December 14, 2025 • 24 mins
In this episode of Father Malone's Weekly Roundup, Father Malone navigates through a variety of topics including listener mail, dream interpretations and an examination into Disney's Dark Age from 1970 to 1988. Highlighting lesser-known live-action films produced under Ron Miller's tenure, the episode reviews movies such as 'Midnight Madness,' 'Watcher in the Woods,' and 'Never Cry Wolf.'
00:00 Welcome
01:01 Pen Pals from Around the World
02:14 Dreams & Celebrities
04:20 Mad Men resurgence
05:13 Supergirl
07:42 Disney's Dark Age
10:51 Notable Films of the Dark Age
16:27 Never Cry Wolf
22:30 Farewell
DREAM WITH THE STARS - The Celebrity Dream Book
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G2R6QCJ6?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520
FATHER MALONE
Patreon.com/FatherMalone
FatherMalone71@gmail.com
00:00 Welcome
01:01 Pen Pals from Around the World
02:14 Dreams & Celebrities
04:20 Mad Men resurgence
05:13 Supergirl
07:42 Disney's Dark Age
10:51 Notable Films of the Dark Age
16:27 Never Cry Wolf
22:30 Farewell
DREAM WITH THE STARS - The Celebrity Dream Book
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G2R6QCJ6?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520
FATHER MALONE
Patreon.com/FatherMalone
FatherMalone71@gmail.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome back, midnight viewers to Father Malone's weekly round up.
I am Father Malone, the pug who never lets me
finish a game of Mad Max on Xbox because something
on screen will eventually make her freak the fuck out.
Yeah you is, mister Ripley Jean? Is it December already? Christ?
(00:56):
We're well into it? What have you been into? Folks? It,
by any chance beIN correspondence.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
From around.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
This is from listener Rich Dorta. Just listen to the
Search for Spock pod. The thought of Maltz sitting there
thinking I hear Wales had me laughing out loud at work.
Funniest thing I've heard in a while. Keep up the
good work. Let me just say you continue to have
excellent taste, Rich in both podcast choice and humor appreciation. Actually,
(01:32):
I'm just fucking around. Thank you, Rich. I know I
can crack up HP. It's nice to hear it works
on other humans. And he's talking about our Search for
Smock episode we're doing Star trek Fest, and of course
he's talking about the Klingon character Maltz, who is kept
prisoner at the end of Search for Spock and then Dude,
they just don't do anything with him, we never see
(01:52):
him again, and well, it can be theorized that he
just remained on that klingon bird of prey and has
now probably drowned at the bottom of San Francisco. If
you want to reach me here on the roundup or
the anthology podcast or whatever crossover craziness I'm doing with
Paul Waller, send it to fatherom Alone seven to one
at gmail dot com and we'll do our best to
(02:12):
answer you right here. Oh, like the one I got
from author Marie Grillo, who sent along a copy of
her book Dreams with the Stars, The Celebrity Dream Book. Okay,
I don't know if you're team Freud or team Jung
when it comes to our subconscious I'm YOUNGI in myself,
I believe in the collective unconscious and universal symbols rather
than a personal dumping ground of our mental detritus. Also,
(02:36):
I don't blame my mother for everything, but we can
all agree what we see in our dreams is its
own language, and it's our brains trying to tell us something.
But what do those symbols mean? I have devoured dozens
of dream interpretation books starting around nineteen eighty five. Is
it a coincidence that I had recently seen both a
nightmare on Elm Street and a dreamscape. No, don't be stupid,
(02:56):
I was obsessed. But one thing those books could never
begin to exp plane where the celebrity cameos. We've all had.
This is no joke. My late wife Jessica persistently dreamt
about Jim Carey, started before we got together, continued right
through to the end.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
I know this.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
She kept a journal. The obvious thing we think when
someone tells us that a celebrity showed up in their
dream is that it was pornographic. But that is never
the fucking case. So what do their appearances mean? Well,
here's Marie Grillo dreaming of Jim Carrey. Reveals the paradox
of humor and pain. The clown who sees beyond the curtain.
He represents the soul's desire to break through illusion, to
(03:35):
drop the masks, and to find meaning in chaos. His
presence may appear when you're overthinking. Well if that isn't
on the fucking spot, that was Jessica all over, and
it makes so much sense. I'm going to put a
link to the book in the show notes. I highly
encourage everyone to go check it out, and because it
deserves a description that doesn't involve me saying fuck every
second word. Here's a bit of the ad copy. This
(03:56):
book draws you into the quiet inner architecture where those
un expected visitors originate. It is a dream dictionary that
guides your subconscious and higher self through the shared pop
culture psyche that influences us.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
All.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Open the doorway to your own dream world with this
coffee table companion dream with the stars. Step into the
center of your story. AD copy. That's kind of like
on mad Men.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Now.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I said I wasn't going to bring up mad Men anymore,
but there seems to be a Madman renaissance occurring right now,
thanks to its recent HD debut on HBO and the
not at all planned for releasing of an alternate take
of Roger Sterling vomiting with the effects crew in full
sight of the camera, just hunkered down and pumping out vomit.
Oh No, that most certainly was a programming error that
(04:42):
has catapulted Madmen back to the top of the public consciousness.
Enjoy everybody. When I've been hollering about for a year now,
I myself am done rewatching mad Men. Because yesterday, while
I was watching season three, the cables started glitching, so
I backed out to test to see if it was
the whole network or that particular show, and then I
put on Boardwalk Empire. So now I'm on season two
(05:04):
of Boardwalk Empire. Fuck. What a good series, and I'm
sure you're going to be hearing all about it from me.
What else is going on in the world of advertising?
Have you seen that Supergirl trailer? Here? It is.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I cars are old. You're right, it's clear the twenty
three will be the best year yet. Yes, let's be honest, babe,
it's not a very high bar to clear. I didn't
(05:47):
know any of you were still alive.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
What was it like, Sluice?
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Everything in the.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Table her time didn't die to day.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
The gods are not that kind of okay, this does
not look like this is gonna end well.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
For you guys. All right, that's enough. I think it
looks great and everyone's in a tizzy for that shadowed
millisecond of Lobo. Are you excited for Lobo? Here's a
hint about the performance. It will be remarkably similar to
the most recent portrayal of Aquaman or Conan or cal
(06:29):
Drogo or whatever the fuck his name was on Stargate
or Baywatch. He does not have range, is my point,
and it's gonna seem like he does when this fucking
movie comes out because he is Lobo. Also does James
Gunn think he invented the Walkman? I hate when creators
imbue their young characters with the trappings of their own youth.
(06:49):
This was really evident in every teen movie in the
early adds. You're telling me that they're listening to Devo
and not my chemical romance, okay, or say Blondie, that
makes sense. Star Lord was from Earth in the nineteen eighties,
so he owned a walkman. What the fuck would a
Candoran with access to every technology in the universe want
with a shitty analog audio device from Earth's past? Not much.
(07:12):
I'd say, all right, let's get to it. This week
is weird because I was way too lazy to go
out and see anything at the theater, because five Nights
at Freddy's Part two has zero interest to me. I
want to know what your thoughts are on Disney. We've
all had experiences with Disney to some degree or another.
Remember Disney's Golden Age, snow White Cinderella Sleeping Beauty, or
(07:33):
the Silver Age with Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book
and one hundred one Dalmatians, and who can forget the
Disney Renaissance with Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast
and Lion King. And that's all there, ever, was just
varying degrees of reigning over the entertainment landscape. Except there's
a twenty year period there that seemingly no one likes
to talk about. And it has a name. You read
(07:53):
the title of this show, It's a Disney's Dark Age,
and it lasted from approximately nineteen seventy two just about
nineteen eighty eight. People like to categorize Disney from animation
cycle to animation cycle, which accounts for the arbitrariness of
this epoch. That's The Aristocrats in nineteen seventy, which is
the last film Walt Disney had any involvement in, to
The Little Mermaid's release in nineteen eighty eight. I'd say
(08:16):
that what happens in between is a series of failures
and generally downward trend of the company. But if there's
a switch, it doesn't really come until nineteen eighty and
it ends in nineteen eighty four. Is it any coincidence
that those are the years that Ron Miller was president
of the Disney Corporation. Absolutely not when I think dark
age is a compliment. Miller gets his Disney association because
(08:38):
he married Walt's daughter, Diane. He was a tight end
for the Los Angeles Rams until Walt attended a game
where Miller was knocked unconscious for several minutes. Afterwards, he
was supposed to have said to Miller, I don't want
to raise your kids. You should come work for me,
and he did, bouncing between Disney's film and television divisions
as a co producer or associate producer on flicks like
(08:59):
The Monk's Uncle and Son of Flubber. One of his
first films is a full on producer was from nineteen
sixty eight. It's called Never a Dull Moment. I'm sure
you've never heard of it. The film is a lightweight
heist comedy starring Dick Van Dyke. Happy one hundredth birthday
to Dick Van Dyke, by the way, everybody, let's give
it up for that man. And Edward g Robinson. Also,
(09:19):
by the way, have you seen the footage of Edward
g Robinson? Testing for Planet of the Apes in full
ape makeup. YouTube is Your Friend never a dull moment. Interestingly, enough,
is based on a novel by John Gottie. That's good
E Y, not the Gangster. His novel, adapted here for
the family to enjoy on a Sunday afternoon, was titled
The Reluctant Assassin, just one of a string of crime
(09:42):
novels from the author of the Taking of Pelham one,
two three. Look, it's not like Dick van Dyke starts
pistol whipping bank tellers or anything. This is a Disney movie,
but it points to a yearning in another direction for Miller,
a perhaps a more mature direction. Let's call it a
seed planted in nineteen sixty six, to before the first
ever performance of Disney on Ice occurred. I'm joking that's
(10:04):
when Walt died. I mean he might be on ice.
The problem there is the thawing correctly, not turning a
solid into a liquid when you thaw it out anyway,
Walt's death. Walt's death left the company in a free
fall creatively. I think they were already out of touch
by this point, and we're going to need a new direction,
whether or not Walt was breathing. The fact is, for
(10:25):
the next decade, everyone in the company kept limping along,
trying to make what they thought Walt would. And while
there were occasional gems like bed knobs and broomsticks, which
I've already discussed in an earlier roundup and you can
hear it if you just scroll back anyway, more often
than not the output was like Million Dollar Duck and
Snowball Express apologies to Dean Jones. The exceptions kept coming, though,
(10:47):
flicks like Freaky Friday and Hot Lead and Cold Feet,
and then, in nineteen seventy nine, the ultimate example of wait,
this is a Disney movie, The Black Hole. I was there,
I saw it. I heard those words in the theater,
and the common denominator for all these swings toward a
more adult themed Disney is you guessed it, producer Ron Miller.
(11:09):
Let me just note that the films I'm talking about here,
the Dark Age Disney pictures, are live action. There's plenty
to be said for what happened to the animation department
under card Walker's reign, and as such, there are docs
and books and articles of plenty. Since we're talking about
Ron Miller, mainly we're talking live action features. In nineteen
eighty technically nineteen seventy eight, same year as The Black
(11:31):
Hole win into production, Ron Miller became president of the company,
and almost immediately the slate of films took a decidedly
modern turn. First out of the gate was Midnight Madness,
the Disney version of Animal House, with several college teams
competing in a scavenger hunt around the deserted streets of
Los Angeles. I love this flick, notable for being the
(11:51):
big screen debut of Michael J. Fox, and it has
an entire sequence set in the perhaps Blue Ribbon Factory,
and it's going to killer Arcade sequence and it's got
fucking trick down vans Man. Next up was Watcher in
the Woods Why Not? A horror movie starring Betty Davis
and Kyle Richards shot at the same location as The Haunting.
That's the Robert Wise film, you know, the classic. Am
(12:12):
I really going to list all of his films? Yes?
I am, because so far they're all classics to me.
Next was The Last Flight of Noah's Ark. Do yourself
a favor. This is a movie about a degenerate gambler
pilot played by Elliot Gould, who agrees to fly a
plane full of animals to a remote island compound which
serves as a wildlife preserve. Along the way, they got
(12:36):
off course and crash on an uncharted island, where they
discover two Japanese soldiers who don't know the war is over.
And then they have to come together to convert a
B twenty nine super Fortress into a boat. You know,
with everyone obsessed with IP, you guys already own this, Disney.
This is so fucking high concept and it is so
(12:58):
fucking cool. You know what, maybe don't rem just re
release it. Noah's Ark was the first of two films
Elliot Gould did at Disney for Ron Miller. The other
was The Devil and Max Devlin. Have you seen that one?
It was written by Jimmy Sankster, who was the main
screenwriter for Hammer horror films during the nineteen sixties. In fact,
the script was originally intended to be done back in
(13:19):
England with Vincent Price in the lead. It's the story
of a corrupt businessman who makes a deal with the
Devil as he's dying and definitely going to Hell to
return to Earth and shepherd three souls to the dark
side in exchange for prolonged life. M I see seial soon,
k E why why?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Because your soul is damned for all eternity.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Featuring Bill Cosby as the Devil Perfect. And then there
was Condor Man Condor Man, the Future Phantom of the Opera,
Michael Crawford as Woody Wilkins, a mild comic book artist
recruited as a courier by the c I who eventually
becomes his most popular creation, Condor Man. This movie's batshit crazy,
(14:06):
and it's more of a parody of James Bond than Batman,
more like The Rocketeer, if the Rocketeer had zero charm. Nevertheless,
the villain is played by Oliver Reed, which is a
weird thing to reveal before saying I recommend seeing this
with a child. It is a very silly film. You're
only really gonna dig it if you're nine years old.
All right, We've only got a few left before Miller
(14:27):
gets the old heave ho Night Crossing. It's kind of
a family movie, I suppose about two East German families
attempting to sneak over into the West by using a
hot air balloon. It's got families and adventure and the
threat of the iron curtains slamming down on that balloon.
It may be at this point that the shareholders are
starting to look a little ass skance at our man Miller.
(14:48):
But that's just one of a trio of nineteen eighty
two disappointments. There was also Tex, the least interesting se
Hinton novel gets adapted because there was an SI frenzy
thanks to Coppola making the out and then Rumblefish. I
guess that makes Matt Dillon the se Hinton actor, having
been in three of the four outsiders, Rumblefish and Tex. Sorry, Emilio,
(15:10):
you should have taken a small part in Rumblefish. He
would have killed it in the Vincent Spano role. Wow,
now that I think of it, that would have made
that movie a thousand times better. That is a great film, actually,
and we'll need to cover it here sometime anyway. Tex
is the uplifting tale of two brothers desperate to keep
the family farm after their mother passes away. Woo, give
me that popcorn. I don't think I have to say
(15:31):
too much about tron Do I visionary classic that was
under Miller's regime. At the Mousehouse. I'm not saying he
himself was a visionary. That's Steve Lisberger. But the ability
to say yes when everyone in the universe says no,
while more often than not, can be disastrous, Sometimes it
results in a creation we're still trying to get a
handle on. As cool and interesting and exciting as the
(15:53):
follow up films to Tron have been, has there been
a single moment in either where you thought, what the
fuck am I watching? And I mean that question in
the greatest way possible, The answer is now, which leaves
his final contribution. I'm recommending each of the films I've mentioned,
but if there's one one that I think actually showed
the potential of Disney as a family studio, still making
(16:15):
live action features with a level of maturity commensurate with
contemporary times and values, while still showing and ultimately I
hesitate to use the word wholesome, look at the natural world.
It's never cry wolf? What have my provision that bigs
(16:39):
the hell of it?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
His name is Tyler Powell. He's come three thousand miles
to spend six months in the Northwest wilderness. He's done
everything he can to prepare himself, but nothing could prepare
him for this. Now, the director of the Black Start
(17:01):
brings you another story you will never forget. Never cry Wolf,
but not lead out there.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Now he was done with ice and snow.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
You would be the only freshman joy a story that
will dazzle your senses and show you the secrets of
a world you've never seen before. After finish. Never cry Wolf.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Based on environmentalist Farley Moet's nineteen sixty three fictionalized account
of his time working for the Dominion Wildlife Service when
he was tasked with determining why caribou populations were on
the decline, the popular theory being wolf attacks. Never cry Wolf.
The screenplay was written by Future Batman eighty nine scribe
Sam Ham, with passes by La Confidentials Curtis Hansen, and
(18:07):
tells the tale of Tyler played by Charles Martin Smith
over the course of six months in the Canadian Arctic,
where he battles the elements and hunger and isolation with
the sporadic help of two Innick natives played by two
Innock non actors, and eventually a trio of wolves then
accept Tyler into the pack. This might not sound scintillating,
but let me tell you This movie is exactly what
(18:28):
you need right now. Made Mike Carol Ballard, who I'm
sure you heard in the trailer, was the director of
The Black Stallion, another fucking magnificent, unblinking nature film, but
before that he had spent twenty or so years making
nature documentaries. They took two years to make Never Cry Wolf,
and it shows Ballard is a known perfectionist, which when
you add nature, you've got an investment in time. But
(18:52):
what he gets is just breathtaking. And it operates as
an adventure film, as a nature documentary, as a polemic
about modern man, as a portraiture of the Arctic at
its most beautiful. There is a sequence laid in the
film where Tyler aids the pack in a running down
a herd of caribou. This sequence took a month to film,
(19:12):
a month of sometimes twenty hour days. It is a
harrowing sequence that absolutely boggles the mind with how they
did it, because they fucking did it. More to the point,
Jonal Smartin Smith did it. I hope you recognize the name.
A true journeyman character actor. Got a film, he's in
TV series, in a play he's in Go Off to
(19:33):
the Wilderness for two years where for months at a
time he's the only actor on set. He's in. He's
had a career for over fifty years now. He was
Terry the Toad in American Graffiti and More American Graffiti
for that matter. He played bass for Buddy Holly and
The Buddy Holly Story. He directed the Fucking Horror classic
Trick or Treat. That's Sam Kerr Baby, not that baby Sam.
(19:55):
And most importantly to me, he was Agent Oscar Wallace
in Brian de Palma's The Untouchables. You remember Wallace killed
ignominiously and hung in an elevator. Wallace who actually provided
the means to convict Capone. Okay, no secret, My last
name is Wallace. Back when I was a tour guide
at the Haunted Museum, one afternoon I was delivering a
speech in the ed Geen Room. This room holds a
(20:18):
giant cast iron pot. Some called it a cauldron, which
ed Geen himself used to boil flesh from bone. The
room itself is tricked out like a barn. It's not
universal quality, but it does the job, and the object
on display does have a certain gravity given its history.
My tour group is in a circle around the cauldron,
and I'm turning, making eye contact with everyone as I
(20:39):
detail the horrible aspects of Edgean's life, and suddenly I'm
eye to I with Agent Wallace, Charles Martin Smith, who's
hanging on what I'm saying. I know I finished that speech,
but I was no longer present for it. A little
later on the tour, there's a celebrity memorabilia section. It's
the least gruesome room in the museum, and it's where
the least or occurs. You just let the guests take
(21:01):
their time and inspect the various displays. And I got
to talk to him, and I told him that it
might be a trivial thing that his character was named Wallace,
but it was a huge deal to fourteen year old me,
who was feeling particularly adrift at that age. But then
I brought up how magnificent Never cry Wolf was, and
it was like Charles Martin Smith's birthday forty years later,
and you could see Caribou in his eyes. He was
(21:24):
very sweet. He talked to me way longer than he
needed to, and even found me at the end so
he could get a picture together. I will try and
post it in the show notes. I don't know, not
really sure how to do that, but I will never cry.
Wolf was the final nail in Ron Miller's coffin as
far as feature films go. The other nail was the
Black Cauldron, which maybe we should talk about in a
future episode. But the fact is, no matter how well
(21:45):
or not Miller was doing, he was from a different age,
too shaped by Walt. To bring the company properly into
the eighties. For that, you needed the TV guys who
resuscitated Paramount. Thus it begins the Eisner era, and the
Magic Kingdom just keeps on a growin. Don't now. I'm
not saying Disney hasn't done important work or interesting work
in the following three decades. Hell, if they didn't make it,
(22:06):
they'll just buy it eventually. But any level of daring
you see him coming from the company, any attempt to
revitalize or rejuvenate for a new age, started back with
Ron Miller. They call it the Dark Age. I agree,
like mister Dark the villain of another adaptation that found
its way onto the screen under Miller's tenure, Ray Bradbury's
Something Wicked This Way Comes, But that is another podcast.
(22:31):
Thank you everyone for joining us once again Friday is
Star Trek fest Star Trek for the Voyage Home Save
the Whales. Damn it. I hope you dig that one
HB and I had a blast recording it. If you
want to hear it now, head over to patreon dot
com slash Father Malone. Subscribers get everything early, very early,
if I can help it. In fact, if you sign
up for the free tier right now, I have made
(22:51):
free a few of the episodes that you cannot get
in the regular podcast feeds, So maybe give it a
free trial. A for Ripley Gene and from me, Father Malone,
and from Agent Wallace, and from the Wolves, and from
Ron Miller. Long may he reign. Here is Charles Martin
Smith giving another fucking great performance in John Carpenter's Starman.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
I helped put this package together. You know, this was
designed so that an intelligent species could get a working
knowledge of English enough to get by anyhow a couple
hundred word vocabulary rough idea of syntax. Think of what
it would mean to talk to a being from a
civilization like that.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Think of what we could learn members States, who represent
almost all of the human inhabitants of the planet Earth.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I sent greetings, greetings.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
There. See that's what he said to High Mueller out
on the road.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
It is also what the cannibals said to the missionary
just before he ate him.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Now, well, the question in this case is who is
the missionary and who are the cannibals?
Speaker 3 (24:00):
And shot.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Show from Sheep show from show
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Show
Welcome back, midnight viewers to Father Malone's weekly round up.
I am Father Malone, the pug who never lets me
finish a game of Mad Max on Xbox because something
on screen will eventually make her freak the fuck out.
Yeah you is, mister Ripley Jean? Is it December already? Christ?
(00:56):
We're well into it? What have you been into? Folks? It,
by any chance beIN correspondence.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
From around.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
This is from listener Rich Dorta. Just listen to the
Search for Spock pod. The thought of Maltz sitting there
thinking I hear Wales had me laughing out loud at work.
Funniest thing I've heard in a while. Keep up the
good work. Let me just say you continue to have
excellent taste, Rich in both podcast choice and humor appreciation. Actually,
(01:32):
I'm just fucking around. Thank you, Rich. I know I
can crack up HP. It's nice to hear it works
on other humans. And he's talking about our Search for
Smock episode we're doing Star trek Fest, and of course
he's talking about the Klingon character Maltz, who is kept
prisoner at the end of Search for Spock and then Dude,
they just don't do anything with him, we never see
(01:52):
him again, and well, it can be theorized that he
just remained on that klingon bird of prey and has
now probably drowned at the bottom of San Francisco. If
you want to reach me here on the roundup or
the anthology podcast or whatever crossover craziness I'm doing with
Paul Waller, send it to fatherom Alone seven to one
at gmail dot com and we'll do our best to
(02:12):
answer you right here. Oh, like the one I got
from author Marie Grillo, who sent along a copy of
her book Dreams with the Stars, The Celebrity Dream Book. Okay,
I don't know if you're team Freud or team Jung
when it comes to our subconscious I'm YOUNGI in myself,
I believe in the collective unconscious and universal symbols rather
than a personal dumping ground of our mental detritus. Also,
(02:36):
I don't blame my mother for everything, but we can
all agree what we see in our dreams is its
own language, and it's our brains trying to tell us something.
But what do those symbols mean? I have devoured dozens
of dream interpretation books starting around nineteen eighty five. Is
it a coincidence that I had recently seen both a
nightmare on Elm Street and a dreamscape. No, don't be stupid,
(02:56):
I was obsessed. But one thing those books could never
begin to exp plane where the celebrity cameos. We've all had.
This is no joke. My late wife Jessica persistently dreamt
about Jim Carey, started before we got together, continued right
through to the end.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
I know this.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
She kept a journal. The obvious thing we think when
someone tells us that a celebrity showed up in their
dream is that it was pornographic. But that is never
the fucking case. So what do their appearances mean? Well,
here's Marie Grillo dreaming of Jim Carrey. Reveals the paradox
of humor and pain. The clown who sees beyond the curtain.
He represents the soul's desire to break through illusion, to
(03:35):
drop the masks, and to find meaning in chaos. His
presence may appear when you're overthinking. Well if that isn't
on the fucking spot, that was Jessica all over, and
it makes so much sense. I'm going to put a
link to the book in the show notes. I highly
encourage everyone to go check it out, and because it
deserves a description that doesn't involve me saying fuck every
second word. Here's a bit of the ad copy. This
(03:56):
book draws you into the quiet inner architecture where those
un expected visitors originate. It is a dream dictionary that
guides your subconscious and higher self through the shared pop
culture psyche that influences us.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
All.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Open the doorway to your own dream world with this
coffee table companion dream with the stars. Step into the
center of your story. AD copy. That's kind of like
on mad Men.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Now.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I said I wasn't going to bring up mad Men anymore,
but there seems to be a Madman renaissance occurring right now,
thanks to its recent HD debut on HBO and the
not at all planned for releasing of an alternate take
of Roger Sterling vomiting with the effects crew in full
sight of the camera, just hunkered down and pumping out vomit.
Oh No, that most certainly was a programming error that
(04:42):
has catapulted Madmen back to the top of the public consciousness.
Enjoy everybody. When I've been hollering about for a year now,
I myself am done rewatching mad Men. Because yesterday, while
I was watching season three, the cables started glitching, so
I backed out to test to see if it was
the whole network or that particular show, and then I
put on Boardwalk Empire. So now I'm on season two
(05:04):
of Boardwalk Empire. Fuck. What a good series, and I'm
sure you're going to be hearing all about it from me.
What else is going on in the world of advertising?
Have you seen that Supergirl trailer? Here? It is.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I cars are old. You're right, it's clear the twenty
three will be the best year yet. Yes, let's be honest, babe,
it's not a very high bar to clear. I didn't
(05:47):
know any of you were still alive.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
What was it like, Sluice?
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Everything in the.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Table her time didn't die to day.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
The gods are not that kind of okay, this does
not look like this is gonna end well.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
For you guys. All right, that's enough. I think it
looks great and everyone's in a tizzy for that shadowed
millisecond of Lobo. Are you excited for Lobo? Here's a
hint about the performance. It will be remarkably similar to
the most recent portrayal of Aquaman or Conan or cal
(06:29):
Drogo or whatever the fuck his name was on Stargate
or Baywatch. He does not have range, is my point,
and it's gonna seem like he does when this fucking
movie comes out because he is Lobo. Also does James
Gunn think he invented the Walkman? I hate when creators
imbue their young characters with the trappings of their own youth.
(06:49):
This was really evident in every teen movie in the
early adds. You're telling me that they're listening to Devo
and not my chemical romance, okay, or say Blondie, that
makes sense. Star Lord was from Earth in the nineteen eighties,
so he owned a walkman. What the fuck would a
Candoran with access to every technology in the universe want
with a shitty analog audio device from Earth's past? Not much.
(07:12):
I'd say, all right, let's get to it. This week
is weird because I was way too lazy to go
out and see anything at the theater, because five Nights
at Freddy's Part two has zero interest to me. I
want to know what your thoughts are on Disney. We've
all had experiences with Disney to some degree or another.
Remember Disney's Golden Age, snow White Cinderella Sleeping Beauty, or
(07:33):
the Silver Age with Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book
and one hundred one Dalmatians, and who can forget the
Disney Renaissance with Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast
and Lion King. And that's all there, ever, was just
varying degrees of reigning over the entertainment landscape. Except there's
a twenty year period there that seemingly no one likes
to talk about. And it has a name. You read
(07:53):
the title of this show, It's a Disney's Dark Age,
and it lasted from approximately nineteen seventy two just about
nineteen eighty eight. People like to categorize Disney from animation
cycle to animation cycle, which accounts for the arbitrariness of
this epoch. That's The Aristocrats in nineteen seventy, which is
the last film Walt Disney had any involvement in, to
The Little Mermaid's release in nineteen eighty eight. I'd say
(08:16):
that what happens in between is a series of failures
and generally downward trend of the company. But if there's
a switch, it doesn't really come until nineteen eighty and
it ends in nineteen eighty four. Is it any coincidence
that those are the years that Ron Miller was president
of the Disney Corporation. Absolutely not when I think dark
age is a compliment. Miller gets his Disney association because
(08:38):
he married Walt's daughter, Diane. He was a tight end
for the Los Angeles Rams until Walt attended a game
where Miller was knocked unconscious for several minutes. Afterwards, he
was supposed to have said to Miller, I don't want
to raise your kids. You should come work for me,
and he did, bouncing between Disney's film and television divisions
as a co producer or associate producer on flicks like
(08:59):
The Monk's Uncle and Son of Flubber. One of his
first films is a full on producer was from nineteen
sixty eight. It's called Never a Dull Moment. I'm sure
you've never heard of it. The film is a lightweight
heist comedy starring Dick Van Dyke. Happy one hundredth birthday
to Dick Van Dyke, by the way, everybody, let's give
it up for that man. And Edward g Robinson. Also,
(09:19):
by the way, have you seen the footage of Edward
g Robinson? Testing for Planet of the Apes in full
ape makeup. YouTube is Your Friend never a dull moment. Interestingly, enough,
is based on a novel by John Gottie. That's good
E Y, not the Gangster. His novel, adapted here for
the family to enjoy on a Sunday afternoon, was titled
The Reluctant Assassin, just one of a string of crime
(09:42):
novels from the author of the Taking of Pelham one,
two three. Look, it's not like Dick van Dyke starts
pistol whipping bank tellers or anything. This is a Disney movie,
but it points to a yearning in another direction for Miller,
a perhaps a more mature direction. Let's call it a
seed planted in nineteen sixty six, to before the first
ever performance of Disney on Ice occurred. I'm joking that's
(10:04):
when Walt died. I mean he might be on ice.
The problem there is the thawing correctly, not turning a
solid into a liquid when you thaw it out anyway,
Walt's death. Walt's death left the company in a free
fall creatively. I think they were already out of touch
by this point, and we're going to need a new direction,
whether or not Walt was breathing. The fact is, for
(10:25):
the next decade, everyone in the company kept limping along,
trying to make what they thought Walt would. And while
there were occasional gems like bed knobs and broomsticks, which
I've already discussed in an earlier roundup and you can
hear it if you just scroll back anyway, more often
than not the output was like Million Dollar Duck and
Snowball Express apologies to Dean Jones. The exceptions kept coming, though,
(10:47):
flicks like Freaky Friday and Hot Lead and Cold Feet,
and then, in nineteen seventy nine, the ultimate example of wait,
this is a Disney movie, The Black Hole. I was there,
I saw it. I heard those words in the theater,
and the common denominator for all these swings toward a
more adult themed Disney is you guessed it, producer Ron Miller.
(11:09):
Let me just note that the films I'm talking about here,
the Dark Age Disney pictures, are live action. There's plenty
to be said for what happened to the animation department
under card Walker's reign, and as such, there are docs
and books and articles of plenty. Since we're talking about
Ron Miller, mainly we're talking live action features. In nineteen
eighty technically nineteen seventy eight, same year as The Black
(11:31):
Hole win into production, Ron Miller became president of the company,
and almost immediately the slate of films took a decidedly
modern turn. First out of the gate was Midnight Madness,
the Disney version of Animal House, with several college teams
competing in a scavenger hunt around the deserted streets of
Los Angeles. I love this flick, notable for being the
(11:51):
big screen debut of Michael J. Fox, and it has
an entire sequence set in the perhaps Blue Ribbon Factory,
and it's going to killer Arcade sequence and it's got
fucking trick down vans Man. Next up was Watcher in
the Woods Why Not? A horror movie starring Betty Davis
and Kyle Richards shot at the same location as The Haunting.
That's the Robert Wise film, you know, the classic. Am
(12:12):
I really going to list all of his films? Yes?
I am, because so far they're all classics to me.
Next was The Last Flight of Noah's Ark. Do yourself
a favor. This is a movie about a degenerate gambler
pilot played by Elliot Gould, who agrees to fly a
plane full of animals to a remote island compound which
serves as a wildlife preserve. Along the way, they got
(12:36):
off course and crash on an uncharted island, where they
discover two Japanese soldiers who don't know the war is over.
And then they have to come together to convert a
B twenty nine super Fortress into a boat. You know,
with everyone obsessed with IP, you guys already own this, Disney.
This is so fucking high concept and it is so
(12:58):
fucking cool. You know what, maybe don't rem just re
release it. Noah's Ark was the first of two films
Elliot Gould did at Disney for Ron Miller. The other
was The Devil and Max Devlin. Have you seen that one?
It was written by Jimmy Sankster, who was the main
screenwriter for Hammer horror films during the nineteen sixties. In fact,
the script was originally intended to be done back in
(13:19):
England with Vincent Price in the lead. It's the story
of a corrupt businessman who makes a deal with the
Devil as he's dying and definitely going to Hell to
return to Earth and shepherd three souls to the dark
side in exchange for prolonged life. M I see seial soon,
k E why why?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Because your soul is damned for all eternity.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Featuring Bill Cosby as the Devil Perfect. And then there
was Condor Man Condor Man, the Future Phantom of the Opera,
Michael Crawford as Woody Wilkins, a mild comic book artist
recruited as a courier by the c I who eventually
becomes his most popular creation, Condor Man. This movie's batshit crazy,
(14:06):
and it's more of a parody of James Bond than Batman,
more like The Rocketeer, if the Rocketeer had zero charm. Nevertheless,
the villain is played by Oliver Reed, which is a
weird thing to reveal before saying I recommend seeing this
with a child. It is a very silly film. You're
only really gonna dig it if you're nine years old.
All right, We've only got a few left before Miller
(14:27):
gets the old heave ho Night Crossing. It's kind of
a family movie, I suppose about two East German families
attempting to sneak over into the West by using a
hot air balloon. It's got families and adventure and the
threat of the iron curtains slamming down on that balloon.
It may be at this point that the shareholders are
starting to look a little ass skance at our man Miller.
(14:48):
But that's just one of a trio of nineteen eighty
two disappointments. There was also Tex, the least interesting se
Hinton novel gets adapted because there was an SI frenzy
thanks to Coppola making the out and then Rumblefish. I
guess that makes Matt Dillon the se Hinton actor, having
been in three of the four outsiders, Rumblefish and Tex. Sorry, Emilio,
(15:10):
you should have taken a small part in Rumblefish. He
would have killed it in the Vincent Spano role. Wow,
now that I think of it, that would have made
that movie a thousand times better. That is a great film, actually,
and we'll need to cover it here sometime anyway. Tex
is the uplifting tale of two brothers desperate to keep
the family farm after their mother passes away. Woo, give
me that popcorn. I don't think I have to say
(15:31):
too much about tron Do I visionary classic that was
under Miller's regime. At the Mousehouse. I'm not saying he
himself was a visionary. That's Steve Lisberger. But the ability
to say yes when everyone in the universe says no,
while more often than not, can be disastrous, Sometimes it
results in a creation we're still trying to get a
handle on. As cool and interesting and exciting as the
(15:53):
follow up films to Tron have been, has there been
a single moment in either where you thought, what the
fuck am I watching? And I mean that question in
the greatest way possible, The answer is now, which leaves
his final contribution. I'm recommending each of the films I've mentioned,
but if there's one one that I think actually showed
the potential of Disney as a family studio, still making
(16:15):
live action features with a level of maturity commensurate with
contemporary times and values, while still showing and ultimately I
hesitate to use the word wholesome, look at the natural world.
It's never cry wolf? What have my provision that bigs
(16:39):
the hell of it?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
His name is Tyler Powell. He's come three thousand miles
to spend six months in the Northwest wilderness. He's done
everything he can to prepare himself, but nothing could prepare
him for this. Now, the director of the Black Start
(17:01):
brings you another story you will never forget. Never cry Wolf,
but not lead out there.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Now he was done with ice and snow.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
You would be the only freshman joy a story that
will dazzle your senses and show you the secrets of
a world you've never seen before. After finish. Never cry Wolf.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Based on environmentalist Farley Moet's nineteen sixty three fictionalized account
of his time working for the Dominion Wildlife Service when
he was tasked with determining why caribou populations were on
the decline, the popular theory being wolf attacks. Never cry Wolf.
The screenplay was written by Future Batman eighty nine scribe
Sam Ham, with passes by La Confidentials Curtis Hansen, and
(18:07):
tells the tale of Tyler played by Charles Martin Smith
over the course of six months in the Canadian Arctic,
where he battles the elements and hunger and isolation with
the sporadic help of two Innick natives played by two
Innock non actors, and eventually a trio of wolves then
accept Tyler into the pack. This might not sound scintillating,
but let me tell you This movie is exactly what
(18:28):
you need right now. Made Mike Carol Ballard, who I'm
sure you heard in the trailer, was the director of
The Black Stallion, another fucking magnificent, unblinking nature film, but
before that he had spent twenty or so years making
nature documentaries. They took two years to make Never Cry Wolf,
and it shows Ballard is a known perfectionist, which when
you add nature, you've got an investment in time. But
(18:52):
what he gets is just breathtaking. And it operates as
an adventure film, as a nature documentary, as a polemic
about modern man, as a portraiture of the Arctic at
its most beautiful. There is a sequence laid in the
film where Tyler aids the pack in a running down
a herd of caribou. This sequence took a month to film,
(19:12):
a month of sometimes twenty hour days. It is a
harrowing sequence that absolutely boggles the mind with how they
did it, because they fucking did it. More to the point,
Jonal Smartin Smith did it. I hope you recognize the name.
A true journeyman character actor. Got a film, he's in
TV series, in a play he's in Go Off to
(19:33):
the Wilderness for two years where for months at a
time he's the only actor on set. He's in. He's
had a career for over fifty years now. He was
Terry the Toad in American Graffiti and More American Graffiti
for that matter. He played bass for Buddy Holly and
The Buddy Holly Story. He directed the Fucking Horror classic
Trick or Treat. That's Sam Kerr Baby, not that baby Sam.
(19:55):
And most importantly to me, he was Agent Oscar Wallace
in Brian de Palma's The Untouchables. You remember Wallace killed
ignominiously and hung in an elevator. Wallace who actually provided
the means to convict Capone. Okay, no secret, My last
name is Wallace. Back when I was a tour guide
at the Haunted Museum, one afternoon I was delivering a
speech in the ed Geen Room. This room holds a
(20:18):
giant cast iron pot. Some called it a cauldron, which
ed Geen himself used to boil flesh from bone. The
room itself is tricked out like a barn. It's not
universal quality, but it does the job, and the object
on display does have a certain gravity given its history.
My tour group is in a circle around the cauldron,
and I'm turning, making eye contact with everyone as I
(20:39):
detail the horrible aspects of Edgean's life, and suddenly I'm
eye to I with Agent Wallace, Charles Martin Smith, who's
hanging on what I'm saying. I know I finished that speech,
but I was no longer present for it. A little
later on the tour, there's a celebrity memorabilia section. It's
the least gruesome room in the museum, and it's where
the least or occurs. You just let the guests take
(21:01):
their time and inspect the various displays. And I got
to talk to him, and I told him that it
might be a trivial thing that his character was named Wallace,
but it was a huge deal to fourteen year old me,
who was feeling particularly adrift at that age. But then
I brought up how magnificent Never cry Wolf was, and
it was like Charles Martin Smith's birthday forty years later,
and you could see Caribou in his eyes. He was
(21:24):
very sweet. He talked to me way longer than he
needed to, and even found me at the end so
he could get a picture together. I will try and
post it in the show notes. I don't know, not
really sure how to do that, but I will never cry.
Wolf was the final nail in Ron Miller's coffin as
far as feature films go. The other nail was the
Black Cauldron, which maybe we should talk about in a
future episode. But the fact is, no matter how well
(21:45):
or not Miller was doing, he was from a different age,
too shaped by Walt. To bring the company properly into
the eighties. For that, you needed the TV guys who
resuscitated Paramount. Thus it begins the Eisner era, and the
Magic Kingdom just keeps on a growin. Don't now. I'm
not saying Disney hasn't done important work or interesting work
in the following three decades. Hell, if they didn't make it,
(22:06):
they'll just buy it eventually. But any level of daring
you see him coming from the company, any attempt to
revitalize or rejuvenate for a new age, started back with
Ron Miller. They call it the Dark Age. I agree,
like mister Dark the villain of another adaptation that found
its way onto the screen under Miller's tenure, Ray Bradbury's
Something Wicked This Way Comes, But that is another podcast.
(22:31):
Thank you everyone for joining us once again Friday is
Star Trek fest Star Trek for the Voyage Home Save
the Whales. Damn it. I hope you dig that one
HB and I had a blast recording it. If you
want to hear it now, head over to patreon dot
com slash Father Malone. Subscribers get everything early, very early,
if I can help it. In fact, if you sign
up for the free tier right now, I have made
(22:51):
free a few of the episodes that you cannot get
in the regular podcast feeds, So maybe give it a
free trial. A for Ripley Gene and from me, Father Malone,
and from Agent Wallace, and from the Wolves, and from
Ron Miller. Long may he reign. Here is Charles Martin
Smith giving another fucking great performance in John Carpenter's Starman.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
I helped put this package together. You know, this was
designed so that an intelligent species could get a working
knowledge of English enough to get by anyhow a couple
hundred word vocabulary rough idea of syntax. Think of what
it would mean to talk to a being from a
civilization like that.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Think of what we could learn members States, who represent
almost all of the human inhabitants of the planet Earth.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I sent greetings, greetings.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
There. See that's what he said to High Mueller out
on the road.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
It is also what the cannibals said to the missionary
just before he ate him.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Now, well, the question in this case is who is
the missionary and who are the cannibals?
Speaker 3 (24:00):
And shot.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Show from Sheep show from show
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Show
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