dot com or at wakeupheavy dot com or listen wherever you get your podcasts. And I think that's about it.

I've got let's see, this is going to be out in November, so I should have a couple episodes out, one on the Chevy Chase Goldiehan film foul Play from nineteen seventy eight, and another on Bob Balaband's black comedy Arns, Oh my God, one of my favorites. I'm kind of doing a little cannibal theme here. I did a little short episode on Motel Hell recently and I love it. Parents is also about cannibals, and then this great German film called Der Fan from nineteen eighty two. Oh yeah, I think I'm gonna do a little spotlight episode on so that'll probably all be out in November.

Fantastic. I love it. Parents is one of my favorite dark comedies of all time. I rewatched it about two years ago and it is so good and it's me today with Cleo not so gosh, and Motel Hell is great too, Yeah, props to talking about that one. Not my favorite, but it's an interesting film with an interesting backstory, soy figured, Yeah, why not?

Why not talk about something I don't particularly like, for ones, instead of things I do like? Speaking of movies that are low budget but also lit really well. If I remember correctly, Motel Hell is spectacular looking. Look at Yeah, it's a good looking movie. You could find me under the Moniker E Sclevator on Instagram and on YouTube.

My artwork and stuff is on Instagram under Ronald Zuriggian Underscore Projects on YouTube. Do a show called toy Frenzy on Thursday evenings my buddies over there. We end up talking about Masters of the Universe pretty much every time, even though it's called toy Frenzy. That's a lot of fun. Not only should you check out our previous episodes if you're a first time listener, but definitely head over to Weirding Way and listen to all those podcasts because they are all fantastic, good stuff.

Sometimes on Sundays I do Weekly Weirdo and Mark has guested on there a couple of times, talk about a toy from the collection and my experience with that or my history with that particular toy. That's pretty much it. This was fun. Yeah, good stuff. I can't remember the outro we created last time.

I have it right here. I have it right here, say it, damn it. I wrote it down because I was like, I gotta this was so good. Mark came up with it. It's masterful.

Until we meet again in December, have fun, stay weird, and keep collecting. There you go, Thanks for listening. Mhmm. You see you see your stupid minds, stupid, stupid