Ray Harryhausen's Film Legacy (with Gil, Tom & JJ)

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[00:00:56] A two, a three, and a four. Four of us are here. We host Sully, and with me climbing every other mountain except the one that looks ugly is Gil Palmer. Nope. He has had enough of your shit, and he's not going to take it anymore. Tom Lindemann is in the house. What in the Ray Harryhausens going on here? Get the hell out of our galaxy.

[00:01:24] He knows people who can tap dance, but don't ask him to dance. James Bruno is here in the house. Goddamn Gwangi droppings all over the damn place. You know it's hard to find those, bury those damn things and bring them out to the trash? Jesus Christ Almighty! Oh man. Attica, Attica.

[00:01:45] I was trying to find a topic we all are familiar with, and Gil went the extra mile and even saw one of several documentaries on it, and I was like, yeah, this would be an easy, easy, easy night. Because we've done so many deep dives. We need one that's cool, but still not too hard to research. I was like, yeah, let's talk about the great stop-motion effects artist Ray Harryhausen.

[00:02:09] Yeah, and that was a good choice. I mean, not only for the body of work that he's done, but for the people he fired with it as well.

[00:02:18] Right. And it is kind of one of those is like, of all the effects guys I grew up admiring, like Rick Baker, Stan Winston and everything is like, and it was one of those, you know, when you're watching one of their movies, but sometimes you're not sure that could easily be one of the other, you know, famous makeup or puppeteer guys who worked with each other, but it's not the exact same guy.

[00:02:43] And Hassan is definitely more straightforward where he's just like, yes, I am absolutely, I may not know who directed it or wrote it or starred in it, but I'm absolutely watching a Harryhausen film right now. And you gotta think, you gotta go back, who was the guy he trained under? Yes. Was Willis O'Brien. And I'm glad you brought those up in another chat because I had no clue, you know, I thought he was like the first one, he was like, no, he was the second, but he became bigger. Yeah.

[00:03:13] Well, Ray Harryhausen in the documentary admitted that, or he said that Willis O'Brien, King Kong is what inspired him. Yeah. Because Kong, King Kong and Gil, and you guys gotta hear that. My father's, when he saw King Kong, he was about 15 years old. And everybody was like in the theater going, holy shit, you know, I don't know how big that Kong was, like, you know, 20, 30 feet high.

[00:03:43] But to see a stop motion ape and Willis O'Brien, you have to go back to when he did, what was the one, the, the, the land, was it the land before time? Oh, yeah. I don't, was that what it was called? I think so, yeah. The, or the, the, the. Okay, hold up. It's like 1926. I don't know what you're talking about, but I forgot to write it down. 25 or 26. Oh, Paul.

[00:04:14] A little bit of looking up music. All right, Dave. You got it, Dave. You got it, man. You got it. That's wild, Dave. Wild. RFD 10,000 BC? No, that's 1917. Okay. Just, just the Lost World from 25. The Lost World, yeah, the Lost World.

[00:04:36] He does the Lost World and, you know, everybody was like clamoring in to see that because no one had seen dinosaurs like that before. I didn't know he did the Black Scorpion, but I do remember now how Mighty Joe Young was the first one he had a Hassan on. Harry Hassan on. Yeah. There, he did. Pete Peterson was the other guy. Yeah, he, he did Kong and Son of Kong, Willis O'Brien, and if you guys ever heard the story, there was a, there was a part that was kind of King Kong.

[00:05:07] The, the, the Spider Pit sketch. Have you guys heard of that thing? I think I have, and it was one of those, and we're like, seriously? Didn't they kind of reenact that kind of thing in the first remake they did with Jack Black? Yeah. There, there was definitely a few Easter eggs, and much like the Mosfra one in the newer Godzilla, you don't see it right away unless you screenshot it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:32] The, the Peter Jackson one, he actually did it where he took the schematics from the, from the Spider Pit sequence and basically just made it from like 1933. So there's a scene where Kong, the guys are getting chased over the log and he takes the log and he twists it over and they just fall down. You don't know where the hell they go.

[00:05:53] Well, there was a scene where these, these, these things were kind of like coming out of nowhere, you know, fighting, you know, eating guys up. And there was like a giant spider, there was a scorpion, there was like a, okay. I, I was always confused by the spiders. I would see publicity images and I'll always be like, do I have the wrong tape? Do I have a wrong version? Why was it not in the final version of the movie I'm seeing? And they cut it.

[00:06:21] The reason they cut it was because people were fainting in the aisles. So yeah, but, but Willis O'Brien kind of lays that foundation work for Harryhausen to work on, you know? And you got to think too, you know, he's, a lot of it is based on, you know, you got to think back then it was one shot animation. Right. You know, it was done. Camera bang, camera bang, camera bang, you know? So. Same thing with animation.

[00:06:48] It's all 2D and if you get one frame wrong or, you know, drop ink on it, you got to get a copy and redo the frame again. Yeah. So, you know, his thing, it was stop motion animation. That's how it worked back then. I remember O'Brien didn't want to be credited in Son of Kong and I'm like, okay, well, it still was work, dude, back then.

[00:07:14] Well, there was work that Harryhausen did on a few things with Willis O'Brien that he didn't really get credited for. Yeah, he was pretty much the unpaid intern. Did you guys know in World War II he worked, that Harryhausen served overseas and he worked with Frank Capra? I remember there was Frank Capra. I knew he was overseas, but yeah. I knew there was a Frank Capra story. I didn't know it was while serving. That's awesome.

[00:07:42] All right. So, Tom, you every once in a while, when we were talking off air, would you say both his Sinbad movies are kind of his bigger ones that people remember? Or is it probably Jason and the Argonauts? Yeah, basically any kind of mythological movie where he was. Those are the ones that really caught people's attention, I thought.

[00:08:12] And I also feel a little bit of digging and he was also part of the original Clash of the Titans, which I thought I vaguely remembered. That's how I got into that. That was my entry drug, as it were. And then from there, it just, I mean, Harryhausen, there are some people in the film industry who are immortal and for good reason. People who are known for one particular thing, Harryhausen for special effects, Rick Baker, Stan Winston.

[00:08:42] Without him, you don't get Phil Tippett. Yeah. You know, he's worked on Starship Troopers, Robocop, and Star Wars. But, I mean, like his first short film was a dinosaur one called Prehistoric Beasts. And you look at that and you're like, that's a Harryhausen, you know, 2.0. Yeah. And on top of that, there's other medium that were, media that were affected by it.

[00:09:05] Forrest Ackerman, I think, was one, somebody who really took, was a, really took his inspiration from Harryhausen. Yeah. That's right. Monsters. I miss those days when the magazine was just as big as a movie. Like, everyone was collecting it at their newspaper stand. Yeah. And then you think about what impact Forrest Ackerman had on filmmakers in general.

[00:09:32] I mean, to put it mildly, Harryhausen's reach extends well beyond what we, just the stuff he did. And think about all the directors, all the special effects people. People who wouldn't have gotten into the film at all had it not been for Harryhausen. Totally. We might not have even had a Wallace and Gromit. Yeah. That's a good point.

[00:10:01] Because Nick Park said he was very inspired by Harryhausen. Right? And I think that's the other thing, too. People don't, I'm not saying audiences are dumb or anything, but when you have a different, like, tone and everything, they don't always, like, put it all together. You know, like, Wallace and Gromit, you know, is fun, comedic. And even though it's using exactly the same kind of, you know, a mixture of everything. Play-Doh.

[00:10:27] So, uh, uh, remote controlled and, uh, other stop motion. And you're just like, yeah, but, you know, to make this bigger, I guess. But, you know, I guess the one difference would be that, you know, like, in the Wallace and Gromit world, everything's at, everything is, like, within that world.

[00:10:45] And the one thing Harryhausen probably did better than any, you know, like, better than Will Sobrien even, um, would be incorporating his stop motion into the live action footage. Yeah. You know, and interacting with, um, with the characters, with the live actors. And I can remember being a kid, and this is probably about 73 or so.

[00:11:11] My mom's driving down Southeast 14th, and we have a Southeast, uh, we had a drive-in theater called the Southeast 14th Drive-In. And I can remember, we could see the screen from the street as we're driving by. And I didn't know at the time, but it was my first exposure to Ray Harryhausen. I didn't know who he was. It was about six years old or so. You just knew the visual of your life. Yeah.

[00:11:34] And it's the scene in, um, uh, let's see, Jason and the Arguments from 63 that, you know, because the one thing about the drive-in movies is they were playing, you know, any movies they can get their hands on, you know? So even in 73, I'm seeing it on the big screen, the scene where he's having that battle with the skeletons. And without Phil, like, that is the giveaway. And I see people being over-technical about how long it lasts on screen. I'm like, it doesn't matter.

[00:12:03] But, like, I would rent... The 60s are interesting. Like, this is five years before Bullet, but it's that same kind of mentality. Like, the movie goes by so fast, but everyone remembers, like, the last 20 minutes because that's that... It's the action spectacle. The skeleton fight. Yeah. But, yeah, and I... You know, I'd be begging my mom. I wanted to go into the theater, but she's like, no, we're not going to do that. I was, like, arguing with her for a while. Oh, bummer. And my eyes out.

[00:12:32] And I'm like Thomas. I didn't really get exposed completely to Ray Harryhausen until Clash of the Titans. And then I found out about the other stuff. And then I saw Jason in the 80s. And I'm like, that's that scene that was in the drive-in. And just one of those memories I have from being a kid.

[00:12:55] Fun fact, Bernard Herman, our favorite composer, he scored not only Argonauts, but also Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Free Worlds of Gulliver, and Mysterious Island. So it's pretty cool to see some of the other behind-the-scenes guys all working together. It's not just the same... I can remember watching, like, the 270s version of Sinbad.

[00:13:22] Sinbad, the Eye of the Tiger, and the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. I think those are the two. And being just utterly amazed about... Now, this is pre-Star Wars, mind you. So we're still looking at, you know, stop-motion animation and watching those scenes where he took, like, creatures out of... Well, Medusa comes with Clash of the Titans. And I can remember my mother taking me to see Clash of the Titans in the movie theaters.

[00:13:51] I'm, like, six years old. And I can remember watching that scene with Medusa. Oh, I'm thinking of the Cali model he uses in Golden Voyage. My bad. Yeah. We'll return after these messages. If you like small-town mystery, crazy news, and wild history, then the Florida Men on Florida Man podcast is for you.

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[00:15:15] Join anytime, talk the talk, and enjoy yourselves. There's something enlightening for everyone with this crowd of cool cats. Check them out. The model of Khali is amazing to look at, you know. I mean, he takes that figure and makes it into a killer. Yeah.

[00:15:43] That's the six arms statue, isn't it? Yeah. Speaking of Star Wars, I remember that Peter Mayhew, the Chewbacca actor, did some monster body work in that also. Yeah, he did. He was the, I think he was the, was he the centaur or was he the centaur? Let's look it up. But yeah, Carolyn Monroe, a Hammer Horror favorite. Tom Baker's Prince Kura.

[00:16:13] John Philpeter. Oh, yeah. Before Barbarella's Sinbad. So, you know. But yeah, Sony was more experimental back then instead of, you know. If you watch the movie he did, was it Beast from 20,000 Fathoms? That's kind of like the precursor to Cloverfield. Yeah. Because if you watch the end of Cloverfield, there's a scene of doing the credits and you

[00:16:41] see the scene from the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms when he's coming down New York. And the street in New York. JJ Abrams was like, JJ Abrams was like, I got to do it like that or this monster just comes out of New York, you know. Oh, man. And the thing was, is that his creatures were a little bit more believable than what, you know, what Toho, even though Toho was doing Godzilla. Right. But Toho, they were inspired. They were inspired to do Godzilla.

[00:17:10] But like you say, you can sometimes tell is like, okay, it's a stuntman in a suit. And now it's a, you know, stop motion effect. Like, especially with Mothra. Like, that's a puppet, you know. But I think the thing that got me the most was like, when he did that thing, 1 million, that movie, 1 million miles to earth. And he has the Ymir, which is that, like. Little creature. Yeah.

[00:17:39] That creature, oh my God. It goes from like 2 feet tall to like 60 feet tall in a certain amount of time. And you're looking at it and you see the emotion in its face. Yeah. Which always kind of, which always got me. Because every creature he had, it wasn't just like, it didn't look like somebody was wearing a mat. They were, they were like, there was always like, you know, little, little bits of like, you know. Movement. You know, movement in the face. And that's what always got me about what he did, you know.

[00:18:07] Well, I remember specifically like seeing him rubbing his eyes in a scene. Yeah. You know. Anything you can do to add some kind of persona to the monster instead of just have him stomp around screeching. Yeah. Let's see. I know. Fathom's also used plenty of other handheld camera footage, you know. Oh. Right.

[00:18:37] So, yeah. And you mentioned 20 million miles to earth. And then he did like Sinbad, the seventh voyage of Sinbad with. Yeah. And that's where they first, I think, coined the phrase dynamation. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it is interesting to see the evolution of how adventure movies flow. You know, you get other, you get other just kind of Errol Flynn inspired stuff like Swashbuckler.

[00:19:03] And in a post-Indiana Jones world, you know, before Pirates, he had stuff like Nate and Hayes with Tommy Lee Jones. But here, you know, in these 50s pictures, it's interesting seeing how they're still kind of going for that kind of Gundadin style spectacle. But they're still kind of mixing in Greek myths. And, you know, just. Well, if anybody remembers Jason and the Argonauts, the scene where Hercules goes into the treasure

[00:19:31] room and he wakes up the iron giant Talos. Ah. Yep. Yes. That was amazing to look at. Because I remember. Seven-headed Hydra, too. I think. Yeah. I think that was in there. Yeah, that was in there. Yeah. And what got me was when you see the creature kind of like, it's this giant statue.

[00:20:02] And. Yeah. I think, I think they can't take the treasure past a certain point or something like that. It's something like that. You can't. You got to go this direction. It's almost like a minotaur maze. There's like. Yeah. You can only go through here. But you can't. But. Go here. The way it just, it's just this thing that just like, you know, you think it's dead. You think they've got. And then all of a sudden you see it come around on the corner and you're like, oh shit. You know. And how do they, how do they defeat Talos? Well. It was like an Achilles heel kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:33] The guy, Nigel Green, who plays Hercules, the most convincing Hercules of all time. Takes a giant pin. And basically twists a knob on the back and all of the fluid that runs Talos drains out. I just watched it today. I think it was actually Jason that drains. Was it? That pulls it out. Was it Jason or Hercules? I don't know. I think it was Jason. Okay.

[00:21:02] Either way, same difference. He's at the final battle and he's overseeing it. But I forgot also that 20,000 Fathoms during their publicity campaign suggested that this is inspired by material from the Saturday Evening Post story by Ray Bradbury. The foghorn. Yep. And. I understand Ray Bradbury and him became good friends. Yeah. And that.

[00:21:31] It's one of those. It makes sense. But you're like, man, what a friendship like that. You're talking about a great sci-fi author, you know, talking to a guy who makes. I wouldn't call necessarily creature features, but just big effects, epics, you know.

[00:21:49] I also knew that when they were creating the Radosaurus for Fathoms, Professor Tom Nesbitt, he rifled through some dinosaur drawings that were made by Charles R. Knight, who Harry Austin had already claimed was an inspiration. He was a wildlife paleo artist, best known for making a bunch of prehistoric drawings. He left us in 53, but he was just often the go-to.

[00:22:18] Everyone's like, hey, you know, you need some inspiration for what mammals looked like in prehistoric times. Look at his influences. You look at it and I even get a little bit of Robert Howard from the Conan Rider. Yeah. Robert E. Howard. Robert E. Howard. Yeah. It's that same kind of just great epic. And, you know, it's a good painting when you can just feel it just coming off the actual frame.

[00:22:48] Yeah. It's just so much detail. Yeah, I know Mutual Films worked on a bunch of these too. And, you know, King Kong was RKO. And I always look forward to seeing those older pictures, just that antenna logo. Well, it's kind of interesting to watch some of that stop motion, especially like, I mean, with the Kong, it was the fur.

[00:23:16] And you could see the fur would be displaced in weird ways as he moved. Yeah. Because the person, yeah. Which I never really noticed something like that so much with Harryhausen's figures that I can recall. But with Willis O'Brien and the ape, you know, with King Kong, I did notice it.

[00:23:41] And it's kind of like, you know, with Clay, when they worked with Clay, for like Nick Park, for Wallace and Gromit, you could see thumbprints in the clay that would pop up. Yeah.

[00:24:30] I don't know. Yeah.

[00:24:56] Which, you know, stop motion animation, especially when Ray Harryhausen came along, it was probably the most realistic take you'd see on monsters. Yeah. And, you know, fantasy creatures that you wouldn't see otherwise. Because, yeah, it doesn't work with a guy in a suit. Right. It just, and it is one of those visual things.

[00:25:19] You know when you see it, and you can only imagine the headaches just explaining it in a movie pitch session, you know. Especially in that earlier days where if people thought it was impossible, they just said nay without having to give a reason, you know. Prior to Star Wars saying, telling the guys, okay, now you can make any kind of expensive epic and get your money back. Well, I can remember watching episode two, Attack of the Clones. Yeah.

[00:25:48] And they do, they do do a thing on Mysterious, like they do a little tribute to Mysterious Island Obi-Wan. In the stadium, I think. Yeah. When Obi-Wan's fighting the. Yeah. The giant cat-like creature. Yeah. Or the rhino creature. Yeah. Yep. Yep. No, no, no, no. It was the, it's the one that looks like a praying mantis. Oh. And so they have a scene where like him and she's trying to stab it. And they basically took that from Mysterious Island, which is amazing to watch, you know.

[00:26:18] And I think to that, to this day, I think that's probably one of his best movies that isn't really played that much on TV, you know. Mysterious Island. Yeah. Yeah. Instead, they're often playing like a crappy remake or something. It's like, can you just show the original version? I remember reading, or in the documentary, he pointed out like the crab monster that's in that. That was an actual crab. Oh, wow.

[00:26:45] That he outfitted, you know, he had it humanely put away as he put it. And they cleaned out the insides and they used the shell of the crab for, you know, with the armature stuff underneath to make it move. Wow. Brandon, it wasn't any, it wasn't Teenagers from Outer Space kind of special effects. Oh, wow. Now we're all wowing. Damn.

[00:27:16] But to you guys' earlier point, they do a good job of making it look like the actors are reacting to him. Well, in that skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts, you know, he's like kicking the thing up over his head and over him and jumping over a wall that the skeleton follows him and jumps over the wall too. And, you know, there's a lot of... It doesn't look like he's anticipating it before it's animated. It flows. Yeah. It flowed real well.

[00:27:45] That's what blew my mind as a kid when I was watching that, you know, from the distance of the street to the drive-in theater. But, yeah. And it wasn't until 80s, you know, somewhere between 80 and 83 that I found out about Ray Harryhausen and where that scene actually even came from. But...

[00:28:10] He used to play a lot of his stuff here in New York incessantly on Channel 11. Sweet. So they would have... Yeah. And I can remember him doing 1 million BC. I found that out today and I was surprised. I said, oh, she was the one who did the dinosaurs in there? Yeah. And then he had Valley of the Gawangi, which was like a Mighty Joe. That's the one with the cowboys and dinosaurs, isn't it?

[00:28:41] Yep. It's so funny how you brought up one to NBC. It's like, so who are you paying attention to more? That's what I was going to bring up. It's like, okay, yeah. I think I was paying more attention to Raquel Wells. I think everyone was paying more attention to Raquel Wells. Oh, man. Yeah, they didn't have a poster of the dinosaurs. I'll tell you that much. Hell, the original 1 million BC was produced by Hal Roach Studios. I did not know that.

[00:29:10] The one with Victor Mature. Oh, that goes back even further. What decade did that come out? 1940, yeah. So it went from the little rascals to really big rascals. Oh. Yeah. Oh.

[00:29:32] And I mean, all together, I mean, if anyone were to talk smack about him, I would just be like, what did he do to you? He's dead. He left a legacy. He didn't hurt anybody. Everyone's all seen people talk smack about older special effects. I'm like, you've got to put it in the time context and all that. You can't just say it's garbage.

[00:30:00] Well, like say if you take it and show it to a three-year-old or something like that, they might be more, you know, wowed by it than someone who's 10 years old or something today. They're in a better mindset. They want to be entertained by a theme park kind of look instead of, you know, I want my fart jokes and I want them now. You know, and I get it.

[00:30:25] You know, I feel like kind of like how there's people trying to replicate it, but not always successful. I feel like that there's something to be said for there needs to be like a film historian on certain movies. It's like, OK, you don't have to like this, but let me explain to you why, you know, this camera movement and earthquake was a pretty cool influence. Other people creating home theater systems. You know, why did this particular movie shock the world back then?

[00:30:54] And it wasn't just because of a plot twist. Just, you know, just a little explanation other than just waiting for the moderators on Turner Classic Movies, you know, to tell you after the fact, you know, just a little something. Well, it's just, you know, it's showing stuff that's in a way that's, you know, unbelievable things in a way that can be somewhat believable, you know? I mean, I give, I tip my hat to anyone who can do that.

[00:31:18] You know, it's just like if you can create claustrophobia, even just before even showing even a drop of blood or an intense actor, if you can just have, you know, intense music and some other clever editing, you know, I, my hat is off to you instead of just, I need to be shocking. But, and now we're just going to end just because, you know, this is.

[00:31:44] And I think I feel now with certain blockbuster movies, like I can often get a sense of who did some storyboarding versus who just gave it to someone else, you know, to shoot all the action and, you know, explosive shots. You know, I'm thinking, you know, they remade Clash of the Titans, of course. Have you tried to watch those two back to back, the original and the remake?

[00:32:14] I haven't done that, but I did split them up, you know, just because I was a Greek mythology fan, but I was one of those. I'm like, yeah, that's that. I think the main difference is, you know, the original, it's slow paced, but it's just, it's a fun spectacle, much like Excalibur from the same year. And the CGI ones, you know, are just kind of. Yeah, it kind of fell flat for me watching this, the remake.

[00:32:43] Yeah, I can watch it, but I'm not invested in any of the story. I'm just like, OK. OK, but yeah, the Clash of the Titans, especially, you know, the beginning part of it is kind of a slow, slow build. But it knows where it's going. It's just I kind of have fun with like the other, I think, Wrath of the Titans, even though it's not very good, just because like there's some other kind of fun art direction. But it was one of those.

[00:33:08] I'm like, yeah, I'm only watching this once just because of the effects on display, not because the effects are telling the story. It was that kind of movie. There's a few movies that came out all around the same time as that Clash of the Titans remake. And trying to think of one with Gerard Butler, I can't think of the name of it. 300? No. It had the fantasy elements involved. Oh, Gods of Egypt. Gods of Egypt.

[00:33:36] And then there was also another one that I swear it looked like they lifted a lot from Clash of the Titans, the one called The Immortals. Yeah, Henry Cavill. Yeah. I think that's the other problem with doing a spectacle. And Peter Jackson ran into some of this at first, too, where when he was first pitching Lord of the Rings, he said, I'm trying to make a fantasy version of Braveheart and Gladiator, not Willow. And so that got the studios to trust him. It was like, OK, it's this.

[00:34:06] Don't worry about the effects. We're worried about getting the locations, creating the feel of this, you know, third age world. You know, and I think this is it. Like when people want to pitch something like this, they just got to somehow be able to rationalize all of this. Maybe even bring in the effects supervisor who you're working with and just explain it to everybody.

[00:34:30] And just so studios don't second guess or say, oh, I want to add this and that, you know, even though it doesn't flow. So, you know, if you ever have you've checked them out yet, those pitch meetings that they have on YouTube are pretty funny. Oh, for rings. Huh? For which one? It's called pitch meetings. And I can't think of the guy's name, but he's like he's on one side. He's the money man.

[00:35:00] Oh, oh, oh. And then he plays the opposite character. That's right. He's trying to pitch the movie. Yes. Yeah, yeah. He did a recent one for Seinfeld and Superman, too. Yeah, he's. I was thinking about looking if he'd done one for Clash of the Titans or something like that. But I didn't get a chance to see that. Oh, my God. He's got one for Battlefield Earth. Oh, I did watch that one.

[00:35:29] I do like it because I would see people sneak that into their negative reviews. But it is it is funnier when you just have people reenacting it. It's like because they're I mean, since the Amy Pascal scandal at Sony, you do find a lot of people who are like, my word, someone actually brought that up. Did that have anything to do with budgeting or storytelling? Getting people to see your movie.

[00:35:59] There's some sick guys. Oh, I'm guessing. So aside from my little story about 73 in the drive and everybody's pretty much seeing Clash of the Titans. And that was pretty much their intro. Yeah. And if you think about it, too, around that same time, there's all I noticed there's some stop motion animation in a show called Jason of Star Command. Hmm. Yeah.

[00:36:26] I remember that show, but I don't remember the stop motion. They had some like giant monsters kind of things, too. But. Yeah, but that was a. That was sort of also a little bit of a gateway, but Clash of Titans was the. Was that. I also have to wonder about Gumby, too, because that was. That's. It was also stop motion animation. I'm not sure if it was. Oh, let's. Let's see.

[00:36:55] Well, you mentioned Jason of Star Command. It was Saturday morning TV. I wonder how much footage they used. So Gumby was first a short in 53. So, yeah, I mean, it's possible. It might have been some crossover influence, you know. Well, I mean, King Kong still would have been. What was that? 33. Yeah. Yeah. So like that beat them to the punch. But yeah, for Harry Haas.

[00:37:24] And, you know, when he's in his foot in the door, he might have seen a Gumby short or been in that same circle. Probably some of his first work. It looks like he worked for George Powell Puppet Toons. First job. Mother Goose Stories. Something like something called Mother Goose Stories. Nice. I don't know much about those. I just, you know, I was seeing a little bit of clips in the documentary about it. Nice.

[00:37:57] Very cool. You know, and it's kind of funny, even like the, you know, the inspiration that he causes for this. I mean, I've seen like what's his name? Is it Charles Band did Dr. Mordred? Yes. Yep. The full moon. And there's a scene where they're in a museum and these two skeleton, a skeleton dinosaur and a mammoth fight. And they're skeletons. So it's stop motion animation that they're using in that.

[00:38:26] Yeah. You know, and even Terminator, you know, the first Terminator was a stop motion animation figure. Yeah. I saw the special features in recent years again. And I was like, I totally forgot that the truck they blow up at the very end is an actual model. And you're like, I had no idea. I thought they blew up an actual truck. Wow. But yeah, that's in the same scene where they reveal how he actually looks in the factory thing.

[00:38:56] It's still creepy, even with, you know, however you're enhancing in HD. And James, it sounds like you got some cats. He might be sleeping. Oh my God.

[00:39:27] It was not the beast who claimed him. It was Morpheus. Or no. What's that dream guy's name? Oh, Morpheus. Oh, uh. Oh, yes, sir. Oh, Sandman. That was the Sandman. Oh, wow. And I think most of you guys have seen the stupid movie that Jim Wynorski did for Roger Corman, Dinosaur Island.

[00:39:57] Yeah, I've seen it. Yeah. Stupid movie. But I mean, you get what you paid for it. But I'll just say that. I found out. Go ahead. I'm sorry. The puppeteer pterodactyl attacking him. I totally get. It's like, yeah, that's like such a Harry Hassen. Like nod. You know, Asylum Films has gotten into Sinbad. Yes, they have. I saw a trailer for it, but I haven't seen the movie. I don't know if I ever will.

[00:40:27] But it was the Seven Voyages of Sinbad. I think so. Patrick Muldoon from Star Trek Troopers is in it. Hell, even Bo Svensson is in it. Bo Svensson? Yep. From what I saw from the trailer. He must have an extra farm he wants to build. You all right there, James?

[00:40:52] You doing a groucho reference again? James. James. Seems fun. James. It's like he's mumbling Rosebud.

[00:41:21] Well, I'm sorry. It's going to be so much fun. We're going to fix this in post, right? At least no one's on screen. It's not like someone missed a beat. I'm not here to talk smack. I get it. He's got a crazier schedule than any of us. Yeah. Oh, man.

[00:41:52] Yeah, I don't miss those days of those hours. Hmm. Yeah. I couldn't do those hours now. It's like. You're right there. But. Oh, my God. I think we broke James.

[00:42:29] Okay. Okay. Oh, man. No, Ray Harryhausen. Ray Harryhausen. Yeah, where were we? I. I'm actually surprised of other monsters that he hasn't created. But. I mean, anytime I see like a saber tooth or a mammoth or. Just some kind of. Based on. Based on a creature. You definitely feel like there must be an O'Brien or. Harryhausen influence.

[00:42:59] I mean. Even if that doesn't show in the final work. You know. There's got to be someone who at least maybe watched one of those monster movies as a kid. No. It's a good. Well, obviously. Especially for any of the creators you have these days. Yeah. I would like to think it's. They're inspired by something other than just. You know, playing video games. And I mean. It's a good also kind of compromise. I mean.

[00:43:25] People who aren't necessarily into like maybe horror movies are still going to like Harryhausen monster movies. Because they're more of a fantasy sci-fi action variety. Yeah. Not a horror. Really. Right. And it's not like. Hammer horror. Where it's like. Put the kids to bed. Dracula is about to kill. But. That makes me think of Benicio Del. Or no. What's his name? Guillermo del Toro. Definitely. With Hellboy and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And especially what he's doing now. He's doing stop motion. I mean.

[00:43:55] Anyone who's. Probably in their 60s now is definitely. Probably going back to some template. I mean. And. Kudos to all the effects artists. I mean. I've seen it in some of. Early ILM. I mean. This one gets a lot of smack. But. The winged creature at the end of Willow definitely. Has kind of a Harryhausen kind of effect. That's Tippett. And I see some people saying. Oh. That didn't date well. I'm like. Well. I still appreciate the effort. Even if the lighting is off. You know.

[00:44:27] And. Well. Army of darkness had their own winged harpy. That was flying through there. Oh. That's right. Not to mention all the skeletons coming out of the. Yeah. I tried to watch that final battle. That wasn't so much stop motion. But you could tell it was definitely inspired by the skeleton battle. Yeah. That one looked like it was more puppets. Yep. And. Maybe a time lapse kind of editing. And then. Yeah. It just. There might have been a little bit of skeleton ash. As a stop motion probably. I think. Maybe.

[00:44:57] Yeah. Oh. I mean. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. Release the ash cracking. Yeah. If you have a problem with your ash cracking. Try this. Take a probiotic. Yeah. Try ass. Try new ass. Don't smell. Oh. They should have that in the army. Don't. Don't smell.

[00:45:26] Oh man. And. Let's see. Are they teaching any Harryhausen stuff in any effects? Well I think even the computer animation these days is really. Oh yeah. They really borrow a lot from. Yeah. They borrow a lot from. At least from the figures. You know. And the movement of the figures. And now whether they incorporate that. They probably incorporate the type of movement.

[00:45:55] Without actually using the figures. But I think that's a starting point for a lot of. Of. 3D animation using. Stop motion puppets. Yeah. As a template to go from. Yeah. The South Park still does that. Yes. Yes it does. Oh man. And. It's just fun too. Just seeing. I mean. Yeah. South Park's a good.

[00:46:25] Nod. I mean. People were like. You're crazy. When they were saying. We're going to animate with Flash. You know. Still being used. Updates later. And. I think. I mean. Whatever. Gets your vision across. You know. Who cares. Just do it. And. Well. You know. Now that's got me thinking about stop motion. With. Robot Chicken. Yes. Yes. And their puppetry is a little bit rougher looking. But it's still entertaining to watch.

[00:46:55] Yeah. I think. Well. I guess also just. Budget aside. If they took it. Too seriously. It wouldn't be as funny. He'd be like. Maybe too hypnotized by how good the animation is. You know. You just want to be a little more rough. And on the edges. And. Did you see like. They did some spinoffs of their own. That weren't. Not Robot Chicken. They did Bitch Pudding. They did a few other things. It's like the characters. Well. The characters. Yeah. They established. You know. They started off with Strawberry Shortcake.

[00:47:25] And ended up with Bitch Pudding. And the nerd guy. He was like. Oh. I need a sock. And you know. And the unicorn. That's. Horny. For him. I've had anyone. Who can have some. Recurring character. Recurring gag. You know. I know. They established quite a few. There was some other thing. They worked on. That was like. From the internet.

[00:47:56] It was something party. Well. They. They. They spun off something. That only had like. One season. And it was. Tight. Superman. Tight. Tight. Tight maximum. Tight maximum. That was it. I didn't. And then they also did. Something for Marvel. They did. Modoc for a season. Hmm. All right. And then. Recently. They did something. More. They're like. Little peg people. I can't think of the name. Okay. Well.

[00:48:26] Wow. But they're like. Somehow missed maximum. But. The one I was seeing. Was super mansion. I think that was like. For crackle. That had the guy. From breaking bad. Doing a voice. I remember. I think so. And I think. Keegan Michael Key. Might have been a voice. Yeah. Yeah. Brian Chris. Wow. Wow. Yeah. I can definitely recommend. Titan maximum. Because that takes. That takes a. A lot of. Below tropes. From our childhood. And just turns them on their head. It's kind of like Gundam. Kind of.

[00:48:57] Kind of like. More like Voltron. Oh. Okay. I remember. What that one show was called. It was called. Crossing Swords. And. And it's just. They're. They're stop motion animation. With peg people. Which has very limited movement. To begin with. They don't even have any arms. But they can swing. They can swing swords. And hold things. Oh wow. You can't see their hands. I did see. I think an ad for that. On Hulu. Wow. Where the hell have I been? But. But I. Yeah. Crossing Swords.

[00:49:28] And Yvette Nicole Brown. Is in both this. And Superman. Wow. Surely from. You know. Well. It made me wonder. I mean. They never came back. With any more seasons. Crossing Swords. Only had one. Modok. Only had one. Tight. Tight and maximum. Maximum. Only had one. But. And then. They've taken robot chicken. Off the air. So I'm kind of. Sad about that. Yeah. We're out of. Funny stuff to watch. I mean. Would Clash of the Titans. Be everyone's favorite. Or is there others. That you probably.

[00:49:58] I think I like. Argonauts a little more. But. I mean. I think overall. And whichever one you go with. It's both. A mixture of. Nostalgia. And. Wonder. It's like. It's like. When you look at it. You're just like. I want to know how they made that. You know. Other than it being a clip show. Well I had.

[00:50:27] I had like. One million. When I found out. Today. That. You know. He did. One million BC. Like. Well crap. I got to see if they have it on Vudu or something. They don't have it streaming on Vudu or Amazon. That is criminal. It's on TC. That's criminal. But they almost have it on TCM. Like once a year. But you're always like. But I want to. I do have the DVD thankfully. But I want. But I want to see if they had it on digital. Because I didn't want to have to try to search for my other DVDs to find it. Yeah.

[00:50:57] And also going. Going back to. For your husband's legacy for a moment. Scott Bush animation. Is still very much DIY. It's something that. Anybody with a camera. And enough patients. Can do. Yes. And that's. And I think that speaks. To the. To the lasting. Impact that Harryhausen had. Not only. We can talk about all the people he's inspired. And there are.

[00:51:26] Any number of others who. Who may have been inspired. But don't quite know it yet. But. And I think. Like I said. That just speaks to the appeal. That he has. But also to. Just the nature of. Stop motion animation. As a. As a genre. And the fact it's still being done today. In. Especially by a low budget. Yeah. There's a guy. You guys would like. Christopher Meme. Oh.

[00:51:55] M-I-H-M. And. He. He not only has a lot of fun. Doing what. I mean. Even if you don't like his movies. Like. If I read off the titles for you now. You're going to be like. That totally sounds like. Some hammer whore. Or. Harryhausen. Or. Universal movie. You know. Terror from beneath the earth. The monster of Phantom Lake. It came from another world. Gay woman on Mars. And. What's also fun is. Not only is he going for a 50s drive-in cinema film. But. All his movies are technically.

[00:52:25] In the same verse. I think I might have seen them listed on one of the streaming services. That's the other thing too. Some of them are hard to find. Some of them are only on DVD. But when you watch them. You're like. Man. What a cool labor to love. That dude. And. Pretty kind in person. Pretty active on social media. He's. He's a fun guy. Yeah. I think. Like I said. I think I've seen. Some sort of examples of those. Don't know if he's the ones behind them. But I have seen. Like these recent. 20, 24 movies. That like. Have a.

[00:52:53] Look like they have some sort of 50s feel to them. Something like that. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. He's done about 20s. I haven't actually tried to watch him yet. But I have noticed him out there. Attack of the Moon. Zombies. Demon with the Atomic Brain. Guns of the Apocalypse. Queen of Snow. It sounds like he like. Tore up some titles of movies. Threw him in a. Threw him in a hat. Yeah. That's kind of what Steven Seagal does to his movies nowadays. Just take my different names and end them with kill or law.

[00:53:24] Usually they have to be three word titles too. Yes. Born to kill. Last to fight. You know. I have always. I mean. To your earlier point. Tom. I mean. We could make a Harry Haasen film in our backyard right now. You know. I just like. Put a green screen in front of the. The fence. Use a mixture of action figures or stop motion and.

[00:53:54] Have some epic music playing. Some. Definitely go to town with the tuba to have the. Feel. Da da da da. Of course. Arnold Schwarzenegger might have to come in and say. It is not the tuba. It is not the tuba. You're a one over. No I can't. You're a foe. I fantasize about trying to do stop motion. But it. It was very. Yeah. My brother did it.

[00:54:24] And he's not even a filmmaker. But like. Back in the early days of the 2000s. He would play around with. MacBooks. And filming something with his Legos. And I was like. Yeah. You have to really love this. And. I mean. You can do some other. Just wacky stuff. With Photoshop and everything. But like. You got to have a script. You can't just make it up. As you go along. You want to have. You got to have something planned out. For making the movements.

[00:54:56] Why are they attacking? Why is it fun? What do you have in between. Instead of just. Oh cool. I made an effect shot. I mean. Kudos to anyone who wants to try it. You know. And if you want to be CGI. All I ask is that you be. Campy. In a boa versus python. Kind of way. Just. Fun. Fun. Well I really didn't take note. Till Sharknado. I guess. For those. Fair enough. Fair enough. I mean. I would love to. Just right now. With my friends. Even before.

[00:55:26] COVID broke out. I would have loved. To have just done a bunch. Of just cheesy. Like. Fight to the death. The kind of martial arts movies. Or have someone. Pretending to be a killer. Robot. Or. Some spaceship. Mutiny thing. Something. Or is like. We're just doing. I mean. Just go to an abandoned factory. And just. Let's film something. Oh no. Another movie. In an abandoned factory. Oh. Oh. I promise. We won't have as much.

[00:55:56] A wall climbing. As Teenage Cameron. Or the railings. Or a space mutiny. With the railings. Oh man. I did. That reminds me. You just. Space mutiny. Had John Philip Law. John Philip Law. There you go. And all comes back to space mutiny. Or Barbarella. He was in the golden voyage of Sinbad. Yes he was. Did he die? Playing Steve Chase. As it turns out.

[00:56:25] Steve Chase. Yep. And then Sinbad. In the eye of the tiger. Was Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. And. And. John Wayne's son. Wow. Patrick Wayne. Patrick freaking Wayne. There's a. Yeah. I don't know. What are you going to know? Yeah. I wonder if he knows how to fake punch. Well. I mean. If you watch McClintock. He gets the crap beat out of him. I'll say.

[00:56:54] So he went the other way. Where he's like. Just punch me out. There used to be some fun. Stuff on YouTube. Where people would do. Stick figures. Animations. I think that's kind of where. Stop motion is kind of gone. I've seen. I saw one. Where they did an example. Of Night of the Living Dead. They took some of the. Oh my God. They took. You know. The audio. From that. And then they. And it. They animated it themselves. To stick figures. Oh man.

[00:57:24] I would see some people do that. With Legos. Where they would take the dialogue. And. Fully from the movie. But then they. Reanimated. I mean. There was a cool guy. Who used to have like. Stick figures. But he made it look like. They were all famous. Martial artists. Like. Getting in a fight. With each other. So. You know. And you could tell. Which one was which. Like Jackie Chan's. Circling around. And jumping up. Onto a wall. While Jet Li's doing the whole. Where he. Falls on his back. And then jumps back up.

[00:57:53] Using only his feet. You know. Bruce Li doing the whole. Just like. Mixing in. Both a knee kick. With a. Arm uppercut. To the face. Yeah. Reenacting a. A Bruce Lee movie. With. The Team America puppets. Yes. Let's do it. Let's do it. Sex included. Because the best part about that. Was whenever they'd actually. Get into like. Fights.

[00:58:23] And they couldn't really. Use their arms. That was so great. And then they're just. Making fun of like. Just like they're. Pushing each other away. Yeah. Just ended already. Yeah. There's been. Plenty of other times. Where I would go to a park. And I was like. We got to dress this up. As a coliseum. How much to shut down. This damn park. And film. Film us as gladiators. Let's go to Party City. We're all from around the world. You know. One of us. Well if you're going to do.

[00:58:53] A gladiator movie. I'd rather it was cast with women. You know. Like. Oh yeah. That'd be fun too. We could remake Roger Corman's. The Arena. With Pam Greer. But we had like. We could also have it be like. They're warriors from around the world. So like. One of them's a shogun. Or samurai. The other's a viking. Arena today. With the Pam Greer of today. I'd still even watch it. Sure. Fred Williamson. Are you available? I think he passed away. Nope. He didn't? Still here. Promise.

[00:59:23] He's 86. But he hasn't left us yet. No. So what you're telling me. Is that. He would be a hard get. No. I showed you a picture. If I. If I were to describe my personality. Using three people. It'd be Ash from Evil Dead. It would be Bob Newhart. It would be. Michael Bluth. From Arrested Development. That's very specific.

[00:59:54] That's awesome. Well because Michael Bluth. Kind of acts befuddled. By his family. Yeah. You know. The whole. Face palm without even having to do it. Just like. Right. And Bob Newhart. Especially when he was a psychiatrist. You know. Home dealing with his patients. And. Kind of his reaction. To their absurdity sometimes. Really. Really. Oh man. But. I mean.

[01:00:24] Is there any. I mean. I know. Like I said. Terminator. Hellboy. Had some inspiration. Definitely. For their creatures. From stop motion. Maybe the spirits. In. Rages of the Lost Ark. Maybe a bit. But that was. That was animated though. Wasn't it? Oh. Okay. So. I'm thinking of. The rocks. When they fall on both that. And Temple of Doom. Okay. Just how. I mean. But. That's. That's a bit of stretch. Yeah.

[01:00:55] Okay. But. Monsters. I mean. Maybe Jurassic Park. Just the most. Just because it's a mixture of both. Puppets. CGI. And. Animatronics. Well. Yeah. Jurassic Park was definitely. Influenced by. Definitely from the tip. Influence alone. I. I do recommend for anyone who hasn't seen it. Look up the newer. ILM documentary. That's on Disney Plus. Like you'll be so engrossed in it.

[01:01:23] And I liked how they actually. Instead of just repeating what we probably have all heard on all the different special features and. You know. Film history books. They went a little bit further explaining all the other ins and outs on why. Some of the other guys quit afterwards to do Galactica. And. Um. And they give equal speaking ground to everybody. They. They have Tippett. They have Lucas. They have. Uh. All the other guys who've gone on since. And. How. Then it got to where it was like.

[01:01:53] Now we can't turn down work. Because. It's just. Everyone wants their services now. And. You know. After a while. We can't fight with the filmmakers on their vision. Even if it. You know. It's good effects on a crappy story. You know. It was. A little more blunt. And so that's why. I dug it. Instead of it just being. Oh. You know. Here's what in Star Wars inspires. Like. They went a little further. Which was cool. Charles Band. You know. He. He really did some stop motion stuff. I mean. I can remember. Um. Oblivion. Um.

[01:02:23] Oh yeah. The. The. Had some stop motion in it. Yeah. And. Unfortunately. I think that guy who was doing the animation. Uh. Did pass away. Rather recently. But. So in his honor. He started just going for some dailies. Of unproduced stuff. And saying. Let's just. Include those. As. Extras. You know. Um. But. I mean. I applaud anyone who wants to just recreate some kind of 50s technicolor. Epic. You can just. Do it. You know. If you want to.

[01:02:52] Film a western in your backyard. You know. Just. Uh. There was times where I was going to like some museum. And we tried to make it look. Like. We were on a plane. And it was crashing. You know. It's a little small camera shake. Like Star Trek. So you try to do some video footage yourself? Yeah. For some other stuff. It wasn't serious. It's like. Some of it was fan films. Other stuff. Was just kind of. Proof concept. But. You know. Keep. Keep scouting stuff. Keep. I mean. The beauty of a park is.

[01:03:22] It's to the public. And as long as. You don't tip them off. That there's cameras. You know. Just get in. Get out. Do something fun. Yeah. I can remember somebody recreated. A lot. Several years back. I saw something where somebody recreated. Rages of the Lost Ark. Yeah. They even did a documentary about. Someone who made a fan film. Where they were like. Recreating every single scene. Right. And you know. He's like. Hanging from the back of a. Datsun truck. Or a Toyota truck. Or something. Yeah. It's supposed to be. It's like. Good grief dude.

[01:03:54] But it was inspiring. I gotta wonder if. That guy ever tried to. Parlay that into. Some sort of movie career. You know. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes to. Finding your own. Original vision. Or. I mean. We've talked about how we haven't. Cared in the past. For some guys. Doing rip offs. And it's like. Well. It all started with a homage. And then it becomes. Well. Did you focus too much on. You know. The money shots. Versus the. The actual premise. You know. It's like. I'm cool with whatever you want to do.

[01:04:24] Just don't make me feel like. I'm watching the same movie. Only done more flashier. You know. Well. I mean. This is just. When they did the Raiders thing. They were just kids. And they were just trying to. Yeah. Different premise there. And. I mean. They're doing it with actual video cameras. At the time. So. You know. No. Yeah. I. I don't mind. Homages. But. I want to see a new. You know. I like seeing things. That might be. Obvious. That they were inspired by something. Right. Instead of just. I'm going to take every single frame.

[01:04:54] Recreate it. And not. Do my take on it. You know. But yeah. If you haven't seen the Immortals. Give that a look. Tell me. If you don't see. You know. A lot of this. I totally did. I was just like. Yeah. They're looking. If they're not looking at that. Then they're looking at something else. Like the Black Robe. Or some other. Sword and sandal. You know. Yeah. Well. And they. They did. The one thing they did. Was they went a little darker. In the Immortals. Then. But. It was still very much. Very eye-catching. Yeah.

[01:05:25] And. I mean. I. I. I had the privilege of. Having. One of the guys. Who was like the main finder. A founder behind. So many pictures. Image works. And he explained how they. Had a good producing team. That pitched how. They're. Getting. That they were. Worthy of the. Effects Oscar. For total recall. Where you. Because they did the animation. Where you see his. X-ray scan. That he has a gun. And everything.

[01:05:56] It was like. It was so key to telling. The movie and everything. And he talked about how. For years. You know. They had fun creating. Plenty of other. Effects for Sony productions. But. Every once in a while. They'd get a director. Who would just. Be blunt. And say. Hey. Can you make this not look like shit? You're like. Gee. Thanks. That tells me everything. I need to know. To do a better job. Yep. And so. I mean. Kudos to anyone. Who's been in it long enough. You know. Without getting eaten up. Or. Getting sick of it.

[01:06:29] Well. I mean. Clash of the Titans. Was Ray Harryhausen's last film. I think. Think so. Yeah. 81. So I think. Because he said. Everybody just want to be faster. Want things to move faster. And he says. He was getting too old for that. So he just retired. Yeah. What a good. Note to land on. You know. Instead of. Well. You know. Clash of the Titans. He actually. Most of the stuff. He did his own special effects. And stuff. You know. He did his own stop motion work.

[01:06:58] With Clash of the Titans. He actually brought people in. To work on that one. Yeah. Sweet. And that was the one he went out on. Oh. So yeah. About the time I find out about Ray Harryhausen. Is the time he does his last film. Hey. You know. I applaud anyone who can. Stay relevant in every single. Era. That he's working. Well. I mean.

[01:07:28] I'm trying to think. He goes back to the 50s. Yeah. Because he did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he had 30 years in the business. Or so. There's actually a book. About him called. An Animated Life. From 2004. And it includes. Critic blurbs from. Nick Park. Joe Dante. James Cameron. Steven Spielberg. Lucas. Rick Baker. The Secret Lab. At Disney. Feature Animation. Dennis Murin. You know. Who is also part of ILM.

[01:07:58] And Kermit the Frog. But with Clash of the Titans. It was like. Kind of his last hurrah. He was. Everybody was just looking at it. Going. This is how it started. You know. Because. Now you had people making monster movies. That were like. You know. Computing. They were. Everything. Everybody's starting to look at computers. And. Stuff like that. And then. You got to think. You know. His. Clash of the Titans. Is his last hurrah.

[01:08:28] And it's like. Him just basically saying. All right. Here. I'm going to make everything look like. You know. It's an amazing movie to watch. You know. You know. He. He. I can remember watching that. And going like. Wow. You know. He. He. He really brought. A lot of stuff to life. You know. Of course. My. You know. My. Fresh. My. My. My high school English teacher. Was like. Oh. It's a bastardization. Of mythology. Well. Bullshit. I think it's a great.

[01:08:58] Great thing to watch. You know. Especially. He's like. He wants to be. Every single. Every single. It's got to be word for word. Like the source material. It's like. It's okay to take. Oh God. Creative. License. It's okay. Well. Well. You know. And the thing is. It's like. Comic books to me. Was my introduction to reading. Before that. I was a very poor reader. My vocabulary was terrible. But then when I started reading comic books. That. All of that improved. That's how it was for my pal Tony too. He was like.

[01:09:27] He was less of a reader. And more of a comic book. Thing. But I see other people who go. Oh. Comics aren't real reading. I'm like. Well. There. There's some form of entertainment. That really gets you out of your shell. So. You know. So. When you bring up. You bring up bastardized Greek mythology. And it's like. Well. It's getting kids interested. Yeah. It's not like they claimed it was on a. It's not like they said. Based on a true story. Come on. Yeah. Anybody who thinks comic books. Can't. Can't lead to other things. I have two words for them.

[01:09:58] Classics illustrated. Boom. Yeah. Boom. Yep. Well. And. A lot of the people. Who often talk smack about something. They're often just not very familiar. Like. The problem. It's a picture book. The problem. The problem. Thomas. Is that they'll think that. You know. They'll still think. Classics illustrated. Is a bastardization. Of. Of. The original works. That's not. Well. That's. That's. They want to. Not mine. What. If they want to keep lighting matches. And setting fires.

[01:10:28] That's. That's their business. Well. You got to. I mean. With this guy. I'm just saying. I know how people act. Right. Yeah. And. And. And they can be wrong. And. We can mock them for being wrong. Yep. Trust me. I have. I've gotten into it. And I've just been like. You know. I've. You're not worthy of my time. I've been to where. I want. Like. When I watch. Clash of the Titans. The one scene that I always love. Is the Kraken. Yeah. When Zeus says. Release the Kraken. And you see.

[01:10:58] Poseidon. Go underneath. He opens the gate. And this big giant shadow comes out. You just see a little bit of it. And then you just see this head come up. And it's this giant. Brickin. Now. Kraken was the tight. Was one of the Titans. Yep. I think. I think so. So when you see that. That thing come up. You're like. Holy. Rap. You know. That's a. That's a. Nice effect. You know. Yep. To see this thing. You know.

[01:11:27] For that time. And then he makes the little. He makes the little. Owl. Yeah. Little owl. Yep. The metal owl. The little metal owl. And I didn't realize that. When you had a Clash of the Titan figure. If you got Perseus. I think some of them. Came with a little metal owl. With them. Like a little plastic owl. Yeah. It was like. Yeah. A Happy Meal type. Figurine they gave you. Yeah. Yeah. And then they did the remake. Where they just kind of. You see the owl. And they just kind of.

[01:11:57] Toss it away. I was so bummed by that. I'm like. So what's. No. Now I'm going to use it. That's just. That's not even a homage. That's just lazy. Yep. It was well away. It was kind of mean spirited. It's like. Oh we're better than that. Yeah. It's kind of like. It's like the rabbit's foot. At the end of Mission Impossible Free. They never tell you what it is. I'm like. So it didn't even fucking matter. Okay. Don't have a MacGuffin. If it ultimately does not matter.

[01:12:30] The MacGuffin. Never heard of that. But so. I'm a Guffin is often an object or event that's necessary to the plot. I know what it is. I just didn't know. It's unimportant. That's kind of what they did with the rabbit's foot is like there's this device that all these terrorists are fighting over and they don't even show it to you. And they're like open by the way. The CIA guys come in and they take it away. I'm like. God damn it. Tell us what it is.

[01:12:59] Don't do. You know at least when Tarantino did it. With the briefcase and Pulp Fiction. That was dark comedy. You know that was fun. Yeah. And it wasn't. And the briefcase itself wasn't truly important. Right. Right. Like take out the scene. The rest of this thing isn't. Affected. But at least. We see that the characters are looking at it. So. You know. It's just. They were having fun with it as opposed to.

[01:13:28] Here's something really important. And by the way. None of it ever mattered. Even though we spent a movie on it. You know. For most of us it was Clash of the Titans. Was that really your favorite. JJ. Um. I'd have to say. No. Not really. I think my favorite was. Um. The two Sinbad movies she did in the 70s. All right. All right. Titans to me was. Was basically. Okay. Great story. But. You know. Great. Great actors. But it was like the. The Chico Marx. Uh.

[01:13:58] For some people. Like Olivier. You know. Was in it. And I know. You know. I think he was. You know. He wasn't feeling that well by then. Yeah. He was out of it. You know. He was. He wasn't out of it. He just. He'd gotten. I think he just. Had like stomach cancer. Or something like that. Yeah. And. Um. You know. A lot of great actors. A lot of it is great. But. The story kind of like. You know. Goes all over the place. You know.

[01:14:28] And. To me. The Sinbad movies are great. Because you know. I like. You know. The one with John Philip Law. And the one with Patrick Wayne. The two. The two. It's kind of like they're all. Back to back. Yeah. Yeah. Eye of the Tiger. Yeah. They're great to watch. You know. And. Clash of the Titans. You know. Great. Great story. I mean. Not great story. But you know. Great special effects. But the story. And. It gets kind of. Kind of. Kind of alluded a little bit. You know. With everything.

[01:14:58] Yeah. Yeah. Well. I got to go with John. Especially in the golden. Or not the. The eye of the tiger. Sinbad. Yeah. I like. And I cannot believe. I can't think of her name. But Dr. Quinn. Yeah. Jane Seymour. Jane Seymour. Jane Seymour. Yeah. You know. In her almost nude. Scene. Yep. Oh yeah. Well there's. There's Jane Seymour. And then there's Caroline Murdo. Who's in the. The first one. Oh. The one in.

[01:15:27] She's in Star Crashers. Yeah. Yeah. And. Yeah. Caroline Monroe. I mentioned her. Earlier. Yeah. Yeah. So. Those. Those two are great. Because they have. And the funny thing is. They're both Bond girls. You know. He has. But. The thing I loved about. Watching. Um. The. Sinbad movies.

[01:15:56] It was Sinbad. You know. It was. You know. We. You know. Most of us knew. Who Sinbad was. You know. And. And. With Clash of the Titans. It was kind of like. Okay. It's the Greek gods. We know some of them. And some of them. But. I don't remember. You know. The. The guy who was like. Deformed for hunting the wing stallions. Yeah. Um. Oh. Uh. Yeah. What was his name? Calibus.

[01:16:26] Caliban. Calibos. Calibos. Caliban. Caliban. No. Um. You know. Caliban. And. You know. I knew about. I knew about. Uh. You know. I knew about Thetis. And I knew about. You know. You know. I knew about Maggie Smith's character. You know. I knew about the gods. Because my. You know. My parents. You know. Gave me like. You know. Here are the Greek gods. You know. That. That. You know. Here's their.

[01:16:56] Here's who they were. In. In Roman times. You know. You know. Zeus was Jupiter. You know. Neptune was Poseidon. You know. All that. But. The thing that got me the most. Was. You know. Watching that movie. And like. You know. I'm like. I'm like. I really can't invest myself. In any of the characters. Special effects were great. But the characters. You know. They're kind of like. Kind of dorky. Waiting to be killed. Yeah. I mean. You know. The one part I didn't like. Was when the guy. Who was the head of the guardsman. Died. Because you like him.

[01:17:26] You know. But. When it came to. You know. Mike Burgess Meredith's character. But. I really couldn't see myself. You know. Liking a lot of the characters. In that movie. You know. But yeah. Well. I mean. Everybody's pretty much. Introduction to it. And yeah. I had to find out. About all the old stuff. After. Because he'd stopped doing work. Follow us on the web. On Facebook. Twitter.

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