This Paranormal Life - #257 The Superman CURSE

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

For an actor in 2022, getting cast as a comic book superhero is a fast-track to international celebrity and a life of luxury, but throughout history that wasn't always the case. Getting cast as DC Comic's Superman could have deadly and tragic consequences. Are the mysterious effects of working on Superman movies pure chance? Or does Superman's history hide a dark past that has cursed the role to this day?Grab your EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal by going to https://nordvpn.com/tpl or use the code tpl to get a Huge Discount off your NordVPN Plan + 1 additional month for free + a bonus gift! It’s completely risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!Buy Official TPL Merch! -  thisparanormallife.com/storeSupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to bonus episodes!Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmEdited by Giles Bidder of Mighty Moon Media: [e-mail] by Amy GrisdaleIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can vampires fly? Are potatoes too delicious to have originated on Earth? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hello! Hey! And welcome to This Paranormal Life. This is the weekly comedy podcast where me, Kit Greer-Molvena, and this guy sitting across from me, Rory Powers, investigate a different paranormal case every week and get to the bottom of whether it's truly paranormal or not. How are you doing today, Rory? Doing great. We're in a new studio today, so hopefully things are sounding really fresh. Shout out to our friends at Warner, who let us come in and use their swanky podcast studio.

Pretty cool stuff. Normally, we've mentioned in the podcast before, we are little rat goblins. We've almost never, despite being professional podcasters, almost never recorded anywhere other than a spare bedroom or something like that. So this is really nice. It's nice to get a taste of how the other half live, let me tell you.

For this week's episode, we are winding back the clock to the glitz and glamour of 1940s Hollywood. Oh, yeah. Here we go. If you're going to spend two hours talking about ghosts and goblins, you might as well have a martini in your hands and a tux on your back. Listening to some smooth jazz. Doing lines of 1940s blow. That was before they knew how to cut in the impurities, so...

Yeah, back then, doctors were prescribing cocaine, I'm pretty sure, so everyone was doing it. Now, back then, Kirk Allen was a young and struggling actor. He'd come up as a singer and dancer on the vaudeville stage and had been in a couple of musicals. But like all young actors in Hollywood, he was hungry for more. So when the phone rang one day, he raced to answer it.

It was his old school Hollywood agent. Hello? Hey, Kirk. How's it going? Good, Walt. What's up? What do you mean, what's up? You called me. Have you been mixing up your medication again? The blue ones are for the night time. Stop taking them during... For the day, I know, I know.

No, I remember. I did call you. I've got you an audition. What? Where? It's a big one, too. Great. What for, though? What? What are we talking about again? I'm going to strangle you, old man. Oh, yeah, the big audition. Be down at the studio at 9 a.m. You ain't gonna believe it. It's gonna be super.

Frustrated and intrigued, Kirk said yes to the meeting and showed up at the agreed time. He took a seat in the waiting room full of men that looked just like him. Tall, broad-shouldered, with shiny, dark hair. The young receptionist was calling each auditionee into the room. Um, they're ready for you, Mr. Allen. He walked into the room to see a table lined with cigarette-smoking men in crisp suits. Katzmann, you were right. He's the spitting image of Clark Kent. That's when you know you've aced the audition before you've even opened your mouth. Yeah, you're that hot that they were basically floored when you walked in the room because you look like Superman. That's a lot better

than like walking in and you're like my god christopher you're right he's the the perfect person for shit-eating peasant number three it's like well come on these are my human clothes i didn't agree to the role yet because if i had known it was going to be shit-eating peasant number three i probably wouldn't have driven three hours to get here you just walk into the room they all start applauding ladies and gentlemen we found our troll you haven't even told me what the movie is and you're saying i'm the troll oh it's really just a name it's he's actually a pretty cool character you're gonna love playing him hard cut to you on set dressed in a troll outfit. Boils covering your face. Between takes, they're just chucking buckets of mud over you.

All right, this is excessive. Come on, he said cut. Why could I possibly need another bucket of mud? I went to RADA. I went to RADA and now I'm the troll. The director completely blanking you. Just make sure that troll stays moist. Don't let him dry out.

I can't stress this enough. He needs to smell like shit. How? This is a film. They can smell it. Of course, to me and you, Rory, someone saying you look like the spitting image of Clark Kent means a lot today, but meant a little bit less back then.

Kirk didn't fully understand. That's true, yeah. Clark Kent from the kids comic? Is this what this audition is for? Little did Kirk know that he was in a room full of executives from DC Comics who were about to change his life forever. But not before they had some unusual requests of him that, as a desperate actor, Kirk was more than willing to fulfill. And this was the 1940s, so they were getting away with a lot of wild shit. Can you take off your shirt, son? Oh yeah, that's good.

Flex those muscles. Okay. Come on, don't be shy now. Now, how about your pants? Let's get those off too. So there he was, in his underpants, posing like a Greek god. All the while, feeling a little foolish. And his embarrassment was about to skyrocket when the door opened and a beautiful young woman stepped into the room. Say, Kirk, this is Linda.

Do us a favor and pick her up, would you? He didn't miss a beat. He dutifully lifted her up and threw her over his shoulder. Okay, great. Now, do you think you could walk up a staircase like that? Walk? I could run. And with that, he dashed out of the room and leapt up the stairs in the far corner with Linda draped over him like a scarf. He hasn't said a line yet. He hasn't acted yet or read a single part of a script. There's no way that all of these aspects could be important enough to the role. Listen, when you play shit-eating peasant number three for three years consecutively in your local renaissance fair production of shit-eating peasant goes to the big city, they know you can act.

They know that your method, they know that you went to Rata. Right. I guess so. I don't know. I feel like they should at least get him to do a bit of acting if they're going to cast him in what is seemingly quite a huge role. Right. At the end of this entire audition, they're like, so all it takes, Kirk, is for you to sign the dotted line. He's like, I'm Albanian. I don't speak English. Needless to say, the executives were impressed and cast Kirk Allen as the very first actor in the role of

Superman. Wow. What a goddamn time in history, right? Sometimes it's hard to imagine what life was like in our stories, but weirdly in 2022, we knew exactly what it does to someone's life when they get cast as a superhero. Yeah. Now, granted, things might've been a little bit different back at this point where superhero movies weren't really as much of a thing. I've watched a lot of those very early budget superhero movies. And yeah, I don't know if that role would carry the same level of gravitas as it does today. Maybe not. But to be honest, back then, it was also like a lot of a smaller world.

There was less movies being produced. Granted, yeah, I don't know if it means that like these days it feels like you can buy an island after being a superhero, but I'm sure you were widely known across America. At least to a lot of kids. I think I've said it before on the podcast. Not a joke. I just worked on a movie one time years ago. You'll get an idea of how many years ago it was when i say that there's a couple big movie stars on the project and then one of the sound man took me aside at one point and was like hey you see that kid over there who's playing like the son of the main character his name's tom holland he actually just got the contract to be the next spider-man i was like what that little

kid i could beat his ass they were like it's not about who could beat whose ass you're a grown man you shouldn't want to beat, anyway. He went on to earn a couple of dollars, as you can imagine, Rory Powers. And you went on to become the Green Goblin. You truly did. You took that to heart, that sound engineer saying you couldn't beat Tom Holland.

And now you travel around East London on a glider. Where are you, Tommy? He doesn't know you exist. I think he lives in Los Angeles now. Remember me? You take off the mask like, no one knows who you are. Remember me, the trainee assistant director from a project in

2011? Not really. He just signs your glider and keeps walking. No! Yeah! I roll a decommissioned World War II grenade. It explodes the moment it leaves my fingers. I'm covered in black soot.

We should really, we should have more enemies I think. Even if they're just rival podcasts. Maybe we don't know who they are yet, but we're definitely the Wario and Waluigi of two existing podcasters. I feel like that's just a law of the universe, isn't it?

That you are someone's Wario. Yeah. In the same way that everyone on Earth probably has a doppelganger somewhere in some far off continent. You also have a Wario and a Luigi. And if you're lucky, a Princess Peach. In our case, as I say, as podcasters, we are trolls, we are goblins. We are far more likely to be someone's Wario than Princess Peach. Yes.

I have six Warios yet to get a Princess Peach or a Toad. And so, this debut Superman feature came out in 1948. And by all accounts, it was a roaring success. Whoa! That is so long ago i really didn't think superman was that old 1946 1948 that's just after the war yeah i think it's i think they in the same way that movies today have to wait till lockdown ends to release their movies they had to wait for the world war to end in order to release their movie. That's insane. Oh my God.

Makes you wonder like how long the comics have been around for. Christ. Due to its success, the production team got going on the sequel immediately. And Atom Man versus Superman hit screens in 1950.

Whoa! This was Kirk's big break. The name Kirk Allen was going to be up in lights. But even after making two smash hits, playing Superman was the only taste of stardom he would ever get. He went to audition after audition, but never again scored a leading role. He barely worked again as long as he lived. In every movie studio across town, the same conversation played out.

What about this guy? Uh, Kirk Allen? Who? The Superman guy? No way! No audience on Earth would take him seriously. Next! So rude. This is people's lives you're dealing with. Yeah. Like, I'm sorry, movie executive bigwig. When have you ever acted in

anything? I know, and like, what do you mean they'll not take him seriously? He was acting playing Superman, so he can probably act as somebody else it's not like he's gonna show up to your movie about work on wall street in tights and a onesie with a red cape he's gonna be in a different outfit saying different lines yeah he is a proven track record of success i don't know what you want, but we know this is a real thing, getting typecast. That's, to be fair, yeah. Just look at pretty much anyone who was in the Lord of the Rings movies.

Yeah, had a very hard time. A lot of those guys didn't really come back from that, and not in like a huge way. Look at us, like even me. You know, I show up to audition for Captain America before Chris Evans for the movies, and already, you know, sure, to audition for uh captain america before chris evans for the movies and

already you know sure there was a couple other things like oh he's four foot seven he's got a beer belly he he i knocked out the assistant at the front desk to just get in the room surely that all these things would have been caught at like the casting process no because i just i just clocked the dude in the jaw, bolted towards the stairs, kind of jammed the door shut so nobody could get in. That actually set production back a couple months because you actually also hit Chris Evans,

who was in the waiting room. In my defense, I didn't hit him, all right? I threw hot coffee in his eyes. And that was the only way that he was blinded for a split second. I made it into the room. Well, it wasn't a split second they had to push back

production a couple months he couldn't see so quite serious well he's not that super a soldier is he if he can't handle scolding coffee to the eyes because I'm pretty sure

the Nazis did that shit in the second world war you can't handle that but my point being just because you burnt your tongue on the way to the studio and you've been complaining

about it for the last two months well it was a hot tea okay and I underestimated it and yeah I got an ouchie on my tongue so if that had been your eyes i don't think you would have liked it my point being just because i host a comedy paranormal podcast i was not even considered for the role but because people like me they didn't and people like kurt you get pigeon hole kirk not kirk i don't care you get stuck and you get you get typecast in these roles and no one thinks that i can be considered as a serious actor which is just

not accurate while there are holes and everything you just said because i don't think it was anything to do with the fact you're a podcaster and everything to do with what the four foot seven and the beer belly um but i do agree because yeah i good for one on the spot auditioned to tom holland for the role of spider man uh and even as a child he was actually he's extremely wise and copus mentis even as a child actor and he said hey man this is a really strange thing to do you're probably going to lose your job if you keep this up um yeah also weird to pitch yourself as spider-man to spider-man because that's a role that's taken by the man you're pitching it to. I thought that when he saw how much better I would be, he would relinquish the role to me.

Yeah. And he said, I'll throw you a bone here. I know they're looking for a green goblin. You would be perfect for the role. I said, over my hot coffee. Yeah. And I threw hot coffee in his face. That was why he didn't star as Spider-Man for a few years after that.

Yeah. And we will never work again because we have restraining orders. You'd be amazed at how many people in the industry, film, television, podcasts, we've thrown coffee in their faces. It's kind of like our calling card, so you will. So, you know, if you ever go into a room and there are individuals in there with a coffee stained shirt you best believe we were there a few minutes earlier one time i actually got a roll and i just was so unused to hearing it i threw the coffee anyway you were actually first choice for aquaman before jason momoa and before they could shake your hand you freaked out and threw a latte in the producer's face. It's just force of habit at this point.

All that working out for nothing. Unbelievable. Kit, congratulations. You got the job. Yeah! Sorry, wait, no, what did you say? I got it? He can't speak.

You scalded his vocal cords. But Rory, we're about to see that whilst our luck is truly terrible on account of our foul illegal actions it wouldn't even pale to kirk's luck so this goes worse than just not getting cast in other movies eventually he was given the role of lois lane's father in the 1987 iteration of the franchise also named superman but you can tell there's quite a big gap between the 50s and the 1980s uh which indicates how little he worked wait he was given the role of the father of the woman that superman dates yeah it's like an easter egg the idea is it's he was unrecognizable at that point okay got it which is so cruel they had to wait till like now we have to wait till no one knows who you are anymore

and then we'll give you a job. Right. And three years after that, he was cast in a parody production titled Superb Man. His on-screen appearance lasted mere seconds. His once promising career was in tatters as soon as it began

and Kirk Allen died in anonymity on the 14th of March, 1999, divorced and suffering with health issues. Oh man, poor guy. This is tragic, I know, but I'm not just trying to make our listeners cry. This is an important paranormal tale because the fate that befell Kirk Allen would unfold time and time again throughout history in what has come to be known as the superman curse it's been a while rory but it's a curse episode love it love it especially when it is a curse not being inflicted on us that's always nice sometimes my bad attitude and professionalism feels like a curse but

apparently it's self-inflicted um it's not too unusual for us to investigate a curse ancient mummies handcrafted voodoo dolls and at one point an arcade game but is this maybe the first time we've done a cursed movie role? yeah

we looked into the Wizard of Oz once on a bonus episode and that was kind of a cursed movie production where a lot of things went wrong around the production of this

one movie yeah but aside from that we really haven't covered a cursed role before so this is fresh ground for a lot of things went wrong around the production of this one movie. Yeah, but aside from that, we really haven't covered a cursed role before. So this is fresh ground for a lot of our listeners. Fresh. But you should also go check out The Wizard of Oz one, because it was a, well, let's be honest, it was a mess.

It was a mess of an episode. But it was a very funny one. It was great. I think there's a bit where we address the fact that in one of the background shots, there's allegedly one of the munchkins hung themselves from a tree. So you should definitely go check it out. That was a nonsense episode. Yeah, I think that episode, we, for some reason,

decided that The Wizard of Oz was a Disney movie, and we talked at length about how Walt Disney was responsible for the curse, and then turned out there's nothing to do with him whatsoever. A lot of that episode was research I'd done into Walt Disney. And then I think directly after we recorded the whole thing, I was like, you know, he wasn't involved in the movie at all. It's like, that's what they want you to think. I'm pretty sure he was pulling the strings.

It's a real research low point for this paranormal life. Getting back to today's episode. That's right. We're looking at a paranormal curse. But if you don't think Walt has his grubby little puppet hands in this story, you're sadly mistaken. And you may have guessed that while Kirk Allen may have been the first Superman to fall foul of this curse, he was by no means the last. After Kirk's debut as Superman in the 40s, a man named George Reeves was cast as the hero in 1951's Superman and the Mole Men and its TV spin-off. It does seem like there's no way they ran out of premises for superhero movies that quickly.

Yeah, straight to Mole Men? Apparently, that's what it was called. Now, the filming schedule was grueling for this thing. He had to become a f***ing mole. No, not really. They threw together a minimum of two full episodes of this show every six days. Naturally, George became an overnight celebrity as soon as the series aired. He saw himself as a role model to children and was careful not to curse or smoke or philander in public.

He worked tirelessly to raise money for charity and made PSA films to teach children about economics. Wow, that is so wholesome. That's the exact person that you want. Someone who just loves and embodies the persona of Superman. Yeah, not f***ing Tom Holland. All right. What does he do? Let's not bad mouth Tom. I'm pretty sure he's a really nice guy.

Has he taught any children economics? Pretty sure I've taught more children economics. Sure, by selling them weed. Okay. Well, you must know that that's not a good thing. I shouldn't say that on mic, should I? No, that you've sold drugs to children? No.

Let me backtrack. That's not very Spider-Man of you. And that's definitely not very Superman of you either. Yeah, he normally busts the drug dealers, right? Yeah. It is legal in a lot of states, though. You have punched a lot of moles, though, coincidentally. I am a lot like Superman. You're right. I don't know why that seems so strange to me, making movies for kids about economics. I just so expected the end of that sentence to be who's going to teach them about

saying no to drugs or road safety. Friendship, yeah. But, you know, doing your taxes is very important, too. But just like his, doing your taxes is very important too. But, just like his predecessor, once he'd made his name in the business, he was too closely associated with the Superman franchise to be seriously considered for any other acting work. He pieced together a living making personal appearances in costume. And eight years later, on the 16th of June 1959, George was found dead in his home,

laying next to his own semi-automatic pistol, and so the police ruled the death a suicide. But after further investigation, it turned out George's fingerprints weren't found on the gun at all. All we know is that he had got caught up in some kind of deadly love triangle gone wrong. Yeah. It seems like he was murdered. Oh my gosh. That's awful. And the tragedies,

sadly, kept coming. Famously, Christopher Reeve was Superman between 1978 and 1987, and then in the 90s he was paralyzed during a terrible horse riding accident, passing away in 2004. Even the actor Lee Quigley, who played young Superman in those same movies, died at the age of just 14. And this shows us that the curse doesn't just affect the leading man in these movies, it would affect others too. This became painfully clear in the coming years when it seemed to attack extremely famous actors that had held supporting roles. None other than Godfather star Marlon Brando was cast as Superman's biological father in the Christopher Reeve movies. Marlon Brando is known for being a

pretty successful guy, but even he experienced endless tragedy after his appearance in the Superman movies. His son Christian went to prison for half a decade after he shot his sister's boyfriend. One of his children died, and Brando himself spent the last few years of his life as a recluse. Eventually, he died only within months of Superman star Christopher Reeve. Legendary comedian Richard Pryor joined the cast of Superman 3 in 1983. Three years later, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and died of a heart attack aged 65. Margot Kidder played Lois Lane and suffered from terrible ill mental health, suffering paranoid delusions that meant she went missing at one point. Interestingly,

she was actually very outspoken against the idea of the curse. She was interviewed in 2002 and she said, quote, This is all newspaper-created rubbish. The idea just cracks me up. What about the luck of Superman? Look, when my car crashed back in August, if I hadn't hit a telegraph pole after rolling three times,

I would have dropped down a 50-foot ravine. Why don't people focus on that? Very casually bringing up what sounds like an incredibly devastating car crash. An incredibly unlucky and borderline fatal car crash. Yeah. Look, certainly her luck was no laughing matter. And I guess she has a point,

like any of these situations could always be worse. Totally. But I'm not sure that car crash is the example she thinks it is. No, it's still pretty bad what happened. Even Dana Reeve, Superman's real life wife, died tragically young. And while she didn't appear in the movies, her connection to Superman means many attribute her fate to the same curse. Rory, I think you get the picture of what's going on here.

Something's going on, whether it's on these film sets, whether it's afterwards. I mean, this is the equivalent of, again, let's say Tom Holland filming on a Spider-Man movie, and one by one, the cast are picked off by pumpkin bombs. It feels like there is a villain, a real life villain, masquerading on the Superman set, cursing the actors trying to portray this hero. This is getting a little too close to home for me, and I'm worried that the following information could be legally indicting. I just wanted to scare people. Don't say it. Wait, what? I bought the decommissioned

world war ii grenades on ebay keyword being decommissioned so you knew it wasn't gonna work i thought it wasn't gonna work but sure did i get a kick out of seeing tom holland's beloved movie set going up in flames maybe was it worth going to prison for a couple of years for owning said firearms say no say no right to see the look of fear on tom's face for a split second before he was sure whisked away by security into a black limousine and the grenade exploded into your face filling your lungs with suit from the 1940s which I've been dealing with the health implications of ever since. But to see that moment of fear, yeah, I guess it was worth it. It definitely wasn't, even from just the brief ramifications that you told me about.

You have miner's lung from that grenade. Yeah, and Tom, I don't think he's ever smoked in his life or anything. I think he's like in perfect health. No, he's doing great. Yeah. I think he's dating Zendaya. Not how he's doing great. Yeah. I think he's dating Zendaya. Not how you say her name,

but yes, he is. Must be nice to be Spider-Man. So, well, it's good to know that this like superhero curse, even if it was just

originally refined to Spider-Man, hasn't followed people throughout the years because the cast of the Avengers seem to be doing pretty good for themselves. It's very true.

Much as I have tried to personally curse Tom Holland, it hasn't stuck due to said restraining order. Yeah. And now, time for a quick word from our sponsors. This week's episode is sponsored by NordVPN, a great product to have sponsored the show because I've personally used it long before they decided to sponsor this show. It is body armor for the internet.

There's nothing worse than when you're traveling and having to connect to a weird airport or restaurant Wi-Fi that you don't know if it's secure or not. I do some pretty wild research as a paranormal investigator. I need to keep those secrets safe. That's where NordVPN comes in. Wild stuff. Okay, we get it. Wild. You keep those secrets safe. That's where NordVPN comes in. Wild stuff. Okay, we get it. Wild. You wouldn't believe it. This is what NordVPN is all about, to be fair. Protecting your information online, being able to browse the internet with peace of mind, and being able to access content from all over the world by changing your virtual location.

I'm not saying that my local coffee shop is spying on my internet connection, but the last time I was there researching Atlantis, my barista rode over on a seahorse. So if you want premium cybersecurity and access to global online content, check out NordVPN. And if you work at my local coffee shop, I'm on to you. You better watch out.

You have to stop. Head over to nordvpVPN.com forward slash TPL or use the code TPL at checkout to get a discount on your plan plus one additional month for free and a bonus gift. It's completely risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee.

Thanks, NordVPN. I mean, right off the bat, looking at all the insane tragedy, undoubtedly the amount of tragedy that has befallen the cast of these movies is crazy. Do you think it seems in line with previous curses we've looked at? The way that it works, the people it touches, the speed it acts at? Because we've seen some kind of dubious curses in the past. Yeah, this one is hard to just pin down as a curse, right? Because a lot of the curses that we've handled

that are maybe a little more ancient in their origin, the tragedies that befall people are a little more mysterious. So people will pass away unexpectedly or suffer a mysterious illness or things like that. Whereas by the time you get to like 1940s to 1960s Hollywood, it sounds like some of the tragedies that are occurring from this curse

are just people wrapping their cars around palm trees in West Hollywood, which sure could be attributed to the curse, but also could be attributed to just being a Hollywood star in the middle of a booming industry. We've dealt with this kind of issue before. Paranormal tales get a lot less sexy the more modern you get. Yeah.

They're harder to get excited about and they're easier to poke holes in. Yeah, which is a strange catch because this is a very, very sexy time that we're investigating. But Rory, I'm glad you brought up some of the other curses, their origin being, let's say, that of ancient Egypt. Because what we're missing in all of this is the why. Like, why is there a curse? The movies start with Kirk Allen and he just gets smoked right away. I mean, apparently half of these actors were fantastic people, upstanding role models and citizens. What did they ever do to deserve this kind of fate?

And half the time, curses have purposes. Like if you think of all those Egyptian curses, they were all placed on ancient tombs to ward off grave robbers, to punish people who transgressed them. Well, it seems that we may have a potential origin for the Superman curse. We're going to dial back the clock even further. You said, when did the Superman comic start? We're going to go back to 1933. Wow, is that when it started? This is the age of Superman's creation by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster.

These two penniless creatives had been working odd jobs like delivery guys in the hopes of funding their way to a college education. And they actually pitched their superhero idea for five long years until the fateful day when someone who gave a damn finally listened. Crazy. Imagine me and the person that passed on Superman. Particularly when you see the kind of deal that they got on Superman. They scored a meeting with DC Comics, who loved Superman so much that they paid $130 for it. Wow. Which I looked up. You want to hope that with inflation, this is a real sum of money. It's about $3,000 today. You're kidding me. And they got the rights? Everything? They got

everything. All intellectual property rights. Forever. Because with few other opportunities, these two penniless creatives, I cannot stress enough how penniless they were, they couldn't turn down any cash and they split the money 50-50 even. Now, I don't need to tell you that Superman was worth slightly more than $130 or even $3,000. It very quickly became a global hit and they bitterly regretted parting with the rights and losing out on all the royalties. That's crazy to me. I'd love to know what DC Comics was before Superman. Yeah. Because like, when I think about superman i'm like all right there was nothing before him because someone thought a dude called super man was cutting edge whoa are you kidding me like presumably superman came before batman presumably like we know mole man

came after superman so yeah like we've come a long way from like you know wolverine a man with knife hands who was like an experiment and went to mutant school and i i look i'm not here to diss superman i know he has a very complicated origin story about an alien coming down to earth but on paper he's just a superman he's strong and handsome and he he can fly. He's got a cape. It's very like, yeah, what the **** were they doing before that? Normal man? Business man. Yeah. He's really good at business.

Or maybe it wasn't, I guess maybe like heroes, superheroes weren't a thing before that. So DC Comics was maybe just doing like, just drawing people, doing like newspaper comics, you know? Political ones or like silly kids ones. That would explain if they really only had $130 to pay these guys. Like, hey, we love the idea, but we're broke because no one likes our shit comics. They're mostly about learning to do your taxes. Now, truly, out of the two, Joe Shuster got the raw end of the deal. He was the one who actually drew Superman in the first place

and was never given a fair chunk of the deal. He was the one who actually drew Superman in the first place, and was never given a fair chunk of the massive profits in spite of decades of attempts to recover legal ownership of his creation. That's brutal. By the 1950s, he began to lose his eyesight, which meant he could no longer draw. The only living he could find was that of, again, a delivery man, just like whenever he was a young man. And in an unbelievable turn of irony, one day he was sent to deliver a parcel to the DC head office. News of his appearance in the building reached the CEO, who summoned Schuster up for a meeting.

This isn't going to go well. It just isn't. Look, Joe, in light of your worsening condition, I'd like to make you an offer. Here's a hundred bucks, and I suggest you go find another job to save us all the embarrassment of you coming back here to drop off another package. So rude! He's a supervillain! That's incredibly offensive! He's Lex Luthor!

If you tell a man that, there's going to be another package turning up at your door the next day. Let me tell ya. And it's going to be an ancient Egyptian cursed pharaoh's head. I won't go into too much information, but it's going to be ticking. All right. Wow. That's incredibly. Can you imagine that?

Like having to deliver the mail to the building that your legacy was built on top of. Oh, my God. That's insane. top of. Oh my God. That's insane. That's, oh my God, that would hurt so much. Truly a stronger man than anyone else to just not hurl himself off a building the first year after Superman made it big. Rory, I think we're getting an idea

of why Superman might be cursed. Yeah. This is like a fairy tale. Schuster and Siegel placed a witch's curse on DC Comics. Yeah. This is like a f***ing fairy tale. Schuster and Siegel placed a witch's curse on DC Comics. Wow. That would be a great idea for a movie.

I would watch that movie about the rights to Superman. Bro. That would be really cool. Your lawyer is like, so the Schuster and Siegel estate have asked for their share

of the royalties. F*** off. Those old bats. They're not getting a penny. We get cursed. It's like, oh, fine. Okay. a penny we get cursed it's like oh fine okay tell them we'll have a meeting with them um susan can i get a boiling hot pot of coffee in my office please no no you can't because we all know what you're gonna do with it because you threw it in my face last time you said it wasn't boiling enough schuster and siegel continued with their

campaign to get their fair share of the profits. And more than 30 years after the original deal, DC Comics finally granted each of them a yearly pension of $20,000. And within another 20 years, the two men passed away. Wow. This is a big thing in the creative industry, especially the comic book industry,

with this huge resurgence where a lot of characters that were created a long time ago and were very obscure are now huge and they're now massive. And it's like, okay, yes, that success and that money

does go to the people who own the rights, the people who are playing those characters. But just like this, the creators or the people that are playing those characters. But just like this, the creators or the people that originally drew some of these characters or wrote some of the stories that these now huge movies are based on don't see any of the money. And it's like morally is not right. You know, that's like, uh, if we did an episode of our podcast and someone was like, that was really funny.

I'm going to actually, I'm going to do a, make a movie based on that. And then we don't see a penny of it. Or like if Tom Holland makes a million dollars. You have to stop. Sorry, let me finish. There's no way that this is relevant. Obviously I was standing right there and I would have been much better at it. And honestly, I think he was taking some of my

shine. He saw me doing that training assistant work and he was like, that guy's got some spider moves that I'm going to use in my next. He definitely didn't think that. I think so. Was my analogy not enough? I think when I bent down to tie my laces, I did a cool little spidery pose that he probably recycled into a hit movie. I know that he didn't. And what you're saying now has literally nothing to do with the point that I was making about copyright. You are 100% right. The problem as well is these IPs get bought up by huge corporations.

Board members and shareholders, turns out, aren't very interested in just giving away cash to people they don't need to. Yeah. Legally speaking. Tight-fisted. Is the word we're looking for here. And no one's fist is tighter than that of Superman's. All right?

Because he could crush a sun in his palm. Due to the reduced gravity of Earth compared to his home planet. Of Krypton. Is that right? Kryptonite is what makes him weak. Yeah, I think confusingly, they're like one and the same, right? I think it is Krypton. But what we're saying is as paranormal consultants, we should be saying, no, you have a moral duty,

nay, a financial duty to avoid curses. Curses are expensive. Yeah. Curses will ruin an entire studio. You should have just paid this person off. That's why I believe every movie company, even in today's climate, should have a wizard on staff. You got your health and safety guy, make sure nobody gets hurt. You got your caterers to make sure there's food everywhere. You need a wizard to make sure that there's no curses flying around your set, because that's going to be costly. You want to talk about saving money. How much does it cost to pay a little wizard to sit around and just go oh guys uh yeah don't um um um don't actually read those latin words uh this part of the script because that is real and that will make uh that will make a demon pop out and take

this whole place down so yeah stay away from that i like the idea that this wizard is just creating work for himself to justify his values like oh you know those big latin signs i just put up everywhere yeah don't read those yeah that's very dangerous don't read that why'd you bring them to is just creating work for himself to justify his values. Like, oh, you know those big Latin signs I just put up everywhere? Yeah, don't read those. Yeah. That's very dangerous. Don't read that. Why'd you bring them to work then?

Guys, I'm missing a box of toads. I was giving you stuff for the potion. Has anyone seen the toads? No? All right. I'm going to have to stay late. This is going to cost you guys. This is going to cost you.

Because you can't find your toads? You're going to want the toads, honestly. For the finale, you're going to want the toads. Because if I don't have the toads, then no one will be here to eat the flies and the flies are cursed and i feel like you're not really doing your job because i walked under a ladder and shit myself so yeah no i took a look at that curse it's a powerful magic nothing i can do about it what rory we have got a cut and dry example of an explanation for this curse now researcher, researcher Amy points out that one definition of a curse is,

quote, an invocation of evil against someone that violates a contract. Okay. It seems to me there's every chance that this horrible streak of misfortune all began with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster being screwed out of the money that they deserved for designing Superman

in the first place. Right. They were like, you're not going to pay us? Well, ka-cha. Here's your curse. Anytime you try not going to pay us? Well, ka-cha. Here's your curse. Anytime you try and make money off of my IP, I'm going to take down your leading man, your leading lady. It was started with some bad juju. Now, of course, there are various supermen and plenty of people involved in the various productions that haven't been affected yet.

We're all worried sick about Henry Cavill, for example. Yeah, oh man. And fascinatingly, to that point, this really isn't a theory that only exists on Reddit or something. Like I'm not trying to big up something that isn't actually talked about. This Superman curse is widely known throughout the movie industry with various actors and producers who either believe it or don't. And at least for a time, actors involved in new Superman movies would be regularly questioned by the press about the curse and whether they were worried about it. So a bunch

of actors have personally come out and said, look, I think it's dumb. I'm really excited to play Superman. I'm not worried about it. I guess at that point, you know, if you're an up and coming actor and you get cast in that role, even if you did think the curse was real it's probably worth rolling the dice yeah if you got cast as the lead in the new hobbit movies like hey just so you know uh when we shot the original three just so you know the ring is real don't put the ring on yeah it's like we will be asking you to wear it uh for a few very brief moments during the scene but um they can see you the dark legion siren's dark legion can see you when you wear it so on is real he is against the movie out of principle because we do not portray him in a good light um so yeah just something just something to think about but the oscars are coming up and

we really think this is going to be a smash. You'd think twice, right? You'd think twice. Maybe if the payout was that good, if you could take the ring on and off fast enough, I'd maybe do it. A hundred percent. If the Superman curse is as incompetent as I am at cursing Tom Holland, you could be fine. Okay.

You didn't curse Tom Holland. I tried to. You know, it's always possible too,, that the more recent Supermen have been safe because of the deal made between DC and the original creators. You know, they said, hey, we'll give you $20,000 a year until you die to pay you for Superman. Did that do it? Did that, like, set the record straight and end the curse?

Yeah, I mean, any experiences that we have with curses, for them to be resolved, it usually would involve something to do with the origins of the curse, whether that's returning the artifact from whence it came. It's usually not just paying the money, paying the fine. The original problem was cash. I guess that's true, yeah.

So it's just like, yeah, we'll just pay you the money that we kind of owe with inflation. you go a modern paranormal tale is just so much less enticing like if this was 200 years ago and they paid the afflicted with gold coins we would be like damn that's so symbolic yeah but if they direct deposit 20k on the 1st of January every year, it's like it's a bit less paranormal. Yeah, it's a bit less, I don't know, magical, isn't it? I do love the idea of old archaeologists smashing their way into Tutankhamun's resting place, defiling everything. And then a ghost is like hovering over them like, you little you're gonna get it now and they just write a check and be like here you go 1.5 mil oh shit oh yeah uh guys teas coffees anything what

do you what do you need what time would you like your breakfast guys that wall is actually fake you could smash through there there's a second chamber take whatever you want i'll be here if you need anything you guys are are going to love it here. Has anyone tried it? I don't know. Maybe. I feel like that's the whole shitty thing about life is that if you're wealthy enough, you can get away with anything.

Maybe you can get away with curses. There's only one way to find out. But this month, we are going to curse ourselves and then take the Patreon revenue from this month to try and offset the curse. I don't know how we'll do that. Will we throw the cash into a well or something? Right. Who do you pay? Who do you give it to?

Yeah, I'm not sure. I feel like that's a bad use of Patreon money. As if everyone knows that their support this month is getting taken out of a bank and thrown into a hole. It would be a world first, though. We get cursed. The Patreon drops to zero. All right. The curse actually took our cash. So we're going to need to find a way to get rid of this. The demon was insulted that we thought we could buy him out. Rory, we got to come down

on a conclusion about today's investigation into the Superman curse. Is it real or is it just an extremely long string of closely connected coincidences i was hoping that we would have a little bit more evidence on today's case we kind of went from like stories and anecdotes right up to the current day without ever finding any kind of like really bizarre circumstances that couldn't have been explained by anything other than a curse but this is the problem with curses it's the perennial question it is all if you zoom out far enough explainable by coincidence but even the most skeptical listener has to concede that it's a little bit unusual yeah i guess if the if the if the deaths or the punishments had been a bit weirder

then maybe it would have felt a little bit more like this was a real curse. Like there's no other way to explain what's happening. Right. If everyone involved in these movies died in a snowboarding accident. Yeah. It'd be like, all right.

Or it's like on the way home from set, one of the actors was killed by a wolf. And it's like, all right, well, where did the wolf come from is that that's pretty unexplainable this was hollywood in the in the 60s that would have been pretty bizarre but actors who just can't find work anymore or become depressed and die alone that's a pretty common theme in hollywood i'm pretty sure the difference is a lot of actors don't even get the superman role they're the really cursed ones.

Yeah. Seems like these guys have been blessed at one part in their lives. Hey, you make a great point. Even some of these stories are like people with health issues and various things. I mean, these are things that happen to regular, normal people. They happen to actors too. Or, for example, if the curse had been more tightly linked with the actual movie itself. Again, like in the bonus episode when we talked about the Wizard of Oz and that production being cursed. It wasn't that just actors had a bad time later in their lives.

It was... I cannot stress enough. One of the cast members allegedly hanged themselves on set. They did in the background. One of the prop broomsticks exploded uh someone got poisoned by the face paint that they were using so it was a lot of incidents and accidents but all directly related to the actual production of the film where in this case some of these misfortunes are happening off set years later in just messy love triangle but i don't need to

remind you that we've covered ancient egyptian curses that span over like 50 years that's true yeah where then people just passed away through strange only a couple of weeks ago we had i think a delivery boy that like that like visited the museum where the mummy was at well he did a little more than that he had the he carried the mummy to the museum and he took a pretty bumpy road all right unnecessarily and that probably pissed the thing off i'm just saying that if we were looking at today's case and hypothetically they were like at one point uh on set superman's cape was sucked into a fan and the man was shredded like spaghetti then i'd be like, oh wow,

that is a real misfortune that has come on a Superman actor on a Superman set. All right, you said quite enough. We're circling the drain here. It's time to come down

on a yes or no. Rory, in the case of The Superman Curse, do you think it's truly paranormal or not? Not paranormal. Not today.

What about you, Kent? It's a no. Gosh. These things are too hard to prove. Too goddamn hard to prove but i think you are right there is too much doubt in this story we're casting quite a large net a lot of different things happen and that's why it's just got to be a no today yeah like hollywood's a messy place

you know there's a lot of bad stuff that happens especially in the world of acting so to say that some of these events were down to a curse is it's a pretty wild claim everything that we've talked about today is just stuff that i'm sure has affected a ton of actors in a ton of different movies over the years and next week we will be investigating the curse of this paranormal life uh just following all the bad shit that's happened to us because we host a paranormal podcast yeah i i probably reckon we must be one of the most cursed podcasts out there right we've gone out of our way to curse ourselves quite a number of times we've done we did we got the got the cursed doll on ebay we did the ouija board uh we tried to summon a demon at that live show. So you think it's just a coincidence that we're snubbed at every award show? That we're banned from the British Podcast Awards?

We weren't snubbed at every award show. We won an award notoriously in 2019. Do you think it's a coincidence that there's all these exclusive podcast clubs in London and we've never been invited? But let me tell you guys, even if you're not invited to events, with enough hot coffee,

you can pretty much get in anywhere. Yeah, I could get into the White House if I wanted to, if I had enough espressos. Well, hell, if we're cursed, we're going to bring all of you, Don, with us. Thank you to Amy Grisdale for researching this episode. And to Cary Tillman for editing it. You're cursed too now.

You're implicated. You edited the cursed episode. And thank you to you, our listeners, for tuning in to this week's episode. Hope you enjoyed this week's investigation into the Superman curse. We had a great post on the Facebook group, the This Paranormal Life Secret Society on Facebook, where after we covered the story of the unlucky mummy, there was a thread of people saying,

hey, did anyone else have a really bad time after listening to this week's episode? Uh-oh. And you'd be surprised at how many people were commenting, being like, I got food poisoning. Holy shit. Like, I crashed my car. Like, all of these people went through a ton of, like,

weird misfortune after listening to that episode because if you remember all you had to do was think about the mummy and you were implicated in the curse i need to look back at the calendar because i did get covid and start vomiting everywhere um a little while back and i should check out if i lined up in any way with the release of the podcast honestly i think it was literally the same week, which is hilarious. Wow, so we might even have a brand new curse going. But at least today on this show,

all you have to do is not portray Superman in a leading Hollywood movie. But if any of you guys have dressed up as Superman for Halloween, good luck to you. The curse is coming. You should start cycling everywhere instead of driving, honestly. Yeah. If you want to drop your own experience of what happened to you. The curse is coming. You should start cycling everywhere instead of driving, honestly. Yeah.

If you want to drop your own experience of what happened to you after listening to said episode of This Paranormal Life, that's a good point. Head on over to the Facebook community, Our Secret Society. The link is in the description

of this episode. Guys, if you just can't get enough of This Paranormal Life, of course, there is an insane amount of bonus episodes just waiting for you over at patreon.com

forward slash thisparanormallife. Oh, yeah. Wait a minute, Kit. Patreon? What's that? I've never heard of that before. Listen up,

****. This is... All right, well, no, no, no. Don't be aggressive. I was trying to tee you up in like a polite way to explain to our lovely listeners.

Let me dial it back. Good evening, gentlemen, and welcome to the this paranormal life official patreon website okay fine trion is a place where you can go to get extra episodes of this paranormal life yeah in exchange okay for if you would be so kind all right You don't have to be this gentle. You can, let's split the difference here. Okay. Ramp it back up. All right. Listen up, faces.

Even worse than the first time. I don't know what you want. What is that voice? It is voice. What I'm trying to say is over on patreon.com. Yeah. We've been recording bonus episodes for about four years and they're all ready to be listened to for the mere sum of about four pounds, five dollars pending your local currency.

It's crazy. You can get access to this entire back catalog at an instant. Imagine paying five dollars and getting a ticket that guarantees you into 50 shows. 50 shows, 50 shows that you can listen to of never before heard by the public audio of some of our raunchiest investigations we've ever done, including the one that we mentioned today, the investigation into the Wizard of Oz and its cursed production. Yeah. Why not go check that one out? Patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. The link is in the description of this podcast. As I say, thank you for tuning in. We will, of course, be back next Tuesday

with a brand new paranormal tale. And until then, everyone go to Tom Holland's Instagram. No, don't do this. And comment on his most recent post and tag this paranormal life and say... No, definitely don't tag us. No, no, no, no. Don't do that.

Don't get us involved. Just comment the rat emoji because he's a rat. Okay? Just do that for me. Do the coffee pot emoji. Say, we're coming, Tom. Coffee pot, coffee pot.

Okay, fine, fine. As you say, we'll split the difference. We'll see you on Tuesday. Bye-bye. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials.

Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.