Tuesday at fifteen pm. If you know anything about Chicago politics, you'll understand
why a sixty three year old board captain was braving the ungentle hour and the
less gentle streets. You see, Ward Captain Leo J. Ramutkam was returning
home from awake and off reader zame to a loyal, regided voter he knew
would one day meet him in that great polling station in the sky. What
Ward Captain romutka fail to foresee was just how soon that meeting would be.
That was the voice of reporter Carl Kolchak in the case they were calling the
Nightly Murders. It was the eighteenth episode of The night Stalker, released on
March seventh, nineteen seventy five, directed by Vincent McVitty. I thought it
was mcgavitty, but I don't know. The only episode that he directed of
The night Stalker. Story by Paul Man Megistretti, who I think this was
his first gig as a writer. He would go on to a bunch of
other stuff, a lot of Barettas and some Simon and Simon's and one of
my favorite things, whiz Kids. And it was also written by Michael Cozelle
Cozole, who would go on to be the author of Richie Brockleman Private Eye,
which I don't know if that lasted more than one episode or nah,
but that was kind of this weird failed spinoff of Colombo, if memory serves
so. No, No, that was a spinoff of the Rockford Files.
Oh it was because that same guy was in Colombo as like a he wanted
to be a detective, but then he wasn't You're right those Bacco and Cannell
both working on that, of course by Dennis Dugan, who then went on
to not only be in movies, but he became a director and directed a
bunch of Adam Sandler movies and Chris he Richie Brockleman Private Eye qualifies for the
one season show just saying that was Zell him and then mc mcvat yeah,
mckevin. He also directed a ton of shit, including a whole bunch of
the nineteen nineties Colombo. But the less said about that the better. So
I am joined by Chris Stashu as always Yes, I am here and that
is spelled nightly with a K, not with an end, and also on
this episode as special guest, Richard HadAM. Hey, thanks for having me
back, gentlemen. So let's talk about the nightly murders. Yeah, like
you said, Chris, this doesn't happen every night, though it seems to
happen every night for a little while. Yes, that would be the way
it seems. Yes, let's talk about it, because I am not going
to give my opinion until I hear at least one other opinion who I am
on tenter hooks. I really like this episode, and I am willing to
explain and then defend my liking of this episode, but I'll say the two
things I like about it the best are I like the guest stars John Denner
and Hans Conny. I like them a lot, and I and I also,
I'm going to say that I actually think that the Black Knight is kind
of a badass antagonist and looks pretty cool. I'm not saying it couldn't look
cooler, but I think there's always something really awesome about a suit of armor
coming at you with the blank mask down and you just don't know what's making
it move, but you know it's going to kill you. So based on
those two things, I'm going to give this a thumbs up. I was
so reminded of Scooby Doo whenever I see a suit of armor that is running
after or coming after someone. But like, but in a good way.
You're saying this was this made it good? Right? Oh yeah, of
course I like the guests a lot. Are you going to be mean?
Are you going to be mean? Chris? I mean the way that this
episode wraps up is one of the worst wrap ups of an episode we've seen
of this show period. Did you read the script? Because I just read
the script last night. OMG. This episode opens up in an insane asylum
where we've got two sets of legs coming into this room, where we then
reveal that it is Vincenzo and Ron. And then the person who's on the
floor turns over and it's Carl and he starts babbling about this black night and
he's in a straight he's in a straight jacket, and Ron course is like,
oh, this is the best that he's dressed in a long time.
So his narration because we don't see him narrate the beginning and end, like
we normally would see him sitting at his desk or you know, on a
dock waiting for somebody to pick up his luggage or something like that. But
here he is in this insane asylum. And then even at the end they
break the fourth wall because they're like, oh, there's a little camera over
here, Carl. They've been recording you the whole time. You know,
you don't have to worry about getting to your recorder. It's all on tape
and they have it on film. And then Vincenzo looks right at the camera,
shrugs and walks out. And then Carl looks at the camera and says,
well, you believe me, don't you. It's all true or something
like some Really it's really weird, and I'm I got to say for he,
okay, a couple of weird things. One is so the first scene
and then that final scene the book ends of him in a strait jacket in
an insane asylum are removed, But then everything else is almost exactly as written,
like word for word. The dialogue. I mean, it's incredibly faithful.
I think maybe within those other pages only a couple scenes have been cut
out, and they may have been filmed and then just cut out, But
otherwise the dialogue is like ridiculously faithful to what was written. Right, Other
than that opening and closing, which are maybe like five pages worth of stuff.
This script runs sixty two pages, and I'm like, I know that
they said that with Colchak they would tend to overwrite a little bit because McGavin
liked to have a very rapid fire delivery, so he would compress the time
that way. But still sixty two pages, it's a lot. And I
will say though that having read now a couple of these scripts, I actually
think that in of filmmaking, like like a writer trying to write a visual
piece, that some of these scripts are written at a pretty high level that
the actual production never lives up to. It's like, it's like, Okay,
that's a nice idea that we would do that reveal or have that angle
or tell the story in that particular visual way, but we don't have the
time or money, so we're just gonna throw a camera at it and film
the scene. Which is kind of sad because clearly, even at this late
date, eighteen episodes in, someone is like, there might be a cool
way to actually come into this scene, and they just it just never happens.
I'll say what I did read the script. I was just curious if
anyone else had, because the inter a outro would have made this episode ten
times better because it would have been different. This is very much stock in
trade Colchack at this point, which is fine. However, the issue I
have is that the way it wraps up is so similar to things we've seen
before that oh, and then all of a sudden, this magical acts kills
the Black Night. Okay, I want a little bit more in the climax
of the episode, That's what I want. There seems to be a little
bit of a disconnect with this episode because there is so much to like in
this episode. I don't dislike this episode, but the way the episode wraps
up is so rushed and hand fisted, and it's like and then a magical
acts and they're going to be mad at me for destroying their museum. The
end, like whoa, whoa, yeah, yeah yeah. The post killing
of the monster beat is literally it's fifteen seconds of just some voice over and
then we're out. And it's funny though, because I always remember, oh,
like he I think it is kind of cool and on brand for Track
to like not be badass and to almost just barely survive his encounter with the
supernatural thing which I really do think is a conscious, constant thing. It's
never cool. He's never in control. He just like can barely do it.
And the fact that he can, he can only like the battle axe
is so heavy he can barely lift it. I always sort of liked it,
but I was also frustrated by it, and I was surprised to see
that it was really mapped out in the script. It was like in the
script, it's like he can barely lift it. He barely gets it up
to his knees, he barely pokes at the suit of armor with it,
and yet apparently somehow bass enough and then and then the suit of armor collapses
onto the edge of or the point of the axe, and that completes the
ritual killing, so only a flesh wound. So that that part was like
a little frustrating in the way a lot of the endings are like he never
really just gets to stock the shit out of one of these things. But
yeah, then it wraps up really quick. Here's my thing, though,
Chris, do you think it would have diminished, like in your eyes,
your respect for Coleshack if you literally saw him in a straight jacket. No,
I think it would have been just kind of an interesting twist. I
mean, look, this is the same guy who murdered someone in front of
the police. I mean he murdered Scoresny, like straight up killed him and
was essentially just you know, given away Scott Free. So if this show
we're on now, and I'm not talking about the two thousand and six remake,
I'm talking about if it were on now, there would have to be
there would be a storyline similar to the way the script was written, where
Colchak is, you know, deemed insane by people, and you know,
he's spouting off this nonsense and people don't take very kindly to it and want
to get rid of him. It's a little bit more kind of prescient,
I think than even the show was attempting to go for if that makes sense.
It showed some consequences for Colchack doing what he's been doing this whole time
exactly. But what was weird about it was why this episode, Like how
is this one any crazier? Like like it's not like like they didn't have
a scene earlier where like Tony's giving a speech to the press club and Carl
comes running in screaming about something like there are other episodes where he's probably publicly
acted more insane. So it was a little weird that, for whatever reason,
this is the one that ends him in the booby hatch, even though
I know it was Rausch sort of getting his revenge, but you know,
I mean, it was just kind of odd, like if they are going
to do that as a bookend, why for this particular episode. And that's
the thing I don't know, is why this episode unless it's just Rausch out
playing Colcheck, which is fine, because Roush is I think one of the
better kind of police, you know, Sutton a villain, but kind of
antagonists or cole Jack that we've had, if not the best. And John
Denner is so great you would call ever seeing the factor before, because I
mean, he turns up in a lot of stuff. He was in an
episode of The Rockford Files called There's One in Every Port, But I really
remember him from an episode of the original Twilight Zone called Mister Garrity and the
Graves. I don't remember that, but I remember that he was in an
episode at Colombo. He was the commodore and last or off for the Commodore,
and he was the commissioner. I think it was an airplane to the
sequel that is beautiful, well garritty and the Graves was one of the creepier
Twilight Zones, and it was in the It was kind of like in the
Old West, and John Denner, the guy who plays Roush, comes into
town and he's basically a guy who who says, I can bring all of
your dead relatives back, and so everyone pays him a bunch of money to
do it. And and then that night at midnight, it's very foggy in
this old Western town and all these people start wandering through the fog from up
on boothill or wherever it is they're buried. And when the town suddenly realizes
that it's for real, they pay him twice the money to make it stop.
And this is what he does town to town and and you know,
and it's it's but it's one of those ones where it's like, oh,
we know, it's it a complete con game or the hiring actors to do
it, or what is it? Or is it the Monkey's top? But
that's what he plays in the Twilight Zone. And he's the same. I
mean, like anytime you see John Denner, he is just John Denner.
He's exactly the way he is in this episode. Well, it's kind of
like Hans Conried. He plays unhinged so well, and they'll play that like
erudite professor type character who is just on the edge of going crazy, and
when he passes over into that, I just always love when he explodes.
Yeah, like when he played Captain Hook, which is what I know him
from. I mostly know him from his voice work, and then like Captain
Hook, but I think he also did voice work on Bullwinkle, and then
he was in The Five Thousand Fingers of Doctor t which is fantastic movie.
That's right. When was he hook? Though, Chris? What which one
was the original? The V nineteen fifty three v Peter Pan? Where is
it man made lagoon? Now we've searched that, we've combed Cannyboo Coves.
Yeah, no, no, no, no, that's he deals hid it.
But wait, those red Skins know these islands better than I doom your
own ship. Yeah. Same year he was Doctor Turr Willicker. Oh okay,
so you're saying he was better than Dustin Hoffman crazy? Come on,
Yeah, I just want to I just want to be clear here. I
just want to know what we're saying definitely no, Hugh jack Man. Okay,
oh my god, I forgot that that was the thing. What about
what about Christopher Walkin? That's the deepest of deep cuts. Yeah, that
that's that's pretty deep. Alison Williams was it? Alison Williams is Peter fan
and that one a total abomination of an idea. But whatever, No,
Hans Conrid is great, and there are no more Hans Conraids, like there
is no like who is today's Hans Conreid exactly? Well, that's right.
He was snidely whiplash. That's why I remember that voice. Yeah, that
voice is great, and and it's funny because they I know we've talked about
this before, but Cole Shack, I mean the you know mccavan version.
They really packed these episodes with recognizable, venerable old character actors. And I
have to believe that these guys were still under contract to Universal or or somehow,
because I don't otherwise I don't know how you get them unless it was
just like Darren mcavan's Poker Buddies and he's just like, oh yeah, call
up hands, he'll go it. People like Shrug Fisher, he's got a
filmography a mile wide. You know, just so many people that are like,
oh, yeah, I recognize that face. I might not know exactly
what they were in, but for sure I recognize that face. I mean,
let's be honest. The best part of this episode is when it turns
out Vincenzo has fake telephones. Yes, I think he is a knockoff.
I know that they had like telephone licenses and TV licenses and those kind of
things over in England. I don't know about unofficial phones here in the United
States. What is going on here? I don't know. I have no
idea when mob Bell before it broke up and they had the monopoly, was
it like you had to buy your phone from the phone company and each phone
had to like be registered somehow, and they had bootleg songs. It definitely
seemed like a bootleg phone of some sort. But yeah, I think you're
right about that. That whole subplot, or like little kind of little bit
is pretty great. But I mean, Robert Mhart as the coat of arms
dealer who is essentially selling Cole Chack bullshit for no reason other than to get
money out of him because he thinks he's wasting his time is pretty great.
That whole coat of arms thing totally reminds me of the Taxidermist that we had
a couple weeks ago, where it was just like, oh, how well,
you know, how dare you write bad things about taxidermists, but where
he's just like trying to sell him a stuffed animal, trying to get money
out of him. Whereas this guy is just like, yeah, let me
sell you a coat of arms and maybe I'll give you some information, but
it's going to be really difficult to get that out of me. What's weird
about it is that on the page in the script, it's even more obvious
that they're complete Charlatans, and they make a much bigger deal out of like
cutting one name off of the coat of arms and gluing the cole Shack name
on to give to him. From a writing standpoint, is like, why
are you telling us that this guy is a total rire? Yet at the
same time this guy is providing the lynchpin information of the entire episode. Look
like we're supposed to believe everything he says about g D Met and Core,
but at the same time he's totally lying to Carl, So you're like,
Okay, we totally solid on the one hand, totally lying on the other
hand. Okay, I'll buy that. Sure, this is a little weird.
It's a little weird. Yeah, I mean it's funny and it's totally
coleshacky to have that. It's just it's hard when they're working across purposes in
the exact same seme, like you almost want because whenever you get that character,
when it Victor Jory in the Diablero episode or that guy who deals in
Hindu antiquities Indie rock Shassa episode, it's like, one way or another,
you believe those guys when they're laying down the legend, right, and so
this guy's ben having that role. But but he's also like open, I'm
also a total liar. I don't know, but somehow you buy it.
I don't know. I'd also like to point out lou Dressler still alive,
which is great because she's awesome in this episode. Speaking of her still being
alive in real life, dying off screen in this episode and being a throwaway
line again kind of weird, very weird. Right, Oh, she's dead
by the way, Like, whoa, Okay, she got asked to death
in another room. You were talking about the woman who plays Minerva Musso.
Yeah, yeah, lou Dressler, the one who the one is disappointed that
that Coleshack isn't there to rape? What the fun? Yes? Rape or
rape or what does she say? Rape? Or theft raper rob? Really?
Right? What? And then Coles says no, no, no,
I'm a reporter. Don't get excited. And she's like, oh, he's
saying don't get excited. What a depressing little man? What the fuck?
Oh yeah, different era, right, I guess or something amazing character.
I'm going to go to my grave believing that David Chase wrote all of that,
because with the reference to David Bowie and that just to me feels like
David Chase kind of talk. But that is that is a weird character.
I mean, I love her, but that character has not I don't I
don't want to say she has an age. Well, but man, that
is not the kind of character you're going to see today. Yeah. When
she made the result of the reference to David Bowie, I was like,
did I just hear what she just said? Is that? I went back
and actually rewound it because I didn't believe that she was making a modern culture
reference. And then colsh I go, oh, no, it's not about
David Bowie, and I'm like, wow, we actually have a little soundflip
of Coleshack saying David Bowie and they get a lot of mileage about him getting
the perfume on his clothes from her, and that just is like the running
gag for the rest of the episode, right that he smells like a bunch
of dead bagonias. But you know, the other thing I love about this
is that they like they're always trying to come up with another twist on well,
what's Carl's relationship with this week's police captain going to be? And in
this episode he's actually pretty aggressive, Like it's not the police captain necessarily going
get out of here, Carl, it's Carl becoming exasperated with him. And
then even when he tries to pull rank in that episode, he's like,
oh, if I were you, you know, you were found five feet
from a butchered corpse, I'd have a big tension headache, And Coleshack just
comes right back at him. He's like, you know what, You're lazy.
You don't even do police work anymore. You steal information from reporters and
you sit on your ass and you don't and you're you're bored with police work.
I'm like, whoa Jesus Carlos like fucking taking it to this guy with
tongs. I was impressed well the way that he describes him as the Edward
R. Muro of homicide. I was like, wow, Wow, he
must really respect this guy, and it feels like he's kind of hero worship
he at first, you know, what do you say to a living legend?
And then he's kind of tongue tied talking to him. But yeah,
as the as the episode goes on, the scales kind of fall from his
eyes and he's just like, this guy's a total phony. He just is
a blowhard and I love the way that he's played. He's just he plays
a blowhard so well. And there's one other weird little thing in this episode
that I don't know that I've ever picked up upon until I read the script
last night, but um minerva muso, Like, there's that moment where they
think that Hans Conrid might be putting on the suit of armor and killing the
people who are going to turn his museum into a discotheque. And we haven't
even we haven't even unpacked that insanity unpacked is the correct term to use.
But he says she Minerva Musa, the character of Minerva Va Musso, says,
oh, I walked in on him and he was standing in front of
a mirror and saying some weird thing about cleaving things in Twain. And then
they sort of just go past it. But in the script it says in
the end, in the big confrontation, it says, oh, and then
the night swings and acts at Coleshack, almost cleaving him in Twain. And
then I'm like, wait a second, are you saying that Hans Conried's character
Mentel Bogs was like, did some weird spell, like some occult spell that
brought the night to life to go kill his enemies? What do you guys
think that would make a lot more sense to me than just this suit of
armor decides to get up and walk around and kill all these people who are
all to your point there to turn this disco to this museum into a disco
teche. It would have made a lot more sense to me. Yeah.
I mean again, it's it's one of these episodes where things are just happening
and they want there to be like a driving force behind it, but there
doesn't seem to be, even though they like bring up that there should be
or could be or can be. It's like, don't even bring it up.
Just leave it alone then, And that's the weird part, Like you
would almost expect like in the script, then there would have been a scene
where like he sees like Koleshack goes back, almost like in a zombie episode,
where he sees the old woman doing the voodoo spell to bring her grandson
back to life, like like you'd almost realize, oh shit, that's the
ants sort of the whole mystery is that this guy has come up with some
ancient occult spell that can reanimate this thing. And then at the end and
be like, well, when I went back, you know, Mendel Bogs
had packed all his stuff and his apartment was empty and no one's been able
to track him down. And it's kind of like, oh, that'd be
cool, but that's not even in the script, Like they almost went there,
but then didn't do it even at the script level, which was odd.
But yeah, I think that would have been cool. I really think
that would have made a lot more sense and would have you know, because
we always are on that line as far as you know, regardless, it
would have been a supernatural thing, him conjuring this force to be inside of
the suit of armor. But I think it would have made more sense to
actually give that suit of armor a little bit more of a purpose. And
like you were saying, like, use this golden type figure to do his
bidding, It's kind of like, if you're going to go that far and
just go ahead and go the final step, why not give give Hans Conride
an even more cool character to play well? And that's what I don't That's
why I don't understand about this episode, And that goes back to my initial
problem with the climaxes. Why not make it an actual villain? Why make
it this like nonsense of the suit of armor just came to life on its
own, Like what is to be gained by not having an actual tangible villain
for Carl to chase down, even if we know he's just gonna get away
anyways, because that's the way this show goes. Are you saying that you
whisky episode involved Coleshack murdering Hans Conrid. You know what I would have preferred,
The way I would have had an end, would have would have had
the Black Night turning on Hans Conride. Instead, No, no, my
own creation exactly like Frankenstein's monster style. Instead we get this like lukewarm nonsense
of just like well maybe but not really like okay, well fine, oh
okay, No, you could do that. You could you could have you
could have Call Shacks figure out like he could be saying to Vincenzo, I
think that that guy that Mental Bogs and that museum has figured out a way
to bring that night to life, and to do he is bidding and murder
his enemies, and I'm going to go confront him right now. Then you
cut to Mental Bogs and the and the Black Night killing Mental Bogs and Call
Shack getting there just a minute too late, and then realizing, oh shit,
now Mental's dead, and don't I don't know the spell to make this
thing stop, And now I have no choice and I've got to somehow figure
out a way to get to that battle axe or whatever, the axe that's
been blessed by the Pope, like they all have come on, that's a
good, a normal thing pretty much. They just walked down the line and
bless them all the kind of come off the assembly line that way. We
got to remake these episodes. Let's just remake the original episodes and just add
a little bits and pieces that, you know, the just raise them up.
I hear Stewart Townsend's not too much these days. Yeah, Gabriel Union
is making TV shows for Spectrum. Stewart Townsend is looking into the darkness,
dark dark dark dark, dark darkness. It's looking back into him him the
words. Yeah, the words that show up on the screen. He's saying
words, here are some of them. Yeah, it's look, let's not
kid ourselves and look, I will take the worst episode of the original show
over the best episode of the remake. But the thing that drives me to
enjoy this show as much as I do is always going to be Darren McGavin's
performance. And then comes the character actors in a close second. But the
monsters and stuff are not It's not that they're not memorable, it's just that
they're not particularly creative. I mean, if you really want to go there,
you can say this is almost an invisible monster since we never really get
to see what's inside the suit of armor. Yeah, it's just oh and
the suit of armor's empty the end, Well, what did you want like
ectoplasm to come out. I mean they could have made like a spirit thing
float away, because I think would have been that skeleton from last week's episodeven
Yeah. Anything. We have had so many invisible killers, both on the
original and the reboot, that it's kind of astounding. Yeah, but I
don't think I would not count this as invisible. This was a badass black
night swinging an axe and a lance and a mace. I don't agree,
agree to disagree, but it was still invisible in the suit. The monster
was not in the suit, that is correct. We're all in agreement on
that. I will agree that at least it's not fully invisible. Chris,
I'm invisible inside my body. Listen here, Richard. I don't want none
of your esoteric double speed on this podcast. It's it's better than the invisible
predator that Colchack fights And like the what the what the hell was the name
of that episode, the one with MATCHI man too, No no, no,
no, the energy ear the Mattri Minito. No no, the Matti
Minito is something different. They they have, they are, they will be.
Was the alien episode? Right? Yeah? That was the alien.
That the alien, that's the UFO and the Mattri Minido are two separate invisible
enemies. Oh the end, Yeah, because the right. But the alien
eats energy. The alien is eating isn't the alien eating electricity? Or is
that the Matchi minedo? Yes, you're correct, they're both eating energy,
and one of them also eats bone marrow. Oh my god boy, there's
a lot to unpack here. One of them leaves a big mess on Dick
fan Patten's lawn. Yes, that's right, that's what. That's the thing
I remember from the UFO episode is Dick van Patten. That's the role that
got him. They put him back on ABC's radar for eight of enough guys.
What would happen at a medieval steak and lobster discotheque? I mean,
wouldn't everyone be murdered by the black knife? You would go, you'd be
eating in what was a museum. There'd be like food getting on priceless artifacts,
and then you get really drunk, and then there'd be a disco ball
and then there'd be some disco dancing. I think it's all very very clear.
So basically, it's like a medieval times restaurant. No utensils has there
been to medieval times. Is that you guys know about that? Or oh
yeah, yeah, well I went to ex Caliber in Vegas. That's kind
of the same thing, right, same, the exact same thing. Are
you serious? There's no utensils at medieval times? Wait, you don't know
this. The conceit is it's the medieval times. They didn't use no four
because those spoon and no knife, so you have to eat everything with your
hands. They give you cups. They give you cups though, but no
utensils because they had cups by then in history, but they didn't have forks
or knives correct or spoons. You actually didn't know that. That's insane.
I thought that that was like a commonly known thing. Dude, I've been
to medieval times and I need to make that connection. Were you high?
I must have been. I must have started with the grog and never looked
back. Yeah, don't bring me any food. Just bring me more of
your finest ale, sir. We only have Budweiser here. That'll do.
Welcome to medieval times, I'll be you're serving lunch, Melinda. Might I
bet you something from the bar keep? Dost have doll a mug of ale
for me and me? Mate? He has been pitched in battle for a
fortnight and has a king's thirst for the frosty brood. Thus thou might have
for Thus I'll be right back, my lord, Thanks to you, fair
wench. Yeah, all of a sudden, this is like fucking Jim Carrey
and Cable Guy. That's what makes it great. Jesus Christ, what was
I thinking? And what were they thinking? I mean, look, I
still can't even believe a thing like Medieval Times exists. However, it's pretty
funny that they're essentially talking about medieval times in this episode. But I love
how they tie it into a disco to like, what is the disco like
a same restaurants? One thing? Was it just that it was nineteen seventy
five and everything had to sort of be Hey, you know what disc goes
big? Just mention it and that'll make it feel more like real life.
I think that has to be what it is. Striking amazing. I never
understood that. I'm like, really, so, you've got priceless antiquities,
but they're gonna leave them there somehow, I don't know, and let people
dance around them. Yeah, because that's what people want to do. That's
you know, that's what makes you hungry? To me, not having mental
bugs. Being the villain in regards to the thing turning into the discotheque is
bizarre because why would the suit of armor just come to life? Like,
why would it just come to life on its own? Like because it heard
that it was the museum was being turned into a discotheque. It was reading
page six item you read the script, it got really mean. You make
him into like a necromance or whatever, and you set up he knows the
ancient spells. He's got a book and it's got the ancient spell to bring
the night to life, and so I, Kleshack, have to go track
him down and make him do the equal opposite spell to make it stop.
But before I get there, he's killed. Couldn't he just be the guy
that they talk about? Wait? What oh the dude from history? Yeah,
couldn't Like, wouldn't that even be? Another option is just make it
like the guy figured out how to just live forever because he was already doing
necromancy and shit anyways, So he's basically he's like Connor McCloud. He has
all the antiquities and stuff, and it's got the whole like museum and now
he's like fallen on hard time time and he can't do anything about it,
and they're going to turn his thing into a discotheque. So Hans Conried is
like the Highlander or something. He's been around this whole time. Maybe it's
because they've done something too similar with that, the Jack the Ripper episode,
which would kind of be like that, where it's like he's been around forever
and he's just kind of hanging out, like doing his own thing, even
if he didn't make an immortal. Here's the joke. You've got to build
this mythology that there's this knight who hated all human pleasures, and so the
very idea that anyone would be, you know, celebrating or dancing in the
museum where his suit of armor lives is so repellent to him that his ghost
is coming back to kill all those people. But Mendel Bogs has the exact
same character, the same exaction. He's like, I'm appalled that these people
are doing this, So why not just connect those two? They were right
there. Oh god, you got to get David Chase on this show.
I would like that. I've been asking for a long time. I mean,
if we talked to David Chase. All we want to do is ask
what did it mean when the screen went to black? No, that's a
joke. We will literally never mention the Sopranos. Yeah, we're not gonna
bring up the Sopranos. His career ended at the Rockford Files. He's done
two shows, Rockford and Koleshack, and that's all we care about, and
really only Koleshack. So really it's okay, explain shopper, explain it.
Listen here, David Chase, you explained this to us right now. Yeah,
we want to talk about your greatest television show, that end of the
nineteen seventy five. I can't help but think as much as he probably doesn't
want to talk about the Sopranos, he probably enjoys just constantly being like,
yeah, you know, I've kind of wrote the Sopranos. Yeah whatever,
Like, no big deal. He'd probably rather talk about Koleshack. It's like
I've answered every fucking Sopranos question I'm ever going to answer, and we walk
up and it's like, oh, fuck, Sopranos, tell me about Koleshack,
and he'd be like, oh god, finally, okay, great,
what do you want to know. Tell us, tell us about the Sopranos,
sponsor great, tell us about the Sopranos and the movie coming out.
Please. It's weird because David Chase was involved with so many of these episodes
of the show. He's involved with like four or five of them. I
think he was the story editor for all of these, so he was involved,
even if like his name isn't on these scripts, he has his fingers
in them. I do get that feeling because but the weird thing is that
the titles of people on TV shows has changed so much. Like a story
editor now is a very very low ranking person in the writer's room. But
I think in the seventies, the story editor was sort of almost like the
showrunner, Like I'm sort of the I'm the writer who goes through everything and
make sure every episode is sort of brought up to the level or matches whatever
the show is supposed to be. So even if a freelance writer writes an
episode, it's going to go through my typewriter to make it a night Stalker
episode, for instance. I think that's the role David Chase played on this,
Like he rewrote you know, Bob Zemeckis and Bob Gaylee. They had
Ci Shermack as the showrunner after the first few episodes, So but yeah,
I see him more as like almost producer type guy. But yeah, I
see you know, David Chase was like I guess Martin Parlance the head of
the writer's room. I think you're right. And I think cy Trumac was
a guy dealing with the studio and like dealing with the budget and just sort
of with fucking Darren McGavin. He and McGavin. But it heads all the
time, Oh right, ohlan, and McGavin apparently was like an executive producer
and at a certain point he was like, you know what, just get
me off this show. I can't, I'm too tired. Sounds like Darren
McGavin was not the easiest person to work with, but I still loved him.
Oh yeah, I mean he just seems like he looked but this way.
If I ever had met Darren McGavin, I would have expected I was
meeting Carl Koleshak, and him and Darren McGavin are one and the same.
That kind of like grump grump miser, but with a sharp like a with
like a quick wit. It like a quick wit and a sharp tongue?
Was it marked with ziach? Was he saying that that? Didn't? He
meet McGavin once and McGavin was like, here, have some more wine,
and they were just like, oh okay, like like a couple of glasses
of wine. Got the stories rolling? That sounds awesome. I would give
anything. Oh my god, can you imagine let's go drinking with Darren McGavin
and here's some stories. Yeah, that would be great. And it's unfortunate
because we're reaching the end of the show two episodes left. So are you
guys going to still do an episode about the unproduced script? Yes? Okay?
And do I still get to come and join your Yeah, of course
you do. No, Richard leave Your infectious optimism is not wanted. Here,
mean, Chris mean, I'm the bad cup. I still can't find
the execute Sers written by Max Hodge, but we have to get a Balisle
and Eve of Terror. There was one site that was selling like all of
the scripts that I don't have because I don't remember how many we managed to
collect, but there was one that was just like, oh yeah, we've
got this net and the other thing, and I was just like, here,
take my money. I was like, fry from that gift, here
take my money, and it was like okay, sure, and then came
back it was like, oh yeah, the guy that sells us those he's
not available anymore. And I'm like, well, then, why do you
even have him on your site? Why'd you get me so excited about this?
And it's just like can you find that person? And then every once
in a while I'll find like, oh yeah, this episode the script was
on auction for three hundred dollars through some weird auction site, not eBay,
and it's like, yeah, well fuck that. I can't pay that much
money for any of these things. But yeah, the executioners has never shown
up any place that I've looked for it. I don't have that when I
haven't been able to find it. But offline, let me know about the
episodes. I mean, I know it probably doesn't matter now because you guys
are almost done, but if you want them, like, I've got a
bunch, so let me know the ones you don't have. Maybe I do
have some of those just episodes, yea cool? All right. I will
say this guys, as you're going into the final two. It's my last
really favorite one. Oh this. This is no, so I don't I'm
not, I'm not. I'm not throwing any shade on youth Killer or Century.
I'm just saying that this of the of the original twenty, this is
my last favorite one. So I'm looking forward to hearing what you think of
youth Killer and Century. I kind of remember Century, but and I barely
remember youth Killer. I mean I think everybody around maybe our ages had something
for Kathy the Crosby but uh yeah, yeah, so yeah, yeah,
yeah, oh yeah, no, I can't wait. I will be sitting
by my giant radio on which I listened to your Yeah. Now come on,
turne on into the Coal track teams, ASU and Mike White down at
w r KTS col Track Teams. It's it's like the radio from a Christmas
story that Darren mccavan and his other great role they gather around for a little
orphan. Ay. Well, thank you so much guys for coming on.
I want to thank John Walker for our theme music. As always, Chris,
tell me what is going on in your world, sir? Right now,
over the Culturecast, we're doing Patricia Arquette August a little bit of a
literative word play there, so we've been talking some Scorsese movies that she was
in a little bit of a movie written by Tarantino, thankfully not directed by
Tarantino. Got a David Lynch movie in there for good measure as well.
So you can check that out over at culturecast dot com. And if you
want to listen to another TV show podcast that I am on, you should
check out the One Season Show. We just started that one, and that
is where we talk about TV shows that only lasted one season. I also
do a Chronicles from the Crypt podcast where we talk about tales from the Crypt.
But I am busy all the time, and it's not just talking cold
check and Richard, what is happening with you? I am. We're finishing
up season two on Titans, and we're about to debut season two of Titans
on DC Universe. I think the first week of September is episode one,
and so as episode one rolls out, will be filming episode thirteen, which
I am co writing, and I invite everyone to check out. Yeah,
Titans on a DC Universe. It's going to be a good season. Yeah.
As of this recording, I think they just dropped the season two trailer.
No fuck Batman, in this one. No fu Batman. Yeah,
what's up with that? That's like the thing Fuck Batman. Yeah, I
was waiting for him to work at in somehow. In this one, super
Boy is going to go fuck Superman. Nice and this one and this one
we should just have him go eat my ass Superman. Oh that's the Tarantino
DC movie. Never mind, lick my bung hole, motherfucker, lick my
bung hole. Boy. Things we don't need to hear a superhero say.
If this was the Snyder cut, he would have said it. Oh right,
sorry, but the Snyder cut exists. Thanks Kevin Smith. No,
shut the fuck up and go back and do whatever the hell you were doing
before you open your mouth. I think he was getting pouned. Yeah,
pooned. Bro. Where can people find you? What are you up to,
mister Mike? Why? Well? Every week I host a podcast called
The Projection Booth, which you can find over a Projection Booth podcast dot com.
Maybe one of these days when get Richard on that, that'd be kind
of fun. I'm only planned out to twenty twenty one at the moment,
but occasionally I do some special episodes, like we just did one on Solo
A star Wars story, which surprisingly I haven't gotten any sort of death threats
over well, I'm still riding mine, so oh okay, good. If
you were triggered, I'm truggered. Actually, it's the next level of triggering.
Oh wow, yeah, so triggered. You haven't even heard of it
yet. It's like drug and triggered. Well. I would thank people for
going over to our website and for giving us feedback and giving us all kinds
of reviews over on iTunes and stuff, and I do appreciate the people that
have given us the reviews on iTunes. We never did get enough to actually
do a live satellite broadcast from the I S headquarters in Chicago, but I
guess people in Chicago don't care enough to listen to us do it live.
Nope, those are losers, losers, sad