Favorite Tales from the Crypt Episodes

[00:00:00] James Wood, Jackson, Running Man, Robert Duvall, Robert Dulles, Stalin, Joe Manchin, Lissy Spacey, African American, HBO Original Movies, Barbarians at the Games, Michael Caine, Holly, Huff, Citizen Cove. It could only happen here. HBO. Murder, madness, and mayhem. And that's just the fun part. It's another gory episode of Tales from the Crypt, next on HBO. Viewer discretion advised.

[00:00:27] Viewer warning. The following program contains material that may be too intense for some viewers. Parental discretion is advised. We loaded it. We edited it.

[00:00:50] Sometimes we get so deep into conversation that we have separate segments worthy of their own place in the sun. The reshuffled mini episode.

[00:01:19] What's funny is the second episode was the original pilot that got all the HBO Zeks to sign off on it, but I'm glad that they used the other episode as the pilot, which was Walter Hill featuring Bill Sadler as a death row inmate, realizing that the same crappy cop stuff he's done is going to happen to him in prison. What year was that? It was like 89. It was like the very first episode, but it's... Oh, okay, yeah. What is your guys' kind of favorite Crypt Keeper segments?

[00:01:51] I'll say, looking in retrospect, the first season, the voice and the puppetry isn't quite there yet. It seems to be like a few seconds behind, but overall, there's just so many different ones where he's chainsawing people to death. He's getting ready to hang himself in an earlier episode. He's just... Well, the one I love... The one I love is the one that Schwarzenegger did. Yeah, we were just talking about that off air, and much like the Tom Hanks ones and Michael J. Fox ones,

[00:02:20] they're just so funny how they, you know, they cameo both in the episode as well as just... It was a very fast shoot, and it just kind of gave it some more notoriety. Again, you don't know what kind of a demented movie of the week you're going to see, and I think the difference between this and Twilight Zone is just... The dark humor is just so unleashed. It is on steroids. My favorite one is the Schwarzenegger one, because that's the one where...

[00:02:47] It's like what they call a shaggy dog story. It's very meta, yeah. It's like... Ugly bodybuilder wanting to, you know, de-age himself. Yeah. No, no, what it is is that William Hickey is dying. Right, right. And Kelly Preston's in love with him. Yeah. So he wants to be younger for her, so what he does is he goes to this doctor. That's what it was. Because he enlisted his workout, pal. Yeah. Basically, I think, like, gives him a body part per cost.

[00:03:18] Yes. And, you know, at the end, he looks and says, oh, Kelly Preston's like, oh, I found somebody new, this guy Gunther. And he looks, that's the guy who switched the body parts with me. He's all rich now. I mean, that's what I love about that episode, you know. Absolutely. That's like my favorite episode. There's a lot of fun episodes that also sometimes feel like they can totally be expanded upon.

[00:03:44] I know the actor who played Short Round in Indiana Jones, he and some other kid actors were in this hysterical one where they're like a bunch of kids finding out that there's like a serial killer doctor who lives next door and they catch him on videotape. I don't remember that one. It's a fun one. I totally recommend Will Whedon and Kevin Dillon are in another one where it's like a frat boy hazing school. And of course, just as they're about to prank Will, they're all getting dispatched one by one. Oh, I remember that one.

[00:04:14] And it's so funny because after a while, he kind of becomes the demon-like guy. I love the one with Carol Kane as a witch who tempts an elite couple. And there's plenty of other ones. There's ones by Rowdy Harrington. There's ones by Jack Shoulder, The Hidden. There's many episodes by Russell Mulcahy and Stephen Hopkins. It's just so many future A-listers. Go ahead. The one I love is the one where Bess Armstrong and Christopher Reeve own a restaurant. There you go.

[00:04:45] He so played against character in that one. And just when he's at the cutting board, he's like, what is about to happen here? The one that got some Emmy attention was the one directed by Larry Saunders, director Todd Holland. And it had a bunch of troubled actors basically literally killing each other for the role of a lifetime. It had John Lovitz, Sondra Bernhardt, and Bruce Boxletner. Yeah, they're going for the role of Hamlet. And who are you going to play?

[00:05:15] What am I supposed to play? The part of Yorick, of course. Yes, absolutely, man. It's just not what he signed up for at all, but it is what it is. Did you ever see the one that had the cryptkeeper in the chef's wardrobe and the story focuses on Stephen Weber as a news reporter? Who finds out a killer is murdering the homeless? And.

[00:05:43] That was another one, but the one that really made me guffaw was the one where Hector Elizondo finds out is hiring a bunch of inept, privatized to spy on his supposedly cheating wife, and it leads to her downfall. I just love how Adam West is in the opening. He's like, yeah, frankly, you're shit out of luck. He's like, you're bothered. Then he hires Sam Waterston and is like, my dude, I have gone heaven and earth. Your wife's fine. She's not cheating with anyone. I don't believe you. You're fired.

[00:06:14] The one that I think always cracked me up the most was the one with Malcolm McDowell playing a vampire. Yes. Yep. Blood banks run low on blood. So what he does is he like goes after like people. And also in the blood bank starts to have like, like they're having like, they can't keep it. They like there's so much blood. They can't keep it. Yes. Oh my God. George went, he, George went to like, I'm onto you and I know what you're doing.

[00:06:41] And Malcolm McDowell's like, what? I'm not, you know, he's the night, he's the night manager. And why do you do? He's the night watchman. Oh man. It's a very twisted one. There was one that was written by Andrew Kevin Walker of seven fame that had Martin Sheen in like three different roles with a bunch of magicians.

[00:07:10] That was actually had made me think of the fact that you brought up William Sadler earlier. Yeah. Billy Zane is the magician in that. Absolutely. And they later go on to be in Demon Knight. Yeah. Yeah. Which coincidentally also has my cousin is in that. No way. Speak of the devil. Her name's Rita. Rita BB. Hey, Rita. That had to be a fun day on set.

[00:07:38] But it's also all these pulp tells give you just some very unusual look at kind of carny what life. I mean, there's one Richard Donner held with Joe Pantoliano as a magician with nine lives. There was another one where Ernie Hudson is like a psychic clown character. And again, he's literally psychologically torturing his Asian wife. And there's a bunch of gorilla and fire effects. I love the one with Bill Paxton and his mentally handicapped brother Brad Dourif as Criminal Brothers.

[00:08:08] I never saw that one. Yeah. It's so crazy. And they're led astray by an ice cream puppeteer. That had to be a really tight production. To be honest. It really was. You had to know your stuff. The producers were really awesome at letting the guys have as much freedom as they want. But if nothing had been filmed for three hours, that's when they would come over. The hardest one to do apparently was the one Toby Hooper did with Vanity and James Remar. I'm sure I remember that one. Yeah.

[00:08:37] And what's funny is Remar's talk kept getting in the shot. And you're like, yeah, that's a little too much for even by HBO. But yeah, not to mention Harvey Hytel called in and complained. He said, that's too much dick. Madonna's dick. You might you guys might remember that's the one where Whoopi Goldberg is also in there. And at the end, she tells the Crypt Keeper shush. Oh, yeah. All right. She has her machete on.

[00:09:05] She's like, this like goes all Dr. Evil. I was like, shut up. The thing I think about when I think of that show is first off, the music. Is Danny Elfman. Right. Oh, great theme. There's so many. The Sierra Madre kind of tells of just, you know, people with greed, just getting the best of them. Yeah. Case in point with one of those is the one with Demi Moore and. Yep. Jeffrey Tambor as the abusive pig. Yeah.

[00:09:35] No, no. He's. I just mean he's a sexist pig. Yeah. She's disgusted by him. And I think something happens in the end where. He dies and she's blamed for some shit. I don't. Yeah. Yeah. Howie Dutch, who was Leah Thompson's husband, directed that one as well as the one Thompson was in as the streetwalker who. Who tries to make herself look more beautiful, but gets the opposite. Yeah.

[00:10:02] One I like that some of my friends don't like is the one where Timothy Dalton's at a resort and he finds out he's becoming a werewolf. Oh, wow. I personally. Did you guys never see the one with Roger Daltrey? No. Which one was that one? Yeah. So that that was by Gary Flutter. You might know a runaway jury and thanks to doing Brooklyn when you're dead. He did two episodes. And this one has Daltrey and company as a bunch of South American war photographers. And he gets in all over his head.

[00:10:31] You know, he's scamming all these guys. He's leaving the troops to their death. And he's sleeping with the other guy's girlfriend. And at the end, there's a great comeuppance where he gets his face melted off, like just torn off. And the Crypt Keeper also reenacts it at the end, which is almost reminds me of when whenever a crow or Tom Servo's head explodes on MST pre-K. It's just that same kind of just cartoonish violence. And there was one episode I wasn't crazy about, but at the end, it's worth it because they

[00:11:01] actually have the Crypt Keeper sawing Joel Silver in half with a chainsaw. Oh, wow. It was kind of their very meta is like, OK, you're going to be an asshole bossing us around. We're going to have you die on screen. The one that got me was the Bob Cap Goldthwaite one where he was. He yeah, with Don Rickles. Don Rickles. Yeah. Don Rickles. It's a total don't meet your heroes. Yeah. And you find out later that the puppet is really his.

[00:11:31] It's attached to him and causing him to kill people. It's his mouthworm twin. Oh, God. It gets so gross at the end, but it's it's a good episode. It's just it's a lot. Oh, did you? You guys ever see the one with. It was directed by Joel Silver, alum stuntman turn second unit director, Charles Percerny, and it has Morton Downey Jr. as a shock jock TV persona. Oh, yeah. Yes.

[00:12:01] And I said Morton Downey Jr. is surprisingly really good in that for a guy not known for being an actor. He looks legit. Like he explained to type. Yeah. Yeah. And I just love how you hate him the whole fucking episode. And then you're like, I actually don't want him to die. Well, he's going to get it. The one that got me was the one with Ed Beakley Jr. And Timothy. Tim Curry. Tim Curry. Yeah. Curry is in one. There's a bunch. He plays in an immigrant incestuous family or some shit like that. Yes.

[00:12:31] Yes. Yes. Yep. That one definitely made me pretty gross. But there's that one with Christopher Reeve and Bess Armstrong. Judd Nelson plays like this psychopathic killer. Yes. That's the one where they have. The guy who's harassing him is Meatloaf. So what he does is he kills Meatloaf. And they start serving parts of Meatloaf's body as the steak. Yes. Meatloaf. Yeah. Nobody gets the joke. Best served cold. Yeah.

[00:12:59] Nobody gets the joke. Meatloaf. I get it. Meatloaf. You love this in Rocky Horror as Eddie served at the dinner. Oh, man. That's wild. Going back to the Martin Andy Jr. episode for a moment. Just thinking about it. I just got vibes of Eric Bedrosian's talk radio. Yeah. Ooh. Yeah. Especially the one where Miguel Farrar and Michael Ironside were in a few different ones.

[00:13:26] But there's one that Farrar is in where he and Wendy Malick from Dream On and Modern Family is his sister who owns a radio station. And he's like deliberately misprogramming stuff just to piss her off. But yeah, they make use of the radio stuff quite a lot. Yeah. We mentioned before the one that had Priscilla Presley and Blue Diamond Phillips as a scamming couple. That one is just a hoot the whole episode.

[00:13:56] But what's really funny is talking about Kassir earlier. He has a secondary role as one of the other guys involved in the heist who doesn't realize what a dumbass he is. He's actually on screen for a minute. And you're like, it's the Crypt Keeper in Human Form. There's one where Mimi Rogers is trying to be number one model and she's strangling Jennifer Rubin. Yeah. On Street 5. I was just thinking of Mimi Rogers, but I couldn't remember the episode she was in.

[00:14:27] And there's... That's a Stephen Hawkins directed one. Yeah. That's how they... That one clearly. That's how he used her in a few things. It's... He said it was a funny time on set. There's one with Daniel Craig before he was Mr. A-Lister. I love how there's a vampire meets heist one with Ian McGregor. Oh, I forgot about that one. I can only imagine how hectic that would have been to have to edit that for TV. F-bombs in every episode, every scene. Yeah.

[00:14:52] Somewhere in the back of my mind, I keep thinking that their offices, they had like a giant dartboard of different things. Okay. We have... We have a guy turning into a werewolf at a fat farm in... Right. Film whatever. It doesn't matter how you end it. There was one with a body switch with Anthony LaPaglia that I thought was kind of dumb, but it started okay. Amanda Plummer is on one also, and it kind of goes borderline pulp novel, borderline

[00:15:22] skin max. And you're like, what's going on? Yeah, it's like a direct one. Yep. We brought those up. That's a fan favorite because it's just... It's so meta having him do one that involves de-aging and muscles and women. And if you were Tom Hanks, I can only imagine what it'd be like if you got your face slammed into a TV. That's the one with Treat Williams as the womanizer and the caretaker. Yeah. And it's so funny. If you blink and miss it, you don't realize, oh, that's Tom Hanks who he just murdered.

[00:15:51] Oh, it's funny. There are some Indiana Jones moments on this show also at times. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's the one with Anthony Michael Hall, which is kind of a like it or hate it episode where it's almost like they're spoofing Ferris Bueller and John Hughes for like the first hour. And then at the end, they find out there's like a giant vault with a tunnel behind the library. You're just like, that's weird. Okay. And I already mentioned short round, but yeah, there's plenty of Gremlins moments.

[00:16:21] And I think, yeah, Gizmo and the Crypt Keeper would definitely get along. Gizmo. You'd probably scare everyone at first. Yeah. Yeah. She didn't get along. We'll return after these messages. Hey, it's Brent Pope, the host of Brent-Fist with Brent Pope. You've seen me on some of your favorite TV shows saying things like, give it up, Jimmy. You got to sink this put to win. On Brent-Fist with Brent Pope, I sit down with guests from the entertainment world and we do it all over breakfast. Or should I say Brent-Fist?

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