Special Guest Archives - Page 2 of 9

173 – Lake of Fire

Jen and Tim welcome reproductive rights expert Mellie to discuss an exhaustive documentary on A BIG COMPLICATED ISSUE: Tony Kaye’s overview of abortion in the US, Lake of Fire.

Hear the whole episode at our Patreon and get access to more than 80 other bonus episodes!

Looper has the rundown on Tony Kaye’s battle with New Line Cinema (and Edward Norton) over the final cut of American History X.

The Nation has a pretty good overview of the intertwining of anti-abortion activism and white supremacy in the United States.

Randall Terry is still alive, unfortunately, but Paul Jennings Hill, John Burt, John Salvi, and Norman Weslin are not.

Be sure to listen to Mellie’s first appearance on the show, where we picked apart the anti-abortion propaganda film The Silent Scream.

Want more discussion on reproductive ethics? Try our FREE episode on 1997’s Gattaca.

168 – Body Slam

Sam Fatu and Roddy Piper in Body Slam (1986)

With Tim AWOL (Absent With Overabundant Lego), Jen invites wrestling expert Darren Herczeg to discuss a half-assed wrestling comedy, Body Slam!

Hear the whole episode at our Patreon and get access to more than 80 other bonus episodes!

You can read Dirk Benedict’s idiotic whining about the female Starbuck over at the Internet Archive.

For a peek into the primordial soup of reactionary mass media, read this piece about Wally George and his UHF televison show, Hot Seat. More proof that the worst place God created is not the Nefud desert, but Orange County, California.

Speaking of shock TV, watch a representative clip of The Richard Bey Show! Bey later claimed that his show was cancelled because he aired an interview with Gennifer Flowers, one of several women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault. #ClintonBodyCount

Finally, don’t forget to follow the world’s greatest Instagram account, a veritable museum of weird gimmicks and jobbers, @hamandeggers. Our special guest Darren does, so shouldn’t you?

164 – The Night Stalker

Darren McGavin in character as Carl Kolchak — king

Tim and Jen host steadfast friend of the show mugrimm to talk about a pervasively influential TV movie that spawned the cult series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Also, in this episode you can learn more about Pervy the Clown…if you dare.

Hear the whole episode at our Patreon for as low as $5/month and get access to more than 70 other bonus episodes!

If you love Kolchak’s sad little hat, you can get one!

The Slate article quibbling about Fletch (the 1985 film starring Chevy Chase) may be read here, if you enjoy the Slate brand of whiny crap.

For mugrimm’s previous appearance on the show, check out our episode on the M.A.N.T.I.S. TV movie!

160 – The Ghost and the Darkness

Val Kilmer, John Kani, and Michael Douglas in The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)

Tim and Jen enlist animal expert Emma Bowers (Hyenas and Gin on YouTube) to explain why the fascinating story of two man-eating lions resulted in a boring movie called The Ghost and the Darkness.

Watch a 1996 documentary about the man-eaters of Tsavo, which includes brief interviews with stars Kilmer and Douglas and director Stephen Hopkins. One interviewee theorizes that the local lions’ taste for human flesh stems from generations of slave traders who left injured or dying captives to their fate in the bush.

This 1996 Entertainment Weekly article sums up how bad Val Kilmer’s reputation got to be in Hollywood.

As Richard Stanley, who directed Kilmer for three days in The Island of Dr. Moreau before being fired, recalls, “Val would arrive, and an argument would happen.” Says John Frankenheimer, who replaced Stanley: “I don’t like Val Kilmer, I don’t like his work ethic, and I don’t want to be associated with him ever again.” And Batman Forever director Joel Schumacher calls his onetime star “childish and impossible.”
Entertainment Weekly, May 31st, 1996

You can watch the tiger attack video Tim mentioned, with added context. Rawr!

There’s even a mineral named Tsavorite which was discovered in Tanzania and named in honor of the area.

Finally, listen to our episode on the shockingly ill-conceived movie Roar, with special guest Emma!

159 – Blonde

Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik's Blonde (2022)

Jen and Tim welcome returning guest Darren Herczeg to go to bat for an almost universally loathed Netflix feature, Blonde. Naturally, the trio revel in the film’s grotesque and overt misogyny while twirling their mustaches.

Hear the whole episode at our Patreon!

Jessica Kiang’s review of Blonde over at Film Comment sums up the critical reaction well:

Dominik’s film is a technical marvel, but it’s cold and not a little sinister. It’s also an utterly heartless hoodwink.

There’s no word on whether or not the French documentary that revealed the identity of Marilyn’s biological father will screen in the US. However, according to Variety, an English-language version exists and has been sold to international distributors.

Darren previously appeared on the show to talk about the film Michael Mann refuses to talk about, The Keep!

157 – Speed Racer

Emile Hirsch as Speed Racer emerges from the Mach 5 in a candy-colored still from the 2008 film

Jen and Tim welcome Speed Racer evangelist Paul Jay to talk about, uh, the 2008 flop Speed Racer.

Over at culture blog The Sundae, Dean Buckley makes a case against Speed Racer as “art film” and for the Wachowskis as purveryors of schlock (in a positive way). Agree or disagree, it’s a thoughtful piece.

The Daily Beast has details of Emile Hirsch’s attack on a Paramount executive at a Sundance party, although the headline’s assertion that he “starred” in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a slight exaggeration (he had a small part as man-about-town hairdresser and murder victim Jay Sebring).

The documentary Riding Balls of Fire: Group B, The Wildest Years of Rallying presents a nice overview of that brief era of rally car racing, plus it’s free on Tubi!

Paul guested on the show many moons ago to talk about The Paul Lynde Halloween Special. Listen to that episode here!

150 – Head

For their one hundred and fiftieth episode (!), Jen and Tim welcome animation expert Jerry Beck to talk about the worst cartoons ever made and the Monkees’ super freak out, Head!

Hear the whole thing over at our Patreon and get access to more than 70 other bonus episodes!

Visit Jerry’s website for all the animation news and discussion you can eat.

You can watch Two Wet Bears and Sam Bassett, Hound For Hire on YouTube, if you dare. You can also see the first episode of Jerry and Frank Conniff’s nightmare children’s show parody, Cartoon Dump!

Someone else remembers WBAI’s collage radio show, “Techie Time!”

144 – Fatal Beauty

Tim and Jen host Jacques of the Seeking Derangements podcast so they can hold forth about a personal favorite: Fatal Beauty starring Whoopi Goldberg!

Hear the whole thing at our Patreon, where you can also listen to Jacques’s guest appearance for House (1977), as well as more than 50 other bonus episodes!

Jacques somewhat confused the timeframe of Whoopi’s brief relationship with Ted Danson. They had an affair on the set of the 1993 film Made in America, and the infamous Friars Club blackface bit occurred in the fall of that same year. Ted and Whoopi dated until 1994; they moved on with Mary Steenbergen and Frank Langella(!), respectively.

Several stories exist on the origin of Whoopi’s stage surname, incidentally. The anecdote about “Goldberg” being her mother’s suggestion so she could appear Jewish enough to succeed in show business has not been confirmed. Hilariously, noted treat boy John Podhoretz once wrote an editorial for the New York Post demanding that she drop her adopted surname, in light of some wild-ass comments about the Holocaust Whoopi made on The View.

If you don’t recall the story of Big Lurch, we told it on our Disco Godfather episode.

142 – Money Movers

Tim and Jen welcome Doug Waugh of B-Movie TV and the Slashers podcast to discuss an overlooked Australian heist film that’s heaps good: Money Movers!

Purchase Umbrella Entertainment’s blu-ray of Money Movers at their website!

Urban Dictionary has a detailed entry on the Australian slang term “toecutter,” if you’re curious.

The “Barge Arse” clip Tim referred to may be viewed here.

We talked about Money Movers director Bruce Beresford way back in our episode about flop anthology film Aria, and Jen would like to formally apologize for calling him a “genteel hack.”

141 – S.F.W.

No truer words were spoken about this movie than “So Fucking What.” Jen and Tim welcome Bryan Quinby of Street Fight Radio to talk about a justly forgotten 90s something-or-other called S.F.W.

Hear the whole thing over at our Patreon!

Trace the history of the beer ball!

If you want to revisit that scene we mentioned from Sleep With Me, watch it here.

Jen was wrong about Juliet, incidentally— she was intended to be about 13 or 14.Romeo was 16 or 17, though, so obviously the play is problematic due to the age gap and Shakespeare is still cancelled.

The name of the teenaged girl school shooter Jen failed to recall is Brenda Spencer. She committed the Cleveland Elementary School shooting in 1979, and she is still incarcerated.