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FH Mini 124 - Bad Movie Godfathers, with Harry Medved and Harry Pallenberg

mini Mar 8, 2025 00:52:02
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Transcript

[0:00] Hey listeners, I hope you're not skipping this part of the show because I have an exciting
[0:04] announcement. Max Fund Drive is of course coming up very soon and as has become traditional
[0:12] for us during Max Fund Drive, we drop an extra full episode during the drive period, so over
[0:19] the drive period, you know, including the little bonus days on either end that they
[0:24] add as a grace period. During that period, we will be doing three full shows and the theme is
[0:32] No Spideys. Yes, movies without Spider-Man. We'll be talking about Venom, The Last Dance. We'll be
[0:39] talking about Kraven, The Hunter. We'll be talking about Heartbeats, another movie that doesn't have
[0:45] Spider-Man in it. It's hard to find three, but we did it. So I hope that the listeners, that's you,
[0:53] enjoy it and I hope that you remember us come Max Fund Drive time because
[1:00] you're what keeps the show running. Okay, back to the show.
[1:08] Hey, welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot Kalin. That's
[1:14] my name and I'm telling it to you and that's it. Okay, stop talking, because we've got guests. We've
[1:19] got on the show, we have one of the writers of the Golden Turkey Awards, Harry Medved, and we
[1:26] have Harry Pallenberg. Am I saying that right? Who's the other Harry's producer on a new show.
[1:34] That's right. We have two Harry's. Some podcasts only give you one Harry. This podcast gives you
[1:39] two Harry's. It's extra Harry podcast today. Incredible value for the amount we're charging
[1:45] them. It's like they're stealing Harry's from us. Now, one half of the Harry's has to
[1:51] come out a little early, so let's get to that stuff. Let's get into it. He's a TV producer.
[2:00] You guys met, as I understand it, on what is beloved by all of the California-based podcasters
[2:08] I know, a show called California's Gold. Is that true? Yeah, let the other Harry take it.
[2:14] That is correct. We were looking to do a show on movie locations, and Harry Medved had sent
[2:20] his book in called Hollywood Escapes, which is about movie locations. We decided we picked
[2:26] Leo Crioste Beach, which is also known as Corman Beach, because Roger Corman films many
[2:32] excellent, excellent top movies there. We did the interview with Harry, and we got
[2:40] Roger Corman to come out. It was one of the more popular episodes. Our show is rather highly rated
[2:47] on PBS, but it was definitely one of the fan favorites. We got more mail and interest every
[2:51] time it aired. Harry and I were like, wow, we should do a whole show like this. That was like
[2:58] 2009. It took many years and starts and stops and other projects in between, but now we have a show
[3:04] called Locationland, which is just that. We travel around to movie locations and get filmmakers
[3:11] and actors and super fans and location scouts to tell us sort of the behind-the-scenes inside secrets.
[3:18] When we did that show at Leo Crioste Beach, there were a bunch of other people
[3:22] who wanted to join us, including a director named Randall Kleiser, who did a little movie back in
[3:27] the 70s called Grease with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. We thought, god, there's so
[3:32] many other stories we can tell. All these filmmakers, location managers, and actors want
[3:36] to go back and retrace the steps of all the classic films that they shot, whether it was
[3:41] Attack of the Crab Monsters or The Karate Kid, and so we thought we got to get the show going.
[3:45] Oh, those are two different movies.
[3:47] Yeah, they're very similar.
[3:49] We've only done one movie.
[3:50] We've done a great one.
[3:51] We got in the same exact area.
[3:53] Sounds like a Corman movie.
[3:57] We actually did get Randall Kleiser on one of the Locationland episodes, and we drove
[4:02] down literally in the LA River that you've seen in countless chase scenes, including
[4:05] the concrete road scene.
[4:09] It was amazing, him recounting his stories and sitting exactly where Olivia Newton-John sat
[4:13] watching the race.
[4:14] Oh, that's cool.
[4:15] And it was pretty special.
[4:18] It's such a fun show, and it's such a great idea for it because there's something very magical
[4:23] about being in the place where a movie was made, and it's like a thin membrane between cinematic
[4:28] reality and our reality that you can kind of puncture very briefly in your imagination,
[4:34] and especially in this area.
[4:35] I'm in Los Angeles also.
[4:36] Dan and Stuart, of course, are still in New York being pummeled by weather of some kind.
[4:42] From what I can tell, there's no movie shot in New York City.
[4:45] None, unfortunately.
[4:46] There's never been a movie shot or even set in New York by law.
[4:53] When you're traveling around Los Angeles, it's just amazing because so much of the
[4:55] movie-making apparatus is here.
[4:57] How many of these locations have multiple lives as places that movies and other stories have been
[5:03] made?
[5:05] A place that my family likes to go to is Vasquez Rocks, and whenever we're there, I'm like,
[5:09] I saw that rock in this Western.
[5:11] I saw that rock in this Western.
[5:13] That's the rock that Kirk is fighting the Gorn next to.
[5:17] It's really fun to see you going to these places and bringing that magic to it.
[5:23] It's really cool.
[5:23] Absolutely.
[5:24] There's a whole tourism called set jetting where people literally travel around the world.
[5:29] I know White Lotus has put that back on the map, but well before White Lotus, that was a thing.
[5:37] It's a multi-billion dollar industry where people really follow the locations.
[5:41] Elliot, you said that about New York, the movie Them about the giant killer ants was
[5:46] originally set in New York.
[5:48] Oh, I didn't know that.
[5:50] Because it was supposed to be like King Kong, like these giant hands taken over New York.
[5:54] Apparently, Warner Brothers couldn't get permission to actually shoot there,
[5:58] so somebody said, I just saw this other movie shot there in the storm tunnels
[6:03] underneath the LA River.
[6:04] Let's just go shoot there.
[6:06] They actually wrote a letter to the mayor of New York City saying, sorry,
[6:09] we're not going to shoot in New York.
[6:10] We're going to shoot in LA.
[6:11] We found so many movies about the destruction of Los Angeles, and as you know, there's so much
[6:16] craziness about people saying the Hollywood sign was destroyed.
[6:20] It was in flames and the recent fire.
[6:22] I just met somebody from overseas who said, but I heard all of LA is gone.
[6:25] It's just gone, right?
[6:26] I saw it.
[6:27] I saw the Hollywood sign on fire.
[6:28] And it's like, no, this all came from AI and the movies.
[6:34] Anyway, you live not too far from some of the burn areas, right?
[6:37] And I'm very close.
[6:39] Unfortunately, it affected quite a number of people that we know.
[6:42] Luckily, we're fine where we are.
[6:44] But it was one of these very strange things to get serious for a moment.
[6:49] It was one of these moments where you do start to feel like, I've seen this happen in the movies,
[6:55] and it feels like I'm in a movie right now, but not in a fun way, in a bad way.
[6:59] And the thing it felt like to me the most was being in New York during September 11th,
[7:03] which similarly was like, I've seen this in movies, but in the movie, it's not horrifying.
[7:07] Like in the movie, I'm OK with it, but not now.
[7:11] It felt like a Roland Emmerich trailer.
[7:13] Yeah, exactly.
[7:14] But it is true.
[7:14] Stuart, you made a good point that New York does have plenty of movies.
[7:17] And on the scale of how many King Kongs per city,
[7:20] LA is behind New York by quite a few King Kongs, at least three.
[7:23] Yeah.
[7:24] LA, shut up about King Kong, because we got to get all the juice we have
[7:28] from Harry number two before he has to jump off the call.
[7:33] And so we'll get back to some of the other stuff later.
[7:36] But before you have to go now, Harry Palenberg, your father was a producer.
[7:43] And uncredited writer.
[7:44] And maybe other stuff for the runner up for the worst movie ever in
[7:50] Harry Medved's Golden Turkey Awards book.
[7:55] And we're talking about, of course, Exorcist II, The Heretic,
[7:58] which we talked about for a Flophouse charity stream actually during lockdown.
[8:02] And so one, I want to know, how do you react when you learned that Harry had named it the second
[8:08] worst movie ever?
[8:09] And two, do you have any interesting stories about it?
[8:12] Because I think that we all kind of enjoyed how weird that movie is.
[8:15] Yeah, it's a strange movie.
[8:17] Um, yeah, he was a he was a writer.
[8:20] And I think his title is creative associate, which he had a few times.
[8:24] And, you know, it sort of was a catch all for, you know,
[8:26] just guy who helped John out a lot because they were lifelong friends.
[8:30] And John Borman, the director.
[8:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[8:33] Um, so I assumed all these guys know that much better.
[8:38] It's for the audience.
[8:39] It's for the audience.
[8:40] They know it's Johnny B who directed Exorcist II.
[8:43] It was weird.
[8:44] It was interesting.
[8:45] I do have a couple of very vivid memories.
[8:48] The first memory is that we got I got a bunch of candied locusts because there were tons of
[8:54] locusts in that movie.
[8:57] And, you know, some many of the dead ones were candied.
[9:01] And so that was the first time I ever ate a candied locust.
[9:05] Thumbs up.
[9:06] And I did it for Linda Blair in the scene where she's teetering on the edge of the skyscraper.
[9:12] I was allowed on set for about five minutes of that time.
[9:16] But as a, you know, I think I was like 10 years old that time, maybe nine.
[9:20] I was a little too energetic and enthusiastic.
[9:22] And my mother was a little panicked by the idea of me running around.
[9:26] You know, it really was like a far drop off.
[9:28] I mean, there was a ledge below, but it was like a 40 foot ledge.
[9:32] So you wouldn't go all the way to the street.
[9:34] But you'd still get hurt.
[9:38] And in the very last scene of the movie, there's an ambulance that rolls up.
[9:43] And I am in the back of that ambulance.
[9:46] Oh, wow.
[9:47] So that was very fun for me.
[9:48] For fun, though.
[9:49] You weren't like.
[9:53] Yes, and I did get to try the synchrotron machine that, you know.
[10:00] Wow and do and sadly on the night of premiered
[10:04] Um, I do remember, you know after the premiere going to muso and frank's, uh, restaurant in hollywood
[10:09] That's sort of legendary and also in tons of movies. Um
[10:14] and it was not the normal kind of dinner party that I sat through where the everyone was enthusiastic and uh,
[10:21] You know drinking the red wine and really happy. It was very murmured and uh, and
[10:25] Depressed like I could clearly tell something was wrong and things weren't going well. Wait, how old were you?
[10:31] I mean like nine or ten. Yeah. Oh, wow
[10:34] Um, like that scene in edward where they're reading the uh, the reviews and the newspaper
[10:38] Yes, I mean they were you know, it did get sort of laughed off the screen. Um,
[10:42] And as far as when I found out that harry said that I I don't think I was insulted or offended at all
[10:48] I think every everybody felt
[10:50] You know if not in agreement, uh as to the you know, the second worst ever like they they knew it wasn't good
[10:55] Um, and I know they recut it
[10:57] Like I think it got pulled from the theaters that first weekend and got recut and re-put out and I think there's three different
[11:02] Endings, uh, you can find on different videotape versions like glue. Yeah. I mean, yeah
[11:08] I I admire that movie for trying to do something very different though because so many sequels are let's just rehash
[11:15] Sort of exactly what was yeah, uh popular about the first one and that
[11:20] Really blazes its own trail and it might be a weird trail, but I I like watching it
[11:25] You have you do have to admire that?
[11:26] They didn't just go like now another girl or this time a boy has been taken over by the right team
[11:31] Instead it's two max von seidas
[11:34] And I did I did like joker too
[11:36] I did read some uh facebook posts about people were talking about it recently for some reason
[11:41] Um, and I saw there was a huge chain I read them to my father and you know people talking about how awful it was
[11:46] And how it actually sort of is. Okay, and he he got it. He thought it was funny and
[11:52] You know, he enjoyed it. So
[11:55] Well, that's cool because the movie that actually beat exorcist 2
[11:59] is a film that is directed by edward dewitt jr called plan 9 from outer space and that's why
[12:05] Harry the other harry came to me harry medved and said if we're doing this show location land
[12:09] Why don't we retrace the steps of plan 9 from outer space and I said that's an awful idea
[12:15] Why would you want to do that?
[12:16] The whole film is studio bound the best thing about edward's movies are the dialogue the acting not the locations
[12:22] Who cares about the locations of plan 9 from outer space?
[12:25] this is a question I wanted to ask actually because yeah, it's it's either a graveyard or it's
[12:31] Uh an actor's house or it's like in front of some cardboard in a small studio. So were you worried about it?
[12:38] But even finding like the actor's house like when we got there the guy who lived there
[12:42] We were like waving at his house going like, you know
[12:44] Hey with dana gould was our uh, our guest because he does a live show where they do a table reading of the screenplay actually
[12:50] um
[12:51] And the guy who lives there came out and he's like, oh you guys can come and he's like he gets mail
[12:55] To like the plan 9 house at that address. So
[12:58] Even that guest, you know the the actor's house, which was tor johnson's house. Um, you know
[13:05] um
[13:06] and
[13:07] so it's interesting to people and no one had ever
[13:10] Gone to the back and we got to see the back when the steps were bella
[13:13] Lugosi is sneaking into the house. So like we got to really match that shot and that felt pretty good. Um,
[13:20] And also it's the rosebush shot who knows if it's the same rosebush. I don't know if rose is liz for 70 years
[13:26] Let's say it does don't ruin my illusions. I want to say it's the same. Of course they do 100
[13:30] But the the studio also was interesting because you know
[13:34] like the shot of tor johnson struggling up to get out of the you know out of the ground like
[13:38] There's a hole in the ground in the studio and no one had been in the studio before for
[13:42] Location purposes. I mean it's now a recording studio
[13:45] So people go in there all the time, but no one went in there with our you know lens as it were
[13:50] and you know
[13:51] we got to look at that hole and try and decide was that really the hole that tor johnson tried to crawl out of or
[13:55] Not and you know, you have to watch the episode to see but
[13:58] Yeah, and well, I mean, I don't know exactly how long you have
[14:02] But I want to try and get these questions in sure while you're here
[14:06] I was wondering, you know, like if if it's a great
[14:10] accepted great canonical movie, there's a lot of
[14:13] Uh sort of you know research about it with something like plan nine, which is
[14:20] You know one of the most canonical bad movies, but I assume there's sort of less information out there
[14:24] Was it harder to find the locations because of that?
[14:28] Um, I think it was easy to find because because it is sort of you know
[14:32] The canon of the worst movie ever, you know has been hung on that from film. Yeah, and people have
[14:38] Done videos about it. They've looked at it. They look for it and harry had written about it. Obviously extensively
[14:43] So to me it was easy and also, you know, I just relied on harry to do all the legwork
[14:47] well for me
[14:48] I think it was hard for me because
[14:50] a lot of times like just the police station in the movie where
[14:53] The police station in the movie where inspector clay played by the 400 pound swedish wrestler torre johnson
[14:58] He really but he really inhabits the part of an la police officer
[15:04] With that accent, yeah expect your daniel clay and
[15:08] You know a police officer called you, you know, he's got that thick swedish accent
[15:12] But um, yeah, we found the police station just by going back to like old newspapers
[15:18] um newspapers.com and trying to find out where was the police station in
[15:22] 1957 or 1958 whenever they shot it, I guess in the mid 50s and now it's a veteran of foreign wars building
[15:29] So it was it was just really fun to kind of go around and do this movie archaeology
[15:33] um
[15:34] Because I don't believe anything I hear anymore and I don't believe anything I find on the internet, you know
[15:38] We have to find the original sources from the newspapers saying they shot this film here
[15:42] We got to talk to people who actually worked in the film and then you actually have to watch the movie
[15:46] To see if it actually shows up in the film. So there was a lot of legwork
[15:50] Yeah, I mean, can I just say i'm going to pivot off of that about watching the actual movie
[15:55] We did a show on the hollywood sign one of the episodes
[15:58] and if you google like first movie that destroyed the hollywood sign like everyone says earthquake and like
[16:04] That's just not true. And it's pretty easy to watch like it's it's really easy to prove that wrong
[16:08] Like google says it doesn't appear in the movie article newspaper about that
[16:13] There's tons of data and if you just like spend two and a half hours
[16:17] You know, it's not true
[16:19] Yeah, we talked to the director joe dante, of course who did gremlins and so many other great movies his very first film in 1978
[16:25] I believe it was was called hollywood boulevard. Yeah, and he was the first one to oh actually before 78
[16:31] But anyway, he was the first one to destroy the hollywood sign. That was the first time in hollywood boulevard
[16:36] That's he believes he was the first one and we believe it
[16:40] We believe it based on our research until we're you know until we're proven wrong. But uh, yeah
[16:45] Can you prove it didn't happen? I don't know
[16:49] Um
[16:51] before we were uh recording you teased, uh, some czar does uh props that maybe you have uh,
[16:58] I just wanted to ask harry. Do you have do you have sean connery's diaper?
[17:03] I don't have any props but when uh when we were
[17:06] We lived in ireland when they were filming excalibur that my father worked with john borman on also
[17:12] Um and in the barn charlie borman and I are you know, the same age basically, uh charlie and daisy
[17:18] and um
[17:20] We used to ride around
[17:22] the moors in you know bare chested
[17:25] bareback on a horse with like the bullet bands across
[17:28] And like the paper mache, uh mask that was sort of rotting apart
[17:33] Um charlie usually got that I didn't get to use that too often
[17:37] but um, you know, we did have the bullet bands across our chest and so
[17:41] That was sort of a fun thing. That's cool
[17:43] That's amazing to be able to do like kids zardoz dress up with the actual costume, it's amazing exactly
[17:48] Oh kids are you know, everyone has horses
[17:50] So it's very you know, just kids riding on horses saying the penis is bad. The gun is good. Yeah
[17:57] Exactly. Yeah, did you get to meet charlotte rambling but uh, no, I don't think I did
[18:04] But I do have some uh, I have some deliverance. Uh, uh, oh cool. Yeah
[18:08] I have a I have an arrow from deliverance and some station and some some stuff from that
[18:13] And I was actually at the end of that movie too. I was in the police car with charlie boorman
[18:17] Um, there's the cop car at the very end. We're like, yeah hunched down in the in the bottom of that
[18:22] So that's really cool
[18:23] And at the end did in your your dad was like come watch this movie with me when it was finished or did he feel?
[18:28] Like you were not you were not ready for it. Yeah, I was not ready for that one
[18:31] Because that was I was like five at that stage. I mean I was I was much younger
[18:35] Um, yeah, I did not watch that until I was in high school without my parents. He's in the movie
[18:40] He should be able to watch it
[18:43] logic, yeah
[18:44] uh
[18:45] Something about the location land land nine episode. I I just want to say I was struck by the moment
[18:51] You're at torre johnson's house. You're looking at an exterior light on the house
[18:55] and
[18:56] You're like, oh my god the lamp from the movie
[18:59] And that really struck me for two reasons one being the idea of like yeah
[19:02] It's you know, it's just a house people still live there
[19:05] If if there's no reason to replace that lamp that lamp's still going to be there
[19:09] uh sort of like a preservation by indifference, but
[19:12] Two just the fact that like even if it's a silly movie
[19:15] It's genuinely exciting to see that lamp like it's amazing
[19:20] Because it's in a movie even if the movie's plan nine and uh, it's not really a question
[19:25] But like is like do you have thoughts about that? Like that feels like sort of the magic of the show in general location land
[19:31] yeah, you know, I will say that I have lived with plan nine from outer space since 1978 and
[19:37] Uh, I think my brother michael medved and I kind of helped popularize it in the golden turkey awards
[19:42] So to actually kind of go back the the lines of dialogue in the movie are like old friends
[19:48] And so just the scenes in the movie are like old friends
[19:50] But i've never met them, you know what I mean?
[19:52] I've never actually and unfortunately, there's not one person associated with the movie who's still alive. All the actors are dead
[19:59] so
[20:00] Plan 9. Yeah. It is. Well, yeah, it's 1958. So, um, but to actually be able to go there
[20:07] and touch it, it's like, you know, touching the Western Wall in Jerusalem or something
[20:10] to actually go to the house, you know, it's a very spiritual place for me, the Plan 9
[20:14] house. So to be able to actually go there and have that sense of discovery. And I always
[20:18] wondered, you know, Ed Wood was actually so much more clever than people gave him credit
[20:23] for being. He shot just some footage of Bela Lugosi kind of horsing around outside of Tor
[20:28] Johnson's house a few days before Bela Lugosi died. But he had two different scenes, actually
[20:33] three of them, one at a graveyard, one in front of Tor Johnson's house where he's an
[20:37] old man grieving apparently for his dead wife, but then another where he's a vampire, like
[20:43] come back to life and he's skulking around and he's ready to invade someone's house and
[20:49] terrorize Mona McKinnon. I never knew when that scene was shot. So to actually discover
[20:53] that it's behind the house, that was super exciting for me. And that's, I think what
[20:57] we're trying to do with this show is to capture us as we're discovering these forgotten movie
[21:01] landmarks because there's so many of them around L.A. that are right underneath your
[21:05] nose and you wouldn't know about them. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. Yeah.
[21:09] Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye, Harry.
[21:17] In two weeks, two weeks, put on your gecko shorts and grab your pogs. We're celebrating
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[21:31] Meetup Day, bonus content and more. So don't miss it. On the World Wide Web, March 17th.
[21:44] Somewhere in an alternate universe where Hollywood is smarter. And the Emmy nominees for Outstanding
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[24:48] your first box. All right, so Harry number two, as I've dubbed him, I apologize, has
[24:58] had to take off. And yeah, because of scheduling, we sort of did this in odd order, so I want
[25:05] to go back and sort of reset. We did a lot of talking about plan nine from outer space
[25:12] and eventually, sort of, I'll ask you to talk about that specific movie for people
[25:19] who don't know it. But I want to start it out really by saying, you know, the Golden
[25:24] Turkey Awards, the book you wrote with your brother, really was a cornerstone of me loving
[25:34] bad movies, that and Mystery Science Theater in 88. But your book was even earlier, even
[25:42] earlier, it was 1980, and my older brother had a copy that I read until the binding fell
[25:48] apart. So first off, thank you for being responsible for our podcast careers.
[25:55] Not in any financially lucrative way.
[25:58] Not in any financial way.
[26:00] Emotional way, yeah. What do you think?
[26:03] But that's, you know, that's where I come from with bad movies. That's what got me interested.
[26:07] Where did your interests come from?
[26:09] Well, thank you, Dan, for that. And it is like you guys were the very first show out
[26:13] there, the very first podcast on bad movies. I think so, right?
[26:17] I think that's true. I think that's true.
[26:19] I've been billing us as America's first bad movie podcast, probably.
[26:24] Yeah, certainly the first one that got any sort of attention.
[26:28] But just to piggyback on what Dan said just a second, similarly, I remember so clearly
[26:32] the first time I ever read the Golden Turkey Awards and like finding it in, I think, the
[26:37] house of my parents' friends and just the eye-opening of quality of reading it and being
[26:43] like, oh, there's fun to be had with like bad movies. Like they're not just things to
[26:47] dismiss. There's something to be really done with them in a fun way.
[26:50] And so I'm as curious as Dan because it's not like you didn't come into it through that
[26:55] book because you wrote that book. So it's not like the book didn't exist.
[26:58] So how'd you get there?
[26:59] Thank you, Elliot. Well, so two things. One, thank you guys so much. I was 15 years old
[27:04] when I started working on the book called The 50 Worst Films of All Time, which predated
[27:09] the Golden Turkey Awards by two years. And it was my brother Michael Medved's idea.
[27:14] Michael had seen I love this book called The Great Films.
[27:19] It was a list of 50 classic films by a New York Times film critic named Bosley Crowther.
[27:24] And I kept checking it off. I wanted to go out and see every one of them.
[27:27] Now, this is back in the days, the 70s really shows how old I am.
[27:31] But you couldn't see these movies in theaters. They didn't come back just rarely.
[27:35] You had to watch them on TV in the middle of the night on what they called The Late Late Late Show.
[27:39] And my brother kept thinking, my God, why doesn't anyone do a book on the worst films of all time?
[27:45] And also there was somebody who predated us. And that was the Harvard Lampoon.
[27:50] The of course, the Student Humor Magazine at Harvard.
[27:53] They had their movie worst awards for many, many years.
[27:57] Now, if you go back and look at some of them, it's shocking. I just looked at from the 70s.
[28:01] Here's some of their worst films of the year. Day of the Locust, Barry Lyndon, Tommy, Shampoo,
[28:08] Coming Home, The Goodbye Girl, Oh, God, and The Turning Point.
[28:13] Oh, and Flashdance and Return of the Jedi.
[28:16] So it just shows that I can see how a bunch of Harvard, young Harvard guys would be like,
[28:20] Eh, these movies don't have anything to say to me. They stink.
[28:24] And so we were kind of like that.
[28:25] Barry Lyndon, what a stinker.
[28:28] Ryan O'Neill, one worst actor. Oh, by the way, they also gave the Wrong Way Corrigan Award
[28:33] to a young director named Steven Spielberg for turning King Kong into a fish story
[28:41] and tried to pass it off as great cinematic art with jaws.
[28:45] So Steven Spielberg got like a movie worst award.
[28:48] That's a very odd reading of that movie.
[28:52] I don't know.
[28:53] Does this have any relation to the, what, the Razzies?
[28:58] Yes, yes. So that's the point is that I'm making a longer story longer and I'm sorry about that.
[29:03] No, it's OK.
[29:04] We're also making it longer. We're going to interrupting.
[29:06] You are.
[29:09] So I was working as a ticket taker in high school as an usher at the Village Theater in Westwood.
[29:16] My manager was a guy named J.B., J.B. Wilson, John B. Wilson.
[29:20] And he noticed how much I loved bad movies.
[29:23] And he knew I was working on a book called The 50 Worst Films of All Time.
[29:26] We decided to follow it up with a book called The Golden Turkey Awards,
[29:29] which was our satire on the Academy Awards, on the Oscar.
[29:32] And he said, are you going to do this every year?
[29:35] And I said, no, man, I'm just we're doing this as a lark.
[29:37] It's fun. I'm still in high school.
[29:40] You know, and he said, well, I want to do something called like a Golden Raspberry Awards.
[29:44] Would you be cool with that?
[29:45] I said, go for it. I love it.
[29:46] So he started the Razzies in about 1980, right after the Golden Turkey Awards was published.
[29:52] And he made us honorary founding members of the Golden Raspberry Foundation.
[29:56] So the Razzies followed the Golden Turkey Awards.
[29:58] So it always makes me laugh.
[30:00] People say, oh, is this kind of like the Golden Raspberry Award?
[30:02] The Golden Raspberries are a little bit like the Golden Turkey Award.
[30:06] But anyway, so there was precedence.
[30:09] There were people writing about bad movies before we did.
[30:11] But in our book, The 50 Worst Films of All Time, we also put in a lot of sacred cows,
[30:16] kind of like what the Harvard Lampoon did.
[30:17] We put in movies like last year at Marion Bad and Ivan the Terrible.
[30:20] We even picked a movie that was playing at my local theater where I was working at the time
[30:25] called The Omen.
[30:26] And that's a film that is actually a very good movie.
[30:28] And it's something I've had to live down for years that I picked it as one of the worst ever.
[30:33] Well, you were you were you were teens, which you've mentioned a couple of times.
[30:35] And I want to say, how dare you?
[30:37] Because I haven't read the book yet.
[30:40] There you go.
[30:41] How old were you when you saw the book?
[30:43] You must have been a kid.
[30:44] Oh, yeah.
[30:45] I mean, yeah, I think I was digging into it when I was like seven or something like far too young.
[30:52] I'm sorry, man.
[30:52] I'm sorry for for burning your child.
[30:54] Oh, no, no, no.
[30:56] He's here.
[30:57] It warped my brain in probably a good way.
[31:03] I mean, you'd be a serial killer now if you didn't have bad movies.
[31:05] Yeah.
[31:06] Yeah.
[31:06] What's that?
[31:07] I said Dan would be a serial killer now if he didn't have bad movies.
[31:11] You really saved a lot of people, Harry.
[31:13] Yeah, there you go.
[31:14] Another person we saved is Joel Hodgson, who then later told us and you worked on Mystery
[31:20] Science Theater 3000.
[31:21] He said that he poured through our books that there was definitely the catalyst for Mystery
[31:25] Science Theater 3000.
[31:26] So we did kind of help start this bad movies, movies that are so bad that they're good.
[31:31] But I'd love to get an opinion from you guys.
[31:34] What is the what really makes a bad movie?
[31:36] And for you, what is a good bad movie?
[31:39] I know, Stuart, you've talked about that sometimes.
[31:41] Sure.
[31:41] What is what is an entertainingly bad movie versus like a depressingly bad movie like
[31:46] here, which I haven't seen, but I feel like I've seen it because I've listened to your
[31:49] podcast on it.
[31:52] You saved me actually a lot of time and money by listening to the show.
[31:54] We're very happy that we could have done that.
[31:56] If we can learn one way from here, we've done our job.
[32:00] Yeah, I feel like I mean, like a bad movie.
[32:03] I mean, the hardest thing, the thing doing the show, as long as I have the thing that
[32:08] I keep running into are the there's like the different tiers of bad movies, whether it's
[32:13] just like a wrongheaded, overly cooked studio thing where there's just like so many cooks
[32:19] involved.
[32:19] It's been reedited and like mushed together.
[32:22] And it's just this like like soulless mess.
[32:25] And those, I think, are probably the worst.
[32:27] The ones that are the best are the ones that are like passion projects from like a visionary
[32:32] director who has a clear vision.
[32:35] It's just probably not the right vision.
[32:39] But they like you, but you get to see that like ego like on screen, like you get to see
[32:45] that the director's entire personal self revealed on screen.
[32:49] And those are the good ones.
[32:51] Yeah.
[32:52] And those are the ones we like to concentrate on.
[32:54] I don't I don't you guys somehow make it entertaining when you're talking about those
[32:57] depressingly bad movies.
[32:59] I love you.
[33:00] Yeah.
[33:00] I don't know how you do it.
[33:02] It's not anyone you're watching it, but it's about you guys dissecting it.
[33:07] I don't know how that works.
[33:08] There's there's something about a movie where and I think this goes along with saying where
[33:12] someone's ambition so far exceeds either their ability or their resources or their breath.
[33:18] Yeah.
[33:18] Yeah.
[33:18] And so and I think that's one of the magical things about Ed Wood's movies in particular
[33:22] is he is trying so hard and he's reaching so far.
[33:25] And but his arms are so short that he's falling so far short of what he's trying to do.
[33:30] And that's there's something kind of like, you know, the movie Ed Wood captures that.
[33:35] So it's so nicely in a positive way.
[33:37] There's something kind of beautiful about someone trying so hard for something that
[33:41] everyone else can really see, like you can't achieve this and he's refusing to not achieve
[33:45] it.
[33:46] And what you end up with is something where it almost feels like he is recreating the
[33:50] rules of what a movie is and how it operates.
[33:54] There's certain filmmakers who are so off the target that you're like, I don't know
[33:58] if they're inventing a new film grammar that is going to look that's going to look beautiful
[34:02] in the future or what?
[34:03] Like, it's like you hear something, a song in another language and you're like, this
[34:07] is affecting me and I don't understand what it's saying.
[34:10] Yeah.
[34:11] No, it's interesting that you say that, Ellie, because I actually had a question for you,
[34:16] Harry, that was sort of along these lines.
[34:19] And when I was talking about what we call on the show, good, bad movies, I think that
[34:23] there's there's like a feeling that they're exuberantly inept in some way, like the stuff
[34:30] like Stuart said, that is soul killing is the stuff that is aiming for mediocrity and
[34:37] either succeeding or failing.
[34:38] But the stuff that comes from the heart and feels is sort of beautiful still.
[34:43] Yeah.
[34:44] And like, it could just be a movie that has like a character has one really weird line
[34:49] reading and you're like, that's amazing.
[34:51] I don't know.
[34:52] It doesn't achieve what it's trying to achieve, but it makes me happy for some reason.
[34:57] I have a theory and I'd love to get you guys, please give me your opinion on this, which
[35:01] is I really think that Ed Wood had a sense of humor about his scripts.
[35:05] I think that many of the line readings just killed the jokes.
[35:08] And that's what makes them funnier, is like the actors didn't get the joke.
[35:12] Like, if you think about when Duke Moore, who plays the detective in Plan Nine, says
[35:18] one thing's for sure, Inspector Clay's dead, murdered, and somebody is responsible.
[35:26] He didn't get it.
[35:27] He was supposed to be a joke.
[35:28] He delivered it like it was a Sherlock Holmes deduction.
[35:31] But I'm sure Ed Wood wrote it as like he's dead, murdered, and somebody's responsible.
[35:36] It was supposed to be a joke.
[35:37] I think Ed, the director, the reason why we call them the worst director of all time
[35:41] in our book, The Golden Turkey Awards, is because he subverted Ed Wood, the screenwriter,
[35:45] who actually had some really clever lines.
[35:46] And he was so quick and on such a low budget that he didn't do retakes.
[35:51] So when he had these horrible actors, he just kind of went with the take.
[35:54] And there's something that I haven't read.
[35:57] I'm curious because I'd love to get a look inside Ed Wood's head.
[35:59] I read his book years ago, Hollywood Rat Race, where he was a very bitter guy by that point.
[36:03] But you feel like when you watch his movies that there's probably a part of him as a director
[36:07] that just is really excited to be doing it and can't bear to tell somebody, you're doing
[36:11] it wrong.
[36:12] This is how you're supposed to say it.
[36:14] I think there's probably the feeling they had to move so fast, but also the feeling
[36:16] of like, I'm so glad this person is doing this for me.
[36:19] I can't break him down.
[36:20] I'm just going to let them go with it.
[36:22] That's fine.
[36:23] I 100% agree with you.
[36:24] I think he was just a super nice guy.
[36:26] And unfortunately, I think a lot of people over the years have criticized the Medved
[36:32] brothers, my brother Michael and myself, for being condescending, a little bit patronizing
[36:37] towards Ed Wood's work.
[36:38] As I go back and I reread our work from 40 years ago or whatever, I kind of get a little
[36:43] bit of that.
[36:44] But we've always loved his movies.
[36:46] And from everybody that we interviewed, and we were the very first ones to tell the story
[36:51] of Ed Wood, he was just the nicest guy in the whole world.
[36:54] Everybody just said he would give you the shirt off his back.
[36:57] And I think it's kind of tragic, in my opinion, that we didn't discover him until right after
[37:03] he died.
[37:04] I remember going down to rent some of these movies because, you know, we'd be up late
[37:08] at night and I'd be falling asleep and my high school class and my teacher would nudge
[37:11] me and say, what are you doing asleep, Medved?
[37:13] And I said, I'm really sorry.
[37:14] I was up till four o'clock in the morning watching Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
[37:18] for a book that I'm working on.
[37:20] They like didn't get it back then.
[37:21] You know, he understood the idea of like movies that are so bad that they're good.
[37:25] But we went to the 16 millimeter rental place and that's where Ed Wood used to go to rent
[37:31] his Westerns that he would watch at home.
[37:32] Apparently, I don't know how he had the money to do it back then because he was running
[37:35] out of money.
[37:35] He was kind of getting a lot of liquor.
[37:38] He strikes me as the guy who would who would not pay for food, but would pay to rent film.
[37:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[37:44] There you go.
[37:45] But anyway, so I remember somebody told me you'll find him down there and talk to the
[37:49] guys at Budget Films.
[37:50] And when I showed up, somebody told me, yeah, you just missed them.
[37:53] And I went, oh, well, is he in the neighborhood?
[37:55] When is he coming back?
[37:56] I said, no, he he just passed away.
[37:58] And I was so sad about this because I think he would have enjoyed all this attention.
[38:02] I mean, I don't know if you guys ever talked to Neil Breen or any of the people that you
[38:06] roast on your show, but I'm assuming these guys love it.
[38:09] I mean, Tommy Wiseau loves it, right?
[38:11] Tommy Wiseau definitely.
[38:12] I think Neil Breen is such an artiste in his soul that he I think probably doesn't like
[38:16] it that much.
[38:16] But Tommy Wiseau certainly.
[38:17] And I think Ed Wood's more that way.
[38:19] I think Neil Breen is really specific about how his films are shown.
[38:23] He won't allow them to be shown as part of like a midnight screening or anything that
[38:28] might indicate that they're like not 100 percent serious.
[38:32] Yeah.
[38:32] But I bet you that I bet it's it's it's it's it's tragic.
[38:35] But that's what happened, because I bet you Ed Wood would have said would have thought
[38:38] as Tommy Wiseau would attention like any attention to my work is good attention.
[38:42] And I will I will play along with you because I whatever is getting my work out.
[38:46] And there's something really it shows the power of it that like, you know, I grew up
[38:50] when, you know, the film rental places have been replaced by video stores, but that every
[38:54] video store in the in the four town radius that I would go to video stores and had Plan
[38:59] Nine from Outer Space in stock at that store, which is phenomenal for I grew up in New Jersey,
[39:04] that this movie from 1958 that is made that is ridiculous and made for nothing was, you
[39:10] know, decades later was across the country available, readily available to anyone who
[39:13] wanted to see it is kind of a dream for a filmmaker, I would think, you know.
[39:16] Well, I mean, our conversation is kind of anticipated the question already.
[39:21] And I think I know the answer.
[39:22] But, you know, like there's been pretenders to the throne since Plan Nine was anointed
[39:29] by you guys.
[39:30] I guess that was a reader's pull from the previous book, I guess, that got Plan Nine
[39:34] to the top.
[39:34] But like, you know, you're trolled to or the room.
[39:40] But do you feel like but like, you know, you really like pushed Plan Nine into America's
[39:47] consciousness, which, you know, created this cult around Ed Wood.
[39:53] There's a you could draw a straight line from your book to the fact that there is a Tim
[39:57] Burton movie about Ed Wood.
[40:00] Do you feel some sort of weird pride that you rehabilitated this man?
[40:04] You gave him kind of a happy ending?
[40:06] Dan, you just, weird pride is exactly right.
[40:12] I look, I feel like, you know, as Bela Lugosi said in Edwards Glen and Glenda, the story
[40:18] must be told.
[40:19] And I'm so happy that it's been told by so many other people.
[40:22] And so beautifully.
[40:23] Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, apparently, I think this is what Scott told me, there's
[40:29] the screenwriters of Tim Burton's Ed Wood, they sent us letters in our Worst Films poll
[40:34] and they had told us they're working on a script at USC for a project called The Man
[40:38] in the Angora Sweater, that eventually became the Ed Wood movie.
[40:42] So you know, they were super nice.
[40:44] They invited us to the set.
[40:46] Gregory Walcott, the star of Plan Nine, has a cameo in the Ed Wood movie and he called
[40:51] me in advance and said, should I do this thing?
[40:53] Is this gonna, anyone gonna see this darn thing?
[40:55] It's gonna be embarrassing for me.
[40:57] And I said, no, you gotta do it.
[40:58] There's nothing else for the residual.
[41:00] So I mean, people have recognized that we had a hand in it.
[41:04] I've been appreciative.
[41:05] A guy named Rudolph Gray wrote the book, Nightmare in Ecstasy, that was the first serious work
[41:11] devoted to a biography of Ed Wood.
[41:13] And I gave him at least like a dozen interviews with all the folks that we had interviewed,
[41:18] Dudley Manlove, Martin McKinnon, etc.
[41:21] And so I'm just so happy that all of this research that we did has been used to help
[41:26] get the story of Ed Wood out there and Plan Nine.
[41:29] And as I said, if people wanna see more about how Plan Nine was shot, I mean, the work is
[41:33] ongoing.
[41:34] And so for me, this is exciting.
[41:35] 40 years later, man, am I old, but I'm doing more research.
[41:40] You started very young.
[41:41] Not now.
[41:42] Yes.
[41:43] Yeah, whatever.
[41:44] Yes.
[41:45] But the fact that I get to go and find out more about Glen or Glenda and where it was
[41:50] shot that this studio, which is right at Santa Monica Boulevard in Western in Los Angeles,
[41:55] just down the street from the Hollywood River Cemetery where Vampyra is buried.
[41:59] This is where Ed Wood shot scenes from Glen or Glenda and Plan Nine from Outer Space.
[42:05] Next door is a hotel called the Harvey Hotel.
[42:07] And that's where Captain Zeta, who plays the devil and Glen's father in Glen or Glenda,
[42:13] that's where he lived.
[42:14] He was a booker for strippers.
[42:16] And in that same hotel, apparently that's where Tor Johnson used to stay when he was
[42:19] in trouble with, quote, the little lady at home, he would say, because there were strippers
[42:24] in the hotel.
[42:26] And this is all right there.
[42:28] And then Glen's apartment in Glen or Glenda is right outside of Quality Studios.
[42:32] And then across the street, that's where Glen is window shopping when he's looking at the
[42:35] ladies lingerie and admiring the lingerie for too long.
[42:38] And it was all right there.
[42:40] Ed Wood did not waste time.
[42:41] He was like Clint Eastwood.
[42:42] He was running and gunning all day long.
[42:46] And I feel like visiting these places so close to each other, kind of like, I don't know
[42:51] if there's something magical about that kind of attitude of like, OK, so we'll shoot this.
[42:56] We'll shoot this over here.
[42:57] We'll do this over here.
[42:58] Like it's it's it's it's the sort of thing that you expect to see from like like high
[43:05] school kids or like college kids.
[43:08] But like for to imagine like a grown, you know, a grown man, like having that same level
[43:14] of enthusiasm and like can do despite the fact that like like we've addressed, he did
[43:19] not have the resources to match his his and to that point, I want to highlight something
[43:24] from the Locationland episode where Dana Gould has one of the flying saucer models and he
[43:30] points out like, oh, there's a scene where they approach the flying saucer and there's
[43:34] a wall, a square wall.
[43:36] And you're like, well, flying saucers don't have like right angles on it.
[43:39] But on his model, you can see that he they glued a little square to the end of the model
[43:46] to make it logical that it shows you that Edward was thinking or somebody on his thinking
[43:54] who said, wait a minute, there's a square here, but it's a saucer going to put a square
[43:57] on it.
[43:58] So that's that's huge.
[43:59] But, no, I would love to see a plaque like that says Edward Alley or something, because
[44:03] it's really like a block on Santa Monica Boulevard just west of Western that really where he
[44:10] shot so much of his work and Bela Lugosi lived just down the street in his last days.
[44:15] Sunset and Western, so that whole area is very historic for Edward fans.
[44:19] And for me, it was just a joy to discover it because I never I had never been.
[44:22] Oh, that's awesome.
[44:23] I'd never been there before.
[44:24] And, you know, because it's closed to the public and most people have never been there.
[44:27] So the fact that they opened it up to us was a testament to Harry Pallenberg and the shows
[44:31] that he created before that.
[44:33] That's it's that's so cool.
[44:34] And it's it's such a it just kind of referring to what Stuart was talking about, about like
[44:38] that attitude of like, we'll shoot over there and then we'll shoot that thing there.
[44:41] It shows that Edward, for all the people talking about him as a as a bad director,
[44:45] understood a basic thing about filmmaking, which is that all you see, all you're going
[44:49] to see is what's on the screen.
[44:50] So anything outside of that frame doesn't matter.
[44:53] And you can use that whatever's in the frame you can you can make into anything.
[44:57] And it doesn't matter what like, oh, that can't be the door of it can't be the door
[45:01] of a police station.
[45:02] That's a house.
[45:02] Doesn't matter.
[45:03] Doesn't matter.
[45:03] You're just going to see the door.
[45:04] You know, it's such a it's such a kind of real understanding of of film grammar.
[45:11] But then put to it, yeah, put to this to put this bizarre use, you know.
[45:15] Yeah, it's like that 11 point turn that they make outside of the police station.
[45:18] It's like, well, they were in a rush, you know, without having trouble getting the door
[45:22] open, you know, just use it.
[45:23] Why not?
[45:24] It's just so great.
[45:25] That's great.
[45:25] So for me, it's just it's a real joy to visit these locations.
[45:28] And it's a real joy to talk to you guys and and see how far the craze for bad movies is
[45:33] gone and how how many episodes have you guys done?
[45:35] Is it like 400 now or something?
[45:38] There's like something in the 400s of like mainline episodes.
[45:41] But then we have all these movie minutes in the early years and minis later on.
[45:46] It's probably something more like 600 at this point.
[45:48] Oh, my God.
[45:49] Various lengths.
[45:50] Yeah, 17 and a half years.
[45:52] 17 and a half years.
[45:54] When you're 18, what are you doing to celebrate when you're 18 years old?
[45:57] Oh, man, I'll probably start smoking.
[45:59] I mean, I actually have a question.
[46:04] So I feel we've we've talked quite a bit about visiting film locations and film sets.
[46:09] And obviously you've seen you've had some emotional moments.
[46:12] Has there been one where you were not expecting like you're like, oh, this won't be a big
[46:17] deal.
[46:17] But then you you were there and all of a sudden you it hit you like was there a moment that
[46:23] you had like an epiphany or an aha moment where you're like, oh, my God, I can't believe
[46:26] I'm here.
[46:27] Yeah, when we went down to the L.A.
[46:29] River with the director of Greece, Randall Kleiser.
[46:31] Yeah.
[46:32] And we saw the the Sixth Street Tunnel.
[46:34] So I thought, well, what's the big deal?
[46:36] There's a new bridge over the Los Angeles River, which is all concretized, called the
[46:41] Sixth Street Bridge or viaduct.
[46:43] There's a little tunnel under that.
[46:45] And the tunnel is historic.
[46:47] The the old bridge had to come down because it would have fallen in an earthquake.
[46:51] So they revitalized the bridge.
[46:52] They kept the old tunnel.
[46:53] And I thought, well, it's just a tunnel.
[46:55] What's the big deal?
[46:56] But that is the tunnel where the giant ants from them come out.
[46:59] It's a tunnel that you see in Cleopatra Jones.
[47:01] We found the first film noir shot there called Roadblock in the early 1950s.
[47:07] And the more we kept watching films you can see in the back in Greece.
[47:09] I mean, it's there in so many movies to actually actually walk into the tunnel and know that
[47:14] L.A. is going to create like a little city park right nearby it.
[47:17] That was pretty mythical because it's just one of those things where it's right underneath
[47:21] your nose and you would never think to walk into this tunnel of a storm drain.
[47:25] And think that it's a major filming location, but location managers.
[47:30] And that is the one thing.
[47:30] And by the way, just to get serious for one second,
[47:33] location managers are the unsung heroes of the film industry.
[47:36] Yeah, a lot of these guys in Altadena, Elliot, right near you and also over in the Palisades
[47:43] are trying to help the fire victims of Los Angeles reclaim some of their.
[47:48] Their losses with FEMA and with insurance claims because they took photos
[47:53] of their homes when they were shooting and their homes.
[47:56] So they've got these scouting photos.
[47:59] So if people are trying to say, yeah, I have these very valuable hats over here or whatever,
[48:03] they've got the photos of it.
[48:04] And so if anyone listening to this podcast is in Los Angeles and has been affected by
[48:09] the fires or no fire victims, you know, please check out scout photos.org.
[48:13] We did a whole location land episode on that, too.
[48:16] Oh, wow.
[48:17] Yeah.
[48:17] And we're also planning to do something on the history of Altadena and the movies
[48:20] and the history of the Palisades and movies.
[48:22] Well, on that scene, it's going to be good to to have that to have that remembered and
[48:28] to have it commemorated.
[48:29] And it's and it's like you're saying, location, location scouts, location managers are there
[48:34] are such a backbone and they don't really get the credit they deserve for making these
[48:38] things.
[48:38] These like amazing memories that we all share from the movies, making them possible.
[48:42] And they're helping their neighbors in the community.
[48:44] I mean, they always have.
[48:45] But that's what they're like, the liaison between the film industry and the neighborhood.
[48:48] So, you know, we're hoping L.A. is going to rebuild soon and filming will come back
[48:53] to Los Angeles.
[48:54] I've seen it already.
[48:55] I know that there's a film just shot on Venice Beach recently.
[48:57] And so we're going to be following their footsteps as they come back to Los Angeles and film
[49:02] some more.
[49:03] On that very sweet note, we should start winding down.
[49:07] I want to say that when I told my brothers that this was happening, my brother Robert
[49:12] said, well, what are you going to do now that you've peaked?
[49:14] And I'm like, I don't know, because it really is quite mind blowing to know that just as
[49:21] you have inspired us back in the day, now that you've listened to our show and I love
[49:26] it.
[49:26] Are you kidding?
[49:27] The Circle.
[49:29] You've introduced me to so many movies that I would have never seen or that I don't want
[49:33] to see because I love.
[49:34] Yes.
[49:34] Yeah, you're right.
[49:39] Thank you.
[49:40] We'll, of course, put a link to the Plan 9 episode specifically in this episode, but
[49:48] you should watch Locationland in general.
[49:50] I don't know if there's anything else you want to plug before we sign off.
[49:53] No, I just keep passing the torch for more bad movie fans, because
[50:00] I don't know, when I was a kid, people thought it was just so weird that I was into bad movies.
[50:04] Why would you want to spend good money on a bad movie?
[50:09] There was a film critic, not Roger Ebert, but when we asked a bunch of film critics
[50:12] for their list, a guy named Charles Champlin, not Champlin, but Champlin at the LA Times,
[50:17] he wrote to us and said, you have to understand that I don't see the worst films except by
[50:23] accident.
[50:24] Life is too short, and I can take suffering or leave it alone.
[50:29] That's the way that people used to look at bad movies.
[50:32] People say, why are you laughing?
[50:33] This is horrible.
[50:34] But we're laughing because it's like somebody slipping on a banana peel.
[50:39] It's funny.
[50:40] I'm sorry.
[50:41] I can't help myself.
[50:42] But the fact that 40 years later, you guys are still doing this show, and 600 episodes?
[50:49] Around that, probably.
[50:50] In total.
[50:51] I mean, one of these days, people will figure it out and they won't be able to make bad
[50:55] movies anymore.
[50:57] Once they've cracked the code, we're almost there.
[51:00] I hope not.
[51:01] Then we're all out of business.
[51:02] I mean, there are days that I think that we provide a dubious service, but I like your
[51:07] attitude that, you know what, we're finding joy where we find joy, and that's good.
[51:12] Absolutely.
[51:13] It's hard to do, but you guys do it really well.
[51:16] Thank you so much.
[51:17] Thank you for blazing the trail for us.
[51:18] We really appreciate it.
[51:19] Thank you.
[51:20] Before we go, thanks to our network, Maximum Fun.
[51:24] You can go to MaximumFun.org for other great shows.
[51:26] Thanks to our producer, Alex Smith, for making us sound good.
[51:30] You can find him online as HowlDotty.
[51:33] But for this episode, I've been Dan McCoy.
[51:37] I've been Stuart Wellington.
[51:38] I've been Elliot Kalin, and we've been joined by Harry Medved, and thrilled to be on The
[51:44] Flophouse.
[51:45] Thank you so much.
[51:46] Thank you.
[51:47] Thank you, guys.
[51:48] Bye.
[51:49] Thanks.
[51:54] Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.

Description

We welcome one of the godfathers of bad movie culture, Harry Medved, of the seminal books "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time" and "The Golden Turkey Awards," and discuss his PBS show "Locationland" where he and comedian Dana Gould visited the filming sites for Plan 9 From Outer Space! And we also spend a little time talking to Locationland producer Harry Pallenberg about his father's work with John Boorman on Exorcist II: The Heretic (the Golden Turkeys' pick for #2 worst movie of all time) and the oft-referenced Zardoz!

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