The Extras - A Sip of Noir: Discussing Classic Films and Cocktails with Eddie Muller of TCM's "Noir Alley"

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

Are you ready to step into the shadows and explore the mysterious world of film noir with our guest, Eddie Muller, host of TCM's Noir Alley? Savor the intrigue as we discuss his involvement in film preservation, his enlightening books, and his thoughts on the future of TCM. We also delve into the rise of interest in noir and the timeless appeal of classic cinema.Brace yourself for a twist as we mix classic films with modern mixology. Muller, a trained bartender, shares his passion for film noir through his cocktail creations inspired by noir classics, detailed in his book "NOIR BAR." Then we discuss a refreshing perspective on introducing young minds to the world of noir through Muller's new "Kids Noir" book, "KITTY FERAL AND THE CASE OF THE MARSHMELLOW MONKEY." We tackle the art of writing for children without condescending to them and the importance of introducing them to black and white storytelling. We round off the discussion by navigating the future of TCM in light of its recent acquisition by Discovery. So, buckle up for a thrilling journey filled with insightful conversations, nostalgia, and a dash of noir.Amazon Purchase links:NOIR BAR bookKITTY FERAL bookDARK CITY book, revised and updatedFollow Eddie Muller on FacebookThe Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv

Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and their release on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Lard, your host, and joining me today is the czar of noir, Mr. Eddie Muller, someone many of you are familiar with from Noir Alley on TCM.

Mr. Muller is the author of Dark City, The Lost World of Film Noir, which was originally released in 1998 and has recently been revised and updated. He has released two new books this year through Running Press, so we'll be talking about those, as well as discussing his North City Film Festivals and getting some of his thoughts about the future of TCM. Well, hi, Eddie. It's great to finally get you on the podcast. It is very good to be here, Tim. We've had a number of, or we have a number of mutual friends and they've mentioned, hey, you should reach out to Eddie for this, that, or the other

thing. But for whatever reason, it hasn't happened. There's Alan K. Rohde, who I know works with you. Yeah. The Film Noir Foundation, yes. Stephen Smith, good friend of mine. We go way back at Warner Brothers. A great friend. I've worked with Steve for quite a long time now on various projects. He's just a great guy. You know, I asked him, I said, Hey, Steven, who should I talk to about Maltese Falcon? It's going to be released on 4K. And of course he mentioned you. And the release came out this, oh, I don't know, a few months ago. And I just didn't have a chance to kind of get around doing things specific for that. But I will ask you about that in a little bit. Then it was Scott

McGee. Yep. My buddy Scott at TCM, you must've talked to him about his Stuntman book, right? The Stuntman book. And then he, you know, he helps program the festival as well. Yes, I'm well aware of that. I got a two for one with that, with him talking about that. So, so yeah, so we, we've had a lot of people kind of mentioned and I'm like, you know, even on my podcast page, people say, we didn't get Eddie on. So I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to no longer be just a rumor. I'm actually here. Well, the last one I wanted to mention is George Feldstein of Warner Brothers. And George has mentioned you as well, because I think you did a number of audio commentaries for various releases over the years for the Warner Archive. But how far back do you guys go?

A long way before any of this stuff was actually digitized in any form. George has been just a very, very important person for me. Because when I got into this, I wrote my book on film noir, and then it morphed into being a restorationist and preservationist as well. And I didn't really understand a lot of the inner workings of studio archives and things like that. So George, who does that for Warner Brothers and had done it in a lot of other archives and studios as well, was an important part of my crash course, shall we say, and how I came up to speed on all of this stuff. So I could transition from being, you know, somebody who just writes about movies to somebody who's actively engaged in their preservation.

And George was essential to that speedy learning process. Yeah. And for most people who follow you, they know your book that you're talking about. That's Dark City, The Lost World, a film noir, right? Which came out in, well, the first version came out in 98. And then you just had a update and revise that came out a year or two ago. Yes, we call it a revised and expanded edition. And it was tricky because, you know, I always said, look, by the 20th year that this thing's been available, I want to do a 20th anniversary edition. And then I got kind of

caught between, because that disappeared during COVID. And then it was like, okay, now it's going to be a 25th. I don't want to wait that long. So it's just a revised and expanded edition. Yeah, and I have the book and I've listened to it on my audio book version as well. And I didn't realize it's named by a Hollywood reporter as one of the 100 greatest film books of all time. That's high praise. It's recent praise as well. And I was quite surprised. I was taken aback by that. I love the fact that they reached out and Scott Feinberg, who's the editor there at the Hollywood Reporter, that he reached out and said, hey, I want to include you in the balloting, or I'm sorry, in the voting for the

100 greatest film books of all time, right? And of course, you know, I kind of sneak through and look to see if I happen to make that initial ballot, which was a lot of books. It was like almost 1,500 books or something. And I was very surprised just to see the book on the list and then was completely stupefied when it actually was named one of the 100 greatest film books. And I have to say, Tim, I did not vote for myself on that ballot. So that made it kind of in a way even sweeter. You know, it's like, wow, I didn't even have to vote for myself. That's terrific. Well, I mean, it's quite a kudos to you. And one of the reasons I reached out to you is because this year you've had two books come out.

And I thought they were both very interesting and worth talking about. Happy to do that. But before we dive into those, I did want to kind of pick your brain a little bit and talk to you a little bit about just noir in general and kind of the state of things there. You've mentioned, I think, that there's a real resurgence in interest in noir. What are your, what do you attribute that to? My hard work over the last 20 years. No, I mean, I do feel there's a little bit of that, but I just think the time is right. You know, there's something about what noir is all about, the kind of sense of a little

bit of paranoia and distrust and alienation and all that, which I do think is kind of prevalent in the culture. But that's an anthropologist's take on this. I just think that the films are really, really sturdy. The original films are very sturdy. And, you know, when I got my gig at TCM, I really do believe one of the reasons I got that is because at some point in the process, I made the comment, you know, film noir is the gateway drug to classic cinema because they're films that younger people will watch when they won't watch a Western or a musical or a screwball comedy or

something. They'll watch film noir because it's sexy, you know, super stylish, and the stories aren't corny. You know, they're pretty serious dramas, but with wit, with great wit in the language. So I really think that has a lot to do with why the old films maintain their popularity, but also why they serve as the basis for so many new contemporary works that to me seem clearly inspired by the classic films, whether it's a detective story or a noir drama or something. It's the storytelling, doesn't go out of fashion. Yeah. And I have to say that for myself, I feel the same way and I'm not that young anymore. But in the days when I was growing up and I wasn't watching much black and white, unless it was on TV, I wasn't really watching the films.

But I, you know, like everybody else, the classic classics, the ones with Humphrey Bogart, you know, the ones that are kind of the top few name worthy ones that, you know, the Maltese Falcons, they really pull you in. And then through that, you want to explore others that Bogart's done or that other actors have done or other writers or directors. And I found that to be true for myself. And and then you you just find out how good the filmmaking was from the classic film era. Exactly. And then the other thing I thought is that I'm a big fan of kind of the, you know, the modern Batman. of kind of the, you know, the modern Batman. And I think that a lot of the Christopher Nolan and obviously in the Batman film recently, you've got basically the old, or you got the adage that basically these are noirs

or even Batman, the animated series, that these are really noirs to where the animation is even drawn. Absolutely. And then the live action, the way it's filmed, and the sensibility. So there's kind of a connection to modern times, I believe. Absolutely. The thing that's funny is the aberration.

Where Batman is concerned, the aberration was the Adam West show, the 60s show. Because when Batman was created, he was a noir character. I mean, it was, I mean, next to, you know, Dick Tracy was the noir comic strip, and Batman was the really noir comic book. And it always was like that, except for that period in the 60s, where it's kind of the pop art explosion. And just the, you know, color TV came in and it turned that Batman into something very campy. And then of course, in later years in the comic books, it was, there were so many comic book artists who wanted to return Batman to his roots, you know, Neil Adams, a little bit of a geek on this, Neil Adams and Bernie Wrightson and Marshall Rogers. And then of course, Frank Miller,

who in some ways did the, the new, you know, the dark night bat. Right. And then, you know, the,

the movies just carried it from there, you know, because obviously like somebody like Chris Nolan is a, he knows his way around film noir. Definitely. Uh, he's, he's made a lot of films early in his career that i don't hesitate to just call film noir

that's what he was doing i'm thinking i'm thinking memento memento absolutely and before that he made a film called following which was his like low budget calling card movie shot in black and white that was a really it was a very very creative film, and it displayed a lot of the themes and ideas that he was destined to explore in much greater depth in his later work. And then you mentioned The Batman, and of course, Michael Uslan, who produces all of the Batman movies, he is always calling me and saying, was that noir enough for you? Because he produced Joker, which is also very much a noir kind of film. And then the Batman, and that's his gag, is always like, noir enough for you? It's hilarious. Yeah.

I like making the connection between the classic films and the modern times. Not that you have to like both, but I think that it helps people who are maybe younger understand some of the history. Yeah, it's not the same, obviously, but a lot of the people who wrote or drew those graphic novels, they grew up on the actual black and white noirs, and that's what influenced them, and they're now influencing the young people today. Absolutely, and I can easily trace this in my own life, finding the connections between all of this stuff from the comic strips to the comic books, to the actual genre fiction that I read as a teenager, and then discovering

the movies. And then there's that incredible moment where, you know, cause when I grew up, it wasn't a big deal to watch a black and white film on television because our TV was a black and white television, right? So all the movies were in black and white, which is so weird because that's why kids today, it's like, oh, it's in black and white because they didn't grow up getting used to black and white. is a nudge on a segue to the kids book. We'll bookmark that because that's the whole reason I did that book was I wanted kids to see black and white images. But it was very, very common. That's how I grew up watching storytelling on television. But then there's that moment where you actually leave your house and go to a movie theater, you know, what we called back in the day, rep cinema, because, you know, they were showing all the movies that long, you know, had long since been in the theaters. And now they're bringing them out again and showing them

in a repertory schedule. And then when you saw a black and white movie that way, it just changed everything. And you understood the grandeur of black and white imagery on a big screen and how powerful it is. So when I do my film noir festivals, my live festivals in the theater, that's what I'm, that's why I do it. I'm hoping to give younger people that mind boggling experience of going into a big movie palace and seeing a black and white film on a big screen for the first time. Yeah. And I've been to the Hollywood ones here over the last two years, and they're fantastic. I loved it, even though it was, it was kind of a slow transition out of the pandemic to get people back.

Yes, yes, yes. And it's been challenging, but it's been fantastic to see these, some of which you guys helped in the restoration, the Film Noir Foundation, to see them on the big screen again. I mean, that opportunity is not, it's not as frequent as you'd hope, but the fact that you get to see it with these new restorations, that's the bomb right there. Yeah, absolutely. Although I will say it's very important that people recognize that high resolution is not for everything. I always make a point of saying this because so many people buy

who don't go to the theater and don't see films the way they were originally made in 35 millimeter, right? They're going to see them digitized now, by and large. I mean, I always try to show as much on film as possible. And one of the reasons for that is because as everybody moves to smart TVs and super high resolution televisions, when you watch an old movie in that format, it doesn't look right because it's too much definition. It's actually exposing the fact that this was Hollywood artifice, right? I mean, all of a sudden when you're in the Queen's Palace, things don't look quite so lush when they're in high def because you can clearly see that it's painted plywood. It's not this ornate gold filigree, right?

And that's the, to me, that's the magic and the art of movies is that they trick the eye that way. And if you don't adjust your television set when you're watching Turner Classic movies, say, if you don't adjust it to just film mode instead of like super high-def sports mode, then the film's going to look weird to you like what what is this yeah well we we promote a lot of the you know george comes out and we promote a lot of the new blu-rays that the warner archive releases and a couple i just want

to throw out because they're noir and they look great was uh angel and then Damn Don't Cry. There's just been a ton. And the thought there is that some of these haven't looked this good. And I get your point about you don't want to make them too clean. And George is really good there about making sure that doesn't happen. But the fact that you can now see these and maybe the DVD, you know, was came out 10, 15 years ago. The quality difference is great. And then there's some films that they're releasing that go all the way back to the teens or excuse me, the 20s.

And the the new Blu-rays of those in high definition look terrific. As long as like you said, they're very cognizant of keeping that film look. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of The Extras podcast. And I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers catalog physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. Precisely. And, you know, somebody like George who oversees this stuff, he knows what he's doing. You know, Grover Crisp does this for the Columbia Library. He oversees these things. And he understands to the point where he would go

back and look at the production notes of certain scenes to realize, like when he was doing Dr. Strangelove, he does a great presentation about restoring that film because whereas some people were saying, oh, now because of digital technology, we can fix the problems that Kubrick had in the cockpit of the plane because he couldn't get the camera in focus, or we could fix this other thing. And Grover would go and look in the notes and say, this is Stanley Kubrick. That's exactly the way he wanted it to look. And my job is to not mess it up by quote unquote, improving it, but by staying true, you know, to what the artist's intentions were yeah that leads me to a a question i wanted to ask you about is that max has put a

fair number of their black and white films and noir uh on the tcm kind of area there of the streaming service how do you think those look and compared to, obviously, it's not the theatrical experience, but how do you feel those are? Well, this is what's funny, Tim, is that I'm going to say they look fine because I have my TV set to the proper viewing mode for it, right? If I switched it, like here's a classic example, it, right? If I switched it, like here's a classic example, and this is so nuts and bolts without being technical at all, right? I watch sports on TV. And when I watch sports, I want that super high def thing. I want to see the sweat on the guy's face when in the huddle, right? So I switch it to that mode. And then when I go and watch a movie, I get out of that mode and go into whatever that brand of TV, how they specify it. I think I have a Samsung or something and it says filmmaker mode. And that means it's going to look as close to 35 millimeter as you're going to get. So I'm switching that all the time. I don't think most people care that much. And if the default setting is super high def, then you watch something and it's going to look weird.

And that's different than making a 4K version of the film and being very careful about the imagery. Because I remember when all this started, and I was in the middle of doing my film festivals, and I was bragging, you know, everything I show is in 35 millimeter. And so I kind of became known as the purist, right? And then I'm dealing with a lot of these studios trying to get films out of them. And as everybody knows that's in this business, there was this, films out of them. And as everybody knows that's in this business, there was this, we're still in it really, this transitional period where the studios were saying, well, we're making a switch now to digital and we don't want to show the 35 millimeter prints because they're now truly archived. And we don't want anything to happen to them. And so I got stuck. It's like, oh, now I've got to show it digitally.

And honestly, a lot of those early transfers that they made for theatrical screenings were terrible. They were awful. And everybody was complaining because you could see pixelation in the shadows and the sky would burn out and all this. And then they got really good to the point where I would say that when I saw the digital restoration of Sunset Boulevard on the big screen, it was like seeing the movie for the first time. The high def was so good that you could see stuff going on in William

Holden's eyes in medium shots in the shadows that you never saw in the film before. So that's when I kind of made my peace with the whole thing and said, look, it really does depend on the commitment and the diligence of the people doing these digital restorations to enhance the film and not just enhance the focus of the image. You got to enhance the film, right? What are they trying to say? Well, hey, you just brought up the festivals. The Egyptian just reopened here in Hollywood. And I know you haven't been able to be there because it was closed for renovation. Will this next one here in Hollywood going to get back to the Egyptian or what's your that is that is the plan. Yes.

And we have dates and we, you know, March 22nd to the 31st is so before the TCM Classic Film Festival. But yeah, we will be back in there. I'm very I'm very excited about the whole thing. I think I haven't been in the new renovated theater, but I hear it's absolutely fantastic and that its new owner, Netflix did a beautiful job, spared no expense and bringing it.

Interestingly, they spared no expense in returning it to its original 1922 state, which I thought was really cool. Right. And they, they leaned into that instead of being afraid of it and saying, you know, no, we don't need that theatrical experience. We'll put in a couple of smaller theaters or something. You know,

they didn't, they didn't do that. They, they, they did the right thing. Well, I'm looking forward to getting back there to watch. I have not been to the Egyptian yet either. I've had a couple things circled. I just didn't work out for one reason or another to get there. So I hope to actually get there before the festival. But to actually experience it there will be fantastic. Though I enjoyed it where you've had it in the last few years as well. But just because that's traditional. But just because that's traditional. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was, we switched over to the Arrow in Santa Monica. And then before that, we were at the Hollywood Legion post 43, you know, both fine theaters, but there was just something about our history at the Egyptian theater that, you know, it certainly meant a lot to me.

And I think it, it, I know there's a lot of people that have attended. I think this is, it's at a lot of people that have attended. I think this is, it's at least 25 years, at least 25 years there. It's hard to remember because of the COVID break, right? And in fact, we were screening our Noir City Festival at the Egyptian when COVID happened. And I remember distinctly the discussions about, are we going to just shut down? How do we want to handle this? I mean, in hindsight, it now seems like it was a thing that was so easy. The curtain fell one day and that was it. But in truth, it was like several weeks there of how are we actually going to handle this for big public gatherings and things. And then after that,

then the whole Netflix thing happened and then the remodeling and all that. So we haven't been back for a number of years. So it'll be, I hope, a triumphant return. I'm sure it will be. I mean, everybody who's been there so far and that opening weekend, that's a really good word for it. It was really a triumphant opening and getting everybody back and what everybody had said about what they've seen and the experience there is fantastic. So looking forward to that. Let's talk about these books. And the first one I want to talk about is Noir Bar. And, you know, I was looking at it and reviewing it and I have my copy here, which I'll hold up for those watching on YouTube. But I look

at it and I think it's one of those where it kind of hits you on the head, like, yeah, why hasn't this actually been done before? It seems almost kind of like obvious, like noir, a bar, the two words, I mean, the title, everything seems like, oh, somebody should have done this before. But you were kind of uniquely qualified, I think, to put this together, as you say in the introduction. You're kind of uniquely qualified, I think, to put this together, as you say in the introduction. Yes. Well, I'll say this, Tim. It has been done before.

I mean, to give other bartenders and authors their due, I mean, it has been done before, but it hasn't been done by somebody who has a weekly television show about film noir, right? So it gave me a little bit of a leg up, I admit. But I know exactly what you mean, because it actually came to me the same way. After Dark City, after Running Press, the publisher did the revised and expanded version of Dark City. They said, what would you like to do as an encore? Because they were very, very happy with the way that all came out and the way it sold. And they said, how about an encore? And I started pitching some other big semi-scholarly book on the movies. And my editor just said, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I was just thinking like, noir bar. So it was really their idea. But it hit me like a ton of bricks, just like you described. Like, why didn't I think of this before? And I had even posted videos on YouTube of myself making cocktails tied in with the movies I was showing on Noir Alley. But yet I never actually put two and two together and said, let's do a book. Let's do a cocktail book, you know? But now we've done it. Well, it makes total sense. And I love noir. I also like to read Dash O'Hammett. And I like to read the novels that some of our favorites are from. And I have to say that oftentimes I'm putting on some very cool jazzy music when I'm reading a book book and I'll pour myself a drink. And probably I do that more when I'm reading the book than when I'm watching for whatever reason. But I'm like,

you know what? I should do that when I'm watching the movie next time. And you've got 50 titles in here. So it might take me a while to work through each of the different drinks, but it's kind of a fun way to revisit some of these because you're going to go back. You're going to watch your favorite noir films more than once. At least I am, especially if you own it and it's easy to pull it off the shelf. But even if you're just watching them on TCM and you're like, oh, it's coming up and you get yourself ready, it's kind of fun. But let's talk a little bit about how you got inspired for it. Oh, and you didn't even mention the fact that you were a bartender.

I was a bartender, yes. So all of this was just kind of second nature to me, right? Putting the two things together. But I have to say, it's really great because there's a wonderful, there's a shared passion for this stuff with the TCM fans are so terrific because I've been doing this a long time with live shows. But then when I went to TCM and started doing Noir Alley, that feedback you get in a live theater had disappeared. I realized when I went on social media that there were people watching Noir Alley and talking to each other on Twitter. I'm going to insist on calling it Twitter still talking to each other on Twitter. And I noticed that everybody was saying, what are you drinking this, you know, this week?

What are you having for this movie? Right. In honor of Sam Spade, I'm going to make this or whatever. And so I realized that there was a real, I don't want to say a need for this, but it felt right. Just like you were saying, you know, when you read the book or something. And so that was fantastic. And I've since learned that, you know, I hear from people all the time that I'm working my way through the book. And like, they've started like film clubs where people, you know, friends come over the house, they put the movie on and they make the cocktail. So it's very interesting because instead of, you know, there'll be 50 occasions perhaps where what I'm showing on TCM, you can find in the book, but of course you can just in the book. But of course, you can just take the book and use it as a guide for going

out and streaming or renting or whatever the movie and just watching it while you make the cocktails and stuff. So yeah, I mean, and let's face it, the whole movie experience with you go to the theater, you're not just buying the ticket, you're usually buying something to eat something to drink. I mean, that's part of the movie experience as well. So whether you're doing it at home where you have your full bar there, or even a lot of the theaters, especially here in LA, they have bars now, right? Right next to the theater. So you can either walk over and you can have your drinks mixed to whatever it is you want. You're not stuck with just the sodas and things that are part of the concession stand there.

So now that's becoming quite the thing to be able to get whatever drink you want, you're not stuck with just the sodas and things that are part of the concession standards. So now that's becoming quite the thing to be able to get whatever drink you want, alcoholic or not. Yes, absolutely. And that's something that in my Noir City festivals, that's something I kind of pioneered years ago was I always wanted to have a liquor sponsor for various nights of the festival so that people could actually have a cocktail while they were there, you know, and in many cases, I just felt like, well, look, not everybody drinks. So even if we can't sell the booze, because we're in a place where you'd have to have a liquor license, and it was too expensive to go get the liquor license,

we would just get a vendor to give us cases of booze so that we could just give it away. We would just pour shots for people. Yeah. When you're trying to get people into a movie house, you have to be creative, right? So I think free shots are one way to do it. Well, you kind of wonder why the movie theaters haven't gone down this road a little bit before, because what's the best profit margin that they have going?

And that's the concessions. And then if you're losing a certain part of the audience, you know, okay, the, you know, over 35 crowd isn't coming to theaters as much. Well, you have to make it more social. You have to make it more, you know, something that they're going to enjoy, that they can come directly from work, have a drink, then go to the it more social. You have to make it more, you know, something that they're going to enjoy, that they can come directly from work, have a drink, then go to the movie, whatever it is that you're going to do. And it makes a lot of sense. Now, there's been a few places I've gone and I'm like going to get my drink and they say

the bartender's not here. And part of that was pandemic and other things where there was a shortage of staffing and things of that nature. So I was a little disappointed. But in general, I think it's a good trend and it helps because look, they're, they're struggling to get the theater seats filled. So whatever they can do is good. And I tell you, I've done this, I've done it for 15 years now or something, and I have never knock on wood. I have never experienced a problem with it. Like with,

you know, cause some people would say, wow wow you're encouraging people to drink in a public place and it's you know they're blah blah blah and it's just like i you know we also when you give the booze away you have total control over right like you just you just cut it off whenever you feel like you want to cut it off or cut off that person whatever because it's free right like you can't make me give it to you, right? There's a cash transaction. That's a little different, right? So you can get, people can get a little more belligerent, but that's never happened.

That has never happened with me. I was noticing that with this book, I mean, it works almost like a coffee table book. It's the way you guys have created it. It's got great photo reproductions in here, the posters, one sheets, and then it has a little background from you about what each movie is about. Talk a little bit about how you decided to put together and then how you went about selecting and partnering some of these, pairing the movies with the drinks. Sure, sure. It was great fun because it's a combination of things.

In some cases, there's an obvious choice because the cocktail is in the movie. Right. Like the Blue Gardenia with Ann Baxter and Raymond Burr. You know, the cocktail, the Polynesian Pearl Diver is part of the plot of the movie. So that was an obvious one. I'm going to include that. is part of the plot of the movie. So that was an obvious one. I'm going to include that. And in The Big Clock, Ray Meland and Rita Johnson kind of get loaded on stingers at this bar in Manhattan. And so, yeah, we'll put a stinger in there, even though it's a cocktail that will never

pass my lips. I do not like that cocktail. So that was one thing. Then another one was a film I really wanted to talk about or I thought was important. And I wanted to find an existing cocktail that made sense as a complimentary thing to that movie. That would be the gimlet I paired with The Big Sleep. Not that anybody drinks gimlets in The Big Sleep, but that was Raymond Chandler, the writer. That was his drink. It was a gimlet. And so I put them fleet, but that was Raymond Chandler, the writer. That was his drink. It was a gimlet. And so I put them together and I just talk about Chandler and his career and why he loved this drink and why I can't stand it the way he made it and why you should make it my way.

creative was when I made my own cocktails based on just being inspired by the movie and trying to figure out how to translate the film into a cocktail. Like if you were drinking this movie, this is what it would be. And that was great fun. So there's a lot of it. And that, I have to tell you, Tim, was a perfect COVID project. Because I could just spend, you know, hours in making cocktails and tasting them and tossing them away if I screwed it up or whatever. Yeah, I made a lot of house calls to, you know, beverages and more when I was doing this book. Because it was like, oh, this guy's back?

Man, this guy drinks a lot. That's hilarious. Well, obviously we can't go through 50 films and 50 drinks and we don't need to, but I thought I would pick a few that are either a favorite film of mine or just that was an interesting story. So you have them alphabetical in the book. So let's start off alphabetically here. That's one of the noir that just came out on Blu-ray not too long ago that I mentioned.

That's Angel Face. Tell us a little bit about that, specifically how you came up with the pairing. Well, that was an obvious one because, right, it's the same name as the... So it's like, yeah, there's an Angel Face cocktail. I remember I made like three of those when I was actually a bartender. So it's like, I got to look this up. And when I looked it up, of course, I discovered that it has an interesting criminal history to it because it was actually named for a Detroit gangster. And a lot of these cocktails were Abe Kaminsky. He was known as Angel Face. And a lot of these cocktails were created at the Detroit Athletic Club back during Prohibition.

I think there's three cocktails in this book that I didn't get it out of the Detroit Athletic Club cocktail book or so. It's just when I was doing my research, it's like, wow, this is amazing. There's another drink that was created there. Like the Last Word. The Last Word is a very popular cocktail now that was revitalized by my pal Murray Stenson, who was a great bartender, and he kind of brought that drink back. And I pair that with DOA because that made sense, right? DOA, the last word, because, you know, Edmund O'Brien dies when he comes into the police station. So all that made sense. And the cocktail looks like when the doctor holds up the test tube to show Edmund O'Brien that he's contaminated. It looks just like this cocktail.

It's luminous, the luminous toxin, right? So I'm just telling you, Tim, that's exactly an example of how I went about doing this. It was finding these connections. That's when I was reading through it because at first I thought, well, I'm curious how you're going to put this together. Is it going to be like a recipe book? And it's not. I mean, it's got the, obviously you have to have the ingredients listed and the instructions there, but it's more like a short primer on the film or a reminder if you already know the film well. And if you don't know the film, it's like a tease to kind of, you know, like, wow, this sounds like a film I do want to check out at some point. But then you come up with these little side stories, like you just said, about the gangster angel face that the original drink was named after. And I find that just kind of a fascinating side note.

It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the film, but it has something to do with the drink. And then you paired them together. Exactly. Well, I'm glad you noted that because that was exactly my approach. It's like, I'm going to, I'm going to talk half the time about the movie and I'm going to talk half the time about the cocktail. And my idea, my idea very simply, it was like making a movie. My idea was people coming into a bar and it's my bar, right? So Eddie is the bartender and they sit down and it's like, what's your favorite movie? Instead of what are you drinking? I'd say, what's your favorite movie? And they'd say, oh,

this Robert Mitchell movie, Angel Face. And then I would, the bartender tells you a story that hopefully you haven't heard before about Angel Face and said, and you know, there's an Angel Face cocktail. And let me tell you the backstory of this cocktail while I make you one. So the recipe is there so you can make it. But that was exactly my approach to this book is every time I sat down, when I decided on the film and the cocktail, then I would say, okay, somebody's walking into the bar and they're going to say the name of the movie. And then that was my cue to just like, what do I want to tell you about this movie that I find really interesting? And then by the way, I'll make you this cocktail. Here's how it's done. And you lay that out. You say that that's how you were trained.

You're trained not just to make the drink, but to tell the story. Oh, the storytelling part of bartending is vital. You know, that's why I only go back to bars where either the bartender is, there's one school of bartending that's like super efficient, just high art. Like don't talk to the bartender. I don't like that as much as I want to go in and sit at the bar and have a garrulous bartender who has a great story and has been waiting for me to come back so he could tell it to me, you know. And then, you know, they already know what your usual is. And it's like as soon as you walk through the door, you're going to talk to a couple of people before you get to the bar. And by the time you get to the bar, he's got your drink on the bar.

Like, that's the place I want to go. He's got your drink on the bar. Like that's the place I want to go. So yeah, I'm not, I'm not much for the hoity toity modern mixology thing. You know, the artisan cocktails where you're supposed to ooh and ah at the, at the skill of the bartender, you know, because to me, this, the bartender's greatest skill is being entertaining and connecting and making you want to come back to drink there again. That's that's the main thing. Well, I know I was in a kind of a throwback bar. It was a little bit along the lines of what you said you don't care for. But this is when I was in Denver last summer and I just found this place and I thought, OK, this is pretty, pretty interesting. designer cocktails or whatever you want to call that, but in the old style. And it was showy. But the interesting thing I found about that is that they introduced me to a couple of

drinks that I wouldn't normally drink because bartending was pretty friendly. You know, I don't go to bars to get drunk. That's, you know, I'm too old for that stuff. I go for the social. I never did. I mean, it's just like you go to a bar because you want to be convivial. You want to hang out with people and have a good time in a you're getting one or the other. You know, you're getting kind of a garrulous bartender who really doesn't make a good cocktail or you're getting the artist bartender who is giving you a cold shoulder, you know, and there's nothing to do while you're sitting there except admiring his. Somewhere there's a happy medium.

And that's kind of what I aspire to. Well, there's another one that I wanted to ask you about because of personal interest here. I'm a big fan of Hemingway and I'm also a big fan of The Breaking Point. Tell us about the pairing that you have for that film. Well, that was an, again, that was a kind of obvious one. I also have a tendency as people who watch Noir Alley know to lean heavily into the writers. You know, I like talking about the writers and wouldn't, you know, alcohol and writers have a long history together, you know, but I knew I wanted to, um, mention the breaking point because it's a film that is still underrated and doesn't get enough attention because that damn Michael Curtiz had to make too many great movies so that the breaking point is usually somewhere in the lower list of his credits.

And it's like, that's absurd. I personally think it's as good as anything he made in the 1940s, including that one with Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Oh, yeah, that one with uh bogart and ingrid bergman oh yeah that one yeah uh so yeah because there's a hemingway daiquiri i mean i could have picked something else i could have you know because he was also very uh associated with the cuba libra you know the rum and coke stuff and but the hemingway daiquiri client was named for him and uh there was just something about the film where it felt like this is, this is the right one. I'm going to go with this. And it was the

only Daiquiri kind of drink that I had in the book. So yeah, I love that. And the story behind it and everything is really fun too. Let me, oh yeah, we already talked about this film, but I did want to mention it again, kind of, you just, you just mentioned it, but because of the link to the author and that's the Maltese Falcon and the Hammett Martini. Yeah, this was, uh, I've, I clearly wanted when, when this project was initiated, I wanted to make a cocktail in honor of Hammett. I knew that immediately. Like I,

and I'd be lying if I didn't say that, you know, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, man, maybe I can make something that would actually catch on and become like its own thing. Like the Hemingway daiquiri is a real thing. You can, you know, you order a Hemingway daiquiri. So it's like, can I make a Hammett martini? Since I knew that that was his drink, he liked to drink vodka martinis, right? But I also didn't want to just, you know, a vodka martini is nothing special, right? So what's the big deal? So I went back to the Maltese Falcon, and when I'm reading through it, it strikes me that the liquor that appears in the book is very odd, right? It's rum,

that appears in the book is very odd, right? It's rum, because the only bottle that Spade seems to keep in his apartment is a bottle of Bacardi rum. That's it, right? And then there's, he puts a little brandy in Bridget's coffee at one point. But then when I talked to his family, his granddaughter, Julie, I said, you know, what did he drink? And that's when I learned that he drank Stoli martinis. And I said, well, what would happen if I put rum in a Stoli martini? And it sounds really god-awful, right? But if you put a little a little like quarter ounce of benedictine which to me was so representative of like the whole knights of templar and the whole mystery of the maltese falcon because you know the the benedictine recipe is like centuries old secret they've never revealed it so i felt like that's the perfect thing to like put a few drops in this drink to represent that. And I'll be

damned if it didn't work, you know, and I drink it. I mean, I drink it myself when I, when I run out of gin, I make a Hammett martini. Oh, that's fun. I, again, I was enjoying the little stories, you know, about the, uh, the authors here. I'll ask you about one more, one last one kind of, um, and that's one of my favorite movies out of the past. And you, uh, paired a cocktail there. Yeah. That was kind of interesting. Tell us about that one. Yeah. I chose to go with a Paloma for that, which is not an unusual cocktail. It's it. I mean, most people, if they're drinking a quote-unquote Mexican cocktail, it's going to be a margarita. But I actually prefer the Paloma. And I just got a little

carried away with it because I just started imagining a whole scenario in which Mitchum and Jane Greer would be drinking Palomas when they come back to the beach house after their little moonlight escapade and all this stuff. And I said, yeah, Paloma would fit in really nicely right there. I can't see Jane Greer drinking a margarita, but I can see her drinking a Paloma, you know? It's not as sweet as a margarita. So that was a lot of fun. And then, of course, I had to justify including it because when I did my I, I realized that most of the Paloma was originally made with squirt, right? Which was a grapefruit

soda. And people now do Palomas with fresh grapefruit juice and soda and all this stuff. And I still like the squirt version of it. Uh, but of course squirt wasn't invented when out of the past was made. So I was kind of fudging on that one. But so what? I mean, it's the noir world of my imagination, not the real world. Well, you know, obviously you had to test all these drinks and maybe multiple times to get the recipes just right. That's where my wife was particularly heroic. But I guess one thing I did want to ask you is, I just asked you about a few because they're some of my favorite films,

but was there one pairing or one film or maybe some films you wanted to add for some reason that you wanted to bring up or highlight? You mean that aren't in the book? No, no, no, no. I'm just saying, I should say, like what is some of one of your favorite pairings? Oh, well, one of the ones that was obvious to me when I started was there's a drink that was created,

oh, in the early 2000s called The Left Hand. And as soon as I heard The Left Hand, it's like, well, that's the asphalt jungle. Because Louis Calhoun says, you know, crime is just a left-handed form of human endeavor. It's like one of the great quotes in noir. So as soon as I, the very first time I saw that drink on a menu, it was like, this guy had to have seen the asphalt jungle, right? Why else is it called a left hand?

I can't figure it out. So that was a pretty obvious one. And then the only other thing that was odd was in this, I'm going to bring this up because I want to give huge props to the designer of this book, Paul Keppel, because the drink that I thought had of all of them that the biggest chance, that was a personal creation of mine, that had the biggest chance for catching on as a drink, is I called The Lady from Shanghai. And it was based on the Orson Welles movie. And it's really an unusual mix of ingredients. And in the book, I explain how I came to that. But what was funny was I

wanted it to be called A Lady from Shanghai. But when Paul laid out the book, as you pointed out, we talk about the movie, and it says the title of the movie, and then I talk about the cocktail, and it has the name of the cocktail. In this instance, they're the same. And because of the way Paul had designed it, the two titles were on the same page. And Paul, that was offensive to Paul's sense of design. So he called me up and he said, you have to change the name of the drink. Because they're not going to change the name of the movie for you. You got to change the name of the drink. And that was a tough decision to make because I felt like if people saw a lady from Shanghai on a cocktail menu, they would order that. Sure. Right?

Wouldn't you if you went in and saw a lady from Shanghai? It's like, I have to have that. Right? So it's like, I don't want to change the name. Yeah. Right? like, I don't want to change the name. Yeah. Right. But I so admired Paul's design sense and the great job he did on the book that I caved. Yeah. And so I renamed the drink Sailor Beware, which makes sense if you've seen the movie. It's an appropriate title for the drink. But I just

don't think if you saw Sailor Beware on a cocktail menu, you'd necessarily say, I have to order that. But a lady from Shanghai, you have to. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, though Sailor Beware is pretty good as an alternative name, but Lady from Shanghai, I would order that. You know, you got the Singapore Sling, you've got all those drinks that you associate, that kind of roll off the tongue and are easy to remember. Well, maybe we can get it going, get bar programs around the country to start putting this there. But then the secret cult will know that, oh, you're talking about a lady from Shanghai. That's what that is. Well, hey, if you don't drink and you've been listening to the podcast, we still have some

topics here that might appeal to you because we have one more book to talk about. But it's also a noir, but it just happens to be for kids. And this was released actually just pretty recently here in September. Tell us about this book, Kitty Farrell and the Case of the Marshmallow Monkey. Well, this is a pretty simple one. Somebody at TCM or Running Press, it's the publisher that has TCM's imprint for the film books, came up with the idea of Kid Noir, right? And that was what they had, was Kid Noir. And I'm very happy that they came to me and said, would you be interested in doing a children's book that's about film noir and somehow riff off kid noir? And of course, my answer was, as long as it's in black and white, I'm in. Because it was right, no pun intended, it was right up my alley because I want to convince young people to watch old movies. That's kind of what my mission is. And so I thought, wow, if I had a

kid's book and it was in black and white and it was about all the visual iconography that you associate with film noir, then I can impress this upon them at a very early age. The book is for four to eight-year-olds, and it would seep in, right? And then when they saw the movies, they would be able to make that association very quickly and realize there's nothing wrong with black and white image, because it's just like that book I loved as a kid, right? So at that point, my job was just, could I write a book that a kid might actually love? And I find that in that instance, the challenge is, at least for me, the challenge is to not write down to kids.

You know, I just wanted to write a fun mystery story, and I decided to have it be a cat detective so that there was no gender specificity, so that boys and girls would like it equally as long as they like cats, right? And there's a dog in it. I mean, the cat detective has a dog buddy in case you're a dog person. But that was the whole thing. And then it's funny because, you know, here on the one hand, I write a book like Dark

City, and it's, you know, here on the one hand, I write a book like Dark City and it's, you know, 93,000 words or something. And then you write a kid's book and it's 32 pages and you can't have like more than 20 words on a page. You know, it's a whole different kind of storytelling. But fortunately, I was a comic book kid when I grew up. So I knew how to do it, you know, pictorial storytelling and to keep it simple. What do you put in words? What do you show in pictures? And this young fellow that was the artist, Forrest Burdett, did a really terrific job.

I liked his style. And it was fun to kind of nudge him along in very dark directions because it was not his natural tendency to draw that dark. And I kept, when he would show his pages and things, I'd say, darker. You can go darker. And, you know, he was a little nervous, like, really? This is going to be like a double page spread that's mostly black. And it's like, yeah, think John Altman. spread that's mostly black. And it's like, yeah, think John Alton. Well, I think it's a terrific idea. And you know, why not? Right? Why not do something for kids and see? And if it's successful, then you can do more. And that would be fantastic to just keep.

Because I have a daughter who's a little bit aged out of that target audience that you mentioned. target audience that you mentioned. However, she's totally into the modern day anime styles, of which that's a lot of that kind of line drawn and there's certain elements of kind of maybe an Asian style to the noir, but to that. So I think there's an appetite for that with young people for those types of stories. And then, of course, they play video games and things of that nature as well, which ties right into that. So I think it's a great idea. Well, I appreciate that. And I get concerned about young people and premature exposure to high tech stuff, the games and all that stuff, because I think if you start that stuff too soon, it alters something in your brain to where you become attention deficit disorder.

You know, so I really, I just know that for me personally, I'm very happy that my entire young life was spent reading and drawing because I think that's what gave me the patience to do things and to write long form stories and things like this and to sit and watch long movies and not get antsy or something, you know, I think it had everything to do with reading when I was young, you know, and not being subjected to this scrolling and fast paced and video games. I, I have never played a video game in my life. It just, I'm a nervous wreck. As soon as I get my hands on it and it's like stuff starts blowing up and moving around too fast, I'm like, why am I subjecting myself to this? And then I realized that kids, it's second nature. They grow up with that. And it's like, I'm going to assume there are some advantages to it, but I'll stick with the advantages I got from my nice, slow developing childhood. Well, and I think it's pretty much proven that you need to teach, excuse me, you need to put books in front of kids that age four to eight. It helps their brain

development and everything. So I, you know, that you can't go wrong there and try to, you know, delay some of the gaming or other things, or at least provide both at minimum and then have entertaining books like that, that introduce them also to other things. But it has to just be an entertaining book. Well, it's interesting, too, Tim, because the publisher gave me a page in the back of the book to talk about film noir, to just do a text page. Like, what is film noir? And it was a challenge writing that, you know, for a five-year-old. That's what I imagined.

I'm writing this for a five-year-old. That's what I imagined. I'm writing this for a five-year-old. And that's not easy, but I love the fact that I could put in, like sneak in, in my descriptions, like books that inspired all of this because I, and I made sure I pointed out the books because I wanted the kids who like this story. And it might be the first mystery story they're ever reading. It might be the first time they're learning about what a detective does or something like that. And so I wanted to lead them to Hammett. I wanted to lead them to Raymond Chandler because I remember I started reading those guys not that much later, quite honestly. I mean, I started reading those guys not that much later.

Quite honestly, I mean, I started reading crime fiction, you know, when I was probably 14 years old. Right. And I'm sure, you know, this book is for ages four to eight. But six years ago was 2018. So that's a lot of the kid can grow up very fast in that span of time. Right. So I'm hoping that I kind of around what was going on with TCM, some of the layoffs back in June, the budget cuts, people who were laid off unceremoniously. the positive step up by director Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson. I mean, how they just came to the defense of TCM and so many of the folks there. It's kind of died down now. But I was just curious to get your take and your thoughts on that whole dialogue and the future of TCM.

I think the future of TCM is secure for the time being. And it's not that a trap door is going to open so much as I do believe the network will be reshaped in some way. Just because it's inevitable that that's going to happen because of where technology is going and how stories are being delivered to the public these days. So there will be a change. But I think it will be a positive change. And I think we now call Scorsese and Spielberg and PTA, we call them the board of directors. Because even though it's completely unofficial on their part, they are very serious about this. And they're involved. They're definitely involved. I mean, we've had Zoom calls with them. And, you know, there's an upcoming meeting to talk about all of this stuff.

And I think that's great. However, there's also very nuts and bolts considerations. I'm saying nuts and bolts when I really mean monetary considerations that go into all of this because of the difficulties you have in business trying to merge entities. And that's what happened when Discovery took over Warner Brothers, you know, created a lot of redundancies that don't help the bottom line. And that's when people start getting laid off and the hierarchies suddenly change. I'm very thankful that I would, I was going to say cooler heads prevailed, but in fact, I think the hotter heads might have prevailed here because there, there were screwing with something that people are very passionate about. And that became quite evident very quickly. Yeah. So, so that's, you know, I'm not telling you anything new necessarily, but I am kind of at least validating the notion that TCM is not going anywhere anytime soon. And when people hear me say that and they say, what does that mean for the long run?

My answer is I say I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. But if a bus hits me next week, you know, don't hold don't hold me to account for that. Right. I mean, you can only see so far into the future. And we all, we all recognize that the future is going to be different than, than what we're used to now. So, so the question is how do you, how do you manage that transition? Yeah. And TCM is beloved. I mean, the people and the personalities like yourself who are on there, here's the power of television. You're inviting people into your home. And so they feel very attached to you, to the other hosts there. The difference is, is that I don't have the power that is Bilbrick then to step up and say, Hey, Hey, Hey, don't mess with this. Don't

mess with film history. But, um, there's only so much everybody could do. Like and say, Hey, Hey, Hey, don't mess with this. Don't mess with film history. But, um, there's only so much everybody could do, like you say, with the changes in business and things. And we promote physical media here on this podcast, but you know, it's not dying. Some people say it's the death. No, it's not dying, but it sure is changing. And we don't know where it's going to go. And the same can be true for GCM as a cable channel. It's really what it was. The world has changed. Tim, the way I look at this, and everybody has their rhetoric and their semantics that they use to describe what's going on in the marketplace now, right? And I detest it when people say,

you know, it's a battle for eyeballs. and it's, you know, who controls the content and all this stuff that is so anathema to the way my mind works. But I look at it this way. There is the Great American Midway, right? And that used to be a physical place. And now it's a virtual place. It's a place of streaming. And all of these people that want to be entertained are walking down the Great American Midway, and everybody's trying to figure out, how do I get them into my tent to watch what I have to show? And take their ticket, of course, at the gate, right? So I will tell you that those people streaming down there, So, I will tell you that those people streaming down there, there are a number of the most super passionate tent on the Midway is the TCM tent.

It has the most passionate fans. They want to get into the tent, right? And the issue now is they're being kind of confused going down the midway of how do I find that tent? I want to be in that tent. And there's a lot of people that want to be in that tent that don't know that yet. Right. Yeah. And so how do you get them in there, give them a taste of it, and then they'll come back. They'll be lifelong fans, as we know.

Because every time I meet somebody, the first thing they say to me is, you know, I've been watching TCM since it first came on the air. That's great, but that also means they're an older fan. You got to get the kid who was born in 2010. How are you going to get that person into the TCM? Yeah, that's the challenge. Well, when you go to the TCM festival, you do see people of all ages and that's a good sign. I think you see, you know, a lot of young people, obviously they might be the minority of, you know, in the whole audience when you look back in the seats there, but I'm always kind of surprised at how diverse of an audience it is at the festival.

I'm assuming some of that represents the viewership as well. Otherwise, how do you even find out about the festival and know about these great films without the branding that it brings? No, you are absolutely right. The audience is far more diverse than people realize. the audience is far more diverse than people realize. But it's interesting because when I do my Noir City festivals, I definitely draw a completely mixed audience. It's gender split, 50-50, and I get a lot more young people than, I don't know how to say it, than you would imagine going to watch films from the 1940s and 50s. And I honestly think when certain TCM people came to my festival in San Francisco, I think their seeing the audience that I attracted had a lot to do with the decision to hire me.

Because it was like, there's something happening here that's appealing to a really broad cross section of people. And let's see if we can somehow package that and get it, you know, on the air. Anyway, you're absolutely right. Your observation is 100% right. Certainly about the festival, I think the cruise attracts an older audience because they're people who are used to cruises. And it also takes a lot longer and you're at sea. So you're away from work and younger people are not in a position where they can just take off work and go on a cruise for a week. passion isn't there. Because I can tell you from what I experienced at TCM and through my own festivals and through the sale of my books, that there's a broad cross-section of the public that is really, really passionate about this stuff. And the terrible thing would be if in all this

hub-hub about how do we integrate TCM into this new, bigger corporate structure, I think a lot of those very passionate people are afraid of losing their way into the TCM tent. That's our job. how to more efficiently manage that process. So we are ushering them into something that's easy to find and comfortable, a comfortable place and affordable. So there you go. Well, this was a lot of fun having you on. I enjoyed looking through the book and I'm going to be going through it more. I enjoyed looking through the book and I'm going to be going through it more.

I have not sat down and had the whole experience, book, drink, watch the movie all at once. So I'm planning on doing that soon. So I think we know what you're doing this weekend. That's good. Exactly right. That was a lot of fun. So thanks so much. My pleasure, Tim.

I hope I can come back on again sometime and we'll do this again with some different books. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, of course, the festival and so much you have going on. So there's always plenty to talk about. So I look forward to that. Likewise. I do, too. For those of you interested in learning more about the books and films we discussed today, there are links in the podcast show notes and on our website at www.theextras.tv.

If this is the first episode of The Extras you've listened to and you enjoyed it, please think about following the show at your favorite podcast provider. And if you're on social media, be sure and follow the show on Facebook or Twitter at The Extras TV or Instagram at The Extras.TV to stay up to date on our upcoming guests and be part of our community. And for our long-term listeners, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review at iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast provider. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed.

The Extras is a production of Otaku Media, producers of podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connects creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals at www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes.