Hola, Sneakers! Welcome back to Sneaky Dragon, the podcast that time remembered!
This week: slipping and sliding; goggle view; pinched nose; all about the Benjamin; the martian biographer; gout enthusiast; vitamin deficiency; too many Snoopys; pervasive comic strips; Capp guns; echo chambers; old hats; thoughts on Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis; biographical arc; gambler’s choice; Colonel Panda; im-Presley; the king’s throne; upgestanden; the boys in the band; the lost tapes; benevolent nudity; jail break; disappointing Woody; now you don’t see it; strange accent; the mouse will rise again; hot animals; historical furries; thrown in the deep end; emergency pitch; surrogate daddy; his name isn’t Dolemite; foreign shit shows; dangerous business; Dork Shadows – I Call Your Name; jug banned; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; gone to the bees; anal probe; Chuck nuts; Betty Davis ayes; just as Dave planned it; permanent objections; what happened to us; and, finally, the noblest profession.
Question of the Week: What is the best movie monster?
Sub-question of the Week: Which is the sexiest animated character?
Thanks for listening.
A snippet of Fearless Fosdick can be seen in this assortment of vintage puppet shows:
Stupefyin’ Jones from the Lil’ Abner movie (played by the lovely Julie Newmar):
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For sheer terror, the best movie monster is the Alien alien. It doesn’t just want to eat you like the Jaws shark. It’s got special use for you. The documentary “Memory: The Origins of Alien” says the movie taps into men’s subconscious fear of being penetrated. Hmm, being in danger of becoming an incubator for a lifeform which can kill you as it’s being born? Welcome to our world, guys! Recently, the Star Trek: Strange New World writers liked the idea so much, they ret-conned it as a reproductive stage in the Gorn aliens to make them more horrifying. (On the original series, the Gorn Captain is the slow guy in the cheap lizard suit that Kirk fights.)
For sexiest male animated character, I’m going with the smoldering roguish thief Flynn Rider from Tangled. He’s voiced by Zachary Levy (post-Chuck, pre-Shazam!) Apparently the Disney animators consulted women about his design in a focus group they called a “hot man meeting.” I also think Diego the sabretooth tiger from The Ice Age movies is kind of hot in a beastly way. (Don’t judge me.) Denis Leary does great vocal work in a classic predator-to-friends role.
“Sheer Terror” does indeed define the Xenomorph from “Alien” even though I wasn’t allowed to watch those films when I was young, so I never got the full initial effect of terror…”Jaws” either. Both are great candidates for movie monsters and firmly cemented in film culture.
Re-designing the Gorn was an interesting avenue to take on “Star Trek Strange New Worlds” but it wasn’t the first time that species has undergone a terrifying makeover. I worked on the promotion and collectible concepts for the “Star Trek” video game back in 2013. Based on the Chris Pine & Zachary Quinto versions of Kirk and Spock, the Gorn were very much the horrific, feral creatures like we saw in “Strange New Worlds” which made for a much more exciting game. Part of me was wanting a sub-game you could play with Shatner’s Gorn as a joke, but that’s too much to ask for. The game was a bit of a flop anyway but fun to work on nonetheless.
As for what’s next on “Strange New Worlds” I now wait until Season 2 for how they treat The Klingons….Are you a Trek fan Louise?
Ed, I would say I’m a Trek fan, but not a hard core one. I don’t speak Klingon nor do I have a Star Fleet uniform in my closet. I ditched out on Voyager and Enterprise but returned for all the other series and movies. But I did have some Vulcan ears at one point and put on Lt. Ihearya’s costume for a photo during the run of our Star Trick the Musical spoof.
I once had a Gold Starfleet uniform from the original series once and a pair of bell bottom black knit pants from my Mom. One pair of black zipper boots and a phaser I bought at the Starlog Store and I was Captain Kirk in a matter of minutes! It was fun when I could get away with it…
Greetings for what feels like a bonfire outside during the day and temperatures in the 90’s all night long. Our record for days over 100 degrees is 42 days in 1980, the days without rainfall was set in 2000 at 55 days without any precipitation. I don’t think we’re near breaking either of those records, but it’s the deadliest part of summer here and August just gets worse. I’ll cool things off with some refreshing answers to this weeks questions!
It’s terribly subjective when you ask anyone what the best movie monster is. I asked two co-workers and one said The Kraken and the other said Ursula from “The Little Mermaid”…like I said, subjective and both from the sea. Objectively, isn’t Godzilla named the King of the Monsters? If you read Lovecraft maybe it’s Cthulhu, for Stephen King fans maybe it’s Pennywise. Giving it some thought, I decided to go way back to the beginning and pick Frankenstein’s Monster. Boris Karloff is probably the image that first comes to mind but the sustainable imagination Frankenstein’s creation has in our culture is still going strong and without end. I treasure the Bernie Wrightson depiction of Mary Shelley’s story just as much as I enjoy Kenneth Branagh’s film from 1994, I still enjoy what they can do with Frankenstein’s story and characters. It’s like picking Superman as the best superhero of all time, you just start at the beginning and consider all the interpretations that follow.
Did you ever see Roger Corman’s “Frankenstein Unbound”? It mixes the classic story with time travel and is about as good as a Corman film can get, but I do love the guy. Seriously, have you ever seen a photo of Corman when he isn’t smiling? He loves what he does and at 94 he’s still alive to tell about it. Love him.
We covered sexy cartoon characters awhile back because I remember writing in with Jessica Rabbit (voiced by Kathleen Turner) as my first pick with Colette Tatou (voiced by Janeane Garofalo) from “Ratatouille” as a close second. I still stand by those two but guess if I had to round it out to a trio, I’d pick Velma Dinkley. I mean have you guys seen some of the Velma cosplay out there? Behind those glasses, the pageboy haircut and orange turtleneck is a really groovy gal. Was she Shaggy’s girlfriend? I never really figured that out, but I like Velma, she’s a keeper and a ghost chaser.
I’d appreciate my fellow Sneakers helping me out with the heat down here as well as all the recent hot spots around the globe; prayers, a rain dance, weather manipulation technology or mutant powers…anything will do!
Did you guys know that if you click on my name above, the bold and brown one, it’ll take you to my new portfolio site I’ve started.
https://draganski.design
Hello All–
Louise, I think you might have the winner. The Alien might be the best monster ever. Ed, Frankenstein’s monster is a classic, of course, and also elicits sympathy in addition to terror. I’ll throw in John Carpenter’s Thing. Like Ridley Scott’s Alien, it uses human bodies–a horrifying thought. But I suppose it’s the morphing-creature scenes that stick in the memory. I’ll never forget the autopsy scene…