Category: Show Biz Stories
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S3E15: Son Of LURCH
Even among iconic TV characters from the 1960’s, few remain as iconic as LURCH from THE ADDAMS FAMILY. As often happens when a particular actor fills a particular role, TED CASSIDY became synonymous with his creature. A little overly synonymous from Ted’s perspective. Today’s guest – Ted’s son SEAN CASSIDY (the “Son Of Lurch“) –…
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S3E14: When Crypt Went To London
It sounded like a GREAT IDEA! In many ways, it was a great idea: take HBO’s iconic “TALES FROM THE CRYPT” to LONDON for its very last season! The great? We got to hire actors like EWAN MCGREGOR and DANIEL CRAIG and STEVE COOGAN and ELIZABETH MCGOVERN. And we got to shoot in the coolest…
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S3E13: More Buried Bodies
STORIES are a lot like BURIED BODIES – especially if you’re the one who buried them. Just like with a body, you can bury a story. Sometimes – in time – we forget about them. Meanwhile, there they sit. But, whereas bodies rot into nothing while buried, stories often gain heft and weight – and…
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S3E10: Hollywood Sized Balls
We first met JACKIE GEORGE when we took over running TALES FROM THE CRYPT. Jackie worked for WARNER BROTHERS and SILVER PICTURES at the time (on movies like DIE HARD, RICHIE RICH and DEMOLITION MAN). That means she worked for our old boss JOEL SILVER. That took considerable balls. Hollywood sized balls. Jackie was Joel’s…
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S3E8: “Demon Knight Payback”
Thirty years ago, in 1994, alongside my creative partner at the time Gil Adler, I co-produced the now CLASSIC horror movie “TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS DEMON KNIGHT”. The movie opened on Friday, January 13, 1995. As often happens in the movie biz, as producers, we fired the original writers – CY VORIS, ETHAN REIFF…
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S3E5: “SNL Alum (Finally) Speaks!
Long before she became an adjunct lecturer at BROWN UNIVERSITY in its Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, my friend CONNIE CRAWFORD did something for which I envied her intensely. In 1978, She appeared on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. She acted in sketches and everything! She was one of five finalists in the “Anyone Can…
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S3E4: 5 Movies & 2 Songs
In this episode, we’re doing our own version of the BBC’s classic show “DESERT ISLAND DISCS“. On that show, guests are invited to answer the question, if you were marooned on a desert island and could take five pieces of music and two books, what would they be (and neither book can be Shakespeare or…
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S3E3 Back To College (With Brett Goldstein)
In this one, I go back to college as Gil and I sit down with BRETT GOLDSTEIN, my freshman semester roommate at VASSAR COLLEGE. This Brett is the American CASTING DIRECTOR and TALENT MANAGER, not the English actor. Brett won an EMMY AWARD casting HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET. He also cast feature films like…
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S2E67 Rolling Stone Of Horror
TV and movie producer SCOTT STONE calls himself a “SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR”. We think of him as a “rolling Stone” because he’s actually one of the most prolific TV PRODUCERS ever. Among his credits are LEGENDS OF THE HIDDEN TEMPLE, THE MAN SHOW, SHOP TIL YOU DROP, THE MOLE and TOP DESIGN. Horror’s not really Scott’s…
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S2E65 Shooting Stars
When it comes to SHOOTING STARS, few still photographers have shot as many (on so many movie sets) as DAVID JAMES – maybe the most successful SET PHOTOGRAPHER of all time. Stars like TOM CRUISE and directors like STEVEN SPIELBERG and J. J. ABRAMS love working with David because he understands how to tell (and…
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S2E64 On Making “Valkyrie”
For the first time ever, Gil and I talk about Gil’s last big studio movie, VALKYRIE starring TOM CRUISE and directed by BRYAN SINGER. Bryan asked Gil to produce Valkyrie for him after Gil produced SUPERMAN RETURNS which Bryan also directed. Making Valkyrie changed Gil’s life. That is, it changed the direction his life took.…
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S2E63 Still Superman
When we left BRANDON ROUTH, back in S2E62, SUPERMAN RETURNS had just opened to great reviews and respectable numbers, but not respectable enough for WARNER BROS to continue the SUPERMAN REBOOT. They cancelled the next two movies. It’s devastating seeing your future vanish in front of you. But, in time, Brandon found his feet again.…
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S2E62: “He’s Super, Man!”
BRANDON ROUTH was fated to play SUPERMAN. As a kid, he dreamed about playing the MAN OF STEEL. When he got to LA (from Iowa) – and learned WARNER BROS planned a reboot – equal parts hustle, circumstance and luck got him not just an audition, but the role itself in SUPERMAN RETURNS. Since then,…
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S2E59 Music Man
Among Hollywood producers, CHRIS BOARDMAN is famous for being one of those very rare musicians who can write literally anything. Over his extraordinary career, he has written literally everything. His orchestrating/composing credits include THE COLOR PURPLE, THE WIZ, DIE HARD, LETHAL WEAPON, WATERWORLD, OUTBREAK, TOMMY BOY, PAYBACK, SPY KIDS and BORDELLO OF BLOOD. Chris has…
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S2E57 Un-Conventional Horror
Experience the fun as TALES FROM THE CRYPT takes over HORRORCON LA. We brought some friends along with us: one of our favorite actors SHERRIE ROSE, makeup special effects maestro TODD MASTERS and TV producer extraordinaire ED TAPIA (back then, Ed was the best assistant any producer ever had!). And meet THE CHIODO BROTHERS! I…
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S2E56: “From HAIR To Eternity”
PAUL ABASCAL went from being a super talented, highly sought-after movie set HAIR STYLIST (he was MEL GIBSON and SLY STALLONE’S hair guy!) to being a super talented MOVIE AND TV DIRECTOR whose very first dramatic directing credit was the “Oil’s Well That Ends Well” episode of “TALES FROM THE CRYPT”. Paul saw hair architecturally.…
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S2E53: It’s FAN APPRECIATION Day!!!
Here at The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast, we really and truly appreciate our fans. But, also, we appreciate how the fan experience has changed since we started making movies and TV shows back in the stone age. There used to be a lot more distance between us – what we now call…
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S2E51: “Return To The Castle Of Horror”
Welcome to our return visit to the Castle Of Horror! Movie producer, director, writer and actor William Castle was one of the very first film makers who saw their own brand – understood what it was – and then bent movie-making toward themselves. Like Alfred Hitchcock – some critics called Castle a poor man’s Hitchcock…
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S2E50 Crypt Salutes William Friedkin
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…
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S2E49 Chicken Thing Attacks!
Todd Holland directed one of the best “Tales From The Crypt” episodes – “Top Billing” – about a struggling actor (played by Jon Lovitz) who thinks he’s auditioning for the lead in “Hamlet” at a small theater tucked away in an alley. He’s actually auditioning for the role of “Yorick – the skull”! This is…
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S2E48 Crypt Keeper Confidential
Odds are you’re here, reading this because you love “Tales From The Crypt” and its iconic Crypt Keeper character. We don’t blame you.; we love both of them, too! We started this season (some 48 episodes ago) with a conversation that had never been had before about how exactly The Crypt Keeper came to be.…
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RIP Paul Reubens
We never had the chance to work with Paul Reubens – whose character Pee Wee Herman charmed the hell out of us – but, we sure wish we had. Paul died Sunday night after a six year long (private) battle with cancer. Though we didn’t get to work with Paul, we got to work with…
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S2E47: The Name Game
Run for your lives! The world is over-run with Alan Katz’s – and Allan Katz’s and Allen Katz’s! That’s what it feels like anyway (to the Alan Katz who hosts this podcast and writes these posts!). In this episode of The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast, Alan Katz finally has a conversation he’s…
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S2E46: Crypt We Love/Crypt We Hate
Over the course of 5 seasons, Gil & Alan produced 69 episodes of “Tales From The Crypt”. That’s out of 93 episodes total over its full 7 year run. While we’ve said many times that doing Crypt was like catching lightning in a bottle, not every day was fun. And while we take pride in…
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S2E45 Make Em Laugh
Conventional wisdom says comedy is hard. It is for some people. Hell, for some people (the ones without a sense of humor – not everyone has one, ya know!), comedy is downright impossible. For the rest of us though, comedy isn’t all that hard. And it gets easier the more honest we are. Phyllis Katz…
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S2E43: “Lightning In A Bottle”
That should be “Lighting In A Bottle – At the Chattanooga Film Festival“. That’s where we just spent the weekend – being feted (not fetid) because of “Tales From The Crypt“, “Bordello Of Blood” and this, our “How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast“. So, before we start, thank you, Chattanooga Film Festival & Chattanooga…
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Join Us At The Chattanooga Film Festival!
We are beyond honored that the Chattanooga Film Festival wants to honor “Tales From The Crypt”, “Bordello Of Blood” and this very podcast – “The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast” at this year’s festival which starts THIS WEEKEND and runs from June 23 – June 29. The opening weekend – the 23 –…
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S2E42: “Writing Superman”
Kevin J. Anderson is a writing superman. He’s actually written Superman, too – Kevin wrote the novels “The Last Days Of Krypton” and “Enemies & Allies“. Kevin’s also written books in the Star Wars world, the X-Files world and, perhaps most famously, together with Brian Herbert, the Dune world. In fact, Kevin is incredibly successful.…
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S2E41: “The Juice”
Director Ernest Dickerson is The Juice! Our friend Ernest Dickerson is both a first rate director of photography and a first rate director. He shot all of Spike Lee‘s early movies – everything from Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop (Spike’s film school dissertation) and “She’s Gotta Have It” to “School Daze” and “Jungle Fever” to “Do The…
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S2E35: “John Harrison’s Best Friends Are Zombies”
You might not know John Harrison’s name (though you should!). John’s written, directed, produced or written the score for some pretty big projects including Dinosaur, Creepshow (and Creepshow 2), Tales From The Darkside, the original Day Of The Dead and the 2000 TV version of Dune. John cut his movie-making teeth working for horror maestro…
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S2E31: “Who’s The Boss, Part 2”
A bunch of episodes back (Season Two, Episode 18), we asked “Who’s really the boss on any movie or TV set?” One of the answers: why, it’s the first assistant director, of course! On a TV set, that’s pretty true. There, the first AD works for the producers. On a movie set, by contrast, the…
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S2E29: “The Director’s Director”
You might not know the name Elliot Silverstein but you should. He directed a couple of very big movies (Cat Ballou and A Man Called Horse). He also helped invent TV directing back in the 1950’s and 1960’s (directing Naked City, Have Gun Will Travel and The Twilight Zone. Elliot was always an artist’s rights…
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S2E27: “A Taste Of Sherrie”
One of the great things about doing “Tales From The Crypt” was the actors we got to work with. Kirk Douglass, Tom Hanks, Whoopi Goldberg, Michael J Fox, Isabella Rossellini, Daniel Craig among many, many others. We also got to work with an actor named Sherrie Rose. Hell, we liked working with Sherrie so much…
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S2E26: “Tobe Or Not Tobe – A Tribute To Our Friend Tobe Hooper
There’s no data to back this up, but most of the people making horror movies – like horror movie fans – are some of the nicest people on the planet. Our friend Tobe Hooper (along with his writing partner Kim Henkel) created one of the most iconic horror characters of all time: Leatherface from The…
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S2E25: “TV Or Not TV”
Sam Egan’s been writing TV shows (and the occasional feature film) for fifty plus years. His first big break was writing and producing the show “Quincy ME” with Jack Klugman. TV was very different back then. How we watched it was different. Strange but true: there used to be only three broadcast networks putting out…
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S2E24: “Bordello Schmear, Part 2”
This episode/post is a continuation of S2E23 – Bordello of Blood: The Whole Schmear. I guess that makes this “the rest of the schmear”. Spoiler alert: this story has a happy ending. At its core, our podcast is the story of a creative relationship. How making a dumb horror movie destroyed that relationship. And how…
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S2E23: “Bordello Of Blood – The Whole Schmear (Part 1)”
Spoiler alert: this story has a happy ending. At its core, our podcast is the story of a creative relationship. How making a dumb horror movie destroyed that relationship. And how doing a podcast about making that dumb horror movie healed the wounds and reignited the relationship. That’s after not speaking to each other for…
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S2E21: Mike Vosburg Is Drawn To The Dark Side
If you’ve ever seen an episode of Tales From The Crypt, you’ve enjoyed the work of artist and comic book creator Mike Vosburg. When you sit and talk to Mike – aka Voz – you can’t help thinking “Wow, what a terrific person!” And then you look at his comic book art and you can’t…
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S2E19: “Rust Makes Our Heads Explode”
Nobody should ever die on a film or TV set. No one should ever get injured either but physical things happen (stunts, for instance). Injuries should should be rare. Death should be a complete stranger. With hundreds of hours of produced film and TV content under our belts, Gil Adler and I had the exact…
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S2E18: “Who’s The Boss?”
Film sets are a fascinating place to work. They definitely reflect the nature of the people working on them – especially at the top. But who’s really in charge of any set? Who’s the boss? Most sets are like bee hives. And, while everyone thinks the director is queen bee, on the set itself, it’s…
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S2E17: “Castle Of Horror”!
Welcome to The Castle Of Horror – the latest episode of the How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast! In it, we talk to Terry Castle daughter of film legend WILLIAM CASTLE – producer of Rosemary’s Baby but more importantly producer AND director of iconic Hollywood horror movies THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL… 13 GHOSTS……
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S2E16: Car Ride To Hell
Welcome to our first new episode of 2023! We’re dropping a Joel Silver story we’ve been threatening to tell since we started this podcast last year. The Car Ride To Hell! How do we know it ended up in Hell? Well, for starters, Donald Trump makes an appearance – two actually! Here’s the setting. As…
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S2E15: “Best Bits”
For a lot of people, 2022 was an outright annus horribilus. One to forget. That wasn’t the case for us here at the How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast. For starters, we came into being this year. That was a good thing (all things considered). We found a growing audience – that’s been even…
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Bonus Episode: “Is “Die Hard” A Christmas Movie?
Tis the season to ask this essential question: Is “Die Hard” a Christmas movie?
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S2E14: “Post Mortem” (Featuring Chelsea Rebecca & Jason Stein)
The body’s on the slab now. Let’s do the post mortem. This past Saturday, our little Podcast held a benefit for the Motion Picture Home – the MPTF. They’re a great organization that takes care of film folk in need. We performed a live table read of “Dead Easy“. That’s the “Crypt” film we never…
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S2E13: “(James) Bonding With Peter Iliff”
Peter Iliff‘s passion for movies started with James Bond. He was six and his dad took him to see “Goldfinger” on the day it opened. They watched it twice. Now, it may seem strange – a dad taking his six year old to see a Bond film – but, strangely, something happened there in that…
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The LIVE Table Read For Charity
Please join us & THE CRYPT KEEPER at NOON PACIFIC TIME on SATURDAY DECEMBER 17 for a LIVE TABLE READ FOR CHARITY! Some movie projects become legend without ever getting made. “Tales From The Crypt Presents Dead Easy” is one of them. We’ll be reading “DEAD EASY” – the “Tales From The Crypt” feature film…
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S2E12: “Buried Bodies”
Wanna know how to break into the move and TV biz? Know where all the bodies are buried. In order to do that, you have to be in on the burying process. If you’re not leading the body-burying op, you must be assisting. In Hollywood, those people – the ones willing to bury the bodies…
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S2E10: “Hanging Out W Alan & Gil”
In this episode, Gil and I invite you to hang out with us and shoot the shit. But – before we forget (and while we have your attention) – please join us Saturday December 17 at NOON Pacific time for a “TABLE READ FOR CHARITY”. The MOTION PICTURE HOME (run by the Motion Picture Television…
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Can You Believe Taye Diggs???
The short answer is YES! You absolutely can believe Taye Diggs and that’s the whole point of this episode! We ask the question “What makes an actor ‘believable’?” And, the actor we’re using for demonstration purposes in this episode is the terrific Taye Diggs who, it just so happens, Gil (Adler) has cast twice. The…