June 23, 2025 • 48 mins
28 Years Later from Danny Boyle follows up (23 years later!), on his zombie movie masterpiece - 28 Days Later! There are multiple Walking Dead shows on the air right now. The Last of Us in a beloved video game and streaming franchise starring the greatest daddy of all time. Zombies are back, baby! We explore why zombies, walkers, biters, or whatever you want to call them continue to hold us in their thrall from George Romero's shambling black-and-white Night of the Living Dead, through cultural context, evolving into the bastion of modern horror. Scared yet? You will be because Your Geek History Lesson is now in session!
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Thanks for showing up to class today. Class is dismissed!
For exclusive bonus podcasts like our Justice League Review show our Teen Titans Podcast, GHL Extra & Livestreams with the hosts, join the Geek History Lesson Patreon ► https://www.patreon.com/Jawiin
GHL RECOMMENDED READING from this episode► https://www.geekhistorylesson.com/recommendedreading
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Brains bird delicious braids is what I would say if
I was a zombie, or if I was doing a
podcast about a zombie. And thank god, Geekisser Lesson has
begun because I'm Jason in then and we're here to
talk about zombies. I'm sorry, zombie scept over.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You my brain, it's melting, Jason and I don't devolve
into a plant aduled masses by the end of this.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Are we even podcasting about zombies? I am ash Victoria Robinson,
and I guess this is the part where I say
hello and welcome to geek.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Already Lesson podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I've already said it's gone. You have some of those
of the podcast where two people slowly lose their minds
where we teach you about one concept monster or who
knows the heck what and pop culture in a little
bit less than an hour, and today we're talking something
I never thought we'd ever talk about, zombies.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Okay, grab your survival gear, check your exits, make sure
you know where the nearest blunt object is. Put a
nail in it if you can.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
James Bond isn't here what she calls him a blunt instrument.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
James Bond would die within seconds of the zombie because
he would find a zombie that he thinks that he
thought was and then it would eat his bread alcohol.
We're gonna shamble into the world of the undead, and
we didn't waste any time with this intro because you
don't waste any time with zombies, because I don't know
if you know this, Ashley, but zombies don't shuffle anymore.
(01:43):
They sprint.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
They run.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, somehow they're necrotic ligaments. Can we stand sprinting? Yeah, well, look,
we're going to talk a little bit about that. It's
that's not no, no, no, I don't want to have that
conversation now. Okay, I don't want to talk about sprinting
zombies right now. Okay, that's gonna happen later. Okay, Okay,
we got twenty eight years later to get to that
(02:05):
nice segue.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, as we've survived the we are the Last of
Us Part two?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
How many zombie title puns do you think we can
throw in this? It's not Dawn of the Dud.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, we're walking dead our way through.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
This lesson listeners, It's been a long week for book,
and it's gonna be a world war z It is
the World warsad but we're talking about zombies. We usually
talk about spooky stuff, usually in the month of October.
But you know, there's this movie out here called twenty
eight Years Later, which somehow is a franchise.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah, a multi media franchise, no less multi year, multi
decade because the twenty eight Days Later.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I think two thousand something like four, two thousand and five.
You want to confirm that for us will and then
we two and two and then we got twenty. But
this is Alex Garland and Danny Boyle teaming up yea
with Ashley's favorite actor, Aaron Taylor Johnson, her favorite Quicksilver
of all time. Aaron Taylor Johnson.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
He's completely adequate in everything.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I remember us walking out of Asria Ultron and Ashley
being like, you know that movie I'm very uncertain about,
but that Quicksilver love it.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
I mean, at least he could do the accent. The
other the other sibling couldn't.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I also remember you being like, at least he died
by the end of that movie. Anyways. Yeah, so to
celebrate the twenty eight Years Later, I thought it would
be interesting to sort of do an episode about zombies. Now,
a little clarification here, Okay, clarify there is no real
history lesson on zombies.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Oh sorry, what are we even doing here? Well, they're
a shambly smash that subscribe button there, smash that subscribe
But give me a five sour review.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Episodes of coome a TikTok influencer. What happened here?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I'm gonna TikTok this whole lesson. You're gone on TikTok Live.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Come fight, man, That's what's gonna happen that I want
this world to go to the zombies because I'm over it.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
You can find us on TikTok acta History.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Listen. Yeah, I'm trying to have a conversation about zombie.
You keep trying to sell things on Timu.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Well I've never been on Timu.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
The zombies have.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yeah, that's where the zombies go.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So there's no standard origin here, right. This is a
character that has sort of been adapted. This is an
idea that has been co opted and changed and manipulated
and turned and tickled and tell it's become what we
know it is, the zombie. So we're just gonna kind
(04:35):
of check in on things. There is no real origin.
There is no real history lesson, just a bunch of
one facts cool, just like the Horde of zombies that
you might be looking at if you're at a base
in Wyoming looking over your wooded fence with high slats
and tall points with Pedro Pascal, and you might be like,
look at how different it is, And he'd say to himself, Yeah, yeah,
(04:58):
that's good. I got to go to star in a
fantastic movie.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Is that Citi in Wyoming?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well, there's a there's a town that Joel lives in
that is in Jackson, Wyoming.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Oh, I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And that's where they're secret base for the Last of
Us Season two is. And by the way, here's the
other crazy thing Last of Us a zombie thing. They're
not really zombies. They're fungus, zomb.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Bunzies, fung beies.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
So they're not quite fun guy. Yeah, they're fun, guy.
They're walking.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
They're fun guys.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
So let's get to basically our ten cent origin, Ashley,
would you like to remind the listeners of what that
section of the podcast does.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Absolutely? The ten cent Origin is the first part of
the podcast where Professor Jason is going to break down
all of the hoo's its and what's its galores? In case,
Pedro Pascal invites you to a hymn themed cocktail party
and you have to go dressed as one of his characters,
but he's assigned you to dress up as Jrol.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I would love that party.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Who would you dress up as?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Joel? You said, I can only dress Well.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Well, I'm giving you a choice. Now I'm I'm Pedro
Buscal and you're my first guest.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Here's what I did, Here's what i'd do. I'd wear
cowboy boots, uh huh as his character from The Kingsman's
I thought you were going.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
To go with Soda popperor whatever his name is, and
The Kingsman.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
He's not Whiskey, is he? Because Whiskey is I'll figure
it out. We sound so old doing this. What was
what was his name in that movie? I don't remember?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Ato Phil is Pedro Pascal's zombie show.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I will I will say Pedro Pascal, the Zaddie of
the universe. But you know what, I'm sorry. This is
not a lesson about zombies, is a lesson about Pedro Pascal,
And luckily I have him on the phone.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Pedro he is whiskey.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
He is whiskey. Okay, yeah, so I had Cowboy boots
is whiskey. I'd have Joel's jacket because Joel's jacket is fantastic.
He has the classic leather man I'm trying to look
tough jacket. That's kind of seems to be the thing.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
So Hugh Jackman, Wolverine Jack.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I mean, Tom Cruz did it in the most recent
Mission Impossible movie.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
He's snaked all the time.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, he's naked a lot in that movie.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Is just crazy because he's I'm happy, he's confident.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
But he has this like leather jack He sort of
has this like Safari outfit. Actually, but I say that
as a joke, but it's his best outfit in the
movie because it looks like I'm gonna wear a leather
jacket because I'm trying to be tough, I know.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
But you say Safari outfit, and I'm imagining the tan
suit with the little shorty shorts above your knees, a.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Tan jacket and tan he has like leather gloves. It's
because he's it's it's the outfit he wears when he's
hanging off the plane. Sure, yeah, yeah, so and it's
that that scene is in South Africa. That's where they
are a South Africa.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Okay, So you've got the boots in the jacket, the boots.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
In the jacket, then I'm gonna sneak in the mister
Fantastic sweater because I don't know if you've noticed in
this Fantastic four movies he's wearing like a wool knitted sweater.
That's their costumes. They're like wool. And to be honest
with you, I know a lot. I've noticed that Reddit
is going crazy about those things. I love them. I
think those costumes are awesome.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Do you know what that sweater is made of?
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I don't know? Do you know?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Boyfriend material? Thank you? That's the beginning and the end
of my career in comedy.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Did you have that? And like ready to go?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
To be fair?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
To be fair?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
That's an old, old, old Tumblr joke, because you remember
the sweat, the cable nit sweater that John Watson wears
in BBC Sherlock. I guess they were like, what's John's
The meme was like, what's John's sweater? Made out of
boyfriend material?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Coeople are gonna everybody came here for zombies.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
You know, they're so disappointed.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I'll just stop there. There were great. I think the
fantastic foest sweater outfit amazing, fantastic. I'm here for Pedascal
paed robscal on all of my movies. I agree. I
think he's great. He is great, and he's got a
mustache to die and he wants to.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Protect the dolls. What's not to love. He wears these
shirts that they protect the dolls. Dolls is are trans women.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I understand his sister is a transman.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
He's also a nice human being.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
He takes her to a lot of premieres.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
She's gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
No, the jeans are strong in that people are getting
kind of tired. Pedro bscal Nah, not mere past.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
No, I want, I truly want the Hugh Jackman trajectory
for him. I want him to be sexy dad until
he disintegrates into dog.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
I want a zombie army of from all the different movies.
I'll even take Gladdie or to Pedro Pascal, which is
Pedro Pascal that I don't really like. Well, let's be
him in there.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
The first Pedro Pascal who becomes a zombie is the
version of him from that Nicholas Cage movie where he's
playing himself, where he's like the Labrador retriever version of himself.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yes, but Peter Pascal has not played himself. He plays
like a rich movie fan.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Oh I thought he was playing himself or Cage playing himself.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
A Cage is playing himself. Pedro Pascal is playing the
rich man that hires him to come back.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
All I know is that gift of him where he's
smiling real big and he's driving because they're high on asseid. Okay,
like the zombies.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yep, like the zombies. Okay. So basically, zombies are reanimated corpses.
They're usually mindless, they're always hungry, and they're usually only
stopped by destroying the brain. This is sort of the
basic standards of modern day zombies zombie ism, but that
has been adapted into multiple things. Now, Ashley, Yes, what
(09:59):
do you think zombies are a metaphor for today? In
today's modern world? Because you know, past stories have made
zombies disease, Past zombies have used them as a metaphor
for technology, and even some of the sixties movies. Night
of Living Dead is very famously its conformity.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Look, I'll say this with my Whole Chest the only
good zombie movie ever made. We'll talk a little bit
about it, but the original Night of Living Back, Yeah,
fantastic in a modern because.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
We have multiple zombie things right now.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
That's a good question, because I would have I would
have had a different answer if you asked me. Sort
of as an overall cultural point of view, I think.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Wait, we forgot to say that, I forrid to say
I demeanior. The White Walkers are basically zombies too. From
Game of Thrones.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah they are, they're a little more Ye, yes, there's yes,
we have I'm sure an answer.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yes, we have Lasted Us starring the Pedro Pascal who
corrupted our podcast for.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Five Game of Thrones starringscal.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
We have Game of Thrones starring Pedro Pascal with the
zombies in it. Uh, we have Walking Dead, which it's
a shame that Pedro past.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Has not been but honestly he's too good.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Jeffy Dean Morgan is there and he has a mustache
just as good.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Oh yeah, yeah, and he was a comic book guy.
So I think in a modern day I'm really gonna
try to not get to topical in my answer to this,
but I think I think zombies in a modern day
is a metaphor for ignorance and for maybe even misinformation.
(11:32):
Like I think it's a metaphor for people who get
stuck in their ignorance and refuse to break out of that.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
So it's it's it's anesthetical, it's change, it's anti change.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, because they're the people there. Yes,
I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yes, okay, So before we get into some actual, like
loose zombie history, I do have a bunch of fun
facts that I kind of I wanted to throw you
out to you that I thought would make an interesting
zombie conversation. Cop. Okay, did you know there is a
term for what you call people who like zombies?
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Do you mean like like we're just fans? Or do
you mean like like want to kiss?
Speaker 1 (12:16):
No, it's just like an actual word.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
No, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
So it's called zombie files.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Of course it is.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I hate that. I don't like it. Zombies also are
not a modern thing. Archaeologists have found graves which had
skeletons that were pinned down by rocks in case they
woke up and came back from the dead.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Did you know there's a World Zombie Day. No, you
can probably guess which months it's in July, October obviously October,
on October eighth.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
October eighth. Of course, let me added to my calendar this.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I know a little bit from working on the TV
show Watson. Yeah, a human zombie outbreak is actually not impossible. Yeah,
I know that by several different means, you know, neurotoxins,
mad cow disease, let's even say, fungus is even a
really thing. So it's actually not that science fiction. We
are going to talk about this movie a little bit more.
(13:16):
The first ever movie to have a zombie in it
is called White Zombie. It's made nineteen thirty two, was
directed by Victor Halpern Power and it starred Bella Lugosi
as a zombie master named murder legendre.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Legendarre Legend.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
There, Yes, DAIRI yes, Scott. We we'll talk a little
bit about that movie. Not that much, to be honest
with you, but that is considered to be the There
is a little bit of a debate about where the
first zombie showed up. Most people agree that it is
(13:56):
that movie that I just mentioned. That I lost and
I forgot the name of it.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
White Zombie. I'm looking at some screenshots or some screenshots
from it. Bill Legosi really just looks like Dracula. Huh,
he just looks like that. That's just his face.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, it's his face. Uh.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
It is well worth even if you're not going to
watch this movie. I've never seen it, but it's well
worth going and looking at the pictures on h on
a Google Image shirt. They are fantastic.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Did you know than in the world of insects, zombies
do sort of exist? Oh?
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Yes they did.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah. There's a fungus called in the tropical rainforest known
as cordiusceps, which is sort of the idea behind the
last of it.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
It is called the cords of Puck.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah. Releases spores into the air which infects the brains
of ants. These zombie ants then climb trees where they die.
The fungus then sprouts through the dead bodies and releases
further air spores to infect more ants. In Scandinavian countries,
zombies are called and I apologize to all of our
Scandinavian listeners. Dora Guru cool, dr a u.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
G r ragur.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Maybe now here's a fun fact, and then we're going
to get into this debate. Okay, do you know Scammy Dode?
I know Scomby's you knows Scomby Doo, Scooby Doo. I
was in my new region. I'm Sorrycomby Doo. Did you
know that Scooby Doo fought zombies? Yes? In the nineteen
(15:20):
ninety films Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, They're surrounded and
chased by hordes of islands. All right, now here is
the debate. Okay, Ashley Jason, you know you're a fan
of his property. Yeah, I'm gonna get your answer after
these commercial messages. But there is a debate about when
the first zombie? Was it White Zombie or was it Frankenstein?
(15:45):
And we're going to get to that right after these messages.
Geek as for lesson, we're back. We hope you enjoy
those commercial messages, and if you didn't, well sorry, kind
of out of our hands, but thank you for sticking around.
We're here to talk about zoombies, and we're here to
debate where was the first time zombie showed up in
movies or what was the first zombie? Sort of in
(16:05):
pop culture? There is a debate out there that Frankenstein's
Monster is a zombie because he is a reanimated corpse.
Others say that because he was never alive in the
first place, that means he was in a zombie because
has to be something that was alive, becomes dead, becomes
alive again. Also, zombies traditionally feast on human flesh, but
(16:27):
there are lots of zombies that don't, So I would
love I know you're a big fan of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
I am, so I'd love to hear if Frankenstein's shares
a lot of similarities. Where do you Is he a zombie?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
No, hard disagree he's not a zombie.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Well, what's the distinction?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
The creature is not a zombie because he is intellectual
and he's not mindless. If you, I'm sure you have
this inn your notes, but if you really want to
go back to like the origins from which we got
the pop culture version of a zombie, the important thing
about that is as a person without choice and not
acting of their own volition and acting on you got
(17:04):
to touch on that a bit and acting on behalf
of someone else. And so I'll say more on that later,
but the creature has intelligence, he has agency, he can speak,
he makes decisions my way.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Have you seen the trailer for Gearmo de Heros Franstein, Yeah,
that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I'm so excitsed really good. I'm genuinely that's really good
to watch.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
It looks it actually looks scary.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Do you think he'll do you think he'll hit on
a fish lady?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I hope not, but I can only hope. The saving
grace of that movie is that at the very end
we see a very dapper.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Pe We can only hope. Anyways, So I I don't By.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
The way, if you want to send any Pedro Pascal
shirts to the podcast, we don't have a po box anymore,
so you can't. Sorry, yeah, exactly, but I wish you could.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I'm sure we can wrangle up an address for you
if you want to send Jason some Pedro Pascal teams.
Wag uh, But no, I don't think so. I understand
how I understand where the comparison comes from. I definitely
think they share a lot of the same attributes, but
in the same way that like werewolves and vampires and
witches share the same attributes, right like they they come
out of the same they come to the same storytelling origin.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I just had never considered that before, but I can
see the comparison. And it's interesting that you said that the
zombies are mindless. That's interesting because I will tell you,
as any fans of The Last of Us know, the
interesting thing that the Last of Us video game franchise
and even the TV show does, unlike the Walking Dead franchise,
is that in the Last of Us, the longer zombies
(18:40):
are around. Yeah, the smarter they get.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Well, like I said, I'm just sort of basing it
on the origin, the very most traditional view of the character.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
It is, there is an interesting they are sort of
like distant cousins almost.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
They're definitely they're definitely in the same ven diagram. Yeah
for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Okay, so let's shamble through zombie history or sprint however
you like your zombies. So, zombies are considered to have
first appeared in Haitian and African folklore. Yeah, they were
creatures that were raised from the dead by sorcerers. We'll
get into that a little bit more now. Again, I said,
(19:19):
the first zombie film was White Zombie starring Bella Legosi.
And if you don't know. This is a nineteen thirty
two pre code horror film that was independently produced. Most
of White Zombie was shot on the Universal Studios a lot,
and it borrowed many props and most scenery from other films.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah, well that kind of there was a lot of
that going around in those early horror movies.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
When it opened, it was widely negatively panned. Oh, most
people were like, this sucks, and it proved way less popular.
And it's the reason most people have forgotten that this
is the first zombie Yeah, because it was so widely panned.
Here's the tagline. With these zombie eyes. He rendered her
(20:07):
powerless with this zombie grip. He made her perform his
every desire.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Sounds like an adult film.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
I don't know about you, but that sounds like a
Pedro Pascal movie to me. Except it's actually based on
a book called The Magic Island. It's a nineteen twenty
nine novel by William Seabrook. Now, the interesting thing about
The Magic Island is it's actually written by an American's explorer.
Ohliam Seabrook actually traveled the world, and he got this
(20:38):
idea from visiting Haiti and seeing Haitian voodoo, and this
book Magic Island is considered to be the first English
language thing to describe a zombie.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
You know, it's really interesting. We don't have to chase
this thread too too far, but it's interesting that a
zombies being popular is literally colonization. And the most popular
zombie thing is is probably the Walking Dead, which was
created by a white guy, which is usually comes from
this Haitian mysticism.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Magic Island is considered to be a non fiction.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Book, right, but he introduced this idea that this was
in their practice, and they said that sounds cool. Let's
do that.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Game so popular that it is considered to be the
thing that popularized voodoo and witchcraft in Western culture.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Wow, really this book? Am I going to read?
Speaker 1 (21:36):
This book inspired a nineteen thirty two New York stage
play and then also later inspired White Zombie. It was
reprinted in twenty sixteen with an introduction by George A. Romero,
and it officially in January first of this year entered
the public domain. Oh wow, this year entered the public domain.
Which is a kind of nice wink to our JJ
(21:58):
lecture that we're going to have around. Yeah, which, if
you don't know about our GHO extras. Come over to
Patreon dot com slash jaw On. That's jaw I in
you can. You want to support the show. We do
lots of bonus podcasts over there, including JHO Extra, where
we usually do an episode every week that is an
expanded Usually it's listener questions or expanding on, you know,
the culture. And Ashley is having some reaction that's going
(22:18):
to throw me off my ass. And we we're talking
about public domain characters, so this is very appropriate to
this all. But come over there, support the podcast. We
do Movie Club. We're right in our way through the
Superman Christopher Reeves series. We just did an amazing live
stream with some friends on Superman Too. It was so
much fun and the complete disaster that was. But you know,
(22:40):
come on over Patreon dot com slash John and thanks
to all the super friends. Check it out. Lots of
old podcasts. There's like five hundred hours a podcast. Oh
do you want to mention a little bit about Talking
Titans over there?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Oh yeah, Talking Titans is me and Diego Anthony Nunez
who works with us on this podcast, and we are
watching all of Teen Titans, the animated series, the original series.
It's Diego's first time, and we are interviewing a ton
of fun creators who have worked in and around it.
You get two episodes from us every month. It's a
very very fun show to do.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
So enough about white zombie. Okay, let's talk about let's
go back to zombies infant Okay. In the fifties and sixties,
zombie started popping in pulp comics and b movies, but
it was really George Romero's Night of the Living Dead
that sort of brought them back into popularity because it
was considered and he saw it as this way as
a metaphor for social collapse, for the collapse of Western civilization.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Yeah, do you know that Night of the Living Dead
is quite venerated also as a piece of like social
justice storytelling because Ben, who is the leader for that movie,
is the only black character in the movie.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah, well.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
George Ramira also went on to create multiple zombie movies,
including what I consider to be the greatest zombie movie
ever made, Dawn of the Dead, which is a bunch
of people trapped in the mall, Zack Snyder and James Gunn,
people that most of the Internet think hate each other.
Actually worked quite well together on an amazing remake that
I think is just as good as the original. When
they made Donna the Dead in the mid two thousands.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah it's wild. That narrative is wild to me. But
that's a whole different podcast.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Yeah, that's a whole different podcast. But you know, so
he sort of has this Donna the Dead and then
you know that's led onto The Walking Dead, which is
definitely inspired by Walking through z And then again, zombies
invaded pop culture spaces like comics we have Marvel zombies,
we have there in games Resident Evil. I mentioned the
Last of the Bus.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I mean, you could even you could even argue Blackest.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Night, YEP, comedies like Last Night and Sean of the Dead.
Now again, zombie comes from Haitian folklore. We described this
when a zombie is dead, the person is revived by
magic in this version, not a virus neither The Living Dead,
the nineteen sixty eight film is the one that popularized
(24:54):
the modern flesh eating zombie. A fun fact, the word
zombie is never said in the movie. So this leads
to me a question. This is something that bothers me
in zombie pulp pop culture. Yea, almost a pulp culture, which.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Is I mean, it is pulp culture for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Do you like and I have a game that's going
to sort of tie into this sure? Do you like
that characters know the term zombie or do you like
the characters not know the word zombie? Because I will
say it is a specific plot point in the Walking.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Dead franchise called Walkers.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
They're called walkers and they never say zombie. I'll tell
you in other movies that go zombie.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
I'll tell you this because I do find it irritating
in TV or in movies when someone's like that could
never happen? What is this a movie? Like? I don't
think that that's cute. I find that I find that
super irritating. It like it breaks the fourth wall in
a way that I don't find it to be fun.
I think I don't mind when we call them something else,
(26:04):
because zombie does have a very specific cultural annotation that's
definitely gotten lost in the pop culture sphere. It would
be like if we called every team of people the Apostles, right, like,
wouldn't doesn't that strike you as like not great?
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Bob? So I don't.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
I don't mind it, actually, and I appreciate when creators
can come up with like interesting things to call them.
But I also think it's totally fine if this is
supposed to be a sudden thing that's come on some
outbreak or something. We don't have to call them anything.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
But you don't. You don't, so you don't mind that
we don't have to call them anything, But you don't
mind that because I think because we are such a
pop culture driven society that I think.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
You don't mind that they've seen zombies and movies and
the suddenly zombies happen.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I think if we see a thing that is like
a zombie, yeah, even if it's not even anywhere close,
it's just like that insect I was talking about, I
think we would be like, that's a zombie. Or we
see something like a werewolf, we'd be like, that's a werewolf.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah, that's true, but that's not what I'm going to
entertain it for sure.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Sure, I guess I don't.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
I guess My answer is I think it's more creative
when you give them their own name. But I don't
think I have a horse in the race.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Okay, you don't have a zombie horse in the race,
and I'm.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
A zombie horse in the race. I think there's one
in the Venom movie though.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Fun fact, in early zombie movies zombies we mentioned this
were often controlled by a master I think a voodoo
priest rather than a mindless horde. The CDC once published
a zombie preparedness guide using the undead to teach disaster readiness.
The original script for twenty eight Days Later called the
(27:43):
infected zombies, but then the director insisted that they were
just infected because he didn't want them to technically be undead. So,
based on these facts, mm hmm, what do you think
is the most important trait for surviving a zombie outbreak? Brains?
Braun or heart? And do you think you'd be a survivor,
(28:04):
a leader or a lone wolf or a hapless victim
and a zombie out break?
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Okay, I've said this from the second I've known what
zombies are. I'm cheoting myself in the head right away.
I'm not even gonna try. No, no way, I'm not
living in that world. Take me out of it.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Everyone say this is a living willah, no way.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
I ultimately think brains is more important. But you're but
you are going to need braun because, for example, you
have to think about it, Like everybody's gonna want a car.
A bike is probably more useful to you because a
bike can't run out of gas. Everyone's gonna want a gun.
Maybe you want a baseball back because it's not gonna
run out of bullets. Like you're going to have to
(28:49):
think laterally, And I don't think most I don't think
most people do that. And I think a very lazy
one to one is to look at how people react
when natural disasters happen, even natural disasters that people have
warning are gonna happen to them. So I do think
intelligence is ultimately on your side, But I mean to
(29:12):
ignore the fact that you're gonna need a certain amount
of physical strength unless you can Rube Goldberg machine, your
whole property would be foolish.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
You know what, I always heart useless. You know it's
gonna get you killed. You know. I think it's always
funny in every post of apocalypt and movie, especially zombie movies,
is that cars are us are useless in about twelve months. Yeah,
because of the gas, because gas goes bad unless you
keep it in sealed, air tight containers. Yes, yeah, all
the gas.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
And if you're not taking that into consideration.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Like, so like whenever the outbreak goes about a year
from now, there are no.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
You gotta go as far as you can on the car,
or you gotta.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
You gotta find a way to like make your own
little refinement.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Also air travels out because what are you gonna be
locked in a metal tube with someone?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
No, no, no, you know you're gonna be lucky you
can find a pilot.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
But you have said for a long time that you
think you would do quite well.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Some one this podcast that I would live like a king.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
I don't know if you said on this podcast, but
you've said that out loud before for sure. Yeah, because
you have a lot of practical skills. That's why again,
I think the brains thing is you're going to need
a level of skill that most average people who are
city slickers don't have, right, Like, it's it's a return
to a homesteading mentality.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
So, yeah, I grew I grew up on a farm
in the middle of nowhere, so I've already done. You're like,
I'll move back to a farm, move back to the
farm in the middle of nowhere. It's it's not gonna
be fun. It's not gonna be easy. I mean, I
actually think you probably made the right move. Yeah, you know,
but I will tell you. Let's say I was out
there zombie Apocalypse, you know, wondering what the hell I
(30:40):
was going to do. I can't start the truck because
gasoline's all bad, ye, And then I see a man
in a jacket come up there, and I say, oh,
you got a good looking mustache, and it's pedro pass.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
I mean, you take all of the supplies.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
And then I shoot him exactly, And that's glad Or too.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
I mean the Road. Cormack McCarthy's The Road which was
Happens doesn't have zombies in it, but has something quite
close to zombies in it really examined that sort of
relationship where like how small do you keep your bubble
when things go better?
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Well, The Walking Dead is very similar to that too,
because the idea is that, like, it's the threat is
not the zombies, is the other human, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Which I think would be true unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
So let's talk about some of the various different zombies. Yeah,
we have classic zombies that are slow shuffling, sometimes under
a villain's control. We have two thousands fast zombies. Thanks
the twenty eight days later and the Dawn of the
Dead remake. We have zombies in different genres. We have romance,
remember the Warm Bodies that Nicholas Holt.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Oh boy, No, I sure forgot that existed.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
We have comedies like zombie Land starring Woody Harrelson and
Jesse Osenburg Eisenberg at his the height is his r
Stones and the stone is also in the movie. They
made a sequel to that movie, which I never sew.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Recently, like in the last couple of years, and.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Even supero crossovers in marblel Zombies and then The Walking
Dead made zombies an ongoing drama with survival and heartbreak.
Every era has sort of reinvented zombies from the twentieth
century four. They are metaphors for consumerism. They are sometimes
for disease. They are social media. I'm gonna we gotta
(32:13):
ask you another question. Okay, slow zombies or fast zombies.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
I mean I hate both of them. Yeah, uh, fast
zombies are scarier.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Fast sobbies are scary scarier.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
But I will say if they're fast, but they're still
encumbered by being reanimated corpses, like they're still in an
active state of decay. I never understand why people don't
just simply throw them all in a corral. It's not
like they can climb a fence. Well, but to me,
to me or drop them in the ocean.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
To me, the threat of zombies, and I think they
can climb fences. The threat of zombies is it's not
that it's not that they're stronger than you. They're not
that they're faster than you. It's that there is so
many of them.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Or that they're persistent, right, They'll just keep bashing their
head against the wall till they go through the wall.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I actually think one of the best zombie scenes that
I have ever seen in a zombie movie, yes, is
shown of the Dead. Sure you know Simon peg Co
wrote that movie, Yep. And there is a scene where
they are trying to get to this location and the
street is covered in two hundred zombies. There is no
(33:18):
way they're gonna be able to walk through that street,
and so they just decide to put on a bunch
of zombie clothes and then just walk through and act
like zombies and they slowly shuffle through the crowd and
stuff like that. And I actually think it's like one
of the best things, because like, that's the thing that
makes zombies difficult. Again, it's not an individual zombie not
that threatening, but the horde is.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
All right, let me ask you this, then, at what
percentage of the human population then do they become a
credible threat?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
If only oh man.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
If it's only eleven percent of the human population, are
they a credible threat? Or do you have to get
close to like is it forty percent? Is it sixty percent?
Like it's got to get close to a majority, right.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I don't think so. I don't think so. I actually
think they would be kind of a threat at about
fifteen percent.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Because your question is can they organize, right, because if
it's fifteen percent all over the planet, it's probably fine.
But if that fifteen percent it's concentrated in the city
of Los Angeles and they are all working together, it's
probably a problem.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Do the I mean, do the thing. Like, you know,
there's eight billion.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
People in the world right now, there's almost nine okay,
so let's.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Do eight Let's just say let's keep it low eight billion.
What is fifteen percent of eight billion?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
There's too many zeros.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
This is exciting podcasting.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
There's too many zeros.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
What do you mean two zero zeros. Hey, just ask Google.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
I did ask Google and it gave me a number
with no commas.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Okay, I'm working on listeners. We don't know we're gonna find.
We are podcasters, not math podcasters. So here we go.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
I am just let me talk to the little we.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Can figure this out. I didn't know it's going to
stumble in our podcast. Okay, so let's just say that
we're never going to figure out that math problem because
we're stupid and all the math people. Okay, I found it.
I found it.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
It's one point two billion.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
That's fifteen percent.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
It's one two zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I'm just going to say this. At fifteen percent, we're screwed.
If there are one billion zombies the population of India,
like that's how many. Yeah, I can't We're not good
at maths. I don't want to talk about math.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Yeah. So yeah, the population of India.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
It's the population of Indie. We're screwed.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
If it ever gets to just fifteen percent, we are screwed.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yeah. Well, Also, I think it highlights again not to
go tuggums too far. This kind of thought experiment highlights
the problem. Of a lot of our like global relationships
and our inability to work be together as a human species.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
It gets to that point the only option is to
drop a.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Nuke, yes, or stick them all on and I, or
drop them on the ocean or something like that.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah, like you have to go, you have to go.
Any other traditional military things are not going to stop it. Yeah, yeah,
because there's so many of them. Yeah, Now it is
the thing like it And I think that's the interesting
about zombies is that they are like a virus. The
only way you can stop them is you have to
contain them. Yeah, And I think the world we know, hey,
(36:28):
we're not trying to get into real world, is that
we can't.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Contain any We're not great at that, not great, but.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Humans can't do it, which is crazy because most of
humanity hurted animals for hundreds of thousands of year.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah, but by counterfoid, we've watched them try to hurt
animals on various competition reality television shows, and people are
astonishingly bad at that now.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
I know, but it's I'm just saying, hurting things is
in our DNA.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah yeah, well okay, so the solution we've solved it
the solution to the zombie apocalypse. You get a bunch
of border collies and you let them have at it.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
But the border commie will become zombies now if they
don't bite them.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Well, what kind of zombies? How does the disease spread?
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Can it spread interest specially?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
I don't know, like the xeno more virus cans, so
what can't the zombie virus.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
That was the thing that I magic that I found
very frightening in the Resident Evil the original movie was
they had zombie dogs. They were like zombie Doberman's.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Okay, so we have to take a quick commercial Breakkay,
what after that, I'm gonna play a quick little game
with you about zombies.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
I'm petrified like zombies.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
I went back right for this. Ghl, We're back. You know,
zombies have their own lingo. You know a bunch of this.
But I thought I would like play some of this
with you and see if Now sure, Okay, I'll say
the term you guess what it means. Okay, We're gonna
start off easy. I think simplembies. Okay. I'm mostly just
(37:52):
going to say that some of these might have the
same answer. Okay, Okay, it's gonna start off easy walker
a zombie that only walks. It's specifically a term from
Walking Dead. That's what they call their zombies.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Iknew that one bier one that bites.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
It's another nickname for zombies, right, Okay, a z.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Because that's like a World War zed thing. I'm assuming
it's also a zombies.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
It's another term for zombies. You might notice some pattern here. Okay,
the infected it's zombie. Yes, it's a human. It's it's
a human that is not quite a zombie but has
been infected by a zombie. Yes.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
And then you're of course left with the ethical This
happens to Ben, who's the black character in another Living Dead?
Is he gets bitten at the end. Oh, that's a
zombie too, and that's a that's a folklore thing.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Yes, that's what they used to call z day.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
That's the day when it was first noticed or the
mass event happened.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Or when a zombie day happens. Perfect score.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Heya, Wow, I did better than I thought I was gonna.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
There was a truck there, there were all yembies.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Ye.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Well, I think I went to simple thanking. I was
like one that wa.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I just I just literally wanted to, you know, point
out that it's interesting that we have multiple versions of
zombies and they're all just basically finding different words for zombie.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, labeling our own characteristics.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Quickly, I wanted to touch on some zombies and comic books. Okay,
we of course have the Marvel zombies.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Yeah, they're adapting that, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Okay, we have Solomon Grundy, who is basically a zombie
born on a Monday, never stays dead. We have Simon Garth,
who is Marvel's original zombie, the hero actually called zombie
in nineteen fifty three. We have the Black Lanterns from
DC's Black as Night, which were dead heroes and villains
resurrected as zombies. Also, some other pop culture that's interesting
(39:53):
to know is there is a film I want to
point out, Trained to Busan, which is a Korean zombie.
There's also Pride and Prejudice and zombies.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Matt Smith Matt Smith Vehicle, which is.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Even Jane Austen isn't safe. And there's a fun there's
a fun little sort of vertigo DC comics related, there's
a TV show called ee Zombie where a woman ate
brains to help her solve crimes. You know, there's also
a film called Fight Out where zombies are household pets
and service. There's warm bodies that romances and even the
(40:27):
Santa Clarita diet Storting Our Own All which suburban mom
turns into a zombie and tries to keep her life
together in your.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
D see All Access Days. That was also when a
zombie Was that a tight was it not?
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Yeah? I interview.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
I was going to say, didn't you chat with them?
Speaker 1 (40:44):
That's where I met the great Reroll Coley.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Yes, I remember you saying that they were not.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
As swoony as Pedro Pascal. But he's pretty close.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Close A great mister fantastic.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
So Ashley, I want to why do you think zombies
are still popular twofold one.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
I think the reason that a lot of reincarnated months.
That's what That's what vampires are, That's what ghosts are, poultrygeist,
Fringer science, creature. It is a it is a physical
manifestation of our fear of death. It's the ultimate thing.
It's a thing that unites to Saul, nobody wants to die.
(41:23):
I also think they resonate, and I think this is
lost on people who maybe don't necessarily know the cultural
history of where zombies come from. By the way, the
book that you recommend that nothing you recommend that you
stated brought over the idea of zombies. It's probably and
criticism has been called ethnographic, racist, pseudoscience, which makes me
(41:44):
giggle to no end. I mean, it was written in
the twenties, what did you say.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
It was a dude who visited haitis and wrote observations
and made logical leaves, of course of us.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
But I was scanning the Wikipedia article about it, and
that did make me giggle.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Look at anything from the past.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Absolutely, But so what I wanted to say about that
is if you look at the fact that the myth
of zombies come from a black, oppressed culture and it's
all about people who are enslaved and their original version, yes, yes,
and they're enslaved to the person who revives them so
(42:22):
much so that they lose all autonomy. Yeah, like that,
I think we forget that that is also running through it,
and that is a very powerful, very like scary, upsetting
the story to tell. And I think that that runs
through and he goes, look, everybody thinks they're the smartest
person in the room, everyone thinks we know more than
(42:43):
everyone else. We think we're not susceptible to the same
thing as everyone else, you know, like that part of
that is the ego that you need to survive, and
I think the idea of having that taken away from
us is very, very frightening, And I think that's what's
compelling about them. And then you build on the visual
of how like they look like rotten corpses and how
(43:06):
frightening that can be. Like one of the one of
the issues that I sometimes have with zombie adaptations is
they're too decayed, they're too scary in that way. You know,
all of it strikes in a very primal place. So
even though yeah they're running or maybe they're dancing and
they're climbing trees, like it's what it's strikes And seeing
what movie does zombies dance, I'm warm bodies probably Yeah,
(43:28):
I bet you I can find him Luthor?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Now that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Can I believe that about a boy is Lex Luthor?
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Now?
Speaker 3 (43:35):
I sure can't.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Yeah, it makes no sense.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
No, I mean I don't know. Good for Tony from Skins.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Can you believe that Juror number two is Lex Luther?
Speaker 3 (43:45):
Can you believe that the ex mister Jennifer Lawrence is
Lex Luther. That would probably turn me into Lex Luthor
as well into a super villain.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
They should have just gone for a full on and
made Jennifer Lawrence miss Testmonger.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
I'd like to see her in less things. I'm not
bad about it. She's in Superman.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
No, miss test Marker.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Oh said for Laurence.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
I saw a poster. Anyway, let's talk about to this zobines.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
I think Sooby's come of early primal fair and I
think that's one of the reasons why.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
By the way, I didn't bring up two things, but
there you want to venture into the world of sci fi.
But there are two very famous cybernetic species that I
think are basically zombies, and that is the Cybermen Doctor
Who and the Borg. Because the Borger rip off the Cyberman.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Yes, yeah, they're a much scarier rip off of this.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
Final question for you, Yes, what's one lesson from zombie
stories that you actually think should apply to real life?
Speaker 3 (44:34):
To real life not to like storytelling.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yeah, it's not a writing podcast. You think we've written stuff.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Come on, it's you know what, it's so funny. It's
the boy Scout and the Girl Guide motto that Lord
Robert Maiden Powell passed down to us, and that is
be prepared.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
It's funny. I think it's worked together. Yeah, the only
way you survive a zombie pocalypse is you have to
figure you have to work with people that you don't like.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Which is why none of us are surviving.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
That's right, that's right. But that's like literally, that's literally
the plot at every zone.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
I'm not saying you need to build a bunker or anything.
And maybe this is also a systemic of some things
that have happened from fires to you know, to in
our lives this year. But I do think that a
lot of the people in the zombie apocalypse movies and
stories would benefit from like having an earthquake kit or
having some extra water or like, I think there are
(45:29):
very simple steps that you could take that would make
your life ten percent easier or something like that actually happened,
all right, Uh on plant strawberries.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Plant strawberries.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Yeah, don't they have a strawberry farm? And the last
of us, the two gay guys who everyone cries about. Yeah, yeah,
plant strawberries.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
They don't have a big one though. It's just like
a tiny garden. It's not their entire yard.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Well maybe your entire yard shrubbery.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Look. Nick Offerman, who plays Bill in that show, survives
basically because he is a prepper and like the day
the zombie apocalypse happens, he goes to home depot and
just obbos of blind. I'm not joking, that's literally what
he does. He takes his big up to home depot
and he goes crazy. He like just takes everything out
(46:12):
of that home Depot. And I was like, yeah, okay,
So here's my advice.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
Get a pick up.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Get a pickup, and have you thought about a Toyota Tacoma.
They're a smooth ride. They're not a sponsor of this podcast,
but but if they'd like to be. But you can
survive the zombie apocalypse and a Toyota Tacoma. Sure. Until
the guests r side all right now, I recommended reading
if you go over to Keykiss with us in dot com,
Slash recommended reading. We have a whole kind of list,
So this is just gonna be a bunch of the
stuff we touched on Walking Dead, of course, the comics
(46:35):
and the TV Marvel Zombies, Pride and Prejudice, and Zombies,
The Last of Us, the game, and the show. Uh one.
I want to point out War war Z by Max
Brooks is a very interesting book. It's completely different from
the movie, which I don't think is very good, but
has Peter Capalt.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
I was going to say, as h a Who doctor.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
No, no, no, that's a different Oh he is a Who,
but he's also plays a Who doc doctor and anything
but any. Max Brooks, the son of Melbrooks, wrote that book.
So there you go. If you want to follow Geekuesser
Lesson on social media, Ashley where can they do that?
Speaker 3 (47:07):
You can do that everywhere, including Jason's favorite TikTok at,
geek history Lesson.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Where can they find you online?
Speaker 3 (47:13):
You can find me everywhere, including Jason's favorite TikTok at
Ashley V. Robinson.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
You can find me at jawin on threads and Instagram.
Before we go, I want to tell you some jokes. Okay,
I have some grown worthy zombie jokes. Okay, right? Yeah?
Why don't zombies eat popcorn with their fingers?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Why?
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Because they prefer to eat their fingers separately?
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Oh you tried?
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Why did the I said they were grown? I intentionally? Maybe?
Why did the zombie go to school?
Speaker 3 (47:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
He wanted to improve his deeducation. I actually think this
one is pretty good. Okay, what's the zombie's least favorite
room in the house?
Speaker 3 (47:58):
The living room. There you go, Now one's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
What have we learned today, everybody? Well, we've learned that
zombies started as folklore, but now they're everywhere, from comics
to eating Jane Austen. And no matter how many times
you kill them, zombies and zombie stories always come back.
And most of the time, the thing we need to
remember is that the real monsters are the living, not
the dead. Thank you so much for listening today to
(48:23):
geek Kestry Lesson. I'm Jason, I'm very much alive.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
In then, I'm Ashley, Victoria Robinson and Professor Jason. Would
you please dismiss the class?
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Boo
Brains bird delicious braids is what I would say if
I was a zombie, or if I was doing a
podcast about a zombie. And thank god, Geekisser Lesson has
begun because I'm Jason in then and we're here to
talk about zombies. I'm sorry, zombie scept over.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You my brain, it's melting, Jason and I don't devolve
into a plant aduled masses by the end of this.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Are we even podcasting about zombies? I am ash Victoria Robinson,
and I guess this is the part where I say
hello and welcome to geek.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Already Lesson podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I've already said it's gone. You have some of those
of the podcast where two people slowly lose their minds
where we teach you about one concept monster or who
knows the heck what and pop culture in a little
bit less than an hour, and today we're talking something
I never thought we'd ever talk about, zombies.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Okay, grab your survival gear, check your exits, make sure
you know where the nearest blunt object is. Put a
nail in it if you can.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
James Bond isn't here what she calls him a blunt instrument.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
James Bond would die within seconds of the zombie because
he would find a zombie that he thinks that he
thought was and then it would eat his bread alcohol.
We're gonna shamble into the world of the undead, and
we didn't waste any time with this intro because you
don't waste any time with zombies, because I don't know
if you know this, Ashley, but zombies don't shuffle anymore.
(01:43):
They sprint.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
They run.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, somehow they're necrotic ligaments. Can we stand sprinting? Yeah, well, look,
we're going to talk a little bit about that. It's
that's not no, no, no, I don't want to have that
conversation now. Okay, I don't want to talk about sprinting
zombies right now. Okay, that's gonna happen later. Okay, Okay,
we got twenty eight years later to get to that
(02:05):
nice segue.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, as we've survived the we are the Last of
Us Part two?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
How many zombie title puns do you think we can
throw in this? It's not Dawn of the Dud.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, we're walking dead our way through.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
This lesson listeners, It's been a long week for book,
and it's gonna be a world war z It is
the World warsad but we're talking about zombies. We usually
talk about spooky stuff, usually in the month of October.
But you know, there's this movie out here called twenty
eight Years Later, which somehow is a franchise.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah, a multi media franchise, no less multi year, multi
decade because the twenty eight Days Later.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I think two thousand something like four, two thousand and five.
You want to confirm that for us will and then
we two and two and then we got twenty. But
this is Alex Garland and Danny Boyle teaming up yea
with Ashley's favorite actor, Aaron Taylor Johnson, her favorite Quicksilver
of all time. Aaron Taylor Johnson.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
He's completely adequate in everything.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I remember us walking out of Asria Ultron and Ashley
being like, you know that movie I'm very uncertain about,
but that Quicksilver love it.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
I mean, at least he could do the accent. The
other the other sibling couldn't.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I also remember you being like, at least he died
by the end of that movie. Anyways. Yeah, so to
celebrate the twenty eight Years Later, I thought it would
be interesting to sort of do an episode about zombies. Now,
a little clarification here, Okay, clarify there is no real
history lesson on zombies.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Oh sorry, what are we even doing here? Well, they're
a shambly smash that subscribe button there, smash that subscribe
But give me a five sour review.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Episodes of coome a TikTok influencer. What happened here?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I'm gonna TikTok this whole lesson. You're gone on TikTok Live.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Come fight, man, That's what's gonna happen that I want
this world to go to the zombies because I'm over it.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
You can find us on TikTok acta History.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Listen. Yeah, I'm trying to have a conversation about zombie.
You keep trying to sell things on Timu.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Well I've never been on Timu.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
The zombies have.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yeah, that's where the zombies go.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So there's no standard origin here, right. This is a
character that has sort of been adapted. This is an
idea that has been co opted and changed and manipulated
and turned and tickled and tell it's become what we
know it is, the zombie. So we're just gonna kind
(04:35):
of check in on things. There is no real origin.
There is no real history lesson, just a bunch of
one facts cool, just like the Horde of zombies that
you might be looking at if you're at a base
in Wyoming looking over your wooded fence with high slats
and tall points with Pedro Pascal, and you might be like,
look at how different it is, And he'd say to himself, Yeah, yeah,
(04:58):
that's good. I got to go to star in a
fantastic movie.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Is that Citi in Wyoming?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well, there's a there's a town that Joel lives in
that is in Jackson, Wyoming.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Oh, I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And that's where they're secret base for the Last of
Us Season two is. And by the way, here's the
other crazy thing Last of Us a zombie thing. They're
not really zombies. They're fungus, zomb.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Bunzies, fung beies.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
So they're not quite fun guy. Yeah, they're fun, guy.
They're walking.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
They're fun guys.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
So let's get to basically our ten cent origin, Ashley,
would you like to remind the listeners of what that
section of the podcast does.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Absolutely? The ten cent Origin is the first part of
the podcast where Professor Jason is going to break down
all of the hoo's its and what's its galores? In case,
Pedro Pascal invites you to a hymn themed cocktail party
and you have to go dressed as one of his characters,
but he's assigned you to dress up as Jrol.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I would love that party.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Who would you dress up as?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Joel? You said, I can only dress Well.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Well, I'm giving you a choice. Now I'm I'm Pedro
Buscal and you're my first guest.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Here's what I did, Here's what i'd do. I'd wear
cowboy boots, uh huh as his character from The Kingsman's
I thought you were going.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
To go with Soda popperor whatever his name is, and
The Kingsman.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
He's not Whiskey, is he? Because Whiskey is I'll figure
it out. We sound so old doing this. What was
what was his name in that movie? I don't remember?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Ato Phil is Pedro Pascal's zombie show.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I will I will say Pedro Pascal, the Zaddie of
the universe. But you know what, I'm sorry. This is
not a lesson about zombies, is a lesson about Pedro Pascal,
And luckily I have him on the phone.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Pedro he is whiskey.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
He is whiskey. Okay, yeah, so I had Cowboy boots
is whiskey. I'd have Joel's jacket because Joel's jacket is fantastic.
He has the classic leather man I'm trying to look
tough jacket. That's kind of seems to be the thing.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
So Hugh Jackman, Wolverine Jack.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I mean, Tom Cruz did it in the most recent
Mission Impossible movie.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
He's snaked all the time.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, he's naked a lot in that movie.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Is just crazy because he's I'm happy, he's confident.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
But he has this like leather jack He sort of
has this like Safari outfit. Actually, but I say that
as a joke, but it's his best outfit in the
movie because it looks like I'm gonna wear a leather
jacket because I'm trying to be tough, I know.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
But you say Safari outfit, and I'm imagining the tan
suit with the little shorty shorts above your knees, a.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Tan jacket and tan he has like leather gloves. It's
because he's it's it's the outfit he wears when he's
hanging off the plane. Sure, yeah, yeah, so and it's
that that scene is in South Africa. That's where they
are a South Africa.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Okay, So you've got the boots in the jacket, the boots.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
In the jacket, then I'm gonna sneak in the mister
Fantastic sweater because I don't know if you've noticed in
this Fantastic four movies he's wearing like a wool knitted sweater.
That's their costumes. They're like wool. And to be honest
with you, I know a lot. I've noticed that Reddit
is going crazy about those things. I love them. I
think those costumes are awesome.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Do you know what that sweater is made of?
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I don't know? Do you know?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Boyfriend material? Thank you? That's the beginning and the end
of my career in comedy.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Did you have that? And like ready to go?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
To be fair?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
To be fair?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
That's an old, old, old Tumblr joke, because you remember
the sweat, the cable nit sweater that John Watson wears
in BBC Sherlock. I guess they were like, what's John's
The meme was like, what's John's sweater? Made out of
boyfriend material?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Coeople are gonna everybody came here for zombies.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
You know, they're so disappointed.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I'll just stop there. There were great. I think the
fantastic foest sweater outfit amazing, fantastic. I'm here for Pedascal
paed robscal on all of my movies. I agree. I
think he's great. He is great, and he's got a
mustache to die and he wants to.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Protect the dolls. What's not to love. He wears these
shirts that they protect the dolls. Dolls is are trans women.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I understand his sister is a transman.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
He's also a nice human being.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
He takes her to a lot of premieres.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
She's gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
No, the jeans are strong in that people are getting
kind of tired. Pedro bscal Nah, not mere past.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
No, I want, I truly want the Hugh Jackman trajectory
for him. I want him to be sexy dad until
he disintegrates into dog.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
I want a zombie army of from all the different movies.
I'll even take Gladdie or to Pedro Pascal, which is
Pedro Pascal that I don't really like. Well, let's be
him in there.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
The first Pedro Pascal who becomes a zombie is the
version of him from that Nicholas Cage movie where he's
playing himself, where he's like the Labrador retriever version of himself.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yes, but Peter Pascal has not played himself. He plays
like a rich movie fan.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Oh I thought he was playing himself or Cage playing himself.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
A Cage is playing himself. Pedro Pascal is playing the
rich man that hires him to come back.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
All I know is that gift of him where he's
smiling real big and he's driving because they're high on asseid. Okay,
like the zombies.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yep, like the zombies. Okay. So basically, zombies are reanimated corpses.
They're usually mindless, they're always hungry, and they're usually only
stopped by destroying the brain. This is sort of the
basic standards of modern day zombies zombie ism, but that
has been adapted into multiple things. Now, Ashley, Yes, what
(09:59):
do you think zombies are a metaphor for today? In
today's modern world? Because you know, past stories have made
zombies disease, Past zombies have used them as a metaphor
for technology, and even some of the sixties movies. Night
of Living Dead is very famously its conformity.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Look, I'll say this with my Whole Chest the only
good zombie movie ever made. We'll talk a little bit
about it, but the original Night of Living Back, Yeah,
fantastic in a modern because.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
We have multiple zombie things right now.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
That's a good question, because I would have I would
have had a different answer if you asked me. Sort
of as an overall cultural point of view, I think.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Wait, we forgot to say that, I forrid to say
I demeanior. The White Walkers are basically zombies too. From
Game of Thrones.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah they are, they're a little more Ye, yes, there's yes,
we have I'm sure an answer.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yes, we have Lasted Us starring the Pedro Pascal who
corrupted our podcast for.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Five Game of Thrones starringscal.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
We have Game of Thrones starring Pedro Pascal with the
zombies in it. Uh, we have Walking Dead, which it's
a shame that Pedro past.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Has not been but honestly he's too good.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Jeffy Dean Morgan is there and he has a mustache
just as good.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Oh yeah, yeah, and he was a comic book guy.
So I think in a modern day I'm really gonna
try to not get to topical in my answer to this,
but I think I think zombies in a modern day
is a metaphor for ignorance and for maybe even misinformation.
(11:32):
Like I think it's a metaphor for people who get
stuck in their ignorance and refuse to break out of that.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
So it's it's it's anesthetical, it's change, it's anti change.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, because they're the people there. Yes,
I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yes, okay, So before we get into some actual, like
loose zombie history, I do have a bunch of fun
facts that I kind of I wanted to throw you
out to you that I thought would make an interesting
zombie conversation. Cop. Okay, did you know there is a
term for what you call people who like zombies?
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Do you mean like like we're just fans? Or do
you mean like like want to kiss?
Speaker 1 (12:16):
No, it's just like an actual word.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
No, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
So it's called zombie files.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Of course it is.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I hate that. I don't like it. Zombies also are
not a modern thing. Archaeologists have found graves which had
skeletons that were pinned down by rocks in case they
woke up and came back from the dead.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Did you know there's a World Zombie Day. No, you
can probably guess which months it's in July, October obviously October,
on October eighth.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
October eighth. Of course, let me added to my calendar this.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I know a little bit from working on the TV
show Watson. Yeah, a human zombie outbreak is actually not impossible. Yeah,
I know that by several different means, you know, neurotoxins,
mad cow disease, let's even say, fungus is even a
really thing. So it's actually not that science fiction. We
are going to talk about this movie a little bit more.
(13:16):
The first ever movie to have a zombie in it
is called White Zombie. It's made nineteen thirty two, was
directed by Victor Halpern Power and it starred Bella Lugosi
as a zombie master named murder legendre.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Legendarre Legend.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
There, Yes, DAIRI yes, Scott. We we'll talk a little
bit about that movie. Not that much, to be honest
with you, but that is considered to be the There
is a little bit of a debate about where the
first zombie showed up. Most people agree that it is
(13:56):
that movie that I just mentioned. That I lost and
I forgot the name of it.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
White Zombie. I'm looking at some screenshots or some screenshots
from it. Bill Legosi really just looks like Dracula. Huh,
he just looks like that. That's just his face.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, it's his face. Uh.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
It is well worth even if you're not going to
watch this movie. I've never seen it, but it's well
worth going and looking at the pictures on h on
a Google Image shirt. They are fantastic.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Did you know than in the world of insects, zombies
do sort of exist? Oh?
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Yes they did.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah. There's a fungus called in the tropical rainforest known
as cordiusceps, which is sort of the idea behind the
last of it.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
It is called the cords of Puck.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah. Releases spores into the air which infects the brains
of ants. These zombie ants then climb trees where they die.
The fungus then sprouts through the dead bodies and releases
further air spores to infect more ants. In Scandinavian countries,
zombies are called and I apologize to all of our
Scandinavian listeners. Dora Guru cool, dr a u.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
G r ragur.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Maybe now here's a fun fact, and then we're going
to get into this debate. Okay, do you know Scammy Dode?
I know Scomby's you knows Scomby Doo, Scooby Doo. I
was in my new region. I'm Sorrycomby Doo. Did you
know that Scooby Doo fought zombies? Yes? In the nineteen
(15:20):
ninety films Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, They're surrounded and
chased by hordes of islands. All right, now here is
the debate. Okay, Ashley Jason, you know you're a fan
of his property. Yeah, I'm gonna get your answer after
these commercial messages. But there is a debate about when
the first zombie? Was it White Zombie or was it Frankenstein?
(15:45):
And we're going to get to that right after these messages.
Geek as for lesson, we're back. We hope you enjoy
those commercial messages, and if you didn't, well sorry, kind
of out of our hands, but thank you for sticking around.
We're here to talk about zoombies, and we're here to
debate where was the first time zombie showed up in
movies or what was the first zombie? Sort of in
(16:05):
pop culture? There is a debate out there that Frankenstein's
Monster is a zombie because he is a reanimated corpse.
Others say that because he was never alive in the
first place, that means he was in a zombie because
has to be something that was alive, becomes dead, becomes
alive again. Also, zombies traditionally feast on human flesh, but
(16:27):
there are lots of zombies that don't, So I would
love I know you're a big fan of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
I am, so I'd love to hear if Frankenstein's shares
a lot of similarities. Where do you Is he a zombie?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
No, hard disagree he's not a zombie.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Well, what's the distinction?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
The creature is not a zombie because he is intellectual
and he's not mindless. If you, I'm sure you have
this inn your notes, but if you really want to
go back to like the origins from which we got
the pop culture version of a zombie, the important thing
about that is as a person without choice and not
acting of their own volition and acting on you got
(17:04):
to touch on that a bit and acting on behalf
of someone else. And so I'll say more on that later,
but the creature has intelligence, he has agency, he can speak,
he makes decisions my way.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Have you seen the trailer for Gearmo de Heros Franstein, Yeah,
that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I'm so excitsed really good. I'm genuinely that's really good
to watch.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
It looks it actually looks scary.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Do you think he'll do you think he'll hit on
a fish lady?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I hope not, but I can only hope. The saving
grace of that movie is that at the very end
we see a very dapper.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Pe We can only hope. Anyways, So I I don't By.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
The way, if you want to send any Pedro Pascal
shirts to the podcast, we don't have a po box anymore,
so you can't. Sorry, yeah, exactly, but I wish you could.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I'm sure we can wrangle up an address for you
if you want to send Jason some Pedro Pascal teams.
Wag uh, But no, I don't think so. I understand
how I understand where the comparison comes from. I definitely
think they share a lot of the same attributes, but
in the same way that like werewolves and vampires and
witches share the same attributes, right like they they come
out of the same they come to the same storytelling origin.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I just had never considered that before, but I can
see the comparison. And it's interesting that you said that the
zombies are mindless. That's interesting because I will tell you,
as any fans of The Last of Us know, the
interesting thing that the Last of Us video game franchise
and even the TV show does, unlike the Walking Dead franchise,
is that in the Last of Us, the longer zombies
(18:40):
are around. Yeah, the smarter they get.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Well, like I said, I'm just sort of basing it
on the origin, the very most traditional view of the character.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
It is, there is an interesting they are sort of
like distant cousins almost.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
They're definitely they're definitely in the same ven diagram. Yeah
for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Okay, so let's shamble through zombie history or sprint however
you like your zombies. So, zombies are considered to have
first appeared in Haitian and African folklore. Yeah, they were
creatures that were raised from the dead by sorcerers. We'll
get into that a little bit more now. Again, I said,
(19:19):
the first zombie film was White Zombie starring Bella Legosi.
And if you don't know. This is a nineteen thirty
two pre code horror film that was independently produced. Most
of White Zombie was shot on the Universal Studios a lot,
and it borrowed many props and most scenery from other films.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah, well that kind of there was a lot of
that going around in those early horror movies.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
When it opened, it was widely negatively panned. Oh, most
people were like, this sucks, and it proved way less popular.
And it's the reason most people have forgotten that this
is the first zombie Yeah, because it was so widely panned.
Here's the tagline. With these zombie eyes. He rendered her
(20:07):
powerless with this zombie grip. He made her perform his
every desire.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Sounds like an adult film.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
I don't know about you, but that sounds like a
Pedro Pascal movie to me. Except it's actually based on
a book called The Magic Island. It's a nineteen twenty
nine novel by William Seabrook. Now, the interesting thing about
The Magic Island is it's actually written by an American's explorer.
Ohliam Seabrook actually traveled the world, and he got this
(20:38):
idea from visiting Haiti and seeing Haitian voodoo, and this
book Magic Island is considered to be the first English
language thing to describe a zombie.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
You know, it's really interesting. We don't have to chase
this thread too too far, but it's interesting that a
zombies being popular is literally colonization. And the most popular
zombie thing is is probably the Walking Dead, which was
created by a white guy, which is usually comes from
this Haitian mysticism.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Magic Island is considered to be a non fiction.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Book, right, but he introduced this idea that this was
in their practice, and they said that sounds cool. Let's
do that.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Game so popular that it is considered to be the
thing that popularized voodoo and witchcraft in Western culture.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Wow, really this book? Am I going to read?
Speaker 1 (21:36):
This book inspired a nineteen thirty two New York stage
play and then also later inspired White Zombie. It was
reprinted in twenty sixteen with an introduction by George A. Romero,
and it officially in January first of this year entered
the public domain. Oh wow, this year entered the public domain.
Which is a kind of nice wink to our JJ
(21:58):
lecture that we're going to have around. Yeah, which, if
you don't know about our GHO extras. Come over to
Patreon dot com slash jaw On. That's jaw I in
you can. You want to support the show. We do
lots of bonus podcasts over there, including JHO Extra, where
we usually do an episode every week that is an
expanded Usually it's listener questions or expanding on, you know,
the culture. And Ashley is having some reaction that's going
(22:18):
to throw me off my ass. And we we're talking
about public domain characters, so this is very appropriate to
this all. But come over there, support the podcast. We
do Movie Club. We're right in our way through the
Superman Christopher Reeves series. We just did an amazing live
stream with some friends on Superman Too. It was so
much fun and the complete disaster that was. But you know,
(22:40):
come on over Patreon dot com slash John and thanks
to all the super friends. Check it out. Lots of
old podcasts. There's like five hundred hours a podcast. Oh
do you want to mention a little bit about Talking
Titans over there?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Oh yeah, Talking Titans is me and Diego Anthony Nunez
who works with us on this podcast, and we are
watching all of Teen Titans, the animated series, the original series.
It's Diego's first time, and we are interviewing a ton
of fun creators who have worked in and around it.
You get two episodes from us every month. It's a
very very fun show to do.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
So enough about white zombie. Okay, let's talk about let's
go back to zombies infant Okay. In the fifties and sixties,
zombie started popping in pulp comics and b movies, but
it was really George Romero's Night of the Living Dead
that sort of brought them back into popularity because it
was considered and he saw it as this way as
a metaphor for social collapse, for the collapse of Western civilization.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Yeah, do you know that Night of the Living Dead
is quite venerated also as a piece of like social
justice storytelling because Ben, who is the leader for that movie,
is the only black character in the movie.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah, well.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
George Ramira also went on to create multiple zombie movies,
including what I consider to be the greatest zombie movie
ever made, Dawn of the Dead, which is a bunch
of people trapped in the mall, Zack Snyder and James Gunn,
people that most of the Internet think hate each other.
Actually worked quite well together on an amazing remake that
I think is just as good as the original. When
they made Donna the Dead in the mid two thousands.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah it's wild. That narrative is wild to me. But
that's a whole different podcast.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Yeah, that's a whole different podcast. But you know, so
he sort of has this Donna the Dead and then
you know that's led onto The Walking Dead, which is
definitely inspired by Walking through z And then again, zombies
invaded pop culture spaces like comics we have Marvel zombies,
we have there in games Resident Evil. I mentioned the
Last of the Bus.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I mean, you could even you could even argue Blackest.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Night, YEP, comedies like Last Night and Sean of the Dead.
Now again, zombie comes from Haitian folklore. We described this
when a zombie is dead, the person is revived by
magic in this version, not a virus neither The Living Dead,
the nineteen sixty eight film is the one that popularized
(24:54):
the modern flesh eating zombie. A fun fact, the word
zombie is never said in the movie. So this leads
to me a question. This is something that bothers me
in zombie pulp pop culture. Yea, almost a pulp culture, which.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Is I mean, it is pulp culture for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Do you like and I have a game that's going
to sort of tie into this sure? Do you like
that characters know the term zombie or do you like
the characters not know the word zombie? Because I will
say it is a specific plot point in the Walking.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Dead franchise called Walkers.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
They're called walkers and they never say zombie. I'll tell
you in other movies that go zombie.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
I'll tell you this because I do find it irritating
in TV or in movies when someone's like that could
never happen? What is this a movie? Like? I don't
think that that's cute. I find that I find that
super irritating. It like it breaks the fourth wall in
a way that I don't find it to be fun.
I think I don't mind when we call them something else,
(26:04):
because zombie does have a very specific cultural annotation that's
definitely gotten lost in the pop culture sphere. It would
be like if we called every team of people the Apostles, right, like,
wouldn't doesn't that strike you as like not great?
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Bob? So I don't.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
I don't mind it, actually, and I appreciate when creators
can come up with like interesting things to call them.
But I also think it's totally fine if this is
supposed to be a sudden thing that's come on some
outbreak or something. We don't have to call them anything.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
But you don't. You don't, so you don't mind that
we don't have to call them anything, But you don't
mind that because I think because we are such a
pop culture driven society that I think.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
You don't mind that they've seen zombies and movies and
the suddenly zombies happen.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I think if we see a thing that is like
a zombie, yeah, even if it's not even anywhere close,
it's just like that insect I was talking about, I
think we would be like, that's a zombie. Or we
see something like a werewolf, we'd be like, that's a werewolf.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah, that's true, but that's not what I'm going to
entertain it for sure.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Sure, I guess I don't.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
I guess My answer is I think it's more creative
when you give them their own name. But I don't
think I have a horse in the race.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Okay, you don't have a zombie horse in the race,
and I'm.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
A zombie horse in the race. I think there's one
in the Venom movie though.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Fun fact, in early zombie movies zombies we mentioned this
were often controlled by a master I think a voodoo
priest rather than a mindless horde. The CDC once published
a zombie preparedness guide using the undead to teach disaster readiness.
The original script for twenty eight Days Later called the
(27:43):
infected zombies, but then the director insisted that they were
just infected because he didn't want them to technically be undead. So,
based on these facts, mm hmm, what do you think
is the most important trait for surviving a zombie outbreak? Brains?
Braun or heart? And do you think you'd be a survivor,
(28:04):
a leader or a lone wolf or a hapless victim
and a zombie out break?
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Okay, I've said this from the second I've known what
zombies are. I'm cheoting myself in the head right away.
I'm not even gonna try. No, no way, I'm not
living in that world. Take me out of it.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Everyone say this is a living willah, no way.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
I ultimately think brains is more important. But you're but
you are going to need braun because, for example, you
have to think about it, Like everybody's gonna want a car.
A bike is probably more useful to you because a
bike can't run out of gas. Everyone's gonna want a gun.
Maybe you want a baseball back because it's not gonna
run out of bullets. Like you're going to have to
(28:49):
think laterally, And I don't think most I don't think
most people do that. And I think a very lazy
one to one is to look at how people react
when natural disasters happen, even natural disasters that people have
warning are gonna happen to them. So I do think
intelligence is ultimately on your side, But I mean to
(29:12):
ignore the fact that you're gonna need a certain amount
of physical strength unless you can Rube Goldberg machine, your
whole property would be foolish.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
You know what, I always heart useless. You know it's
gonna get you killed. You know. I think it's always
funny in every post of apocalypt and movie, especially zombie movies,
is that cars are us are useless in about twelve months. Yeah,
because of the gas, because gas goes bad unless you
keep it in sealed, air tight containers. Yes, yeah, all
the gas.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
And if you're not taking that into consideration.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Like, so like whenever the outbreak goes about a year
from now, there are no.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
You gotta go as far as you can on the car,
or you gotta.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
You gotta find a way to like make your own
little refinement.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Also air travels out because what are you gonna be
locked in a metal tube with someone?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
No, no, no, you know you're gonna be lucky you
can find a pilot.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
But you have said for a long time that you
think you would do quite well.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Some one this podcast that I would live like a king.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
I don't know if you said on this podcast, but
you've said that out loud before for sure. Yeah, because
you have a lot of practical skills. That's why again,
I think the brains thing is you're going to need
a level of skill that most average people who are
city slickers don't have, right, Like, it's it's a return
to a homesteading mentality.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
So, yeah, I grew I grew up on a farm
in the middle of nowhere, so I've already done. You're like,
I'll move back to a farm, move back to the
farm in the middle of nowhere. It's it's not gonna
be fun. It's not gonna be easy. I mean, I
actually think you probably made the right move. Yeah, you know,
but I will tell you. Let's say I was out
there zombie Apocalypse, you know, wondering what the hell I
(30:40):
was going to do. I can't start the truck because
gasoline's all bad, ye, And then I see a man
in a jacket come up there, and I say, oh,
you got a good looking mustache, and it's pedro pass.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
I mean, you take all of the supplies.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
And then I shoot him exactly, And that's glad Or too.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
I mean the Road. Cormack McCarthy's The Road which was
Happens doesn't have zombies in it, but has something quite
close to zombies in it really examined that sort of
relationship where like how small do you keep your bubble
when things go better?
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Well, The Walking Dead is very similar to that too,
because the idea is that, like, it's the threat is
not the zombies, is the other human, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Which I think would be true unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
So let's talk about some of the various different zombies. Yeah,
we have classic zombies that are slow shuffling, sometimes under
a villain's control. We have two thousands fast zombies. Thanks
the twenty eight days later and the Dawn of the
Dead remake. We have zombies in different genres. We have romance,
remember the Warm Bodies that Nicholas Holt.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Oh boy, No, I sure forgot that existed.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
We have comedies like zombie Land starring Woody Harrelson and
Jesse Osenburg Eisenberg at his the height is his r
Stones and the stone is also in the movie. They
made a sequel to that movie, which I never sew.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Recently, like in the last couple of years, and.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Even supero crossovers in marblel Zombies and then The Walking
Dead made zombies an ongoing drama with survival and heartbreak.
Every era has sort of reinvented zombies from the twentieth
century four. They are metaphors for consumerism. They are sometimes
for disease. They are social media. I'm gonna we gotta
(32:13):
ask you another question. Okay, slow zombies or fast zombies.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
I mean I hate both of them. Yeah, uh, fast
zombies are scarier.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Fast sobbies are scary scarier.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
But I will say if they're fast, but they're still
encumbered by being reanimated corpses, like they're still in an
active state of decay. I never understand why people don't
just simply throw them all in a corral. It's not
like they can climb a fence. Well, but to me,
to me or drop them in the ocean.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
To me, the threat of zombies, and I think they
can climb fences. The threat of zombies is it's not
that it's not that they're stronger than you. They're not
that they're faster than you. It's that there is so
many of them.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Or that they're persistent, right, They'll just keep bashing their
head against the wall till they go through the wall.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I actually think one of the best zombie scenes that
I have ever seen in a zombie movie, yes, is
shown of the Dead. Sure you know Simon peg Co
wrote that movie, Yep. And there is a scene where
they are trying to get to this location and the
street is covered in two hundred zombies. There is no
(33:18):
way they're gonna be able to walk through that street,
and so they just decide to put on a bunch
of zombie clothes and then just walk through and act
like zombies and they slowly shuffle through the crowd and
stuff like that. And I actually think it's like one
of the best things, because like, that's the thing that
makes zombies difficult. Again, it's not an individual zombie not
that threatening, but the horde is.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
All right, let me ask you this, then, at what
percentage of the human population then do they become a
credible threat?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
If only oh man.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
If it's only eleven percent of the human population, are
they a credible threat? Or do you have to get
close to like is it forty percent? Is it sixty percent?
Like it's got to get close to a majority, right.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I don't think so. I don't think so. I actually
think they would be kind of a threat at about
fifteen percent.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Because your question is can they organize, right, because if
it's fifteen percent all over the planet, it's probably fine.
But if that fifteen percent it's concentrated in the city
of Los Angeles and they are all working together, it's
probably a problem.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Do the I mean, do the thing. Like, you know,
there's eight billion.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
People in the world right now, there's almost nine okay,
so let's.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Do eight Let's just say let's keep it low eight billion.
What is fifteen percent of eight billion?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
There's too many zeros.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
This is exciting podcasting.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
There's too many zeros.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
What do you mean two zero zeros. Hey, just ask Google.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
I did ask Google and it gave me a number
with no commas.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Okay, I'm working on listeners. We don't know we're gonna find.
We are podcasters, not math podcasters. So here we go.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
I am just let me talk to the little we.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Can figure this out. I didn't know it's going to
stumble in our podcast. Okay, so let's just say that
we're never going to figure out that math problem because
we're stupid and all the math people. Okay, I found it.
I found it.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
It's one point two billion.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
That's fifteen percent.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
It's one two zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I'm just going to say this. At fifteen percent, we're screwed.
If there are one billion zombies the population of India,
like that's how many. Yeah, I can't We're not good
at maths. I don't want to talk about math.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Yeah. So yeah, the population of India.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
It's the population of Indie. We're screwed.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
If it ever gets to just fifteen percent, we are screwed.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yeah. Well, Also, I think it highlights again not to
go tuggums too far. This kind of thought experiment highlights
the problem. Of a lot of our like global relationships
and our inability to work be together as a human species.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
It gets to that point the only option is to
drop a.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Nuke, yes, or stick them all on and I, or
drop them on the ocean or something like that.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah, like you have to go, you have to go.
Any other traditional military things are not going to stop it. Yeah, yeah,
because there's so many of them. Yeah, Now it is
the thing like it And I think that's the interesting
about zombies is that they are like a virus. The
only way you can stop them is you have to
contain them. Yeah, And I think the world we know, hey,
(36:28):
we're not trying to get into real world, is that
we can't.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Contain any We're not great at that, not great, but.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Humans can't do it, which is crazy because most of
humanity hurted animals for hundreds of thousands of year.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah, but by counterfoid, we've watched them try to hurt
animals on various competition reality television shows, and people are
astonishingly bad at that now.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
I know, but it's I'm just saying, hurting things is
in our DNA.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah yeah, well okay, so the solution we've solved it
the solution to the zombie apocalypse. You get a bunch
of border collies and you let them have at it.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
But the border commie will become zombies now if they
don't bite them.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Well, what kind of zombies? How does the disease spread?
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Can it spread interest specially?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
I don't know, like the xeno more virus cans, so
what can't the zombie virus.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
That was the thing that I magic that I found
very frightening in the Resident Evil the original movie was
they had zombie dogs. They were like zombie Doberman's.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Okay, so we have to take a quick commercial Breakkay,
what after that, I'm gonna play a quick little game
with you about zombies.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
I'm petrified like zombies.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
I went back right for this. Ghl, We're back. You know,
zombies have their own lingo. You know a bunch of this.
But I thought I would like play some of this
with you and see if Now sure, Okay, I'll say
the term you guess what it means. Okay, We're gonna
start off easy. I think simplembies. Okay. I'm mostly just
(37:52):
going to say that some of these might have the
same answer. Okay, Okay, it's gonna start off easy walker
a zombie that only walks. It's specifically a term from
Walking Dead. That's what they call their zombies.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Iknew that one bier one that bites.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
It's another nickname for zombies, right, Okay, a z.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Because that's like a World War zed thing. I'm assuming
it's also a zombies.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
It's another term for zombies. You might notice some pattern here. Okay,
the infected it's zombie. Yes, it's a human. It's it's
a human that is not quite a zombie but has
been infected by a zombie. Yes.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
And then you're of course left with the ethical This
happens to Ben, who's the black character in another Living Dead?
Is he gets bitten at the end. Oh, that's a
zombie too, and that's a that's a folklore thing.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Yes, that's what they used to call z day.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
That's the day when it was first noticed or the
mass event happened.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Or when a zombie day happens. Perfect score.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Heya, Wow, I did better than I thought I was gonna.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
There was a truck there, there were all yembies.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Ye.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Well, I think I went to simple thanking. I was
like one that wa.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I just I just literally wanted to, you know, point
out that it's interesting that we have multiple versions of
zombies and they're all just basically finding different words for zombie.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, labeling our own characteristics.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Quickly, I wanted to touch on some zombies and comic books. Okay,
we of course have the Marvel zombies.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Yeah, they're adapting that, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Okay, we have Solomon Grundy, who is basically a zombie
born on a Monday, never stays dead. We have Simon Garth,
who is Marvel's original zombie, the hero actually called zombie
in nineteen fifty three. We have the Black Lanterns from
DC's Black as Night, which were dead heroes and villains
resurrected as zombies. Also, some other pop culture that's interesting
(39:53):
to know is there is a film I want to
point out, Trained to Busan, which is a Korean zombie.
There's also Pride and Prejudice and zombies.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Matt Smith Matt Smith Vehicle, which is.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Even Jane Austen isn't safe. And there's a fun there's
a fun little sort of vertigo DC comics related, there's
a TV show called ee Zombie where a woman ate
brains to help her solve crimes. You know, there's also
a film called Fight Out where zombies are household pets
and service. There's warm bodies that romances and even the
(40:27):
Santa Clarita diet Storting Our Own All which suburban mom
turns into a zombie and tries to keep her life
together in your.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
D see All Access Days. That was also when a
zombie Was that a tight was it not?
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Yeah? I interview.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
I was going to say, didn't you chat with them?
Speaker 1 (40:44):
That's where I met the great Reroll Coley.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Yes, I remember you saying that they were not.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
As swoony as Pedro Pascal. But he's pretty close.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Close A great mister fantastic.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
So Ashley, I want to why do you think zombies
are still popular twofold one.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
I think the reason that a lot of reincarnated months.
That's what That's what vampires are, That's what ghosts are, poultrygeist,
Fringer science, creature. It is a it is a physical
manifestation of our fear of death. It's the ultimate thing.
It's a thing that unites to Saul, nobody wants to die.
(41:23):
I also think they resonate, and I think this is
lost on people who maybe don't necessarily know the cultural
history of where zombies come from. By the way, the
book that you recommend that nothing you recommend that you
stated brought over the idea of zombies. It's probably and
criticism has been called ethnographic, racist, pseudoscience, which makes me
(41:44):
giggle to no end. I mean, it was written in
the twenties, what did you say.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
It was a dude who visited haitis and wrote observations
and made logical leaves, of course of us.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
But I was scanning the Wikipedia article about it, and
that did make me giggle.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Look at anything from the past.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Absolutely, But so what I wanted to say about that
is if you look at the fact that the myth
of zombies come from a black, oppressed culture and it's
all about people who are enslaved and their original version, yes, yes,
and they're enslaved to the person who revives them so
(42:22):
much so that they lose all autonomy. Yeah, like that,
I think we forget that that is also running through it,
and that is a very powerful, very like scary, upsetting
the story to tell. And I think that that runs
through and he goes, look, everybody thinks they're the smartest
person in the room, everyone thinks we know more than
(42:43):
everyone else. We think we're not susceptible to the same
thing as everyone else, you know, like that part of
that is the ego that you need to survive, and
I think the idea of having that taken away from
us is very, very frightening, And I think that's what's
compelling about them. And then you build on the visual
of how like they look like rotten corpses and how
(43:06):
frightening that can be. Like one of the one of
the issues that I sometimes have with zombie adaptations is
they're too decayed, they're too scary in that way. You know,
all of it strikes in a very primal place. So
even though yeah they're running or maybe they're dancing and
they're climbing trees, like it's what it's strikes And seeing
what movie does zombies dance, I'm warm bodies probably Yeah,
(43:28):
I bet you I can find him Luthor?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Now that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Can I believe that about a boy is Lex Luthor?
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Now?
Speaker 3 (43:35):
I sure can't.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Yeah, it makes no sense.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
No, I mean I don't know. Good for Tony from Skins.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Can you believe that Juror number two is Lex Luther?
Speaker 3 (43:45):
Can you believe that the ex mister Jennifer Lawrence is
Lex Luther. That would probably turn me into Lex Luthor
as well into a super villain.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
They should have just gone for a full on and
made Jennifer Lawrence miss Testmonger.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
I'd like to see her in less things. I'm not
bad about it. She's in Superman.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
No, miss test Marker.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Oh said for Laurence.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
I saw a poster. Anyway, let's talk about to this zobines.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
I think Sooby's come of early primal fair and I
think that's one of the reasons why.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
By the way, I didn't bring up two things, but
there you want to venture into the world of sci fi.
But there are two very famous cybernetic species that I
think are basically zombies, and that is the Cybermen Doctor
Who and the Borg. Because the Borger rip off the Cyberman.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Yes, yeah, they're a much scarier rip off of this.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
Final question for you, Yes, what's one lesson from zombie
stories that you actually think should apply to real life?
Speaker 3 (44:34):
To real life not to like storytelling.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yeah, it's not a writing podcast. You think we've written stuff.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Come on, it's you know what, it's so funny. It's
the boy Scout and the Girl Guide motto that Lord
Robert Maiden Powell passed down to us, and that is
be prepared.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
It's funny. I think it's worked together. Yeah, the only
way you survive a zombie pocalypse is you have to
figure you have to work with people that you don't like.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Which is why none of us are surviving.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
That's right, that's right. But that's like literally, that's literally
the plot at every zone.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
I'm not saying you need to build a bunker or anything.
And maybe this is also a systemic of some things
that have happened from fires to you know, to in
our lives this year. But I do think that a
lot of the people in the zombie apocalypse movies and
stories would benefit from like having an earthquake kit or
having some extra water or like, I think there are
(45:29):
very simple steps that you could take that would make
your life ten percent easier or something like that actually happened,
all right, Uh on plant strawberries.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Plant strawberries.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Yeah, don't they have a strawberry farm? And the last
of us, the two gay guys who everyone cries about. Yeah, yeah,
plant strawberries.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
They don't have a big one though. It's just like
a tiny garden. It's not their entire yard.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Well maybe your entire yard shrubbery.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Look. Nick Offerman, who plays Bill in that show, survives
basically because he is a prepper and like the day
the zombie apocalypse happens, he goes to home depot and
just obbos of blind. I'm not joking, that's literally what
he does. He takes his big up to home depot
and he goes crazy. He like just takes everything out
(46:12):
of that home Depot. And I was like, yeah, okay,
So here's my advice.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
Get a pick up.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Get a pickup, and have you thought about a Toyota Tacoma.
They're a smooth ride. They're not a sponsor of this podcast,
but but if they'd like to be. But you can
survive the zombie apocalypse and a Toyota Tacoma. Sure. Until
the guests r side all right now, I recommended reading
if you go over to Keykiss with us in dot com,
Slash recommended reading. We have a whole kind of list,
So this is just gonna be a bunch of the
stuff we touched on Walking Dead, of course, the comics
(46:35):
and the TV Marvel Zombies, Pride and Prejudice, and Zombies,
The Last of Us, the game, and the show. Uh one.
I want to point out War war Z by Max
Brooks is a very interesting book. It's completely different from
the movie, which I don't think is very good, but
has Peter Capalt.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
I was going to say, as h a Who doctor.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
No, no, no, that's a different Oh he is a Who,
but he's also plays a Who doc doctor and anything
but any. Max Brooks, the son of Melbrooks, wrote that book.
So there you go. If you want to follow Geekuesser
Lesson on social media, Ashley where can they do that?
Speaker 3 (47:07):
You can do that everywhere, including Jason's favorite TikTok at,
geek history Lesson.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Where can they find you online?
Speaker 3 (47:13):
You can find me everywhere, including Jason's favorite TikTok at
Ashley V. Robinson.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
You can find me at jawin on threads and Instagram.
Before we go, I want to tell you some jokes. Okay,
I have some grown worthy zombie jokes. Okay, right? Yeah?
Why don't zombies eat popcorn with their fingers?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Why?
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Because they prefer to eat their fingers separately?
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Oh you tried?
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Why did the I said they were grown? I intentionally? Maybe?
Why did the zombie go to school?
Speaker 3 (47:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
He wanted to improve his deeducation. I actually think this
one is pretty good. Okay, what's the zombie's least favorite
room in the house?
Speaker 3 (47:58):
The living room. There you go, Now one's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
What have we learned today, everybody? Well, we've learned that
zombies started as folklore, but now they're everywhere, from comics
to eating Jane Austen. And no matter how many times
you kill them, zombies and zombie stories always come back.
And most of the time, the thing we need to
remember is that the real monsters are the living, not
the dead. Thank you so much for listening today to
(48:23):
geek Kestry Lesson. I'm Jason, I'm very much alive.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
In then, I'm Ashley, Victoria Robinson and Professor Jason. Would
you please dismiss the class?
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Boo
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