The Weekly Planet - Hey Look! It's The Worst Shazam - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: April 2, 2019

There's been multiple incarnations of Shazam or Captain Marvel leading up to the 2019 version. There was a 1970's series that in many ways was ahead of it's time. But more accurately it's bad.Video Edition ► https://bit.ly/2I5t1I7Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesFacebook ► http://facebook.com/mrsundaymoviesPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-movies The Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 The Weekly Planet YouTube ► https://goo.gl/1ZQFGH The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://omny.fm/shows/the-weekly-planet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. Hey, everybody, it's Caravan of Garbage. It's the greatest show. It's a show?

We do it. It's not technically a show. It's not technically anything, really. And yet we plug away. And isn't that the important thing? That's an important moral lesson we learn every week, I every week it might be the least popular thing that we make and yet we continue to do it every tuesday what about our interpersonal relationships they're not they're not popular are they they're really not look we have done some bad stuff for this for this particular series

and i thought maybe we'd hit the peak at some point. Yeah. And I'm like, I'd never heard of this particular one we're going to do. I'd seen maybe like a DVD box cover or something like that. And I'm like, maybe I'll get to that one day. Maybe I'll buy that DVD. I'm very glad I haven't because this is probably one of the worst things you've subjected us to. I reckon top three. It's definitely the worst superhero thing I think we've done on here. And the thing is as well, it's 22 minutes.

We're doing the pilot episode of the Shazam 1974 tv series ran for three seasons but it feels so long and shows up so late in the game so so for anybody who doesn't know uh shazam's a dc property yes currently uh and it's basically it's a the comic book version he's a little orphan boy yep and he meets a wizard named Shazam yep and Shazam sees that he's pure of heart

and he decides to give Billy Batson a little bit of magic and so when when Billy says a magic word Shazam he gains the powers of

he what he does is he gains the powers of five mythological gods and one biblical king. Solomon.

Hercules. Atlas. Zeus. Achilles. Mercury. Mendelssohn. Ben Mendelssohn. And then he becomes like a big, tough, strong guy called Captain Marvel.

Yeah. Right? And you might think there's no way you could make that premise any dumber. But apparently you can because what you do, the dumbest, the way to make this less dumb would be take the wizard out.

But incorrect. Taking the wizard out makes it dumber because in fact, in this version, and they've replaced him with a mentor type character. Yes, who he calls mentor. Called mentor. That's his name, mentor.

And then instead of Billy Batson living his life and then having to rise up and defeat crime what you do is you get billy and mentor to just drive around in a mobile home yes from from from from nowhere town to nowhere town delivering nowhere town to nowhere town usa delivering morally see that's the thing and i or can already tell, we only watched the first episode of this, I can already tell that the point of this show is they go around to little towns and then they encounter some maybe troubled kids or whatever.

And then the show imparts a moral lesson. But I feel moral lesson number one is probably don't drive around in a mobile home with an old man who isn't related to you. Yeah, he's absolutely not related. How does he factor into Billy's life? We don't really know. Maybe it comes up in later episodes. I don't think it does.

But it just opens with, you know, it's got your intro and he gets the powers of whatever. It opens with an intro and then it goes straight to commercial. Straight away. By the way, I bought this DVD. You know what we watched? I ripped this off a DVD at great effort because I don't know what kind of copyright shit was on this DVD. But I i couldn't even get it in sync the version that i sent over to you not that it matters yeah

because it's terrible well i mean that that to me that's very interesting because it's wild to me like i'd never i've never even seen a snippet of this yeah and like because we're we're right in the middle of like superhero fever people are mad for any kind of superhero stuff. I'm like, and Shazam's coming up, the movie. And I'm like, well, why isn't this on? Because it's so bad. It's horrible. It's by Filmation. And I think this was-

They did He-Man? Yeah, they're formerly an animation house. And this was their first foray into live action, I believe. Yeah, and this is pre-Chris Reeve Superman as well. Although there are some- It's not fully live. because when we see the elders, the immortal elders, including King Solomon, they're animated.

Yes. So when Billy has a vision of the elders, they're animated. Or maybe they're just their mouths moving. Yeah, they might be just their mouths. What fascinates me about a lot of shows, and this one falls into this category, is the ages of everybody involved.

Yes. Because the kid who plays Billy looks roughly the same age as the man who plays Shazam. I'm just going to call him Shazam. It's Captain Marvel, but I'm just going to call him Shazam because it's easier. He's legally distinct from any of Marvel's Captain Marvels. Yes, that's right.

It's a whole thing. You can look it up if you want to. The actor who plays Billy, whose name is Michael Gray, he was 23 at the time, and Jason Bostwick, who plays Captain Marvel, is 31. You'd think that he's related to Barry Bostwick, the mayor from Spin City, but he's not. I did not think that. Oh, well, you should have.

Captain Marvel was actually replaced. Sorry, Shazam, or whatever you want to call him, was replaced in a later season, which I'll talk about at the end. There's a fascinating tale. The fact that this got three seasons is astounding to me. Absolutely, it is. What's the narrative, though though of this particular pilot the narrative the narrative basically is uh there are there's there's a bunch of kids yeah and there's there's

four kids there's three bad apples and one kind of good nice good right and he's not that good no he's not that none of them are and they're the three kids are like we're gonna get into some trouble we're gonna steal a car right and the other kid's like i don't know if i want to do that and then they're like well we're gonna bring you into our world of trouble and you're a chicken right and you're a chicken exactly and so he goes like an arrested development version of chicken as well if you don't know none of them know what a chicken is the thing nobody in this is a good actor no everybody in it's bad all the kids bad, which is acceptable because they're kids. Yep.

I guess, especially in the 70s. But all the adult actors are bad as well. Even Mentor. Even Mentor. The Mentor character is bad at acting. You'd think he'd be a seasoned actor at this point. But you're not. No.

But this show, I feel, was done way on the cheap. Yeah. I can already tell, based just on this first episode, that Billy Batson is always going to wear the same clothes in every episode yes because they have a scene they have a transformation scene where he transforms into shazam and they always they never want to do a new version yeah so it's always just going to be the stock version so he always has to wear his his red sweater yeah and he's in his yellow shirt or whatever it is so the plot point of this is though also can i point out one other thing? Of course.

Is that in the opening sequence where we see the kids, they're milling around. I think maybe this is a function of just it's from the 70s or maybe it is just because it was really cheap, but they're just milling around in a parking lot outside like a 7-Eleven or something. It looks like the opening of Clerks or something. Yeah, but you can just hear all the background noise.

Like there's no re-dubs or anything like that. It's just you can just hear like horns honking in the background and just wind rushing through whatever this it's not a closed set or anything it's just like and they're just like should we cut that out nah why would we do you want to redub any of this no we definitely won't uh-huh yeah so but the way that billy finds out what's going on is he kind of has a weird he goes into some kind of coma or lapse no no first of all he looks at a weird crystal ball answering machine yes that's right inside the middle of the mobile right i forgot and it's got like it's like a studded it's like it's like one of those studded rubber balls

you throw to dogs yes you got the little things on the ends but they glow and flash and he looks at that and he says a little phrase about communing with the gods or something and then it rhymes and then he then he sees a vision of these animated immortals and and they and they give him like you listen this might come up soon but there's a there might be some people who need they've led astray and they don't want to do the wrong thing and by soon do you mean today do you mean in the next 15 minutes because that's gonna happen also i feel like you know way more than you're letting on so maybe just spill the beans completely what's your goal here why does he need the mentor why do i need a lesson surely the kids do maybe you should be like hey there's some kid and there's a kid and he's uh his friends are telling him to do stuff he doesn't want to do maybe you should

tell him specifically this kid his name's charlie or something go to him specifically and tell him here are the coordinates so we can just zap you there because we're gods no just driving your mobile home i should mention as well, so there is a car, they end up stealing the car and Billy goes after one of the kids, the kid who is not the bad kid. They're all bad in a way.

There's a long foot chase. Don't worry, they all learn a lesson. Oh, by the way, there's work being done at the back of my house. That's an angle grinder. I can't do anything about it. Now that's me angle grinding one of my feet off because I want to escape this.

I stayed up late after I watched this. I sent it to you. You sent it to me and I watched it. And then I just couldn't sleep just thinking about how terrible this was. So when they first come across the kid, there's a foot chase. And the whole time I'm thinking, you can transform into a superhero. You don't need to do a foot chase. Why is Billy doing a foot chase?

Why don't you just turn into a superhero and fly and catch this kid? But it's just this extended, maybe three minute foot chase why don't you just turn into a superhero and fly and catch this kid but it's just this extended maybe three minute foot chase yeah right through the suburbs and you see every angle and every you see it's a real-time foot chase yeah and it's it ends with billy pushing the kid out of the way of the car which was being stolen where he nearly was run over so they ran in a circle i guess i guess they did but you also notice he pushes him off screen and then there's clearly an edit point and then the car like whips by

you can see there's a slight change yeah when that edit takes place I had another thought about the gods yeah because they're like

you might encounter some trouble and you're gonna have to really have a think about it and see what you can do anyway here's some wise words from Shakespeare's Hamlet

yeah you're a god you don't have anything better than Hamlet. And it's to thine own self be true, I guess, which is, yeah, a classic bit of Shakespeare. You could just say, just be true to yourself. Just be true to yourself. You know, I assume Shakespeare got that from one of the gods.

He almost certainly did. He also, Billy also rolls his ankle in this chase. He does, yeah. So he's limping back to the car. Again, you don't need to be doing any of this on foot the old man's driving around in a van you're running on foot yeah and you can change it to a god and you have six gods who can back you up and you're five gods and a king five gods and a king sorry i apologize five greeks and an israelite is what he's got in him all right

i love though after he loses the kid in the chase he he's like, forget the kid, he's a bad egg, I don't want to do it. And then the mentor's like, well, wasn't there a lesson that we had 15 minutes ago? And he's like, oh, yeah, maybe that's the kid who said he was going to be influenced by his friends to steal cars. Also, the way they steal cars in the 70s, and maybe this is just indicative of the time, they would just leave their windows down

and leave their keys in the ignition. They go to the supermarket. I guess they just get out and leave the door swinging open. Isn't that astounding? That's amazing. But I see that's the thing because we weren't around in the 70s. Was this a thing? FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship

between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. ...thing that actually happened, or was this some bizarre artistic license on behalf of filmmakers and tv makers back in the day yeah because i'm in every like there's so many movies even terminator 2 a movie where i that i really love where somebody goes to steal a car and then one guy's like trying to hotwire it and the other guy just like pulls down the sun visor and there

is a spare key or they'll pull up the mat like the front door of a house and the keys guy just pulls down the sun visor and there's a spare key in there. Or they'll pull up the front door of a house and the key's under the mat. Who does that? Why would you? Also, your fake rock looks like a fake rock. It looks like a fake rock. So what I'm saying is, in the 70s, did people watch this show and be like,

why would you leave your keys in the car? Was there the equivalent of us? Were there two dudes on CB radios back in the day being like, who would leave your keys in the ignition? But yeah, twice they steal two cars same day same day and they both have keys in the ignition which i think is incredible and so when they catch up with this kid though billy's like listen i know you're a good kid uh he also the kid gets his bike stolen he's like well i guess because the other kids like the other kids lead him astray they don't don't lock your

bike up nerd yeah and he's like okay i won't lead him astray. Don't lock your bike up, nerd. Nerd, yeah. And he's like, okay. I won't. I won't. Oh, my bike got stolen. Here's the thing, though. Dangling plot thread. What happened to the bike?

We don't find out. Yeah, that's right. Maybe we find out in a subsequent episode. That's true. Ares has become a bike. The god of war, Ares, has become a bike thief. He chooses to get in the van with a 23-year-old and a 65-year-old man to go, let's go to the police station and inquire about your bike.

Yeah, we'll help you out. No problem. Get in our mobile home. What are you doing? There's plenty of room for a dungeon in it. What is anybody doing? Did you notice it has the Shazam logo in the front? I didn't notice that.

That's the only concession to it being any kind. Well, I guess besides the crystal ball, the only concession to it being any kind. Well, I guess besides the crystal ball, the only concession to it being a superhero headquarters of any kind. The front panel's been taken out. It's got like a red piece of plastic with a lightning bolt logo on it. I did not know that. So it's not even like the Batmobile. You can't even get a custom car made or like a car that you could kit out.

Like the DeLoreans changed. Yeah, right. Come on. Yeah, right. So it's at the 15-minute mark and 45 seconds, we finally get Shazam rocking up. And let me tell you, Mason, it is absolutely not worth it. No.

So and how it happens is the kids steal the second car and they're driving away. Do they hotwire it? No, the keys are in it again of course i was like have you taken it no you get it uh and and what they and the other kids are like i don't want to be any part of this but they like hit him in the head and they they bundle him into the car but then mentors like i can't catch up with him within this you better turn into captain marvel first of all he did it earlier he caught up with him in the motorhome earlier.

Why is this any different? He can't, Mason. All cars in the 70s drove at like 35. Same speed. Same speed. So why couldn't he? But anyway, in this... They all handled the same.

Then he's like, all right, we... Like a pile of bricks. You've got to get out and you've got to turn into Captain Marvel. And he says Shazam and he turns into Captain Marvel. First of all, you're're right absolutely not worth it second of all the stock footage of him flying is atrocious oh my god so it's blue screen he's clearly lying on something just a flat box just a flat box a flat blue box and there's also a bit where he also flies at like weird angles like weird 45 degree angles so when he's flying down to the ground the angle that they've got him

at is it right like it doesn't yeah and then and then other times they've just filmed his top half and i think they must have strapped him to the bonnet of a car and just filmed him from the ground yeah and it's also like it's so stock that the shot of him flying he's clearly flying over a major city yeah and then it cuts back to this little podunk town in the middle of nowhere. Like you can see skyscrapers. Yeah. And then at one point, one point the kids look up and they go, oh my God, it's Captain Marvel. And then you see the shot of Captain Marvel above the clouds.

Like completely invisible to anybody on the ground, obviously. But they're like, oh, there he is. There is a moment early on in the fly where just a white completely white cloud just blinks in behind him yes so there's kind of it's a bit of blue sky a bit of cloud that it's just like bang yeah like it's clearly just we can't we've run out of footage let's just yeah right not even a fade into the cloud just bang white cloud so you chase them into a junkyard yeah they just they they pile out of their car and get into another empty van yes which immediately which is less creepy than shazam's van i believe so yes even that's abandoned fill the spiders probably it gets immediately picked up by a claw yes so it's going to get wrecked it

doesn't actually end up getting wrecked it just gets placed on a pile so i don't think the kids were ever in any real danger here's the thing thing. And I think this is probably what, what's, what is probably most essential to realize about this show is there's no reason for Captain Marvel to be in it. At no point did the abilities of Captain Marvel, let's say we were in this position, right?

First of all, I probably wouldn't have chased the kid in the first place, like when he was running. So he wouldn't have gotten away of the car in the first place. Sure. So that wouldn't have been an issue. Secondly, just follow him in your van. Yep.

Your horrific dungeon motorhome. Secondly, if they go into a junkyard and their van's about to be picked up by a claw and then crushed into a cube. Yeah. I'd just go, hey, the guy controlling this probably stopped. There's kids in it. There's's kids in there and he'd go oh you're a good point actually i will yeah i'm gonna have a break i'm just gonna leave my keys in this machine i'm gonna have a sandwich so what so what happens is so what happens is the kids get in the kids get in the van the the claw grabs it and lifts it into the air and then captain marvel

shows up and he grabs the van by the bumper and he drags it all the way down to the ground and the kids leap out. And then he lets it go. I wish he was crushed under it. Yeah, and then it just zooms back in the air again. Again, you'd think the guy in the... Is he not watching? The guy in the crane would be like, what happened? Who's that guy?

Why am I still doing my job at all? There's a maniac loose. And the funny thing is when he gets them down he gives them a talking to in a noticeable southern drawl I thought

boy does he also he looks like Zac Efron's dad yes except little bit of trivia Zac Efron is 31

which is the same age as the actor playing Shazam in this when it was filmed but he's like you shouldn't be stealing things

and whatever and the three kids are like I guess he wasn't chicken he was cool to stick up for what was right and he's like, you shouldn't be stealing things and whatever. And the three kids are like, I guess he wasn't chicken. He was cool to stick up for what was right. And he's like, by the way, the police are on their way.

He doesn't even let him go. No, he doesn't. He's like, this is the police's problem now. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they've learned a lesson. Nah, fuck you. That's right.

You're right. Yeah, exactly. It's like, are we going to get, are we going to go to jail? And he's like, well, that's up to the juvenile corrections officers. But yes. Yeah, you. It's like, we're going to go to jail. And he's like, well, that's up to the juvenile corrections officers. But yes.

Yeah, you definitely are. So that's the episode pretty much. Also, there's two commercial breaks after the end of the episode. Then there's a black screen for about 30 seconds. And then there's the credits. Yes. So I'm kind of waiting for something to happen. And nothing happens.

Yeah, and it's also that era where they went, Shazam will return after these messages. And you go, oh, good, more Shazam. Yeah. And then it's like, now back to Shazam. Credits. We tricked you into watching commercials. That's right. Yeah.

So here's some trivia, Mason. Okay. The actor Jason Bostwick was dismissed two installments into the second season and replaced by John Davey, who looks mostly the same. It doesn't really matter. Bostwick had not shown up for a day's shooting, and the producers accused him of holding out for a higher salary. You thought you were going to get $60 a day, well, you're going to have to stick with $50 a day.

Bostwick explained that he had sustained an injury during the previous day's filming and had gone to seek medical treatment. In an interview, he stated, I was at a doctor's office having my face and eye examined for an injury that I incurred during a stunt on the previous day. Oh. It was for a flying sequence where the stunt boxes hadn't been reset properly.

So he was injured in a stunt for the TV show Shazam. That he was on. He was on, went to the doctors the next day, was late, and they went, fuck him, fired. Yeah, right. He actually successfully litigated against a filmation and they were forced to pay him for the remainder of the contract. Wow.

Now he owns He-Man. Now he owns He-Man. So that's the 70s for you. Also, fun little fact here, Jason Bostwick, he met his first wife, Sherry Williamson, when she was a 17-year-old beauty pageant contestant and Jackson was a judge. Oh. There was a 15 to 16 age gap between them.

Oh, boy. So there you go. This says that one of the voices is Adam West. Get out of here. But I don't know which one. I guess it's one of the gods. He's the bleepity bloop machine. Oh, he's the bleepity bloop machine.

All right. Final fun fact for you yep from 1975 to 1977 this show was known as the Shazam ISIS hour because Shazam teamed up with a terrorist group

fantastic that's actually not true it was the Egyptian superhero in ISIS but hey how could it be any worse how could it be I couldn't ask

man look I have all of these episodes so if anybody wants us to come back. If there's a particular highlight, if there's a best of episode. If any of the mysteries of this first episode are unraveled and in the subsequent episodes, like why Mentor is around, why they can't just fly about or teleport instead of having to use a motorhome. Why can't they just have a whole lot of guns?

Yes. That solves crime. Does he team up with any other superheroes? Does he meet? He wouldn't meet Superman because he didn't know about that already. No, because Superman

was over at making movies, mate. This is in that era. They would have been gearing up for that. Anyway, terrible. But if you do have something to suggest for Caravan of Garbage, anything at all,

could be a video game, comic, TV show, movie, whatever. We'll give it a bloody look-see, won't we, Mason? We'll give it a little look-y-loo. There's videos here every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, so subscribe for that.

Also, we have a podcast called the weekly planet where we talk movies and comics and tv shows we're doing an episode on the new shazam movie which i have not seen at the time of filming this but let me tell you it's better it's absolutely better than this every single way oh wait i've looked ahead a little bit episode four a woman is concerned about her brother gary so maybe that one watch that that one. We've watched that one. It's episode four. So that could range from anything from Gary has a foot problem

or Gary is a murderer. He has an axe. He's killed 14 children in the neighborhood. We don't know. We just don't know. But a woman is concerned. Definitely.

Alright guys, thanks for watching. Grab that gem you guys. We'll see you next week. Goodbye. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

I mean, if you want. It's up to you. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost.

FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+.