Last Podcast On The Left - Side Stories: Joe Bob Briggs

Episode Date: March 28, 2019

Ben 'n' Henry chat with the incomparable JOE BOB BRIGGS.

Hey, what's up everyone? How you doing? Ben Kissel here. I want to tell you about a benefit show that we're doing for our friend Jason Signs. He had a horrible accident and is currently fighting his butt off to recover. So the benefit show is they're going to be in Los Angeles and New York City Monday, April 1st that of course is April Fool's Day in honor of the very punny, funny, goofy Jason Signs. And in Washington DC, there is going to be a benefit show on Wednesday, April 3rd. If you want all of the details, just look in the description of today's side stories episodes and you'll find who's performing. Obviously, Jackie's going to perform. I'm performing with Holden McNeely here in New York City.

Ed Larson is going to be there. The whole Last Podcast family will be fighting for Jason Signs, the best we know how, through using humor on both coasts of this fine country of ours. So please, if you have those nights off, check out those shows. It's not just going to be some boring, oh my God, sappy event. It's going to be full of laughs, full of joy, and quite frankly, it'll be nice to spend another evening with our LPN family. So alright everyone, come on out, support Jason Signs, support a friend of ours, and don't forget, hail yourselves! There's no place to escape to. This is the last talk. On the left. Side stories. Love your glades. That's when the cannibalism started.

Side stories, yes. So I am in Toronto, Canada. Oh yeah. And I tell you what, it hasn't changed. Very nice. Oh, it hasn't changed. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Yeah, you know that Toronto exactly the same. No, there's not Jamaican. That is a Jamaican accent. It's getting better. Oh, you come up to Canada. You are exhausted. Yeah, yes I am. Hey, what's up everyone? This is Side Stories. I am Benjamin Grant Kissel, the BGK. And then of course we have Henry Zabrowski, who after this tour, I had a chance to sleep on Sunday evening,

and Henry Zabrowski has not. So he is what one would call in the clouds mentally. I am destroyed, but I've had a couple of funny things happen to me. So I went from, we did a show in Pittsburgh. Holy shit, that whole tour was so much goddamn fun. So much fun in Pittsburgh, man. I cannot stress this enough. It is the, and I don't even want to plug it because I don't want to ruin it, but it is the unsung, coolest city in America. And I'm not even being hyperbolic. I think Pittsburgh is so freaking fun. It's ridiculous. But all the Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Nashville all are beautiful. We had a wonderful time. We had a sad, not sad, we didn't have a sad night.

Cincinnati was having a sad night. Not for us, but people were crying in the street. I don't know why people are crying in the street in Cincinnati. I don't know what's going on, but we got plenty drunk at that. I think it's technically a terrible bar, but it was great. Like, oh, Molly's in the alley. Yeah, that was, and I think we've already discussed this, but at one point, we were just walking into this bar and then a fan, a wonder. So thank you for listening. But she was just bawling and then she's like, it's so good to see you, but I don't even know why they were crying. And then the whole, there was just a lot of hot drama going on in Cincinnati.

There was a lot of drama going on in the streets of Cincinnati. But now you're in Toronto and you're doing press for your pretty faces going to hell. We went straight from Pittsburgh to Chicago to do C2E2 because we're pushing your pretty faces going to hell, which opens up season four, starts again on Adult Swim on May 3rd. I'm saying this even against my will. It is now so ingrained into my mouth muscles that I'm just saying it. But we went to Chicago and then I went to Toronto and I did press all day for Toronto. And so what they do, they're like, one of the big things in the middle of the day, we're doing Canadian morning television, the morning news.

And they all said, Henry, please, first of all, you need to control yourself. And I was like, what are you talking about? Because each one, they all started with it. They all started with the warning. They're like, Henry, we need you to keep it to talking about the makeup and the costumes. That's it. And I was like, you trying to control me? It sounds like they are. For good reason. I understand why they want to do it, but at the same time, you're paying for me to do the fucking thing, right? I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna be, I gotta be too real to be cast again.

That's what I have to be. I know your methodology. And so I'm answering pretty normal questions. And finally, I ended up getting them very upset with me because I said at some point, which I'm certain is going to be cut out, where they were asking me, every one of them asked the same question of like, what's too naughty or raunchy to be on this show? And I don't know. So these Toronto radio hosts, they want you to go there by saying what's too naughty,

what had to be cut out of your pretty face is going to hell. And then you answered their question. Is that correct? You got to. They asked me to do it. And so I think it was a funny peccadillo about network like bullshit with stuff like, you can pee on a man's face, but the pee can't be yellow. And you can shit, you can shit in a man's mouth. You can't shit can hit my lips. Shit can go to the splat against the wall.

You could see a pile of shit. I was in poop, but I was in poop, right? Because I know it's morning television. You did clean it up then. You did clean it up. I was clean. I thought I was clean. But it can't be brown and also the shit can't come out of a butt. So he can't see the butt. And they were, it was minutes of silence.

Right. They were horrified. And everyone was just like, I just go like, what? Like I explained it and we're all the cameras on me. It's not live. So they're going to cut it out. I imagine. I don't know what they're going to do.

But afterwards like, we said to keep it to the costumes. But they asked you, they asked you to go there. Because guess what? We really do cut out. There's shit that we obviously is much worse than that. Of course. It's us and devil costumes. It is bizarre that you can't show the brown poops, of course, because that's technically much healthier than a green one or an orange one.

What colors were your shit at the end of this trip? Because none of us, none of us shit. I'm still having problems because I'm still on the road. I don't even the audience does not need to hear about post tour Duke. I'll tell you that much a little bit later on in this episode actually coming up fairly quickly in this episode. We are going to speak with Joe Bob Briggs. He is a television legend.

Joe Bob's driving theater monster vision. He also was a correspondent at the Daily Show for two years and he wrote the books. Joe Bob goes to the driving and Joe Bob goes back to the driving. So we are going to interview him coming up here in the very near future. We're doing a long form interview with him. Yes. He is, it's just such a delight to talk to him. Because normally we've been doing these interviews for a Patreon,

but we're like, Joe Bob Briggs is too big of a deal for us and for our community to just like, we wanted him front and center. We want you guys to hear what he has to say. And he's still sharp and as funny as ever. Oh, he's great. I want to, this is also just a little bit of like, what are these two guys sound like when they interview someone? This is going to be a great sample for you.

A great indication of how a show like that goes. So if you want more of those interviews, feel free to give a dollar to our Patreon, $5, $1,000 or a million dollars and we'll take you to Six Flags. We're taking you to Six Flags. You to Six Flags and then you can listen to the, oh my goodness, we must have 15 to 20 interviews on there at this point. And they're all absolutely wonderful with great, great guests. First, I just want to read a couple of fun little stories.

We can do a few here. This one is one of the personal favorites of mine and I'm not sure if, I'm not sure how old Henry is because this sounds like what is going to happen to Henry Zabrowski as soon as he is shoved into a retirement community by whatever children he has. I am, do you know I'm 34? I know. You have some time.

I got 10 more years. An elderly couple sued for blasting Iron Maiden too loud. An elderly couple who lived in a quiet retirement community in Stockholm, Sweden, which by the way, we will be in Stockholm, has reportedly been sued for blasting Iron Maiden too loud. The couple used the English heavy metal bands music to take revenge on a new couple that moved into their neighborhood. Other neighbors say the issue started in October when the new neighbors arrived

and their sex life was too loud. Apparently the new couple would go at it, quote, all night, just a reminder, this is a retirement community. So what is going on? Number one, kudos to both of these couples where it's like you're banging too loud. And then the other couple is like, we know what to do. We're going to rock them out of here.

The best way to win in this scenario is to go over there and just straight up say nice fucking. So the couple, they are 81 years old and 71 years. They say old in the article, but I'm going to say young because they're still rocking. They are old. They were not happy with the with the sounds of sex. So they started blasting the music and it got so bad, the police were called

and had to force their entrance to the house while avoiding to shoot strangers was playing, which I will say. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. That's a good fucking album. If your house is being busted down by cops, the song afford afraid to shoot strangers is playing might actually be good because maybe they'll be like, that's right, we are afraid to shoot strangers.

We'll let the couple live. I think again, always revert to masturbating. If you want to get people's attention, you want to get them to leave you alone. If you're in the middle of a fight and you want it to stop a really good way is to just start jerking off and then the fight stops. If you want them to go, you just do Tay like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the way that she went.

Oh, if you can mimic the exact noises that makes the other person then eventually every time they try to have sex and they make the noises, they're going to think of the old couple just listening and rubbing each other. Yeah, that is one way to do it. So that's just a little tale coming from Stockholm, Sweden. And we will see you all very soon. Also, you might like this one. Shoppers report seeing a ghost roaming the aisles of a Massachusetts grocery

store. The name of the grocery store is Market Basket. What? Where is Market Basket? I have never heard of that before. Market Basket. I don't know. It's in Massachusetts.

All right. So apparently people are seeing, several people have reported seeing a young woman between the ages of 17 and 30, which is quite an age gap, I would say. Don't you think? It is. 17 and 30 with light skin, dark hair and blue eyes in out of fashion clothing, wandering the aisles of Market Basket on Main Street. One shopper, according to patch.com, is familiar with her as she used to visit

her home when she lived near the store. This is according to the one shopper. She says, if the rumors are true, it makes this Market Basket a lot more interesting. It just sounds like hipsters. It could be. That is just hipsters. That's how they all dress.

They all dress in old time. He clothes. I know. The woman goes on to say, I saw her and looked away to see if anyone else saw her. And when I looked back, she was gone. That's so funny. It's like, I just want to always cut to the ghostbuster scene of get her. That was your plan, right?

Get her. Get her. So other customers are not believers. They are asking, what are you smoking? Which is, of course, a reference to marijuana. Marijuana doesn't make you see ghosts. As a matter of fact, marijuana probably would make you run frantically and forget that you never saw anything paranormal because it's too horrifying to comprehend at that

time. Not me, man. I think that I legitimately would not be. I think I would be more ready to accept it. Yeah. It could be. It could be as well. What are you smoking?

It could go either way. That's the power of marijuana. Even employees of this place are divided. A woman who has worked in the grocery store for four years, she says, I don't want to lull if you are totally serious. But she does say she believes the store is definitely haunted, although admits the overnight shift makes his imagination run wild after working alone for 10 hours straight. So, Henry, you are currently exhausted.

If you see a ghost right now, sadly, we're all going to have to take it through our skeptic group in our minds and be like, was he just tired? It's quite possible. I tell you what, I am getting those trails. I see little things in the corners of my eyes. Okay. You desperately need to fall asleep. You're in your hotel room in Toronto.

I see the bed right behind you. Just jump right in there when we're done recording and do not get out until five minutes before you have to be somewhere. Well, also, I thought that weed was legal in Canada, right? So, I went and I just bought some. I went to a store and I bought some. Afterwards, people tell me being like, yeah, well, you know, weed is only mail order. You got to order it online.

So, there's no way you can get it yet. So, I was like, uh-oh, I have a lot of it. What did you buy then? It's weed. I smoked it last night. Why would it only be mail order? It's Canada, man. I love the Canadian people, but sometimes you hear our Canadian law and you're just like,

what is that even mean? What does it mean to mail order? I'm going to get a catalog. Is that what I'm doing? So, those are just a couple of my favorite little fun, lighthearted stories that were submitted by the listeners. So, thank you all so much for submitting. Again, it's AsideStoriesLPOTL at gmail.com.

We love you and we love the stories. Thank you so much. We do. It means a lot, honestly. And we will be going through more mail next week. We're going to have, after this week, we have one more episode of the Deep Dive Last Podcast, and then we're going to have Marcus again in two weeks. Yes, cannot wait.

This podcast is brought to you by Devil May Cry 5, an over-the-top action-filled game rated M for Mature, now available on Xbox One. Ever need to just slice and dice some demons while looking hella nice? This is the game for you. It features three demon hunters, each with unique playstyles. But don't just take our word for it. Bleeding Cool calls it an elegant symphony of obliteration. Dual Shockers call it one hell of a good time.

And Game Rant calls Devil May Cry the perfect action game. So come on and kick some demon ass with Devil May Cry 5. And remember, games play best on Xbox One. And now, it is time for a frickin' fantastic interview with Mr. Joe Bob Briggs. Are you ready to do this, Mr. Zebrowski? You ready to do this interview? I want to talk to him. Okay.

I want to talk to him. Okay, make sure you talk to him. It's me and him. I want to see a load of him. I want to see his home. I want to go and I want to smell his bathroom. I don't think that's what we should be telling him. I want to smell your bathroom, Mr. Briggs.

Don't worry, I'm good for it. Well, make sure you listen to the whole interview to hear if Henry asked that question. Because I hope that he doesn't. But we will see what happens. A lot of people hope I don't say a lot of things. Well, apparently everyone who works in Toronto Radio was hoping that you didn't say any of that stuff. Although, I will say once again, as an interviewer, you queue up a question. Expect the question to be answered.

So if you don't want Henry to go forward. Don't ask me questions. Yeah, don't ask me questions. I know. All right, everyone, enjoy this interview with Joe Bob Briggs. Live from New York. Literally, my liver has aged so hard in the last week because you're just on the road. I'm sure you understand just traveling the country, especially on the convention route.

Oh, yeah. Like you just it's just different hotel bar after different hotel bar. Yeah, well, I do the cons and I do the I have a I have a one man show that I do in a lot of cities. So yeah, I'm on the road a lot. The thing about Toronto is they've got Cronenburg and they've got some really bad stuff from the 80s. Yes, but they have this thing they're called, you know, where they'll talk to you about Canadian horror. Like it's a thing. And these these movies, I don't know whether they're Canadian or American or whatever.

And but the Canadians always know which movies were actually filmed in Canada and which movies have Canadian directors and which movies have Canadian actors. And to me, they're all just the same. Yeah, we'll always do this thing about what do you think of Canadian horror is probably the same percentage of Canadian horror movies as there are a percentage of Canadians in North America. So, right, right. They are so excited and so particular about claiming their legacy because they hate being swallowed by America. Absolutely. Well, I come from the home my home state is Wisconsin and any celebrity that comes from Wisconsin, that is the first thing that people will say. As a matter of fact, little known fact because she has said kind of denounced my home state Halle Berry originally from Wisconsin.

But you wouldn't know what if you listen to her, you have to talk to a Wisconsin and who was like technically Catwoman was ours. Well, it's yours. Oh, I know. Yeah, we claim we got Dahmer, we got Geen and we got Chris Farley. So Wisconsin has a pretty good track record of entertainers. That's right. Joe Bob, are you excited to be talking to two other two more like fat bodied ugly men? Does this excite you?

Well, that's a great thing about podcasting. You don't have to see us. I love it. So, Joe, Joe Bob, I got to ask you first, because obviously you are the king, the king of B movies. It's a special niche, a B movie like a reanimator. There has to be something about it that it can't be so bad. You can't watch it, but it can't be too good that the Oscars would even consider looking at it as a mainstream film. What is what makes the perfect B movie?

Well, first of all, I don't like to call them B movies, I call them exploitation movies. And that's because, you know, back in the 80s, somebody came out with a book called King of the Bees. And one of the guys in the book was Roger Corman. And I saw Roger right after the book came out and I said, Roger, what do you think about being called one of the kings of the bees? And he said, I don't really like that. I said, why? He says, because it implies that there's an A movie and a B movie and my movies aren't as good as the A movies. I said, what do you think about being called the king of exploitation?

And he said, I love that. And it's because, you know, the movies that we call exploitation films or genre films, they're not necessarily worse than the Hollywood films. And oftentimes they're much better. A movie like Hellraiser is, in my opinion, better than a big budget movie like, you know, like The Exorcist 3. It is. That is for certain, except for the, I do love the continuation of the preacher. Yeah. Well, I mean, it has its moment.

And is that the one with George C. Scott? I think it is. Yes, I think so. Yeah. And I don't have its features, but for all that money, you know, they did more with no money when they made Hellraiser. So, but I think what it used to be easy to tell, because these movies would only play the drive-ins and the grindhouses, you know, but today when everything is released on, you know, various types of digital media, it's basically the ones that are considered beneath contempt by the remaining mainstream critics out there, of which there are a few. Do you want to beat up Leonard Malton?

It was like, like, if you saw him, would you like want to throw down and punch him in the street, like these kind of like the fancy, dancy movie review people? I mean, he would be on that list. I mean, you know, over the years, there was, I was supposed to have a, there was a critic at the New York Times named Janet Maslin, who called a lot of these movies, especially horror movies. She called it, you know, hardcore pornography of violence and really thought that they shouldn't be reviewed and they shouldn't be celebrated. And I was supposed to have a debate with her back in the 80s, but she backed out. But anyway, that was the feeling for many, many years. Now, when films like Shape of Water are winning the Oscar, you know, it's a monster movie wins the Academy Award. Obviously, tastes have changed a bit and when it makes $600 million or whatever the film made, you know, then obviously, you know, we're in a little bit of a different world now.

That's an interesting point when it comes to the sort of the need to be despised. When it comes to the horror genre now being more mainstreamed, despite the fact they still had the Oscars had the audacity to call get out a comedy and anyone who said that. And I'm not even being like hyperbolic, they should be shot because that is a horror movie. Do you think that there is a danger with the mainstreaming of horror films? Because don't you sort of need those more stuffy people to make it seem cool? Well, what you need is maverick filmmakers who will go against the grain of the culture. I mean, you need people who will do the incredibly politically incorrect movie. I mean, it's like exploitation film producers are like the professional wrestling business.

They pick out things that will really annoy a segment of the public and they emphasize that in their movies. Right, right. So it's different things at different times, but yeah, we don't have enough of those guys who are hustling a buck. A lot of the film school kids, they worship these explanation movies of the 80s. And so they make really bad ripoffs of explanation movies from the 80s. Because they seem to get the pacing wrong. That's how I always view it, especially with the new ones, where they kind of emphasize on the very, very slow pace of the old film. So I feel like they think that they are making homages to Grindhouse movies by essentially making what ends up being boring movies.

Yeah, I mean, whereas, you know, write something new, write something that scares you today. The last director that I can remember that made a movie in very, very recent memory that truly scared the hell out of me. And I felt icky watching it was Lars von Trier's The House That Jack Built. Because that played on certain tropes like Killing Children that was really, really intense. Yeah, you probably do have to go that far these days to really shock the public. There's a movie we have on shutter called Death Gasm. If you saw the old movie from the 80s, Trick or Treat. The idea being, what if Tipper, you remember Tipper Gore? Does anybody remember Tipper Gore?

Tipper Gore gave the biggest gift of all time sort of going back to that previous comment of like having people despise it. That would make it cool. Tipper Gore was the greatest marketing tool of all time for rap music. And for just hardcore music in general. And she was claiming that rap music caused rape and violence and all these bad things. And so the premise of Trick or Treat is, what if everything she says is true? And you play the record backwards and the devil appears and it turns everybody into demons and rapists and everything. And so there were actually three or four movies of that type. And so along comes this movie Death Gasm in 2015 from New Zealand.

And it's the same idea 30 years later. And so I'm like, well, is New Zealand just especially slow? They're just finding out that this type of genre, subgenre exists. You know, and I don't know. It's like, it's really well made. But it's sort of, but because it's based on such an old idea that people, it doesn't really register that well anymore. It's like a movie. It's like you don't really fully engage with the movie because you're thinking, you know, why are they doing this in 2015?

Because everybody wants their whack at it. I feel like that's the two of them. They think that like, well, now we can tell it our way, but it's like, well, they've done it many, many times. Yeah. And you know, the same thing with, you know, if you have a lot of money, you can do a remake. You can pick pick a mediocre cult movie from the seventies or eighties and remake it. Well, exactly like they did with Maniac and a series of other films that have been come out more recently. I have been obsessed with remaking the man with two heads. I think that that's got like a good, there's a pocket there about what I always wanted. David Cross and Wesley Snipes.

I would watch that. But it's almost like horror is becoming like, you know, Broadway. What do they do on Broadway? They do the same. They do the same 10 musicals over and over and over again. Oh, yeah. They do Gypsy. They do the music band. They do, you know, and so we have these stories now, these horror stories that are considered classic, you know, Hellraiser being one of them. How many Hellraiser's have there been? The new one is rough. Well, Hellraiser has been long enough, has been around long enough to the point where we got a fat pinhead,

which is crazy. He's not even fat. I feel represented. Yes, I know. So what, where do you draw the line between an homage and just a straight up copy and paste? Like, because homages are great. Like I love when people give winks to the, to the genre and, you know, just an appreciative nod to the people, the forefathers of horror. But then when it's just a straight up steal, where do you draw the line between homage and just mimicry?

Well, I think there's got to be something reimagined about the original story. Otherwise, what's the point? It's just going to suck. And when they first started remaking, when the big budget era of remake started, when would they you call it like the year 2000 or 2002, something like that? Yeah. I think the, actually, I think the first one was the Texas chainsaw massacre. Oh yeah, when they made it all pretty. Yeah, they did the Texas chainsaw massacre.

Then they did the Hills Have Eyes. The Hills Have Eyes remake was pretty good. I mean, because the original Hills Have Eyes was shot on 16 millimeter. And so it's kind of, you know, grainy and, and weird. And maybe that helps it. Maybe it hurts it. I don't know. But the Hills Have Eyes remake, even though it was made by a French dude, which, which, which burns me up. I'm this way.

I feel the same way about how many times we've had a British dude play Charles Manson in two different things recently coming up and it's driving me up the wall. Charles Manson is ours. Yeah. Absolutely. Anyway, when they were doing those first ones, I thought they were well done. They were, they were, I mean, I'll never like a remake of the Texas chainsaw massacre. It's my favorite movie of all time.

So I'll never really like it. But I didn't think there was anything wrong with it. Right. It was, it was competent. It was, you know, they, they did their homework. Yeah. And then, then at some point they just became all, you know, cheap and cheesy and quick and dirty.

And you had people making, remaking stuff like the legend of Boggy Creek. There's movies you just couldn't remake. I know some just re-release the old one in the theaters because I want the theater experience of going to see the original Texas chainsaw massacre. That would be so fricking badass. Oh yeah. And you're seeing a lot of that. A lot of that's happening.

A lot of times I'll be asked to come and introduce a movie and I'll say how many people in the audience have already seen the movie. And it'll be like 90% but, but there's a real desire to like watch movies with other people in a theater, especially if it's 35 millimeter film. Yeah. Because that experience is, you know, being lost as, you know, Netflix believes that the future is one person with one device. When I see people watching movies on their phone, I'm like, what, where do you enjoy

anything? Do you also just like, is it only Natty Light? Is that all the only thing that you drink? How do you feel about the new like festival kind of ran horror film? Because so now it seems like they kind of set up every year the horror movies that we're going to get. There's some remake. There's normally some form of either either a sequel or something schlocky that they

kind of push to the wayside. But then now we're getting like, we had it with a hereditary. We had it with Suspiria. These kind of these new like festival loving, like high art horror movies that then kind of get paraded around and get a lot of attention. And I enjoy them, but it seems like we're losing some of the fun in the process. Yeah, they do sort of telegraph which ones we're supposed to like. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. I think that unfortunately, you know, the only people that get noticed are the ones that do have some some bucks. Right. And it shouldn't be that way because the technology for making movies has become so cheap that I thought we would have like, you know, 100 horror movies a year because you know, so many people would be able to make one.

And and I thought, you know, even if just like five out of the hundred are good, it would be it would be an improvement. But it hasn't really worked out that way because I go to these festivals where the guys with the $20,000 horror film or the $35,000 horror film and they suck, you know, and they'll say, you know, they'll have a panel afterwards and say, well, you know, you didn't have enough money to do this. And I'll say, you know, guys, nothing involved with the flaws in this movie have anything to do with money.

It's like, you know, the production values are great. You know, it's it's the script. It's the acting. It's the, you know, well, we live in Lawrence, Kansas. We don't have any, you know, we don't have professional actors here. Isn't there a university in Lawrence, Kansas? Don't they have a drama department in Lawrence, Kansas? You know, it's like, right.

Yes, you do. You have actors there. Don't say that. I feel like people truly forget those resources. I think they forget that like Bruce Campbell was his was his friend. Like that was Sam Raimi's friend. Like that was a guy that they knew that was super fun. Everybody that all of my favorite stories of the filmmaking groups that came out of

was like literally like a bunch of school kids that like one kid, one of them ended up being in all the plays and the other one ended up getting a camcorder when he was 12 years old and just started shooting everything. And it kind of, they learn to tell a story over time about what they liked where now it seems like people are on, which I think it is important to copy, but I wonder if they're losing a little bit of that inspiration. And of course, Henry's friend grew up to be Joe Francis from the Girls Gone Wild series.

And my God, what a successful filmmaker. It started with my tits. I mean, I could sit and talk. I mean, this is, I mean, I'm just, I am shaking. I'm vibrating. You don't want to see it. I'm so excited. I could talk to you about movies all day, but I want to ask, obviously,

you guys hear of you. I watched all of, I love, watched all the new drive-ins on Shutter. Oh, so good. They're great, man. They are fucking great. I have a, I want a couple of questions about the process of that show. First of all, congrats, love the new pickup. Can't wait to see the new show on Shutter.

I'm more, I'm already in and our, our listeners are already in. Right. My question is, though, when the, the, in 2011, like when the last show and monster vision ended, were you just kind of like waiting for another show to show up? Like was it really like a thing where eventually somebody will come, like someone will come. Were you actively pitching a show or were you just like, were you ready to be done?

See, I'm, I'm originally a writer. And so I just went, I just went back to my writing career. You know, I've figured, okay, TV is over. I'll go back to writing for magazines. Of course, it wasn't as easy as I thought because, you know, they forget about, they forget about you and then you have to go and find your old editor friends and get jobs. But I just went back to writing. I wrote a couple of books and I wrote a lot of magazine articles and I did some other,

some other writing. And then about once a year, somebody would come to me, either a producer or a network in some cases and they would say, you want to do a new show. And I would say, sure. And then I would never hear from them again. They just wanted them. They just wanted to, it's what a great business.

We just want to make sure that he wants it. And then we're not going to give it to them. Very good. And so that was, that went on for, you know, 17 years. And so these guys came to me in the fall of 2017, two guys, one of them, his day job was editing for MTV. And the other guy, his day job was producing for trauma. And so, and they said, Hey, can we pitch a show with you?

And I said, sure. And I figured, okay, we had lunch. That's over. Another dream down the fucking toilet. And about a month later, they show up with the shutter executive and we have lunch. And, and he says, yeah, let's do the show. And so we started, actually it was originally going to be a 54 hour

marathon. We were going to do like, remember the old Jerry Lewis telethons where Jerry would get more and more ragged. It was all those weird steroids and he started plumping out. He would become, he would become weirdly sentimental. And you were watching it partly to see how psychotic Jerry would get. And so I said, let's do one of those, you know, right?

And, and so then they came back to us and said, well, we don't have the money for that. We've only got like $5. You're like, perfect. I'm your, I'm your man. And so I said, well, we've planned this big thing. And they were like, well, we don't have money for that. We, here's $5.

And so actually the producers and I were, we're, we're thinking about, well, maybe we should just, you know, put this on hold for a while and walk away. And then the crew, I'll never forget this. The crew says, we'll work for free. We wanted to work on this. We'll work for free. Wow.

A lot of them. Most of them. And I said, well, fuck, I got to do it now. So, and so, um, we, we shot that first, um, 24 hour marathon. You know, you know, the reality show, uh, Ink Master. Of course. Uh, Ink Master is shot in an abandoned factory in, in a bad part of Newark, New Jersey.

And Ink Master had an extra room. We took over their extra room and kind of recreated the, uh, the old monster vision set because that was the other thing I'm saying to these producers. I said, what kind of show you want to do? And they say monster vision. I'm going to do monster vision. And I'm like, that shows 20 years old.

He said, no, that's what we want to do. Monster vision. I'm saying, you can't repeat TV. You can't do the same thing you did 20 years ago. That'd be like, you know, you can't do the Dick Van Dyke show today. That would be terrifying. He looks like a skeleton.

He's nothing but teeth now. No, that's what we want to do. We want to do, we want to do monster vision. And so I was like, okay, what about this element? Yeah, we want it to be exactly like it was. So we kind of did exactly the same show. And, um, I didn't really know what we had. And then as you guys probably know, it, it caused this

sensation mostly not because of the quality of the show, but because, but because, uh, uh, we took down the servers, you know, the, the, the, the, everything we broke, we broke shutter that night. Well, you know, I will say there is something about just feeling, you know, in this world, not to get all like, but everything has gone crazy. Technology came out at us so fast.

Everyone's like spinning, spinning, spinning, like we're all in the Gravitron. There is something about just putting a flag in the past and just bringing it to the present. And I think there is something about seeing Joe Bob Bricks presenting films that makes everyone feel like, okay, we can get through all of this. Joe Bob is still with us.

We're still rocking and rolling. Dude, there's just nothing. There's nothing old about the simplicity of the show. No, that, that is always forever fresh. It's you in the camera. I'm already on board with the movie. You showed me a couple of things I had never seen. I actually never saw a terror train.

There's a couple of ones I saw. I was like, okay, there was ones I saw. I was like, this is, oh hell yeah. This is a perfect excuse to rewatch all the phantasms. We're going to go through this whole thing. We're going to, we're going to revamp this whole thing. Me and my wife sat and it's like got popcorn. Well, that's the other thing that would, I mean,

the, the, the director of the show, the guy named Austin Jennings and he, and he, I said, I said, you know, a monster vision was on a commercial station. And so, you know, we can't really reproduce it. And he says, oh yeah, we can. We're going to interrupt the movie. And I said, do you have commercials? No, we don't have commercials,

but we're going to have commercial breaks. And so I said, okay, isn't that going to really piss people off? And he was like, he was like, well, they can watch the, the uninterrupted movie elsewhere on the network. And I said, okay, well, you know, we'll do it. And so we did that and people liked it. They liked going through the movie with a friend, you know, exactly.

Dude, that's when I went and I refilled my bowl. I literally would go, that's when I was, I would go, you would be talking in the background. I'd pour my drink, did exactly as you ordered, and just, and sat back. It's really good. Absolutely. Joe Bob, you mentioned, you mentioned how you, you began as a writer,

sort of transitioned into being a television personality. And for those that have not read, Joe Bob goes to the driving and Joe Bob goes back to the driving. You must, you're writing this brilliant. Your, your satire is absolutely brilliant. Was there anything, is there anything that you wanted people to get from your writing, whether it be sociological, political, that was sort of lost because of the horror genre.

So some folks would just say, yeah, that's really smart commentary on modern society, but it's under the guise of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre review or something about, you know, the movie Evil Edd or something like that. Was there anything in your writing that you felt wasn't fully appreciated? I felt like all of it was not fully appreciated.

The thing about us rednecks is you can dismiss anything a redneck says, you know, it's like the last minority group that can be, that can be absolutely vilified at anything. You know, it's like, I think it was, Lenny Bruce said, if the Pope spoke with a Southern accent, nobody would believe anything he said. I agree.

Our co-producer, Marcus Parks, is from Rochester, Texas. And he talks about it quite a bit about how like he, and when we visited Texas, they're like, don't you make fun of our shit here? Like you understand, it's like there's a whole culture here. It's a huge safe space, the state of Texas for the, for the Texas or for the redneck personality type. Yeah.

But I actually have to, because I was sort of an unapologetic redneck, everything I said was easy to dismiss. Right. Even if later it was, you know, it was quoted somewhere saying, hey, this guy actually made a good point here. You know, but no, it probably can't be a good point because he's a redneck.

So it was always, but that was also kind of the fun of it. Can I ask you a shock jockey question? When you were writing profoundly erotic, would it be a thing that like, did you have to like jerk off first and then get your thoughts clear? Like, is it one of those where you literally had to get the demons out and then you can write?

Well, no, because oddly enough, that was a book about movies that were prosecuted or banned because of the sex in the movies. And remarkably, none of the sex is very good in any of those movies that were banned. Right. And so, no, that was an easy call. You mentioned sex, which of course you referred to as ardvarking. Where did you, which makes it,

it really crosses some strange, strange, strange streams. Where'd you come up with the idea of calling sex ardvarking? Well, when I see, I was first writing these reviews for a mainstream newspaper and there was a whole host of things you couldn't talk about and you couldn't say. And so I started inventing nonsense words that were pretty, it's pretty obvious in context what they meant. And so I ended up with my own vocabulary. Now, when I got to, when I got to TNT,

TNT had a very strict standards and practices thing, you know, big list of stuff you couldn't say. And so I instituted the same principle where I would just, you know, invent a nonsense word for whatever I wanted to say. And then my nonsense words started showing up on the, on the forbidden list of words you can't say on TV. So it's, you can't ever win. You know, when I, when I first started out,

and I would be censored for this, that or the other, they would always say, Joe Bob, you can't offend the, you know, I understand it's funny, but it's offensive to the older people, you know. And then now that I'm one of the older people that come along and say, you can't say that because it's offensive to the younger people. Right. What the fuck? Yeah, dude.

Yeah, man. It is difficult. No. And you know what? Both of those are lies. We have found with our show, people are not as easily offended as studio executives want to portray them as folks really do have a stronger palette than a lot of people understand.

I do a little thing at the beginning of my show about safe spaces and trigger warnings and make it clear that there will be no safe spaces and there will be no trigger warnings. Yeah. I know a lot of people in the younger generation hate all of that stuff. So you're doing, you're doing a good job. That's why they love you. But that's the beauty of the shutter show.

What I, and this is because you can just let it fly. That was like, mostly what's like Natalie, my wife and I were watching and being like, man, he gets it to go without a net. Like he gets it just, he could say whatever the hell he wants to say. I have a question about process. When you go through, like when you are going to do the movie, do you do any prewriting? Like is there stuff that you know you're going to say or do you surprise yourself

all the time? No, I kind of know what I'm going to say because, you know, I'm on so, so many fucking minutes in the, I mean, we interrupt the movie like five times and I'm on before the movie, I'm on after the movie. Now, thank God, you know, there's a lot of information on most of these films. When I first started doing this, we had films where there was zero information, you know, there was no internet.

And so we didn't know where, sometimes we didn't know what country the film was made in. We, you know, we'd look up the director, we couldn't find any reference to where he came from or who he was, you know. I think you can gauge that by how much young boy full frontal nudity there is because if there's a lot, that's Sweden. That's for sure. You really love it.

Actually, if there's a lot, that's David Dakota. I'll tell you, I want to tell you my, also my story eventually about how I saw David Kronenberg's butthole in a doctor's office. Accidentally, I walked. Henry, you know what? Just tell him now. I just walked into, I was in a Hollywood doctor shooting a series in Canada in Toronto and they said, Hey, oh, you can go right in there.

You can go right back into the, right into the examination room. They're ready for you. And I open up the door and let it said, Hi, I'm Henry Ziprowski. And as I open up the door, I saw a man bent over the table and older man bent over the table while the doctor was looking at his rim, like looking, looking at it like, like a melt in front of it. And he turned to look at me and it was David Kronenberg. And I just was like, I'll never be in one of his movies.

This is done. You've seen too much. How could you respect him as a director when you know what his butthole looks like? So Joe, so when you, you just riff, like you don't have a teleprompter. Like do you, you just, you go? No, I have notes. I have notes.

I know where we're starting, where we're going. Yeah. Okay. Because I am as a, I riff all time and I wonder like when do, like you're so fucking sharp that I was like, how do you stay that sharp? Like how do you stay so in the pocket? What I do is I say, we're not going to stop. Once we start, we're not going to stop.

So it creates tension, especially, especially if we have guests. A lot of the guests hate it. Actually, some of the more accomplished actors don't like that at all. They're, they're like, what, what do you mean? And they're like, no, we're not going to stop. You know, this is it. You're the one time, we're going to do it one time and that's it. Well, that makes you a true professional.

But 15, well, you know, real, like movie acting is five minutes at a go for the most part. You literally have to memorize your six lines in her seat or whatever you do. And then you get that one take of a scene and then you could move on. The acting is easy. It's the, that's all the rest of it is very difficult. And that's six lines a day. Yeah. Exactly.

We are talking to Joe Bob Briggs. He's got to check out his show on shutter again. Joe Bob's drive-in theater. Just a true legend, a monster vision. Joe, I got a question when it comes to surroundings and horror movies, we were kind of going back to that Netflix conversation, going back to what Henry was talking about with folks watching movies on their phone. The drive-in movie experience, I felt like that was so crucial because we kind of missed out on that.

Our generation, I'm 37, Henry's 34 or 35. Our generation didn't really have that drive-in movie experience where they played three movies in a row and maybe one of them is good or maybe half of one of them is good. What do you think about just the setting for the genre of horror, just the surrounding setting of the drive-in experience? Do you think that that was crucial for the genre? Well, it was, it was crucial not, not for the, not for the reason that, you know, you were watching the movie outside in a car, but that those drive-ins were owned by independent owners,

mom and pop operations. And so there was this great demand for movies that were outside the studio system because a lot of times the drive-ins, they couldn't afford the big studio movies or the studios were contemptuous of the drive-ins, they didn't want their movies playing there. And so, so the drive-ins and the grindhouses were heavily dependent on guys like Roger Corman and Samuel Arkoff and the great indie producers of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. And then, then what replaced it was the video store during the VHS revolution,

certainly in the 80s where suddenly they just wanted, they just wanted as many titles as they could get. So for guys, for hustlers like, you know, Fred Olin Ray, Jim Wynorski, these directors who were very active in the 80s, what, you know, that means I can just like make a cheap shot-on video movie for, you know, 50, 60 thousand dollars and it'll just go straight to the video store. Yeah, I'm down for that. And so they just started churning these things out. And some of our most beloved cult films come from that atmosphere where you, you know, you came up with the idea for the movie on Monday, you shot it on Tuesday, you got it in the video store on Wednesday. It's the urgency. It's because you literally had to spit out the movie.

You had it inside and you had to. I have no money. I call up my friends in the business. I say, we're going to shoot this in six days, you know, show up in Glendale on Tuesday and they would, you know, rough out a script and make the movie. And so that kind of, you know, Wild West feeling. It's like, I don't know why we don't have that today because the technology got so cheap. Those guys were working with 35 millimeter film. I think it's a mental, I think we're friggin hypnotized to believe we're helpless. I think that there's a part of it, which is the reason why, because I know when I was first describing to my agent

and we talked about this all time when we were doing the podcast, right? Because the podcast is now this business where anybody can do it. You could get like a zoom and a microphone and you got a podcast. You can, you can now pump it out. You have GarageBand and they're for so long. They've been, they've been kind of pushing against it essentially because they can't figure out how to make money off of it. Well, yeah, we went against the, we went against the studio system in its own way. And so I feel like it's almost that there's kind of prevailing sense of helplessness with this idea that you just can't go and make a movie. So in fact, you can just get up and make a goddamn movie if you want to very, very easily.

I think what happens is, is the guys who are making, you know, extremely cheap movies, the movies are underproduced. They don't, they don't go to film school. They don't learn the classic moves. The advantage of shooting on 35 millimeter film is, you know, you've got to get the shot. Because the film is too expensive. And so when you're working with digital media, you can shoot the scene fucking 30 times. Well, you shouldn't shoot the scene 30 times. You should know how to shoot the scene before you shoot the scene. Well, and I think that's what made something like a Texas Chainsaw Massacre so much fun because, oh my God, I'm Marcus's favorite character, Henry. The guy who lights the camera, the photo on fire, the guy with the scar on his face. The hitchhiker. What the hell's his name again? Ed Neil. Yes. His character, I just felt like it came across as so organic.

I guess it's because of what you were saying where it doesn't really seem like he's acting. Some people could say, oh, that's bad acting. But I think that was just a great performance on his part to look like a deranged hitchhiker. Yeah, he actually told me that he had a cousin who was mentally ill. He copied some of the stuff that his cousin did. Can I ask, what's some of your favorite modern movies? What have you seen recently that excites you? Like, do you get to or are you too busy prepping for the show? Like, do you get to go out to movie theaters or people like, what do you think, Joe, as you're trying to watch it? Well, I'm not as up on recent movies as I should be. I actually just did my show at South by Southwest and everybody was chattering about us. But it was, you know, film festival people are not real people. You know, and to go to film festivals are not real people.

And so I would say, what is it about? And they would say, oh, it's about everything. Perfect. And is it good? So good. I'm not sure what I saw, but it's so good. So good. And so I don't know. I haven't seen it yet. So I don't know if it's great or awful. I actually think Jordan Peele is doing some good stuff for the genre because he's bringing, I think he is taking it to another audience. And I have no problem with what he's doing. I thought Get Out Was was really, really good. But going sort of on that question, but sort of the inverse of it, was there a film growing up?

Did you really love these grindhouse films when you were growing up or did it, what came first, the job of writing for them or the love for them? Well, I always liked movies, but I would say I discovered exploitation movies when I was well into my 20s because they seemed forbidden. And that was the ad campaigns. The ad campaigns made them feel like something you shouldn't be watching. So I had to see them. And they were either sex or violence. It was always sex or violence. It was some kind of like extreme that you couldn't get in the mainstream movies. What about the idea, you know, going back to that kind of concept of your buddy, Mr. Neal there, when it comes to just having unattractive people on screen, I think, you know, you mentioned Rednecks being one of the more maligned groups, and I do agree with that. There's a great documentary on that, as a matter of fact. But when it comes to ugly people, they are not on screen.

As a matter of fact, the guy who played Eileen Warnos, what was her name? Charlize Theron. Charlize Theron, she got an Oscar for just looking like a normal person. And they're like, I can't believe she dared, has a per face like that. I know. Incredible. And Elijah Wood, who I actually really like, he's big for our genre and I have no problem with Elijah Wood. But the fact that Elijah Wood played Maniac, I don't think he should have cast himself in that because you go and you watch the original Maniac.

The guy who played that character, I am fully convinced it was a documentary. Because I was like, that guy is so freaking creepy. What about just getting ugly people in front of the camera? How much do you think that makes it controversial? To put an ugly person on camera? Because you don't see ugly people on camera anymore, and when a celebrity who looks beautiful dresses up as ugly, they get nominated for an Oscar. Yeah, well, they also get nominated for an Oscar if they play a mentally retarded person. That's what I'm banking on, Joe. This is what I'm trying to get. That's the kind of role I want. I want to be a simple farm boy that learns the power of love.

I don't think you can judge anything by the Oscars. But I think that that is one of the areas where the horror genre, when it comes to the mentally disabled, when it comes to people who truly look like everyday people like you and I, they were able to say, hey, you can be a star. You can be an actor. We don't have to have this milk toast version of what we think humanity is supposed to look like. And I don't think the horror genre gets enough credit, really, for being unbelievably liberal and open-minded, about putting people who aren't regularly on camera on camera. Yeah, I would say the best example of that is Slingblade, where, you know, Billy Bob Thornton, that made him a star. And Billy Bob Thornton wouldn't be a star in anybody's universe if he hadn't made that one movie. But yeah, that's...

Anyway, I guess it wasn't a question. It was more of me screaming into the microphone, making a statement. You're just yelling at us, Kessel. You're literally just yelling at two people on the phone, talking to a legend and your best friend. But I do think that that's an important thing that the horror movie genre has provided us. Can I ask a dumb, another Chris Farley-esque from the SNL sketch when he talks to Paul McCartney like question? What was Joe Spinell like? Did you ever meet him? I never met Joe, but I met all his friends. There used to be these character actors that would meet once a week at a restaurant on Melrose Avenue, and they would occasionally invite me to their spaghetti dinners. There's all the tough guys in Hollywood, and they loved Joe Spinell.

So when Joe Spinell died, they made this Joe Spinell highlight tape that they just loved, and they would give it to everybody of all Joe Spinell's greatest moments in film. So I never met the man himself, but I know that he was just idolized by his fellow character actors. Yeah, he seemed like a wild one, dude. I also love The Last Horror Show. He's great in it. Yeah, and if you remember, he was the dispatcher and taxi driver. Oh, nice. He has like two scenes, but he steals the scenes. He's great. He's great. Very nice. Well, I guess, you know, just, I mean, I have like one more question, which is basically just movie recommendations.

Do you have anything, Henry? Is there any other questions that we have for the legend that is Joe Bob Briggs? I mean, I could talk like this for hours with you, Joe, but I'm not a beautiful woman. There's no reason I would waste your time. We literally are a WWE tag team coming in at a combined weight of 569 pounds. Yes, I don't think that Mr. Briggs needs to be spending all of his day with us. So, Joe, just finally for my final little question is, what do you recommend? What should the kids go if they want to get into the great horror genre, the exploitative films, exploitation films? Where do you start on this journey? Because there is a large catalog, and it can be kind of overwhelming where you're like, what movie should I click on first? What movie should we click on first to go down the road?

I would have to say, you know, because I talked to so many of the fans that the fans consider, let me just put it this way, the young fans consider the 80s, the golden age of horror. Now, the older fans consider the 30s, the golden age of horror, the universal monsters, you know, they're like, you know, older guys will tell you, no, no, there's nothing ever like the universal monsters, you know. But I think the beginning of modern horror is Night of the Living Dead in 1967. There had been, you know, up until 1967, there had been like four zombie movies in all of film history, you know, four or five. And then George Romero makes Night of the Living Dead, and then Sam Raimi makes Evil Dead a few years later, and then we have like, suddenly we have 400 zombie movies. So I would go back to the basics and watch that one, you know, for people who are just, you know, all they know about zombies is walking dead. Right, and brains. This is great, dude. I can't wait for the new series. So March 29th at 9 p.m., there are shows coming out tomorrow, so we're going to, we'll pump it.

So 9 p.m. and it goes live at 9 p.m.? It goes live at 9 p.m. this Friday night, 9 p.m. Eastern, Six Pacific, and yeah, it's going to be double features every week. I will be there. Thank you so much. Again, Joe Bob Briggs, a true legend in the horror film genre. Thank you so much for being with us and speaking with us today. We really appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Live from your grave. All right, there it was, the famous legend, Joe Bob Briggs.

I thought that interview was freaking fantastic. I didn't realize we have to go all the way back to the 1930s to watch the OG horror films, and I have to fully admit, I don't think I've seen one of them. There's a couple of really fucking good ones. There's Koff and Joe, that's really great. The, I love Dracula. And Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein are fucking perfect. So what happened with Koff and Joe? Did he work in the mines and was it whooping cough or a series of different kinds of ailments?

Was it Asthma? Castle, don't let anyone ever tell you you lost it because you still got it. You are a number one. You can't lose what you don't got. Am I right? It is just perfect, perfect quotes from you, my friend. Perfect humor. Seriously perfect humor.

Seriously perfect. Oh God, you gotta just live, man. I know that. You gotta live. Let's just leave it at that. And you gotta laugh because who fucking cares if you're frowning? Nobody. Really they don't.

Even if they should, even if you got a technical problem and you wish people someone would reach out and help you if you're frowning, a lot of times they fucking don't. They don't, no. And you gotta love, you gotta love with that tongue first. You know what I mean? Do, do whatever you guys want to do. Because the penis gives up early. Alright everyone, thank you all so much for listening.

And again, such a wonderful time on tour. We can't wait to see everybody out there. And we are excited for this year's tour. You can find it in my, you can find it in my Instagram. I got a little Instapost on there at Benkis01. You can find it on our website. Come on out. Don't forget we're in Vancouver, Stockholm and Berlin.

So get those tickets because they are going to be going at a good moderate pace. Not too fast, not too slow. We don't want to give the tickets a heart attack. But please get those tickets. I cannot wait to come to fucking Europe. Cannot wait, cannot wait. Cannot wait. We always get so much fun.

I get so many DMs from people being like, hey, I'm sorry, we were late to get the tickets. Can you please get us on a compliment? I can't, we don't have that power. So please Lord, just get the tickets. As soon as you hear they go on sale, just be like click, click, click. And then just do it. Because I don't want to see, I don't want anyone to be disappointed. Okay everyone, thank you all so much for listening.

Hail yourselves. Hail Satan. Magustalations. Hail me please, if you would. We shall talk to you soon. Your pretty face is going to hell. When's it coming out? May 3rd, midnight.

We're doing it. Let's go. May 3rd, midnight. Talk to you all soon. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors, you can support our shows by supporting them. For more shows like the one you just listened to, go to lastpodcastnetwork.com.