Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Mini #163: Celebrating "The Outer Limits" and "The Twilight Zone" with Gary Gerani

Episode Date: May 10, 2018

This week: Civil War trading cards! Charlton Heston holds out! Praising "The Horror of Dracula"! Rod Serling inspires "The X-Files"! And Bill Bixby feuds with Lou Ferrigno! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's the sound of unaged whiskey transforming into Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around 1860, Nearest Green taught Jack Daniel how to filter whiskey through charcoal for a smoother taste, one drop at a time. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell.

To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and we're once again at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Furtarosa, and this is Gilbert and Frank's amazing, colossal Obsessions.

And we're here with part two with our guest. Let's see if I have it right. Gary Gerani. Colossal Obsessions. Thank you, Gabby Gottfried. That was nicely done. He called you Gabby Girandi last week. I'm very Gabby anyway, so that was appropriate.

It's a tribute to classic westerns. Some people say Gary Girani or Jerry Girani. The hard C and the soft G is a problem. Now, as a leftover, because we were talking about where dicks pop up in movie ads and cartoons and Star Wars. I think in Teen Wolf, there's a scene in the gym, and one guy in the background, one of the extras, pulled his dick out. And it stayed in the movie. In which? No, in the movie. In which?

No, in Teen Wolf. In Teen Wolf. Yeah. Yeah. A guy pulled his dick out and was holding his dick. There is a reason why this,

the dick angle is being mentioned, of course, because it does. Hi, I'm Dick Angle. And his sidekick, Gabby Girardi. They really,

they're, I'm assuming we're connecting it to the famous C-3PO having an erection. Yes, if you missed last week's episode, I love to say that, you missed a scintillating conversation about the famous Star Wars, the infamous Star Wars erection card that Gary worked on, because Gary is the king of trading cards.

He is the card king. See, I'm doing a little recap. That's true. And bringing them up to speed. This works. And last week we talked about your time at Topps, a little bit about the history of Topps. We could have gotten into so much more.

Oh, yes, yes. But it's hard to cover in 28 minutes. And Gilbert went completely off the reservation and wants to know where religious comic books that were handed out on the street come from. Right, which is one thing I couldn't help him with, but sounds great. But we'll throw it out there again

in case you weren't listening to episode one. Oh, yeah. Just tell him what you're looking for. You want to know. Okay. Because I know, like, yeah, Penn Jillette knew the name of it, and I think he even knew the guy.

They used to hand out these comic books, rectangular little comic books, out on the street, and it was from some church group. What era are we talking about here? The 70s, 60s? Oh, God, I was a little kid. I must have been in the 60s. 50s, 60s, okay. I can email Len Brown tonight. He'll know. How is Len? Would you give him my best? Oh, I was a little kid. I must have been in the 60s. 50s, 60s. Okay. I can email Len Brown tonight. He'll know.

How is Len? Would you give him my best? Oh, I will indeed. Please. I haven't seen him in ages. Len's great. I mean, Len, he was like my big brother at Topps. And we were great pals.

And we both loved RSI-Fi and all that. We always tried to push Topps into doing things. I remember we desperately wanted them to do a Wonder Woman card set when it came out, the Linda Carter show. Because we had the hots for Linda Carter. Sure. It would be great to do that. Why not? And that didn't quite work out.

We wound up eventually doing the Incredible Hulk, which was okay. Wasn't there a problem with the Hulk? Like they didn't have the – Ah, funny you should mention that. It was very much like last week when I was talking about – we were talking about the Batman trading cards. Originally, same thing. Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby did not want to give the rights to their images. So people who had an incredible Hulk license just went to the drawings and paintings and whatever.

So we were going to paint a series of the Hulk. As a matter of fact, Norm Saunders, who painted the original Batman cards and Mars Attacks, of course. He was actually on staff in the art department at Topps at that time. And I went over to him and I said, you know, just like the Batman thing again, do you think you could try doing a Hulk thing,

maybe having him picking up a car or something? And he said, Gary, please don't ask me to do it. I really don't have it anymore. I really can't do it. Wow. And I said, but please, please, please don't ask me to do it. I really don't have it anymore. I really can't do it. Wow. And I said, but please, please, please. And then he did do it, and he was right. It wasn't bad, but it was not.

That's a shame. I so admired his talent. He was brilliant. By the way, we did then get the rights with the real. The Hulk cards. I remember the Hulk cards. It was actually not a bad set. Yeah, yeah.

A lot of great shots from the pilot where the Hulk's makeup was more monstrous. The head was more Neanderthal. In the 90s, we did so many things there that never happened, like I told you. The weird wheels. And Drew did this wonderful series called Ugly Americans that never happened. Yeah, because the success of Garbage Pail Kids. Yes. Okay, what else can we do that's subversive and crazy and whatever?

Well, the grossology books were, that was the order of the day. I mean, what's interesting is, I handled most of the movie and TV tie-ins, also creating new products

and even candy products, not only, I remember I created something called Drack Snacks, which were like shaped candies like vampires

and coffins and then Leap and Lizards which were dinosaurs, and we'd have little candies shaped like these things, and I would design and draw the little candy shapes. So if you worked there, no matter what your area of expertise was, and again, movie TV was mine, but they would hit you with anything. Oh, yeah.

Try this. See what you could get out of this, you know, and that's how I wound up doing one of the prototypes for GPK. Those brainstorming meetings were very weird. Yes. Yeah. But wonderful personalities. But wonderful. Wonderful. What were you going to ask, Gil? Now, this, I always like to get it away from the topic we're talking about.

That's fine. Now, Bill Bixby. Did you comment on the Civil War? That was a hell of a shame. And then Topps did a great painting. Topps did a Civil War card series. Look at that. It always leads back to Topps.

Segway. Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno didn't get along. That's what they say. That's what they say. Well, you know, Lou Ferrigno was a guy from the neighborhood. He wasn't a Hollywood guy. He was, you know, like a Goomba, one of these guys, one of my type of fellas that I know. Bixby was a bright guy. And Bill Bixby was pure Hollywood, you know, like a Goomba, one of these guys, one of my type of fellas that I know and be Bixby was a bright guy.

And Bill Bixby was pure Hollywood, you know, very slick, very nice guy, but a friendly guy. And I think Lou just didn't know how to handle it. Hey, listen, Burt Ward had the same problem when he did. He used to fight with Adam West all the time. So I guess these guys- They got paid for their likenesses ultimately, right? Oh, sure.

To be using these cards because they were holding out. Yeah. We talked about Heston too, the Planet of the Apes cards. Heston wouldn't give his... We didn't tell that last time. Yeah, yeah.

Charlton Heston limited the amount of cards. There was like a proportion of the number of cards he would be in in the set. So we couldn't make that original set a particularly big card set. I think it was only like 44

cards, because we didn't want them to have so many cards without Heston. Of course, I say we. That was 69. I started in 72. I was like you. I was buying them on the candy counter. Yes. And here's how it worked. You'd go in the candy store. You would look at the racks. I'd look for my famous

Monsters magazine. Then my eyes would drift to the comics. And the last thing would be you'd look at the candy counter to see if for my famous Monsters magazine, then my eyes would drift to the comics, and the last thing would be you'd look at the candy counter to see if there was a new trading card. Oh, those days. And lo and behold,

there was the plastic. Oh, yes. The spinner rack days. Yeah. Everything was so special back then. I know, I know. Because you didn't have

everything coming out of your ears the way we have now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about Outer Limits, too, and Twilight Zone, and plug what's coming out.

Yeah. Kino Lorber just did uh just released a beautiful blu-ray set on the Outer Limits uh season one that doing season two very shortly and um what they did is they got in touch with me to do some commentaries on some of the classic episodes I because I had written a book uh in 1976 called Fantastic Television, which was the very, very first book to deal with science fiction, fantasy. A wonderful book that I had, and I don't know what happened to my copy, but I'm happy to see that I can still get one on Amazon.

So I'm going to get it. They are, I mean, my God, it's incredibly dated by today's standards. That's fine. I had a lot of fondness for that book. But it really was the first book to deal with the Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits and all these things and listing all the episodes and discussing them. And there was no way you could track those – you know, you couldn't – there were no books on this subject.

So that really – you know, I was very, very happy to be the guy that brought that out. And because of that, I've been asked to do commentaries on the Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits and the Boris Karloff thriller series. And I've seen these things over and over and know a lot about them. So I was very happy to do them. But The Outer Limits, it's great. They're from beautiful prints. They look good. They've never looked better, you know, in their life.

And The Outer Limits was a show that, first season especially, most of the episodes were shot by Conrad Hall. Wow. One of the greatest cinematographers. The late, great Conrad Hall. Sure. Whoever, you know, Oscar winning. Of course. Incredible.

In Cold Blood. I mean, go down to the list. American Beauty. Fantastic. And if you look at that show, the ones that he shot, it's like motion picture photography. It looks like Orson Welles, German Expressionism. I was even looking at them on YouTube today, and even in that shitty format, I was surprised at how good they look. Yeah, especially the whole ones.

He did about more than a third of them in the first season, almost a half of them. And they're really brilliant looking. Then I remember, well, it's just like Twilight Zone. And they're really brilliant looking. Then I remember, well, it's just like Twilight Zone. Each, every 10 years or so, they bring back the old new Twilight Zone. They try to do it. They keep trying to do it. Yeah, they rebooted Outer Limits.

They did a reboot on Outer Limits as well. Oh, yeah, on Showtime. They were terrible. Sure they did. Yeah, they weren't good. You know, I mean, these are brand names. Everybody knows the Twilight Zone. Even the Outer Limits, which only the original show only lasted a season and a half back in the day.

Whereas at least Twilight Zone went to about five seasons. Of course. But the names resonate. So, yeah. And all those great actors are on there, too. A lot of the great actors that you see on The Twilight Zone show up in The Outer Limits. Yeah, because it was from the same acting pool of the great people like Cliff Robertson. Martin Landau.

Martin Landau. Yeah, Robert Culp, of course, is in the two. Yeah, yeah. So you kept getting those good actors. Yeah, he was in that one where he's an alien who takes a human form, and he's at a boarding house, Martin Landau. Yes.

And, and... I did a commentary on that. It was The Man Who Was Never Born. That's an excellent episode. Shot by Conrad Hall. It was a beautiful one. In his room, and he switches back to his alien-looking self, and the landlady, the door is accidentally open, and the landlady sees him and screams,

and then he turns quickly back into Martin Landau, and she goes, oh, I thought I saw a horrible monster, unless you're not what I think you are. And he goes, few of us are, Miss McCluskey. Yes. Very good. Very good. Landau's in another one. He's in one with Neil Hamilton from Batman. Yes, that is the Bellarose Shield. Now, you know, most of the actors, when they

would appear a couple of times, okay, I want to be a monster in one, and I want to look like a normal person in the other. Well, the man who was never born, he could do both in the same episode. And what that was, is he was a mutated human from the future who is going back into time to stop what caused the world to turn into mutants.

And of course, James Cameron kind of borrowed that idea along with some of Harlan Ellison's for The Terminator. And as I'm doing commentaries, I'm saying, yeah, well, here we see the seeds of that. A lot of those Zone episodes and Outer Limits episodes were borrowed.

They're so influential. Feature stories. There was that kind of a famous Outer Limits where they had one story written, and they built a monster alien suit for some guy, and he fell down while he was filming it, and it broke the suit, and they didn't have money to build a new suit, so they had to change the entire story. And I think they put in a gunshot when he had to fall down.

It was strange. Sometimes Outer Limits would, on occasion, for the episode The Human Factor, which had Sally Kellerman and Gary Merrill. Gary Merrill. They were a romantic team. It was like a love story between Gary Merrill and a young Sally Kellerman. Just picture that, which is pretty out there. Right. I remember Sally Kellerman turned up a couple of times.

Just yesterday, I saw an old bonanza as opposed to the new Bonanzas coming out. You're up for the Hop Sing in the new one, aren't you? Hop Sing. Gilbert's bringing Hop Sing back. Be politically correct by today's standards. And in this one, Hoss has a beautiful girl who's in love with him, and it's Sally Kellerman. She got around. She was a working actor.

She also appears in the Star Trek, the second pilot, Where No Man Has Come Before. That's right. So she was no stranger to that. And, you know, in The Outer Limits, she did two of them. She did the one with Gary Mudd. The reason I mention the Gary Mudd is that they created this incredible ice creature monster for that,

which they didn't wind up using. It became the front man on our trading card set because it was a great-looking monster and they released the photos, but they cut it from the episode. There was an hour-limits trading card set, too? Yes. But I did not know that existed.

What was exciting about that is that Topps hand-colored, really did a great job of colorization of all those black and white monsters, so it was kind of fun to see them in color. Must get my hands on those. And what was the Outer Limits

with Robert Culp? Well, there were two. No, there were three. Three? Why only know Architects of Fear and, of course, Harlan's episode,

the Demon with the Glass Hand. He did three of them. And you mentioned Architects of Fear. That's another one I did a commentary for. That is a good one. And I'm very proud

to have done that. That's one of the... That's another one I did a commentary for. That is a good one. And I'm very proud to have done that. That's one of the... That's when he's a scientist and they're going to turn him into an alien and pretend that he's coming to scare the people of Earth into becoming peaceful. Right. He's going to show up at the UN and... It's a Serling kind of

story almost because it's got political... It went the traditional Outer Limits route which was a little different. See, Twilight zone would always build to the twist ending and they were like these little parables and moral stories whereas outer limits sometimes would just be like weird you know they they throw a monster at you and the storylines would be a little hard to grasp as a kid it was much easier to understand the moral of the story in twilight zone without a limit she would just usually groove in on the monsters. I only know those two.

I know the demon with the glass hand, of course, which people consider to be. Yes, and here's the quickie on that. Architects of Fear was the first one that he did. And that was, I think, the third episode shown on the Outer Limits. It was a very important episode. The next one he did was also for season one called Corpus Earthling. And you've got to see that show. First of all, we're talking about Conrad Hall's cinematography.

Oh, my God. He finds angles I never knew existed in that show. It's a brilliantly shot show. Very simple premise. He's got a metal plate in his head, and that enables him to hear these two rocks that are talking about taking over the earth. Do you know this one, Gil? No. This is

amazing. You have to see it. It's a cult favorite among Outer Limits fans because it's very, very nightmarish. Much scarier than usual. So he's in that. He loses his girlfriend, played by Salome Jens, who was another actress who got around a lot during that. It was one of his girlfriends at the time.

But she was a good actress. And a very, very scary episode. What's it called again? It's called Corpus Earthling. Because these rocks invade the bodies of humans. And they turn them into... Did you ever see the movie Carnival of Souls? Sure, of course.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've talked about it on this show. Well, the people that the rocks take over look like those zombies. So it was terrifying. And the way Hall shot it, brilliant. And then the third cult episode he did for season two, which is Demon with a Glass Hand. Right, that's the Harlan Ellison. Which, yeah, many people consider among the best in the series.

And it's great. All three episodes are terrific. in the series. And it's, it's great. He's all three episodes are terrific. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. palm of your hand. Play the classics like Blackjack, roulette, slots, and baccarat. Or take a spin on exclusive games you won't find anywhere else. Experience the excitement of the casino floor right on your phone. Download the app and play whatever, wherever, and whenever.

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whenever they talk about the outer limits. They show this, and that was the one with Ilya Kuryakins. Yes. The Six Finger. Oh, The Six Finger. Yes. We were talking about it before with David McCallum. With Edward Mulher.

Edward Mulher from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Edward Mulher. He's the scientist. Edward Mulher was pretty much the substitute Rex Harrison his whole career. That's interesting. Yeah. He took over for Rex Harrison, I think, on Broadway or something, for my fair. And whenever you needed someone to do, that's why he wound up on the go,

because Rex Harrison played that role in the movie in 1947. Yeah, very much like him. But David McCallum, who did two Outer Limits, he did The Sixth Finger, where his head gets bigger and bigger and bigger. He's the man of the future. I love that one. Right. That's a classic episode.

And then he did the last episode of season one, which is called The Forms of Things Unknown, which if you haven't seen this again, Conrad Hall being crazy with the cinematography. That episode was done to sort of emulate the look of foreign movies. It's like these two women are killing their lover, and then they wind up running into David McCallum, who's a madman who has tilted time and brought himself back to life.

It is brilliant. David McCallum's still around. We've got to get him on the show. Oh, yes. So much to talk about if we can track David McCallum down. And they filmed that episode twice to be an episode of The Outer Limits and also to stand alone as a pilot for a series that Joe Stefano, who was the producer on Outer Limits, who wrote Psycho and all that. So we brought that old dark house feeling to everything.

He was trying to launch another series at the end of the run of Outer Limits called The Unknown. So he has one version of that story where McCallum's character just thinks he's come back to life and conquered time. And then the other one he really has. So there were slightly different scenes, all shot by Hall, all brilliant. We're trying to get that pilot, that second one, The Unknown, on the second season release, even though it was done for the first set, because no one has really seen it in that form. I've got to get this box set.

Oh, any fan, really. This Blu-ray set. It just sounds great. Some people have said, gee, I have the old Blu-rays. Aren't they good enough? No. Okay. No, these, the quality is better.

Plus, you get our exciting commentary. Sold, sir. Tell us about the Twilight Zone commentaries you did. Yeah. Because we were talking about walking distance, too, with Kig Young, Gilbert's favorite. Yeah. Before we turn the mics on. Yeah, yeah.

And it's also got that actor in it, Frank Overton. Oh, Frank Overton. Frank Overton. Frank Overton is great. You name one other podcast in the world, buddy, that's talking about Frank Overton. I have a friend who likes Frank. Name any other human being on the planet. Or Max Showalter.

Another great. With his other name, too, Casey Adams. Yes, yes. We got it. We got it. And the monster that challenged the world, he's Casey Adams by the time he does 10, he's back shoulder Frank Overton's probably most famous role, I guess he's in To Kill a Mockingbird, he's the sheriff he's the one who says, at the end, let's not take

Robert Duvall in. Let him – he killed a bad guy. Let it just stay that way. That's probably his most important part. But he turned up in all these things. And he was in a few Twilight Zones. He even did one of the hour episodes that they're showing now on MeTV with the episode Mute where there's a little girl who seems to be mute. But basically she's been tutored in psychic stuff, so she doesn't talk.

They don't realize this is a fire and her parents are killed. And Frank Overton adopts her or takes her in and is trying to figure out what is it with this girl. Yeah. And he goes, this is his childhood, Martin. Yeah. You can't share it with him. Very nice, Gil. What's your favorite Twilight Zone episode?

And it doesn't have to be, I know it's an impossible question to answer, it doesn't have to be one you did a commentary on. Did you do either of the Shatner episodes? Did you do... No, but we have someone better doing the Shatner episode, the Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, which is where he sees the gremlin on a plane. Right, of course. Directed by a future podcast guest, Richard Donner. Exactly. We had Richard Donner do that one. Oh, you got Richard Donner to do that.

Better to have him do it. Ridiculous. Yes. But I would have to say I like the other one better. I know I'm in a minority. The one with the fortune teller. Nick of time. That one I like better, too. Well, here's the thing the author of that richard matheson that's his favorite as well no kidding and he says yeah

there's no crazy monsters there's nothing but it's just a just dread just fear and dread terrific in it he's great uh i mean sometimes you know shatner that we say has a tendency to overact and all that but he's wonderful in that and you, you know, he's good in The Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, too. He's good in both of them. But, yeah, I like the ones that really give you the creeps. I mean, those are, what's the one where the, what is the title, of course, Gary would know? Where the couple is in the car accident and they don't realize they're dead? Oh.

And they're in that town? They're in that little miniature? Yeah. realize they're dead. And they're in that town. They're in that little miniature. Yeah. They're not dead. What has happened, because that idea had been done 20 times already. What has happened is- I haven't seen it in ages, so I'm half remembering it. A little girl. They always hear the giggling of a little girl in this town.

Oh, yes, that's it. And what it is that she and her family are aliens from outer space and it ends with, oh, now be nice with your humans. You have to be good or whatever. And they're in a little town that was created, and they're just these little people who will be living there because these aliens scooped them up one night as pets for their children. What's the name of that one? Stop Over in a Quiet Town, I think is the name of that. I haven't seen that in about 35 years. There was also Twilight Zone.

I forget that actress's name. It was like a Swedish-sounding name. She used to be popular. She has a hitchhiker who's following her. Inger Stevens. Incredibly scary episode. That's a scary one. They went out on the road on that.

As you'll notice, she's driving in her car. There's no phony projection screen. She's really driving, almost the way Steven Spielberg did Duel. They had a camera mounted in the car.

And there's some stuff done in the studio, but she's really on the, and that's going my way. You know, in that case, it was that. She was dead, and she just hadn't been, the hitchhiker was going to escort her into the next world.

Carnival of Souls, very much borrowed that central idea of a girl who doesn't realize she's dead and is going through all this. And I remember she's at a train station, and she's hysterical yes talking to the guy behind the counter and the guy behind the counter you know brushes her off and says okay now sit down and breathe through your nose and inger stevens was terrific in that she was uh i think that was based on a radio play or a short story that was written by the person,

the writer who did Sorry, Wrong Number, which had Barbara Stanwyck in the movie version. Oh, yeah, I like that picture. Right, right. So obviously that writer, that one really was into women who were in scary situations. And there were, I think, two Jack Klugman episodes. Yeah, he did a few. One was The Pool Player with Jonathan Winters. Is that called Young Man with a Horn?

Well, that's the other one. That's the other one. Oh, yes. So it's three. We lost them. My favorite is In Praise of Pip. Yeah. With a guest that we've had on the show, Billy Mummy.

Billy Mummy, yeah. Yeah, Billy Mummy. Oh, I like Long Distance Call with Billy Mummy. Yeah, because he's, listen. So does Billy Mummy. He's most famous for It's a Good Life. It's a Good Life. Where he's the little kid that wishes people into the cornfield, you know.

Yes. Every time he stares at you. Yeah, he did a few. Klugman actually did even more. He even wound up doing one of the hour episodes, Death Ship, which Richard Matheson wrote, where he's the captain of a ship, Ross Martin, another actor.

I remember that one. They just showed it just a couple of weeks ago on MeTV. And that's an hour episode. The hour twilight, so they only did one season. We had in here Joyce Van Patten, who's on one of those hour episodes. She's on the voyage of the Queen Anne. Right, with all the old people.

Wonderful, with Wilford Hyde White. She's also in a classic Outer Limits, a feasibility study, where they lift up six city blocks and they're on another planet. And ultimately the people sacrifice themselves so that all of Earth is spared this fate. That was a really wonderful episode.

On Twilight Zone, there was Robert Redford, Charles Bronson. Oh, what's his name? Ted Knight in a non-speaking role. Oh, everybody. Everybody turned up. Ted Knight. Actually, he turns up first in an early episode called The Lonely with Jack Warden. Yes.

As a criminal who is in isolation on another asteroid or whatever it was. And they give him like a woman robot. Right. And Ted Knight is, I keep saying Ted Baxter, Ted Knight is one of the irritable crewmen who's these three guys. And he's like, Corey, you know, it's time we leave now, you know. And so he did his thing on that. Part of the fun of watching those Outer Limits and those Twilight Zones are seeing those actors turn up. Duvall turns up with Barbara Barry.

That's right. That's in the museum. Right, with the dollhouse. That's another one of the hour episodes of the Twilight Zone. That's a the museum. Right, with the dollhouse. That's another one of the hour episodes of The Twilight Zone. That's a great one. And he's in some classic Outer Limits as well. He's in the chameleon, again, being turned into an alien to infiltrate. And James Cameron borrowed that for the big last science fiction film he did, the Avatar.

The Avatar. Where, again, a person is turned into so you're basically saying james cameron is a fucking thief i don't want to say that no no gary gerardi didn't say it gabby gerardi there you go gabby gerardi um no but but uh no everybody knows this by now it's sort of like an old story that But he, like us, loved these shows. Of course. You can't help but be inspired by them. The things that inspire you, you wind up.

Hey, even Pumpkinhead, which is the movie. Again, I grew up loving the creature from the Black Lagoon. So to be able to create my own head to toe rubber monster with claws. Man, what a thrill. I remember an article was written about you know that was praising the x-files and this writer goes and you know it's such an improvement over those terrible twilight zone and and the uh the creator of the x-files said chris carter you know i'm i'm flattered that you like the show,

but there could not have been an X-Files if there hadn't been a Twilight Zone. Exactly. Nice. He had a lot of research, because we did a ton of X-Files cards, and I used to hang around with them. And, no, he loved all this stuff. And what's also directly connected to that, the Invaders series with Roy Thinnes. Oh, yeah.

We had Larry Cohen here. Yes, yes. It was a great, great podcast. I met Roy Thinnes, and I remember I said, oh, you were in that thing, because I didn't remember the title, and I said,

well, you're like an alien, and I think the hands, the way you could tell is the pinkies. The pinkies had a little flaky, right? He was looking at me like, how the fuck do you know this? He goes like, because he didn't remember. You know what happens?

A lot of these guys, you know, they go on with their lives and they forget that there's these crazy fans who know everything about this stuff. Like us. The other thing that was a heavy influence for Chris Carter was Kolchak the Night Stalker. like us. The other thing that was a heavy influence for Chris Carter was Kolchak the Night Stalker. As a matter of fact, that was very much it.

I think McGavin wound up going on the character on the show. But again, the whole idea of trying to do a show about people who investigate the occult, Universal had been trying to do that for years and years. They were famous for their horror movies, even their horror television. And Alfred Hitchcock actually produced a pilot called Dark Intruder.

It was released in the theaters with Leslie Nielsen as a demon investigator. And they released it in the theaters because it was too scary for television. So that whole idea of a guy who investigates the occult was a key thing. One time, I was at the friars club and and it was like up in that room like by the steam room and and i saw darren darren

in a bathrobe sitting back and he had the remote, and he asked me if I could change the channels on it because he couldn't, and I wasn't able to figure out. And to this day, I feel bad that I couldn't help out. You couldn't figure out something technical. Yeah. Shocking story. I thought you were going to save the day. We run out of time, Gary.

Let's talk quickly about these books you did for IDW, the top 100 horror films and top 100 sci-fi movies. And we will do another future show with you about these books. Oh, great. But I was reading your selection and your countdown on the horror books to Gilbert on the phone. And quickly, make a case, because we are not particularly Hammer fans,

but make a case for the horror of dracula as the number one horror movie of all time yeah it is it is to me the perfect horror movie and i'm a huge fan huge fan of the classic universals don't get me wrong legosi was brilliant there's only one legosi okay i'm not you can't go near. But Horror of Dracula, that was lightning in a bottle. And it's not only considered one of the greatest horror movies, if not the greatest, it's actually considered one of the great British films, period. Because it really, unlike the one from Universal, it really was set in Victorian times. And they really played up the idea that it was the

dream lust wish of the women, the repressed women of that time, and Lee played it perfectly. That movie is excellent. So like I say, there's a lot of people out there who really do consider it. Well, it's gorgeous to look at. Yes. For sure. And it was the greatest Hammer horror film ever made. Christopher Lee wound up doing Dracula, playing Dracula.

In a lot of the sequels, they're okay, they're entertaining. But Horror of Dracula is Hammer at its best. I heard somebody refer to Lee and Cushing on a website where you were being interviewed as the, what did they say? They were the Martin and Lewis of... Yes, sure. Does that make Michael Goff Sammy Petrillo? That's a perfect connection.

I just got such a kick out of that. But this book is wonderful, and I'm going to show Gilbert. You'll get him a copy, I'm sure. Everything is in here, Gilbert. All your favorites. Mystery of the Wax Museum, Island of Lost Souls. Oh, well, these are all the essentials. Mystery of the Wax Museum, Island of Lost Souls.

Oh, well, these are all the essentials. Yeah, the Dr. Fibes movies, which we love and have talked about. And we ran out of time, but we could do a million shows with you. I know. There are so many other things that we didn't get to. Yeah.

But hopefully we can do some more at some point. Gilbert, give them a little bit of your Vincent Price impression because I don't think Gary's been treated to this. Oh, in the movie Laura, he says something about music, and the detective says, oh, so you know a lot about music? And he goes, I don't know a lot about anything, but I know a little about practically everything.

You caught his soul, my friend. Next time you come back, you get his Peter Lorre. I'm going to hold you to that. We're withholding. So give us all the plugs. The blue razor ouch of Outer Limits. You did direct. You did direct. You did commentary.

Now, Rex Harrison was an anti-Semite, right? Now let's get to the real juicy stuff. You held that over from that Dr. Doolittle episode. I don't know if Edward Mulher is continuing his extended, right? Edward Mulher became an anti-Semite just to be like Rex Harrison. I would figure. I don't know. Tell us about the books,

the Topps books, these books. And whatever. Okay. The Top 100 series, I have my own publishing company called Fantastic Press. I'm partnered with IDW,

which is, I don't know if they're the number three or four biggest comic book companies. And the fellow who's the president of that grew up loving a lot of fantastic television. So he said, God, if you could just do books like that. They're great. Exhaustively researched.

It's like they're giant trading cards. Yeah. I love these books. I designed the books the way I would design the cards. So there is, it's kind of like, this is everything about me because it's got some of tops in me. It's got fantastic television in me. They're wonderful. It's all kind of like this is everything about me because it's got some of tops in me it's got fantastic television in me they're wonderful it's it's all it's all kind of in there and uh we did four of

them top 100 horror movies top 100 sci-fi movies comic book movies 100 fantasy movies and top 100 comic book movies which sort of ends the the series we'll plug them on social media there you go and those tops books too are wonderful. Abrams did a great job with them. Yep, and they still want to do more. I'm also trying to put together a Making Dinosaurs Attack book. Probably not for Abrams. They were sort of interested, but not interested. There's sort of kind of cooling on some of this.

But I have other companies who want to do that, which is great because I have every last bit of drawings and everything on how that's set. We barely got into Dinosaurs Attack, so next time. What did you think of the movie Mars Attacks? If we had a second here, I could tell you. I had gotten the rights, the movie rights to Mars Attacks after I did Pumpkinhead with my partner. We wanted to set up a movie and we wrote a script that was serious. Because the way the cars affected us when we it was total seriosity total terror okay but they took

a different way we went around in the 90s even saw James Cameron we saw everybody with it certainly didn't say what I thought about these outer limits things but we won't get into that and what we were told I can remember what Paramount told us well we don't think War of the Worlds is coming back.

And I'm going, a few years later, you've got War of the Worlds invasion from space movies coming out of your ears. They did them all. And in the interim, Tim Burton got the movie rights to do Mars attacks and dinosaurs attacks. And he wanted to do dinosaurs attacks first. And then he got nervous because of Jurassic Park. I see. dinosaurs attacks first. And then he got nervous because of Jurassic Park.

I see. So he went over to do Mars attacks, not even realizing that Independence Day was kind of happening that same year too. So he bumped into that as well.

It is not the way we would have done it. He had just done the Ed Wood movie. Yeah. And I think he thought of Mars attacks as his plan nine

from outer space to have fun with. For his camp. Yeah. It has its moments. Yeah. You know, the original, perfect example of the difference of Mars Attacks as his Plan 9 from outer space to have fun with his camp. Yeah, it has its moments. A perfect example of the difference in the original trading card set, one of the most famous cards is Destroying a Dog, which has a dog with an alien turning his death ray

on the dog, and the dog is just flitting away in this horrific image with the owner, the little boy, going, no, no, no, freak the hell out of this. Killing soldiers is one thing, but killing your pet. Oh my God. And when it was done in the movie, in the Jack and Nicola, it was done as a throwaway gag. It was the president's dog or something. Yeah. The movie's very silly, but has some nice moments. I mean, it got its own cult following and it's funny in a way, but I think of it like

the Batman series from the 60s, which didn't really understand how to deal with the dark, serious aspect. It just made fun of it. And that's kind of what Tim Burton did with Mars Attacks. Different animal. Yeah. What do you go? Shall we wrap? Okay.

This man has a life to get back to, too. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. And it's's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. And it's not Amazing Colossal Podcast. It's Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions. And we've had on the show Gary Girandi. No. Girandi.

You put the D in. Well, I'm getting close. I love it. You are getting closer. If you come on the show about 70 more times, I'll be able to pronounce your name. I'll continue those invitations. The episode we do in 2027,

he'll get your first name, not your son. Gary, this was a treat for us. Thank you so much. Card King, Gary Girandi, and we'll have you back sometime. It was a real thrill for me and I gotta say, I mean, I feel like I'm with old pals. So I am.

The guy that I used to know ages ago, but obviously cut from the same disease cloth. You're a monster kid. We'll do more. Thanks, man. Thank you. Colossal Obsessions.