It’s not unusual for long-running TV shows – like HBO’s “Tales From The Crypt” was – to develop a family-like feeling among its regular crew. At Crypt, that feeling got magnified by Crypt’s whole “lightning in a bottle” mystique. As we’ve talked about here at The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast, Crypt really did go places no TV show had ever gone before. We were the first crossroad where TV and feature films ever tried to work together to create great TV. That’s why we went after – and got – talents like William Friedkin (Billy, to us) to come and direct our show.
That’s after having directed “The French Connection”, “The Exorcist” and “Sorcerer”.
Billy died last week (as of this writing). It really does feel like an era ended.
And, frankly, it feels like a death in the family.
Fortunately, since we started this podcast, the Tales From The Crypt family has managed to get together on happy occasions. Alas, today, we get together for a sad one. But, we know, Billy wouldn’t want us being down. He’d want us to celebrate what we all did together – and that’s what we’re going to do!
In this episode, we reminisce about our collective experience working with this iconic, mercurial, driven but deeply collaborative talent. He pushed us all to articulate his vision – and not a one of us regrets it. Coming in and out of the convo (in addition to Gil & Alan) – Randall Thropp (Crypt’s wardrobe supervisor), Todd Masters (Crypt’s make up special effects guru), Sherrie Rose (one of the episode’s actors), Ed Tapia (Gil & Alan’s executive assistant) and Jason Stein (one of the Dad’s From The Crypt – who co-executive produce this podcast).
To mangle Shakespeare, we do not come to bury Billy, we come to praise the hell out of him!
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