An American Werewolf in London (1981) vs. The Howling (1981): Part 2

<v Speaker 1>This is Brian Moore. You listen to the Shirly you
<v Speaker 1>Can't Be Serious podcast Party on de and Party on Jason.
<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley you Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious podcasts. Jason and I are here at this
<v Speaker 1>beautiful colony spa resort, and there's an old man trying
<v Speaker 1>to throw himself into a fire and a young woman
<v Speaker 1>with a lot of cleavage who's given me the wolf
<v Speaker 1>I if you know what I mean. That's right, that's right.
<v Speaker 1>Just don't call me a meat loaf. Okay, all right, everybody,
<v Speaker 1>we are back with part two of The Howling versus
<v Speaker 1>American Werewolf in London forty years old. This year's good
<v Speaker 1>part of our Halloween October spectacular. Can't wait to jump
<v Speaker 1>back into this.
<v Speaker 2>These two movies are spectacular. I love both of these movies.
<v Speaker 2>American Werewolf in London versus The Howling.
<v Speaker 1>Here we go. Oh okay, so let's just talk plot
<v Speaker 1>versus plot on these two movies. All right, yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 1>So with Howling, just for those of you haven't seen
<v Speaker 1>it in a while, what you get is a woman
<v Speaker 1>who is investigating what appears to be a serial killer.
<v Speaker 1>Right right, We come in on that right, and he
<v Speaker 1>is giving her phone calls and telling her to meet
<v Speaker 1>him at a certain spot, and it ends up being
<v Speaker 1>like a little porno video place where you can go
<v Speaker 1>and watch the movies in the back room or whatever.
<v Speaker 1>So she goes in the back room and he's in
<v Speaker 1>there and he's there to talk her. And then the police,
<v Speaker 1>who are supposed to be going along, they are showing
<v Speaker 1>up pretty late, and it's he starts to change in
<v Speaker 1>the wolf, although you never see that, and then the
<v Speaker 1>police show up and the young dumb policeman starts shooting
<v Speaker 1>through the door and it appears that her attacker is killed.
<v Speaker 1>Right for the whole movie, almost you think this could
<v Speaker 1>just be a serial killer, and you've got this investigation
<v Speaker 1>of this serial killer. But then she's going through this,
<v Speaker 1>she's gone through this traumatic experience. She can't remember what's happened.
<v Speaker 1>There's this psychiatrist who says, you should come to the colony,
<v Speaker 1>which is where I treat all of my special cases.
<v Speaker 1>She and her husband go to the colony. They're weird
<v Speaker 1>wolf sightings that are going on, while meanwhile her friends,
<v Speaker 1>the reporters, are investigating the serial killer and ultimately they
<v Speaker 1>discover his body is missing. Right, there's an actor we
<v Speaker 1>forgot to mention John Sales is the Morgue mortissue, Is
<v Speaker 1>that right? Yes? Okay, yeah, I didn't realize that. Ye
<v Speaker 1>who's like eating Yeah, eatings never bothered me.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that is like the world's worst police work. At
<v Speaker 2>the beginning of the helling, let's let a woman walk in,
<v Speaker 2>lose total contact with her, hang out with a guy
<v Speaker 2>we knows the serial killer, right, and where's she going?
<v Speaker 2>I'm not sure did she turned this which way? It's
<v Speaker 2>like the three stooges, right, are trying to keep track
<v Speaker 2>of where she is.
<v Speaker 1>And I think they kind of tried to keep the
<v Speaker 1>idea that it was a were wolf a little bit
<v Speaker 1>of a secret, like they wanted that to be kind
<v Speaker 1>of a reveal that, hey, this is this guy wasn't
<v Speaker 1>just a serial killer, he was a werewolf. But they
<v Speaker 1>think they're dropping plenty of hints. Yes, right, his voice changes, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>As it turns out he's escaped from the wargue, the
<v Speaker 1>dead has risen, and meanwhile her husband gets attacked by
<v Speaker 1>a wolf and that's when we see the first change
<v Speaker 1>scene is whenever he starts to change while he's making
<v Speaker 1>love with this other woman who's obviously also changing. We know,
<v Speaker 1>okay here there are a couple of were wolves involved here, right.
<v Speaker 2>Once he becomes a werewolf, the doctor won't let them
<v Speaker 2>leave because her husband has been bitten.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 2>And then next thing you know, the entire werewolf colony
<v Speaker 2>is focused in on eating care.
<v Speaker 1>Right. As it turns out the entire colony who we
<v Speaker 1>thought were patients are all all werewolves, right, that is
<v Speaker 1>the true big reveal at the end. Even the kindly
<v Speaker 1>old sheriff Slim Pickens turns out he's a were wolf too.
<v Speaker 1>That was so unsettling for me to see slim Pickens
<v Speaker 1>with those sharp teeth, right, I mean, he was just
<v Speaker 1>the funny sheriff from Blazing Zaddles to me, I didn't
<v Speaker 1>want him to be a wolf man. Yes, And ultimately
<v Speaker 1>her friends come up to rescue. Her friends come up,
<v Speaker 1>one is killed, the other ends up saving her by
<v Speaker 1>grabbing some silver bullets and shooting away, and they ultimately escaped,
<v Speaker 1>but she's bitten. And the final scene is her doing
<v Speaker 1>a broadcast from the newsroom live and changing into a
<v Speaker 1>werewolf on live TV.
<v Speaker 2>She turns into a kN e walk on live TV.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I found out this is Dee Wallace is doing.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, she was like, I don't want to
<v Speaker 1>be an ugly wolf. I want to be a cute one.
<v Speaker 1>Well fail on both of those. I think you were
<v Speaker 1>neither ugly nor cute. You were just ridiculous.
<v Speaker 2>She looked like Chewbaca's wife. Okay, so a couple of
<v Speaker 2>things you mentioned that I just want to talk about
<v Speaker 2>really quick.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>Her friend Terry gets attacked by werewolf. He chases her
<v Speaker 2>into a cabin. She manages to cut off his hand
<v Speaker 2>and then you have this sort of flopping hand effect
<v Speaker 2>that's unsettling, but it does look like a kitchen.
<v Speaker 1>Glove a little bit. Right. We find out later.
<v Speaker 2>Who actually attacked her because he's missing his hand. Right later,
<v Speaker 2>they all get trapped in a barn so that you
<v Speaker 2>can either kill him by silver bullets.
<v Speaker 1>Or by fire. That's the only two ways.
<v Speaker 2>And her friend Dennis Dugan shows up. He had purchased
<v Speaker 2>the silver bullets, and they're like, go ahead and shoot
<v Speaker 2>tough guy, and he's like he's dropping them.
<v Speaker 1>They're like, oh, crap, crap, silver bullets. Okay, So that's
<v Speaker 1>the howling. Yeah, solid storyline. It's really good. It's gripping.
<v Speaker 1>The reveal that all of the patients are actually where
<v Speaker 1>Wolf's is a pretty strong reveal. Yes, at some point
<v Speaker 1>she ends up confronting Eddie Quist again, just as she
<v Speaker 1>happens to come across his file in the medical office,
<v Speaker 1>right right right, And that's when you have the big
<v Speaker 1>change scene, the most amazing change scene that anyone up
<v Speaker 1>until April of nineteen eighty one had ever seen. That's
<v Speaker 1>where we get to reveal that he's actually a weir wolf.
<v Speaker 1>Even though we've obviously seen some wolf things going on,
<v Speaker 1>this is really the we see it happen. We know
<v Speaker 1>what's going on.
<v Speaker 2>She gets away by throwing a big splash of acid
<v Speaker 2>on a space that's just sitting right there, conveniently convenient.
<v Speaker 1>Now, let's talk about American were Wolf in London, right
<v Speaker 1>comes out six months later. Okay, okay, So storyline for
<v Speaker 1>American were Wolf in London. You got a couple of
<v Speaker 1>kids who are doing their backpack trip to Europe, like
<v Speaker 1>a lot of American kids do. They're up in Wales,
<v Speaker 1>right on the back of a sheep truck and they
<v Speaker 1>get warnings the roads, avoid the moors to where them are.
<v Speaker 2>Those are the worst instructions with Dillian with the Werewolf
<v Speaker 2>of All Time.
<v Speaker 1>Well, and so they end up at a pub where
<v Speaker 1>all of the locals are not happy that they're there
<v Speaker 1>to begin with. The locals eventually relax and start telling jokes,
<v Speaker 1>and then they ask a question about a pentagram upon
<v Speaker 1>the wall record scratch it.
<v Speaker 2>He calls it a pentangle, thank you pentangle. He calls
<v Speaker 2>it a pentangle five point star, and then he quotes
<v Speaker 2>the wolf man Lon Cheney. Right, yeah, and I'm looking
<v Speaker 2>at it, I'm thinking these people are just.
<v Speaker 1>Molly cru fans. So once again they're asked to leave,
<v Speaker 1>and they're warned, and there's all of this concern like,
<v Speaker 1>we can't let them go, you can't let them go,
<v Speaker 1>And I agree, how are you letting these kids go?
<v Speaker 2>Not only are they letting them go, they're shunning them.
<v Speaker 2>They're like, get out right, there's.
<v Speaker 1>No food for you here, So it's to be murted.
<v Speaker 1>Then then is terrible? Yeah, terrible.
<v Speaker 2>So then just walking on the moors and the wolf
<v Speaker 2>chases him down and kills Jack Yep and bites David Yep.
<v Speaker 2>Before the other one's guilt became so overwhelming they showed
<v Speaker 2>up with guns, right and shot and.
<v Speaker 1>Killed the beast, right, which I had to wonder. I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>they got to know this guy, right, shouldn't it. I Mean,
<v Speaker 1>he's not when he's a human, he's not just wandering
<v Speaker 1>around naked out there. It's their die, it's they they
<v Speaker 1>know this guy. It's the drinking buddy, I guess. I
<v Speaker 1>mean it's kind of weird. That's an unanswered question, right, yeah, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>So he ends up at the hospital in London. Wounds
<v Speaker 1>have been dressed, but he's having nightmares.
<v Speaker 2>He's also falling in love with his nurse, but he's
<v Speaker 2>having these crazy nightmares where the movie makes a big
<v Speaker 2>deal about him being Jewish, and so he keeps getting
<v Speaker 2>attacked by like these dreams where his family is attacked
<v Speaker 2>by Nazi werewolves and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 1>Right, this is and that's one of the that's really
<v Speaker 1>an unsettling scene.
<v Speaker 2>That scene is amazing.
<v Speaker 1>Dreams may be the most unsettling part of the whole thing,
<v Speaker 1>other than that Piccadilly Circus car crash scene. But those
<v Speaker 1>are all kind of based on this movie called The
<v Speaker 1>Discreete Charm of the Bourgeoisie. If you want to go
<v Speaker 1>check out people who get lost in a dream within
<v Speaker 1>a dream because after that, you know whatever the demon nazis.
<v Speaker 1>After that dream, he wakes up, he tells the nurse
<v Speaker 1>what he's just experienced, and she's like, oh, I got
<v Speaker 1>just the thing for it. Opens up the curtain and
<v Speaker 1>there's another demon Nazi stabbing her and her twitching body,
<v Speaker 1>and he wakes up again because it was a dream
<v Speaker 1>within a dream.
<v Speaker 2>And that part when he wakes up that second time,
<v Speaker 2>it's really funny. After that dream, his dead friend Jack
<v Speaker 2>comes back and visits him, and he's all torn up
<v Speaker 2>and bloody, and he's got this little dangling piece of
<v Speaker 2>skin on his neck and he's like, guess what, David,
<v Speaker 2>bad news. You're a werewolf. You need to go ahead
<v Speaker 2>and kill yourself because I can't move on until you
<v Speaker 2>die because I died an unnatural death.
<v Speaker 1>And so it's important that he's having these dreams because
<v Speaker 1>he's then questioning is this really happening? Or am I
<v Speaker 1>just having another of these very realistic dreams?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 1>Am I just running through the woods naked and biting
<v Speaker 1>the head off of Yes. So ultimately he's released from
<v Speaker 1>the hospital. The nurse has kind of fallen for him,
<v Speaker 1>so she takes him home but it's been at this
<v Speaker 1>point about four weeks. It's time for the full moon
<v Speaker 1>to rise again. Right, And so she leaves him at
<v Speaker 1>home the next day after an interesting shower scene, and
<v Speaker 1>he spends the whole day board and saying I'm not hungry,
<v Speaker 1>until suddenly he's reading a book, tipping my hand here. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that scene took the howling scene and stomped on it
<v Speaker 1>like it was a baby football. And that it's stomped
<v Speaker 1>on it like it was an aunt. Okay, baby's pretty
<v Speaker 1>bad thing to say that.
<v Speaker 2>Well, yeah, I totally agree. I mean that scene in
<v Speaker 2>American World of London, Rick Baker made a huge difference,
<v Speaker 2>and that scene destroys the howling.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and so we'll finish the plot and let's just
<v Speaker 1>talk about those two scenes. Okay, Okay. So he goes
<v Speaker 1>on a killing ramp. He kills a young couple who
<v Speaker 1>are going out to meet friends for dinner. He kills
<v Speaker 1>a man on the tubes, he kills three homeless men. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and then wakes up in the zoo and the wolf cage. Right,
<v Speaker 1>feels great. Meanwhile, the doctor has been investigating the whole time.
<v Speaker 1>This is almost like a mystery.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, because when he's in the hospital, he's like the
<v Speaker 2>Scotland yard shows up and says, the maniac that you
<v Speaker 2>fought with must have been very strong. He's like, it
<v Speaker 2>wasn't a man, it was a wolf.
<v Speaker 1>It was a wolf.
<v Speaker 2>And the doctor's like interesting, yeah, and he's like, doctor,
<v Speaker 2>I'm not crazy.
<v Speaker 1>He was a wolf, right, He's something. Memory is fine.
<v Speaker 1>So once he's once he's managed to get naked from
<v Speaker 1>the zoo back over to the nurse's house. Got American
<v Speaker 1>men still my balloon naked American men stole. He feels
<v Speaker 1>great and he's excited, and then the cab driver tells them,
<v Speaker 1>would you guys not hear about all the murders people
<v Speaker 1>torn to pieces, And suddenly he realizes Jack is right,
<v Speaker 1>and he tries to get himself arrested without success. Then
<v Speaker 1>he tells Alex that he loves her and runs away
<v Speaker 1>so that he won't hurt her. He gives his family
<v Speaker 1>a I Love you goodbye phone call, but he can't
<v Speaker 1>bring himself to kill himself. Goes to the movie theater,
<v Speaker 1>sees Jack sees his other murder victims, realizes that he's
<v Speaker 1>got to do it, but it's too late. The moon
<v Speaker 1>comes up again. He turns into the wolf again. He
<v Speaker 1>starts attacking people again. There's mass chaos, dogs and cats
<v Speaker 1>living together, huge scene, and all of the police are
<v Speaker 1>called out with their guns. Alex runs down the alley
<v Speaker 1>where the wolf is to try to communicate with him.
<v Speaker 1>We have this brief moment where she says, I love you,
<v Speaker 1>his eyes softened, then harden, he lunges. The officers shoot
<v Speaker 1>and suddenly it's not a wolf lying dead but a
<v Speaker 1>naked David and she's sobbing hysterically. And then bob bob
<v Speaker 1>dang and dang dang, dang, big bloom and yep.
<v Speaker 2>And that was one of Roderivert's big problems with this
<v Speaker 2>movie is it abruptly ends, and man, it abruptly ends.
<v Speaker 2>But I think it's really cool.
<v Speaker 1>All right, So first let's talk change scene. Okay, if
<v Speaker 1>you watch the Howling first, you're blown away, right, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's amazing. It is not the time lapse photos that
<v Speaker 1>you've seen in all of the other Wolfman movies. This
<v Speaker 1>is a guy whose flesh inflates. You see the hair
<v Speaker 1>growing on him, you see his fingers growing, you see
<v Speaker 1>his nails growing. Rob Botten did a fantastic job. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>but it's also the first time it's ever been done right,
<v Speaker 1>and so it's like Galaxy in and Galliga.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you know, the first one, you're like, Wow, this
<v Speaker 2>is great, until you get Gallagh and you're like whoa.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So first problem. At some point his head stops moving.
<v Speaker 1>The camera moves to give you the impression that the
<v Speaker 1>head is moving, but they didn't have a mechanism to
<v Speaker 1>make the head move, and the change occur as the
<v Speaker 1>snout is growing. The eyes aren't quite right. That's the
<v Speaker 1>problem give for me, right, it's the eyes, Yeah, and
<v Speaker 1>the bubbling flashes. It's weird. It's unsettling, right, it looks freaky. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but it's still an incredible change scene. Yeah. Right, but
<v Speaker 1>it's almost as if he's enjoying. I'm glad that, you know,
<v Speaker 1>whatever Rick contributed to this that might have come from
<v Speaker 1>John Landis's original idea ten years before, he didn't contribute that.
<v Speaker 1>This was painful.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 1>The guy goes through it and Dee Wallace just has
<v Speaker 1>to stand there and look at it, right, which is
<v Speaker 1>also weird. But I've seen people frozen in fear before
<v Speaker 1>and maybe that's what's going on.
<v Speaker 2>One of the main things that you haven't mentioned yet
<v Speaker 2>that I want to point out. In The Howling they're bipedal, right,
<v Speaker 2>They're on two feet, they're standing there like a seven
<v Speaker 2>foot tall standing werewolf. And in an American world from London,
<v Speaker 2>they're on all fours.
<v Speaker 1>It's more like a bear, right.
<v Speaker 3>I know.
<v Speaker 2>John Landis and Rick Baker had this back and forth
<v Speaker 2>and what would be better, what would be scarier? And
<v Speaker 2>up to that point, like the wolf Man and all this.
<v Speaker 1>Stuff, they're all bipeds. They're all bypeds.
<v Speaker 2>I love the bear.
<v Speaker 1>You like the wolf Hound of Hell, the Hound of Hell. Yeah, yes,
<v Speaker 1>So it's interesting. Then the Howling they had made the
<v Speaker 1>movie without showing the full body wolf. Like you saw
<v Speaker 1>his head and you would see his hands, and you
<v Speaker 1>would see you saw the change, but it was all pieces.
<v Speaker 1>You didn't see that standing up, full body wolf. But
<v Speaker 1>they ran out of money, right, and so they went
<v Speaker 1>and they said, look at this, if you give us
<v Speaker 1>just a few more dollars, we can do the full
<v Speaker 1>fledged wolf. And so the full fledged wolf is the
<v Speaker 1>one you see where Terry is being attacked and she
<v Speaker 1>had to go back, you know, weeks after they had
<v Speaker 1>shot the original and do it. And she's like, my
<v Speaker 1>hair's a lot longer now, right, And they're like, nobody's
<v Speaker 1>gonna know, they're gonna know. How are they gonna know?
<v Speaker 1>They're gonna know? They didn't know. I had no idea
<v Speaker 1>until she said I was like, oh, her hair is longer.
<v Speaker 1>Holy crap. So it was only after they had done
<v Speaker 1>the puffet wolf's the head in the frame those scenes
<v Speaker 1>that they got approval to do that full wolf standing up.
<v Speaker 2>Wow. Okay, I didn't know that. That's cool.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>So the change scene for American World in London, as
<v Speaker 2>we've talked about before, David is sitting there reading the
<v Speaker 2>book and all of a sudden, it's like boom, it
<v Speaker 2>hits him. He's got a splitting headache, like incredibly painful.
<v Speaker 2>He comes out of nowhere and he's yelling and screaming
<v Speaker 2>in total pain. And that was something that John Landon
<v Speaker 2>has created. You're not going to sit in a chair
<v Speaker 2>and just change. It's gonna hurt. And so he's screaming
<v Speaker 2>and changing. He's watching in fear as his hand stretch
<v Speaker 2>and his body grows hair, which Baker talks about how
<v Speaker 2>he's so inventive that he's like, you know, what if
<v Speaker 2>we just put hair, poke it through the skin and
<v Speaker 2>pull it through. So we pull it backwards. If we
<v Speaker 2>reverse it, it'll look like there is growing.
<v Speaker 1>Brilliant.
<v Speaker 2>Looks great. And so they did a scene where David
<v Speaker 2>KNATONI is a cutout through the floor and so you
<v Speaker 2>have this weird body attached with his head and his
<v Speaker 2>hands and his arms. Transformation scene is incredible.
<v Speaker 1>So that scene where you see him lying on the
<v Speaker 1>floor and he's got kind of the main but it's
<v Speaker 1>still his regular face at this point, and he stares
<v Speaker 1>right in the camera, right, he looks right in the
<v Speaker 1>camera and his eyes are red, no effect. The eyes
<v Speaker 1>were just red because he had been filming all day
<v Speaker 1>long and was completely exhausted. That's good.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I don't know if we've even mentioned this ship.
<v Speaker 2>But as he's fighting and growing and turning into a
<v Speaker 2>werewolf and his face is stretching all this stuff, and
<v Speaker 2>you see kind of the side of the beast, right,
<v Speaker 2>but you don't get a full on look at it.
<v Speaker 2>You really don't get a full look at it. You
<v Speaker 2>see him in the tubes and just for a second,
<v Speaker 2>just for a second, and that scene is so scary.
<v Speaker 2>I want to talk about that. But before we get there.
<v Speaker 2>The how the sound that the wolf makes in an
<v Speaker 2>American Warm for London, it's among the most scariest things
<v Speaker 2>I've ever heard.
<v Speaker 1>It's perfect. It is absolutely bright.
<v Speaker 2>Oh man, in that beginning scene when he's chasing around
<v Speaker 2>the moors and you can't see him but you can
<v Speaker 2>hear him.
<v Speaker 1>So we're watching these movies, right, and I've been running
<v Speaker 1>and I go early in the morning to run, so
<v Speaker 1>it's still dark outside, and never I mean done, you know,
<v Speaker 1>one hundred miles and not been worried about it until
<v Speaker 1>we start doing these movies. I swear I'm running along
<v Speaker 1>and all of a sudden I hear in the bushes
<v Speaker 1>in the countryside. I'm like, and my face was really
<v Speaker 1>good for that particular run. You're like, what is that?
<v Speaker 2>How did the Baskervill's Hako's bill?
<v Speaker 1>So the change scene in the Howling, the head moves
<v Speaker 1>the whole time, like you there's no point in the
<v Speaker 1>change that I can look and I can go, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>now we are just looking at animatronics. We're not looking
<v Speaker 1>at a human being actor anymore. As his face expands,
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, how do they how do they do that?
<v Speaker 1>It's not his he's writhing around as if the pain
<v Speaker 1>is incredibly intense as the mouth is extending. It's incredible.
<v Speaker 1>It's incredible. So then we never see him, like you said,
<v Speaker 1>I ever see him as the wolf until we get
<v Speaker 1>to the tube scene later that night. Yes, and it's
<v Speaker 1>great because you've got this very tall, gaunt guy get
<v Speaker 1>off of the tube, get off of the subway, and
<v Speaker 1>he's got this moment where he kind of looks around like, Oh,
<v Speaker 1>I'm the only one here. I'm a man, I'm not
<v Speaker 1>going to be scared of this, you know. So you
<v Speaker 1>get the subtext to going through. And then he hears
<v Speaker 1>that noise, right, and he's like trying to talk. He's like,
<v Speaker 1>this isn't funny. We're calling the authorities, right, And then
<v Speaker 1>he sees it but we don't, right, and he takes
<v Speaker 1>off running. You can tell he's like, and I'm not sure.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's like a fish eye effect. As you
<v Speaker 1>are the wolf, you are in the position of the
<v Speaker 1>wolf running down the tube, chasing this guy down the
<v Speaker 1>hallways as it goes by. It's just so terrifying.
<v Speaker 2>There's not one single person there at this time.
<v Speaker 1>Of day or night, right, apparently not. It's weird, and
<v Speaker 1>so he ends up collapsing on the escalator and you've
<v Speaker 1>got a very very long moment as he's just laying there,
<v Speaker 1>apparently incompact sated on the escalator. I'd be crawling my
<v Speaker 1>butt up the stairs as fast as I could. And
<v Speaker 1>then you're looking at it from the top of the escalator, right,
<v Speaker 1>and you just see the wolf just slowly like it's
<v Speaker 1>not a run in an attack, it's a I know,
<v Speaker 1>I got you step step. And that's the moment we
<v Speaker 1>see the wolf as the wolf for the first time
<v Speaker 1>from a long ways away, right. And Rick Baker said
<v Speaker 1>he knew that that was going to be a quick
<v Speaker 1>cutaway moment. He knew that they weren't going to show
<v Speaker 1>much of the wolf. It's that Jaws mentality of yep,
<v Speaker 1>brief clips are more scary, right, right, And so he said,
<v Speaker 1>I didn't want to leave it up to the editor
<v Speaker 1>to pick the right moment, So I made the face
<v Speaker 1>as scary as I could for that shot, like it
<v Speaker 1>was already scary from the get go. There wasn't any
<v Speaker 1>changing going on, you know that with the animatronics it
<v Speaker 1>was scary now, so that he didn't miss it.
<v Speaker 2>That actor the one who gets killed in the tubes. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>played big for Tuna, who is like Jaba the HUDs
<v Speaker 2>translator in the Return of the Jedi. For you Star
<v Speaker 2>Wars fans out there, that to me.
<v Speaker 1>Is awesome, weak minded four Joba sleepy. You will let
<v Speaker 1>me now, I will let you now, same guy. And
<v Speaker 1>so then we have scenes with the wolf as the quadruped,
<v Speaker 1>like you said. And the way they did that was
<v Speaker 1>Rick Baker thought of playing the game Wheelbarrow when he
<v Speaker 1>was a kid, where you'd hold somebody by the legs
<v Speaker 1>and they'd walk on their hands. Well, he just created
<v Speaker 1>something where effectively that's what was happening. And then the
<v Speaker 1>back legs were kind of attached to the front legs,
<v Speaker 1>so it looked like all four legs were moving as
<v Speaker 1>they would with a running wolf.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, and you got a puppeteer just making the mouth chump, chump, chump, yep,
<v Speaker 2>And it looked great, looked great, Okay.
<v Speaker 1>And because of Rick Baker's amazing work on this, he
<v Speaker 1>won the Oscars the first year that they ever had
<v Speaker 1>an oscar for special effects, and Rick Baker won the
<v Speaker 1>first of seven wins and eleven nominations, most of any
<v Speaker 1>person in the World. Nice. Yeah, but they didn't create
<v Speaker 1>the category for American World from London.
<v Speaker 3>You know what.
<v Speaker 1>They've created it for the Helling No what the Elephant Man.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, that's right.
<v Speaker 1>Which had a young actor in it play the doctor,
<v Speaker 1>mister Anthony Alkins.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, and the guy who played the Elephant Man was
<v Speaker 2>John Hurt. He was almost hand ab Elector.
<v Speaker 1>And he was also the guy from Alien an Alien, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that guy.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. All right.
<v Speaker 2>I got just a few tidbits on these movies that
<v Speaker 2>I want to talk about, and then we can talk
<v Speaker 2>about release reception, final judgment sounds great.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Okay, just a couple of tidbits from The Howling. Okay.
<v Speaker 2>One of the scenes at the beginning of the movie,
<v Speaker 2>Dee Wallace is in the porn shop. She was very
<v Speaker 2>uncomfortable as an actress in that porn shop.
<v Speaker 1>Midwestern girl.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And it's it's not a set, it's an actual porn shop.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. They used to rule.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I saw online. There's some question about which
<v Speaker 2>wolf built, right, like who bit Bill?
<v Speaker 1>Huh?
<v Speaker 2>At the end of the movie, she gets bid by Bill,
<v Speaker 2>her husband, right, so he bites her?
<v Speaker 1>But who bit built?
<v Speaker 2>Initially and the consensus is it's Marshall.
<v Speaker 1>That's good, that makes sense, right, and that's that she
<v Speaker 1>new to be out there right.
<v Speaker 2>Right, And I don't think there's a right answer. I
<v Speaker 2>just found it interesting that the fans kind of argue about.
<v Speaker 1>That, right, Okay. Joe Dante does a ton of references
<v Speaker 1>in his movies, right, He's always thrown back to old movies.
<v Speaker 1>But in this one he also did a ton of
<v Speaker 1>wolf like throw ins, right, he did, Yeah, And so
<v Speaker 1>I think slim pickens might be eating it. And there's
<v Speaker 1>definitely in the cabin is wolf brand chili? He is, yep.
<v Speaker 1>And at the scene where she's reaching behind her as
<v Speaker 1>he's changing into the wolf and she's reaching for that acid,
<v Speaker 1>there is medicine right next to it called the Wolf
<v Speaker 1>and Brand Medicine. Okay, And this one I have not
<v Speaker 1>read anywhere else. I found this one on my own.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure that it's probably out there's somebody's you know,
<v Speaker 1>there's just no way you're going to miss this. But
<v Speaker 1>I happen to notice that her husband Bill is reading
<v Speaker 1>a book in bed when she comes to talk to
<v Speaker 1>him and is interested in fooling around, right, And I
<v Speaker 1>looked up the title to the book, and I was like, okay,
<v Speaker 1>well this isn't about were wolves. I'm like, okay, well,
<v Speaker 1>who's the author? It was Thomas Nice. That is a
<v Speaker 1>pretty deep How about this one?
<v Speaker 2>Ye, Dennis Diugan is watching a Looney Tunes episode in
<v Speaker 2>the movie Yep, Pigs in a Polka Yep, where the
<v Speaker 2>big bad wolf was chasing them around. Right, lots of
<v Speaker 2>wolf stuff.
<v Speaker 1>And the funniest line in the movie is in reference
<v Speaker 1>to Wolfmanchack. That's right.
<v Speaker 2>She's talking about hearing a wolf and he says, honey,
<v Speaker 2>you're raised in La. The wildest thing you ever heard
<v Speaker 2>was Wolfmanchack.
<v Speaker 1>Right. Okay. So Dick Miller is the one who owns
<v Speaker 1>the bookstore where they find out all the info about
<v Speaker 1>what's real about were wolves and what's not right right?
<v Speaker 1>And as I mentioned before, he had been in a
<v Speaker 1>lot of Roger Corman movies. One of the biggest one
<v Speaker 1>was called a Bucket of Blood. His character's name in
<v Speaker 1>a Bucket of Blood Walter Paisley, also his character's name
<v Speaker 1>in this one in the bookstore, there's a mummified grandmother
<v Speaker 1>in an armchair in the attic of the house. It
<v Speaker 1>was the same one that they used in Texas Chainsaw
<v Speaker 1>Massacre because the guy who did all of the set
<v Speaker 1>design for the Howling was the same guy who had
<v Speaker 1>done all the set design for a Texas Chainsaw masker.
<v Speaker 1>And if you go back and watch the Howling thinking
<v Speaker 1>about Texas Chainsaw Masker, it's all the same taxidermy bones
<v Speaker 1>hanging all the same kind of stuff. Wow. Yep.
<v Speaker 2>Texas Chainsaw Masker based on serial killer ed Geen. The
<v Speaker 2>characters of Norman Bates and Buffalo Bill were based on
<v Speaker 2>Flashback to Our Last Time Psycho Side of the Lamps yep.
<v Speaker 1>And Roger Corman is the guy waiting outside of the
<v Speaker 1>phone booth for her to get done with a phone
<v Speaker 1>call to the very beginning of the movie.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, all right, let's split back over to an American
<v Speaker 2>world in London. I got a few mind blowing tidbits
<v Speaker 2>for you over there.
<v Speaker 1>I'm ready. Well, that's a marvelous note for a moment
<v Speaker 1>dance with the starve up. All right?
<v Speaker 2>So do you know the name of the porno that
<v Speaker 2>was shown in the theater when he transforms?
<v Speaker 1>Of course you do. It's called see you Next Wednesday, See.
<v Speaker 2>You next Wednesday. Now, if you've listened to our Coming
<v Speaker 2>to America and Trading Places episode. You understand that in
<v Speaker 2>all of his movies, somewhere it says see you next Wednesday.
<v Speaker 2>It also shows up in the thriller video Yes, that
<v Speaker 2>is directed by John Landis and the makeup is done
<v Speaker 2>by Rick Baker. So Kids American World in London gave
<v Speaker 2>us thriller. Michael Jackson was a big fan of this
<v Speaker 2>movie absolutely, and when he went to John Landis, he says,
<v Speaker 2>I want you to make me a werewolf.
<v Speaker 1>Side note. Stanley Kubrick also a big fan of this movie.
<v Speaker 2>Really cool okay, the music and an America worl from London.
<v Speaker 2>Every song that you hear has the word moon in
<v Speaker 2>the title in some way.
<v Speaker 1>Yeap. He had picked almost all of these songs back
<v Speaker 1>in the early seventies when he had first written the script.
<v Speaker 1>So you've got Bobby Vinton singing blue Moon during the
<v Speaker 1>opening credits, right when they have the love making scene.
<v Speaker 1>That's Van Morrison's Moon Dance that's playing, Yes, just before
<v Speaker 1>he changes. You've get Creden's Clearwater Revivals, Bad Moon Rising,
<v Speaker 1>and then Sam Cook sings blue Moon when he goes
<v Speaker 1>to that change scene. Originally, John Landis had wanted to
<v Speaker 1>get Elvis's version of that song, but the colonel said
<v Speaker 1>no way. So all right, Sam Cook it is. And
<v Speaker 1>then maybe one of the funniest endings to any scary
<v Speaker 1>movie is when the Marcel's Douop version of Blue Moon
<v Speaker 1>plays over the ending credits.
<v Speaker 2>Right, that's right. He also went really strong after Cat
<v Speaker 2>Stevens moon Shadow, I'm.
<v Speaker 1>Being followed by the moon Shadow Shadow.
<v Speaker 2>Shadow, and Kat Stevens, who had converted to Islam, said no,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I don't like the subject matter of this movie. Also,
<v Speaker 2>I believe that there are actual werewolves.
<v Speaker 1>Gulp, mind blown, nice one, thank you, all right. The
<v Speaker 1>score of the movie was actually composed by our old
<v Speaker 1>friend Elmer Bernstein, who we've talked about multiple times. Ye, Ghostbusters,
<v Speaker 1>Animal House, all of those movies, right, ye, Trading Places, right, yes, right,
<v Speaker 1>got back into the movies because he was a family
<v Speaker 1>friend of John Landerson's family. There are very few parts
<v Speaker 1>that have his music in it. Usually it's that it's
<v Speaker 1>the popular music that's playing, right, But all of the
<v Speaker 1>dream sequences have his music, and he composed a piece
<v Speaker 1>for the metamorphosis change scene, but John Landers said, no,
<v Speaker 1>we're not gonna do that. Well, Almer Bernstein eventually released
<v Speaker 1>a three minute passage of it, and it was called Metamorphosis. Cool.
<v Speaker 2>Here's something that I found. I had to dig deep
<v Speaker 2>for this. David in the beginning scene when he's on
<v Speaker 2>the moors with Jack, he's wearing a red puffy jacket.
<v Speaker 2>That red jacket was selected for him because John Landis
<v Speaker 2>wanted that to resemble red riding Hood.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's great. Thank you a great one, Thanks you,
<v Speaker 1>thank you.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, you ready for this tidbit?
<v Speaker 1>Uh? Okay.
<v Speaker 2>So in the movie, David is trying to get arrested
<v Speaker 2>Solo throw him in jail so he'll protect people.
<v Speaker 1>From him wolfing out right right.
<v Speaker 2>So he goes up to a Bobby and he's like,
<v Speaker 2>you arrest me, you jerk, arrest me. I want you
<v Speaker 2>to arrest me right now. The guy's like, go away,
<v Speaker 2>go away. He's like, what do I have to do
<v Speaker 2>to get arrested?
<v Speaker 1>Around here?
<v Speaker 2>Queen Elizabeth is man, Prince Charles is a right, and
<v Speaker 2>he's running around going crazy. So he makes a derogatory
<v Speaker 2>comment about Prince Charles well during the closing credits, say
<v Speaker 2>you see it. So during the closing credits, it says
<v Speaker 2>liking Throat Films Limited wishes to extend its heartfelt congratulations
<v Speaker 2>to Lady Diana and His Royal Highness, the Prince of
<v Speaker 2>Wales on the occasion of their marriage July twenty ninth,
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty one.
<v Speaker 1>How about that solid licenthrope licenthrop licenthrope comes That word
<v Speaker 1>comes up in both movies. What is a licen throw?
<v Speaker 1>It is a were wolf? There you go, nice. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>we talked to composers for American More Wolf in London.
<v Speaker 1>It's important to note that Pino Dinaggio was the composer
<v Speaker 1>for this movie, right, Okay, So the way that that
<v Speaker 1>worked out, he had done a bunch of movies, was
<v Speaker 1>a big composer for Brian to Palm, but they had
<v Speaker 1>a low budget on this one, and basically they flew
<v Speaker 1>him in, had him watch the parts where they wanted
<v Speaker 1>music cues, and then he flew back out, composed it
<v Speaker 1>all and sent it back to him. There was no
<v Speaker 1>meeting there, it was. It was a very thrown together
<v Speaker 1>kind of thing, which I think is hugely important for
<v Speaker 1>these two movies. Okay, So they bring him in to
<v Speaker 1>show him the movie and they're trying to talk about
<v Speaker 1>the musical cues. But he's Italian, okay, and they don't
<v Speaker 1>speak Italian. Right, So they've got a guy who's there
<v Speaker 1>who's going to help him, but he also doesn't speak Italian.
<v Speaker 1>He speaks Spanish. Well, Pino Donaggio also speaks Spanish. So
<v Speaker 1>you have two guys who are both speaking Spanish, not
<v Speaker 1>their native language, to each other, trying to figure out
<v Speaker 1>the film cues and what kind of music you want
<v Speaker 1>for each of these things, right, which is how you
<v Speaker 1>get the music that you get in this particular that's good.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Before we get the final judgment, d I want
<v Speaker 2>to talk about one thing that we've kind of not
<v Speaker 2>covered yet.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>The movie posters for both of these movies are fantastic,
<v Speaker 2>like some of the best ever.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So, in America and WORLF in London, you have the
<v Speaker 2>two boys in the dark looking over their shoulder, looking
<v Speaker 2>at the moon. They're scared. It's dark, it's scary. There's
<v Speaker 2>no wolf. Nope, there's no cheesy wolf monster nothing. Those
<v Speaker 2>just scared beware of the moon, right right.
<v Speaker 1>It's creepy.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the howling, you know, it's one of those things.
<v Speaker 2>In the old days, the posters didn't necessarily have anything
<v Speaker 2>to do with the movie. It's had to catch your
<v Speaker 2>eye at the video store.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>The Howling has a female figure hidden by like some
<v Speaker 2>sort of screen.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's like the movie screen. And it's like the
<v Speaker 1>movie screen, that's right.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And her fingers are tearing through. She's got broken fingernails.
<v Speaker 1>She's screaming. What is super effective? Right? Yeah? What is it?
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, but.
<v Speaker 2>That caught my eye every time I passed it in
<v Speaker 2>the movie theater or at the blockbuster. The better of
<v Speaker 2>these two, I'm going with the Hewling.
<v Speaker 1>The Howling has the better pressure. Yeap. So I was
<v Speaker 1>thinking about American Werewolf in London, and if you took
<v Speaker 1>out the Wolf where you see the wolf for you know,
<v Speaker 1>flash by at the very beginning, and you take out
<v Speaker 1>the change scene, yes, I would be fascinated, Like this
<v Speaker 1>could be just a crazy person, right, this could be
<v Speaker 1>like we're really trying to figure out is he really
<v Speaker 1>crazy or is he really a were wolf? And obviously
<v Speaker 1>with the title, you know what you're gonna get sure,
<v Speaker 1>but it's a very compelling movie even without what could
<v Speaker 1>be its greatest scene. And that's pretty impressive. That is impressive.
<v Speaker 1>I see what you're saying there. And I also have
<v Speaker 1>to mention the two investigative detectives. Oh my gosh, we
<v Speaker 1>didn't even talk about that. Comedy goal comedy gold. When
<v Speaker 1>he steps back, knocks the bedpans over noisily, tries to
<v Speaker 1>stack them together again, and the doctor is like, tell
<v Speaker 1>him I died? What Tell him I'm dead? Comedy goal.
<v Speaker 2>The guy who's the clumsy cop and clearly the less
<v Speaker 2>experienced cop, he's the better cop because he knows something's
<v Speaker 2>not right right, And the other guy that keeps shushing,
<v Speaker 2>What are you suggesting the entire village can talk to
<v Speaker 2>the story?
<v Speaker 1>No, precisely. Okay, I think we've combed these movies thoroughly. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>there's a lot of wolf are in my comb Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I think it's time to say final judgment. Okay, let's
<v Speaker 1>go find you go first.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, first of all, I love creature features. Okay, I'm
<v Speaker 2>not so much a slasher movie, but but the monster movies,
<v Speaker 2>I really love those. Okay, there's a couple of problems
<v Speaker 2>that I have with both of these movies. The howling
<v Speaker 2>you know that you got the worst police work of
<v Speaker 2>all time at the beginning, the idea that this reporter
<v Speaker 2>is going to go meet with a serial killer and
<v Speaker 2>a porn shop. It's just a terrible idea, Like, no
<v Speaker 2>freaking way that would ever happen. And then her transformation
<v Speaker 2>on screen is supposed to be super impactful and it's
<v Speaker 2>weird and it's it's supposed to be shocking and it is,
<v Speaker 2>but it would have been better if she did turn
<v Speaker 2>into a wolf, you know, instead of an ewok.
<v Speaker 1>Right, okay, so set that aside. Okay.
<v Speaker 2>American Worlf in London is a super high paced, very slick.
<v Speaker 1>Fun monster movie. Yep.
<v Speaker 2>My only problem with it, and it's I think a
<v Speaker 2>big problem. Yeah, there's no mention of silver bullets or fire.
<v Speaker 2>All it is is just the police just shoot this thing.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Well they mentioned it, what they mentioned silver bullets
<v Speaker 1>when they're talking to him in the porn theater about
<v Speaker 1>killing himself. He's like, don't have to have a silver
<v Speaker 1>bullet and he's like, come on, David, be real for
<v Speaker 1>a minute while he's talking to people, right, that's a
<v Speaker 1>ridiculous sireny Right.
<v Speaker 2>Well, so for me, this is a supernatural curse that
<v Speaker 2>this man is dealing with. He has a supernatural transformation.
<v Speaker 2>The idea that silver would have some sort of supernatural
<v Speaker 2>effect on it is not too far fetched for me.
<v Speaker 2>If you just have a bearer running around your neighborhood
<v Speaker 2>once a month, would you not just go get your
<v Speaker 2>rifle and.
<v Speaker 1>Go shoot it?
<v Speaker 2>Right? So I wish that they had made a deal
<v Speaker 2>about you know, silver bullets. Okay, so set that aside.
<v Speaker 2>Other than that, both of these movies are both fun, thrilling, exciting.
<v Speaker 2>The transformation effects are awesome, and then settling. I think
<v Speaker 2>American Werewolf is more fun. I find the characters more lovable.
<v Speaker 2>I basically fall in love with Nurse Price every time
<v Speaker 2>I watch American Worlf in London. Sure, there's no extra,
<v Speaker 2>it's all killer, no filler. I am slamming the football down.
<v Speaker 2>American World in London is the best of these two movies.
<v Speaker 1>Ok. I understand, I understand be objectively talking about the
<v Speaker 1>two stories that we have. Yes, if you look at
<v Speaker 1>just the story with American Werewolf in London, you have
<v Speaker 1>a guy who gets bitten by a wolf that's a werewolf,
<v Speaker 1>who then turns into a wolf and then gets killed. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>and there's a love interest in that, sure, And that's
<v Speaker 1>the whole movie.
<v Speaker 3>It's it.
<v Speaker 1>That's the whole story. Good. It's not particularly complex. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>the howling. You have what appears to be a serial
<v Speaker 1>killer on the loose who then attacks a woman who
<v Speaker 1>can't remember things, who then has to go to a
<v Speaker 1>colony of patients who in all respects appear to be
<v Speaker 1>there to try to help. She's talking to the psychiatrist
<v Speaker 1>that try to help, and investigation is going on about
<v Speaker 1>this weird serial killer and why nobody knows what's going
<v Speaker 1>on with them. And then suddenly, at the end of
<v Speaker 1>the movie, after you've had some reveals about these people
<v Speaker 1>being wolfman, you realize, oh my gosh, the entire colony
<v Speaker 1>that she's been at are all we're wolves who are
<v Speaker 1>like forming this army to go out and be a
<v Speaker 1>part of the world. That's a much more compelling story.
<v Speaker 1>That story is awesome, But here's the problem. They had
<v Speaker 1>about a million dollars to make that story. That's right.
<v Speaker 1>They had ten million dollars to make American Wear Wolf
<v Speaker 1>in London, which was not as interesting of a story.
<v Speaker 1>John Sales did a pretty good job with that script. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but it wasn't as well told as the simpler story.
<v Speaker 1>It wasn't as funny, it wasn't as well acted, and
<v Speaker 1>you can see the production value that comes through. And
<v Speaker 1>then the final nail in the coffin for the Howling.
<v Speaker 1>Even though in April it was the greatest change scene
<v Speaker 1>you'd ever seen in your life, come August we had
<v Speaker 1>Rick Baker's change scene that he had been preparing for
<v Speaker 1>for a deck and it blew the doors off of
<v Speaker 1>The Howling. And so sorry the Howling. You are a
<v Speaker 1>fantastic movie for a million dollar movie, one of the best.
<v Speaker 1>It's amazing that forty years later, forty years later, we're
<v Speaker 1>still talking about this. Yeah, that's right, but it can't
<v Speaker 1>compare to what John Landis gave us. And I think,
<v Speaker 1>among the other things that I've already discussed, the key
<v Speaker 1>is it's funnier. And I don't know why the studios
<v Speaker 1>had such an issue, but when you have things as
<v Speaker 1>shocking as what's going on with the murders and the guns,
<v Speaker 1>and the demons and the wolves and all of these things,
<v Speaker 1>you have to juxtapose that with laugh moments, right, it
<v Speaker 1>has to be funny at some points, and John Landis
<v Speaker 1>knew how to be funny. It was great. I have
<v Speaker 1>to agree with you. American We're Wolf in London wins
<v Speaker 1>the day. But you've got to give kudos to the
<v Speaker 1>Howling for doing what it did with such a low budget.
<v Speaker 3>Awesome.
<v Speaker 1>I totally agree. Okay, Dean.
<v Speaker 2>This week on our Shirly Showcase, my good friend Dave Dolphin,
<v Speaker 2>who is on YouTube's a really gifted video producers. Super funny.
<v Speaker 2>He comes up with these videos. I think he's calling
<v Speaker 2>it documenting my midlife crisis. When we started this podcast,
<v Speaker 2>we called a couple of people, but he was my
<v Speaker 2>first call. I took him to lunch. He gave me
<v Speaker 2>some advice on how to run a podcast, so I'm
<v Speaker 2>super grateful for him. But he wanted to weigh in
<v Speaker 2>on the Michael Jackson Thriller versus Michael Jackson Bad. That's
<v Speaker 2>episode one and two that we did a long time ago,
<v Speaker 2>almost two years ago, and here's what he had to say.
<v Speaker 4>Hey, longtime listener, first time caller to the show, thank
<v Speaker 4>you so much for having me on. I love what
<v Speaker 4>you guys are doing, and especially as someone who is
<v Speaker 4>in his late forties in documenting his midlife crisis in
<v Speaker 4>a very public way on YouTube. Part of that whole
<v Speaker 4>process is nostalogia and looking back on previous seasons in
<v Speaker 4>our life. If there's ever an artist in a couple
<v Speaker 4>of albums that just could be the pinnacle of that
<v Speaker 4>idea of thinking back fondly of the eighties, it's got
<v Speaker 4>to be Michael Jackson and the Thriller record and Bad.
<v Speaker 4>Like when Thriller came out, I was eight, and so
<v Speaker 4>I was just starting to experience pop music and understand
<v Speaker 4>what it was and enjoying it and starting to have
<v Speaker 4>opinions on what songs I like versus other songs that
<v Speaker 4>I didn't like, and listening to the radio and knowing
<v Speaker 4>the lyrics, and so as I'm experiencing all of this,
<v Speaker 4>I remember the guy coming to the house to install
<v Speaker 4>cable television, and now there's this thing called MTV that
<v Speaker 4>I cannot only listen to these artists that I'm experiencing,
<v Speaker 4>but I can also.
<v Speaker 3>See them and experience it in that way.
<v Speaker 4>I remember my buddy from down the street saying, Hey,
<v Speaker 4>do you want to come over? I have the entire
<v Speaker 4>fifteen minute Thriller video recorded on VHS tape and we
<v Speaker 4>can watch that.
<v Speaker 3>I remember this album cover.
<v Speaker 4>My parents had a really large record collection and they
<v Speaker 4>would play music in the house quite a bit, and
<v Speaker 4>this was definitely a staple of that. And so I
<v Speaker 4>remember like these songs being played in the house and
<v Speaker 4>just seeing the album cover and everything about this record.
<v Speaker 4>There's so many emotional connections in my life to this
<v Speaker 4>record that even forty years later, are still there there.
<v Speaker 4>They'll be with me until the day I die. Now
<v Speaker 4>fast forward to Bad and I'm in middle school, and
<v Speaker 4>I remember a lot of these songs as I go
<v Speaker 4>through the track listing and I listened to it all.
<v Speaker 4>I remember it's like, Okay, Dirty Diana, I remember that
<v Speaker 4>sweet Criminal, Bad, the way make me feel. I remember
<v Speaker 4>all these songs, but not in the same way that
<v Speaker 4>I did for Thriller.
<v Speaker 3>Thriller was just creating magic.
<v Speaker 4>It was there were so many things happening in the
<v Speaker 4>early eighties in terms of like where pop music was
<v Speaker 4>going and some different influences that are coming in. You
<v Speaker 4>add in this new technology with drum machines and synthesizers
<v Speaker 4>and all of that, plus Michael Jackson coming off the
<v Speaker 4>Jacksons and trying to kind of be his own person.
<v Speaker 4>Thriller was about creating magic. And then Bad was as
<v Speaker 4>the career had just catapulted.
<v Speaker 3>Bad was about.
<v Speaker 4>Maintaining magic, and those are two separate things in terms
<v Speaker 4>of did Bad maintain the magic? Did it continue to
<v Speaker 4>push his career forward as a creative, as a performer,
<v Speaker 4>as a music icon. I think it did that, But
<v Speaker 4>you think about where he was, like where he was
<v Speaker 4>pushing things forwards. The risks that he was taking as
<v Speaker 4>a creative as a performer had more to do I
<v Speaker 4>think with like music videos, and he was pushing that
<v Speaker 4>forward instead of it.
<v Speaker 3>Just being the band performing the song live.
<v Speaker 4>How can this be like a fully produced movie with
<v Speaker 4>a story and all this where my song is the
<v Speaker 4>soundtrack to this movie. He was also really trying to
<v Speaker 4>establish himself as like this sex symbol in just his
<v Speaker 4>place as a music icon in the industry, and I
<v Speaker 4>don't know if that necessarily landed the way that he
<v Speaker 4>wanted to. I mean, you can sing I'm bad, I'm bad,
<v Speaker 4>you know it as many times as you want. I
<v Speaker 4>don't see you as bad, Like you're not the bad guy,
<v Speaker 4>You're the groovy guy. Can you be the groovy guy?
<v Speaker 4>Can you be okay with just being the groovy guy?
<v Speaker 4>Let Billie Eilish be the bad guy. That's more believable.
<v Speaker 4>I don't think it landed, but I do applaud him
<v Speaker 4>for taking those risks. But when it comes to the album,
<v Speaker 4>I think the album was more of the foundation to
<v Speaker 4>maintain that magic so he could push these other things forward.
<v Speaker 3>You know, I have.
<v Speaker 4>Teenagers, and so they keep me up to speed on
<v Speaker 4>like today's music and a lot of things that's happening
<v Speaker 4>in pop music today with Olivia Rodrigo and The Weekend
<v Speaker 4>and Charlie Pooth. I love where pop music is right now.
<v Speaker 4>But if we're in the car and we're listening to
<v Speaker 4>eighties on eight and a song from Thriller comes on,
<v Speaker 4>if they hear beat it or I want to be
<v Speaker 4>starting something for Billy Jean or Thriller, like they know
<v Speaker 4>these songs, they sing along, They weren't even around when
<v Speaker 4>it first came out, and they have these emotional ties
<v Speaker 4>to the record. I don't know if they could name
<v Speaker 4>one song off the bad record. There's a difference between
<v Speaker 4>creating magic and maintaining magic, and it's no small feat
<v Speaker 4>to maintain the magic after a record like Thriller. But
<v Speaker 4>you just can't ignore the powerhouse that is Thriller. So
<v Speaker 4>I think if this is the battle between Michael Jackson's
<v Speaker 4>Thriller and Michael Jackson's Bad. I think that Thriller wins
<v Speaker 4>this one.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, I feel vindicated. He's all right, You're all.
<v Speaker 3>Wrong as usual.
<v Speaker 1>He's a music guy and he votes Thriller for the
<v Speaker 1>same reasons that I vote Thriller. Although I will say this,
<v Speaker 1>my kids are probably more familiar with the songs off
<v Speaker 1>of Bad than they are off of Thriller, just because
<v Speaker 1>of my bad parenting. But he's still right.
<v Speaker 2>Well, that's interesting. Yeah, Dave was a radio DJ, so
<v Speaker 2>he his music. He plays in bands. He's a very
<v Speaker 2>gifted musician. But we're not arguing which album had more
<v Speaker 2>cultural impact. Thriller wins the day on that. I'm just saying,
<v Speaker 2>song for song the better album Bad.
<v Speaker 1>You call me crazy? Yeah, Dave too.
<v Speaker 2>Hey, thank you very much man.
<v Speaker 1>We really owe you a lot.
<v Speaker 2>Thanks for all your advice and your help and and
<v Speaker 2>all that, and thanks for weighing in today. Another vote
<v Speaker 2>for Michael Jackson's Thriller album.
<v Speaker 1>Be sure and go check those episodes out. And if
<v Speaker 1>you haven't hit the subscribe button yet, if you haven't
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<v Speaker 1>so that you get all of our future episodes as well.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you all so much for joining us. We couldn't
<v Speaker 1>do it without you.
<v Speaker 2>Awesome all right, Shirley fans, that's where we come down
<v Speaker 2>on American World in London versus the Howling
<v Speaker 1>Mo