Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1Well, hi everybody, we're back and we're very excited to be talking about the images that you see there on your screen.
It's time for season two as we explore the Outer Limits.
On to the Outer Limits A Soldier.
Very exciting, a great Harlan Ellison story.
And look, we got full house today to talk about this incredible episode.
John Stauntris here, Gabe Hartman here, William Meyer, Jeff Parker, Ian Brill, Andy Parks.
Speaker 2Good to see.
Everybody can't wait me talk about this.
Speaker 3It's literally everybody, everybody.
Speaker 4Who'll come back.
Speaker 3So this episode Soldier, I just wanted to say, like upfront that you know, it just outlined a little bit about you know, where we are in the scheme of the Outer Limits.
Speaker 4The this is uh.
Speaker 3The first episode of the second season wasn't the first one they shot, but the first one there and this is mostly a completely new crew of people making the show.
The uh, the Joseph Stefano left over you know, uh controversy with the network over you know, him possibly directing an episode and over you know, scheduling and stuff.
Speaker 4You hear different things from different people.
Speaker 2Uh.
Speaker 3Leslie Stevens was still involved, but he took a step back when uh, you know, when it was clear that you know, there's clearly friction with ABC and they were on the on the edge of not renewing the show at all, but they but it was popular among a certain demographic and they wanted to keep They wanted to keep trying.
Speaker 1Uh.
Speaker 3They just didn't want to deal with like Leslie Stevens and Joe Stefano anymore.
So they brought in a producer called Ben Brady, who was he been an independent TV producer, uh, and then he was an executive at uh at ABC, who had you know who uh Stevens interacted with.
He'd be a guy that they you know, creative quotes producer if they would send uh scripts to to get approval from the network, you know, and then and then onto the sensors.
And he was actually the guy who who approved the original pilot.
Speaker 4For The Outer Limits to get made.
Speaker 3So it's in theory he was not an enemy of this show, but uh, he also was somebody that uh that every you know that more and more Stevens was in conflict with of the of course of the first season.
So when he was brought in by ABC, it was a little bit of a kind of a few to to, you know, to Leslie Stevens and then.
Speaker 1Well, have we still have Gert Oswald?
We still have Doug Peach.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, Ken Peach, not his brother Doug.
Speaker 4It's it's of.
Speaker 1Course rememberague left fielder for you knows exactly.
Speaker 4Right right now.
Speaker 3But you know, but the the people who came back, I mean, Gert Oswald was a friend of Ben Brady, I believe, and he was somebody who because they'd worked together on Perry Mason, Ben Brady was had had been a producer on Perry Mason.
So when when they but when they went to crew up this second season, ABC fought everybody who had been part of the previous crew and it took like, uh, it took multiple episodes, Like I said this one in the first one they shot.
It took multiple episodes to convince ABC to let him bring gerd os While back on because they because ABC hated the last episode of of you Know, the Outer Limits so much, the Forms of Things Unknown episode that they they thought that was horrible television.
He had directed it, and they didn't want him to have anything to do with shown you.
They did bring some of these people back though, and and I mean, I think that that helps to an extent, but that's that's kind of just the setup for where where we are now.
Let's go around the horn here and find out what what people think of this episode.
William J.
Speaker 5Myer, I love this episode and I loved it even more watching it.
Was it yesterday or two days ago?
I was weeping in the end, like I just I just I don't know, it just hit my sweet spot.
The portentous control voice at the end.
Do we have enough time to avert a future of endless wars?
We have all the time in the world, but is that enough?
Like I'm just like, oh, this is this is what I want in sci fi.
And I also love like even the parts I'm sure we'll get into later, but like the oddball moments where Corlo draws like three planets and two stars and they take that drawing and extrapulate fourteen years in the future, like, Okay, sure you did.
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2I don't know.
Speaker 5I just in the costumes and we'll talk.
I'm sure the tie ins to other Harlan Ellison stuff like City on the Jiffever, there was some similarities there.
I don't know.
Speaker 1I just loved it well and all the other and all the other sci fi that it inspired, not only in.
Speaker 2Television and film, but in comic books as well.
We'll get to that.
Speaker 1William was very quick and grabbed a couple of great images and of course the great controversy between everyone that was inspired by this episode and don't don't push humpies just as bad as Parlow Harlan Allison.
I think I'd like to see between Carlo and that would be out of a match.
Speaker 4Jeff Parker, your thoughts.
Speaker 6It has a really strong open.
I mean you you come in with the which you don't realize it's Earth, but it's such a great set and uh, then these guys are running around and beams are just coming down from left and right hitting the bottom.
Is like I got maybe over excited by that intro because the end then looks like they completely misp paste everything and they run out of time and wrap up something that could have had a lot more oomph there.
Also, by the way, they could have established a cat in this open somewhere no cat, because that became a big part of the story.
Speaker 3It's it's both a big part of the story and not a big part of the story.
Speaker 6Yeah, it's a great concept, and we'll get into Harlan Ellison that.
But I'll give it to Harlan and he really started with a bang, and you know, and then then I have my quibbles that I'll bring up throughout the our talk when it goes on.
But there's stuff I liked in it.
Speaker 7Of course, it's kind of funny that this wasn't planned out as the the second season opening, because this really sets the tone for what is both good and bad about the second season.
What's good is Ben Brady knew he wasn't a sci fi guy, so what he did was go out to a lot of science fiction writers to in what you know.
Whoever were the some of the big writers at the time, including Carl Emilson.
And we have a great performance in Michael Ansara, whose birthday is today.
Oh wow, Oh yeah, it's funny that we ended up doing this this day.
Speaker 8But you also see kind of the problems in the fact that.
Speaker 7The production wise, like there's a great map pinning at the beginning.
But and I've seen Soldier before, but after watching all of the first season of Outer Limits, seeing that helmet on poor Michael and Sara, I was like, oh no, we are going back to like traditional sci fi, which ultimately what I don't think this this is, this episode is more than that.
But like you see that antenna coming out of that that helmet, and you're like, oh no.
Speaker 8And also as Michael and Sar is kind of.
Speaker 7Blowing everybody else away, because another big problem we're going to have about the second season is something that I would say half this episode is dedicated to, which.
Speaker 8Is, uh, men in room talking about what.
Speaker 7The episode is about, which is guys look at each other and going like, what what is He's in the aliens traveling through time?
And you've got yeah, all the scenes with the dude from Buck Rogers who's.
Speaker 8Yeah this season as well.
Speaker 7Discount Yeah, they're going to have a lot of men in suits scratching their chins and saying what is this about?
Speaker 8As much as we have got in season one, right, yeah, but this.
Speaker 2But low rent Lloyd Nolan, you know port Man Semphrey Bogart, who I love.
Speaker 1I love Lloyd Nolan from his Michael Shane movies in the forties all the way till literally I saw him and it blew my mind that he was still doing the same thing, not only in Hannah and her Sisters, but even Archie Bunker's place was he was like he had a Vagoda disease where he was playing like, you know, sixty five for like thirty years.
Speaker 4Yeah, you know right now.
Speaker 3Yeah, he definitely was good in some other things.
Andy Parks, So I go.
Speaker 9Harlan Ellison is probably my first favorite writer.
And I got my little sign to me the central Ellison here.
Wow, And so I will probably be in a But somehow I had never watched either Outer Limits episode.
I think for a long time they were hard to get, and then in the last few years I just didn't think to seek them out.
And maybe based on I do love the Historic Trek episode, but I've also read as screenplay and I know what might have been and so maybe I avoided them somewhere in the back of my brain on purpose.
But I think this one does what Harlan does best.
He presents really big ideas, he's not very subtle about them, and they always they moved me, and I'm as an apologist.
I will chuck up all the goofy shit in this episode to some dumb producer who thought it should be a really awkward moment with the daughter in the kitchen or I don't know, there's some dumb shit in there that I'm kind of like, okay, but I'm sure that I couldn't have been in Harlan's Lovely screenplay, which I have not read.
I read this short story today, which I had read before, and it's quite good and it has the essential elements, but then out in a totally different you.
Speaker 1Know, about fifteen years ago, dark Horse did a couple collections of Harlan's stories and it was called Harlan's Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor.
And I'll tell my Harlan Ellison's story of my run in with Harland later, but I don't know if Soldier was included or not.
I know Demon with the Glass and.
Speaker 3Was well I do I just read I did.
I read both the short story and the teleplay for this in a published form.
I can't remember the name of the collection, but it's so the I mean, as far as the teleplay is concerned, it's mostly Harlan Nelson's, like it's the version he published is is you know, very much the episode with the exception that that everything where everything about Quarlow going to the gun shop and you know, and that little like abbreviated showdown replaced a more character based around the dinner table.
So I think that they wanted to add some uh a little you know, they made an attempt to add some kind of more action and suspense to it.
But the but that was that was a rewrite by Selig Lester, the new uh you know, the new story editor, right, and because they had already gotten the two you know, Harlan and Ellison, his apparent was apparently, you know, he'd come in, he'd do he'd pitch great stuff.
He'd never turned into scripts.
It would be impossible to track him down.
Speaker 6Uh.
Speaker 3They they got two drafts out of him.
But they but those two drafts still work.
You know, that second draft wasn't quite working.
Uh you know, I mean I think that the you know, that their solution for it, it was pretty negligible.
But I mean, my my feeling about the episode is that it's uh, you know, I I I think that it's there are cool, big ideas in it, and I think that Michael Ansara is great.
I think he's awesome in this, But I don't think that they are able to like pay off those ideas well.
And I don't think that they you know, and I certainly don't think it's well served by uh, you know, by a lot of backwards justifying of, Hey, this guy just tried to murder me.
Maybe I'll invite him to my house to live with my kids, right, Uh, the or you know, or even Hardman.
Speaker 6The primacy of the American nuclear family can over them anything.
Speaker 3Yes, yeah, And that may be why I won't like this season of the Outer Limits, because that ship was never in the first season.
Speaker 6You know what I liked in the and and one of the first scenes is, uh, the two cops who initially come after Corlou.
You know, they show up, Corlo disintegrates their squad car, and they don't wait for backup.
They still go charging after him.
These aren't like the cops we're having trouble with today.
These guys got things done and they didn't even right to do.
Speaker 2Anything exactly get them.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, are out until sixty six.
Speaker 4I don't think so at this point.
Yeah.
Speaker 5So that's uh when I first thought of City on the Edge of Forever of a time traveler showing up in an alley way.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's the same value, but it's also I think it actually literally it may literally be because that's on the I think this is we're now on the paramount back lot for the for the alleyway stuff.
We're not at MGM anymore.
So, uh so it's very likely the exact same place, although it's cheap enough that they they didn't like dress those wooden stairs that he goes to run up, those are just the that's just behind the fucking like uh you know, facade.
Speaker 4There's that's not supposed.
Speaker 3To be in the movie, right, you know, you're not supposed to shoot that part of it.
They just needed something, right, So, but uh yeah, I mean, I you know, they I.
Speaker 4Don't know, I do think that.
Speaker 3They're they're just a lot of kind of you know, of the awkward sci fi is type things that I'm not in love with in this where you know, when they walk in and they see they bring Corlo home, he goes over and starts talking to the cat and the and not.
The problem isn't that he goes over and talks to the cat.
It's that, you know, stiff Lloyd Nolan is like why in his future cats must be centuries and starts like spouting out this shit he doesn't know anything about to explaining it all to his family.
Speaker 4Oh my god, that kind of stuff.
I didn't stand that cut.
Speaker 1When Carlo first attacks him and crushes him, and poor Lloyd Nolan, who you know you can fit in the overhead compartment on any.
Speaker 2Airplane, Ah my god, doctor, And I don't feel they driveled like a basketball there, Lloyd.
Speaker 4I love that moment though.
Speaker 5Did the rest of you pick up on that jump cut?
I thought that was an exquisite jump cut.
He approaches Corlo corl it jumps and Corla spins and cuts in the two feet of space and has him by the It's just like, bam, I love that.
Speaker 4That was really good.
That's cool.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, that you know?
And again everything that's cheesy that gave mates in.
Speaker 1This I love because again I love early late fifties early sixties sci fi and them struggling to make it futuristicy.
Hey, how about them predicting the the Eye Watch?
Speaker 4Sure?
Speaker 3Yeah, But the issue with this whenever it comes up with this idea of you know, loving the cheeseball stuff.
It's not that I don't love the cheeseball stuff.
It's that you could throw a rock and get cheeseball sci fi stuff.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 3It's the point of, you know, of being interested and talking about the thing is finding interesting stuff and the good stuff.
This does have interesting, good stuff.
And I'm not dismissing this episode at all.
I mean, it has big ideas and you know, and there's a lot of cool stuff.
Speaker 4But yeah, I hope.
Speaker 9I hope you're grading this on the outer limits curve, Gabe, because I remember the Bee Woman episode which had none no good ideas.
Speaker 3No no that I agree with that though, I mean certainly not all great episodes in the first one in the first season.
It's just that, uh, you know that rarely had the kind of I mean often they were failures that were striving for something, you know, And I think that the elements of this that don't work are also striving for something that don't quite get to.
Speaker 4I'm not I'm not saying that.
Speaker 3I think that it's just that, uh, there are kind of trophy sci fi things that you felt like for the most part, the first season wasn't ever you know, aiming for a kind of comfortable sci fi realm.
Speaker 4Were true.
Speaker 3They were trying to get to someplace and utterly failing a lot of the time, and that was what interested me about it.
Speaker 6They do stuff like they since he's a polologist, as William points out, like Tolkien.
Yeah, it's beautiful, just.
Speaker 9Like you know.
Speaker 6So they do some neat stuff where they're kind of examining the breakdown of language possibly in the future, which is completely undercut by the fact that the helmet speaks perfect English to Corlo telling him find enemy, kill him kill yeah.
Yeah, Corlo can't say these things, but his helmet's telling him all.
Speaker 1The time, and that and that pre surgeons general warning I'm sorry, Jeff, that the universal language.
Speaker 2Is time to light up.
It is come on, I.
Speaker 9Got my cigarettes, yeah, Kuala, yeah, that's still around.
I was fascinated by the language stuff.
Does any know when Clockwork Orange was written, because that was the first time I had encountered.
Speaker 8I don't know if it was in America out in America by this time.
Yeah, it's published in Britain in sixty two.
Okay, So it's like if Ellison was aware of it, it would be like right, probably when he was writing it.
Speaker 7Yeah, and I don't know exactly when he came out in America, but probably not going after.
Speaker 3I mean the language is a very cool element of this though, I mean, like it's you know, that's like a great interesting idea.
Speaker 4I don't know that, you know.
I mean I think that in.
Speaker 3Some ways it just wasn't served by not just you know, not even so much the script, but the terrible performances by Lloyd Nolan and Tim O'Connor.
I mean, like they're terrible, and there are two guys together in a room for a lot of this episode.
Speaker 2I'm with you on Tim O'Connor.
Speaker 1He seems to be poorly cast because he's supposed to.
Speaker 4If you cast him in something, you've poorly cast him.
Speaker 2Like doctor Hwer and Buck Rogers.
Speaker 3Yeah, well that's also terrible.
So it's not he fits in very well then.
Speaker 1I would but I would say in those when he's supposed to be a figure of authority, I buy him.
Speaker 2But when he's supposed to be.
Hey, loid Nolan slip dash.
I don't agree with you stuff.
It's that you kind have given a guy a mickey.
Speaker 1I mean every now and then he kind of slips into like street speak, and I'm like, that's Tim O'Connor.
Speaker 3Man.
Speaker 2I'm like, he'll always wear a tie.
Speaker 4You don't.
Speaker 2You don't have to worry about.
Speaker 1Tim O'Connor not being properly dressed at the right occasion, and you have they got him.
Speaker 2Hey, what's happened to that?
Jay?
What do you get out of this?
Speaker 4Yeah?
Speaker 3I mean he What I'll say is that he was better in this episode than he was in Moonstone or whichever one it was from last season, which he was really really bad at.
Speaker 1But in uh got a million sci Fi thinks he's in that, Uh I forget.
Speaker 2I think it was called Stranded in Space.
Speaker 1It was a backdoor pilot with Glenn Corbett who played what was it about?
Speaker 8It was?
Speaker 2I will tell you.
Speaker 9It's strangely that it was behind the scenes that a supermarket.
Speaker 4Yeah, exactly, No.
Speaker 1He Glenn Corbett's an astronaut and it's like that hour long Twilight Zone that Steve Forrest did where he's an astronaut, and he falls into a warp and winds up in an alternate Earth and it's called the Perfect Order, and lou Airs is in it, and Cameron Mitchell and there's a ton of great people and Tim O'Connor is like the doctor, and they're trying to pretend like it's his earth, regular Earth.
And let me tell you, we got fresh scraad from Jimmy's at Boston.
I know you love that because they read his mind and they got all of his information.
But Tim O'Connor, like I said, if you put him, you put him in a lab coat, you buy him as a doctor, you make him an alien on Wonder Woman, you buy him as an alien, all right?
Speaker 2Like like did William you know it?
Said?
Speaker 1Poor Man's James Bason?
Yeah, yeah, I mean that was beautiful.
I mean, no, that's Tim O'Connor.
Speaker 3Man.
Speaker 5So anyway, I'm the language thing I wanted to say.
I really liked how the Sun of Kagan picked up on the vernacular and started using it back to him.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 9Yeah, pres because he's him, man.
Speaker 2Yeah, he's he's like a little he's like little Wally Cleaver.
Hey, yeah, don't knock out the jazz man.
Dad's trying to help you.
Speaker 6They're literally saying, peep this like people do.
Speaker 1Now.
Speaker 9I wish he had been an only child, because the daughter is not good in it, and that scene in the kitchen is so awkward and I just don't want to.
Speaker 3Go in some ways we dodged a bullet with that, though, because in the first draft that he did, oh no, there was there was a romantic uh between the daughter and and she.
She and Corlo would have shared his first kiss, so, uh, you know that I think we were spared.
Speaker 9Yeah, so I guess he was trying to he wanted to expose him to some feeling of intimacy.
Speaker 3I guess, yeah, But I mean that's not great if you know, if it had you know, I mean, I think that she was a little was supposed to be a little older in the earlier draft, but but still, I think that there's no way that the production of this would have been able to pull that off.
Speaker 6I was, I was.
Speaker 9I guess you call it a mini formula because two of his televised works rely on it.
How brilliant it is of Harland to come up with ideas that are pretty fantastic and also just using the back lot, you know, wherever they're shooting, because you set up this premise and then you go, Okay, what do we got laying around?
We can shoot in this room over here, we can we can just back and kirk into this apartment set we got over here.
Speaker 3Right, And I mean, I think that a lot of it was the process of having to to narrow the stuff down.
Originally it was he would, you know, look like in the short story, he was going to arrive on a subway platform and yeah, you know, uh, and you know, and the and the you know, even the going to the house thing.
Speaker 4I don't think I think that that.
Speaker 3Like evolved over the course of like, you know, his initial treatment is a lot more ambitious than they just have him scaled down, scaled down until it's something that they could manage to do.
Speaker 4But but I.
Speaker 3Just I mean, for me, just the weakest element of all of this is taking him back at the it's a weird structure.
I'm all for weird structure.
I'm not actually not here for weird structure.
But the but the part where halfway through we just go to a suburban house and go, this is gonna work out fine.
And then don't have any real conflict from there, Like it's just some sniping back and forth that you know that that doesn't really go anywhere.
And I think that that's why they tried to insert that gun shop scene, but that doesn't really make any sense.
And the way that it's justified that he broke in by ripping open the door doesn't really make any sense.
The he wasn't he didn't have like superpowers, and he didn't have his gun obviously, because that's why he went to the gun shop.
And if he could rip open a metal door, why didn't you just do that to get out of jail?
And there's just a lot of dumb stuff like that.
But that's like bad in the wall.
Speaker 4It would have been lovely padded.
Speaker 9It would have been lovely if instead of the horrible kitchen scene, they'd inserted something about him seeing a magazine with a gun or some you know, yeah, exclusion a little bit that they didn't they just right in there.
Speaker 3Yeah, I don't I don't think that there was a lot of I just don't feel like it, you know, like Jeff was saying, I mean I think that there, you know, there was uh, you know, the potential conflict and payoff of this with the enemy and all that which the business with the enemy half stuck in a thing.
The part of the problem with this, I think that the first time I ever watched this episode, I didn't even really realize that was a different guy, Like I, you know, they it's a colossal storytelling mistake to give them the same outfit and a helmet that completely covers their face.
It's they're identical.
I mean what you know, it's just a bad storytelling.
But but if that had been if they'd been able to build that up more, I think that would be better.
Speaker 6Yeah.
Also, this is my complaint a lot of times, is I again wish Gert Oswald had spent more time given a little physical direction to people who were in a special effects scene, because literally, all that all, somebody just told that guy just keep twisting back and forth.
So every time you cut back, he's doing that and you're getting half his body and it's like, come on, tell him to act like he's really yeah, my thing or something like that.
And then when then when he burns the hole in the wall, the family could react a little bit to this.
Speaker 2Yeah, that was you know, when I found where I was missing h Conrad Hall.
Speaker 1Although I can appreciate the choices that Peach made when they went from the post apocalyptic you know, darkness to those initial scenes when and Sarah is in broad daylight, and even when he's in the alley it is well lit, as opposed to an opportunity to have a few more shadows and stuff.
And I suppose that was to show the contrast.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's a reasonable thing to try to contrast.
Speaker 1And I'm glad that.
I'm glad that Peach when they were observing Sarah in the cell had that great kind of shadowy thing of Yeah, but moments of that kind.
Speaker 3Of But on on Jeff's comment about not, you know, not thinking through the behavior stuff in this, Like the most basic thing at the beginning of this is there two soldiers just running at each other, Like, are they just gonna like butt their heads together?
What's the plan?
They're just running.
They're not gonna they have guns to shoot each other, right.
Speaker 7Like that that those guns never run out of ammo.
Speaker 3Yeah, But so then and then I mean, I guess that we just go along with the with the kind of you know, premise that somehow lasers transported them and we don't know, it doesn't matter each other.
Speaker 8They cross the stream.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's true, But that doesn't.
Speaker 1I said, I couldn't really get it.
But this scene where you see them both kind of spinning through time again the influence that it had on later productions, And here, for example, you've got on the left the Time there with any Thing, and then a film that I believe gave.
Speaker 2Hartman worked on, Austin Towers despite Shagmy.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, so that was the second one, right, yeah, I remember that now.
Yeah, And that was just deliberately ripping off the time tunnel.
That's that's what every.
Speaker 2But isn't that great?
Speaker 1I mean literally it goes from outer limits to time tunnel clearly being influenced by outer limits, to you guys being influenced by time tunnel.
Speaker 3Yeah, we were influence is just stealing like that was the point of the Tower.
Speaker 9You only say that now Beaus heard him?
Speaker 3Oh yeah, right, Well look assume me he's gonna sue, you know, Mike Myers on the Yes, WRO Mike Myers.
But yeah, I mean, I I don't know, I mean I would like to.
I mean, and also along the lines of the if we're talking about the setting and stuff like that, and those those costumes and that helmet.
Uh so this is this helmet apparently appeared again in uh in Morcan Mindy, and I think that that says a lot about the you know, the relative value of that.
Speaker 5You realize this means Mark is constantly hearing kill kill.
Speaker 4Kill, right, yeah, between that.
Speaker 3Okay, So so there there's this clear continuity with Mork and Mindy, And there's also an apparent clear continuity with a conquest of the planet of the Apes, because the because the idea that cats and dogs served some some sort of uh you know, p uh you know, for for the human race, they were a servant class of some kind is played out here by him talking to the cat.
And granted, we have no idea if if this, if cats actually do service sentries.
Lloyd fucking Nolan just made it up on the spot, but you know, we can we can basically guess that that maybe.
Speaker 4This this is in the same universe as Conquest, playing like it.
Speaker 5I'd like to say another positive thing about philology, because I appreciated the scene where there he's showing him Kagan is showing him the film of Love and Hate, and they keep going on and I think, you know, it would be natural to assume, oh, he's a soldier, he's violent, he doesn't know what love is.
But Coral actually says he doesn't know what love or hate is.
He doesn't know these words.
Therefore I don't want them.
It's like he doesn't have the facility to think in the terms which I appreciate in a dualistic you know, he's beyond that.
He he is a machine.
Who is you know, outside of the framework of human morality.
I love that part.
Speaker 3Yeah, No, I mean that makes sense, and those are neat ideas.
I do think that that's a cool idea.
I just don't know that it was as well executed because it could have been.
Speaker 1So does that put the foreigner song?
I want to know what love is also in this universe, as we should say, call lou Graham and.
Speaker 2Say the Harleah and ellis in a state would like it's amount of money.
Speaker 9Let's talk about that man, because before we go there, John, before we get into the legal issues, I want to tell my meeting Harlan Nelson's story, and then we'll so I did not meet him, I had chances I was around him several times in the decades when he was still healthy.
It was only like five years ago when my buddy and I, who were both huge fans, said, ship, Harlan Ellison's going to be in Saint Louis at this convention and we don't know how long he's gonna be alive.
It was post stroke.
Let's go fucking see this guy, you know.
So we drove over there and we waited and he was on and off.
He did a panel and he would kind of like.
Speaker 10He'd be like this, and then somebody's name had come up and he snapped and he'd be Harlan.
He'd be so I called this scent of a Bitch, and then he just get He's like, okay, I'm spending.
Speaker 9We get in line and I buy one thing from him, but then I also bought my I brought this and he personalized it.
And I told him truthfully, I said, you were like maybe the first writer to really inspire me.
And now I make my living, uh in part, making words, and it's because you know, people like you kind of taught.
Speaker 2Me that was a thing of value.
Speaker 9And he said something I never could have predicted, but I thought it was so cool.
He paused and he looked up and he got it.
He was pretty uh with me for a moment and he said, well, I'm glad to hear it.
I did it for you.
I got inspired for you, which I thought was such a lovely Yeah.
Speaker 1I wish I'd talked more to Len Wayne about Harland, because I know he was a frequent visitor to Harland's house and what happened with me.
I never met a personally, but online we had a few exchanges because, as I said, Harlan Nelson's Dream Court or I spoke to Diana.
Speaker 2Shutz, who was the editor of those, and.
Speaker 1She had teased on a very early word balloon, like in two thousand and five that the next volume was gonna come out, and someone on his message board said, hey, Harlan, I heard on a podcast that volume two is coming up.
Speaker 2And he's like, you know, I've heard of these things.
What is a podcasts?
Speaker 1And I chime in and I'm like, it's hi, Harland, it was my show.
Speaker 2It's like internet radio.
I interviewed Diana.
Speaker 1I go, God, nothing makes me happy to know because he's like I heard because there was a little more chatter before I jumped in, and it's like, yeah.
Speaker 2I went to that website.
I don't know how to download this stuff and just angry as well.
Speaker 1It just almost always eap and I'm like, I'm the guy would love to have you on sometime.
Speaker 2I'm sending you a CD of my interview with I would love to have you on.
Never heard back, but to have pissed off.
Speaker 1Harlan Elison even online, I consider I'm now part of the clubs, so it'll be.
Speaker 9Very happy and by by the way leading us into the legal issues, I think it's interesting.
Most of my heroes are like Harlan Orson, Wells Harlem, these guys who are really brilliant and at some point maybe their own worst enemy to a certain extent, and at some point the work gets too hard and too heartbreaking and they end up relying on tangential things to kind of fuel them.
And so anyway, I think that's partly what led Harlan to be so litigious, because it was a way to stay feisty and angry and keep giving giving it to the man, but without making up the stories, which was fucking hard, you know, and heartbreak, right, I hear you, They're.
Speaker 6Not going to sue us the uh No, I think Harlem was kind of guy who sort of just led Windmilling because that's his entry point in entertainment.
That's probably the way he saw, Hey, he's a little guy, you know, He's probably just like I'll show everybody I am ready to kick ass or whatever so I can get my Harlan Ellison story, which is I didn't get to meet him except on the phone.
If anybody read Batman sixty six, we finally got to a point.
I had been wanting to bring in comic book characters who were not on the show, but as if they had been introduced on the TV show.
But they kept putting me on hold with that, like no, and then they finally decided, like, hey, we've We've got Harlan's treatment for the two Face episode that never was made.
Instead they did the scarier false face, and Jim Chadwick told me, and I was super excited because I thought I was going to write a story for Garcia Lopez to draw, and I was just over the moon.
And then he called me and and said, is Harland really wants Lynn Wing to do it?
That's what he expected.
And I said, like, I'm going to get in the way of that, you bet I was like, I'm just happy to read it.
It's fine.
It's like maybe one other day I'll get to write for Jose but anyway.
Yeah.
Then I come home or whatever after being out and leaving my phone somewhere, and I'm checking my mail and there's this beautiful message from Harlan.
It's a long one, and he's going on, I'm like, what am I hearing?
It took me a while a minute to process it, and you know, he's just saying, it's like I I off my curl to you.
He goes, thank you so much for being a gentleman, blah blah blah, said all this nice stuff, and I was like, this is incredible.
Speaker 1You know.
Speaker 6It's like he's, you know, like Lynn and I.
I always wanted to work with him on this and everything.
And then the next day I called him back and instead of the sweet Harley, I got wind milling Harland again, you know, because by then, you know, you'd already forgotten about it and moved on or whatever, and I'm just some jerk calling in to talk.
And I finally got through after he's like being pretty combative and everything.
I'm just like, hey, you just left a really nice message for me.
I just wanted to tell you thanks so much.
Your work's always meant a lot to me.
I've I've enjoyed it, and uh, I just really wanted to say hi and just be a fan.
And then I could tell it was he kind of caught him off guard.
He's like, oh, I don't have to be like this, you know, Oh, no problem, Parker or something like that.
Speaker 9It was good.
Speaker 6But the funny thing was, I want to back up.
Before that, I called Jim Chadwick and uh, and I said hey, Jim, and Jim immediately goes.
Speaker 2Harlan called, demanding your number.
I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 6I just gave it to him.
You know, It's like the guy could just intimidate the hell out of anybody.
It was great and like you know, it's like he had me and Chadwick just shaking.
But it was fun talking to him.
And then after that I got to do the comic all the stuff that I wanted to do thanks to thanks to that story.
Speaker 2Appearing in there.
Speaker 6However, now we're going to get into whether we think this actually influenced Terminator or not.
Speaker 1Going back to you, John, because you're you guys seem to be chomping at the bit to talk about this stuff.
Speaker 6So yeah, and you know you established it as the central question of the episode.
Speaker 1I admit that because it is so notorious.
And in fact, uh, William did you screencap the uh acknowledgement?
Or Ian?
Speaker 6Was you?
Though?
Speaker 2That was me?
Speaker 7I got say, yeah, Brian cronin CBR did a great article just about this.
Speaker 6Yeah, I read that today is yeah, so here what I've read.
I read two articles about it.
Speaker 9So I don't know if I'm no expert, here's.
Speaker 4What you're the expert here.
Speaker 2Sorry.
I think.
Speaker 9Is Herlan saw the movie and recognized it as a similar at least opening, the opening and terminator is very similar and some similar themes and said, well, this is his Horseshit is as older Harlan was want to do and call his attorney.
Now they're differing accounts that according to some accounts, Harlan had a buddy who had been around Cameron or the production or something and said that Cameron was saying, oh, yeah, I ripped off a couple hour limits.
There's another account, and this came from the CVR article that there was going to be a star log interview and Gail An hurd is that her name, Yes, Yes, called Starlog and say, hey, I need you to pull these two quotes out of there where you talk about where Jim says he gripped off.
So, according to some accounts, Carlan kind of had smoking guns on this situation.
And when he went to the studio, they danced around a little bit, and much to James Cameron's chagrin, I guess who was very proud of this thing he had made.
The studio said, you know what, Jim, we better settle this thing.
Pay Harlan off, give him his little credit, because if we don't, and if he takes us all the court, you might become financially liable yourself.
And you haven't made Titanic yet, so you might want to think long and hard about that.
He thought, what a weird thing to say, Yeah, from the future exactly.
The studio gave Harlan, let's just say, one hundred grand and a slap credit on the movie and said we're done here, and Harlan got his little pound of flesh, and Cameron, until Harland was dead, went around muttering that Harlan was a parasite and so on.
And that's that's how when as I understand it.
Speaker 3It's funny that like, you know, I mean, there's all you know, this is the episode that everybody points to as far as the terminator goes.
But like if you were gonna see, you know, if you were gonna compare it to to her limits.
Speaker 4Episode, the you know, the.
Speaker 3The Man who was Never born from season one, the Martin Landau episode is a much better like as far as the actual story of that episode, it fits way better for something to rip off, you know, going back to the past to kill somebody you know who uh, you know, to to prevent a future you know, uh, you know, somebody who's gonna be born to change that's going to change the future.
Uh, you know, potentially killing the mother.
All that sort of stuff is you know, And I mean I think that that, you know, I read somewhere that that Ellison went to the writer of that episode as well to try to bring him in on this lawsuit.
But maybe he uh and now now I'm forgetting his name, but but like so maybe yeah, and so I don't believe that he was actually part of that.
I guess he probably would have gotten credit if he was.
But but the the the connections between Terminator, and this episode seemed very very marginal to me, Like, you know, it's it's so it's just like a little superficial opening type thing, right.
Speaker 6It's it's it's the kind of thing that's been done is zillion times in comics and pols before this.
Yeah, so it's a little hard to say it would have been great though if Karen had just said no, it wasn't that episode of the Outer Limits.
Speaker 3Right, but yeah, but it's it also seems like these are like the you know, it's been done a million times before, and the interesting things in this episode are not the things you.
Speaker 4Would point and say that the you know, they had to do with the terminame.
Speaker 1I'm glad that Steven pointed out that it was Tracy tourmae uh, the the scat Love and Velvet fog Son who is.
Speaker 9Son of the Velvet are real.
Speaker 2You can't just drop that.
Speaker 3And no, no, I got it down crazy Trace Tournay was related to melt Yeah, and one of you.
Speaker 1Again, was it Ian or William that pointed out that there's a melt Urmyzy.
Speaker 8I don't know, I don't know.
He wouldn't have been writing for t G at the time.
Because Tang was not but he was like, like A, I guess he was a writer for film and television.
Speaker 7Uh, and then he was apparently yeah one of the as Andy said, Uh, some accounts say he was on the set and Cameron.
See if Cameron just did if he kept his mouth shut, we wouldn't he wouldn't be in all this trouble.
Speaker 9He got to go and tell Tracy.
Speaker 8Tourmae is like, yeah, I wrapped off a couple out of the limits.
Speaker 1Uh.
Speaker 7It's fine to rip off people, just don't admit it.
That's honestly one of the first rules of show business.
And yes, Tracy Tomay is melt Son.
He wrote some of the better episodes of the early TG and then co create fighters.
Speaker 2That's right.
No, absolutely, And I go ahead.
Speaker 5Can I add to what Andy said?
I heard on the Canadian Interview science Fiction and Fantasy program Prisoners of Gravity.
Harman Nelson tells the story very much as Andy just told it.
So if if people listening want to hear him tell the story in his own words, look up Prisoners of Gravity.
Find Harlan Elson on there.
Speaker 2You find it on YouTube.
I have the pleasure of interviewing Rick Greene the of Gravit the Great Guy, and man, what a show.
Speaker 1Everyone should be watching those old early nineties episodes A Prisoner of Gravity, the interviews that they were able to get, it's just mind boggling.
And literally Jack Kirby's last Curby interview before he really wasn't able to really do it anymore.
So that's cool, and mentioning Kirby and Marvel again, good Jock William, you did a hell of a job.
And here's the other litigious moment for Arlon regarding this issue of the Hull to Yeah, I can't even read.
Speaker 5To eighty six, so I looked this up.
It was from nineteen eighty three.
The story is called Hero, written by Bill Mantlow, and the Tom Kagan part is played by doctor Bruce Banner.
But the plot is similar enough that people wrote into Marvel and said, hey, isn't that soldier?
And they printed in the letter column uh in a in a later issue, oh oops, we forgot to credit Harlan Ellison and we totally meant.
Speaker 4To and he just fell off.
Yeah Jim, Yeah, Jim Shooter.
Speaker 5In the article I read, he he says that he had signed off on this without having seen the Outer Limits episode and that Roger Stern brought it to his attention later and shortly thereafter, Harlan Nelson called Jim Shooter, who was the editor in chief at the time, and said what's up.
And Shooter said, what do you want?
And Ellison said, this is what I want.
Uh pay me what you paid Bill matt Low.
Uh credit me in print and acknowledgment and give me a lifetime subscription to every single Marvel comic.
Speaker 4So that's what he got, right, Yes, exactly right.
Speaker 2I knew my lass bone to Yeah, I want I want free comics for the rest of my life.
And there you go.
Speaker 6I appreciate that he kept the proportion there.
Speaker 2That was nice.
Speaker 9Yeah, it's in line with It's in line with what I was thinking, is that Marvel should have said, you can have all our profits from those two issues.
Speaker 6Yeah, right, here's eight grand I still do.
I still don't think it's up to art book Walden coming to America or whatever.
You know, that's right.
Speaker 2Yeah, other classic lawsuit absolutely, man.
Well that's the thing.
Speaker 1And truly, all these wars that Harlan would have over the years, not even the simple ones that he just backed into trying to credit uh, the old comic writer Michael Fleischer for writing those exceptional Specter stories and that guy's bum DUT's crazy and Michael Fleischer going, don't.
Speaker 2You Darren sult me.
Speaker 9Part of that that's the best part of that whole lassuit.
That Harland loved the guy, Yes, Brick, So yeah, that's the thing, man, No, I truly as and as you said, just that kind of volatile person, much like Wells, that demanded his things on his terms, was disappointed by the system so many times.
Speaker 1I mean, I love all those great Ellison books that he was writing, you know, in the nineties and into the early two thousands, just kind of setting the record straight his City on the Edge of Forever book prior to adapting his original idea for it and everything.
Oh yeah, man, I mean that's the fun is reading all the hate and the anger.
Speaker 2So what are you gonna do somebody.
Speaker 9Late in his life.
You know, how much writing could you have done if you not paid attention to the lawsuits, if you just made more stories.
And I think he was equivocating, but he said, yeah, that's true, but you can't let the bastards get away with it.
I think the truth is more what I said earlier, which is it's a pain in the ass going to you know.
Speaker 1Yeah, and by the way, mentioning Starlog people should really again sci fi nuts and that's why you're here if you're not aware of it.
The internet archive has so many full PDF copies of Starlog, and Starlog was such an important magazine, really carrying the torch, and so many articles about not only the movies and TV that got made, but so many things that never did get made that were in development and the anticipation of some of these things that just never happened and stuff.
Speaker 2So yeah, it's like great.
Speaker 1And also, by the way, Creepy and EERI a lot of great creep and Eary issues are there as well, so pretty much any Warren publication because even their sci fi stories like nineteen eighty four and some of the other offshoot magazines.
Speaker 2But absolutely Starlog is there.
Speaker 1And I keep meaning I've had conversations with people like Bob Greenberg and is that or green Burger.
I believe that that contributed to Starlog, and I keep I really need to get back on that and have more of those people on, because yeah, the stories they have must be amazing.
Speaker 6I loved reading that book when it went magazine when it came out.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 5So I used to go to in North Hollywood out here in Los Angeles that used to be a comic book store called blast Off Comics.
And when I first started going there, they told me this is Harlan's store, this is where he goes.
So that was when he was still around, So that was a while ago.
Speaker 1But for younger viewers, the fact that he used to do that gimmick where he'd sit I don't know how many times he did it, where he'd sit in the storefront of a bookstore and write write a short story and post the pages as he was writing it and stuff.
Speaker 6Oh to see that would work so well Now, like you could be doing that while you're online and people would just like crowd out in front of the place.
Speaker 4They'd go nuts.
Speaker 6Yeah, yeah, No one could fire up the mimeograph and get a fancy out in time to tell everybody back then or he's amazing house.
Speaker 5Still he still has a YouTube channel up if people want to watch Harlan there's review movies and stuff.
Speaker 2Yeah, Oh that's great.
Speaker 1God.
When he used to be on the Sci Fi Channel in the nineties and they gave him time to just give editorials and science fiction editorials.
Let's let's really maul that over for a second.
But really it was great to staring him give his opinions.
I remember when he was kind of writing the eulogy for Marvel Comics when they were on the break of bankruptcy and things like that.
Speaker 2Oh my God.
Speaker 1And also the house that he had, Good Lord, and again so envious of Len being able to go.
And I mean he literally built a house that had secret rooms and stuff like that and ultimate, you know, Wayne Manner kind of fantasy of having that, and.
Speaker 9He gave his house the coolest name ever, Ellis in Wonderland.
Speaker 6It was like the com Mansion.
Speaker 9Yeah, I haven't John.
Speaker 4Did you ever?
Did you ever see the.
Speaker 6What was Bill Maher's show in the nineties, But Harlan used to come on, Yeah, No.
Speaker 2I go to guests.
Speaker 9Yeah, used to be great on Tom Snyder a couple of times a year.
Speaker 4Well that's what.
Speaker 2I've seen them on.
Speaker 1Yes, Snider, And there's god damn, not only the nineties CBS show, but even as old Tomorrow Shaw on NBC.
I believe there's a great Star Trek themed episode where they cast and they have Harlan.
Speaker 2Yeah, great stuff.
Speaker 4Yeah, I know that was on YouTube I've seen.
Yeah, that's definitely what I'm checking out.
Speaker 1So, oh, here, I should back to the episode.
I should, says a lot of focus is made on the similarities to the opening sequence.
They were the common common elements and the rest of the story, and he says animals used to detect enemies.
Two fighters bring their conflict to the present, fighters designed for war, a soldier just describing the future conflict.
Yeah, no, that's all the terminator.
I mean, that's yeah, I mean, this is very he's a robot.
Yeah, obviously more but obviously it really is more race than it is the.
Speaker 4Yeah, there's a lot of the soldier in race.
Speaker 2Absolutely, there is.
Speaker 4Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3I mean it is very broad strokes, though, I mean, I'm not defending Cameron here, like, you know, I'm sure he did rip off those, you know, but I you know, but it does seem kind of I mean, you know, he's a bit of a pasty chart but but it's it's it doesn't seem like that huge a of a comparison to me, like, you know, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1Man, Again, it's like, if you point to one element I can appreciate, while not so much, but I think I should really does have that that great point of there is kind of a laundry list of story elements.
Speaker 4In both Yeah, but it's pretty subjective.
Speaker 3I think you could take that list and apply it to a whole lot of things and you know, come up with similar answers.
Speaker 2I mean, since attorney our waiting for said listens, sir.
Speaker 6I just wish when instead of like putting in, as you said, the gunshot scene that doesn't give you any more attention and doesn't do anything and is just confusing, they had instead devoted that time to making the final scene longer and having more of a confrontation with this guy who hasn't grown at all and is like Corlo used to be right, Like all the juice that they set up they did not squeeze.
At the end.
Speaker 9There's another scene there where that guy managed just to communicate with Carlo, and Carlo says, no, you're not going to kill these people.
Speaker 1You know.
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean, I don't mind the open question at the end of you know, was he defending them?
Speaker 4Was he just doing what culturally programmed to do.
Speaker 3I just think that they could have dramatized that in some way instead of I mean, like my my probably one of my things with the Outer Limits is like, you know, there's the control voice and everything.
Speaker 4I never fucking listen to a thing.
The control voice ses, I can never remember it.
Speaker 3It doesn't matter to me, Like I you know, and and I feel like, you know, having a story where you know where you're going someplace and that at the end a voice comes in and says, so, anyway, this is what that scene was really about is kind of a that's that's not great storytelling.
Speaker 6Cool that it gets the honor Majesty's secret service line in there.
A few years before we got that in the movies.
Speaker 4That was nice.
Speaker 6What was that It just suddenly says, they'll have We'll have all the time in the world, and like, hey, you know where else this would be good?
Flick in everybody's face.
Speaker 2Production.
Speaker 5You have a production question for everyone?
Here is it?
Speaker 3My imagination?
Was the music different?
The music different.
It's dominic.
Frontier Area is no longer the composer for the show.
The music is way more conventional and you know, and all totally different.
The the you know, he was another one of those people who got shuffled out.
But he it was partly because he was an executive at day Star as well as doing composing the music, so like he wasn't somebody they wanted to.
Speaker 4Have around anymore.
Speaker 1I see, because you're right, not only the music of the episode, but even the title sequence.
Speaker 2I noticed, And truly, I may still do it if I have a free moment.
Speaker 1I kind of like our intro the way it is, but the fact that we are in the second season and get that musical sting that's.
Speaker 2At the beginning.
Speaker 1But maybe I'm flirting with copyright infringement if I do that, So perhaps I will keep it to the that tone and that I mean, certainly the waves will.
Speaker 2Stay the same and everything.
Speaker 9But yes, did on the show.
Speaker 2Yeah, that was that was interesting.
This is why I'm so glad we are.
Speaker 1Doing the second season because, for all of its scars and flaws, the contrast to the first season I think is worthy of discussion.
And truly, I mean, we've got a lot of significant outer limits episodes, for better or for worse, where the bears have become iconic, you know, images and stuff, and they've made toys of them, and you know, they're the ones that they you know again from keep Keeper of the Purple Twilight and Demon with the Glass and the next Ellison story that I'm sure we'll cover, you know, I do.
Speaker 2I appreciate the contrast.
Speaker 3Totally, not you know, I mean I felt like, I mean, at a certain point we talked about, you know, maybe we'll just do a couple of the episodes, the Harlan Ellison episodes or whatever.
But like when I went through the list, I thought, well, you know, I mean, there's something there's something interesting about most of these.
Speaker 4That that I would probably be worth talking about.
Speaker 3I Mean, one of the things that just going forward with is the you know, it's it's not entirely the fault of the people producing this that that you know, the show's cheaper.
They literally had lots less money the you know, they they you know, ABC whittled their budgets down to one hundred thousand dollars an episode, which was the budget of uh I think it's called controlled experiment, that kind of the bottle type show, Leslie Stevens show where they ran, uh you know, ran everything backwards and forwards all the time in order to save money.
Like and that that was a desperate measure to save money in the first season, Like the lowest budget episode of the first season is the budget for every episode of this season.
So they didn't have they couldn't you know, they couldn't pull off the makeups and the you know, the prosthetic effects and all that sort of stuff.
They had to basically just find stories and write stories that they could they could pull off with less money.
Speaker 4Ergo.
You know, uh, you know, bad actors standing in on sets talking at each other.
Speaker 9You know, you know how close they were not getting a second season.
Have you read anything about it?
Speaker 3Well, I mean they I think they were on that, you know, they they they still felt like the show had potential.
They didn't like the guys who were making the show, they thought, but they and they were on the cost of just canceling it and just giving up on it.
I mean obviously they were only you know, uh, you know, there were whatever how many were like thirty two episodes of the first season or something like that, and they're eighteen seventeen and then in the second you know, the order is smaller.
They had, you know, they they cut the budget way down.
They wanted you know, they they saw that it was really popular with college students and with kids.
But they didn't, you know, they didn't have like that kind of demographic tracking back then to justify that advertisers.
Speaker 1And they they moved the show too, and they moved against a Juggerut on CBS.
Speaker 2The Jackie Gleason Variety.
Yeah, well, I mean they were and again as.
Speaker 1Evidenced by our conversation with Dominic's the file, No it's you know, he's very convinced that, yeah, they were trying to kill the show.
Speaker 6Well, John, isn't that though, what you guys call counter programming.
Speaker 9Today?
Speaker 2You're right, but again I mean, you know, I don't.
Speaker 6Mean you put it on and it's like this is not the same audience, right, but except everybody loves Jackie Gleason.
Speaker 3Well, they didn't like what I'm saying that they didn't have the metrics for tracking that audience and relaying that information to the advertisers, which would become so important, like you know, through like the seventies and the eighties, where it was all about targeting like this younger demographic more than it was just about how could we get you know, a gajillion people, which is.
Speaker 1Why they blew it with Star Trek because they weren't doing that kind of tracking either, And had they realized how strong that college and younger audience was that it was you know, NBC should have saved the show and kept it going.
Yeah, yeah, these are the you know, mistakes with the metrics that they had at the time.
And also, frankly, listen as a little kid and I do the classic thirty nine of the Honeymooners is great, but that Jackie Glicive Variety show ouch and it does not age well.
And man, we we left at Bob Hope reading Q cards.
Jackie Lisa did not give a ship about anything and oh, hello, Robbie dander Field, it is really nice to meet you.
Speaker 2You know, it's like not good.
Speaker 6Wait, I'm sorry to bring this up again, but what was the name of that terrible movie that that was supposedly a Jaws.
Speaker 4Real Joys Joys?
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3They were talked about it on the on the show and definitely should do an entire podcast about joy But yeah, that the but yeah, that was the Bob Hope special from the mid seventies.
Joys is in the day of it.
It is a it's a it's supposed to be a play on Jaws, except there is no mention of a shark, and no mention of anything that would.
Speaker 4That would lead you to understand that in the episode.
Speaker 1It's a murder mystery that features so many of the comedians of the time that were either still around or of the moment, and you literally have Gracho Marx's last television appearance.
You've got Harry Ritz of the Ritz Brothers showing up in Phil Silvers and jam.
Speaker 3Marie and literally, yeah, anybody else from that era you could think of.
You know, if they're just young enough, they may have a perm it's you know, it's nineteen seventy six or seven or something like that.
And the incredibly it's worth watching because of the incredibly awkward mix of all these old comedians and desperately trying to seem risque and hip in the in the seventies so and not pulling that off by any stretch of the imagine.
Speaker 1Trying to pick up his own self when he would always cross dresses he did going back to the fifties.
Speaker 2It's Uncle Milty in address.
Speaker 3Yeah, but anyway, we cannot We could literally go on for another hour about this reds bag, and we will probably do it in another in a bonus episode that has nothing to do with anything.
Speaker 5But can I say one thing about Michael and Sarah.
Speaker 4Please do because right and get about it.
Speaker 5Yeah, it was in the in the thumbnail we show him as Kang, the Klingon Warrior, and I just think it's so rad that he played the same kling On character in the original series and then how many years later they brought him back from Deep Space nine.
Yeah, and he played the same part.
Speaker 6Yeah, he was the only kling On anybody ever thought of for twenty years.
Speaker 1Well, I'd say Jack Colikos as well.
In the first cling On episode, I think Core.
And then certainly it's it's a shame that killed off and Sarah's Kang, because there is a real contrast between Kang and Core and Kor is more the more flamboyant Klingon.
Speaker 3Yeah, but it wasn't a warrior, you know, it wasn't It wasn't a shame because it was a great story.
Speaker 4And stories are the reason we care about this stuff.
Speaker 3And so you know the fact that that you know, like the the idea of just things going on forever is you know, is incredibly unappealing and not a story.
What is a story is things happening and things, you know, like people dying.
There is there are consequences.
And that was a great episode, a deep line episode, I believe, and uh, you know, like so you don't need it to go on forever.
Speaker 4It happened right there in that episode.
Anyway, we're done here.
Speaker 2Well, no, no, no.
The role that he did that I feel we have to acknowledge, especially given the Warbling universe, and that is, of course, says the voice of mister.
Speaker 1Freese in the Batman animated series, and that heart device is truly it really gave a new and tragic dimension to mister Freese that they have ridden that horse.
And unfortunately, beyond the one story that that gave hopes for in all cases, I think they have successfully written other mister Freed stories showing this.
Speaker 5Tragedy of a sympathetic villain but nonetheless still a villain like Cross the Line.
Speaker 3And I do remember that episode and it was great and and as far as I know, that's the only story about that, right because you bother, as I.
Speaker 2Just said, not so much in the series, but really the comics kind of took that well.
Speaker 1And of course sadly I believe, also exploited in Batman and Robin the Schwarzeneger mister Freeze move back to Schwarzenager again.
Speaker 9Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1And another great and and it's crazy and Sarah, we've got that picture of him with the with the Reynolds stash there and everything seventies Michael ent Sarah great great western that he did in the sixties, Broken Arrow where he played for Chiefs, I believe, and also Barbarraiden's husband and shows up a couple of times I believe in Idriama Genie as the Blue Gin Genie's original slave master that treated her cruelly.
Speaker 2So hey, come on, man, I just like that.
Speaker 9There's nobody a lot of these guys like who is it Lloyd Nolan is that he looks like that other guy who was off in the Heavy and Andy Griff.
There's so many Michael and Sarah doesn't look like anybody who doesn't sound like anybody he wants on the screen and go, holy shit, that's that guy, right.
Speaker 1And he could and he can fuck you up as he did it Soldier and then really just you know, just beating the ship out of poor Lloyd Nolan.
Speaker 3And he was just a great actor, had such a distinctive voice.
You know, he had just his you know, his whole sort of you know, personality.
Like you say, he's just he's one of those guys you you never mistake him for somebody else.
But he's also great.
He's not a novelty performer.
Speaker 1Great magnetism, and truly they have a role like this that had so few words and and again to project such character in his performance.
Speaker 3I mean, look at look at the comparison between him and what he has to bring to this performance where he has so little to work with on the page, and you know, somebody like Tim O'Connor who is just uh, you know, I mean hopefully tim O'Connor is like family, family is not watching this because he has loads to say and doesn't communicate anything at all.
Speaker 5Also, Sarah does some nice nonverbal stuff in that scene where Kagan figures out, oh you know what I've been saying this entire time, and he just has that little, just a little grin.
Speaker 4It's really good.
Speaker 8I want to say.
Speaker 7You know, we talk about representation a lot these days and events so much to me to see a great character with the unibrow.
Use let me tell you if I don't shave in between here every few weeks, it's like for from burdon arninge uh to see uh to see someone with a brow not not made fun of, not stereotype for having a uni brow, but really be.
Speaker 6Interesting proceeding hairline that they get going with him, like his hair is starting to grow in and places down into his head.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 3Apparently the initial idea was that he would have a kind of you know, bulbous head prosthetic thing, like a futuristic like like yeah, like of course all people from the future whose bray, whose heads will get.
Speaker 4Bigger or whatever, but bigger.
Speaker 3Yeah, but you know, you know why they didn't because I can't fucking afford it.
They can't afford anything anymore.
Speaker 4So they just made it.
You gave him slightly weird.
Speaker 2Hair, oh you know, and I totally forgot and I've let see him that.
Speaker 1Yes, the tim O'Conner, buck Rogers, Leslie Stevens connection, but also.
Speaker 2In Sarah and Sarah was uh yeah, the original Killer Cane who did became Harry Survival right.
Speaker 4It's oh okay, I thought it was the other way.
Speaker 6No, No, yeah, you're right, he's right, it's the other way Silva's in the movie.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's right, all right, there you go.
Yeah, but yeah, no, it is a sad connection.
Speaker 3It's a sad thing that they all ended up on there, you know, on this this like Chintzy uh nothing buck Rogers TV show that that I enjoyed as a child but was painful to try to watch.
Speaker 1Oh, it's it's rough now, but it is.
It's amazing to watch now on HD because they cleaned it up for the Blu rays And I mean, well, yeah, but you know, Angel tell you those those cheeseball effects really look amazing in clarity.
And yeah, they look silly, but they're fun.
I mean, it's back when sci Fi used models.
Speaker 3Yeah, the effects at the least of the problems.
The effects are fine, but it's problem.
Speaker 1But yeah, but you get these great random, you know episodes where Frank Gorshen is the bad guy and stuff and poor.
Right again, let's add to the list of dozens of podcasts we subsequently want to do and to a Frank Gorshen podcast.
Speaker 2Yeah, yes, John's the Riddler.
There were so many roles in the sixties, seventies and eighties, got.
Speaker 6Oh, yeah.
Speaker 9Well, I mean time I hear his name, I just want to go watch all these you know, talk show appearances where he did impressions for twenty minutes.
Speaker 2They're so good.
He was a great impression.
Absolutely.
I watched that Sullivan on and off because it's on that decade.
Now watch more voices.
Speaker 9Right, Speaking of Beck Rudgers and do we all know that Michael Kine quote about taking shit acting work, Michael Caine said, I have not seen I have not seen Jahs three.
I understand it's terrible.
Speaker 2I have seen the home in.
Speaker 6Spain that it paid for, and it's really right.
Speaker 1Yeah, basically say I said shot Berg a bit of good gracis so I decided to make the movie.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's like all right, so, oh my god.
Speaker 1Yes, of course I should points out in Buck Rogers that amazing cameo that Buster Crab does and you've got them to Buck Rogers and he's Colonel Gordon.
Speaker 3Come on, man, caress absolutely nothing, go back.
Speaker 4I love it.
It's fine.
I'm not going to crush your dreams.
It's only like just but I mean if but we're well over an hour, this is our long.
Speaker 2We're done.
Speaker 4But I think we explored it.
I mean, for the most part, I think that pretty seriously.
Speaker 1Man, this beyond it being Harlan Ellison.
The first episode of the second season, Andy's incredible backstories.
Speaker 2About all the controversy and stuff.
No, it was worth doing more than an hour.
Speaker 4I mean that's absolute.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 4Yeah, No, there's tones to talk about in this episode.
Speaker 2Don't worry.
Speaker 1There's gonna be a second much as we have in the first season.
Worried about like five minutes and they're like, all right, I got nothing about you.
Speaker 4Yeah, and on on that tip.
The next one is uh what cold Hands, Warm Heart is what it's called Shatner?
Speaker 2Uh from Venus.
Speaker 4Yeah, so that'll be William Shatner, Starry.
Speaker 2That's that's gonna be a blast.
Speaker 1I look forward to that conversation next week, as as I'm scrolling here to get to the video to say goodbye.
So join us again next Thursday night as we continue our venture of season two and to the outer limits.
Thanks everybody, take care all bye.
