Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to episode 368 of Sneaky Dragon! And the best of the season to you all!
This week on Sneaky Dragon, Ian and Dave talk not blazing it; pop downs; gestures and crinkles; spin-off info; the ethics of tray jamming; the joys of smallness; the X-Men in short; when Beast becomes Beast; disgusting theme song food; invisible characters; the Peanuts parents and the Pigpen problem; old-time religious culture; how to make friends; getting browbeaten by Peter Lorre; the great Buster Keaton; stuntwork; Ian’s Indiana Jones cartoon; windy weather; fun with magic; the fix is in; playing around with franchise characters; death of a chocolatier; and, finally, and we mean finally, we get around to Sarah Walsh’s Top 10 movie list, which features:
- All Quiet on the Western Front
- A Hard Day’s Night
- Robocop
- Penn & Teller Get Killed
- The Great Dictator
- Major League
- Wag the Dog
- This Is Spinal Tap
- Clue
- Harry Potter (All eight of ’em – but if I had to choose, I choose either The Order of the Phoenix or The Half-Blood Prince)
Thanks for listening.
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Robocop brings back a flood of memories. First of all, the first one was filmed right here in Dallas even though the movie takes place in Detroit. You can see shots of the Dallas skyline in the background during a few scenes and the Dallas City Hall had a matte painting of a much taller building added to it to create the OCP building. Check it out in this article celebrating 30 years of Robocop last July: https://www.keranews.org/post/robocop-marking-30-years-screening-ocp-headquarters-dallas-city-hall
Two of my friends were present the night they shot the scenes in the nightclub and can be seen briefly dancing as Robocop passes them. As if this wasn’t enough, Peter Weller attended college at my alter mater The University of North Texas which is a short drive north of Dallas. Last time I saw him at a Dallas Con he was wearing a UNT cap someone brought him!
Fast forward a few years to when I was working at Lone Star Comics. The owner had writers and artists visit his four stores to have signings when it was easy to schedule them. He found out Frank Miller was going to be in the area due to the fact he was looking for a location to shoot Robocop 2…he ended up shooting it in Houston but at this point was still just writing the script if you can call it that. This also coincided with Miller’s run on The Dark Knight but only issues one through three had been released, issue four was maybe a month away. Miller’s schedule didn’t allow him to wait until the series was completely released, so we got him when we could. Miller shows up and we went to lunch with him…all he wanted to talk about was Robocop 2 and how great it would be…nothing about Dark Knight which was so done for him. He did sign everyone’s comics, posters, etc. and was willing to stay at all four stores until everyone left. He was also high as a fucking kite. Just imagine a stoned guy talking endlessly about Robocop 2 and that was Miller.
So if you ever do see a complete set of four Dark Knight comics and only issues one through three are signed, they probably came from Dallas.
Interesting that you worked at Lone Star Comics! I remember all the controversy around the owner Buddy Saunders back in my days of reading the Comics Journal. He always came across as an alright guy in the interviews though.
I found an article on Weller and his days at the University of North Texas if anyone is interested…
https://www.ntdaily.com/qa-actor-unt-alumnus-peter-weller-on-college-days/
Sooooo impressed you remember the Buddy Saunders Comic’s Journal incident. It brings back a flood of memories. Buddy Saunders is a very nice man and very shrewd considering he kept about eight comic stores open all those years. But Buddy also had a tendency to shoot himself in the foot now and then by declaring his simple comic fandom in opposition to the rising comic book culture of the mid-80’s. Buddy was against much of it, which caused the industry to label Buddy as a hypocrite. I think the dam broke when they showed the full frontal birth of Miracle Man’s child being born, Buddy went nuts over this. I mean times had really changed from the days of Little Lulu, one of Buddy’d favorites. After he wrote the Comics Journal piece, Lone Star had a very difficult time inviting any writers, artists or guests at all to our stores, the industry cut Buddy out the will. I guess time heals because some guests started coming by years later but that was well after I left.
I wouldn’t trade anything for the years I worked for Lone Star though, that was one of the best time for comics too. We even created petitions and were advocates for Jack Kirby when Marvel refused to return his original art to him, I drew up all the banners and posters myself. But we had to take them down when Buddy came to the store because he didn’t want Lone Star to get involved, so we did it behind his back. Then what does Buddy do? He writes that damned article for The Comics Journal and gets the entire store chain blackballed from comics. I even remember taping Buddy debating the article with Chris Claremont on the Today Show or Good Morning America…
Good times though, and I’m flattered you remembered David!
Thanks!!