This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie To Me. I'm Lexi Juanio, we're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa de Julio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my food days, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry Goole Rollins here with us too. This is Stuff You Should Know, cheaking off the great month of October. That's right, one of our favorite months. I just watched back room last night, didn't you tell me to see that? Yeah, what did you think? You know, I thought it was kind of cool while I was watching it, but it was one of those movies where after when I thought about it, I really didn't like it very much. What didn't you like about it? It ended up, I thought it was cool looking and had a lot of cool stuff, but afterward I was like, it felt like just some kid had a bunch of cool ideas that didn't end up making a movie. And then when I read the background of the movie, I was like, oh, that's kind of exactly what it was. Yeah, I guess I didn't take it like that at all. I just enjoyed it on its face. I wasn't aware of the mythology behind it and everything like that, which apparently it built on. Pretty well. Yeah. But yeah, I just liked it as it was, I think. Yeah, I think it felt like he was like, it would be cool if I did this. And this would be cool. And if I introduced this agency, that'd be cool. And then like none of that went anywhere in South Sky. Wait a minute, you can't just throw a bunch of cool things in a movie and have it be a movie. Kid. I don't, I disagree that that's what he did. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people liked it. Well, I don't know about the minority because a lot of people felt like I did too. So I think it's devices, what they say. That's crazy. It's such a neat movie. Everybody just needs to relax and enjoy a neat movie. Yeah, just like everything you like. Exactly. It drives me bananas. Yeah, so we are talking about movies in particular, which I guess is why you brought up back rooms. That's right. I got a couple of movies to shout out now. I think about it. Have you seen Undertone? It's a horror movie about a podcaster. So it's really like right up your alley. I finally saw martyrs, which is an amazing movie that, yeah, that's a really amazing movie. And then I also saw the devil's bath. Okay. I would not necessarily recommend that to everybody. It's a very dark movie and it's in German and it's subtitled and it's set in the middle of the 18th century. Okay. Royal Germany. Not in the way that you would think. It's more just like some of the gut punches that come through are really hard gut punches. But if you're into like really disturbing dark psychological horror, I would recommend it. All right. Okay. That sounds great. You want to talk about the uni monsters? Yeah. We're talking about the universal monsters. And we should probably talk about horror films in general because a lot of people point to the universal monster movie starting in the 19th century. As essentially kicking off at least monster movies, if not the horror genre itself. And there were other horror movies that came first. But it wasn't until the 20s pre universal admittedly that people started like trying to scare audiences. Hence the beginning of horror movies. Yeah. Specifically the cabinet of Dr. Caligary and Nasvaratu in the early 1920s kind of got that going. But like you said, it was really the 1930s when we got Dracula's and Frankenstein's and mummies and wolf men and stuff like that that things really kicked off. Yeah. And we have a family to thank for that. I don't know if these theaters are still there. I really hope they are. I'm sure they're still there about enough there have been taken over by a different name. But the Lamly theaters in Los Angeles were always these great sort of usually independently minded or you know showing maybe not the first run big hits of the day. And there were a few Lamly theaters and they come from the Lamly family, which is where universal studios comes from. A German immigrant in 1906 named Carl Lamly opened a Nickelodeon in Chicago and a few years later opened up the independent motion picture company and then merged with a few other companies to create universal pictures in 1912. Yeah. And then in 1915 they opened a 230 acre studio in Los Angeles. So in nine years that guy went from opening a Nickelodeon to starting a major motion picture company. Yeah. Well not major yet because the majors were the big five at the time Paramount Fox Warner Brothers RKO and lows. It's crazy to think about universal and Columbia being united artists being the upstarts. But that's what they were in the early 1900s film business. So yeah, it was it was actually Lemley's son who really put universal on the map, as we'll see, but Lemley senior had a part to play in that he ended up basically starting the star system in the movie industry by taking one actress Florence Lawrence. Good Lord, the Lemley family and Florence Lawrence together at last and he he started a publicity campaign that focused on her and this was new because up to that point it was like actor actor I don't care who you are I'm here for the story. He made Florence Lawrence like the point to go see a movie and he did it in fairly dastardly amusing fashion. Yeah, he created a fake story about her dying in a car crash and then blamed her former employer biograph for creating that fake story to begin with because they were mad that they lost her to universal so this create a lot of publicity buzz and you know kind of helped create that star system. Sure and it's just such a great indicator of like how kind of rogue do yourself underground the early days of film or yeah especially when you compare it to how the whole industry is today it's neat to just think of it as created by initially by artists who are dedicated to their art and we're coming up in the innovative things to do is really well portrayed in the shadow of the vampire. We're going to talk about it with John Malkovich where they're making nose for a two. Yeah, there are quite a few movies about this era because I think it's just so fascinating. Yeah, but moving on getting back to the monster stuff. Universal had already done a couple of monster pictures that are depending on who you ask part of the universal monster can and the first one is pretty highly debatable. Yeah, for sure. 1920's you got the hunter back of Notre Dame and then the Phantom of the opera two years later in 1925. These are not worthy because Lon Cheney senior the man of a thousand faces start in these and the Cheney family would figure heavily in his son's life. For the universal monster series. Yeah, Lon Cheney senior is a really interesting guy in and of himself. He was in 157 or 150 films from the 20s and 30s and he did his own make up right. He was known as the man of a thousand faces and he was such an expert on make up that he wrote the encyclopedia Britannica entry for make up. And there's a joke from the 20s. It was don't step on that spider. It might be Lon Cheney. How good he was considered and getting into weird different characters. That's pretty fun. I thought so too. Alright, so the studio is putting out spooky movies at this point. They're in, you know, haunted mansion sometimes. They're in strange places. This is between like 25 and 30 when the talkies are happening. And then in 1931 when Carl Lamy Jr. I think he's taken over a couple of years by this point. He started as had a production in 1928 at just 21 years old. And then want to Oscar for all quiet on the western front. Even though they were like this is a nepot baby kid. He really was putting out some pretty good movies. And as far as the monsters can and goes. Hit it out of the park out of the gate with Dracula. Yeah, from 1931, which turned out to be a really big year for monster movies. It kicked off with Dracula and Valentine's Day 1931. And it was marketed as a romance, which it is. It's a tragic romance in a lot of ways. And Nosferatu, the actual 1920s films during Max Shrek, was not authorized by Bram Stoker's estate. So it wasn't based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. It was Nosferatu instead. This was based on Bram Stoker's version. But they adapted it from a stage play. And they hired a director named Todd Browning, who made what I think is one of the great revenge movies of all time freaks in 1932.
But that was the, this was the year before he was directing Dracula. That's right. We did a, we didn't do a whole episode on freaks, but we mentioned it. I guess in our, uh, we did an episode about that, about freak shows. Yeah, freak shows, I didn't know how to say it in 2026. I think that's still how they say it. No, okay. Uh, so Todd, one D Browning is, uh, a big shot director at this point. He's, um, he's making spooky movies. He's working with Loncini senior. He, it probably would have been Loncini senior as Dracula, uh, but he died in 1930. A bronchial cancer. So he looked around and he said, who can I pick to be Dracula? Who, who, who? And this scary looking Hungarian said, why don't you pick me? Yeah. So Bella Legosi, every single Dracula idea or impression like you just did, that all comes from Bella Legosi's 1931 performance. And the reason they picked him is remember, this was adapted from the stage adaptation. And Bella Legosi had already made a name for himself starring in the stage adaptation on Broadway. They were like, we think you got the chops for this. And it was a very good casting decision because I watched it last night for the first time and he does an astounding job. It's great. And by chops, you mean literal things. That's right. So, uh, you know, what did you think of it watching it today? Like do you ever watch old, like old, old movies like that? Sometimes, um, that. So last night, uh, as for work, which is pretty awesome. I watched Dracula, I watched the bride of Frankenstein and I watched the invisible man, all three for the first time. And it is my end. It's good. Oh, yes. So it was the bride of Frankenstein. I think it was the best of the, the bunch. Yeah. It made me more open to watching old films as well. Good. Yeah. They were amazingly done like the lighting, the direction, the shots, like all this stuff, but also the storytelling. It was really, it sucks you in. And if you look at the runtimes of these things, they're just barely over an hour. Yeah. And they're still getting knock them out. Everything across in beautiful fashion. Um, so yeah, there's a couple of movies that came up in this research that I want to go watch. Yeah, I mean, if you watch movies from the 30s, that black and white, if you have like a good TV, it still looks incredible. It's not like this old grainy, like weird looking thing. Like it is sharp and it looks amazing. Yeah. But you want to put your motion smoothing on your TV to make sure you can enjoy it to its maximum potential. All right. So Legosi is doing his thing in the 1930s when the talkies were, you know, starting to become really popular and they didn't have other film industries yet. It was kind of like Hollywood was the thing. They would oftentimes shoot the same movie in a different language. Sometimes multiple languages. And that was the case with Dracula. Like when they were shooting Dracula on the uni lot during the day, they were, by the way, I keep saying that it's obnoxious. That's what when I worked out there, that's what everyone called it, who worked in the film business. So it's, I'm not trying to be like, uh, that was an insider, but it's just ingrained in me. It hasn't come across as obnoxious at all. Okay. Good. So the uni lot, everybody, uh, they were shooting during Dracula during the day and then at night, they had a completely separate crew and cast and director and everything shooting a Spanish version of Dracula, uh, it's director George Malford was American. So didn't speak Spanish had a translator. And a lot of people are like, this version is better actually because they saw what was going under in the day and like improved on it at night. Exactly. Um, yeah. I think it has a longer run time too because when they re-released Dracula a few years after its premiere, the haze code existed now, which was censorship. So they had to cut it down even further. And the Spanish version didn't have to undergo that same thing. So I've not seen that one, but I can imagine it's pretty good. Yeah. I'd like to check it out. All right. So Dracula was a big hit. Uh, I promised we were going to introduce you to a little guy named Frank. I lied. It's actually a big guy named Frank. Frankenstein. Uh, this is released Thanksgiving 1931, uh, directed by the great James Whale. Uh, he was a Brit. Uh, there was, you know, I mentioned other movies made about this era. There's a great, great film, uh, called Gods and Monsters about the, the final days of James Whale. It's highly recommend. Very good. I didn't know that was about him. Yeah. I, I noticed there's a huge difference you can tell between Todd Browning's Dracula the way that's directed and the way that the bride of Frankenstein and the invisible man, which James Whale did both of those, um, are directed and I'm much, I like, I love freaks, but I'm now a big James Whale fan. He was nice. You should check out Gods and Monsters. I will. I will. I will. So Frankenstein adapted also from a stage play, uh, and, you know, like you said, he had a lot of flares, a director. Um, I think he was, uh, influenced by like German cinema at the time, um, which, you know, the time was probably a little more interesting that was going on in Hollywood. Yeah. Lots of like really cool stuff and especially in the invisible man, I mean, which we'll talk about. Like that invisible, like for the 1930s, the, um, the little tricky did to make him seem invisible, like still holds up pretty well, I think. I agree. I was very impressed by it. There's only a couple of times where you're like, the thing he's holding looks a little invisible to, but for the most part, it was, I, I imagine it just knocked everybody socks off back then. If it's still going up today, yeah, but that was a, it was a really cool, interesting movie. And it did kind of go to show, um, just what this studio was capable of now and the kind of things they were doing. And this is all pretty quick, right? I think, um, the invisible man just came out two years after their first movie Dracula. So they were, they were gaining by leaps and bounds very quickly. Yeah, and establishing sort of the, you know, the tropes or the, the standby stuff that these movies would be known for forevermore, like a, you know, a mad scientist lab, a hunchback assistant, uh, it was Fritz in the first one that Igor came along a little bit later. I think in 1939, with son of Frankenstein, uh, but this Frankenstein, uh, played by Boris Karloff was only grunted. It wasn't like the book version, Mary Shelley's version. Yes, until they made the bride of Frankenstein, have you seen that one? Oh, yeah. Okay. In this one, the monster learns to talk and Boris Karloff, who, um, played Frankenstein and made his career, started his career by playing Frankenstein, he was like, I don't think we should have let the monster learn to talk, um, cause he's like friend, good to start and ends up like telling Franken, Dr. Frankenstein, like, you can sleep, you, you can sleep after you're done working by the end of the movie. Um, they also teach him to smoke and drink, which is kind of funny to see. Um, and I saw that it's basically described by a lot of people as can't be like James Whale intentionally made the bride of Frankenstein a little sillier than the original Frankenstein was and that it kind of comes across and that also Dr. Pretorius, who's that he's even more mad than Dr. Frankenstein. He's the real bad guy of this movie, a bride of Frankenstein, that he's, um, a, uh, clearly gay or queer character, I guess is how film buffs put it today. Yeah. Well, James Whale was gay, so, uh, the gay community in camp, maybe have always gone hand in hand, you know, yeah. Have you seen the bride, the, the latest, uh, Maggie Gyllenhaal's film? I have, but, um, I without sound, I watched it over someone's shoulder on another one. And it looks pretty good. So you really saw it, huh? It looks good. You know, what's funny though? I noticed there's a conversation between Dr. Pretorius and Frankenstein's monster in a crypt and, um, they're talking basically about how, you know, the, the dead are good. The living are bad. And I think that's kind of like the, the premise of the bride, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, it, I didn't think it was that great. I like, it was a big swing and I like, I love that she made this movie and that the studio put money behind her to make this kind of weird movie. Sure. But a lot of the stuff didn't work for me, uh, unfortunately is my review. Hey, we've always got secretary, right? Love that movie. Man, that's a good movie. All right. Well, speaking of movies, let's talk about a few more of these monster movies, because they start churning these things out in the 1930s, because they realized they had an audience that was rabid for this spooky stuff. And so the first mummy movie came about in 1932, uh, keep in mind, this is just about ten years later after King Tutankhaman's tomb had been opened. Yeah. You know, we've talked before about Egypt fever, um, striking the United States. And that was why they released the mummy. But this was not yet the bandage wrapped like mummy monster at this point. That would come later. No. He was a, um, a very smart, very evil Egyptian high priest that was born or reborn, reanimated, I guess, into modern times, wearing a fizz. That's right. Boris Carloff, again, in this case, yes. Um, and it's hard to understate like how big a star's Boris Carloff, Bella, go see, um, and some of the supporting actors became from these movies, right? Oh, yeah. And they were also, they were knocking them out. And some of them, you can definitely tell this thing was shot in two weeks. Others, it's amazing.
they were able to do over very short periods of time and at first fairly limited budgets. But these, these movies like were really coming on strong. I think Frankenstein ended up being the top grossing movie of 1931, not only beating out Dracula, but beating out Charlie Chaplin's city lights too. So people had an appetite for this like right out of the gate. Yeah, absolutely. There was one in 1932, a Poe. We'll see there were a few at Garellen Poe adaptations, murders of the Rue Morgue with Bella Legosi. Again, in 1932, there was white zombie, which is where obviously where the Rob Zombie got his band name from. Not an official universal movie, but it was an independent shot on the universal stages, and it did have Bella Legosi, so it's worth mentioning. Yes, and it also gave us a lot of the tropes about essentially like a person who has been resurrected from the deadness now under the spell of a magician of some sort who uses them to carry out evil deeds, not brain eating, not walking, shambling around collectively, or even more terrifying running at top speed at you. But the funny thing is it was based on a book called The Magic Island by WBC Brook, which is a nonfiction travel log. So I guess I don't know if us were presented as fact or what, but that's what the movie was based on. Yeah, so you're invisible, man, that you saw and loved and that I loved 1933, based on the HG Wells novel. You had another Poe adaptation in the Black Cat in 1934, and this one is notable because it was the first time they were like, hey, we got these stars. Why don't we put them together in the same movie and see what happens, see if we get some Chris Tucker Jackie Chan magic, and they put Bella Legosi and Boris Carl off together in this film for the very first time. Yeah, I have not seen it. I was reading about it, and it sounds pretty amazing. I saw somebody describe it as one of the progenitors of psychological horror. Okay. Okay. Have you seen it? I have not. Okay. We'll watch it together then. That brighter Frankenstein, you mentioned the first one was in 1935, and then along with that mummy movie, the where where Wolf and London came about in 1935, even though the where wolf thing didn't really get its legs until Loncini Jr. starred as the wolf man in 1941. That's where it really took off. It's legs covered only in ripped short pants and hair. And yeah, Loncini Jr., again, another NEPO baby, but really made a name for himself portraying the wolf man and some other scary people. And just like, you know, Boris Carl off in Bella Legosi, as they would kind of go on and become part of pop culture, they would just be tapped for like guest appearances or to play like a spooky scary character or something like that. I would direct you no further than the rift tracks, Hillbilly's in a haunted house episode where Loncini Jr. plays a big scary guy along with John Karadine. And I can't remember. I think Basil Rathbone. Oh, man. Oh, Basil Rathbone's great. Yeah. So Lamly Jr. is running the studio, but not for too long. He was pretty loose with the pocketbook. He, you know, not in a huge way, but enough to put them in financial peril at least. But they say that he might have raised the typical mid-level film budget from 200 grand to 260, which is like 4.7 million to 6.1 today. But it's sort of apples to oranges as far as movie budgets are concerned to, you know, it's not like exactly one to one. But he made his big mistake was he made a really good movie from Rogers and Hammerstein's musical showboat, also directed by James Whale. It cost about 1.3 mil. And it did well. It was a critical hit and a financial hit, but they just spent too much money and they were in a rears and in trouble. And on top of that, Lamly Sr. had put the studio up as collateral for a loan, almost like reminds you of some, you know, tycoon putting his studio up in a poker game or something like that. Right. Yeah. This is a little more legit than that. There was a company called Standard Capital as under the terms of the loan. If the loan was not repaid in a timely manner, they were able to buy universal studios for 5.5 million universal pictures. Yeah. And Lamly missed some payments. The loan was called in and Standard Capital bought the studio out from under the Lamly family. And I guess Lamly Jr. took the blame because he had potentially put the studio in these dire straits by raising production costs. And he said, okay, it's me all resigned. But universal kept putting monster movies out even without the family that really tick started them. That's right. I want to look up. I don't know when they started the theater, their theater stuff. I don't know that up. Should we take a break and go look? Yes. All right, we'll take a break regardless. But I was just teasing. I'm not going to go look right now. Lisa, we should tell them about our new show. Oh my god, Lexi. I'm Lexi, you want to wear two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa Julio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. I'm not getting any worse than fighting. That is wild. I learned that about you today. And I've always got something to say. If men were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world. We're going to talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older, and a little wiser. We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how accommodating you are. Obviously, I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Lie. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't really care. Okay, so we're back, and Chuck will not tell me when the Lemle is open their theater. He claims to not know, but I think he knows, as a matter of fact. But speaking of theaters, this was an Lemle theater. This was the Regina Wiltshire theater. Is that how you say it? L.A. Boy? Yeah, the Wiltshire maybe. That's right. Like it in the British way. Yeah. In 1938, so this is still in the midst of Monster Movie Fever. The Regina Wiltshire theater was like, hey, let's just start showing some of these smash hit monster movies again. And they did. And they were smash hits all over again. So the studios were like, we should just keep making monster pictures. Yeah. And they were successful because people loved them, but also because they were like, hey, Bella, how'd you like to come to some of these screenings and appear? And he said that some what is the pay? And I guess they paid him enough to support his very sad drug habit. And he came out and they were smash hits. The Hollywood executives saw the writing on the wall and they're like, hey, these things like they have legs, maybe, you know, it's not over for this franchise, these multiple franchises. So they started cranking these things out again, like new movies. And Bella Legosi got more work again, thankfully. And he was in five movies in 1939, including son of Frankenstein, opposite carloft. And then this kind of fed the 1940s, right? Yeah, one of the things that really characterized the 1940s is what universal called monster rallies, not monster rallies, just monster rallies, right? Yeah, that was not lost on me. And that was when they were crossovers between some of their universal monsters. So I think the first one was Frankenstein meets the Wolfman. That was 1943. 1944 was House of Frankenstein. And that had not only Frankenstein in the Wolfman, but also Dracula, the hunchback, and the mad scientists all together. Yeah. So Abbott and Castello say, hold my beer. Because in 1948, they did a comedy mash-up, Abbott and Castello meet Frankenstein. And what it should have been called was Abbott and Castello meet Frankenstein Dracula, the Wolfman and the invisible man. Because that all happened to that movie. And I think they sort of had a little string of those sort of comedy horror crossovers with those two guys. Exactly. The plot of that movie, I looked it up. The Wolfman warns Abbott that Dracula wants to use his brain to make a new monster. Yeah. That's, I mean, it writes itself. Exactly. So it's hard to keep something like this up, especially when your monster start appearing with comedy legends in their comedy movies. Like that's a pretty clear sign that like the thing is going off the tracks, jump the shark as Fonzie would later do, right? Yeah. And Bella Legosi again started to hit on hard times. He very, very famously his last
movie was planned nine from outer space and he died during filming, which was directed by Edward Jr. And I can't imagine him at that age as anything but Martin Landau now because that movie ruined me. Bull this thing. Exactly. But a cool little fact about Bellagosi was buried in his black cape that he wore in Dracula. Yeah, for sure. And by the way, folks, if you haven't seen Edward from Tim Burton, it's, it's well worth watching. Yes. And if you haven't heard the great Bauhaus song, Bellagosi's dead. I listen to that too. Well worth listening. Do it all in one night. You can do it everybody. You really could. Pretty beautiful, beautiful black and white too from Tim Burton, by the way. Yeah, it is, I think it's last great movie. I would have to look, but I may agree with you. I have a mixed relationship with Tim Burton for sure. I can tell you ain't dark shadows. No, I wasn't even a big fish guy and a lot of people love that movie. Yeah, I could see that having a cult following for sure. I did think the Beatles Juicy Cole was like good. It wasn't great, but it was good. I thought it was eye bleedingly bad. Yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was good enough, but that's okay that I don't like it and you do. Hey, I feel that way. I do too. All right, so you got my text that said, you know. Yeah. Okay, good. I didn't think you were going to bring it up, but yes, I did. And I'm trying to behave. All right, 1950s roll around. We get the creature from the Black Lagoon, which is, it gets included in the canon of monster movies for sure, but it's a little more science fiction than the rest, because it's, of course, about a prehistoric humanoid that they discover in the Amazon. It was a 3D movie. And I could have sworn we did a short stuff on Millicent Patrick. We did not, but we did mention her before though. Okay, did we like sing her praises as a very under sung woman of Hollywood at a time when men were taking credit for her, her great work? Yeah, exactly. And I think it was in special effects. Colin, a short history episode. All right, that makes sense, because I was wondering if it was movie crush, but yeah, the great Millicent Patrick basically created the Gilman suit, which still looks amazing from creature, the Black Lagoon, or from the Black Lagoon, excuse me, but it was, like I said, men took credit for her great work. And in this case, it was Bud Westmore, so thumbs down. That produced two sequels. Revenge of the creature is worth mentioning, because this is the first time Clint Eastwood is on film. Yeah, although he was just a bit bit part. Sure. And then this was also the only actual classic Universal Monster movie that Mr. Science Theatre 3000 did. It was also very noteworthy for being the first episode with Bill Corbett as Crow. Oh, lots of MST3K stuff and riff tracks that coming up in this episode, thankfully. Why haven't we done a full episode on that? I don't know. That's weird. All right, that's an oversight. All right, let's do it, Chuck, okay? Yeah. We'll definitely do a Mr. Science Theatre 3000 up. That'd be a lot of fun. Yeah, it would. All right, so 1960s are coming along. Things are changing in the world. Things are changing culturally. Things are changing in the media and creatively at Universal. So they're like, you know what? Let's park it. Let's start doing some more fun movies. Let's do it with some some romcoms. We love Doris Day. We love rock Hudson. The movies find new life on TV on reruns with people like Elvira hosting these late-night horror movie watches. And they still remain even through the 60s, even though they're not cranking these out, like very firmly in the cultural zeitgeist. Yeah, I saw Vampira was the first horror TV host in 1954. Elvira came along in 1981. Sven Gouli's been around for a really long time too. And then you mentioned it being all the way into 60s as part of the cultural zeitgeist. I think Chuck, you're probably referencing the Monster Mash, that song? Well, I mean, that's one of the things for sure. Okay. That was Bobby Boris Pickett and the Crip Kickers, who originally recorded that. And he was doing an impression of Boris Karloff, right? I turned up evidence of a ABC like teen music show called Shin Dig from the 60s that Boris Karloff appeared on. And not only did he sing Monster Mash, he sang the peppermint twist. Oh, wow. This is what I was talking about where these people were so known to be like just creepy and pop culture. They just appeared everywhere, especially starting in the 60s when it really became campy and silly. That's when that, that it stopped being serious in any way, shape or form. At least people like Boris Karloff and, well, not fellow ghost anymore, but they had just expanded, transcended beyond just their status as universal movies horror stars. They were something bigger now. Yeah. Totally, which is super cool. Obviously, you may have to mention how the Grinch Stolt Christmas in which Boris Karloff lent his voice in 1966. But three years before he passed away, other film companies came along to do different kind of wacky versions of these universal monsters later. The hammer film productions in the UK. They did a mummy movie. They did the Curse of Frankenstein. These were in color, and a lot of them started the Grates, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, which, man, talk about great creepy acting. Usually Christopher Lee was Dracula and Peter Cushing was Van Helsing in any of the vampire movies. I also turned up some other notable hammer entries using Dracula. One was the Satanic rights of Dracula, where Dracula is doing his thing in modern London in 1970s, early 70s. All right. And then get the legend of the Seven Vampires in 1974 was a Dracula/ Martial Arts movie. There was a co-production with the Shaw Brothers, Run Run Shaw and his brothers, the Hong Kong Kung Fu producers. They made a crossover movie between martial artists and Dracula fighting. Amazing. I should do that today. I want to see that one. They should do it today. It'd be pretty cool. Agreed. You got some Western mashups with circle productions with Billy the Kid versus Dracula and Jesse James meets Frankenstein's daughter, not Frankenstein. This is when the mid-60s, and then when black exploitation comes along, we did a great episode, I think, on black exploitation films. And I know we mentioned Black Dracula from 1972 in that movie. Sorry in that podcast. I think it was exploitation films in general, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, I thought we did want a black exploitation. Was it just a part of that one? Yeah, definitely. Okay. But that was a great fun episode. But I didn't remember that the back story to Black is that he's a centuries old African prince who originally met Dracula because he went to go ask him for his help in ending the slave trade in Dracula is like, how about I turn you into a vampire instead? And he wakes up in the 20th century. Black killer does. That's right. Have you seen it? I don't think I've seen it. Yeah, I've seen black killer. How do you how do you rate it? I mean, it's good. It's like, I think any of those black exploitation movies, you just got to go into it within the right headspace to enjoy it. It's like you can't compare it to like, you know, some like modern film. Like, you know, a lot of that sort of, I mean, I think it holds up in the way that black exploitation movies hold. Sure. I gotcha. Yeah. Um, do you remember this, they, they came up before you, but I'm sure they were still around. Do you remember the groovy ghoulies? What does that sound familiar? It's, it sounds familiar. It was, I think it was only on for a season in 1970, but it was the Wolfman, Frankenstein and Dracula in like a groovy band together and their adventures with all these other like monsters that were, that were in their orbit. Yeah. I mean, there has to be some weird seed memory seed in my brain because that does sound familiar. Yeah, for sure. And then also I don't remember the company that made it, but there was a company that made models that you put together that were of universal monster like scenes and settings. Like you could do Frankenstein's laboratory or whatever, but that was around the same time too. Oh, I used to be a model kid. I'm surprised I didn't get into that. I never had one of those either. I usually was putting airplanes together. Yeah. I still do a model every spring break now. Do you, do you sniff the glue sometimes? That's for me to know and you define that. We have to mention young Frankenstein from the Great Mel Brooks in 1974. And don't sleep on the Franklin Jellis Dracula from 1979 either. It's a little slow, but like kind of a cool movie still. It is. It's, it's, it looks good, especially for, it just, it looks like a good dark 1979 Dracula movie for sure. Yeah. And Franklin Jellis great. I was, I waited on his table one time in New Jersey. That's awesome. And how was he in real life? He's a nice guy. He'd stake for lunch and he'd left a good tip. He, I loved him in the ninth gate, which is one of my favorite movies. Yeah. He's great. I love Franklin Jellis. Okay. So that's basically up to the 80s. As a matter of fact, we just came right up to the 80s and kissed them on the shoulder because we stopped at 1979. And the 80s were a huge,
turning point really for all horror because the emphasis became really heavy on slasers, right? They may or may not have a supernatural ben to them, but they are definitely not a wolfman or Dracula or something like that. It became kind of passe. And then in 1999, everything kind of came roaring back for the universal monsters because the mummy was put out with Billy Zane and Brendan Frazier and Rachel Weiss. And it was a huge out of nowhere smash hit. Yeah, it was a big hit. And everyone's kind of like, are these things back? There was a van Helsing movie that was not good in 2004. I don't remember being not good. It was just so so. Oh, yeah. I think it was pretty bad. Well, I saw it in my theater. So I was 20 years ago. I don't remember, I guess. Or maybe I liked it and you didn't like it and that's okay. Look at us. There was a wolfman movie in 2010. Again, not a big thing. It's hit wise. I think Jack Nicholson was in the movie Wolf, but that was less universal monster than just like a guy who turns into a wolf. Like sexy wolf, right? He likes to sleep with the ladies. Yeah, well, you know, it was Jack. The wolfman though was Benicio del Toro and he was really trying and apparently it didn't do well. Yeah, I mean, there was kind of things weren't looking good. They had, once the Marvel Cinematic Universe came out, they had big plans in the 2010s to do the dark universe, which I mean, it would have been super cool. I think they had, they were going to have Johnny, I remember reading about this. Johnny Depp was going to be the invisible man. Angelina Jolie was going to be the bride. Javier Bardem was going to be the monster from Frankenstein. And I was super stoked at the like reviving the monsters, but Tom Cruise put out the 2017 mummy, which was going to be sort of the kickoff. And it was a big flop. And they just like scrapped the whole idea just immediately. And like all the ones that they already had in production and lying to be part of this, they're like, these are standalone from now on. Yeah. And they have, I mean, there's been some, there was probably the highlight of the last 10 or 15 years was the invisible man that Jason Blump, I think directed with Elizabeth Moss. And it's become, I haven't seen it, but I know that it's very well regarded, especially for being almost an indie movie as far as I can tell. Yeah. It was really good. And they sort of look at it through the lens of domestic violence, starring Elizabeth Moss. And you know, she stands her ground. So it's a bit of a rallying cry, I guess. And then probably I said the high, the high point was invisible, man, I know it, like I said, it's very well regarded. I should take that back. I think the shape of water is probably the high point of the last like 10 or so years as far as universal monsters go. I didn't see that one either, but I know that it was everybody was crazy for that movie. Yeah. I did not care for it, but it was a big, big hit and a big critical hit. Guillermo del Toro is trying to revive all these monsters because he did the Frankenstein movie this past year, too, that also didn't love that one, but it was, it was okay. Yeah. And just for those not in the no shape of water was a tale of the creature from the Black Lagoon. Yeah, a take on that story. That's what I was going for. Thanks, man. Yeah. You got anything else in universal monsters? No, go out and see some of these old movies, though. If you think you can't sit through a movie from the 1930s, I bet you'd be surprised. Yeah. I strongly suggest you start with the invisible man. Yeah. Agreed. Okay. Well, since we just agreed on that and we just kicked off the spookiest month and style with this episode, I think we can treat ourselves to listen or mail. This is about reggae. It's kind of a cool little email. Hey guys, I really enjoyed the August 6th episode on reggae music. Early in the episode, you mentioned the mobile disco's known as sound systems. Now they help lead to the development of toasting. That brought back a special connection for me because my paternal grandfather started a sound system called Maritone Music in the 1950s and it recently celebrated 75th anniversary. Maritone music has the distinction of being the longest continuous sound system in Jamaica. And while Maritone music is past its peak of the years of the 70s and 80s, it still draws crowds and remains an important part of Jamaica's musical history. Cool. Thanks for all you do and keep me company over the years guys have truly enjoyed listening and that is from Roger Blake. Roger, that was a great email. I was not expecting that one. Yeah. I mean, I got to look up Maritone Music and find a little bit more about this. Sure. Maybe we even take a trip down to check it out. Let's do it. Well, if you want to be like Roger and let us know something awesome that your ancestor did, we love to hear about that kind of thing. They're seriously interesting, basically every time. You can send it in an email to
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