Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Tom Savini Encore

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

GGACP squeezes a few extra scares out of spooky season with this ENCORE of a 2016 interview with the “King of Splatter,” makeup effects wizard Tom Savini. In this episode, Tom reveals the secret of onscreen suspense, shares his admiration for legendary makeup artists Dick Smith and Jack Pierce and explains how “Midnight Cowboy” changed his life. Also, Tom praises George Clooney, defends Jerry Lewis, laughs it up with Tony Curtis and shakes hands with the Three Stooges. PLUS: Joe Spinell! “Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors”! Christoper Lee makes an entrance! Tyrone Power battles Basil Rathbone! And the Cary Grant movie that brings Tom to tears! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1866-3-3-1-2-60 or visit Comex-Octio.ca. Hi, this is Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santo Padre. We're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer Frank Ferdorosa. Our guest this week is an actor, director, writer, photographer, stuntman, and one of the most innovative and admired makeup and special effects artists in the history of cinema.

You've seen them in popular movies and TV. shows like night riders dawn of the dead creep show from dust till dawn machete grind house machete kills planet of terror to jango unchained the perks i knew i'd fuck that up the perks of being a wallflower aquitine hunger force and the simpsons among others as a director he's helmed episode of Tales of the Dark Side, as well as an installment of George Romero's Dead Time Stories and the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead. His award-winning makeup and special effects work have made him a living legend among fans of horror and suspense films with credits that include Dead of Night, Martin, Friday,

the 13th, Maniac, Creep Show, The Burning, Monkey Shines, Day of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and many more. In his long and successful career, he's worked with George Romero, Ed Harris, Quentin Tarantino, Stephen King, Robert Rodriguez, and George Clooney, just to name a few. He's also the author of the book, Grand Delusions, a learned by example guide to the art and technique

of special makeup effects. And if that's not enough, he's also the teacher and mentor who oversees Tom Savini's special makeup effects program at the Douglas Education Center. Please welcome to the show, a master of horror, who says his favorite movies are actually love stories. What a fucking pussy.

The King of Splatter, the godfather of Gore, Tom Savini. There's nothing left to say. It makes me sound so important. I like to. Whoever you're talking about, I think. I like them. The long, drawn-out intros would become part of the mystique of the show, Tom. The fans demand them.

I got you. Well, I'm honored to be one of them. It would be like being insulted by Don Rickles. Honor to have that. Quite a compliment. So I, just a few months back, I did a show in Pittsburgh. And I was there for like a few days, bored out of my fucking mind. And then Bobby Slayton tells me that you live in Pittsburgh

and you've got this house full of monsters and special effects. There's one right here. Oh, look at that. Oh, wow. Wow, we've got Tom on camera. This is Fluffy from Creepship. Sure. It's the bust of him that, you know, I kind of sculpted him and all the universal monsters.

They're down in the basement. Hopefully I can take you down there. This thing won't die. Well, he was unconsolable, Tom, when he didn't get to see the workshop. Hopefully you'll come back. Yeah, no, he bombed the livestock. He's got cool shit in there. He's got Christopher Lee's mummy, and he's got the creature from the Black Lagoon,

and I think you both have Vincent Price life masks. Oh, yeah. Well, here's, can I, is there a way to, you can't turn this around? See, see, now, now, no. No one is, we can see it, but our audience can't. Yeah, that's great. There's the Vincent Price Life mask on the wall. Oh, that's very nice.

Well, that's him young, and this is him old. Can you see it? Okay, I can't tell if you can see it. Oh, that, I can't really make out the, I think, yeah. Okay. Oh, I see, yeah. Oh, there you go. Oh, that's the one I have.

Yeah, and then there's James Cagney up there. Oh, look at that. That's cool. James Cagney and David Bowie from The Hunger. Wow, look at that. Our listeners are going, it's a goddamn audio podcast. I can't see any of this. Take out.

Hazel Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Clark Gable. Look at that. Gil, that puts yours to shame. Oh, oh, mine, I just have four. And fellow Lagozy. Well, in the kitchen over here, this, I just got these. This is Jack Palance. Oh, the Jekyll and Humphillen.

Yeah, Jack Palance there. Wow, look at this. And Humphrey Bogart. Oh, my God. Gil, it's luck you're there. Wow. Yeah, but then Charles Bronson is in the back. I'm a big fan of Charles Bronson.

Oh, I am too. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin. When men were men, Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin. Well, after we're finished recording and we don't have any other audio issues, you can take us up there. And Gilbert will get a thrill. And you.

who are known as, like, one of the kings of gore. And, and, but you have experience in real life, gore. Oh, yeah. Yeah, now that's, that's part of the misunderstanding about me being the, the Wizard of Gore, Dr. Splatter, everything they call me. They think that it all began when I went to Vietnam. But, you know, my, my interest, and I started doing this when I was 11, after I saw a man of a thousand faces, you know, the James Cadman.

Sure, sure. That's why Cagney's up there. And the men of a thousand, but it posts was over there. But anyway. The Plaza Theater in Pittsburgh. You know the theater. Wow. You know, that's been, that was here up until five years ago.

It was, it opened in 1917. Right. I saw a piece about you in a dock. You said you shine shoes. I shine shoes so I could buy masks. Right. But Vietnam was a lesson in anatomy for me, which is why I have the reputation for realism. All my stuff is anatomically correct because I saw, I'm the only makeup artist who has

seen, you know, the real thing. And it was kind of a safety behind the camera. I mean, I saw horrible stuff, not our guys, but Viet Cong, you know. Well, I saw our guys, but I didn't photograph our guys. So I saw horrible stuff. So for me, the safety was behind the camera looking at it and thinking, how would I create that? And I've been creating it, you know, ever since in my, in my career as the special makeup effects artist. Yeah, I've heard you say you hate the way people die in films, and war films, because it's so very good.

Yeah, because, no, it's not realistic because they all want to look pretty for the camera. Here's a guy coughing and the guy, his friend is giving him his last cigarette, you know. And when he dies, he's like, yeah. The muscle are pleasant. mouth and ice closed. Everybody, every cadaver I've ever seen, you know, you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't, you lose all your muscles, all your muscle control. And these are muscles that hold your jaw closed. All the jaws are slack, you know, on a cadaver, all the, unless it's a position that just gravity is pulling the mouth close, you know.

But that's what I hate when, uh, the best portrayal of dead body. He says, Danny Trejo, Peter Coyote and Random Hearts, because they didn't care about looking pretty. You know, they were doing stuff like that. I'll tell our listeners, Tom is doing the... They were being cadavers. Acting it out for us. To me, an actor was not doing a great job portraying his own death

if he's not got his jaw slack, you know. Only because I'm, you know, your point of view was based on your experiences and my experiences we're seeing many, many, many, many corpses and cadavers, and the jaw is usually slack. And that's the long answer to your short question. So their mouths are always open when you've seen dead bodies. I want to ask you to.

Go ahead. Zombies should walk around with their mouths open because if they're walking, they have control of some muscles, you know. I just want to ask you about your childhood, too, Tom. As long as we're talking about the Plaza Theater, and I read that you would go in at 9 o'clock in the morning and stay there all day and in those days

and aren't you, I'm too old enough to have that experience. Oh, sure. You go in at 9 o'clock in the morning and see 17 cartoons. Right. And then a serial or two, Flash Gordon or, you know,

the ape and the gorilla or the ape and the robot and, you know, Tarzan. And then two feature films. Right. You came out at 5 or 6 o'clock at night and you couldn't see because you've been in the dark theater all day.

you know coming out but that that was the best that was the best time and you're surrounded by screaming kids laughing kids you know when do you experience that today i actually hate going to movie theaters today because of the anxiety of how many people am i going to have to tell to shut up yeah and everybody's messing with their phone turn that phone off in my face yeah the respect is gone. These were palaces. These were temples of joy, temples of pleasure when I was a kid, you know. Do you have a theater, a local theater where you would just go and sit there all day? The theater I remember growing up was the cameo theater on Eastern Parkway, which turned into like a church or something. You'd go early in the morning and just sit there all day and they wouldn't

throw you out? Yeah, I remember what I remember sneaking in when they were playing Midnight Cowboys. boy because they were allowed kids. Right, rated X. And I wanted to talk to you, Tom, about Man of a Thousand Faces. Well, can I tell you first about Midnight Cowboy? Oh, sure, sure. Yes. When I came back from Vietnam, I was an emotionless zombie. A lot of guys were when they came back. Marriage has failed.

You know, they call it PTSD syndrome now. Okay. I probably had that. But because you have to turn off your emotions to survive mentally in this sort of situation, I was kind of lucky because, as I've said, I would look at it and think how would I create that? But still, when I came back, the emotions are turned off from my sanity. What brought my emotions back to me, it took two years, okay? What brought my emotions back is when Dustin Hoffman died in Midnight Cowboy. I went berserk. I was in the theater and cried hysterically. My wife and a friend were there.

The whole theater was empty, and I'm still in there, sobbing, crying. I think all the pent-up emotion of holding back in Vietnam and then two years after that. When he died, it was too much. So a movie, like Midnight Cowboy, brought me back. From that day on, sunsets were beautiful. My marriage failed. I was too late for that. I saw the movie with my ex-wife at the time.

But that movie was very important to me because that's when my emotions came back. That's when I became me again. Don't forget, I'm a little Italian kid loafing on the corner here, shining shoes to buy, you know, mask and put makeup on my friends. And suddenly, it's like, it's like Deer Hunter. You're plunged in this situation where you, you know, it's just a horrible situation. But I'm happy to talk about Man of a Thousand Faces. So, but Dustin Hoffman, dying on Scroof, Bratz O'Rizzo.

Yeah, Midnight Cowboy. Did me in. That did more than years of therapy or anything like that. I mean, even when I finally got my shit together and was able to stand up and leave the theater, back then theater marquees that were polls holding the marquee outside. It happened again. I grabbed a pole and again just weeped hysterically. All of it came back.

And I felt, I felt like the sun came up within me. You know, I mean, if I could give it a metaphor, you know. So the power of movies. A movie brought it back. I tell people that story a lot. Wow. Yeah. What a coincidence that that was a movie you would bring up?

Yes. Yeah. It was a movie that began my career and a movie that brought me back to life to continue my career when I was, you know, back in the States. So let's get back to Man of a Thousand Faces, James Cagney and Mr. Magoo. as his agent It was like I saw that movie

a few thousand times because they used to show it a lot Yeah And the funny thing is Very big fan of the movie But it's also one of those movies That whenever Hollywood has a Based on a True Story

They're quite liberal with the truth Very liberal in his case yeah he didn't he wasn't on his deathbed and wrote junior at the end of his name you know yeah in fact crate and tall cheney went through hell to have a movie career and he didn't have one until he changed his name to launch yeah there were a bunch of movies primitive movies where you see crate and cheney right yeah yeah but um before that movie to me frankenstein the wolfman dracula creature from they were real They were real.

I wish I could see a movie again through the eyes of an eight-year-old child who believes everything is real. The Man of a Thousand Faces showed me that somebody creates the movies. Somebody creates the monsters. And it was like another awakening. It was like, oh, Jesus, yes, of course. So I decided then I'm going to be one of the guys that, you know, creates the monsters. But for a long time, I thought James Cagney was launching. Right.

Until famous Monsters magazine. and I can see the real Cheney, you know. And I have a son named Lon. He was named after Lon Cheney. He has a daughter named Cheney, Cheney Savini. Wow. Imagine when she grows up, you know, her father is Lon. I'm Tom Savini, the, you know, the makeup guy.

You know, it's going to be quite a conversation. And his wife's name is Boris. Well, actually, he had twins, and one is Cheney, and one is, the girl is Cheney, and the boy is Price. Oh, wow. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast, but first a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

I forget now who did the makeup for Man of a Thousand Faces? That's a good question. I mean, I think it was one of the Westmore. Yeah, Bud Westmore? It was either the Westmore's or William Tuttle. Yeah, I think could have, yeah, I forget, but I remember, I remember being very disappointed in the makeups there. Oh, yeah, yeah. And also, like, Kackney had that big round face as opposed to Cheney's, like, thin, long face.

Right, right, right, yeah, the makeup, especially the Phantom. Oh, horrible. Yeah, really horrible. It was just the rubber mask almost. It looked like the nose was like about. about a foot long. Well, it was a pig nose. It was up like that, you know.

Cheney went through, you know, he suffered. There's a, there's a fabric called silk organza. Back then they called it, well, one of the names for it was fish skin. And that's where the incorrect mythology of Cheney using fish hooks. You know, it was fish skin. Yeah. He glued to the tip of his nose and then pulled it up. glued it to the bridge so his nose would stay up like this okay and he had a dome on the top of

his head to make his head longer he was basically doing a stage makeup of a skull you know the teeth the sunken eyes that was very it's an excellent stage makeup in fact i did eight years of repertory stage i was in a play every night i would do everybody's makeup and then play a part you know i was king arthur camelot i was in feather on the roof so i would do everybody's makeup And, but I would do it. I mean, when you're on stage, the distance you are from the audience and the lights, you can get away with a lot, okay. But I made myself and them up for the mirror. And that was great training for doing makeup on people for movies when their faces are 40 feet high and 60 feet wide.

It has to be, you know, quite realistic. Yeah. You know, I've been doing some research about Lon Cheney. We had Ron Cheney on the show. Very nice. Very nice man. And told us things we didn't know, like that story about crate and being born and being shoved under the ice. You remember that, Gilbert?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was allegedly. Allegedly. Yeah, because with Lanchini Jr., I think he could tell some stories. He was born dead, and his father ran out to, like, this frozen river and dunked him in it. Yeah, he punched a hole in the ice and put him in it. Yeah.

According to Ron Cheney, yeah. And that grown him to life. That's it. I don't think I've heard that story. Have you ever met Lon Cheney, Jr.? No, no. But I have a Ron Cheney story. Okay.

Real brief. You know, I do horror conventions all the time, and so did he for a while. And a bunch of us were in the bar. And Ron Cheney walked by, you know, in the hallway. And one of my friends yelled, hey, Ron, can I buy your drink? And like that. He said, I never drink wine. Love it. Nice man.

So I'm trying to get the chronology of this, Tom. You started doing the stuff at 11. And you worked with a traveling group, a traveling theater group, a magic group. Yeah, there was an ad in the paper live on stage, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, Dracula. So I went and, you know, Frankenstein was just a guy in the mask. Wolfman was a guy in the mask. Dracula was a kid. that they picked out of the audience.

He just stood there. He just stood there. They put a cape on him. He just stood there. Well, that really pissed me off, you know. How old are you around this time now? 13, 13, maybe. Yeah.

So, probably 14. So I made, I went, I went back to the theater and made sure they picked me. You know, I sat on the aisle and they picked me. I had my own cape. I had fangs. I was doing makeup. I was ready, okay? So, and this is when I learned about misdirection, because I,

I'm backstage with my cape, and I can see the crowd is watching the Frankenstein and the wolfman on the stage, so I creeped out and got real low in front of them, and when it was drackey to turn to appear, I jumped up and spread the cape, and they screamed and physically moved backwards out of fear, and the people running the show saw that. So they no longer picked the kid from the audience. I became part of the troupe and went with them from movie theater to movie theater. I was their Dracula. And they paid me in chocolate milkshakes and silver dollars.

So you're hooked on acting at this point, performing as well as you hooked on the makeup. In great school, the nuns would do bake sales and I would do skits dress as a woman. And they were saying, but the principal, the nun was saying, you know, I'm a kid, I'm eight, nine. you should pursue this, you know, in life. And so take us through the chronology. I mean, when did Dick Smith come into your life? You went to, you went into the Army. I went to the Army.

You came out. When did you get me? You went to Carnegie Mellon? I taught, I got a fellowship to Carnegie Mellon to teach makeup. And I was part of the acting directing program, which means the students in the makeup course were my classmates. You know, that was kind of tough. I gave blanket grades. If they did a project, they got an A, you know.

I don't, you know, because these are my classmates. Sure. So George Romero was gearing up to do Martin, you know, so I went down to audition for the vampire. It was already cast, but he had remembered me because he came to my high school when I was a sophomore and looking for a guy. There were 1,500, it's an all-boy high school. There were 1,500 of us.

He picked me. We had auditions. He picked me. The movie never got made. So when I went down from Martin, he recognized me. And I had my portfolio, you know, with me. and I showed it to him and that's how I got to do

the makeup effects on it and I played a part and did the stunts and that's what I tell my students I have a school here in this we just celebrated our 16 year anniversary a school for special makeup effects

they come from all over the world every time you see face off on television at least five of them are students from my school last year one of my students won face off normally that's cool but chronologically

I took a leave of absence to do Dawn of the Dead for George Romero. I was doing a play. I was doing a play in Carolina, a line in winter and got a telegram from Georgia said, start thinking of ways to kill people. We got another gig. And it was Dawn of the Dead, okay? So I did Dawn of the Dead, but you asked me something in relation to the chronology. Well, I was trying to figure out of Dick.

I know Dick Smith was a mentor, and I know George came into your life too, around. We did Dawn of the Dead. The next movie that was offered to me was Friday the 13th, the original, I created Jason for Friday the 13th. In fact, I'm also working on the Friday the 13th video game that's coming out. I devised all the kills and created a new Jason, and it's pretty brutal. Now, one thing I heard that you did, that sounds idiotic. You turned down one of the Friday the 13th, because it did. It didn't make sense.

It didn't make sex. I love that. But just to answer your question and continue, yes. One of the Dead, I ordered blood from the 3M company. Remember 3M? They made your copy machine chemicals. Scotch tape, didn't they?

The blood was a stage blood that they made. It was horrible. And that's the blood in Dawn of the Dead. It looks like melted crayons. It's horrible. It's like paint. So before Friday the 13th, I called Dick Smith on the phone because we're going to kind of pass his house on the way to the location.

And he gave us his blood formula. And you couldn't learn this stuff when I was trying to learn it because nobody, excuse me, shared their secrets. But Dick shared everything. He would spend hours on the phone telling you how to do something and then X-Rox at X-Rox back then. And then mail it to you. It was priceless, okay? And just quickly, remind our listeners, Dick Smith was the greatest, he was, the greatest living makeup artist on the planet. He invented everything we do.

We have simply taken it and enhanced it and added to it and made it better. But he's really the godfather of special makeup effects, you know. And he did the godfather. An age Marlon Brando, yeah. Yeah, the exorcist. Midnight Cowboy. So many. Yeah, he's done some fantastic.

Amadeus, he won the Academy Award for Amadeus. And what someone said, and I didn't even realize this, what shows him as a great makeup artist, is everyone's looking at Linda Blair's monster makeup, but you don't realize the Exorcist, Max von Seedow, was like in his 40s at the time. He had trouble getting work after that because everybody thought he was 70-some years old.

Wow, that's great. Because the makeup was so great. Today, he looks like the makeup. It was very accurate. So, yes, Jason, Friday the 13th, they set me the script. Now, Friday the 13th kind of pissed me off because all I wanted was a big screen TV out of this. You know, I think I got paid 15 grand to do all the effects on Friday the 13th, pay my assistant, buy materials. And then the movie made $72 million.

And the reviews all said The star of this film is Tom Savini's makeup effects So they sent me the script for part two And here's Jason running around Well Jason was a kid that drowned in the first movie The mother was the killer I said what do you got you got Jason running on Oh no no no no we're going to change that

Well they didn't you know Jason is running around And he's still running around okay I stopped watching him after part five In part five the fucking ashtray was Jason His spirit kept so but they just got really stupid so i turned down part two they did not offer me part three and the series was waning and they did offer me part four which is called the final chapter part four is called because they thought that was going to be the last one and so when i to make up

for part one i asked for a fortune and i got it okay so i did that movie created jason as a 35 year old I created them as a kid in the first one. And that made so much money. I mean, look, there's going to be a Friday of the 13, part 13, I'm sure. And the game is coming out. And it's quite, it's a franchise, you know, a multi-million dollar franchise. And you have a bust of Jack Pierce, the great universal monster maker. Yeah, yeah, I do have Jack Pierce, yeah.

That man was incredible. You know, the Frankie's-Sty makeup took about nine and a half. half hours. Karloff would sleep in the makeup sometimes with his head in a position, you know, pillows and stuff, so he wouldn't have to go through it the next day, you know, because it was built up of cotton and collodian. Collodian is 24% ether. You know, you can imagine smelling that all day, you know.

In fact, they would walk him around with a bag over his head on the universal lot because he was so scary. But that is a masterpiece of makeup. the Frankenstein makeup. And he did the mummy. He did the Wolfman. Wolfman, of course. Sure, sure.

He was, yeah, Jack Pierce, after Lon Cheney, he's second on my list of, you know, my idols. Then, of course, there's, you know, Dick Smith, Rick Baker, Rob Boutin, Greg Nicotero, Steve Johnson, you know. I've heard you say you admire, since you brought up Rob Boutin, you admire very much his work on the thing. Well, that's the masterpiece of splatter. I'm called the King of Splatter, but that was the masterpiece of Splatter. In fact, when I did Creep Show, I had to create Fluffy. Fluffy was the first animatronic creature I had to make. I didn't know how to do it.

I called Rob Boutin an hour later on the phone. He has explained to me step by step how. And then when I went to L.A., I was in a movie called Night Riders, which you've mentioned. Rob Boteen came, took me to his house. and tore the skins off all the howling creatures to show me how the mechanisms worked in there, you know. He says, well, I never keep the skins anyway. But he's responsible for teaching me, you know, how to do an animatronic creature. The effects and the thing are very impressive.

Just today. Even now. Blue Ray of the new Blu-ray of it. Another makeup that really impressed me was like an American werewolf, Rick Baker's makeup was in a brightly lit room. That happened right in front of you. Yeah. That happened.

All my stuff and all stuff like Rick Baker's stuff and Rob Boutin, that stuff was happening right in front of you. There was no CGI. You did not have to change your mindset into thinking, well, this is real because it was real and it was happening. See, that's the problem today. People always ask me about CGI. And I love it when it's done well.

I think the best effects today are a combination of the CGI and practical effects. I wish I had CGI when I was trying to solve a problem or hide an edge back then, you know. So these are the best effects, the combination. And Walking Dead does it constantly. You know, the bicycle girl with half a body. It's just a girl in green tights and they erase the legs, you know, later, you know. So that's, that would be hard to do. Also, if you've seen The Walking Dead like the, I think the first episode last six,

season was the trough episode where people were being bashed in the head and their throats were cut. Well, they put the tubing on the people to shoot the blood out, but they didn't even have to bother putting appliances over it because the visual effects guys would go in and erase the tubing. So what you saw was just blood coming out of there. And that made for quicker cleanup time, more setups to be done, more takes to shoot. Because, you know, And I tore Joe Pallado's body in half and Day of the Dead. The reset was five hours, you know? Right.

You know, on that set, the reset was, you know, two minutes. Now, I always think, like, when I was a kid, I knew how they did King Kong and the Wolfman. I knew it was just basically turning the camera off and turning it back on. But I remember as a kid and kid, To this day, I feel like I can touch those things. And with computer-generated images, I feel like there's nothing to touch. Well, that's what happened to me.

I saw a Jurassic Park, and I knew how it was made, so I didn't see any dinosaurs. I just pictured guys at a computer, and that really pissed me off. So the next time I went to see it, I smoked a joint, which helped focus. And I changed my mindset to, no matter what I see, foreground, background, it really exists. And the movie blew me away. It was spectacular. But I had to change my mindset to do that. I think that's the collective dislike of CGI.

Today, people have to change their mindset. They have to make that effort. and they don't feel like making an effort because old timers like us are used to seeing it happen right in front of you. But the new generations will be accepting that and will just be part of their toolbox as filmmakers. You know, props to Rob Boutin and Rick Baker because we're talking about two movies that were made in the 80s

and both of those effects hold up very well now. And I would wonder if kids were raised on CGI would see those movies and actually have an issue with them or just buy into it. If they think it was primitive now. I don't think so. They hold it very well. Or one of the sad things that happens is, and Stephen Spielberg says this of his son, Max, who's 13. If it's impossible, it's CGI.

You know, that's very sad because, again, Greg Nicotero did this wonderful makeup on, in Land of the Dead, of this baseball player zombie who part of her face was gone, and you can see her teeth, you know. And that was a makeup, but people thought it was CGI. because it was so good. So if it's impossible, they think it's CGI. As long as we're talking about Walking Dead, Greg Nicotera was your protege. I've known him since he was 14.

He assisted me on so many movies. I just saw him last weekend at his uncle's funeral, and I will see him again this weekend in L.A. at the funeral of one of the greatest makeup artists who has ever worked with us, a guy named John Vullich. He was part of my crew on many movies. He formed the special makeup effects company called Optic Nerve in L.A. And he's 55.

He died Tuesday in his sleep. Oh, sorry to hear that, young man. Memorial, yeah. You told an interesting story about that during the godfather, Coppola went up to Dick Smith and said the blood doesn't look real. Right. Dick cut his finger open. not on the spot, but, you know, at some other time.

And he walked, with his finger bleeding, he walked up to Coppola and said, what about this? Ah, no, that's fake. You know, but it was his own blood, you know, so. I love that story. I never heard that. It's great. He, that, he, he, definitely was, Dick was a tough guy. I mean, he almost got in a fist fight with Dennis Quaid over some old makeup on some

baseball movie that Dennis Quaid was involved in. He didn't take any shit, Dick Smith. Wow. Since you brought up Creep Show, let's talk about Creep Show. Okay. Which you said was the hardest, the biggest challenge, the biggest makeup effects challenge that you ever faced. Well, it's five movies. It's five movies.

And it was just me and a 17-year-old kid that did all that stuff, the fluffy creature, Nate's Corp's coming out of the grave, the cockroach is coming out of VG Marshall. Yeah, I love that. That got applause and screams on the set when that happened. Because, listen, I hate bugs. And I was never in the same. room with those 28,000 cockroaches that entomologists collected in Trinidad living in bat shit, okay? The stories they told of collecting those roaches is scarier than any movie you've ever.

I miss those anthology movies, you know, the five movies in one. Oh, just like Dr. Terrorist House of Horace. Yeah, what's the one with Burgess Meredith? Day of Night, Dead of Night, the British movie. Oh, that's a great one with Michael Redgrave. Yes. But people tune out of those anymore.

Creepshev was great. Those two were fantastic. But a lot of them, you know, I mean, because, you know, Hammer tried to keep making those and they just got silly. Dr. Terror, I mean, look who's in that. Donald Sutherland was in one of those things. Christopher Leap? Yeah, everybody.

What's the one with Burgess Meredith, where he's the carnival, the leader? It's Torture Garden. You know this one? It's another one. It's another one of those anthology pictures. Horror anthologies. Yeah, it'd be nice to bring them back. I got to tell you how I met Christopher Lee. I'm at a convention in New York. Rumor had is that they were going to bring him in through the kitchen. So a few of us scurry to the kitchen. And it was in the dead of winter. So the kitchen door opens. Snow whiffs in like fog. Christopher Lee steps through the door with his overcoat over his shoulders. And he's fucking Dracula walked in. You know, and he's very, he's three feet taller than me.

I'm five, seven, or eight, you know. So, but that was my encounter with, you know, Christopher Lee. Years later, I was talking to him about asking him whether he continued fencing because, you know, he was Rochefort in the Three Musketeers. Right. Oliver Reed, I mean, and he, Richard Lester. He said to me, I had trouble believing it at the time, but he said, I, I, Christophily, speaking, I have the most screen sword fights of any actor. And I guess he could see in my face that I was doubting him.

And he started rattling them off, the Master of Bell and Trey with Errol Flynn, Three Musketeers. And he said, and he showed me his hand, and this little finger of his is bent at a right angle. It's not straight up like I'm showing you right now. It's bent at the second knuckle. He said, that's a little present from. Cyril Flynn, who by noon had been doing this. Drinking, yeah, bending the elbow.

Supposed to go for the shoulder, went for my thigh, and just crushed, broke his little finger with the sword, the big sword they were using. And that was in the master of Bellentry. But, yeah, he's quite the swordsman. And so was Basil Rathbone and Tyrone Power. Tyrone Power's mother was an Olympic fencer. You know, one of the greatest green fights ever was in the mark of Zorro with Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone, and they did every second of it, which is, which pisses me off about movies today. When they do fights in movies, it's in close-up so that you can see the actor's face doing a couple of moves.

And then it's stunt guys. That's Greg Nicotero call. I love the Looney Tunes. Your cell phone. That was Greg. I'll have to call him back. But so, yes, that was the greatest screen fight because they're actually doing it. So you can shoot the whole body, head to toe, and see Tyrone Power and Basel Rathbone doing all those fantastic fencing moves.

My favorite thing watching fencing is number one, if you are really having a fight with two swords, one person would be seriously injured in a second. Well, if you're good, you know, if you're good, then... Well, you know how to fence, don't you, Tom? Yeah, I'm a tournament fencer. I mean, tournament fencing is the same thing. It's two guys facing each other. And, I mean, they're going to get a point if they touch you, or you're going to get a point if you touch them. The point is to parry and block any attempt that they make.

So I imagine back then, when swords were sharp and you were defending your life, you had to be good to not get hurt, you know? I'm going to throw you guys a curveball on. Wait, wait, wait. I got it. This is the other thing that drives me crazy. What's that? Have any two people in real life who were fencing to the death ever had one guy drop his sword and the other one like toss it up in the air and let him catch it to continue fencing? Well, I've done that just as a point of honor.

There was an honor backhand, you know. But in real life, how would anyone do that? If you're defending your life and someone's trying to kill, you, you may take advantage of that situation. Yeah. But, I mean, the corpse, the corpse move, which is when they come in close and hold the swords against each other's face to spit out some dialogue, that is totally unrealistic to me. I don't think that, you know, whatever happened.

But there's so many things in movies that should piss you off. Like when it starts raining, they stand there and keep talking in the rain. We don't do this. You run the way for the rain. Here's another example, okay? How many movies have you seen where like a rock comes through the window and there's a note attached to it? What do they do? They run to the rock to read the note.

Oh, somebody just to my window, you know? Of course. A rock through my window, you know? I like when the bad guy has a gun on you and the good guy goes, oh, come on, you don't want to shoot me. You want to do this man o'amano. Come on. The guy puts the gun down. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know what? The other thing that pisses me off, and they did it in Skyfall, in one of the greatest Bond movies, you know, at the beginning of the movie, he's on a train in a gunfight, you know, and he runs out of bullets and throws his gun away.

Yes, yes. Your gun away? This is your gun. He could reload it some other time, but it's your gun put it away you know how many times they do that and and i read something today that made me laugh it's like okay if superman is is if bullets bounce off superman why does he duck when they throw the gun at him at the end that's funny you know this is the tv series of also and since you know about injuries and stuff in movies the good guy who looks like he got shot and it's

dying and he'll fall to the ground that and then you find out the bullet hit his shoulder which according to movie science means you could take a bullet in your shoulder and it's nothing doesn't shatter your collarbone no it doesn't do a thing if you took a bullet in your shoulder lots of pain for one can't lift your arm anymore you know after that they take many But look, look at the licenses, the license they would take in a John Wayne movie. He punches a guy in the face, and the guy, and they keep fighting, throwing punches. That one punch from John Wayne would cause severe head injury to you, right? Probably break your jaw, crush your eye socket, you know, I mean, but they keep going.

But you're, as an audience, you're being trained to accept this ridiculous lunacy. Another thing I love, and it's still being done, is you could take the butt of a gun or a rock or a club, whack someone over the head. They conveniently go to sleep, and then they're fine in the next scene. No, this, again, we're talking severe-headed now. And that was the cliche that used over and over again, knock them out, you know, just knock them out, you know, with your gun. Tom, you're a movie buff, so here's a curveball on a. fencing scene in a comedy, a good fencing scene in a comedy. Princess Bride.

Yes, that one, but also one starring one of your favorite actors, Tony Curtis, you'll know where I'm going with this. Oh. The Great Race. Yeah, and Ross Martin. Yes. A well-directed actual duel in a comedy. That scene is lifted from the prisoner of Zenda.

Yes, it is. You know, what's he say? What's Ross Martin say at the window? Those that live the fight and run away. right, yeah. Fight another day, and he dives out and he hits the boat. That's right. That was, that line is from the prisoner of Zenda with Ronald Coleman and I forget who the villain was now that he fenced in that.

Yeah. Henry Daniel? That's another one of the, no, not Henry Daniel. No, it's not him. No, Robert, he was Errol Flynn's nemesis in Don Juan. Robert Douglas. Robert Douglas is the guy. That sounds right.

Yeah. But in a comedy, you don't expect to see a. quite a convincing sword fight. You know what? I sat with Tony Curtis. He came to Pittsburgh to promote his book. He was hilarious, this guy. He was still wearing the white toupee, you know? Oh, yeah.

I was standing outside of the theater, hoping that when I got in, I would get close enough to the stage to see him. The writer of the book, the ghost writer, walked by, recognized me and brought me into the VIII. VIP dinner with Tony Curtis in his big Swedish bride, and he said to the guy, hey, is there something on my shoulder? And when a guy looked at his shoulder, he grabbed his balls. You know, that's a trick that we didn't. I immediately thought, wow, that's wonderful, okay? So I had a folder full of eight by tens, five or so of him, you'll

bringer, Jerry Lewis. I, you know, I collected eight by tens of these guys. So he came over, sat on the couch with me, and went through. And he said, can I draw on one of these? And he gave one of his pictures, butt teeth and glasses. Hey, Tom, can you fix me up? Because somebody told him I'm a makeup artist, you know? He got to Jerry Lewis and he said, ah, what an asshole. They did Boeing, Boeing. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, I love Jerry Lewis. I hear these stories all the time. But this is somebody that you grew up with and were in love with. He's the Jim Carrey of my day. I'm

the same way. It's like I've heard every single asshole story you could hear about Jerry Lewis. But also, I grew up watching him. And he's like an idol. Right. But if you saw him on a talk

show or his talk show, you kind of have what's going on here? That's happening. You know, so So, yeah, so, well, what's the point, though? Oh, Tony Curtis, yes, Tony Curtis. So I asked him, you know, that one of my great, you know, earlier on you said that I'm a sucker for love stories.

Yeah, we saw, we found that in the research. One of the greatest love stories was trapeze. Oh, with Bert Lancaster. Bert Lancaster and Tony Curtis and Gina Lola Bridgeta. I can't tell you how many times I've seen that movie. I fell in love with that movie. I even have a music box to place the theme from it. you know, the daring young man on the flying trapeze and all that stuff.

So I asked Tony Curtis, I said, when you go to the circus today, are you astounded by the triple? Everyone throws a triple. All the trapeze artists, that's their goal to throw a triple. And that movie was about, you know, Bert Lancaster teaching him the triple. So, and he said, yes, he loves the circus, you know. And to me, that was like closure, actually sitting there with Tony Curtis, who was the flying Orsini, You know, in Trapeze, telling me he loves to go to circuses and see them and throw the triple, you know. I think that's one movie that's never come up on this show, Trapeze.

Oh, yeah. We've mentioned a lot. We've talked about a lot of different kinds of movies. Did you ever see a Carrie Grant movie called Once Upon a Time? I don't think I have. Nobody has seen that damn movie. What's it about? One of my favorite movies as a kid.

You won't believe the story, and I'll make it as brief as I can. Carrie Grant is a con man meets this girl. She has a son. The son has a box with a hole in it. And inside the box is a caterpillar. The kid would play on the harmonica. Yes, sir, that's my baby, knows. And the caterpillar would dance. You never saw the caterpillar dance. You heard them reacting to the caterpillar dancing. So Carrie Grant tries to make a fortune off this damn thing. It does become super famous. They're painting. it's called Curly. The caterpillar is called Curley. They're painting the caterpillar on airplanes, you know, like they did back then with, you know, pin-up models. The caterpillar became a star. One day, the kid is distraught. Curly is not in the box. And they're all so sad. And Carrie Grant, of course, where, how am I going to make money now? There's this caterpillar that I've been using, you know. And this butterfly starts flying around in the room. The kid played, about to cry.

The kid plays the harmonica. The kid plays, yes sir, that's my baby. And the butterfly starts to fly like he's dancing to the music. Oh, wow. Why hasn't anybody heard or made a big deal? It's called Once Upon a Time.

Do you know this picture? No. I don't know it either. This sounds great. I thought I knew every obscure Carrie Grant movie. For a kid, that movie, again, I'm choking up, you know, it was so beautiful that movie we'll look for it once upon a time

Carrie Grant I'll never hear about that movie you describe yourself as a pushover for love stories and tear jerkers did you cry when Elvis died and loved me tender I cried when Elvis Presley died

and loved me I cried when Yule Brinner died and the king and I that's a hard one I cried today when E.T. gets on the ship and leaves. Okay, and he's a puppet. I'm crying my eyes out. So the master of

horror is a softy. Yeah. Well, you know, in some instances, I'm in accidents because I'm calm and collective and I can take control. I can turn off because I did so in V. I can turn off my emotions like that when I have to. If something horrible is happening, I can practical and distance from it. You know, it's just something that I took with me from, you know, the war. I mean, you know, it really pisses me off when I hear, hey, I just went on vacation in Vietnam. What? 58,212 of us died for Vietnam.

And now it's a vacation? It's a resort? What? This doesn't make sense to me, you know. Anyway. I'm sure. I'm sure. a completely different perspective on the place.

Yeah, I mean, I'd love to go back and see where I was stationed and it's probably a resort, you know. Now, you're a movie buff, obviously, which were, do you, do you want to remake, do I have this right? You want to remake the movie Most Dangerous Game, the Joel McCrae movie? Oh, yeah, that was a horrible movie. Did you ever see it? Probably when I was a kid. I saw the bad Andy Griffith TV movie. There was one called Savages with Andy Griffiths, a hunted.

Timothy Bottoms. Oh, well, listen, they remade that plot many, many times, but not the original most dangerous game. I mean, I was bringing it to present day. My villain was a cross between Ediamin, Gaddafi, and Bin Laden, okay? Guys that you would believe would behead you and put your trophy up on the wall. That's what I didn't believe about that movie back then. We're talking 1930, Joel McCray.

Right. You know, the fencing scene was horrible. The villain was a milk toast. But that's typical. Every time there's a villain, it's some gay little milk toast guy. The villain should be an equal. It should be, you know, Lee Marvin or Charles Bronson should be somebody who can kick your ass. Someone formidable.

If you had to do some shit to win, it's always this little milk toast guy, like in that movie, who you didn't think for a second would have a chance against Joe Moore. Is it Leslie Banks? Yeah. Yeah. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal. podcast, but first a word from our sponsor. Well, I've always noticed, like, in the old movies and TV, if you had a gay actor,

he'd either be an eccentric or he'd be evil. A caricature, yes. Yes. Yeah. And there was something about, like, the evil villain where the evil villains were always a little effeminent. Yeah. Robert Douglas,

the guy we talked about, Earl Flynn's nemesis and all those fencing movies, was very effeminate. But he could handle a sword, you know. So that brings up something. I saw something. It was a commercial on how to buy a

Halloween costume for your effeminate son. Have you seen? this thing? I'm not. A camouflaged soldier outfit with a gun, you know. And this was really, this has got to, I'm surprised we're not hearing a lot more.

This has got to be so offensive to people. How to buy a macho costume. Oh, it wasn't real. Our engineer says it was an onion piece. Well, see, I believe fake you out. Oh. Oh, one thing, just getting back to him, I know, like, Lonchaney Jr., they said, actually knew how to do makeup, but by then, the makeup union wouldn't allow it.

Well, you know, I would believe that story simply because of, you know, the unions and don't touch that wire. That's his job. He's part of that union, you know. and well part of the reason they got rid of jack pierce was uh that it took him he was building that stuff from scratch every time and what wouldn't use the the the new foam latex for frank he was building it so it was just taking too long and uh you know jack pierce wound up doing powdering mr ed yeah it's nose you know and this was a brilliant this was a genius guy you know um you know that i just i love reading all

these old Hollywood stories. One of the, one of the best is the Lion of Hollywood, and that's Louis B. May or an MGM. I mean, I've read the book about Harry Kahn, you know, Universal RKO. I mean, I just love that stuff. Because to me, I was, I think I'm born too late. I wish I was, if I were to come back in time, I would like to come back in 1925 on the Universal lot. Oh, wow. Can you imagine what you would see, you know, in the next five years? Hang out with Todd Browning and... Oh, which... The only set of the Phantom of the Opera.

Yeah, Carl Freund. But this gets us to our next thing that I see in movies. I've been on bunches of movie sets, and I walk around the lot. And I've yet to see, like, Roman soldiers and ballerinas and spacemen. I saw that. And I saw that when I was doing... Friday the 13th. Friday the 13th was at the old

Zootrope Studios, the one that Coppola began. Oh, yeah. I think it's called, it was called Hollywood Studios after that, and then Raleigh Studios or something. But on the back lot, Duncan Reagan was shooting the Arrow Flynn story. I saw Roman fucking soldiers.

I saw Duncan Reagan. Wow. You know, in a swashbuckling outfit. I, to me, that backlot back then was Hollywood folklore. or a dream, they think that you see that I saw in movies growing up, you know. But I know what you mean.

I mean, that stuff does not happen, like on Culver City or, you know, something that there's no big spectacles going on where, you know, you're going to see that stuff. You know, see the Cohen Brothers movie, the last one, I think you'll like it. It's about. Bill Caesar. No, I just bought it. I saw it in the theater. Yeah.

A fun look at that period. Oh, and Hollywood Fixers. It's genuinely accurate. Right. Eddie Mannix. Can you tell a story that. I mean, to me, there are some injuries where I go, oh, that's, that's too far already. That's too much.

In Vietnam, a guy got his testicles. Oh, my buddy was shot in the testicles, yeah. Well, he was, okay, here's the thing. Back then, during the war, we would drop pamphlets all over the place from airplanes. that hopefully Viet Cong soldiers would pick up and it was teaching them a word. I forget what the word is now. But if they said the word,

it means they were surrendering and giving themselves up for, you know, recuperation, you know, being brought to our side. You know, we dropped those flyers to any Viet Cong that didn't want to be who they were coming on our side. And, you know, I mean, we would detain. them, of course, you know. So my buddy, Gene Buttons, was out one night on patrol, and

this Vi-I. Kong, you know, shot him in his testicle. So Gene was trying to shoot him back, but his M-16, like so many of them, jammed. And while he's trying to shoot this guy, I guess the guy was out of ammunition or something. He started saying the word, you know, the word that means I'm surrendering. But Gene didn't care. He's going to shoot this fucking guy, you know, he shot him in his balls. And eventually the M-16, he got it to work and shot the guy. And it's a good thing because the guy had pulled a pin of a grenade and stuck it in his armpit, okay? And he was coming at Gene with his hands up like this. So when Gene shot him and he went down, the grenade went off and just blew the guy to smithereens. All of this was gone. And I have,

I have pictures of that guy, you know, that I took. In fact, when I was walking to the location, I almost stepped on my guy's arm. It was like 50 yards away, you know. But the grenade went off in his armpit and, you know, did all that damage to him. Gene wound up, you know, going home, Purple Heart, you know, the whole bit. But there were a lot of accidents, our own guys, you know, gun going off. And I was, you know, I'm there. I'm there to see it.

Now, I wasn't in the front lines. I was in the headquarters company, you know, processing reconnaissance film when the pilots came down. And then when, if something horrible happened, okay, here's a story for you. I'll try to make it as brief as possible. When you're in Vietnam, you're entitled to R&R, rest and recuperation. After six months, you're allowed to go to Australia, Thailand, you know, a lot of close places like that. I went to Hawaii to meet my then wife, but I waited until my 10th month. I didn't want to go back to Vietnam and have six months left, okay?

So I waited until my 10th month. And when I went back to Vietnam, they put me on the worst duty possible, 30 days of guard duty, which means you're in a bunker with three other guys, two guys are asleep, two guys are awake. And there's seven bunkers. There's a line of bunkers all made of sandbags, okay? And each bunker is an arsenal of weapons. Grenade launcher, M-16 machine gun, M-16s on your shoulder, Claymore mines, Claymore mines, knock trees over, 5,000 pellets, you know, shoot out of this thing.

And sometimes the Viet Cong would turn them around and make themselves visible, so you'd press the button and you would get wiped out. So we painted the back of them with luminous paint. So if we could see the paint, we knew it was facing in the right direction. In front of each bunker is a tree. trip wire in front of it and on each side. So if somebody bumps it, a flare goes off. If somebody cuts it, it's spring-loaded, a flare goes off. Okay. Now, again, there's seven bunkers. The commanding officer is in the first bunker, you know, and he's got a scope and night scope. Okay. So, but you're not, if you saw, oh, it's you in the bunker and there's the woods, right in

front of you, the jungle. If they're coming, your first contact, okay? If they're coming the woods. You're the first line that they're going to bother, no, attack. All right. So, but if you see a thousand Viet Cong coming at you, you're not allowed to open fire. You have to call the command bunker. That officer has to come up with a night scope. If he sees the thousand people, then he will call battalion and request permission to fire. You're not allowed to just open fire. So it's 3 o'clock in the morning, 7th day of 30-day guard duty. Me and Morales are on duty. And right in front of my bunker, the trip flare goes off.

Now, I immediately opened fire with the M-16 machine gun. Guys upstairs are hitting grenade launchers, pressing the button for the Claymore mines. Every bunker in the line opens fire in front of my bunker. And it was a duck, okay? A duck had set off the trip flare. So now there's a caravan of headlights coming to me because I opened fire without calling the command officer. A general gets out of the Jeep and, you know, I can't, I can't talk. When I finally calmed down, he said, why did you open fire?

And I said, my trip flares went off, sir. He said, I guess I would have opened fire too. What was it? I said, it was a duck, sir. He said, did you get it? No, it flew away. We covered every square inch of dirt with something, a bullet, but shrapnel, okay? The duck flew away. So they took me off guard duty that night,

and for the rest of my time in Vietnam, they called me the duck slayer, okay? But the next night, we were attacked. Guys in those bunkers died, body bags carried away. We were attacked. I wasn't there. To me, the duck saved my life. I have never eaten duck since Vietnam. Wow. Wow. That's an ending. Wow. That is a very strange and frightening story, Tom. Absolutely, 100% true, I promise you. As we run out of time here, can we ask you about some of the legendary actors that you got to work with? We got a short list here, and maybe you'd pick one or two.

Okay, sure. Joe Spinell, John Marley, Fritz Weaver, anybody, any good story come to mind? Hal Holbrook? Well, you know, well, I wasn't with them on set as an actor. I was simply, you know, doing the fluffy creature, Hell Holbrook, especially for Creep Show. John Marley and I became pals. We would go out to clubs together, and they would set up VIP areas. That's the guy.

The guy with a horse head in the bed, you know. Jack Waltz. Yeah. Exactly, right. So he was, I love that man. He was so, such a smart, intelligent actor. But who else? Who else we got on there?

Patrick McNee? Patrick McNee? You directed him. No, I, no. Didn't you work with Patrick? Patrick McNee? No. No.

IMDB let us down. Oh, listen. I go to IMD. There's like nine things on IMD, but I have no idea what the hell is. How about Fritz Weaver? Fritz Weaver, yes. I hired and directed Fritz Weaver in one of my

tellers from the dark side episodes. But there's also George Clooney, you know, George Clooney, the nicest man you could ever want to hang out with. He was so inspiring to me. He treated everybody so nice. nice. And it doesn't take a lot of effort to be nice, you know. And just he was, I just, I can go on and on about George Clooney, how nice that man was, you know. Who else we got? Fritz Weaver. Oh, you know what? I mean, I shook hands with the three stooges, okay? Oh, wow. Oh, my God. We buried the lead.

In Pittsburgh, they came to promote the three stooges meet Hercules. I made sure I was on the aisle so when they walked down, I could shake. And they, they looked like businessmen. Hair combed back nicely. Their hands were very dry, and they got up on stage and started smacking the piss on each other. Mo's hair fell down. He became Moe. He pulled out Larry's hair, and Larry became Larry. And there it was, the Three Stooges, okay? I smoked a joint with Timothy Leary.

Wow. Also good. I'm at a convention in New York, green room. He's on a couch with this big joint. He took a drag, and then he's looking for who to give it to. I leaped across furniture to get there and, get that joint from him so I could say that I smoked a joint with Timothy Leary. Wow, these are some good brushes with greatness.

A lot of your listeners don't even know who that is. Well, our listeners will surprise you. Okay. They wind up looking it up. Oh, yeah. Well, who else is on the list? Well, let's see. Who else?

Hal Holbrook, Fritz Weaver, Joe Spinell. Joe Spinell. Also from the Godfather. Again, a wonderful man. You know, I had to, well, yes. And that's, I couldn't wait to meet him because of the godfather. And if you, you know, we did this movie, Maniac together. Oh, yeah, sure.

He, you know, and I can't tell you how many meetings we had where I would say to Joe, no, Joe, please, you can't bite that off of a woman, okay? He wanted to do horrible things to women. And, you know, I have to create it physically with latex and rubber. He said, no, no, no, no, no, can't do that. Now, I had to cast his head and make him, you know, a fake head, because his head gets ripped off at the end of the movie. Right. Now, I gave him the fake head, and he put it on his television in his living room.

Now, when he died, it was like William Holden. He hit his head and bled a lot. He bled to death, you know, on his apartment floor. And he fell with his feet facing the entrance to the apartment. So, and blood was everywhere. So when the police came in, they saw him lying there and the head on the television and they thought he had been decapitated because his fake, you know, his head is thinking. But you just couldn't see his head, you know, from the doorway. You know, one of the guys who walked in actually told me this story, you know, with the police.

Now, William Holden, he hit his head on the corner of a table. Yeah, coffee table. One of the end tables near the bed, you know, night table, yeah. yeah and he bled to death as well but wait who else on the list Joe Spinell how old that's what we had just because you mentioned Joe Spinell I just remember that line

oh yeah he had a lot of buffers a lot of buffers Willie Cheechy Who else anybody else on the list that might have I just wrote I just scroll down some character actors that you worked with Ed Harris of course early on in both your careers. And what about the older, you met Christopher Lee?

Yeah. Any of the older horror actors still alive when? Do you work with Carradine ever? I did a play with Caradine. I did Inherit the Wind in North Carolina. Wow. John Caradine, he had wonderful stories. John Caradine, E.G. Marshall from Creep Show.

But John Caradine, to me, was like beating Boris Karloff, you know. If you go to John Carradine's IMDB page, there's something like 400 movies there. I can't imagine an actor who worked more consistently longer. Grapes of wrath. I know, John Carradine and never turned anything down, apparently. Bride of Frankenstein, you know. Oh, yes. My God, it's the monster.

There you go. And his voice, he told me that directors would say to him, young man, you are in love with your voice. Could you please stick to the idea of the scene? That's good. If I had that voice, I would be in love with my love. Oh, my God, yeah. And, you know, I've worked with his sons.

I've worked with Keith. I've worked with David. And I told him, of course, that I worked with their father. And they didn't, it's like I didn't say anything. You know, I don't know what their relationship was, you know. I think that was a wacky upbringing having John as a father. Well, it couldn't have been as wacky as Bing Crosby. I'm sure wacky is the word.

You're laughing because you probably know. Oh, my God. He'd beat the shit out of his court. Yeah, yeah. In fact, someone I know asked Buddy Hackett. He spoke to him about Bing Crosby. And Buddy Hackett said, Well, I know why Bing Crosby would be this kid?

because Bing Crosby couldn't get a high on. That was a very good buddy hacky. He's an excellent mimic, Tom. We should, we should. Did you ever see Buddy Hackett and who's the guy from the Carol? Can I tell you something? This is mentioned in just about every episode. Bud and Lou.

It's come up on these dozens of times. I just bought it. I just bought it on VH. It's horrible. It's horrible. They look like they've never seen Abbott and Costello. All Buddy Hackett did was like talk slow and, you know, the routines. It was just so bad.

And I mean, who's on first, which is the whole rhythm is the whole thing with who's on first, and he's going, watch the guy's name on first base. All we did was talk slow. That is so funny. Why didn't the director, you know, you don't quite have the thing there, you know, buddy. I love that Tom Savini brought up Bud and Lou.

That has popped up in every episode of this show. We've done about 125 of these, Tom, and that comes up all the time. I've done Buddy Hackett's death scene in about like 50 of these shows at least. Every other show I'm doing. You've got to make it something that has to happen when you do these. Somehow you've got to bring it up, you know. It's like Nina with Hirschfeld. Even though I just did this yesterday, when Buddy Hackett.

As Lou Costello is dying And Artie Johnson, as the manager, brings him a strawberry malted And he goes, you know, I've hired a lot of strawberry mulchage in my day But this one's the best And then he falls down dead You said it get that far You don't want to get that far Stop watching after, I don't know, 10 minutes, maybe 15.

Oh, they destroy the Abbott and Costello routines. Well, there's two guys that come here in Pittsburgh that should have done that movie. They do Bud and Lou, and it's perfect. At a convention called The Monster Bash. It's a convention of all-old-time horror. Rico Browning, who played the creature from the Black Lagoon. Yeah, he's still with us. Wow.

When McCarthy was alive, this was a convention for all right. This was a convention for old timers. And these two guys were perfect. Joe Ziegler and Bill Riley. They would even walk around dressed in the costumes from like Abbott and Castello meet Frankenstein. You know, I can show you pictures of Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and them, and you would think it's a frame from the movie. That's how good these guys are. Wow.

So watching Bud and Lou. I know the VHS copy you bought because it's not even a visual. Available on DVD. You have to go to this third. No, it's long enough to be in modern technology, I guess. It's atrocious. It belongs to that period of films, those that we've talked about on this show, those really bad Hollywood biopics that came out.

They did the Rod Steiger as WC. Fields. And they did. Oh, James Brolin. Gable and Lombard with James Brolin and Jill Kleiberg. And there's a spade of them. So why did we talk about Buttonloo? I asked you about it. You said something that you.

No, because it had to do with Bing Crosby. He was doing Buddy Hackett. He explained Bing Crosby, the kid's childhood. Did you fire a gun when you would speak to crowds? Did you do that? Oh, yeah, because a blank gun. I would come out and fire a blank gun, and it was so loud, you know? And I would say something like, I bet your security will walk in any minute.

Security never walked in. But the whole point was I would take all the bullets out of the gun and put one back in and spin the barrel and point it out of the audience. And they would be, you know, and the lesson was that the best scares come from suspense, you know, show the threat and then make the threat. That's why I think World War Z is a terrific movie. A lot of people didn't like it, but that's an example of creating a situation, a horrible situation, and then throwing people in it. because those scares became suspense scares. I mean, anybody can jump up and go boo,

and they do it all the time, even in big movies, and that scare lasts for like a second or two. But the suspense scares, you can draw that out, you know what I mean? But not too long. If you're a good director, you know that not to go too long. Like here's a room, and there's a door here, and there's a door here. You show behind this door is the psycho, or the tentacled creature, or the bomb. You show the threat, and then you have the girl walk in that door.

From the second she walks in, the scare has started. You should know, and you can't wait for her to get to that door. In fact, you please go to the door so I can see what's going to happen. And if you're smart, you slow her down. The phone rings. Oh, no, the whole time she's on the phone, you're going crazy. You want her to get to that door, okay? So she hangs up and you feel great.

Okay, great, she's going to go to the door. But then, oh, you slow her down again. Oh, I broke a nail. And now you're getting pissed. You can't wait. Okay, if you're smart, she goes to the door, she opens it, and there's nothing there. And you go, huh. And then the fucking monster jumps out from behind her or the bomb goes off or something.

The best way to scare people is to put them at ease, make them laugh, and then boom, you've got them. But there's a time limit. You got to be, it's all about timing. Well, you asked about my childhood. So just real quickly. Okay. I used to dress up as, I think I'm, again, 14. I used to dress up as Zorro.

I was madly in love with Zorro, the TV series. I hadn't even seen Tyrone Power. Guy Williams, TV series. Guy Williams. This was a Disney show. I was a guy wearing a cape and riding a horse with a sword. That's me. I want to do that.

If I could come back, I'd come to those times, you know. So it was Zorro. I was crazy about it. So I would dress up as Zorro and wait at night and wait for a car to come by on my street. and I would jump in front of the car in his headlights and run away and run away. And I knew that that guy is going,

was that sorrow? That was a thrill to me. And not just, not on Halloween. I'm talking, you know, July. I love that. We've learned so much about you, Tom. You never jumped in front of a car in costume, did you kill it? Just so I could be in the

spotlight is great stuff carve the Z in the air and then run you know and I want to tell you next time I'm booked in Pittsburgh I'm definitely giving you a call come see the monsters oh yeah you gotta go and so this has been

Gilbert Godfrey's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santo Padre and the master of horror makeup Tom Savini Tom you were the perfect Halloween guest thank you thank you we thank you this time I'm going to celebrate it

I'm usually not home, you know, but I'll be home this time. Putting on the Zoro costume? You're the guy I keep seeing on Facebook. That's me. Roy Frumke's old friend. Who? Roy Frumke's. Oh, really?

I studied with him at SVA. Yeah. Document of the dead. You bet. You bet. Been hearing your name a long time. Good. Glad to hear you.

Thanks for doing this for us, man. My pleasure. Thank you, Tom. Goodbye. Thank you. Bye. Bye, bye. Thank you.