Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - The Strange Cinema of William Castle w/ Frank Conniff, Rich "Svengoolie" Koz and Jeffrey Schwarz

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Frank welcomes "Mystery Science Theater 3000" writer-performer Frank Conniff, horror host Rich "Svengoolie" Koz and filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz ("Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story") for a loving look back at the B-movies of legendary producer, director and showman William Castle ("13 Ghosts," "Mr. Sardonicus," "House on Haunted Hill"), his innovative promotional gimmicks (Emergo, Percepto, Illusion-O) and his lasting contributions to the horror genre. Also in this episode, John Waters  introduces "Odorama," Jeffrey hangs with Grandpa Munster, Frank gets spooked by an "Adventures of Superman" episode and Rich attempts to explain the plot of "The Tingler." PLUS: "Rosemary's Baby"! "Carnival of Souls"! The wrath of Joan Crawford! Castle inspires Hitchcock! Hitchcock inspires Castle! And the first acid trip in cinema history! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Scream! Scream for your lives! Hi, this is Frank Santopadre, and this is Fun for All Ages, the podcast for pop culture obsessives like me and like you, and like the three talented gentlemen that I am lucky enough to be joined by, we're at CityVox Studios with our engineer Don Hoffman. Is Don on the phone? And this week's obsession is the movies and the memorable stunts and promotions. of the legendary filmmaker and showman William Castle.

Here to talk about it. I'm going to read some intros. Jeffrey Schwartz is an Emmy-winning film producer, writer, and director of much-admired documentaries, including Boulevard, a Hollywood story, The Fabulous Alan Carr, Tab, Hunter Confidential, I Am Divine, the HBO documentary Vito about the life of author and activist Vito Russo, and of particular relevance to this podcast episode, the terrific 2007 documentary Spine Tingler. the William Castle story. And of particular relevance to my previous podcast,

he also lists among his impressive credits, documentaries about the late great character actor Dick Miller and drum roll, Grandpa Al Lewis. Wow. We'll talk about that. I'm not letting you get away without that, Jeff. Frank Conniff is a noted actor, writer, author, and stand-up comedian, best known, beloved even,

for his portrayal of TV's Frank on the classic comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3,000, and its various offshoots, both on television and live venues. He was a producer on both the Drew Carey show and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, a show he also appeared on, and served as head writer of Nickelodeon's Invader Zim. And as a... Invader Zim! Invader Zim! Invader Zim! That's a good show.

That's a good show. And a contributing performer on Totally Bias with Kamau Bell. And he's the author of several books, including his latest Dark Apnea. And my fellow Rondo Award winner, Rich Coz, is a good one. is a writer, actor, an Emmy-winning broadcaster, better known to millions of horror movie fans as the horror host with the most, Sven Gulli. He recently, just this week, in fact,

celebrated his 46th anniversary of portraying the Sven Goulli character, and in 2013, he was voted into the horror host Hall of Fame. Since 2011, he's been broadcasting nationally on the syndicated station, Me TV, attracting millions of loyal viewers, including fellow monster kids, like Frank Conniff,

Mark Hamill, Whoopi Goldberg, Dana Gould, and my late partner in crime, Gilbert Godfried. Welcome, boys. As I used to say on the old show,

at least some of those things have to be true. Great to be here. Thank you so much. Oh, it's good. We're here at CityVox on a hot, almost summer day, and we're going to talk

about being monster kids. Rich and Frank, great to see you guys again. It's great to be here. I love this. Thank you so much. This old school podcasting that we're doing. You like this?

We're actually in a studio. And I was just thinking as they came in that podcasting has been around for long enough now that there's such a thing as old school podcasting. Yeah, this is it. Yeah. I refuse to record at home because I don't get to spend time with people like you. Guys, let's start with this. First experience of William Castle, I'm going to start with Jeffrey. And then what inspired you ultimately to make a movie?

about him. Well, thank you so much for having me here, Frank. I'm so glad that you're seeing meat in the face, face to face for the first time. Yeah, I'm so glad you're back with a new podcast. I'm a huge fan and it's a real thrill to be here. I came in a little late to William Castle because I wasn't around when he was making movies in his heyday. So for me, I was a John Waters fan. Of course, John Waters, the director of Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble and polyester, et cetera. And he is the world's biggest William Castle fan. So when I was in high school, I read an article he wrote about William Castle. It was called Whatever Happened to showmanship. And in that article, he laid out, you know, what made William Castle great. His personality

as a showman, all the gimmicks. He went through all the movies. And you can see how John Waters was influenced by William Castle because he did gimmicks in his own movies. You know, he had for polyester, He had a little scratch and sniff card where you could, it was called odorama, and during the movie, a little number would flash on the screen, and then you would, like, scratch your card and smell it. So that movie has a lot of odors. Odorama. So that was my entry to William Castle was through John Waters. Good. I'm glad he didn't have odorama in pink flamingos.

Nicely done. Nicely done. Nicely done. Yeah. What about you, Rich? What's your first castle experience, your earliest recollection of? Well, unfortunately, I never got to go to any of the theater stuff, which I would have loved. I think we all missed that era.

Yeah. Yeah. But TV, my first exposure, I think, was Mr. Sardonicus. And I was young enough that it scared the absolute hell out of me. I was amazed by that. And just later on, learning about all the gimmickery that was involved in his movies, it made me wish that I had been able to go to the theaters back then and be a part of that. I just watched Mr. Sardonicus last night.

That is disturbing on a lot of levels. And he's kind of a Fibs character when you get right down. Yeah, true. What about you, Frank? First experience. I think it came a little later. I mean, I missed the live things, which would have been happening when I was like four or five. You know, I think the tingler came out in 1960, right?

I think 59, but close. Yeah, close. So I think I was a little young to be taken to that. And I think my parents wouldn't have wanted to take me because it might have made my childhood joyous. So that didn't happen. But I think my first encounter with him, believe it or not, might be straightjacket and not even knowing, watching it on late-night TV and not even knowing that much about William Castle at that point and just watching this weird Joan Crawford movie. That's a kinky one too. Jeffrey, watching the documentary, she kind of was calling the shots on that movie.

It was his first time working with a major movie star. Well, outside of working with Vincent Price, but Vincent Price was a good guy. Assumed that kind of stuff. Vincent Price took direction. Yeah. Yeah, Joan Crawford was a huge get for him. You know, he hadn't worked with a movie star of that caliber,

and she had just done whatever happened to Baby Jane. So her career was kind of reinvented. They, you know, ungenerously, they're called Hague movies. Some people call them Psychobitty movies. I like that one better. It's a little kinder. But, you know, so Joan, you know, she was on a hot streak and William Castle put this package together of the writer of Psycho, Robert Block. He wrote the screenplay for Straight Jacket and the star of Baby Jane.

So what could be better? And the three of them came together to make this movie, Straight Jacket. So there wasn't really a gimmick for that movie, but Joan Crawford was the gimmick. And then she started getting people fired. Well, yes, that's a whole story. That's in the documentary. Yeah, it's in the movie. If you see it now, it's Diane Baker, is playing her daughter.

but originally there was a different actress there and they were in rehearsals and this other actress made the mistake of calling her Joan instead of Ms. Crawford and also brought a Coca-Cola to the rehearsal instead of a Pepsi and you know Joan Crawford was the spokeswoman for Pepsi because she was married to one of the vice presidents of Pepsi Cola and was was Joan upset because that other actress I think was Anne Helm was more attractive well you know I wouldn't I wouldn't doubt that. It's certainly possible. Joan Crawford was, she had a lot of power, and she tended to wield that power.

And for whatever reason, this other actress, and I'm a very impressed, Rich, that you know her name. Yeah, I'm impressed too, Rich. Yes. Nice work. Oh, thank you. But we tracked her down and we interviewed her, and I don't know that she'd ever really told that story before. I'm really grateful. Just from watching your documentary, I got the impression that the other actress was like kind of more sultry.

like more of a Bridget Bardot type and Diane Baker who's beautiful and is a wonderful actress but for some reason maybe she had more social skills or something she was less threatening to to Joan Crawford Well they had worked together before

Diane Baker and Joan Crawford Oh that's right they're in the best of everything right See I'm really impressed it I'm impressed with everybody on this conversation I love the best of everything. That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah, Diane Baker is one of the only actresses who worked with both Alfred Hitchcock and William Castle.

She's around, Diane Baker. She's still around. She had a little comeback in Silence of the Lambs. She's the senator. That's right. That's right. She's the one who says, take this thing back to Baltimore. Our friend Andrew Capone says that we should put a segment on this show called Still With Us.

So there you go. And Diane Baker, still with us. Hey, we'll return to Fun for All Ages after this brief intermission. Okay, kids, we've been doing this every week, and this week is no different. We're thanking, personally thanking, and shouting out Patreon supporters. There are a lot of them. We've been going through, trying to average about 30 a week. We'll do the same now, and I'll get through them as fast as I can, and I hope that I don't

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Starting at 17 grams per medium latte, Tim's new protein lattes, protein without all the work. at participating restaurants in Canada. And now back to the fun. Talk about Castle at the beginning. And I didn't know, I didn't know his backstory. I didn't know he was born in New York City. Nice Jewish boy, William Schloss.

That's right. Yeah. William Schloss, he lost his parents at a very young age. Yeah, 14, right? Yeah, yep. He, you know, he was a very sensitive kid, loved the movies and going to see movies like Bell Logosie's Dracula made a big impression on him

and he was struck by the gimmicks for the theatrical production of Dracula with Bell Logosie which he also got a chance to see and in the theatrical productions of Dracula they had nurses in attendance and they had bats flying around and that was very influential to him later because later he did the same thing

20 years later, he remembered the gimmick with the nurses who were there in the lobby to take care of anyone who was overcome by fright, you know, and they were real nurses, you know, they weren't just wearing costumes, they were real nurses. Since my heart surgery, now is the time when I look for nurses at the movie theater. Not back then. I always hope they have them, but they don't, I hope they bring that gimmick back and reassure me. At a pivotal point, and I didn't know this either, Jeffrey. At a pivotal point, he became acquainted with Orson Welles.

Yeah, I didn't know that either. That was a surprise to me watching the documentary. Yeah. Yeah, he was, he actually discovered. Yes, he was the one who wanted to make Lady from Shanghai into a movie and wanted to direct it and got the book. And, you know, when he, Orson Wells got attached to it, Orson Wells ended up being the director on the star. And William Castle was, you know, I don't remember what his credit was on that movie. associate producer or producer, I don't remember.

But it was a, yeah, it was a very pivotal early relationship, and it was one that kind of pushed him toward wanting to make sure that he was the name above the title, you know, that he had the power and he was able to choose projects and direct them. Right, right, right. You know, it was interesting when I saw that about the lady from Shanghai because I specifically remember, probably on the Dick Cavett show, of Orson Wells telling a story about, about how he was in an airport and he was on the phone with Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures, and he wanted him to do a movie with Rita Hayworth.

And the way Orson Welles told the story was that I looked, there was a rack of paperbacks across from me, and there was a book called The Lady from Shanghai. And I said to Harry Cohn, there's this great hot property you have to get called. the lady from Shanghai, and it'll be perfect for Rita, having no idea what the book was or anything, just as a way to get something happening with Harry Cohn. And that's a great story, but it's probably not surprising that it was just made up. Yeah, it's a bullshit story because Castle brought him the property. Yeah, if you read Castle's book, a lot of it is a BS, but very entertaining BS.

So, you know, when we made the documentary, we decided to embrace all the legends. Like, did William Castle really go to the theater where a German actress was performing, who had just left Germany? That's another good one. The man who said really good one. Yeah, smash all the windows and paint swastikas on the theater to get publicity. I don't think he could get away with that now. I don't think he could get away with it. Yeah, print the legend.

Print the legend. Yeah, that was our approach to the, to the, you know, which stories to include. It's very in the spirit of William Castle to do it that way. Very much so. Jeffrey, maybe you know the truth about this. I've read this, and I don't know if it's true or not, but when they were prepping for the tingler in some city, they had put the vibrators on the seats,

and the current movie was a nun's story or something like that, and the projectionist wanted to try out the buzzers and did so, and a bunch of blue-haired old ladies in the audience had a religious experience. I don't know, Rich, if that's true, but I want to believe it's true, so let's just say it's true. Especially the nun's story. Let's say it's true. So Harry Cohn liked him, and Harry Cohn was the most hated man in Hollywood, safe to say. William Castle was a contract director for many years.

So he made a lot of movies before he was a name brand in horror. He made all kinds of B programmers for Harry Cohn. Like that Whistler series, yeah. Yeah, he was a, yeah, the Whistler. He made like costume dramas. The Whistler was a radio show, isn't it? Yeah, he directed several in the film adaptation, several installments. I think it was 78 movies that he made under contract.

There's some crazy number of all in 1950, all in 1951. No, it was a crazy output. There's some good ones in there, too. Yeah, I confess to not having seen any of the Whistler series, I have to go back and look at the list and see. But he really, he longed to do his own thing. And at what point did he decide that horror was the way to go for him? Well, the legend is that he saw the movie Diabolique.

Oh, it was Diabalique, yeah. And he went to see it. It was a black and white French shocker that also was inspiring to Hitchcock. So great, the original, not the Sharon Stone. So it wasn't so much the movie itself, but it was to line outside the theater to see the movie that inspired him to say, oh, maybe I can do a shocker like this, a low-budget black and white shocker. So he found a property called the Marble Forest, which was a mystery novel. And the mystery novel was actually one of those things where it was written by like 12 or 13 different writers where one writer would do a chapter, then the next writer would do another chapter.

And then they had a book by the end of the process. And he got the rights of that book. And he made this movie. It's called Macabre or Macabra, depending on how you want to say it. You know, I looked that up on the Internet and you get it both ways, depending on who you're asking. If you do a pronunciation guide. Macerbee. Macrobee. Let's go with Macerbury. Still living. Let's still with us. We'll call it that.

But you know, that's where the gimmick started too, because he put himself on the line to make that movie. He mortgaged his house to make the movie because he wanted to do something independent. He knew that, you know, he wanted to take his shot. And his wife, who was a real partner with him in life and in business, said, okay, go for it. Do it. And I believe in you. But he needed that extra bit of insurance to make sure that the people came. So that's when he came up with his first gimmick, which was, again, the nurses and the insurance policy, where you were insured in case you died of fright by Lloyds of London. Uncontrollably, if you become uncontrollably frightened, notify the management. That's right. Is what he comes out and says.

Have you seen that one, Rich? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Was Jim Backus in that? Jim Backus. Yeah. When I think McCob, I think Jim Backus. Me too. It's kind of dark.

It is. It definitely is. And, you know, just the whole thing involving the child is rather, you know, something that makes some people very, very uneasy. Yeah, I watched it and, you know, I thought, well, this is not the William Castle, this is not the William Castle of House on Haunted Hill. This is not fun. It's dark and disturbing. But I guess he was trying to, you know, find his voice or find a, find a style. I mean, House on Haunted Hill. Yeah, and combining that with the gimmicks. Yeah. You know, that's what opened the door, definitely. Your attention, please. During every suspenseful moment of the running-in-the-motion picture macabre, the life of everyone in this theater will be ensured by Lloyds of London

for $1,000 against death by fright. However, even Lloyds of London will not grant coverage for any person with a known condition or for suicide by any member of the audience. And this is another thing with multiple pronunciations, Jeffrey. I've seen it as emergo and emerjo. Depending on who's being interviewed. Can we assume it's a merjo since it's a merger? Well, it's a merjo because it's a skeleton that emerges.

So I think it's a merjo. Yes. I've seen it. Emergo sounds like it's some kind of over-the-counter laxative. I'm not quite sure. Or a lost marks, brother. It's got the works. I mean, House on Haunted Hill has everything.

And I've seen it before. I even saw it with an audience at the old film form. Remember the old film form down on Watt Street? And I saw it in Emergo, which was kind of a sad attempt at Emergo. That was one of the movies that we were talking about earlier that you have to have some departure from reality there. Because there's certain things that happen that make no sense, for example, when. Vincent's supposedly dead wife is floating outside the window of the young woman. Yes.

And it's like, okay, how did she pull that off? And the idea that she hung herself, how did she get up there? It's a legitimate question. I find it interesting that you're not questioning, though, the vat of acid in the basement. Oh, no. Everybody's got one of those. Who doesn't have that? It's kind of suspenseful. It's kind of campy. You know, that one to me, and I know, Rich, you've shown it a lot on Sven Gouli. It kind of hits all the right notes. It's got the Vada Vastin in the basement. It's got Alicia Cook Jr. So you can't go wrong. And we're back to pronunciations. I thought it was Elijah Cook. There we go again. I've heard it as I've heard both ways. I'm going with Alicia. Just call them Emergo.

So, and the film did very well for allied artists. It did. It was a hit. I mean, that's what led to this string of gimmick movies that came later. But the gimmick was Emerjo, which was, I'm sure many of your listeners already know, but it was a skeleton. Came out of a box. You know, the projections, this would push a button or maybe pull a string. And the skeleton would kind of, on a creaky wire, would come out over the audience and just sort of dangle there for a minute or so.

and then go back into the box. But, you know, legend has it that all the kids of the audience would do everything that they could to try to knock the skeleton down so they would be throwing their popcorn boxes at it. But it was, I've seen pictures of it. It's basically like a blow-up. Yes, it's a blow-up skeleton. Skeleton.

But then I've seen some pictures with a real skeleton or, I don't know, if it was a real skeleton, but not a plastic skeleton. You have to admire just what it took to. Of course. You had to go to like every theater or, you know, make sure every theater has. had this stuff set up. I mean, quite an undertaking, really. There's a great moment in Jeffrey's movie

where John Landis is talking about being a kid and anticipating this big scare, and then this puffy skeleton floats in on a clothesline. That's it? I was starting to say I saw it at the film forum in the 80s, the old film forum, and they trotted out, they showed house on Haunted Hill, and they trotted out their own version of a merger,

which was, you know, an usher's experience, in the 80s is quite different than it was in the 1950s. I mean, it was just so bored and disinterested and some kid had to stand there and with a pulley and this skeleton that was rigged too low and I think was clipping the top of people's heads. But I sent you that email, Jeffrey,

did you get it where some theater claims, I don't know how they would even pull this off, that they recently showed the tingler in Percepto? I don't know if it was old school Percepto, but somebody wired the seat somehow. I think I heard about them. I might have been at the upstate New York theater. It's been done.

I mean, you mentioned, Frank, you mentioned film forum in New York. You know, when I was in film school, this is in the 80s around the time that William Castle was being rediscovered. And it was after the John Waters article. And they started, the film forum started screening the movies. And I went to see a screening of the tingler. This is probably 88 or 89, maybe. And they had the percepto rigged.

And it wasn't in every seat, but it was in many of the seats. It was just, I mean, there's not much to it. It's just a little electrical box. It's like a joy buzzer, basically. It just vibrates the seat. Well, of Castle, you know, Castle, I guess part of the bullshit story was that they were electrifying the seats, but it was very much like a joy buzzer. They were airplane wing de-isers that were left over from World War II, or was that also bogus?

I don't know if that's true, but they were like these little motors. I'm sure he got him somewhere, who knows. But they had to hire people in every town. They had a guidebook of how to install it, which is really cool. I think we showed parts of it in the movie, where you'd have to, like, get in there under the seats with the screwdriver and screwed in there, and you had to make it work. And some theaters, you know, they wouldn't have the buzzers on every seat. They were too cheap to do that.

So you didn't know if you were sitting on one of the seats. I think John Landis or maybe John Waters was the one who actually looked under the seat to make sure that he got one with the motor. And then he sat in that seat. I mean, can you imagine being, you know, working at a movie theater back then and most weeks you just have to have the popcorn ready and get people in their seats and sweep up and then I bet they hated it. Oh, no, we got to put all these buzzers under these seats, you know.

Or pull the clothesline. Yeah, and being the guy that's got to pull the string for the skeleton, it's like, you know, that's not part of my job description. That's what I was saying. In the film forum in the 80s, these kids look so bored and disinterested and offended that they had to do it. When I saw it, everyone was going crazy. Really? That's what that really impressed me because this is like a jaded hipster downtown audience in the 80s.

They were there to make fun of the movie, but they were into it. And when those buzzers went off, I looked around and everyone was screaming and going crazy. And these are hipsters, you know. And it was just incredible. So, you know, but William Castle, he had to have relationships with all the theater owners. And he knew them personally. So, you know, these were small, some of them were small town movie theaters. Some of them were big theaters, like in the big cities.

But William Castle had to, he had personal relationships with all these folks. And he knew that his gimmicks were going to benefit them. So it was in their best interest to make William Castle's Ballyhoo work and get everybody in Cleveland or wherever it would be to go see the movie. And William Castle would sometimes think, I think you had said that, you know, he basically was a salesman. And he knew how to pull that off by making the relationships with the theater managers and such. That's part of being a good salesman. Absolutely. And he would show up in person.

So if you were living in a town and you heard William Castle a real honest, goodness movie directors coming to town, that's a huge deal. So he would show up at the, sometimes he would show up in a hearse or he would jump out of a coffin. Yeah, water says he saw him jump out of a coffin. Incredible, you know. Somewhere in Baltimore, presumably. He, you know, and he would show up, that was a time where, you know, the mayor would give you a key to the city. So William Castle showed up in one city, and the mayor gave him a skeleton key to the city.

Very clever. Rich, do I have this right? Was House on Haunted Hill, the first movie you guys showed on Me TV? No, I don't think so. No. I saw some. I think the first movie we showed on Me TV was incredible shrinking man. Okay.

I saw something online that it was. What kind of feedback do you get from fans when you show that? one. Oh, people love that. People ask for that repeatedly. They do. That and the tingler especially, it's amazing that they have such devoted fans for those movies. I was thinking of one movie that I ran that I think is one of his lesser ones maybe, and this is when I was back at the Fox Station here in Chicago. Bug? Oh, bug. With the cockroaches that shoot fire out of their rear ends. And I just remember we were all just aghast at this. We had never seen this movie.

And it's like, come on, what's going on with this? And at one point, I think, do the bugs form words in that movie? I'd love to see bug. I've never seen Bug. But I remember when it came out. We were going to one of our breaks. I remember the ads for it and stuff. But I was surprised watching your documentary that I didn't know that he had done Bug, you know.

but yeah when we were doing the show after they had you know formed different words we came out to me and I said wait they're forming something else and we had some little you know rubber cockroaches and had them spill out up yours I don't think I don't think management enjoyed that bug was kind of his last hurrah you know he didn't direct that one he produced a Gendo Swark directed that one just lost him too yeah Yeah, really good. Yeah, we were talking earlier about all the folks in the documentary that are no longer with us. Really good, really accomplished TV director.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's Supergirl and Jaws 2 and some other famous features. But Bugs a lot of fun. Bug has real bugs. I mean, now they would all do it all digitally. But they had to import these gigantic cockroaches. And that was part of the gimmick. You know, William Castle would do articles about these roaches.

And they were real. And if you look at the movie, I mean, it's pretty disturbing. being, I find it, you know, it's much more violent and creepy than a lot of his early movies because it's about a bug. There's one scene where a bug is on a telephone and this woman picks up the telephone and it's talking and the bug gets in her ear. And these bugs start fires out of their butts. So this woman's head is on fire. And the crazy thing about that scene is it's filmed in the Brady Bunch's kitchen. Wow. Fantastic. That's great trivia. The fun never stops, but occasionally we pause for a word from our sponsor.

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Learn more at SLR.com and ask your family eye care professional for SLR Stellist lenses at your child's next visit. Hi, it's me, Dr. Z. And thanks to my days on the road with the Wu-Tang Clan, I have to start every morning with a rigorous 20-minute regimen of applying a vast array of salves and ointments. And when doing so, I like to listen to fun for all ages with Frank Santepadre. And no, what I did with the clan was not for all ages. But it certainly was fun. And now back to the fun. Let me ask you, too, about House on Haunted Hill, Jeffrey. It inspired Hitchcock.

Is that also a bullshit story? That's one I never heard. I don't know that Hitchcock probably, you know, was inspired by Castle because maybe we'll get to it later with Castle's movie Homicidal, which was inspired by Psycho. But, you know, Hitchcock made Psycho because he was seeing all these low-budget black and white horror movies being made by people like Bill Castle or Roger Corman. And he said, well, maybe I can make one of those. So he found this property, Psycho. And he had a publicity gimmick for that movie, too, which was, you know, you couldn't, after the movie started, you couldn't. show up late. You had to wait until the end at Gough, because people would just show up halfway through the movie in those days. And it's interesting too because I think Hitchcock was

coming off of a gigantic hit, North by Northwest, and a total A movie. And then he made a psycho with his TV crew. He purposely did it lower budget and made history with it. So perhaps we could say that House on Haunted Hill was one of those black and white cheepees that is... Absolutely. We don't know it for sure that inspired him to go in that direction. And then it becomes full circle because as then you say, he makes homicidal, which is so clearly a psycho. I love that one critics said that it was better than psycho, which it is not, by the way. No.

But it's fascinating, too, for a film of 1961 to have a kind of a trans killer. the picture. The material is ahead of its time. With, may I say, Joan Marshall, here's some more trivia, in a dual role. Why is Joan Marshall an interesting name in pop culture trivia? Oh, I think you stumped me on that. She was Phoebe Munster, not Lily Munster, in the unaired Munster's pilot. Oh. There you go. I did not know that. Yes. And she married Hal Ashby, of all people. Oh, wow. Which is also strange. She has a little... She didn't do a lot of movies, Yes, she is iconic for being on the pilot of the monsters. The pilot of the monsters.

Yeah. Homicidal is also like macab disturbing and violent and strangely violent. You're coming out of House on Haunted Hill and Tingler, which are both kind of movies that feel like they were made for kids or at least teenagers. And suddenly these graphic stabbings. Yeah, it's a post-psycho movie and it's got some very graphic murder scenes with blood splashing all of it. I mean, it's much more violent than psycho, you know. and very entertaining. You could definitely see the psycho influence all over it,

but it goes in some really interesting directions. And I think if people haven't seen it, it's definitely worth a watch. It's a lot of fun. You know what I thought about watching your documentary was that it would make total sense to me in this whole period if William Castle had tried to get a horror anthology TV show

on the air because, you know, that's what Hitchcock had. And I don't know if there's any evidence that he would, but it seemed like it would be someone, too, who liked being in front of the camera as a, you know, a show where he'd come out and introduce a thing. It would have, you know. He had experience doing it. Yeah, yeah. He was very polished in doing that.

He did have a TV show later, but he didn't host it. It was William McCassel's ghost story. Oh. Right. There's a little clip from that in the documentary. Speaking of the hosting, Don, do we have clip one? I am William Castle, the director of the motion picture you're about to see. I feel obligated to warn you that some of the sensations, some of the physical reactions,

which the actors on the screen will feel, will also be experienced for the first time in motion picture history by certain members of this audience. I say certain members because some people are more sensitive to these mysterious electronic impulses than others. These unfortunate, sensitive people will at times feel a strange, tingling sensation. Others will feel it less strongly.

But don't be alarmed, you can protect yourself. At any time you are conscious of a tingling sensation, you may obtain immediate relief by screaming. Don't be embarrassed about opening your mouth and letting rip with all you've got because the person in the seat right next to you will probably be screaming too. And remember this.

A scream at the right time may save your life. We still have listeners after the last part of it. It's so great, you know. It's, first of all, I love the New York accent. Right. You could tell he's a local boy. But also, it's so ridiculous and delivered with such conviction.

Yeah, the phrase that popped into my head listening to that. And I've heard that a million times because Trace will you and I riffed that movie. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. But it's just total commitment to the bit. Commitment. Commitment to the bit. Absolutely.

In other words, you know, he's not just presenting a movie with this premise that there's a tingler inside all of us that we can only stop by screaming. He's doing it as a real person and committing to the idea that it's an actual real thing. it's it's it's it's total commitment yeah and it's great um rich what uh i was gonna ask you uh frank when you show it and when you guys riff on it i mean what's what what's the obviously the audience is reacting to you guys and reacting to the stuff but you are they fans of the film yeah no because you can tell with um you know sometimes if you riff a movie and it's just a bad movie and and it's really all that the that the audience is enjoying the riffs and and But with a movie like the tingler, you could tell that they're into the plot as well.

And those are the kind of movies that work best for us, actually. And in a few scenes, like when the tingler emerges and all, like that would get the laugh. You know, they would be into the story, and that would be a big part of what they were enjoying. And then our riffs would just be coming in over that. It's got to be hard to even riff on a movie like that that doesn't feel like it's taking itself all that seriously in the first place. Yeah, yeah. It makes it harder.

And just in quality-wise, it's on the higher level of the scale of the movies we're used to doing. In other words, it's very well-shot, well-made. The actors are all really good. You know, it has a coherent, a ridiculous yet coherent story. And, yeah, it works really well. And it is a ridiculous story. Rich, are you familiar enough with the plot of the Tingler to account?

explain it to the un-initiated? Oh, sure. Yes. Vincent does a autopsy on someone who has dropped dead and is confused about why exactly that happened. And later on, his, quote, friend who runs a silent movie theater has his wife. Conveniently. Conveniently. Who, you know, without being a spoiler, but what the hell.

he ends up scaring his wife to death. And when Vincent is doing the autopsy, which I don't think is necessarily in his job description, he does x-rays and notices that there's some sort of weird growth or something. And when he actually operates, he removes this large sort of caterpillar-like... Oh, look at this. Oh, there, exactly. Jeffrey is... We had one here, too, but I wasn't just.

sure if I should bring it in. Oh, you had one. Jeffrey's holding up a tingler model. And it would Vincent is holding it and it actually starts to attack him holding onto his arm. And of course, how do you stop it by screaming? And so he manages to put this thing in like a little, you know, cat carrier. And when he's finally confronting the guy at the theater, it somehow breaks loose from the cage and goes down from his apartment into the movie theater. And I think it helped that it was a silent theater because people could hear the screams better. Yeah. And for those people who listen to our loyalists who listen to our old show, Josh and Andrew know what I'm referring to. Gilbert loved to do a Vincent Price impression. You know, the part where he's screaming

the tingler is loose in the theater. He became, what was the relationship between Price and Castle, Jeffrey? I think they really loved each other. They got a kick out of each other. I mean, he did a couple of movies with Vincent. That was before he was really a bona fide horror star, too. He was really just known for playing heavies. So he cast him in-house and haunted Hill.

I believe he got a piece of the profits. So that didn't hurt. And then when he did the tingler, you could see, you know, how you were saying that Castle committed to the bit. I mean, Vincent Price committed to the bit. He had to make it believable, which is probably shows why he was such a great actor. he did make it believable. And not only that, he has the first acid trip in cinema history. I was going to ask you about that, too. That's disturbing. You see, he's reading a little pamphlet

about lysurgic, whatever it's called, LSD. And it wasn't really that well known. I mean, they were using it for therapy. Carrie Grant was taking acid every week for, you know, for therapy. But it wasn't like, it was way before the hippies were dropping acid all the time, and it was in pop culture. So, Vincent Price takes acid. He takes it to induce the fear in him so that he can try to prevent himself from screaming to see how far you could take it if the tingler was going to attack him. He was trying to bring out his own tingler, because we've all got one, as we know, as we've previously established. I think my favorite line is when he pulls the pistol on his wife and he says, this silly pistol can make a hole in you the size of a medium grapefruit. It's so strangely specific.

My wife watched the tingler with me, and her takeaway was, she said, I can sum this movie. movie up. I said, what is it? She said, poor choices and spouses. That's a good point. The same could be said of House on Haunted Hill. Absolutely. Yeah, I was going to say that. Let me talk about 13 ghosts real quick. And we have another clip that Don is going to pull up with the Great Paul Freeze. Now, brace yourself as we take you across the threshold of our haunted mansion where there's a for everyone in the family.

Father, mother, sister, brother. You'll be scared stiff too when you see what they see. Thirteen ghosts, materializing an ectoplasmic color through the magic of Illusino, the ghost viewer. The ghost of a lion in the basement. The ghost of a lion in the basement. The ghost of a murderous ghost of a murderous cook in the kitchen.

Stop it! Stop it, I say! The ghost who speaks through the lips of the living. Death tonight. Two, one of you? The evil ghost in the bedroom, fighting to take possession of this beautiful girl. You'll feel all the thrills and chills of seeing one ghost multiplied by the magic number 13. Fantastic.

Poor Paul Frees had to go into the booth and read, materializing in an ectoplasmic color through the magic of illusiono, which is a fantastic piece of copy. Margaret Hamilton shows up in 13 Ghost, which is a treat, channeling Dame Judith Anderson and Rebecca. And the only thing I like more than a haunted house movie is a haunted house with a buried treasure. and 13 ghosts, which, you know, is kind of a letdown after House on Haunted Hill.

It's not as good. It seems smaller and more of a cheapy. But it certainly has some moments. It's got a seance. It's got a creepy painting on the wall. It's got a monkey's paw. Kind of a little subplot. It's kind of got a lot that you want.

And poor Martin Milner is thinking, I was just a... I was just... I think. On Illusino. Yeah. And when we've shown it, people always... say, oh, are you going to show it in 3D? And I always have to explain to them, it was never in 3D. The viewers had, you know, the red and blue. But that was because the ghosts were tinted

a certain color. And, you know, if you look through one of them, you didn't see the ghosts, but the other one, you would see them. And people always mistake, because, you know, it's the red and blue, it's like, oh, it's 3D. And obviously it was not. It's the interesting about trying to watch these movies now on a computer or on television. You wait for the gimmick to come up and you realize that the gimmick is lost, completely lost, watching it this way. William Castle might be the quintessential example of the communal experience of watching a movie. Absolutely. That's a good point.

We talk about that a lot, about a lot of movies. But if you lose, it's like kind of an essential ingredient and even going one step further, with him of, like, it's really meant to be enjoyed in a theater with a lot of other people. And then you even, whichever the film, you're probably going to have a blast. I just, you know, I regret not being around to see these. I mean, now you see them in revival. We talked about the one at the film forum. It's obviously not the same.

But I applaud these people that are trying to recreate it and recreate that experience. Yeah, I think now especially, you know, that's the type of thing. They're always trying to get people back into the movie theaters now, you know. People should maybe go back to trying to think along those lines. It's come around again. Yeah. Yeah. We don't get movie gimmicks.

Would people accept it? Because, you know, I remember just hearing recently, what was it, the Minecraft movie, that they had something where one of those monsters or whatever is, is writing a duck. And there was actual just turmoil in the theater. Kids were throwing stuff on the screen. Yeah. Yeah, and just, you know, like a riot scene. And I was thinking, you know, they had the Cowards Corner in one of the Castle films.

And it's like, today, that it probably end up covered with graffiti. Oh, yeah, homicidal had the Cowards Corner. Yeah. Yeah, and Young Tufts, you know, forcing somebody into the thing. And, you know, I don't know. I'm not sure the way things have changed if that type of gimmickery would work. Somebody would have to come up with a new type. Yeah.

Did they still have the seats in certain theaters that are vibrating and they kind of move around in an action scene, you know, they spray water in your face and things like that? So we have any of those in New York? I don't know. Not that I know of. The last gimmick was adding sort of waiter service or waitress service in certain theaters. Yeah, with the Alamo. A lot of the, for example, Disney World, they had some of those set up where the seats would vibrate or move and bubbles or water would come. I think there was even one where it was a gimmick that I think you said Jeffrey Castle wanted to do where he'd put windshield wipers under certain seats to make it seem like, I think it was for bug.

And they turned those on that would scare them. And they actually did that in one of the Disney Park things, but I can't recall which one it was. Maybe it was a bug's life, which would make sense. Oh, there's an attraction down in Disney World where you go into, I did it a couple of years ago. You go into, it's hard being a bug or something like this. And they do spray you with water and certain scents and things like that. It's not quite odorama. But I guess in theme parks is the closest thing where you would be able to simulate this experience.

I think what we're talking about, though, in terms of William Castle is the one thing that can't be duplicated now is the innocence of that. era of just kids and there's no internet, there's less TV, there's less sophistication about the world, just the idea of going into a theater where a skeleton floats across or there's a tingler or whatever, you know, the excitement of that, because they live in a world that doesn't have all of the stimulation, you know, that we have now. For sure. Well, Jeffrey makes that point in the movie. Jeffrey, you say that the 70s weren't made for him and even the 60s. I mean, after the Kennedy assassination, people's consumption of horror movies changed. And then after the Manson killings, you know, it changed again. That was a bad gimmick that Manson

plays. Yeah, terrible. Yeah, movies change. The culture changed. You know, movies change when you have the nightly news showing more horrors than anything in a movie theater in the 60s. You know, it was just a different sensibility. And the gimmicks kind of died out. I mean, Castle was still out there trying to do stuff. You know, Bug, he did think about doing gimmicks for Bug. He did talk about doing those little windshield wipers so it would feel like bugs are. It was a seatbelt, too. There was a seatbelt, yeah.

But the thing with the little windshield wipers is that, you know, by the time in the theaters where Bug played, you didn't need those windshield wipers because they were like probably rats running around in the theater, you know, so you didn't really need the and there were real roaches running around the theater. Yeah, a real roach comes by and you're like, wow, what an incredible gimmick that He came up with having all these wheel watches. There were mice in the Lincoln Plaza Theater up on the Upper West Side. There were mice running around.

That wasn't a gimmick. Why would motion picture patrons of the past head out to the concession stand for a snack when they had electrified seats and flying skeletons waiting? Hollywood was just getting warmed up. Tonight we look at when movies sprayed, rattled, and poisoned their audiences in another chapter of, well, that was fun. Legendary producer William Castle wasn't the only showman handy with a gimmick. For decades, movie studios trotted out innovations meant to transform movie-going,

but mostly they transformed audiences into trauma victims. Let's start with 1959's Aromorama, where theater air vents pumped scents into the room. It debuted with Behind the Great Wall, a documentary variety called odorous and not in a good way. For almost two hours, the sequence of scent bursts hung in the air, creating a foul mixture that caused theater-goers to gag and sneeze. So much, though, that no one could hear the actual movie. Aromarama, like the Edsel, died that year. Cents Around was Universal's answer to making their 1974 big-budget thriller Earthquake feel real.

Theater shook so violently that safety nets had to be draped over audiences to catch falling plaster. People fainted, they got nosebleeds, one poor guy broke a rib. Turns out audiences preferred movies that only hurt emotion. In the Philippines, theaters showing the horror flick the Mad Doctor of Blood Island handed out vials of green blood, and on cue, the audience was told to recite the oath of green blood, pop open the vials, and down this murky liquid. Their movie-going experiences were soon followed by diarrhea and vomiting. And then there was 1956 as The Conqueror, a John Wayne as Genghis Khan epic, filmed in the Utah desert that's as bad as it sounds. To promote the film, producers mailed out bags of sand taken from the location shoot to PR agents and film critics. Sadly, the sediment was laced with radioactive fallout from a nuclear testing site.

There was no sequel. Movie gimmicks, because nothing says memorable night at the movies like whiplash, nausea, or a sack of plutonium. Well, that was fun. Let me ask you this, Jeffrey. you were a monster kid or you weren't? I mean, what attracted you to... Oh, for sure. I was a big monster kid.

You know, I was familiar with William Castle from seeing pictures from the movies in famous monsters. So I was a famous monsters kid a little later than the boomer monster kids. I was reading it in the 70s. I was trying to find old issues. You know, the magazine was still being published

on a regular basis. I had a lot of paperbacks about monster movies. And, you know, this is way before VH. or cable, even, so I couldn't access these movies. You know, I would buy the TV guide and, like, go through every single page. Hopefully, they're going to show Dracula or Frankenstein. These movies were just not available. But then finally, I think PBS had a whole package of Universal Monster movies.

And every week, I got to see them. I don't know if you remember this. It was hosted, too, by an actor Kevin, oh, forget his name. But it was filmed specifically for PBS. Yes, maybe it was just in New York. And so you grew up in New York. So like Frank and I, you had Channel 11 and you had, you had Chiller Theater. Channel 5 and Channel 5 and Channel 9.

Yeah, Fright Night was on W-O-R at one in the morning after Saturday Night Lives. I saw a lot of movies that way. In the afternoons, Chiller Theater, I think, was on Saturday afternoons. I got to see a lot of movies that way. Do we all remember the Monster Times? Do we all get the Monster Times? I remember it. I didn't get it regularly.

It was on newsprint. It was actually. it was actually a paper. Yeah. Some fans sent some to Gilbert on the last show because he asked about it. What about you, Rich? I remember the last time that we interviewed you and you said as a kid you were easily scared.

Were you watching this stuff on what, local channels, WGN, WFLD in Chicago? Yeah, WGN, even back on the CBS station, Channel 2, I remember being very young. And like I told you before, I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of the dark. For some reason, I actually thought that, you know, skeletons were frightening. It would be coming after me, which means if I would have gone to a merjo, I probably would have lost my mind. Merjo's not for you. But the two first movies that scared the hell out of me were King Kong, because I remember my parents playing that up, and I had to be three or four.

And I just thought it was going to be absolutely terrifying. And the other one was the Wizard of Oz. Because a lot of those people, I didn't care about them. The flying monkeys. But for some reason, the witch with that voice, for some reason, just scared the living hell out of me. And it wasn't until really years later when one of the local stations started running old monster movies like late. I think it was even on a Sunday night. And I was just, you know, so fascinated by them and got into them then.

And, you know, obviously I'm not as frightened of them anymore. although there are times when, you know, I tried to turn my head away. You picked a strange profession for a guy that was very easily scared, showing hosting horror movies every week. Well, it's almost like therapy, I think. I guess so. I guess so. What about you, Frank? Do you remember actually being scared as a kid? As a kid, yes. As something in particular. But it wasn't any movie so much as, um, an episode of the Adventures of Superman.

Ooh, do tell. And I know so many, I've heard other people who were kids at my age who remember being scared by the same episode where this couple. Oh, is when they find the Superman's suit? They find Superman's suit. They know that Clark Kent is Superman and Superman doesn't know what he's going to do with them. We all know that one. So he flies them to the top of this bleak, desolate. mountain and he says, I'll come back and deal with you. He flies away and they decide to

escape and they fall down the mountain. And I think it was just the whole atmosphere of it, of the bleakness of the setting. And that was, that was, that was, do you guys know that episode of Superman? Oh, Jeffrey's going to watch it tonight. Another one that scared me was the one where there was some crime boss that found some scientist who could use some machine to control people's minds. And there were people who were going to testify against him in a courtroom. And when he tuned it into their minds, he just started to say, you know, tell him you don't know anything. And this would just, you know, make the people freeze and say, I don't know anything. And then they'd commit suicide. And I remember as a kid just thinking this

so frightening. Yeah. Good programming for the young kids. I remember the Superman one that scared me was when he gets sealed in that giant cube. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. And is that the one where he figures out how to walk through the wall? Yes, yes. But he doesn't want to get stuck. They never really explained about that work. Well, now that we're talking about things that are not explained, let me go back to the tingler, because I said this before we turn the mics on. Is there any explanation for why? First of all, he says I'm going to the police. I'm going to the police. you've murdered your wife and he says and the silent movie theater owner says well it's not like I stabbed her shot her and he says murder is murder and Vincent Price turns his back on him

and walks away and that's not good enough for Castle to actually you know put put this guy in the electric chair the dead wife is coming back to life rising up under the sheet and then he can't scream for some reason and I'm trying to figure this out and it's it's bothered me for years I don't suppose there's an explanation forthcoming. Did he put her tingler back inside of her? Is that maybe, is that what happened? And maybe the tingler is the thing that came to life. And that's why she's sitting up is because the tingler is propelling her forward.

That's the only, I'll buy it. Logical. I mean, the movie is, defies logic. Defies logic. And we've waited long enough. One of the scenes in that movie, I'm sorry, one of the scenes in that movie that is always kind of weird is the one part where there's color. where the water running into the tub is red and the water and the sink is red.

And I've talked to various people about this. There was a story that I'm sure was not true that said, oh yeah, William Castle had them, they actually used color film, but he had the woman made up in gray tones and the whole room was done in gray tones. And to me it was like, there's no way he could have afforded that.

And I even talked to Rick Baker about this. And I said, do you think that's true? And he said, no, if you look at the edges of the red, you can see that it was kind of, you know, a gimmick type thing. But there was no way that they would have done such a perfect job of matching everything. And especially since with the budgets that they had. No, but kudos to him for going to the trouble. It's really creepy. It's a creepy gimmick.

That's when the husband's trying to drive her crazy and scare her to death. And she goes in the bathroom and the water in a bathtub is red and there's a bloody hand coming. out of the bathtub. And it's, I mean, if I were eight years old in 1959, I think that would probably traumatize me for life. I said that myself about when Trace and I were doing the tingler was that if you, I could absolutely see how if you were a kid, you would think this was scary. Oh, I would imagine.

I was scared as a kid, and I guess this is an obvious choice by Carnival of Souls. Oh, yeah. And I would imagine that scares adults. Yeah. But when I saw it at 11, it shook me up. But I was going to say, Jeffrey, we've waited forever here, and we need to know about Al Lewis. Because you asked me, before we turn on the mics, do I have a, do I have I kept count of all the things that were mentioned on the old show? Well, Al Lewis was something that was mentioned on the old show constantly, especially when we had Billy West and Jackie the joke man.

So this was your thesis? Yeah. Billy West did the best Al Lewis impression. The best. Yeah, when I was in film school, I went to SUNY Purchase in New York State University. And that was around the time when Al, Grandpa, Munster, Lewis had a restaurant on Bleaker Street. It was called Grandpa's Bellahente. It was an Italian restaurant.

We all went there. Probably a mob front. Probably. Yeah, well, you know, I can't confirm or deny that. But Al Lewis, it was called Grandpa. So Al Lewis was basically the host. You know, he would be there all the time. And I would go into the city and go and drop by and watching the circus that was around the entrance of the restaurant.

People would show up, look in the window, see if grandpa's there. If you went to the restaurant, he would be the one greeting you and he would seat you and give him the menus. The menu was shaped like his face. And, you know, tour buses would pull out filled with tourists. And he would get on the bus and greet them. And, you know, this was, I don't know if it would work now because I don't know that the Munsters is as well known now as it was in the age. no but everyone knew grandpa monster because he was in everyone's living room so he loved it he had a great time and so i i was in film school at the time and thought this has to just be captured

for posterity you know and i uh asked to mr lewis if i could make a film about him and he said yes um and he told me oh he's going to be appearing at a Halloween costume contest for anheuser-bush beer in philadelphia and i said can i come on the train and and with you and go to the party with you and film you at this party because that's how he was making his living. Yes. He would, I mean, the character wasn't copyrighted. It was just a, it was just a tuxedo. And he said, sure, sure, kid.

You do whatever you want. So we actually showed up. We met him at the Amtrak station or at Grand Central. He was getting his ticket and he saw us and he looked kind of quizzical. So we're just following him around. We follow him. We get on the train with him. We're filming him on the train.

We're filming all the fans. He's shouting autographs. And someone asks him, What are these guys doing here? What are they filming? And he says, I have no idea. I love it. But eventually, he realized what we're doing.

I said, oh, you remember me? I'm the film student. So we went to the party with him. I made this movie. We interviewed him later at his home on Roosevelt Island. And we made this little short. And that was my senior film from film school. It's fun.

I've seen it. What kind of grade did you come up with for making a thesis film about that grandpa? Well, I got the diploma. So I guess. Nicely, nicely done. I may have told this before, but I did go into the Italian restaurant, and I was in film school. I went to SBA, and I had a screenplay that I was working on, and it was just sitting on the table. And he came, he was making the rounds, going to all the tables, and he comes and he goes, is that a screenplay?

And I said, yeah, I'm a film student. He picked it up, held it, weighed it in his hand, and dropped it on the table, and said, overwritten. That is so great. That was my Al Lewis encounter. appropriate in a way that we're talking about Al Lewis because there's a there's a race for mayor going on in town. Didn't he run for mayor at one point? I think he did. I think he did. My friend Randy Credico was his campaign manager, I think. Fantastic. He ran for governor too. Yes. Or maybe it was running for, I know he ran for office at one point. He was an activist. You know, he was very progressive, left-leaning guy. Yes, he was. Always stood up for the little guy. And he ran. He ran. for governor so that the green party would get a place on the ballot. And they thought with somebody with his name, you know, it might, you know, get some attention and he could get him on the ballot, which he did. He obviously didn't get the votes to come anywhere near winning that. But hell,

I would love to see Al Lewis as a governor of New York. Yeah, I want to live in a world where Al Lewis is the governor. Amen. When you guys, Rich, you still show Munster go home on the show? I mean, even though the Munsters is sort of passed from the, from the culture. a little bit. Yes, and I have to say that's probably one of the three most beloved movies that we show. The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, Abbot and Customly Frankenstein, and Monster Go Home. People are absolutely crazy about that. Anytime we show it, we get a huge rating, and, you know, people are still into it.

Yeah. It holds up. We had Butch Patrick on the last show. Maybe we'll do an Al Lewis episode. Jeffrey, Jeffrey, we'll get Butch and Billy West. His wife wrote a book, a great book called... Did she? Yeah, what was it called?

My Life with Grandpa or My Life... See, I'm unaware of this. You may need an edit here, but anyway, she's lovely. Karen Lewis wrote a book. It was her memoir of her life with Al Lewis. They met when Al was doing a dinner theater. I forget the name of the play, but Karen was an actress in the play. So how they met, and there was a big age difference, and they eventually fell in love,

and they were together for many, many, many years. Also, very knowledgeable about basketball. Al Lewis, he was a scout. Yeah, he was a paid scout. Can people find the Al Lewis thesis? Yeah, I set it on YouTube. Oh, fantastic. I just feel the need to throw in a mention of Car 54, where are you?

Please do. Because he was, one of the all-time great shows. One of the old... On that as well. We had Charlotte Ray on the last podcast, and I don't think she liked him very much. Oh, really? Mr. and Mrs. Schnauzer. You could go back and listen.

The name of the book is I Married a Munster, by the way. Great title. I got to get my hands on it. Rich, it's your, what, now, your 46th anniversary of playing the character. Mr. Conniff turned up in the... in the Booboom Cannon video, which we were talking about. Oh, sure, yeah. We very kind of him and Trace to take part of that.

And Trace. You were on it. Believe me. It was nice. People always say to me, oh, did you have any idea when you started that you'd still be doing this now? And I told them, the thing is, I was just thrilled to have a TV show.

And I wasn't planning much further ahead than the next month. You weren't planning half a century. Because it was just like, yeah. And, you know, I'm very lucky to still be doing this and that people still want to tune in and see it with all different entertainment choices they have. Whoopi sends her regards, by the way. I walked into her dressing room one day

and saw her wearing a Spenguli t-shirt. Oh, wow. And I was thrilled that we... Yes, we said her the Spenguli Christmas sweater, too. And I think she wore that on air. I think she wore it on air. go back to, Jeffrey quickly, I want to go back to Castle because I left your phone message last night about how touching the end of the film is and sad in a way that he so longed to

be an A-list director and he acquired Rosemary's Baby as a property before it was even published as a book and long to do it and wound up, he made a deal with Paramount ultimately and he wound up getting a producer credit he has a cameo in the film, but obviously Pallant was chosen to direct the film. And I guess even though, you know, you make it clear that he knew that Polansky was the right choice, you know, was his heart a little bit broken by that? I think the box office soothed his broken heart.

I see. It was a gigantic hit. Yeah, he did acquire the book. He saw the potential in it. He brought it to parrary. He got the rights. He brought it to Paramount. Robert Evans.

Robert Evans said, yes, we'll make this movie. But you are going to produce it. You're not going to direct it because... When I asked about the broken heart, I mean, was there any deception going on? Because I think you say what Evans told him was, we'll make every effort. Yeah, best efforts. Best effort to have you directed. I'll talk to the head of the studio.

Yeah, I'll talk to the head of the studio. But, you know, I think at the end of the day, William Castle was very proud of that movie. And I think whatever disappointment there may have been, obviously the movie was a big success. But he was a great producer. And I think that's something that people forget. You know, he knew how to make movies. He knew how to deal with talent, with big personalities. I mean, he dealt with John Crawford.

He's making, he's enabling Roman Polanski to make the movie he wants to make and protecting him, even though the budget was rising and Polanski was doing a million takes. And William Castle maybe would do two takes of something. Here's Polansky, the perfectionist. I think Polanski always spoke well of him, too, from what I've gathered and read. They seem close on the set from all the, from photographs that he was. I think there was a mutual respect. for sure. Yes. Mutual respect. Although I would love to have seen William Castle's version.

Yeah. I was thinking about that, that it probably would have been low budget and not nearly as good as the Polansky one, but it probably would have been pretty good. And it probably would be like the one remembered as the best William Castle film, even though it might not have become the cultural phenomenon that the Pallansky, you know, hiring Pallansky was absolutely the smart. thing to do, you know. Clearly it worked out. Every decision that went into that movie worked out. But a William Castle version of it I think would have been good.

But there's also some gimmicks in there too. I mean, there was the famous Pray for Rosemary's baby. There was lots of bumper stickers. There was Mia Farrow's haircut, which was a Vidal Sassoon haircut. And there there's lots of newspaper articles and press. He got a lot of press over her

haircut in the movie. He would invite old-time stars. He was able to cast a lot of old-time stars in the movie, and then old-time stars like Joan Crawford and Carrie Grant came to the set, and there's photos of them on the set visiting. Interesting. So there's a lot of Ballyhoo there. And that's not

something Roman Polanski knew how to do. That's something oldly William Castle knew how to do. So it's collaborative ultimately. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And he makes an outright comedy in 1967, the busybody, which I bring up because of Sid Caesar, Jan Murray, Dom Deloese, Bill Dana,

and George Jessel. I vaguely, and The cast is the gimmick. It wasn't mentioned in your documentary. Oh, you skipped over that one, Jeff. No, we skipped over that one. Yeah. I only... How could you not mention Dom Del Louise?

And who is the lead in the busy buddy? Sid Caesar. Oh, wow. And Jessel turns up. Wow. And Jose Jimenez. That was... Talk about capturing the zeitgeist of 1967.

Wow. Yeah. But you captured the man, you know, not just the film, not just the gimmick. And Terry speaks so eloquently about her father. He comes off in your movie just a really likable... You want to know the guy. A really likable person.

You want to hang with him. And incredibly admirable of what he achieved in his life and his career. I agree. You know, he also gave me personally a lot of courage, because I'm not really like a showman or at least I have... It's not really in my personality to be like that. But when you're making independent movies, especially independent documentaries,

you've got to do everything you possibly can to get people to see the movies. So when we did spine tingler, I knew I had to be, I had to channel William Castle in order to promote it. So we had our premiere at the AFI Film Festival in Hollywood. So I decided to, I acquired a tingler, I strapped it to my back, I got a big cigar, and we were doing red carpet with press. And there I am walking around with this thing strapped to my back. Tom Cruise is 100 feet down the red carpet doing press for another movie that AFI. But all the reporters wanted to talk to me because I had this stupid piece of plastic in my back. which they never would have been interested in me

if I wasn't wearing that thing. And I got to talk about the tingler and William Castle and sort of, so he gave me courage to, not just in that movie, but all my movies and throughout my career is just, you know, put yourself out there and have confidence. He would always say, when someone would come up to him and say, oh, I really want to be a producer.

And he would say, poof, you're a producer. You know, he gave people confidence to follow their dreams. And he was somebody who followed his own dreams too. That's sweet. And the last, maybe the last of the great showman, at least as far as cinema goes. Well, I made another movie about another, who I think is the last of the great showman, is Alan Carr. And that was a few years later. Oh, Alan Carr movie is almost a different kind of showman.

A remake, yeah, it's a different kind, but it's almost a remake of Spine Tlingler. Yeah, and you've made some very, very interesting films, which we mentioned in the opening. And you'll come back at some point, I hope, and we'll talk about Alan car or the or the or the or the or the gilded dock or uh or some of the others but um great job with this one you yeah this movie has legs you captured an era and you captured you captured a human being and like frank says you get the sense of how much he was adored yeah and a guy that you want to hang out with what when you show the castle films and you say they're rich that you're still getting positive responses from from from from whatever you guys yeah definitely

trot these out? Do you find that your fans are familiar with Castle or they're just? It's a combination. There are the ones who know it and know it front and backwards and all his movies. And one of the things that always surprises me with as many times that we've shown these movies every week, I will hear from quite a few people that say, I've never seen that before. So it's a new treat for them and a great introduction for them to learn about. William Castle. That's great. Anytime we've shown one of his films, we do.

We get people that are absolutely thrilled that we're running it. We're working on next year running Let's Kill Uncle. Okay. There's another one. That I was fascinated by that. In the doc, I've never seen it. I've never seen it either. With that title and everything, I've got to see it.

Yeah, we're hoping to get that next year. Because when I first read the title, I thought, oh, it's got to be one of those British-type films or something. And all of a sudden, it's like, it's William Castle. So I'm looking forward to doing that. It's great that he's been gone almost 50 years. He passed in 77. And I think it's great that, you know, obviously we're still talking about him, but that other people are still talking about him, still showing the films.

I wonder if he could have imagined that these work would endure. The horror movie genre is so huge in films that any, I think anyone who's really interested, And there's probably a lot of kids who are really interested in horror movies now, kids who are interested in cinema and there's so much horror that the ones who are curious, it's going to lead them back to William Castle if they study, you know, where it all came from. I'm sure. I'm sure that's true. We barely mentioned Mr. Sardonicus and the great gimmick, the two endings. Now, Jeffrey, can we say with some confidence that he probably never shot the second ending, assuming that no. So nobody, nobody, they gave the punishment poll where you got a card and you got to the audience got to decide thumbs up or thumbs down, Mr. Sargon, Mr. Sardonicus's fate.

Safe to assume that there was only, John Waters says in your movie, nobody's ever seen the other ending. Yeah, yeah. I guess he figured nobody's going to vote for the villain to live at the end of the movie. So he didn't really need to fill, actually film that alternative ending. So no, I've never seen one. I doubt they actually filmed it. And even if they did film it, like, how would you have to change the reels? You'd have to, because William Castle shows up on the screen. William Castle is counting the votes, the tally of the little thumbs up or thumbs down. He's counting from the screen.

He's not actually in the theater counting. So that one was a total. Does he say something like, you know, sir, madam, hold that up higher? Yes, you over there. Hold your card up higher. He's seeing the people. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of a classy.

kind of a hammer film. It's a British kind of like the ending it's and I only remember it from years ago the ending is really pretty horrifying. It is. Yeah. It is.

Let me say this too. Let me get to these plugs. They didn't offer a choice when I watched it on TV by the way. Well that's what I mean. You watch these things on TV and you go here comes another gimmick that's lost from viewing it this way. The one that does kind of work is the clock on the screen

at the end of... Is it homicidal? Yeah. Yeah. The warning. Jeffrey, speaking of showman, you are working on a doc about the director,

Paul Verhoeven? Yes, I've been working on a documentary about his most notorious movie called Showgirls. Yes. Oh, wow. And we're familiar with it.

Yeah, that movie came out in 1995. and it was, you know, one of the most publicized big studio, NC-17 rated. It was going to just shock America. Paul Verhoeven is a big showman, too. It was starred Elizabeth Berkeley, who was a former, you know, a good girl on a TV show who wanted to kind of blow up that good girl image

and star in a NC17 adult-themed movie as a stripper. and the movie, let's say it was received in a way it wasn't intended to be received as a camp classic and people love this movie and worship the movie. It's 30 years old this year. So I've been working on that. I'm hoping to finish it up soon. Good for you.

I can't wait to see that. I'm a big fan of his. I just watched Starship Troopers the other night. So great. It's a blast. Speaking of horror films, have you seen the fourth man? Oh, yeah. That's a classic, Paul Verhoven movie.

Yeah, he made lots of movies. You know, he's Dutch, and he made a lot of movies before he came to Hollywood. It was a Robocop that was his first American hit. Then there's the one that has, I think, not Jamie Lee, but Jennifer Jason Lee is in it from, it's really nasty. Yes, that was a, technically that's his first American movie. It's about the plague and set in the Middle Ages. Really, really good, but you talk about, when you talk about dark stuff, This goes beyond that.

I like Soldier of Orange, too. Oh, I've never seen, or you mean the Soldier of Orange? What's the one? What's the one with Rutger Hour? Am I saying the title wrong? Yeah, Soldier of Orange. Yeah, it's good. That one I've been wanting to see. I've never seen it. And tell us, Frank, as long as we're doing our plugs here, about the new book. And there is something else in the works that you can't talk about, but you want to allude. Well, I can tell you about my latest book, which is called, you said Dark Apnea,

was my latest book, but it's actually called The Time Tumblers. Oh, the Time Tumblr's. Right. I got it wrong. Which is sci-fi, but anyone listening to anything, any podcast you've ever done will enjoy this book because it's, it's, the premise is an alien entity who watches Earth's history wants to change Earth's history. But he knows that if he, If he, like, kills baby Hitler, he'll get in trouble with his superiors. He can't do anything that would draw a lot of attention. So he decides he wants to prevent the Ronald Reagan administration from passing. And his way of doing that is altering history so that Ronald Reagan gets cast in My Three Sons instead of Fred McMurray. So it starts out his. It starts out with a plot to assassinate Fred McMurray.

And then there's several other of those showbiz type of plots to alter earth history that come after that. It's called the Time Tumblr's. And people who enjoy your work, I'm telling you, will love this book. It sounds it. Fred McMurray, notoriously, the cheapest man in Hollywood. The cheapest man, I suppose before Gilbert came along. That is touched upon in the book, his cheapness. Yeah.

Although all of the show business figures, except for Ron. Ronald Reagan are all, I feel portrayed with great respect and love in the book. I can't wait. And can you say anything about what you told me on the phone? Or can you allude to it? I don't think I can allude to it. All right. We'll let people guess.

It's not about a book. Right. But Trace, you and I will be having more product of our, the Mads are back. Yeah, what's going on with the Mats? Coming out around Halloween time. in a couple. We're taking the summer off and we're going to do more

Mansorback shows. Any other Castle films are going to find their way into it? You know what? I don't know because I think I looked at 13 ghosts and I thought it was kind of too good. Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

Interesting. Interesting. And Rich, what's coming up? We were talking about the video with Freddie Boom Boom Canaan, which has our friends Dana Gould in it and Michael McKean and his wife

and at O'Toole and Rick Baker. All my podcast guests turned up in that one, the show that I did Gilbert and I did. And Frank is in there. That was for the 45th anniversary last year? Yeah, I believe so. That was when we premiered that one. Hayes-Fengouli, I believe, is the title. Hayes-Feng-Gooly, exactly.

Easy lyrics to remember, you know. It's catchy and charming. And what else is happening? Every Saturday night, you're there. Every Saturday night on Me TV, we're there. You'll be able to also enjoy some double features with the new additions to our cast, Gwen Gouli, the Imp, Ignatius Malvolio Frankenstein, and my favorite nostalgia feratu, who is Bill Leff, who does the morning cartoon shows.

I feel like Art Fern coming on again. Nostalgia ferratu. And Buzz the Wonder Heel. He's an old friend of mine who we work together in radio. Do tell. It's just great. We have such great rapport that a lot of times we don't even have to have a script and we can add limb stuff. And he's hilarious.

So you get to enjoy those people as well. And it's nice having them around to join us. Well, I can't thank you guys enough for being part of this. my crazy new endeavor here and this was a blast going down memory lane and very happy to be here and talking about this stuff

and I hope you'll all same here I hope you'll all come back when I find another suitable episode for your talents let's thank CityVox and Stephen Toll and our engineer Don Hoffman

and Bobby Hutch and Andrew Capone of course and Josh Chambers, who needs to see Mr. Sardinagos because Oscar Hamoka's in it. And he's a sucker for an Oscar Hamoka film. This was great, guys. Thank you very much. Good luck with all the new projects.

To our listeners, find Jeffrey's wonderful William Castle, Doc Spinetingler, the William Castle story. And congratulations. Really well done. I'm glad the film is enduring. it's it's it's it's it's got legs and I love that you have discovered it and are sharing it with your audience and I hope a lot more people get to see it it was a labor of love and oh you know I'm glad it's out there it's wonderful thanks for thanks for sharing it with us

and thank you guys for sharing your talents and I'm glad that the mad still go strong yeah and then Spenguli is still enduring yeah you guys are durable doing what we can Very, Sven Gouli and Mystery Science Theater and the MADs, all very kindred spirit. Yes, and nothing if not durable. Thank you, jents. Promotional considerations paid for by the following. Sven Gulli's makeup by Mary Kay Cosmetics. Frank Con of Spitgrove provided by Brill Cream.

And Fun for All Ages is brought to you by Lloyds of London, who would like to remind you that if you've died of fright while listening to this podcast, you can cash in your $1,000 life insurance. policy at your local Sears. Fun for All Ages is produced by Frank Cento Padre, Genevieve Serbens, and Andrew Capone. Post-production supervisor, Bobby Hutch. Social Media Director Josh Chambers. Music by M-I-B-E-N-Pizepina, with special thanks to Seth Salzman. FFAA social media team, Michelle Mantinan, Dino Perserpio, and John Bradley Seals.

Logo designed by John Tesler. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash Fun for All Ages podcast. I'm your announcer, Josh Chambers. Just a moment before you leave, if any of you are not yet convinced, there really are ghosts. Take the supernatural viewer home with you. And tonight, when you're alone, and you're wrong. and your room is in darkness. Look through the red part of the viewer, if you dare.