Interviews

Loot Studios launches Malediction, a new hybrid Miniatures Wargame TCG on Gamefound

Loot Studios Talks Malediction – New Hybrid Miniatures Wargame TCG Launches on Gamefound

Loot Studios enters the tabletop gaming arena with Malediction, a dark and strategic miniatures card game blending rich lore and innovative mechanics. The game, crafted over two years with lore input from legendary author Tracy Hickman, offers a mature fantasy world where factions like Primal Blood and the Legion of the Fallen fight for dominance. With a focus on strategy over luck, Malediction integrates miniatures, cards, and terrain. It offers a versatile system that players can enjoy with printed standees or 3D-printed models.

Playable in 1v1 and 2v2 modes, the game emphasizes adaptability, allowing players to tailor factions and strategies through various combinations of spells, creatures, and relics. Silvio Martins and Fabio Cury of Loot Studios shared insights on the creative process, the game’s accessible entry points, and future expansions with PopGeeks.

Malediction: Loot Studios Dark Fantasy Miniatures Card Game Revealed | Exclusive Interview #Tabletop

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**Today, we’re going to talk with Loot Studios about their upcoming game, Malediction.**

We’re lucky enough to have with us today Silvio, Silvio Martins, Head of Marketing, and Fabio Cury, who is the Head of Game Development for Loot Studios.

So Silvio, let’s jump right in. What inspired Loot Studios to get into making tabletop games, and what made Malediction the one to start with?

Silvio Martins: Loot Studios is now four years old. And we’re a bunch of guys and girls who love playing games of all sorts, card games, tabletop games, RPGs. We play them constantly. Together at the company. With friends and family.

From Miniatures to Tabletop Games

So, one of them. I don’t know if it was Renato Góes who said, “Why don’t we do our own game, and start working on our own stuff, and show people that we also can do our own games?”

We have a very successful line of work with miniatures. So, it’s about two to two and a half years since we started working on that. We started developing.

We started talking to people, play testing, and doing lots of stuff to create this Malediction. So, it was a labor of love and a labor of a bunch of people who work together and want to see more stuff coming out of the company.

So, that’s the whole thing in a nutshell.

Awesome, yeah, definitely. I know that if you’re a person who does 3D printing and plays tabletop games, you’ve probably heard of Loot Studios. So that’s really cool that you just finally decided to, you know, jump on in.

So, the lore was written by Tracy Hickman, who’s a New York Times bestseller and probably best known for his work on DragonLance. Can you tell us a little more about the lore of Malediction?

Silvio Martins: Yes. The lore of Malediction was first created by Tracy Hickman, and we started with a normal fantasy world. Once we finished, we started playing the game and looking at what we had in our hands; we decided to go a little bit darker, a little bit grittier, and a little bit more mature environment than those classics, elves, dwarves, and humans fighting each other.

So once Tracy gave us the basic set of the world and the basic ideas that we wanted to work with, our team started developing their own ideas and their own inside characters and settings that would meld with what Tracy did and create what Malediction is today. Fabio, can you talk a little bit more? Otherwise, I’m going to be the only one speaking.

Fabio Cury: Well, I joined Loot Studios very recently, and the game was already very close to launching. And what I found very interesting was when I arrived, they said, Well, here’s the lore for the game. They showed me everything that was in the game content, right? And all the characters and all the spells and how this interacts with the lore. But then they showed me everything else, right?

And the fact that Tracy Hickman can actually create this huge and very deep universe, right? It gave us a lot of content to work on for the future, right? So there’s enough lore there for years and years of future development and expansion in regard to new characters, new settings, and everything still inside this universe of Malediction.

Art and Design of Malediction: A Distinct Identity

Can you tell me a little more about the artists and the art of the game? It does go a little dark, which is pretty awesome.

Silvio Martins: Yeah. This also came with our discussion when developing the game. At first, we had the classic illustrations, like I told you, and then Alvaro [Ribeiro], who is our art director, said, Hey, I want something that, if people look at it, it calls and says Malediction.

So the artists, everybody from Loot Studios, both 2D and 3D artists, they start developing more and more art and 3D sculpture that passes that message of a dying world that is being rebuilt by those tribes and those Seekers, and that really gave us a new look at the creatures and the feeling that we have when playing the game.

I can give you some examples. Instead of using orcs and dwarves and elves, we start creating creatures and creating stories that people want to start looking at; okay, the Humans, the Oerikan, the Erisyr, and the Vulkir, that are the names that we’re working on to create those new races. They do have a special characteristics.

It’s not just like you take a look, that’s a dwarf. That’s enough. No, that’s a real, new creature developed by this new IP. So that’s the whole movement that we’re working on, and they’re looking forward to giving the IP the strength and the character that it deserves.

That’s awesome, unique characters? So, both Silvio and Fabio. What are your favorite new creatures for this game?

Fabio Cury: Well, I’d say that my favorite faction in general is the Primal Blood. These are all creatures that used to be wild and lived in these wildlands, but after the death of these giant creatures, they started drinking the blood of these fallen giants and gaining more conscience and power.

And using this blood mixture of dead giants, which is just like lying around in pools, they also mix it with mud and magic to create these unique creatures and beings, which are very even hard to describe physically, right? You have to really look at the models, and I think they’re really interesting for painting and for being creative as a hobbyist. So that’s my favorite faction.

Silvio Martins: Yeah, I was gonna say that everybody that looks at Thundersteps step to the game show, that huge statue falling in love with Primal Blood. But I’m on the other side of the coin. I like most the Legion of the Fallen, which you can translate by those who work their magic and their interactions with the living and the dead.

I like the cool way of the Seeker, Vorendal, which is one of the leaders. It’s like some kind of high lord together with twisted creatures that are really ugly and deformed. I like that discrepancy and that difference between the beauty and the beast of the fallen band. I really love them, but I like to paint miniatures.

So every time I see, for instance, a miniature of the Conclave of the Spheres, or a miniature from the Order of the Shattered Throne, or even those creatures from the Primal Blood, I say, “Oh my god, I really need to stay put in one.” So I decided to go with Legion of the Fallen.

Awesome, awesome. So, Fabio, you said that you had more recently come on to Loot Studios towards the end of the development of the game. What was your reaction after the first time playing?

Fabio Cury: I was very, very excited because after I learned the game, I. Right, right up at playing, you know, just playing a demo. And that, to me, is already a very good selling point, right?

You don’t need to read pages and pages of rules like someone can explain it to you fairly simply. And after I started looking at all the possibilities, I was like, “Okay, wow, there’s a lot of depth in here.”

And so once again, I’m biased at this point, now that I’ve already hopped on board, but I really think the game is simple to learn but hard to master, which is, I think any game designer’s goal, right? So, I think the team did a really great job, and that made me very eager to hop on board and join the staff.

Cool. So, I saw that the average Malediction game may last around about 60 minutes. What do you need to get a one 1v1 game going?

Fabio Cury: So as long as both players have a faction box, which is the equivalent of like a starter set or something of the like, then you have everything you need to play, not just with one simple load out, let’s say, but you can make many, many decks with your faction box, right?

It comes with basically everything you need to play for one player. So, as long as two people have these, there are numerous options and matchups that you can do.

I saw that you could play Malediction with up to four players. What different configurations can you do with the four players?

Fabio Cury: So currently, we have one 1v1 mode, and we also have a 2v2 mode, which is, right, where you play as teams. The wording, all the spells, and all the abilities are already made, so it can encompass this. So there’s a difference between allies and allies you own, right?

So, because you can cast spells on your allies that are from another player, for example, it already encompasses this 2v2 two setup, and only time will tell, right? We are very excited to work on more game modes and bring further options to players.

Silvio Martins: And there’s one thing that we haven’t told people yet: every box comes with two Seekers. Okay, so the first Seeker, the most important one, is like one caller.

Fabio Cury: One faction.

Silvio Martins: One faction. Sorry, yeah, one faction. So Malediction works only with the cards of that box; the second Seeker is dual-faction. He can work with cards and other boxes.

So when you start working and start playing matches, as you said, we can play matches for 60 minutes, but we can do demo short versions of the game for 30 minutes to initiate and know how it works. So it’s really fun to see people trying to mix the cards and develop their own strategy.

And the fact that you can print your own miniatures, you never know when you’re going to have your final strategy, I say, “Okay, okay, I want to use Vorendal, two of those soldiers, that creature, that piece,” and the other guy who plays Legion of the Fallen as well. You have a completely different configuration.

And this is something that we are learning now when doing demos on shows and got really excited about. It’s really cool to see people with the same deck creating different strategies.

Gameplay: Strategy Over Luck

So, Malediction prizes strategy over luck. What are some of the things that players should keep in mind while crafting their strategy?

Fabio Cury: I think something that’s very important is to keep in mind how many creatures versus how many spells you have on your deck. Sometimes you look at all these spells and say, “Oh, this is super cool.” But if you don’t have creatures on the board, it is a miniatures card game.

So there is this miniature, uh, geometric component. I say geometric, but in the sense of like movement, right? And trying to see where your ranged units can hit and the table presence is important.

At the same time, if you don’t put any spells, then your opponent is going to be able to outmaneuver you by doing little tricks and shenanigans, right, and catch you off guard. So I think that that’s something very interesting and something players will quickly become aware of.

Silvio Martins: And you have to summon creatures on the battlefield. So, if you only pick up big creatures that are very expensive, cost-wise, it takes time to put them on the table. And if you don’t, if you do that, your opponent will be putting smaller creatures and taking advantage of the whole thing on the battlefield.

There are also the relics, right? that he could claim before you. The relics are powerful artifacts that will help you on the battlefield as well. So, you have to keep in mind a lot of small things that are connected together. Gives you the strategy.

I’m a terrible player. Every time I play, I lose, but I also have fun, because you start doing okay. I’m going to put lots of skeletons. Let’s see what’s happening. I’m going to put a lot of big guys. Let’s see what’s happening. Fabio and his game developers are very surgical and always do the best things on the table. I hate you guys.

So, Malediction, the game is playable right out of the box, but there’s a redeemable card I saw for access to the 3D STL models. How many models are available? And what else can players expect from the models in the future?

Silvio Martins: Okay, you don’t have only the models. You also have the terrains as well for the faction. So you have the terrains and the models. I think it’s about 26-28 models per box. If I’m not mistaken.

Fabio Cury: Twenty-five models per box, plus five terrains, yes. And you also have the models for the husks because of the places which hold the relics.

Silvio Martins: But we’re also going to prepare for the future, different poses for the creatures. So, if you play the game, you notice on the standees that some creatures are numbered one, two, and three, or one and two. That’s the maximum number of that type of creature that can be placed on the table to play the game.

So we’re developing different poses so you don’t have to, you know, “Oh, they are all the same poses. I don’t know which one is which.” You’re going to have different alternative poses. We’re also going to create alternative poses during the campaign, but this is something that we are not telling people right now; it will just be a surprise when the campaign starts, but we do have things in mind.

A Living Game and Looking Ahead

Fabio can tell us about the lineup for 2025 that we’re planning. So this is something that we want to do. We want to do a living game. So, we start playing now, but you know for certain that in the future, you’re going to have more cards, more miniatures, and more material to play. So this is something that we are paying very close attention to.

Fabio Cury: Yeah, I think that’s something very interesting. When we think of miniatures games, we think of how much bang for our buck we’re getting in miniatures. But in this situation, Malediction is a miniatures card game. So not only do you already have great value for miniatures, in this case, the miniature STL files, which you can print as many as you want, right… once you buy the box. But you’re also getting a lot of cards. So there’s a lot of gaming content, right when you get a faction box.

And so there’s a lot of variety, apart from the miniatures, and they all have beautiful sculpts and alternative sculpts so you can identify each one. But once again, you also have this value of all these cards, which are really well made.

And we have partnered up with Cartamundi, which is basically one of the largest, if not the largest, card companies in the world. They make amazing quality material, right? And if you’ve played basically any card game out there, of the big ones, you’ve seen the quality of their product.

We’re aiming for not just having the best models and the best STL files but also the best cards, the best standees, the best box, and everything we can to deliver this very high quality, high-value product for the end-consumer.

Inclusivity and Player Engagement

Awesome, awesome. So I saw that you mentioned that Malediction was recently demoed at PAX Unplugged, and I saw that you received some positive feedback for that. I saw that there’s a print-and-play demo available on Gamefound for people who want to check it out. Are there any other opportunities for players to get hands-on time before the Gamefound launch?

Silvio Martins: We do have the gaming manual. You do have the print-and-play. We send some free miniatures for them to print and see the quality of the sculpts. And I think that we do have one or two things up our sleeves to use until the game launches in January. But the one thing that I wanted to stress is that when we thought about the game, we thought that anyone could play it with or without the miniatures.

You can if we both, if all of us here, and if all of four of us want to play. You can use the standees. I can print on a very basic printer and do not paint at all. Then, Fabio can paint them and print all those detailed, pre-painted miniatures. The fact is that the cards are the ones who testify that you have the game.

So once you do a tournament, you can go with anything you want, the standees or the miniatures. We don’t care. If you want to print the minutes for you and your friends to play. That’s okay.

If you want to say, “Oh, I want to bring 1000 skeletons to use on my army and paint them differently.” That’s fine for us as well.

So this is one thing that we kept in mind: not to force people to print or use any kind of setup to play the game. They can do whatever they want.

So when we went to PAX, we had tables with the standees, printed miniatures, and painted miniatures, so you could taste everything you wanted. We are listening to the comments and to people who engage with us on Gamefound; on our website, there are a lot of people asking to translate the game.

There are a lot of people asking for more information. But we do have Fabio. Can you tell them what you’re working on now? Then, I will hand it to Fabio to tell you the news.

Fabio Cury: Yeah. I was going to add to something that Silvio was saying just now. So, we believe we have a very good game and a very good product in all of its regards and all senses, right? And so we want to show people everything you can do with the game. You can play with Malediction with standees. You can if you want to try the gameplay.

Print it out on paper and try some paper play at home, right? All of this is already available, but for the Gamefound, we will have a Tabletop Simulator module with all the cards there, and you can try everything.

And you can just play on Tabletop Simulator because we believe we have an amazing game, and once you get a little taste of it online, you’ll say, “Okay, I want these. I want to play with these models and have the full immersive tabletop experience.”

Silvio Martins: One of the things that I said is everybody at the company is a gamer, and we have already been on the other side of the scenario. We want to play a game, buy a game, go to Gamefound, and go to Kickstarter. Fabio and I worked for years at CMON, so we know what it is to be a consumer.

Not playing a game that I want to buy? That won’t happen. We really want to give you the opportunity to say, “Okay, now we can play the whole game, everything. There’s nothing hidden here.” You play the test. If you like it, join us. If you don’t like it, give us feedback and join us.

That’s what we are doing. That’s what we believe. We do believe that a company can talk face-to-face with the consumer and understand their needs, and we are also we also believe that once you get honest feedback, positive or negative, we should look at it and, if possible, change it and make it a better product.

So that’s our motto inside the company, and it’s been an awesome energy looking at people that went to PAX, played the game at the booth, and then came back in the other day and came back to the the demo area, where we also had tables.

It was overwhelming for us to see people reacting and being able to talk to them and listen to their experience, and see their eyes glowing when they look at the miniature and the big statue at the booth. So it’s, it’s really fantastic.

Yeah, I saw, I saw the model for the Husk. The Husk looks really sick. Very cool. Yeah. Well, where can players go to find out more about Malediction’s upcoming launch in January?

Silvio Martins of Loot Studios: We do have the website, Malediction.gg. We do have the Malediction page on Gamefound. We have a mailing list where people could join us and receive everything in advance. So when the TTS is announced, people from the newsletter are going to have one or two days earlier so they can go there and play the game.

And those are our social channels as well, from Malediction and Loot Studios; we are working on all those fronts to give people information about the game, about us, and everything that they might need for the game and for Loot as well.

Fabio Cury: Don’t forget to follow us on Gamefound to get your free. Gift, and also be ready for our launch on day one and try out the game on Tabletop Simulator.

Awesome. Well, this is really exciting. Thank you so much, Silvio and Fabio, for taking the time to chat with us. It’s been an absolute pleasure learning more about you and Malediction. Thanks! Have a wonderful new year!

Loot Studios Talks Malediction – New Hybrid Miniatures Wargame TCG Launches on Gamefound Read More »

Surge of Power, Where there's Smoke Cast Poster

Vincent J. Roth, Director of Surge of Power: Where There’s Smoke Interview

Vincent J. Roth has been writing, producing and starring in the Surge of Power movie series for 20 years. He plays the titular superhero, Surge. To celebrate two decades of Surge on screen, Roth is currently touring the country. Roth can be found at exclusive screenings at conventions and film festivals. He’s celebrating the third full-length feature film in the franchise, Surge of Power: Where’s There’s Smoke. We sat down with Roth to get the super-powered stories behind his latest film.

Vincent J. Roth Talks Where There’s Smoke and LGBTQ+ Representation #SurgeOfPower #SuperheroMovies

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Adam Pope: I spoke to you a while back. You had done Surge of Power: Revenge of the Sequel and now here we are again. You are on a tri-city tour doing screenings of Surge of Power: Where There’s Smoke. How’s that going so far?

Vincent J. Roth: Amazing. We had our world premiere at Tarzana International Film Festival in August, which happened to be 20 years to the weekend of the world premiere of the very first Surge of Power film. So that’s how we kicked off, then we’ve been playing at film festivals and comic conventions. This Friday (November 29th), we have a sci-fi convention that played the first movie 20 years ago.

Building the Surge of Power Universe

Adam Pope: How does that feel? You have this franchise that you’ve been building up with this universe of characters with very familiar faces? How has that been for you to shepherd this project all these decades?

Surge of Power Revenge of the Sequel Poster

Vincent J. Roth: I’m loving it. I’m really glad with where things are. It’s very nice for those actors who come back and are playing recurring roles. With Revenge of the Sequel you saw that we were starting to to build out the Surge of Power universe. The first movie was the origin story, so it was a smaller group. From Revenge of the Sequel, we then further built out the universe.

We did a short film, our Doctor Who tribute, which had a whole bunch of Doctor Who actors, but it was still linked to the Surge of Power universe. A few of the actors came back for little cameos to link it to the larger Surge of Power storyline.

Surge of Dawn, with Special Guest Star, Nichelle Nichols

Then there was Surge of Dawn, which was crossover between the Surge of Power world and a colleague of mine out of New York, Alex Fernandez, who has a number of his own projects web, mostly web series and short films with this magical vampire named Dawn. He’s had a couple of web series and comic books. We called that Surge of Dawn. And Where There’s Smoke is the latest feature and it is where a full team is coming together. As you mentioned, a number of returning characters.

A Growing Cast of Characters

Nichelle Nichols has been playing a character named Omen in our movies for 20 years now and even though her health was failing, we were very fortunate to shoot with her before she passed away, and we have enough footage of Nichelle that she’ll actually be in one more adventure after this. This movie actually has a really nice tribute for Nichelle. She’s in every Surge of Power movie.

In our sequel, we introduced a few characters. Michael Gray, who’s from the Shazam TV show, he played Billy Batson. In our movie he starts off as looking like a mild-mannered reporter, but over time is revealed to be friends with Omen and he shows superpowers for the first time Where There’s Smoke. In the next movie, he actually gets a costume. His costume is being worked on now.

Adam Pope: There are so many Star Trek cast members. You have Robert Picardo and Tim Russ. You have these people that you’re like, “Oh, wow”.

Vincent J. Roth: I’m glad you’re “Oh Wowing” it. So Robert Picardo came in during the sequel to share the Omen role with Nichelle. Because of her health, it was just too difficult to try and get her to downtown LA and out on the streets and fighting. So he’s kind of the more action Omen. One of her abilities that she reveals is shape-shifting. So it was easy to have another actor, step in. It’s kind of a convenient technique, too.

Expanding the Cast and Crossovers

Adam Pope: You have these returning characters, as this team is coming together. You also have a new crossover into the universe, which is the The Smoke played by Eric Moran. That was exciting for me because I go to RetroCon every year in Oaks, PA. It’s a great event and Eric is always there doing the cosplay contest. His outfits are out of this world amazing. So when I saw that he was going to be a part of this, I became doubly excited. How did you get together and have him become a part of the Surge of Power universe?

Vincent J. Roth: I met him when Revenge of the Sequel was playing. We did East Coast and West Coast premieres the same weekend. So we premiered at Burbank International Film Festival on the West coast and then the next day, I flew to the East coast and a small sci-fi convention in Florida.

Eric had gone down for that, and some colleagues had introduced him to me, and I had heard about his character The Smoke. We had talked ahead of time because I was looking for other independent characters to come and cross over. So he actually has a short, little 10 second cameo at the end of Revenge of the Sequel. I met him for the first time when I went to this Florida comic convention and over time as we were playing Revenge of the Sequel and working on Surge of Dawn, I talked with him about his character, The Smoke.

From his professional wrestling days, he went by the moniker The Smoke, but he kept that and in the sci-fi realm, colleagues of his made him a comic book character called The Smoke that had a couple of different incarnations. We kind of settled in on this gun-toting vigilante, a Punisher kind of character, but also has the ability to turn into gas, hence, The Smoke. I talked with him about him crossing over, so Where There’s Smoke is, essentially us continuing to build our indie hero-verse, and just linking up our world with other independent creator worlds, just to make a bigger universe.

This was really exciting for Eric, because he’s been in comic book form, but this is his first time stepping out in live action as his character. When he finished up with wrestling, he went into acting. So he’s been acting, but this is his first time stepping out in live action as this incarnation of his The Smoke character.

The Effects Get Better Every Time

Adam Pope: Another thing always amazes me with these films? In each installment, the special effects get better. I remember being wowed in revenge of the Sequel when the car transforms and you have a robot character. I saw in the trailer for Where’s There’s Smoke that the robot character is coming back as well. So how do you feel about that? The evolution and that ability to what you could do now with special effects all these years later?

Vincent J. Roth: After 20 years it’s quite a change. The first movie was shot 35 millimeter film, Surge of Power: The Stuff of Heroes, and the visual effects were limited. They were very nice for that time, but used very judiciously. So Surge doesn’t blast a lot and doesn’t fly a lot, but enough so that people can see the powers in action. But it was a big process because it was shot on film. So then there’s a reprocessing of the film negative multiple times to get the visual effects cut into the film.

By the time we got to Revenge of the Sequel, it was all digital, so we’ve been digital ever since. That was really pushed by George Lucas, right? The Prequel trilogy of Star Wars really kind of forced the industry to all go digital. But we’ve had some visual effects designers with us since Revenge of the Sequel. Some of them have been with us close to 15 years now, and their skills have evolved over the years. So not only have techniques and software developed, but getting the same visual effects done is cheaper these days and their skills, their design work has gotten better and better.

Representation and Legacy with Surge of Power

Adam Pope: So, I have one more question. When Surge of Power is first coming out, the character’s promoted as “The first out gay superhero”. That was a part of the appeal. Is that as big a part of the character now? Or is it more just established to where you don’t have to have that label on it?

Surge of Power, directed by Vincent Roth

Vincent J. Roth: When I did the first film, comedy was one thing that I wanted to do. Kind of bring back comedy to the superhero genre, and then Marvel comes along with Deadpool, and several years later, DC comes along with the Shazam! movies, trying to get into the action, but at least I’m still running with “cinema’s first out gay superhero”, so no one can beat me on that.

That was something that I felt was lacking and I wanted that representation, but it’s not like the central theme of the character or the movies. It’s there and it’s part of the character and I do try and do things that show that I’m honoring the representation, but it’s not what the movie is about. So it’s not a movie about a gay superhero, it’s a movie about superheroes, and one character happens to be gay. It’s not that in your face about it, but just kind of there and is open about it.

Adam Pope: So it’s a superhero adventure, and that’s just an element of it that exists. Now you’re teasing us that there’s going to be a fourth full length film. How is that shaping up?

Vincent J. Roth: So the next adventure will be kind of like our “Surge: End Game”. With Where There’s Smoke we’ve been building on themes and building out our universe and bringing these characters together to the point where we get to a whole team. We started to learn about the villains in Revenge of the Sequel, that there’s this whole community of villains. We’ve developed that with Surge of Dawn and Where There’s Smoke, that there’s something bigger going on and that needs to be dealt with.

Looking Ahead: Call of the Champions

It’s like when you watch web series these days. There might be a 10 episode arc and each episode has its own story, but there’s an overarching theme that they’re that they have to wrap up by the end. So that’s where I’m headed with the next adventure. Surge of Dawn, you can think of as Act One, and Where There’s Smoke is Act Two, as it picks up immediately after Surge of Dawn, just hours later. The next adventure will play like its own movie, but it’s really going to be meant to connect and wrap around Surge of Dawn and Where There’s Smoke to be one larger feature film called Call of the Champions.

Adam Pope: OK, so big things on the horizon. Where can people see the film?

Vincent J. Roth: We’re still working on film festival screenings for Where There’s Smoke and we’ve been winning a lot of awards too. In fact, another award just came in today, so I’ve got five awards now so far for the movie, one of them being Best Visual Effects. So I’m eally excited about that. So we’re going to continue screening the film, so if folks don’t make it to these next two upcoming screenings they can just pay attention to our website at surgeofpower.org and as we get new screenings for Where There’s Smoke, we’ll be putting them up on our website.

Next: Discuss Surge of Power and Where There’s Smoke on our Film Forum.

Vincent J. Roth, Director of Surge of Power: Where There’s Smoke Interview Read More »

Todd McIntosh, Famous Film and TV Make-up Artist

Todd McIntosh Spills Makeup Secrets from Buffy and Beyond

Todd McIntosh is a veteran make-up artist of the entertainment industry who has worked on classic horror films of the 80’s like April Fool’s Day and supernatural TV favorites like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, among many more. PopGeeks had the opportunity to discuss some of the highlights of his 40+ year film and TV career and even get some make-up effects tips. You can view the video version of the conversation here:

Todd McIntosh Makeup Secrets from Buffy and Beyond #MakeupArtist #Hollywood #buffythevampireslayer

Adam Pope: How did you get fascinated with movie make-up and decide to pursue that as a career?

Todd McIntosh: Well, that goes back a long way. When I was about seven years old, there was a daytime soap opera called Dark Shadows and I was absolutely brain fried by all the witches and the werewolves and vampires. Of course, the vampire was the lead. But not only that, the absolutely beautiful Angelique, the stately woman that ran Collinwood. All of those together fascinated me, and I realized you could change people’s looks. That’s what my parents explained to me. That sparked a fire that never stopped.

I was using my mother’s eyebrow pencil to draw in lines at 6. But when I got to about age 12, I joined the local theater. Someone there gave me a book on make-up. So it was: go to school, do your homework, sit in front of a mirror and do make-up. I practiced and studied and practiced. There were no make-up schools at that time. By the time I was 17, I was at a TV studio in Vancouver, the CBC Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. After that, I was teaching make-up at Blanche Macdonald [beauty school] and working on whatever non-union stuff. Then I met Mike Westmore, he was doing Clan of the Cave Bear and that got me in the union. I became a union make-up artist in Vancouver and Chairman of the make-up department. Then at 30 I decided to pick up my birthright and moved to L.A..

Adam Pope: Speaking of which, I’m a child of the 80s, so I absolutely have to ask you about your experience working for Cannon films on the 1987 live action Masters of the Universe movie, for which you were a make-up department head. What can you tell us about Billy Barty’s Gwildor and Frank Langela’s Skeletor or Dolph Lundgren’s mullet? What are your recollections of that production?

Todd McIntosh, Make-up Department Head on Masters of the Universe

Todd McIntosh: That was a pretty chaotic production. At that time, a union make-up artist couldn’t be a department head on a non-union show, so Mike Westmore was the designer and ultimate figurehead on that. He built everything and I was his surrogate on the show. So I did everything. I ran the department, and he kept supplying me with pieces. It was my first time in L.A., my first time on that big of a show. There was a lot going on.

As you know, everybody’s a character. Gwildor was very funny, but I don’t think it was Coca-Cola in that can he was drinking from, that’s all I’ll say. There was Beast Man, who didn’t really understand how to take care of the prosthetics. So at lunch he was eating barbecue spare ribs and after lunch, I had to clean all of that out of this jaw that was hanging off. I can’t smell barbecue sauce to this day. That was enough for me. There’s all kinds of little stories like that.

Frank didn’t really want to be in that heavy a make-up. So there was a lot of testing back and forth to see how little we could put on him and get away with and he looked like Casper, the Friendly Ghost. It was silly. So we went with the final Skeletor that you see.

But I did learn probably one of the best lessons from Mike Westmore about doing monster make-ups. Especially in the 1980’s, because everybody was doing this, your first inclination is to paint dark all around the eyes, and that turns a beautiful make-up into a mask. You’ve got to find another way of drawing attention to the eyes without going completely “Spot the dog” around them. So that was a really valuable lesson that I learned.

Adam Pope: That’s fascinating. Were you involved on the pre-production side? Were there very many permutations of the Gwildor make-up? Do you remember if there were very many changes, or did they have that look from the beginning?

Todd McIntosh: No, all the characters were drawn by the production artist, and those drawings were given to Mike, and they wanted it exact.

On Gwildor, of course, because the lips and the nose are so far out, he couldn’t breathe. So we ended up on every single appliance, taking a hot soldering iron and burning through it to make these holes through which he could breathe. So there were always adjustments. Anytime a prosthetic doesn’t really line up with the person’s natural features, you’ve got to make adjustments somehow.

Adam Pope: Now a very well known show that you became involved in the 90’s was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that TV series. You were the make-up supervisor. I am curious, did you enjoy working on a show with so many vampires and werewolves and assorted demons?

Todd McIntosh: Well, when, when it came along, I looked at it and said, “This is my Dark Shadows. This is my chance to do that.” And it had a lot of the same elements to it, but upgraded, and I treated it like that. This was my ultimate moment. I knew this was the thing I wanted to do the most, and I worked as hard as I could on it.

The prosthetics were provided by John Vulich of Optic Nerve, and they were exquisite. I never want to take away credit from them, because people don’t understand that I didn’t build all of that, I put it on. I can build all of that, but I did not, Vulich did. It was just a roller coaster. 15 hours a day, five days a week. We called it “Buffy the Weekend Slayer”. We would work all night, Friday to sunrise, Saturday morning, which, of course, destroyed your weekend.

Adam Pope: We are in the season of horror films and one of your other earlier jobs was on the film April Fool’s Day. Friday The 13th was a game changer in terms of make-up effects and Frank Mancuso, Jr. was producing April Fool’s Day. So I was just curious, did you have any any type pressure like, “Okay, well, we got to do something really good for this one.” Do you have any particular memories of that shoot?

Todd McIntosh: Sadly, I was still living in Vancouver at that time, and I was hired to be the department head, and I wanted to do the prosthetics, but someone decided they needed to bring someone from L.A. to do that. So I never had anything to do with that. I did all the beauty make-ups and whatever blood splatter you see and stuff like that. But I was all about the beauty on that one, of course.

Adam Pope: Speaking of blood splatter, this is the time of year that we like to see the streets run red with fun fake blood. Can you give us your personal fake blood recipe, something that’ll look good on camera or at least in a photo?

Todd McIntosh: Dick Smith published his blood recipe, so they’re floating around all over the place. But generally you need something of the right texture, right? So that’s Karo syrup. That’s probably the best way to start and it’s edible.

Then you’re going to need to be layering your colors in. So that takes a little bit more of an artist’s eye. Once you’ve added the red, and you’ve got it red enough, you’ve got to find the variation. Most of the time it looks like Kool Aid. So what’s the opposite of red on the color wheel? That’s green. So you put a few drops of green in and it grays it down, so it’s starting to look like what you want.

But if you were to prick yourself and compare that to the blood, you would see there’s a lot of yellow in there as well. So then you have to start tapping yellow in and sometimes you get mud, and sometimes you get just exactly the right tone. There is a product called caramel food coloring, and I use that a lot because it’s a deep, rich brown to start out with. So you use that as a base, and you add reds to it, and you come up to the tone that you want.

The other problem is that now you’ve got something translucent. So, you need to make it opaque somehow, and that’s a little trickier. The way Dick Smith did it was with talc, and that works. I think he used zinc oxide at some point. But both those things make it inedible. So you have to be aware of that. Personally, there’s 1,000 companies with bloods out there. I would just go and buy one that you like.

We want to thank Todd McIntosh for sharing his stories. Thanks for giving us that insider information on the world of make-up in film and on TV and everywhere else. Todd also made an appearance on Juliet Landau’s Buffy Rewatch Podcast, Slayin’ It. Follow Todd McIntosh on Instagram and view all of his IMDB credits

Discuss Hollywood Make-up Artist, Todd McIntosh on our Film Forum.

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Full Moon 400: An Interview With Charles Band, Director of Quadrant, Church of Chills Announced

Rebuilding the Church for Death Streamer Charles Band is legend in the world of direct to video film and entertainment. To list his credits would fill all the pages of this piece. But just to remind you of his body of work, this writer/producer/director has brought the world film series such as Puppet Master. As well as Trancers, The Gingerdead Man, Evil Bong and so many more through his Full Moon Entertainment studio. Most recently, he has directed Quadrant. This is the first movie released through his Pulp Noir film label, which marks his 400th film release.

Adam Pope: I got a chance to watch Quadrant, and I reviewed it for our site (read that review here). So many movie fans like myself, especially those of us who grew up in the age of the video rental store, we have a special place in our hearts for Full Moon Features, right? But with so much success under your belt, such a volume, 400 films, it feels like a lot of people would have maybe just stepped back to say, “I’m just going to be the producer now let other people work behind the camera.” So what motivated you to direct a film like Quadrant?

Charles Band Reflects on 400 Films and the Release of Quadrant | Five-Minute Film Freak

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Why Charles Band Chooses to Continue to Direct

Charles Band: Pulp Noir is definitely exciting. I’ve actually shot the second movie called Death Streamer, which will be out in October, and they both turned out super well. I’m excited to do darker, creepier, bloodier movies. I don’t want to step back until I’m forced to, by end of life.

I enjoy what I do and, yeah, I’ve done it for a long time. Sometimes I feel like I’m the puppet and someone else is sort of pulling the strings. Like, “Keep making movies, Charlie”. As a matter of fact, I wrote a book a few years ago that did quite well, published by Harper Collins, called Confessions of a Puppet Master, and it ended where I stopped telling my story around the beginning of COVID and so much has happened since then.

I’ve gone back with the biographer, and we’re halfway through a new book called Horror Puppet, which is exactly how I feel these days. Sometimes it’s like, Okay, now what? But I love the process and I wanted to go back to movies I’ve made, like From Beyond and Dolls and Castle Freak, you know? Just darker, edgier films.

I had a long stretch of making some lighthearted weirdo movies like Evil Bong. I made nine of those Gingerdead Man movies. Those are fun. And that was sort of the mood I was in. I mean, we did make Baby Oopsie. We made more Puppet Master movies. We didn’t abandon what Full Moon is known for, but it’s been a long stretch since I’ve made a real edgy movie. And I’ve had this idea doing these Pulp Noir movies for some time, and I figured, even though it’s a Full Moon release, let me kind of put them in this Pulp Noir bracket.

The Vision Behind Pulp Noir

Confessions of a Puppet Master - Charles Band

Back in those days, the great direct to video days, you couldn’t release anything in black and white, they would think you’re nuts. Blockbuster would say, “No Charlie, we’re not stocking a black and white movie.” But Trancers, as an example, was conceived as a black and white movie. And I actually have a black and white version, which one day we’ll release. But, yeah, so Pulp Noir is looking really good. What did you think of Quadrant? You saw it.

Exploring Virtual Reality and Dark Fantasies in Quadrant

Adam Pope: Yeah, I liked it. It has a small cast, but a very committed group of characters, especially, this Erin character is something new. That’s what I was interested to talk about. Because Quadrant has a very virtual reality based focus, and you that back in the day with Arcade (the 1993 Full moon film). That’s an area that you stepped in before.

But now virtual reality is truly becoming a reality for the everyday person. Are you using virtual reality in Quadrant as a springboard for shocking, but thoughtful storytelling? Or do you have a legitimate concern of how virtual reality could enable darker tendencies, like those of the Erin character in the film?

Charles Band: First of all. Thanks for saying all that. I think the cast is terrific, and I think people are more into smaller character driven, clever stories than the $200 million like, “let’s just have 8 million special effects for over two hours and just numb your brain and you forget who the people are.” So I’m happy with the performances. I think the gal, Shannon Barnes, who played Erin, is fantastic and has all sorts of shades.

How Virtual Reality Reflects Modern Technological Concerns

Charles Band: Regarding virtual reality. No. Every time there’s new technology, the world’s coming to an end. When the telephone came out, people thought that would end all polite society. And it never does. I mean, we can make the case that the internet and cell phones has shifted things enormously, but there’s been a lot of good as well. [Holds up a smart phone] This is beyond Star Trek.

When I used to watch Star Trek as a younger man, I thought, “God, wouldn’t it be cool to have a device where you can communicate?” This device is 50 times better. I mean, you have a world of knowledge, anything you want out of this device. The only bummer is, you can’t get beamed anywhere yet. We’re not there yet, but I you know that’s going to come one day. There’ll be some way you’ll get zapped like a fax somewhere else. But returning to virtual reality.

The Return of Edgier Storytelling

Charles Band: Quadrant is a totally character driven story. And yes, when they’re in this Quadrant helmet that’s created as a medical device, our gal [Erin] uses it more as a thrill ride. Next thing you know, she’s inspired to do really bad things and sometimes topless. I’m sorry, but it makes sense. There is some history and there’s a controversy as to whether or not Jack The Ripper was a woman or not. There’s all sorts of theories now and we’ll see if anyone can ever figure it out.

But we did some historical things that were cool, like the first scene where she enters this virtual reality. Which, by the way, was created with the combination of AI and some CGI. Some people said, “Oh Charlie, you hate CGI. And what’s the deal with AI?” Well. if you tell a story about someone wearing this virtual reality helmet and goes into this virtual landscape, what tools can you use to create something that looks different?

if I had all the money in the world and someone said, “Let’s build London circa 1880 and make it perfect.” Well, that that’s not what you would expect to see in a virtual environment. So I think we did a pretty good job there. Now, again, there’s only a few minutes in the whole movie where she or the other character are in the in the virtual world. Otherwise, 90 odd percent of the movie is in the real world, and there’s no trickery, there’s no CGI. It’s a tale of science gone wrong, maybe. So I’m proud of it, and I’m proud of the way we use the technology.

Death Streamer: A Modern Twist on Vampires

Charles Band: Now the second movie, which I’m also incredibly excited about will be out in October, is called Death Streamer. And once again, I’ve taken a sort of a classic vampire tale and put a new spin on it. Without spoiling anything, Death Streamers is about a decadent vampire who, for reasons, has managed to come back into this mansion that he owned, but was away for a while gathering the wicked forces.

He’s in this mansion and has these opulent and decadent parties where he takes these girls down to the kill room, but when he kills them, he live streams their deaths while wearing these video glasses. And there’s a reason for that in the story arc, again, it’s character driven. I think we created a vibe that I hope will be credible for people who are thinking, “Okay, so this is a vampire, obviously hungry for blood, looking through these glasses that also live stream their deaths.”

Meta and Ray-Ban’s Glasses Inspire Death Streamer

I wrote the story, not the script. What’s cool about it, is that this was inspired when about eight, nine months ago, I read that there was a joint venture between Meta and Ray-Ban, and they were coming out with these sunglasses, where you could push a button and live stream in 4k whatever you’re looking at.

So being a bit of a technology freak, I go, “I need these glasses right away.” And they came, and I put them on and you can record up to a minute or you can live stream until the battery dies. But then I went to a mirror, and that’s when it freaked me out, because you’re wearing these glasses, you’re seeing yourself in the mirror. There’s no camera. The camera is a tiny little thing in the glasses. I thought there’s got to be a movie in this. And that’s why I invented the idea of the live stream vampire story.

Filming in Historic Cleveland Locations

Another really cool thing, which no one knows about. You’ll be the first here, because I just decided, literally yesterday to do this…In order to make Death Streamer, one of the two sets that were required was a decadent old church, and there’s a reason for that. Sometimes the way things happen in my life are kind of crazy.

So we’re in Cleveland, where we have a great time making some of our movies and I bought years ago, what was essentially a mansion, but it was a wreck in a really nice part of town. My idea there was, “Let me reuse this huge house that was formerly spectacular, as a living, breathing movie set.” So I did just that. We painted different rooms.

We shot about 10 movies there. Actors would come stay in part of the house and go downstairs to the set and shoot. The Director of Photography or the effects guys, can stay there and then go out to various locations. We shot Baby Oopsie there. We shot a whole bunch of movies there. Then little by little, we restored the house and saw that because Cleveland is so cool with great locations, let’s now make the house beautiful the way it was 120 years ago at the turn of the last century.

Finding the Church for Death Streamer

So as I’m trying to conceive this idea of Death Streamer, I figured, I may as well use part of the house that we made look beautiful, as the decadent home of the Vampire, so at least I get some last use out of the house, including a huge 4,000 square foot basement. But the other location that I needed, which is not so easily found, is an old decadent church.

And just by unbelievable good timing and good luck, I have some real estate guys who had helped me buy the house and other things in Cleveland and I said to them, “We need a warehouse to build sets in and stuff. If you can find a relatively inexpensive warehouse, maybe 5 to 10,000 square feet, let’s check it out.”

So I fly there now I’m already kind of conceiving this idea for Death Streamer. I arrive and they say, “We have some warehouses, but something came on the market that’s fantastic. That may work just as well as a warehouse.” And I said, “What is that? And she said, “It’s a a church built in 1890” and I thought, “What?”

Transforming a Rundown Church into a Movie Location

Cleveland has a lot of churches. Some of them were in such a state of disrepair that they’ve been torn down. This one is kind of on the verge. No one’s been in it for probably 5 to 10 years. It’s a big fixer upper. When it rains, it rains in the church, it’s a mess. But right away I’m thinking, “God, that sounds perfect for my movie. Let’s go check the church out!” So I get there, and I walk in and I’m just in love with this place. I think, “I could build sets in here. It’s the perfect location for the movie.”

The price was kind of right, so I brought my guy who’s been helpful for years and he fixed up the the mansion that we all hang in. I said, Steve, “what do you think?” and he said, “This is a disaster. This is what the roof alone will cost. This will cost that.’ And the more he told me it was not going to work, the more I was totally into doing it.

So I managed to buy the church in short order. In a matter of weeks we got some amazing people to come and and kind of rebuild the roof so it wouldn’t be raining in the church. And literally, a week later, I’m there shooting Death Streamer.

But now what’s happened is that I shot the movie, continued to clean up the church, but it’s still a wreck. It looks like a total haunted church. There’s rafters, we discovered a couple secret passageways. It’s a wood and ornate stone exterior. I mean, if you wanted to set for a haunted church, if that was what your movie was about, you wouldn’t have to do much. Just bring in the actors.

Announcing Charles Band’s Church of Chills Event

So I was there a week ago, and I thought maybe what I should do, just for the fun of it, an event there just before Halloween. And the event would be sort of a reduced road show. I used to go on the road and do a crazy act and cut heads off and bring people up on stage and inspire girls to take their tops off. It was a like a demented Ozzfest. I would premiere Death Streamer, which was shot mainly at the church, I would have celebrity guests. Basically make it a four hour crazy event and charge whatever. It’d be very intimate, because the church only seats a little under 200 people. It’s not huge.

So I literally am announcing that today or tomorrow. It’s called, Charles Band’s Church of Chills and it’ll be celebrity guests, giveaways, the road show and the premiere of Death Streamer. That’s the 26th of Octobe, the Saturday before Halloween. So it’ll people actually can come to the church if you’re in Cleveland, and we’re going to do some sort of live virtual things, so you’ll be able to access it online too, because it’s, it’s so fun, and I don’t want people to feel like crap. I’m, you know, I’m in Montana, I can’t get to Cleveland so easily.

Adam Pope: You’ve always got something new in the chamber.

Charles Band: The minute you slow down, it’s like The Picture of Dorian Gray. That’s it. It’s over. You know?

Looking Back on 400 Films

Adam Pope: As we close out here, I just want to step back. We’re looking forward, but I would love to look back very quickly. With 400 films to your name and with the the Full Moon catalog, you’ve had some wild productions. I’m talking like Shrunken Heads, or Head of the Family. Apparently “head” movies stick out to me. But what do you you consider the most outrageous or bizarre movie that you’ve brought into the world?

Charles Band: Well, I’ve never followed a trend, sometimes to my detriment. When slasher movies were the thing, where you made a decent one with a good title and you made money, I had people who were my buyers at Blockbuster Video or Hollywood Video saying, “Make a Friday The 13th type movie. Make of this, make that. And I just thought, “Why? Everyone else are making those movies? I want to make movies that are unique, that hopefully stand the test of time, and don’t want to jump into these trends.” So a lot of my movies are definitely different and weird.

The Uniqueness of Head of the Family

I mean, Head of the Family, which was one of my favorites. That could have been shot a year ago. It doesn’t follow a trend. It’s sort of a timeless bizarre story. No one can say, “Oh, everyone was into the big head movies and you made one?” Well, no one has made one! And no one’s made one since! And I do plan to make Bride of the Head of the Family. I’ve been dedicated to doing that for the last 20 years.

But I’m proud of the ones that have been done so well, that we made a number of them, going back to Ghoulies and then of course, movies like Puppet Master. We’re going to be making our 13th Puppet Master next year, Puppet Master: Leech Woman. That’s definitely going to happen. The Demonic Toys series, the Trancers series and let’s not forget, Evil Bong. I mean, I made nine of them over 20 years, and they’re fun.

You know, people enjoy them. They don’t pretend to be much more than what the title is. And nothing’s greater than a title that doesn’t even require a log line. You don’t need anything. “What’s that about, dude?” Evil Bong done. That’s the whole pitch. So, yeah, there’s so many movies, and I’ve numbered my movies.

Engaging Fans Through Patreon

One of the things I’ve also done only in the last two months that’s been really successful, is we started a Patreon program tied to Pulp Noir, where people can kind of go in behind the scenes and see how this whole thing happens. There are various tiers and the coolest tier, is called the Head of the Family tier. It’s the most expensive, most awesome tier, and it’s 250 bucks a month, or as long as you stick around. But what’s cool about it?

First, you get $100 gift card every month to our store. You get all sorts of crazy stuff and shirts and all the things you would imagine. But the coolest part is, you get an executive producer credit on every Pulp Noir movie, and that’s a real credit on screen and in IMDB. Then I’m able to, for those Head of the Family members, do things that I can’t do for everyone, but I’ll do for them.

They’re kind of like my posse of executive producers, and it helps, because the business sucks now. There’s nothing good about low budget, independent filmmaking. You know, we make these movie at a loss. There’s no profit in these films and we just hope it keeps the brand alive and we can sell merch. But gone are the days where you can make a small movie and actually make a profit. So that’s not going to happen until everything changes.

Behind the Scenes Access for Patreon Supporters

So the Head of the Family people, we’ve got about 50 of them now. It helps every month. It brings a little money in. And helps towards the budget. But the coolest thing that I can do as a filmmaker, other than obviously, the executive producer credit, is that I can be on set. I do this all the time, if I’m shooting a scene.

So let’s say there’s a scene in Quadrant where our gal seduces this other girl who she brings home, ultimately to kill her. She takes her top off and the other girl’s got her top off, and there’s this kind of romantic moment. The next thing you know, she’s killing and there’s blood everywhere.

So when I shoot a scene like that, I set the actors up. Get them all ready. Sit at my director’s chair. On my left I usually have my monitor, which shows what the camera is seeing. And on the right what I do is I take my iPhone and I hold it up. I push a button and I record what the monitor sees. So let’s say this scene is a minute. I record it, I stop it. I’ve been doing this for years.

Expanding Filmmaker-Fan Relationships with Exclusive Content

Now with Patreon I can in push one button and send that shot to all the Head of the Family members, and it’s in real time. These scenes are always fun and sometimes challenging to make, but there’s always funny shit. I mean, at the end, you can imagine both girls covered in blood, spitting out blood, boobies flying and I send that to the Head of the Family members and they’re really digging it.

If you do that enough, which I try to, then they’re also the very first to see the movie before it comes out to the public. So they can then see, “Oh, now I get how it all works.” So, that Head of the Family tier is super fun. You get a credit and it it does help us. Even though it’s not helping really finance a big part of the movie, still, you get enough people at $250 and it does contribute to the budget. More and more it’s a world about connecting. I mean, I’ve always connected with fans that from day one. So that’s Patreon.

Where to Watch Quadrant

Adam Pope: Thank you for sharing the excitement in your world.

Charles Band: Yeah, and people should check out Quadrant. A thing we did, unlike the usual model of first you come out on stream. Then people can rent it on Amazon and then a few months later it’s on Tubi for free and then a few months later if you’re lucky, you get it on on physical media.

What we did is, we released it across all platforms, all on the same day. You can get it on Amazon. It’s free on Tubi, you can buy it on Blu-Ray, VHS and DVD.

You can see it however you want to see it. And it’s been successful that way. I think people who watch a movie on Tubi, who don’t care about the commercials are not the same as our usual customer who is going to buy a Blu-Ray. Then the people on our streaming side, they’re probably not necessarily going to buy the physical copy or see it on Tubi. So I just figured, break tradition and just release these Pulp Noir movies all on the same day, on all media, all outlets, on the same day. So that’ll be the same for Death Streamer.

We want to thank Charles Band for his enthusiasm in sharing all of his current projects through Full Moon. You can find all the details on the Full Moon website here. Want to know what to expect when watching Quadrant? Read our Quadrant review here.

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From Star Trek’s Starfleet Academy to Space Cadet: Dr. Erin Macdonald’s Sci-Fi Journey

Meet Starfleet's Real-Life Science Expert 🚀 | Dr. Erin Macdonald Talks Star Trek & Space Cadet

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Dr. Erin Macdonald is a real live member of Starfleet. In addition to being featured on Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, currently streaming on Netflix, she is also a bona fide Astrophysicist, a distinction that puts her in demand as a science advisor for the entire Star Trek franchise and the film Space Cadet on Amazon Prime. This is all in addition to being a celebrated writer and film producer, who is is also appearing in person at Dragon Con 2024 and the Fort Collins Comic Con this August. What follows is my interview with Dr. Erin Macdonald, about her fascinating career.

Adam Pope: Are you the first person to portray yourself as a member of Starfleet in the Star Trek canon?

Erin Macdonald: Oh, that’s a good question, and you had a good qualifier there in that you said “in Starfleet”, because the only other person who’s ever portrayed themselves was Stephen Hawking, so like no pressure (laughs), but he was a hologram version of himself that Data had created to play poker with a bunch of physicists. But yeah, I’m playing myself as a professor at Starfleet Academy, which is honestly my dream job. So I’m good with that.

From Physics to Star Trek: A Journey of Exploration

Adam Pope: What would you say then? What is the biggest difference between Earthbound, Dr. Erin Macdonald and Starfleet officer, Lieutenant Commander, Dr. Erin Macdonald?

EM: I haven’t really thought about it, because for me, it’s all just me. I don’t know how I end up there. Maybe I’m a time traveler. Perhaps I’m plucked out. Maybe I’m a Q and I just don’t know it yet. But yeah, I guess it is funny, because when I was in grad school, I was like, “Oh, my God, my dream job would be a professor at Starfleet Academy. But I can’t do that, so I have to do something else.” So yeah, I guess I’m just a time traveler in the future, and I don’t know how to do that yet.

Adam Pope: What came first then for you? Was it a fascination with the science of the universe, or was it Star Trek fandom?

Erin Macdonald: I didn’t really get into Star Trek until I was studying my undergraduate degree, and the joke I always like to say is like the Venn diagram of Star Trek fans and physics majors is pretty strong. So I it was inevitably exposed to Star Trek, but I was already interested in space and physics and had that love from other media like The X-Files or Contact and all that other stuff.

But when I was in graduate school I was really just deep diving and watching Star Trek all the time. That’s when I started kind of putting those pieces together where, you know, I was doing my PhD in general relativity and procrastinating my dissertation, and I was like, “I bet I could figure out how warp drive actually works.” So that’s where I sort of started diving into the science behind Star Trek and just went from there.

The Importance of Space Exploration

Adam Pope: Your career has quite had quite an emphasis on education, creating an appreciation for and understanding of astrophysics among the general populace. You even wrote a Star Trek: My First Book of Space for babies. So you’re starting them young. But for you personally, what is it about the universe that you would say we’re taking for granted here on Earth? What warrants further study by the average joe?

Erin Macdonald: That’s I love that. For me, we never lose that sense of wonder when it comes to space. I think that’s something that we all still stand in awe of. I was fortunate enough to be able to see the total solar eclipse this past year, and just seeing all of these people like caravanning down to the path of totality was just an amazing thing to see.

What we take for granted is when it comes to the dollars and cents of space, not travel, necessarily, but just learning more about our universe, these programs are really expensive. Sending a probe to Europa to see if there could be microbial life is a long, expensive process.

Many times, I think the public will go like, “Why are we spending that money? We have so much else we need to worry about, so much else here on earth we should be spending our money on.”

Really though, we have to remember that space is so hard and so difficult and presents us with so many challenges that that money, that investment, is not just what we could learn, which in itself is grand, but it also can be invested in many other things. It’s just unknowns that we aren’t sure how that could impact our society, but it’s worth the risk to me. So I just think we should be throwing more money at space exploration and taking on those risks and those long projects, because you never know what could come out of that,

Adam Pope: In that vein, are black holes as cool as a lot of science fiction entertainment makes them out to be? Or is there a more interesting phenomenon we are overlooking?

Erin Macdonald: Oh, well, I do think black holes are just objectively awesome. I think the biggest misunderstanding with black holes is that they’re not sucking material in. We always talk about them as black holes or, you know, sucking in stuff. They’re not going around “Hoovering up” galaxies and stuff. But they are deep gravitational wells. For me, it is my favorite science word of all time, which is “spaghettification”, which is what would happen to you as you fall into a black hole. You just get “spaghettified” because of the gravity gradient. I mean, there’s so much cool stuff out there, but black holes kind of continue to take the cake.

Adam Pope: You have multiple pop culture convention appearances scheduled this year, and you’ve made a lot of appearances on panels and things like that. So what is your favorite thing about the convention experience and do you have a pet peeve of something you’ve experienced?

Erin Macdonald: When I first started going to Star Trek conventions, even before I was associated with the franchise, I was giving science talks like “Physics of Star Trek” and I was having overwhelming stress. Dreams about being “Well, actually’d”, by the audience. Like, “Well, in episode 12 of season four of the next generation they said this…”, and that could not be further from the truth. I found that as I go to conventions, Star Trek fans, love to get into the minutia of stuff, but they’re mostly just excited to be around other people that when they say, “In episode 12 of season four…”, people are like, “Oh yeah, that episode!” So I love that atmosphere.

I love that it’s like a safe place for people, that people can just fully express themselves and being a nerd myself, I get to geek out at these conventions as well. So, yeah, I absolutely love it. I love interacting with the public. The only pet peeve is just that I don’t have enough time to answer all the questions that people have for me.

Adam Pope: And what is the most common question right now? Do people try to get into “Tell me about Prodigy. Tell me about your character.” Or are they asking about the secrets of the universe? What do people want to know? What are they most curious about?

Erin Macdonald: Well, other than, “Can I get information about future Star Trek series out of you?” I think the most common question is, honestly like, “What technology does Star Trek have that we could possibly have in the future?” And a lot of it we already have, even if you go back to 1966. Things like flip phones or video conferencing, all of this is just standard use now, if not already dated. But unfortunately, the biggest one I get asked about is a transporter and physics says “No” for now.

Official Trailer | Star Trek: Prodigy - Season 2 | StarTrek.com

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Adam Pope: At this point, since you’ve been so ingrained in the universe, on screen and behind the scenes, what’s been the biggest geek out moment for you? Was it contributing something? Was it meeting somebody?

Erin Macdonald: So it actually just happened recently. I had a wonderful moment with Jonathan Frakes when I was first hired, where he just kind of very graciously welcomed me to the Star Trek family, which was a really kind of big special moment.

But this year at San Diego Comic Con, they were doing a Star Trek: Prodigy panel, and I was lucky enough to actually get time to meet and speak with Kate Mulgrew beforehand, who played Captain Janeway, and she is MY captain. I have a huge Voyager tattoo on my arm. At the panel, she stopped for a second and she was like, “Can we just talk about how good the science is, and can we recognize our science advisor who’s here in the audience?” So MY captain took time out of a panel to recognize me at San Diego Comic Con, and that is the peak. Honestly.

Adam Pope: That’s amazing. Speaking of which, what is it that is your main focus when you’re trying to offer something to Star Trek? Whether you’re getting a script and you’re looking it over? How do you present it without saying, “Well, actually…”?

Erin Macdonald:I like to approach science advising with “yes and” attitude. Literally, this happens all the time. I’ll get an email like, “Hey, I read this cool article about some space phenomenon. Can we do that?” And instead of being like, “Oh, probably not”, I take the approach of like, “Heck, yeah. Let’s do it!” Let’s figure out how to do it.

These are the ways to talk about it. These are the important things you need to know, and this is the what you want to stay away from. Because really, fundamentally, my job, at the end of the day, if I don’t do anything else, is just make sure we don’t say something that’s explicitly wrong, and that’s the most important thing. But we can play with a lot of stuff.

Erin Macdonald: Star Trek has a lot of its own technology. It’s in the future. Who knows what we discover between now and then. So I do concede a lot of wiggle room. I try to be, you know, positive and improv a lot of approaches that we could take, but as long as we’re not explicitly breaking and saying something wrong when it comes to the science, that’s my number one job.

Space Cadet Promo Art - Erin Macdonald — #spaceacadetamazonprime

Beyond Star Trek: Exploring New Frontiers

Adam Pope: Stepping away from Star Trek a little bit. What can you tell us about Space Cadet on Amazon Prime? What’s is its focus? What are you doing there?

Erin Macdonald: It came out early July on Amazon Prime. The way I like to phrase it is that’s basically Legally Blonde goes to NASA, and it’s such a good example of the job of science advising and the complexity of it. Because it is a really fun kind of goofy film that’s PG-13. You can watch it with your family.

It’s pretty fun, but you have to realize, as the science advisor coming in, what tone they’re going for and so just being like, this is not The Martian, this is not Interstellar. We’re not going for hard sci-fi. Here, we are going for a comedy. So again, we’ll let a lot of stuff go. The main thing is just don’t say anything wrong. And just add some color to some of the scenes. When they have people who are experts talking, make sure that they are saying the right things. But other than that, have fun.

Encouraging Future Generations

Adam Pope: Well, as we close out here, let’s get back on the education side of things. For people who feel like they have an interest, but they’re like, “I could never conceive of this stuff. I want to know, but could I really understand?” What is your encouragement to people who are looking to learn more about astrophysics and things of that nature?

Erin Macdonald: You know, there’s lots of great resources out there. It’s just trying to find the right balance for your level. And I do think there’s so much that sometimes it can be overwhelming. Honestly, doing a quick Wikipedia search is probably one of the worst things you can do, because many scientists have written the science pages on Wikipedia, and they are heady and deep and hard to comprehend sometimes.

But exposing yourself to things like NPR Science Friday is really good. You know, space.com, Astronomy News, all of that will have really good headlines. You can get those things delivered. I think just starting to get a little bit more aware of what’s going on in the space industry, those are the places I would start with.

We want to thank Dr. Erin Macdonald for her time and remind you to watch her on Star Trek: Prodigy via Netflix. You can also watch a video version of this interview on the Popgeeks YouTube channel.

Discuss the this interview with Dr. Erin Macdonald and more on our Film Forum.

From Star Trek’s Starfleet Academy to Space Cadet: Dr. Erin Macdonald’s Sci-Fi Journey Read More »

THE flashback interview: deedee rescher

Hello, everybody. It’s Johnny Caps here. Before I introduce you to my newest interview subject, DeeDee Rescher, I want to address why it’s been over a year since I last published an interview, and over half-a-year since I last wrote anything for Pop Geeks. First, I took a break from doing interviews when the SAG-AFTRA strike went into effect. As my interviews cover the whole of a talent’s career, past, present and future, and none of those could be discussed, I stopped doing interviews in solidarity with the strike.

The SAG-AFTRA strike was resolved shortly after I attended the Chiller Theatre convention in October of 2023, the subject of my most recent Pop Geeks article. Unfortunately, just as I was about to resume sending out interview requests, and indeed had a few interviews in the works, my health took a bad turn in November of 2023, and kept getting worse until I had to go to the hospital near the beginning of January 2024, near septic with a diagnosis of diverticulitis that led me to be on a leave of absence from work for half-a-year and fully focused on healing.

I resumed doing interviews in July of 2024, first with Oscar-winning sound designer Karen Baker-Landers in an interview that will be published soon, and then with the subject of today’s interview, DeeDee Rescher. My first exposure to DeeDee’s work came when I saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in my school days. She was the bus driver at the end of the movie who gives Principal Rooney a ride, much to his chagrin. It was a small part, but as with all the parts of the movie, DeeDee made it memorable

As my 80s fandom progressed through the decades, I would see DeeDee in movies like Summer School and Skin Deep, her distinct voice making herself known in each role. I would become Facebook friends with her in 2020, and over the course of the next few years, we worked on trying to set up an interview, but life kept on happening in both good and bad ways. Thankfully, we were finally able to do an interview on July 30th, and this is the end result of that. I hope you all enjoy getting to know this versatile and courageous actress.

Say hello to DeeDee Rescher!

Johnny: Hello, DeeDee.

DeeDee: Hey, Johnny. Finally! (DeeDee and Johnny laugh)

Johnny: How are you?

DeeDee: I’m good. How are you doing?

Johnny: I’m doing well. First of all, thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to speak to me.

DeeDee: Of course. Sorry it took me so long.

Johnny: No, no. It’s okay. I understand. I mean, you’ve had your health issues. I’ve had mine. It’s been…a rollercoaster.

DeeDee: It sure has. I’m ready for it to end.

Johnny: Yeah, me too.

DeeDee: As they say in Disneyland, it’s a real E-ticket.

Johnny: Absolutely. Well, I have my questions here, and I’m ready to go, so let’s start with this: Your family’s entertainment industry roots go back to the silent era of film, so was being an entertainer in your blood, or did you initially have a different career goal in mind as a child?

DeeDee: It was never any questions about the fact that I was going to be in the entertainment industry in some manner. I was four years old was when I had my first performance onstage as a ballerina, and it just went on from there.

There was one time, when I was 12 or 13 years old, and I was a Candy Striper with some girlfriends of mine. We worked at a free hospital in The Bronx. It was a devastating experience, and that was the only time in my life that I questioned my career choice because I thought I wanted to help people, but I soon realized that I was entertaining the children at the hospital, and that was really what I was better at. There was no question what I was supposed to do.

Johnny: Alright. Your screen debut, playing Renee in the short film Could This Be Love, was also an early film for director Abel Ferrara. What are your favorite memories of this film?

DeeDee: Well, that was the first film I ever did. I moved from New York City to New Jersey. I was having breakfast with my boyfriend, and this guy came up to me and said, “Hey, would you like to be in a movie?”. (Laughing) It’s like one of those dreams come true for any actor. “Oh, my God! I just got noticed at my breakfast table, and now I’m going to do a film!” It was a lot of fun.

It was pretty risqué for those days because there were semi-nude scenes, and there was kissing of the same sex. It was one of those things where, in 1973, it was all really taboo, and I couldn’t tell anybody about it, but I had a blast. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot of things, and Abel was a cool guy, so it was all fun.

I was really surprised to see it show up on my IMDB site years and years later. I was like, “How did anybody find that film?” I don’t think I ever saw it, but at any rate, any experience is a good experience because every experience brings you closer to understanding the craft.

Johnny: I can see that. To go to TV, you shared scenes with the late Freddie Prinze in the Chico And The Man episode Chico Packs His Bag, where you played the character of Nurse Patty Villa. What do you recall the most about working with Freddie?

DeeDee: Well, it was just one week, one week a very long time ago. My memories are that he was absolutely lovely, as was Jack Albertson. My biggest memory was that I was slated to become Freddie Prinze’s next girlfriend, which would have changed my career dramatically, but two weeks after we filmed that episode, he killed himself. That kind of stands out in my mind as my memory of Chico and The Man. The world sadly lost a talented comedian and actor to depression, and on a much lesser scale of importance… I lost a career opportunity.

Johnny: Well, I’m glad working on the show was a good memory.

DeeDee: He was lovely. It was a really lovely experience, and I was surprised to know he was suffering from depression because I would never have guessed it.

Johnny: Well, on a lighter note, on your IMDB page, there are pictures of you with a troupe called the L.A Knockers. How did that group come together?

DeeDee: Well, that was one of my favorite experiences ever. The group was formed and founded by Jennifer Stace. Jennifer was the daughter of Walter Stace, who was a very famous philosopher, and best friends with Albert Einstein. As a matter of fact, Jennifer has an autobiography out called The Philosopher’s Daughter.

The philosopher, Walter, married a beautiful princess from Sri Lanka, and they had a baby, Jennifer, who happened to be a very rebellious young child. Being The Philosopher’s Daughter, and growing up in Princeton, living next door to Albert Einstein, it was very taboo, and Jennifer was a free spirit.

She was in love with dance, and through all of her training in jazz, she came up with her very own inimitable style, which was very much like the L.A Lockers, and that became the theme of this dance troupe. “You’ve heard of the group they call the Lockers. Well, we’re the girls, and we’ve got Knockers!” (DeeDee and Johnny laugh) That was the L.A Knockers, and I first saw them at The Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard. They were opening for Jay Leno, and I remember seeing them and saying, “Oh, my god! I would give ANYTHING to be in that group”.

Well, lo and behold, not long after that, I was at DuPree Dance Academy, just signing up for a regular jazz class, which was something I’d always done, and I saw the sign-up sheet next to it, and it said Jennifer Stace, The L.A Knockers. I quickly erased my name from the jazz class, and added it to the L.A Knockers sign up. Oh, my god! So exciting! I started out in the back row, and within a couple of weeks, I slowly moved my way up to the front row, and it was soon after that she asked if I would be interested in dancing with the LA Knockers. I just about flipped.

That was my beginning with the L.A Knockers. We were crazy, we were sexy. We were comedic. I only danced with them for about five years because I had my other career, which was television and stage work which was really popping then. I didn’t get to do a whole bunch with them, but what I did was so memorable in my life, and I became very dear friends with Jennifer. She unfortunately just died last year, but she was a remarkable woman, and the L.A Knockers are just legendary. That was a highpoint of my career.

Johnny: Definitely, and as we’ll discuss later in the interview, you’re still quite a dancer to this day, but for now, going back to screen work, you played Fatima in the Madame’s Place episode Barbra Streisand’s Nose. Madame’s Place was a very unique show, so what was it like to work on it?

DeeDee: The only memory I have is that I completely enjoyed myself. I forgot this question was on there (laughing). It was exciting to work on, and a lot of fun, and that’s my memory.

Johnny: Alright. Jumping back to the big screen, you were the Bus Driver in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. You’re the second cast member, after Stephanie Blake, from that movie that I’ve interviewed. As John Hughes tended to film hours of scenes that didn’t make it into the final cuts of his films, was your role initially bigger?

DeeDee: No. (Laughing) It was always the same size. That was also a lot of fun, and I’ll tell you a story about that.

When I first landed the role, I almost didn’t take it because, in the first place, there was very little pay, and in the second place, it was a very small part. At that time in my career, I was kind of turning down smaller roles, but I really needed the money for my medical insurance, so I thought, “Nobody is ever going to see this film”. Nobody knew who Matthew Broderick was. Nobody knew who John Hughes was. It was like, “Eh, I’ll just do this and no one will ever know”.

I remember it was in Long Beach. I actually live in Long Beach now, but at that time, I lived in L.A. I thought, “Oh, god, I’ve got to schlep to Long Beach”, so I schlepped to Long Beach, and not only did I have a fun day, but I learned to drive a bus. At the end of the day, I went up to John Hughes and said, “You know, John, if nothing ever comes of my career, I give you huge thanks because now I have a backup skill”. (DeeDee and Johnny laugh)

At any rate, of course, as it would turn out, it would become one of the biggest cult films of all time, and I am now known as the Bus Driver of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, so you never know what’s going to happen, folks! (Laughing)

Closing to a Rogers Premiere Theater airing of Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1987)

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Johnny: Indeed. So it sounds like you had good memories of John Hughes. I’ve interviewed several talents who have worked with him, talents like Liane Curtis and Larry Hankin, and opinions on him are mixed, so I’m glad you had a good experience.

DeeDee: Well, we didn’t have much to do together. I think the only question I asked him during my filming was, “Am I chewing my gum too much?”. (Laughing) He said, “No. No, you’re fine”, so I didn’t have much to do with him, but he seemed fine to me.

Johnny: Alright. Well, staying with cult classic Paramount comedies, you also appeared in Summer School. After the film’s ADR coordinator Leigh French, you’re the second talent from that film I’ve done an interview with…Technically, the third, actually, but the recorder didn’t pick up the audio when I interviewed Dean Cameron a few years back. Anyway, returning to you, what was your experience like working on Summer School?

DeeDee: Oh, it was a ton of fun. I mean, I got to spend, like, 14 hours at Chippendales, Oogling hot young men! It was fabulous (laughing). I had a good time. Mark Harmon and I have done a few things together, and I’ve done a few things with his wife, Pam Dawber, It was a really fun day. We got to ad-lib stuff. It wasn’t totally scripted for us so it was, all in all, a lot of perks and a lot of fun. To this day, I think it’s one of my sillier roles.

Johnny: But even sillier roles are important because, I guess, comedy is just important, especially in the times we’re in now.

DeeDee: Oh, yes. That’s for sure.

Summer School (7/10) Movie CLIP - Ladies Night (1987) HD

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Johnny: In 1989, you played Bernice is Skin Deep, an underrated comedy-drama from an underrated decade for film. What stood out the most to you about working on it?

DeeDee: Well, working with John Ritter was one of the great experiences of my life. I’m tearing up just talking about him. He was considerate, sensitive, real, and intelligent. The minute you met him, you felt you’d been friends with him all your life, so that was my greatest story, even though I have tons of stories from that movie. Also, working with Joel Brooks as my husband was a wonderful experience, and we became lifelong friends from that experience.

Also, being on that film was an amazing experience because of Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews. They invited us a few times to their mansion in Malibu where they screened films, and had dinners in their glass gazebo overlooking the sea. Julie was just a trip and a half in the very best sense. She had always been one of my icons, so to be able to have that experience was pretty remarkable. I also loved my character on that movie, so all in all, it was definitely a highlight in my career.

Johnny: Yeah, it was definitely a very enjoyable movie, as were all your 80s works,. I’ll always go to bat for the cinema of the 80s. A lot of people tend to trash the decade in comparison to what came before and after, but I’ll always go to bat for 80s movies because of how they helped me through dark times, and have continued to do so.

DeeDee: Yeah, I agree.

Johnny: But now, going into the 90s, you played Karen Hudson in the Roseanne episode One For The Road. Whether it’s the 80s, the 90s, or today, no matter what she’s believed in or who she’s supported, I’ve always sensed something of a cruelty to the actress Roseanne herself, so did she treat you well while filming?

DeeDee: No (laughing). It was a very memorable week. At the time, it was before she and Tom Arnold got married. They were planning their wedding, I think, and they were having some difficulties on my first day of shooting. I remember George Clooney was also around that day. He must have been doing a different episode.

I remember that Roseanne wasn’t coming in until the afternoon. We had all been called in to go to work early that morning, so I had nothing to do but sit around my dressing room, and that’s why I remember George Clooney because we ended up outside talking for quite a while.

I ended up going back to my dressing room and falling asleep, and all of a sudden, I got a knock on the door. It was the 2nd A.D saying, “They need you on the set”. Well, here I am. I’ve been completely out asleep. I’m sleepy-eyed and walking onto the set, and I hadn’t met Roseanne yet.

They just said, “Places!”. I didn’t have my script with me. I was bleary-eyed. I thought I knew the lines (laughing). I knock on the door, she opens the door, and I go blank. I can’t remember anything, except that it was one of the most horrific experiences of my life because I just didn’t know what to say. I looked at her, and I was already on the defensive because she had such a reputation.

I said, “Well, if you had come in this morning when you were supposed to come in, I was ready to do this “. (Laughing) I think I completely shocked Roseanne because I came at her before we even got to know each other, and I think it might have sparked just a tiny bit of respect on her part because after that, she was okay with me.

However later on, when I watched at the scene, they are shooting from her point of view, where she knew the camera was behind her, and for my whole speech, she is upstaging me by scratching her back (laughing). When I saw the scene, I thought, “Oh, my god, what a clever woman”.

Anyway, so it was not a pleasant week. Let’s put it that way. She really wasn’t very considerate to her fellow actors. Sorry about that, Roseanne, if you read this, but that’s the way I remember it.

Johnny: Well, that’s quite a story (DeeDee laughs). Jumping back to the big screen, you played a receptionist in the movie Midnight Ride. That movie was a Cannon film, albeit one made around the time Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus left. I’ve interviewed many Cannon Films veterans, and opinions on the studio have been mixed to negative, so what did you think of working for Cannon?

DeeDee: Oh Gosh! I remember doing that film…I think it was all a night shoot…Yikes…I wish I could remember exactly what it was I did in it! I’ll have to go and re watch it!

Johnny; Let’s go to a question that I know you’ll definitely have some good answers for…Pardon me. I tend to stumble over my words, part and parcel of being on the autism spectrum.

DeeDee: No worries.

Johnny: Oh, thank you. In the 90s, you started doing voiceover work. What led you to that field?

DeeDee: The pursuit of funds led to that work, and it’s just kind of mandatory for any actor to try and subsidize their income with something that is also creative and related to the business. I never made a big pile with my voiceover work, but it did help me through the lean times.

When you’re signed up to an agency, usually that agency is broken into three categories, Commercial, Voiceover and Theatrical. When you’re with an agency that covers all three of those divisions, you’re likely to be signed to all three of them. It doesn’t automatically happen that you become a voiceover contender. If you start getting work, then you become a voiceover talent, and you’re in the “pool” as they say… and one thing leads to another.

That’s how I started. I was with the William Morris Agency for all of their divisions, and then after moving on from there. I had a reputation as a voiceover actor, so it wasn’t difficult to keep myself in the game.

Johnny: Alright. You have a very distinctive voice, and I mean that in the best way possible, so how has your voice helped you?

DeeDee: Well, it’s helped me and it’s hindered me. It has helped me in the way it makes me recognizable. I have a lot of people saying to me, “I saw you on television the other night. I heard your voice, and I ran into the room”.

I’ve always had this voice, so I don’t know. I don’t even think about it. It puts me in a very character-y category, and so it cuts me off from a lot of the softer roles I’d love to play, but now that I’m grandmother age, I’ve kind of grown into my voice, so maybe things will open up in a different way for me now.

Every once in a while, you’ll go online, and there are lots of platforms that host people that say things about you. I can’t remember what forum it was that I went to, but I remember reading, “DeeDee Rescher has the most annoying voice in Hollywood”, and I remember just being absolutely shattered by that. I thought, “I’m not going to read this stuff anymore” (laughing).

Johnny: Well, like Andrew “Dice” Clay says, people are pricks.

DeeDee: (Laughing) Amen!

Johnny: A decent amount of your early voiceover credits were in Paramount projects, ranging from USA’s Duckman to Nickelodeon’s Aaahh! Real Monsters, Kablam!, and Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Was that a coincidence, or would you say Paramount was something of a home studio for your voice work in the 90s?

DeeDee: All of that was Paramount? Who knew? I think, though, that when you work for a company, like Disney, for example, which I work for a lot in television, once you have a good experience with them, and a good reputation, they will tend to use people over again. You become, in a sense, family with these companies.

Johnny: Okay. Going back to live-action work, throughout the 90s, you appeared on several episodes of The Nanny, using playing the character of Dotty, but occasionally playing other characters as well. What are your favorite memories of working on The Nanny, and what do you recall the most about Fran Drescher?

DeeDee: Well, working on The Nanny was always fun, and talk about a big family. They were just a big, happy, loving family, and I also thought the show was adorable. Fran Drescher? I love her!

It’s funny. Her last name is Drescher, and my last name is Rescher. She has this high, nasally voice. I’ve got this low, gravelly voice. When I first got cast in it, I think that’s what they were thinking about, “Oh, how funny it would be for Fran to have a friend who’s voice is the polar opposite.”

I did the pilot so I was in it from the beginning. I remember it was so wonderful seeing Fran and Peter embarking on what was their legacy. and I took pleasure to watch two wonderful people develop what had been their baby, their dream, and see it come true for them.

I remember one day in particular. I was with Fran, and we were sitting around the script table Fran had just brought this new gorgeous dress, and it was kind of rolled up in a ball in her purse. I thought, “Oh, my god! That’s got to be, like, a thousand-dollar dress, rolled up in a ball in her purse”.

I looked at it and said, “Wow, Fran, that’s beautiful”. She said, (imitating Fran’s voice) “Well, I guess I’ll have to be wearing things like this now”. (Back to DeeDee’s voice) I thought, “How fun is that?”, you know? You have this whole success story ahead of you. I don’t know if she’d remember the dress if I told her the story, but I remember it as being just a very sweet, happy moment.

Johnny: That’s wonderful to hear. Bridging the 90s and 00s, having previously played The Record Producer in the Friends episode The One Where Eddie Moves In, did Lisa Kudrow remembering you from that episode lead to your appearance as Donna Franklin in the Comeback episode Valerie Relaxes In Palm Springs?

DeeDee: No. I had to audition for The Comeback, and as a matter of fact, when I did The Comeback, I had to remind Lisa who I was. It didn’t lead to that, but oh, my gosh, I had fun on both projects.

I will say this, too, The Comeback is always a huge memory because …this is sad, my beautiful mother died while I was filming The Comeback, so for me, it was, as you can imagine an unforgettable experience.

Johnny: I see. To lighten the mood, pardon the turn of phrase…

DeeDee: Perfect.

Johnny: Just as you’ve done a decent amount of animation work with Paramount, as mentioned, you’ve done a decent amount of live-action work with Disney on sitcoms like Shake It Up, I Didn’t Do It, and Bunk’d. What’s the difference between working on a sitcom for kids, and a sitcom for adult audiences?

DeeDee: Well, it’s a big difference, but it depends on what shows. I’ve had some really good experiences on kid shows, and I’ve had some not real pleasant experiences on kid shows.

I think that some of what I’ve experienced that has not been pleasant has been on some of the shows where I come in a guest star, and the kids have never been coached in the practice of hospitality, if you will. They neglect to welcome you to their show and introduce themselves properly. It’s not that way with all the kids’ shows, but it’s happened to me more than once. I was always taught that you make a concerted effort to welcome all guests to your show and even tell them how much you enjoy their work…even if you’ve never seen anything they have done! (laughing) It’s an etiquette thing!

Now, on the other hand, there are shows like Bunk’d, which is completely opposite, and the kids are just fabulous and amazing. You feel like you belong the second you walk in, and they’re respectful. I do have one bad experience to share with you, although it’s not a kid kid show. More like young adult show. I’ll say some names, but not all names.

It was a show that was called Famous in Love, and I had a small part in it with an actress I shall not name. I was playing her dresser, and the scene took place in her dressing room. She was playing an actor who went in to be fitted for a fat costume. There’s the funny part that this beautiful actress is being fitted into a fat costume, and the fat costume was very hard to put on. She never introduced herself so we really had no relationship other than playing this scene.

I had a lot of lines, and I had to be putting this fat costume onto this woman’s body at the same time. Well, as I was doing the zipper, and this happened numerous times, I kept getting her hair caught in the zipper, so she kept yelling, “CUT! She’s catching my hair in the zipper!” I was mortified, “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!”, but it kept happening, so I tried timidly suggesting she pull her hair to the side so I could get the zipper up, but the whole thing was very upsetting for her. For us both!

The scene called for her to be in bare feet so every time she said “Cut”, she sat down so people could come and wash her feet. I’m thinking …really? The floor is that dirty? (Laughing) I don’t know. I was kind of nonplussed, and it was an uncomfortable experience, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there, so finally, when it was over, I high- tailed it to my trailer and got dressed.

I was about to leave when there was a knock on the door. I opened the door, and there was a lovely man standing there. He was a director. He said, “My name is Roger Kumble. I just wanted to come and introduce myself. I am normally the director of this show, but I’m not on this week, but when I was on the set and I saw your name on the cast list, I knew I had to come see you.”

He said, “You did wonderful work in there, and I just wanted to tell you that I know who you are. You’re Hollywood royalty. Your grandfather was one of my favorite actors in the world. Your grandmother’s work as a silent screen star is legendary. Your other grandfather started the Photographer’s Local Union in New York City. Your father was a three-time Emmy-award winning cinematographer! I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your work today, and to welcome you to our show”.

It was like oh, my God. It erased the whole bad experience. You know, it was so beautiful. Just when I was feeling so low and so unwelcomed in Hollywood, somebody came to me and knew everything about my family, all about my background, and they had the decency and the loveliness to come in and tell me.

Johnny: That’s wonderful. It’s amazing how much a kind word can turn around a bad day.

DeeDee: Yes (laughing). Very true.

Johnny: To go to a different aspect of your work, you played the title role in the shoort film Monique’s, a film that holds a particular place of pride for you as it’s one of the demos featured on your website. What made that short so special for you?

DeeDee: Well, I’m a fan of Francesca Panzani’s work. She’s a very talented indie director. When I found out she was doing this film, and I saw there was possibly a part for me, I quickly signed up to audition for it, and that was really the reason I went in.

I also wanted to have some record of my time as a dancer because that’s how I started in this business. I worked for many years as a dancer, and there was no actual footage of me dancing. I don’t think there’s even anything with the Knockers, so I wanted to have some sort of legacy of the fact that I did at one time dance, so I got to do that in Monique’s.

It was a sweet little film. It won a couple of awards, and it was a lot of fun to work on, and Francesca and I became good friends as a result of it, so it was a win-win.

Johnny: That’s wonderful to hear. Staying in that vein, one of your most inspiring recent projects is the short Senior Moment, where you do some excellent dancing to Beyonce’s Texas Hold ‘Em. Knowing your recent battle with esophageal cancer, was that short a way of saying “Fuck you!” to illness?

DeeDee: (Laughing) Oh, yes. Everything I do now is saying “Fuck you!” to illness.

It’s funny. It was inspired by my best friend that I grew up with since I was 10 years old. She called me one day and said, “DeeDee, have you seen this Beyonce Texas Hold ‘Em craze that’s going on? It’s a dance routine. Everybody’s doing it’. She said, “DeeDee, you have to do it”. I said, ” Vicky, you’ve got to be crazy. I can’t do this! I’m 70 years old! I don’t even know if I can dance anymore!”. She said, “DeeDee, you can do it. You can do it!”.

I called an age appropriate friend of mine, Cameron Smith, who was a hoofer on Broadway. He played God in Godspell on Broadway for years and years. I said, “Cameron, can you still dance?”, and he said, “I don’t know”, (laughing) so I said, “Let’s just try it”. We rented a dance studio, I found the choreography online, we started going, and I realized we could do it.

I then thought, “You know what? We need to find a way to make this different than all the others”. I decided to pay homage to seniors, and then it turned into a little film that kind of had a story to it. Senior Moment is my homage to Beyonce’s Texas Hold ‘Em, and it was a lot of fun to do. My husband, by the way, is the elderly gentleman at the end of the film who catches the hat (laughing).

Johnny: That’s wonderful. It’s really quite a cheer-inspiring piece, and it’s great fun to watch.

DeeDee: Thank you for saying that. It gives me pride. Thank you.

Senior Moment featuring Beyonce's "Texas Hold 'Em"

Watch this video on YouTube

Johnny: You’re very welcome. Continuing along those lines for a question, you conquered cancer. You defeated it, so what has that meant for you?

DeeDee: I would say this was definitely the most valiant fight of my life. It is amazing, when you are diagnosed, the fear is huge and the future is unthinkable, but when you take everything moment to moment, you do realize the old adage that God will never give you more than you can handle. I went from day to day handling things by the moment, and I just knew that somehow, inside, I was going to make it. And I had the best support team anyone could ever imagine.

There were a lot of moments when nobody else thought I was going to make it, but I knew I would. It has given me a lot of strength, and it has also given me a lot to ponder! There are many reasons why I’m still here, and I’m not sure of all of them yet, but I intend to uncover each and every one of them, and live every day as if there’s not a tomorrow because I’ve been there. I’ve been close to no tomorrows, and I don’t plan to go there again, and the good news is I’m cured.

Johnny: That’s wonderful. I do think of cancer as a demon. I lost my mom to a form of it, and several of my previous interview subjects have also passed away from various forms of it. It’s something that every time I come across someone who’s taken it on and beat it, I”m glad for them because it’s definitely a hard thing to do, and once you’ve knockd the bastard out, it’s definitely something.

DeeDee: Yeah, I agree.

Johnny: On a lighter note, you’re also an accomplished stage actress, so what has stage acting provided for you that screen acting has not?

DeeDee: Stage is my favorite genre. I love the stage.

It’s the immediacy of it. Even though it’s rehearsed and repeated over and over again, it’s new each and every time. You’ve got a relationship with an audience, and they’re right there and very much alive right in front of you, you have a relationship with your fellow actors who are with you living truthfully under imaginary circumstances. Everything is more moment to moment with wonderful and sometimes even scary surprises, and through those surprises are borne organic reactions, and then the authentic real emotions are so much easier for me to capture.

That aliveness happening all around me is an energy that is almost inexplicable and joyous, and of course there’s the immediate satisfaction of making someone laugh or making somebody cry.. Eliciting emotions from people, you see it right there. Stage…I hope to be doing that as long as I can stand up straight.

Johnny: Wonderful. When performing on stage, what are your favorite kind of works to do, comedies, dramas or musicals? Or do you like performing them all?

DeeDee: I like performing them all, but I’m not much of a singer. I used to be, but it’s not happening anymore, (laughing) unless you need Elaine Stritch. I’m your girl. I like both. I mostly do comedies, but sometimes the comedies are mixed with emotional, wonderful moments as well. I like all of it.

Johnny: Alright. Along those lines, a personal favorite play of yours’ is Shirley Valentine, a role you’ve played onstage several times. What do you think the original play has that the movie adaptation lacked?

DeeDee: Well, the biggest difference with the movie adaptation was that all the characters were played by other actors. In the play, Shirley plays all the characters. She plays her husband. She plays her daughter. She plays her son. She plays her lover. She plays the waiter at the restaurant. She plays the Greek lover. She embodies her family, and it’s really something to be able to do all that, and it’s something for the audience to be able to behold…One woman playing 38 characters in one show.

It’s pretty amazing, but I have to tell you I loved the movie. I think Pauline Collins was brilliant. I think the movie was wonderful, and my biggest shout-out goes to Willy Russell, the playwright who, it’s amazing to me, wrote this script, but he did grow up in his mother’s beauty salon. He was surrounded by women, and women’s stories for all of his childhood, and this is what came out of it, and it’s a brilliant, brilliant piece of work.

Johnny: Well, I’m glad that the play has worked out so well for you, and I’m glad that you’ve gotten such praise for it.

DeeDee: Thank you.

Johnny: To go to another iconic stage character, you’ve played Sally Bowles in stage productions of Cabaret. What was the easiest part and the hardest part, respectively, of playing that character?

DeeDee: Well, the easiest part was the fact that my personality is very much along the same lines as Sally Bowles. I live a kind of joyfully wild, carefree existence, and so I related to the character without question.

The hardest part was probably vocally for me, but I used to get reviews, and one of them distinctively said that I could “act a song better than it might be sung”, so I’ll go with that, and I also always had the oboe in the orchestra who could always play the high notes for me (laughing). I would just open my mouth and let that oboe sing it, baby!

Johnny: To go to my next question, if I may be so bold, whether it’s your dance moves in Senior Moment, the topless scenes you’ve done, or just the pictures you take, you don’t look your age, so what’s the secret to your youthful appearance?

DeeDee: Aaah, if I told you, I’d have to kill you! (DeeDee and Johnny laugh)

Johnny: Fair enough. One of my dearest friends is actress Kimmy Robertson. When I told her I was going to be interviewing you, she mentioned working with you on a commercial, and she spoke very highly of you, so what are your favorite memories of working with Kimmy Robertson?

DeeDee: Oh Please send my love to Kimmy! I think we did more than just that commercial together…I seem to remember working with her on a sit- com as well…can’t remember which one. All I have to say it how can one possibly not love Kimmy Robertson? Such a special talent, beautiful, funny and smart! A winning trifecta!!!! Did I mention she and I hit it off? haha…. from day one!

Johnny: I’ve asked about some of your most favorite career moments so, conversely, what have been some of your least favorite career moments?

DeeDee: Well, I expressed some earlier. Let me see. I had kind of a bad day with Faye Dunaway once.

I was doing a show with Robert Urich and Faye Dunaway, and it was called It Had To Be You. Faye Dunaway was quite the prima donna, and it was one day when I had just arrived on set. I was at craft services, and I went over into the fridge and got a Diet Coke. There was only one in there, and I got it and started drinking it.

Suddenly, Faye Dunaway came around, opened the fridge, (laughing) and she started screaming, “WHERE’S MY DIET COKE?!?”. I was standing next to her with the Coke in my hand. I quickly put it behind my back, and people were trying to cover me and get me out of the way because god knows what was going to start, and everybody was running around looking for Diet Cokes. I literally just ran off the stage and hid in the bathroom until the whole mess was over with.

Johnny: Somehow I have this feeling that perhaps “WHERE’S MY DIET COKE?!?” could become the new “NO WIRE HANGERS EVER!”. (Johnny and DeeDee laugh)

DeeDee: Yeah, that’s a good one.

Johnny: So to go to a more general question, what advice would you give to someone looking to enter the entertainment industry?

DeeDee: If you simply cannot exist without it, by all means come on in! Otherwise, re think things… because you’re probably going to live an existence filled with rejection, disappointments, ridiculous competition and never ending pounding of the pavement all for no money.

I mean, yeah, some people get lucky, but most of us don’t, and unless you cannot breathe without performing this craft, then you really shouldn’t try. Go find something else to do that’s going to give you a more stable existence (laughing).

I think that’s what I would say, but if you have to do it, do it and understand what’s going to go with it, and know that it’s a lot of hard work. It’s not an easy path.

Johnny: Alright. I now come to my final question, and it’s this: What’s next for you?

DeeDee: Well, I actually just finished filming a show that is premiering on November 12th on NBC. It’s called St. Denis Medical, and it’s starring Wendi McLendon-Covey, Alison Tolman, and David Alan Grier. Wendi was a star of The Goldbergs. I don’t know if you remember that show.

Johnny: I interviewed Adam F. Goldberg for another website about a decade or so ago.

DeeDee: Aaah, okay. Well, she’s now the star of St. Denis Medical along with Alison, star of the TV series Fargo, and David who has done, you know, a million things. It’s being highly anticipated and I just finished doing one episode. Hopefully I’ll do more. I play a homeless woman named Ruth, and she’s a regular at the hospital. She goes there a lot to hope to find a place to sleep.

Johnny: I see. Yeah, hospitals. I’ve definitely had my share of experiences with them this year, and I know you have, too.

DeeDee: Yeah, (laughing) but this one was a nice experience.

Johnny: Well, I’m glad to hear that, and that does it for my questions. I again thank you for taking the time to do this interview. I know we’ve been talking about this for several years, and I have to say it was worth the wait. You have great stories, and it’s an honor to talk to you.

DeeDee: Thank you, Johnny, and I’m sorry it took so long to get around to it, but it certainly was a pleasure meeting you and talking to you, and thank you for the great questions.

Johnny: Oh, not a problem.

DeeDee: Alright, darlin’. You have a good rest of your day.

Johnny: I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, too.

DeeDee: Thank you so much. Good to talk to you.

Johnny: Be well.

DeeDee: You, too. Bye bye.

Johnny: Bye.

——————-

I again thank DeeDee Rescher for taking the time out of her schedule to speak to me. It’s good to be back doing interviews after all I’ve been through since 2023, and I’m glad to be writing for you. As I mentioned earlier, soon I’ll be publishing an interview with two-time Oscar-winning sound designer Karen Baker-Landers, and from there, the sky’s the limit.

Be well, and keep in good health, everyone.

THE flashback interview: deedee rescher Read More »

Epic TMNT Live-Action Reunion: Cast Shares Behind-the-Scenes Stories at Undiscovered Realm Comic Con

Moderator Mike Lopez kicked off an epic reunion panel at Undiscovered Realm, welcoming TMNT collector Dave from Canada to co-moderate. The panel featured a star-studded lineup from the 1990s TMNT movies: Judith Hoag (April O’Neil), Paige Turco (April O’Neil in sequels), Ernie Reyes Jr. (Donatello, Keno), Brian Tochi (Leonardo), Kenn Scott (Raphael), Kevin Clash (Splinter), James Saito (Shredder), Francois Chau (Shredder in TMNT II), and Robbie Rist (Michelangelo).

TMNT Early Days and Unexpected Success

Brian Tochi opened the discussion, recounting the initial rejections by major studios until New Line Cinema, known for Nightmare on Elm Street, took a chance on the project. The film’s first weekend grossed the highest for an independent film, setting the stage for its success.

Kevin Clash shared a vivid memory from the film’s opening weekend. While working on Muppets Go to Disney World, Jim Henson received news of the movie’s success. Witnessing long lines of kids and parents at theaters, they realized the film’s monumental impact.

Judith Hoag remembered being skeptical of the title but ultimately found the script endearing. While shooting Cadillac Man with Robin Williams, she disclosed her involvement in TMNT, leading Williams to become a champion of the film. His enthusiasm reassured her of the film’s potential.

On-Set Experiences and Character Immersion

Paige Turco humorously shared her transition from ballet to action scenes, highlighting the absurdity of interacting with Turtle suits. Despite initial clumsiness, she embraced the role, even learning nunchucks.

Ernie Reyes Jr. discussed the grueling conditions of wearing the heavy, sweat-soaked suits during long shoot days, but found joy in working with martial arts choreography, appreciating the talent and effort behind the scenes.

The actors reminisced about the challenges of the animatronic suits. Kenn Scott highlighted the difficulty of executing fight scenes with limited visibility and heavy suits, relying on sound cues and repetitive drilling to perfect their choreography.

The Magic of Jim Henson

Kevin Clash elaborated on how Jim Henson’s influence elevated the film, combining his mastery in puppetry with the dynamic TMNT characters. Henson’s team helped bring the Turtles to life, adding a layer of authenticity that resonated with audiences.

Judith Hoag shared a memorable encounter with Jim Henson on set, describing the surreal experience of performing with him in her eyeline. Henson’s legacy and the emotional impact of his passing were deeply felt by the cast, highlighting his integral role in the film’s success.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Questions and Reflections

During the Q&A, the cast addressed various fan questions. When asked about their dream locations for the Turtles to live, Brian Tochi humorously suggested a beach in Thailand. Another fan inquired about celebrating the movie’s success. Kevin Clash and Kenn Scott recalled a major premiere event for the second film in London, attended by numerous celebrities and their children.

The panel also delved into the technical aspects of the suits and the challenges they posed. Robbie Rist and Kenn Scott explained the intricacies of performing complex fight scenes under restrictive conditions, emphasizing the teamwork required to bring those sequences to life.

The reunion concluded with a heartfelt moment as the audience sang Happy Birthday to Judith Hoag, adding a personal touch to the event. The panel celebrated the enduring legacy of the TMNT franchise, the impact of the original films, and the collaborative efforts that made them iconic.

Special thanks to Ms. Aisling’s ASMR and Consistency for their video coverage of the panel. Thanks to Ms. Aisling’s ASMR for helping out with editing the TMNT Live-Action Reunion Panel transcript. For more info on Undiscovered Realm Comic Con, visit the official website.

Next: Discuss the TMNT Live-Action Reunion on the Film forum

Full Transcript of the TMNT Live-Action Reunion Panel

Editors Note: Light edits have been made for clarity.

Moderator – Mike Lopez: We have an epic event for you, so let’s do it. How are we doing today? Are you guys ready for a real treat? I think this is probably one of the biggest reunions that has ever been put together for this film franchise. But for you, I want to welcome my friend – all the way – from Canada. We got the TMNT collector Dave, and he and I will be moderating this amazing reunion panel. So, let’s get things started. Dave, take it from here.

Dave: All right. First, we are going to bring out April O’Neil, Paige Turco, and second, we are going to bring out Ernie Reyes, Jr, who is Donatello and Kino. Next, we are going to bring out Brian Tochi, who is Leonardo. And Kenn Scott, who is Raphael. Kevin Clash, who is Splinter. James Saito, Shredder. Francois Chau, Shredder. For Michelangelo. We’ve got Robbie Rist out here and, let’s not forget, April O’Neil again, the beautiful Judith Hoag. The 1991 TMNT movie cast, yeah!

Moderator – Mike Lopez: A truly epic reunion here today, truly an epic reunion. So I got to get this thing started. So, we are approaching this film franchise, this original film franchise of the Ninja Turtles movies. The first three are nearing their 30th anniversary, for the first flick, and then the other two that followed it, 35th. So, I need to ask each of you guys here on the panel if you guys want to quickly talk about how these films kind of took the nation by storm. When did you guys realize you got into something bigger than what you thought?

Brian Tochi: You know, it’s interesting. I’ll just, can you hear me? Hello? Hi, everybody! You know. What’s kind of interesting is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies. It was a project that was turned down by every single major studio. They went to Universal. Then to to 20th Century Fox. They went to Warner Brothers. Then they went to Disney, they went to all the studios. And they said, “Nah, not interested. “

So there’s a small, little company called New Line Cinema, and all they were known for was the Nightmare on Elm Street Freddie movies. And they said, now take a chance with this little, you know, it’s a comic book. And they had just started here prior to this cartoon about these Ninja Turtles, and so that will take on. Well, they took it on.

They filmed the movie, and everybody was going to talk about it, but lo and behold, on the first weekend, it was the largest-grossing independent film weekend in the history of movies. Whoa, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the highest-grossing, most popular independent film in the history of film independent film. So, yeah, I don’t know, like you guys, but I decided to share that to start.

Kevin Clash: Well, actually, um, we were, um, Jim Henson and all of us. Can you guys hear me? Yeah, we were, we were actually working Muppets Go to Disney World, and we were shooting that at the time, and I was standing by Jim, and he got a little card saying that the movie was going to be the number one movie that weekend. And. He was very excited. Then he took us individually out to talk about the future of what we were going to be doing with him and stopped at a red light.

There was a line of kids and parents outside of the movie theater, and we saw it firsthand. The usher had to go down the line and tell the parents that there were no seats. And so the kids were losing their minds at that point. So we saw it firsthand as far as how enormous and amazing the movie was going that weekend. So that’s where we were at when it all happened.

Judith Hoag: Oh gosh, I think for me, it was just a, you know when, when I was first handed this script, my agent said, don’t pay attention to the title. It’s actually a really sweet script. Till the day he died, he called it Teenage Mutant Ninjin Turtles. And I sort of got a preview that we might be on to something good, even before I started the film.

I told this story one more time, so I’ll tell the sort of abbreviated version. I was shooting a movie with Robin Williams in New York called Cadillac Man, and I had to keep flying, like on Fridays. I’d rush out of there, hop on a plane, go to North Carolina, do a little pre-production, do a little bit of shooting, and come back to New York.

And Robin, one day, just went, where are you going? Do we want to be in this movie? And he was the sweetest, kindest man. I said, Well, actually, I’m doing another film. And he was like, Well, what are you doing? And I thought, Oh God, I gotta say it out loud. Because I didn’t know Ninja Turtles at all. I didn’t know there were cartoons. I didn’t know there were comic books I didn’t. And I said, “I’m doing a movie. It’s called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” And he said, “What?” And I said, “It’s, it’s, actually, it’s very sweet. It’s called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

And he just stopped and went, “They’re making a movie about them?” And I said, “Yeah.” He made the very first comment, “Are you playing April?” I said, “Yeah.” From that day forward, he would work extra hard to get me out on Friday so I could get on a plane and go to North Carolina. Then, when the film premiered at Universal, he flew down from San Francisco with his entire family and was a huge champion.

And if you ever sit in a panel with Kevin Eastman, ask him his Robin Williams stories because he was a huge, huge fan, but it was, I mean, we just thought we were making this silly movie that, who knew, and it exploded very quickly, and the fact that you’re all here is just an incredible honor, and we’re, I only want to speak for myself, but…

Robbie Rist: I’ll just make it fast. The same. That is not true, minus Robin Williams.

Judith Hoag: Okay. That is the shortest answer you will ever get out of Robbie.

Robbie Rist: Well, there’s nine of us.

Kenn Scott: That’s a Robbie Record.

James Saito: My story of when I first saw the movie, I didn’t know that it was going to be this big. I just had heard a lot. There I was in LA, and so I thought, well, I’ll go to the theater and see it. I remember there was, there were lines. Then, I was sitting in the movie theater. I guess when I realized that it was bigger than I thought was, I was sitting in this theater.

And there was this kid there when Shredder comes walking out, you know, and there’s that long shot in the cape and the whole thing. There was like a little kid who was maybe about six, seven, and he was in the row down from me, and he just stood up, and he said. “Shredder…” and he was standing there, and I thought, Wow. I guess people know about this thing.

Paige Turco: Yeah, I had no idea. Am I screaming? Um, I had no idea. I was a ballet dancer. A total klutz. And my funny story actually is, I’m talking and Jim Henson’s the puppeteers, brilliant, but I was such a klutz. This is a silly story. Our marks as actors. I kept tripping over them, and then I thought, I am talking to green turtles. There are actors in there. My first action job, really. And I’m thinking, “Oh, my God, are they thinking I’m a klutz?” You know? And then they would have to close the little eyeballs. I’m like, okay, they can’t see me, right? Then I’m talking to four green turtles.

However, I had no idea because I had not seen the first film. I had no idea what I was in for. It was a lot of fun, but really silly because I’m a bit of a goofball. And then they wanted to teach me nunchucks. I’m like, Oh, my God, I’m a ballet dancer, really? Oh, you can look goofy. Oh, good. We’re all good.

And Splinter was the most fun because I was talking to a rat on a subway, with your beautiful smile. {points to Kevin Clash} I’m like this, okay, there’s something wrong about this. I don’t know what planet I’ve landed on, but it was a lot of fun the second movie was so much lighter because I’m a goofball. The first one was quite dark, right? Judith?

Judith Hoag: Yes.

Paige Turco: It was a bit dark. Then, in walks, goofball. I had no idea what I was walking into, but it was fun, and it was cute. And then this one…

Ernie Reyes, Jr.: Not me, I didn’t do it.

Paige Turco: Oh, my God, we had so much fun, didn’t we?

Ernie Reyes, Jr.: We sure did.

Paige Turco: It’s so much fun to make in a beautiful way. He had to watch me do the nunchucks. And he’s a super-talented martial artist. And I’m like, Oh yeah, but I didn’t know about it, and I don’t think any of us knew how the movie or how good it was gonna be I really don’t, and I don’t even know when that happened, because I was too busy sitting in King Kong’s hand in North Carolina. Sorry, I did, actually.

One more cute story, and then I’m done. Ah, so there was an April O’Neill doll from the third movie. So, my kid’s father gives it to my son. He goes to kindergarten. I get a phone call. Oh, something’s wrong because your kid held up this action figure and said, “This is my mom.” Really what? Oh, and it was like a big joke, but they didn’t even know me from the movie. So my poor child, all these kids in these kindergarten classes are like, there’s something wrong with him.

These are just cute stories, but I don’t believe in my heart that any of us knew didn’t that it was going to be this iconic, and the brilliance of each Turtle is how that was created. I don’t know that’s what made it iconic. You know, you teach children’s artistry through each of the names of the turtles. Kind of brilliant, right? But I don’t think we knew. I especially didn’t. I had no idea. And I was like, okay, yeah, here we go.

Ernie Reyes, Jr.: Yeah.

Paige Turco: You know what I mean? I had no idea.

Ernie Reyes, Jr.: Well, everything I do is iconic, right? Just kidding.

Dave: I don’t think we heard from Kenn.

Kenn Scott: That’s all. I mean, that’s all the same crew. None of us knew the movie was gonna be as big as it was, right?

Dave: Some audience questions? What do you guys think? Yeah, you guys have some questions. All right, who’s first you go, I’ll go. All right. Who’s first? Who wants to go first? Don’t be scared.

Kenn Scott: Kelson

Paige Turco: King Kelson.

Audience Member A: Hey. So my question is if you guys could rewrite how the colors are coded for the turtles. What colors would you want your Turtle to be instead?

Brian Tochi: Oh, instead!

Robbie Rist: Repeat the question, please.

Brian Tochi: Magenta.

Audience Member A: If you could change the color of your Turtle, what color would you want it to be instead?

Robbie Rist: Oh, black like my soul.

Brian Tochi: Oh, Robbie.

Robbie Rist: Hey, he wanted an answer.

Paige Turco: Pink Glitter

Brian Tochi: I like Leonardo blue. I love blue.

Audience Member A: Maybe a different shade of blue?

Brian Tochi: maybe a different shade of blue, maybe a little sparkling.

Kenn Scott: I was gonna say black too, but I don’t want a black soul,

Robbie Rist: I do.

Kenn Scott: I’m gonna say that I would definitely keep Raphael’s red because originally, all the turtles were red, but Raphael was the only one that stayed true to the whole origin and everything. So I’m gonna stick with red. Stay there.

Brian Tochi: I mean, you guys know initially, maybe some of you don’t, that when the turtles were drawn in the comic books, they had all red bandanas. Basically, the way to determine who was who was by their was by their weaponry. So for the movies, that was kind of a brilliant way to define them immediately, by changing them, you know, to orange and red, purple, and blue. I thought it was kind of a brilliant thing.

Paige Turco: That’s one of my favorite stories, by the way. We were getting the apartment. It’s in the second movie. And the swords, oh my goodness, he got stuck in the window.

It was so cute, though. But it wasn’t cute for him; it was like he actually looked like a turtle who was in distress, but he was two swords, yes, Leonardo. Poor baby. I was so new at acting. It was like, how do I not go through the window? It was really cute.

Robbie Rist: Yeah, but today you would be acting like a tennis ball. You wouldn’t be acting too like a real thing in the room with you.

Kenn Scott: Judith, didn’t you have paper plates or something that you had to act to use?

Judith Hoag: Yeah.

Paige Turco: Or pieces of tape are the best on the camera box. It’s like, how do I not look cross-eyed.

Kevin Clash: The technology, technology for the first movie and the second one… The second one was a little easier because we got all the kinks out in the first one and sorted out the technology with the radio control, the characters, and stuff, but they were crashing. And you know that the turtles, all four of them, always worked together, so if one went down as far as the radio control, all of them couldn’t shoot. So, they always say, well, let’s shoot the rat. Let’s shoot the rat. He was hardwired, so he was easy to perform.

But I feel for Paige here. I remember the second one, all the guys in the suits and everything, they were just, they teased her so much. And so, of course, I was playing Splinter. So, I became this 75-year-old man, telling them to stop teasing Paige while we were shooting. So it really came out that we all turned into the characters. It was a lot of fun, but the first one was very challenging, as far as going through the technology and because it worked. So it finally worked. That’s how we got to do dinosaurs for ABC because that’s the same technology.

Paige Turco: Can I be a dinosaur.

Kevin Clash: No, no.

Robbie Rist: Kevin. So, you know, on The Abyss. They had T-shirts because it was so such a hard shoot. They had T-shirts that said things like, “Life is abyss, and then you dive.” I think for the turtle moves, we should make up shoot the rat t-shirts.

Kevin Clash: Yeah. That would be great.

Robbie Rist: TMNT. Shoot the rat.

Audience Member B: My question is, do you guys ever have dreams where you’re the characters you play in like media?

Kenn Scott: One more time?

Brian Tochi: I think she said, “Did you ever dream that you’re one of your characters in your dream?”

Dave: that you played, that you’re dreaming that you’re a character in real life?

Paige Turco: Oh, yeah, I wanted to be a turtle.

Kevin Clash: I never wanted to be a four-foot rat.

Brian Tochi: Yeah, some people were born in the Year of the Rat, right?

Audience Member C: My question for the panel is, who got the most into their character kind of who lost themselves as playing the character or their role?

Paige Turco: Me.

Robbie Rist: Well, I didn’t really have to act. Basically, I was doing an impression of a dude I went to high school with. I’m from Southern California and grew to be a teenager at the height of Val speak. So, like that Frank Zappa song, Valley Girl, that’s 10th grade for me. I knew all of those people. So Michelangelo was really just like putting on kind of a familiar jacket, and then I went home, and I was still the same dude.

Kenn Scott: I think, from an acting point of view. I can’t speak for Judith, but she certainly immersed herself in the role and delivered amazingly, and as April, did her thing. But when I see Elias Koteas playing Casey Jones, just knowing him and working with him like we did on the set, he came to set so prepared and in such phenomenal shape.

He had such a strong desire to perform at a high level in the action sequences that he was working with Pat Johnson and the stunt team, Ernie, and everybody to try to get there. And I don’t know Elias that well, and I know some people here know him better than I do, but he was almost like kind of a Daniel Day-Lewis kind of approach in doing what he was doing. And so, for me, my vote is that guy. He really immersed himself in what he was doing. He was creating that character.

Audience Member D: If you guys could eat any pizza that the ninja turtles eat, what would, what would it be? What would you do? What would you eat in real life, in terms of any Ninja Turtle pizza that they eat?

Kenn Scott: All right, let’s go ahead. Francois.

Francois Chau: Pizza, Okay, this might be kind of sacrilegious, but I’d have to go with the Hawaiian.

Kevin Clash: Well, you know, as far as, you know, Brian Henson asked me to, he asked me about, did I want to do Splinter, because I was already doing Elmo. And he said, you know, let’s, let’s give you something to sink your teeth into that’s a little older. And so he gave that. What I came up with was that I took James Olmos from Miami and Vice, and then I pulled Pat Morita from Karate Kid, and I put those two together to make the character Splinter for me. And it was amazing to work, you know because normally I do it for younger people.

This was more, you know, I had to do more of an actor. And working with the actors was amazing because they really got me to figure out who Splinter was because he was a 75-year-old man. Yeah, we saw him as a rat. But he acquired these, these, these teenagers. And, you know, he never thought he would have to do that. And so it came with a play that I had to really hone into that whole dynamic of those teenagers and how he would relate to them. So those two characters, really, those two actors, really helped me.

Judith Hoag: I don’t know why I haven’t told you this, but for me, it was incredibly easy to pretend that the turtles were real because the actors in the suits were amazing. And I remember the first time that I worked with you, you were, you know, just next-level embodiment of the character, and then you had something to do with your feet. It felt like there were a couple of people like you. But I remember one time it was in between shots, and it was always a joy when you actually had the actual Turtle or Splinter there.

And, you know, it’s sometimes filmmaking can be very long and boring because you there’s a lot of weight, and we had a conversation, and you stayed in character the whole time, and you answered all my questions, and it was it helped me so much, because it was just so easy to fall in and to, to make it real and to have it feel real. And it was at your center, your center for my heart forever.

Audience Member E: Okay, so I am a huge Ninja Turtles fan. I actually memorized the first movie from beginning to end, and I actually admired all the work you guys have done. I know I have multiple questions, but I’ll just stick to a couple. If possible. One of them is when you actually heard of Jim Henson’s passing, I just wanted to know exactly how you guys felt about his passing and how much more you wished for an opportunity to work.

And then two, I noticed that Kenn was mentioned, mentioned about Koteas and, I mean, he was Casey Jones, he got something amazing, and then I believe he skipped the second one, but he went, he’s actually in the third one. He played Casey Jones, and he also played as, I believe he was like, one of the one of the one-point guys that captured, I believe, I don’t know, but how he actually acted in that he completely changed characters. Oh, he’s really great. So I just wanted to know how you guys felt about, you know, these two questions.

Brian Tochi: I think the world mourned. The whole world mourned when they found out that Jim Henson passed on. So I think that it was just a universal kind of feeling of loss for so much that he brought to his characters and to, you know, every, every corner of the world is amazing. You know, just the people you know that we grew up with and have continued to still, you know, grew up with, it was just universally impacting.

Kevin Clash: I was actually working. Jim and I did the Arsenio Hall Show. The Arsenio Hall show two weeks prior, you know, I was, I was performing Clifford, and he was, like, “You did so much better than me.” I said, “I could never do better than Kermit.”

But we played around, and for after that, he went to, they shot a commercial for, for the Muppets at Disney World commercial, and then after that, you know, it was so, of course, it was a shock, because, as I said, I worked with him two weeks, two weeks prior. And, of course, we still miss him. Very much.

Robbie Rist: I think. I think Jim Henson brought into the world something that I still use regularly on a daily basis, which was the ability to be sarcastic and innocent at the same time, like a lot of that Muppet Movie and Muppet Show comedy. There’s a tremendous amount of satire and really caustic humor, except it’s delivered in such an innocent way that it’s, it’s no wonder that when he passed, both adults and kids were bummed about it. Yeah, it was just a little music. It didn’t have to be anything. As you were.

Judith Hoag: I think that Jim was already obviously an icon when he passed. It was so tragic that he was so young that he still had so much good work left in him. His funeral was all of the Muppets came out. Everybody came out with their characters. They had.

We walked into St Patrick’s Cathedral, and there was Kermit under a glass cloche and pictures everywhere, and seeing his children up on the altar, talking to their you know about their dad, and they read a letter that he had written to them in the event of his death that was incredibly moving, and his legacy is just so sprawling and so indelibly tied to this film and these characters and all of us. It was a real loss. It was a real loss.

Kevin Clash: He came to visit the studio, which was the first one.

Judith Hoag: Amazing.

Kevin Clash: And we got to hang out with him at a nice little beach. Marty, Marty Robinson, is actually one of the puppeteers. So we got to hang out, which was really fun. So he came, and he was there for the first time.

Judith Hoag: He was in my eyeline. I was shooting the scene in the turtle den when I woke up, and you’re in my face, and they’re all there. And so when you’re shooting a film, they pretty much try to keep your eyeline where you’ll be looking towards the camera, free of people, because it’s very distracting. This gentleman walks into the frame, and it’s Jim Henson. I start having a screaming conversation in my head while I’m playing a scene. And it was, Oh, my God, that’s Jim Henson. Stop. Come on, you gotta shoot this thing. Oh, my God. He’s standing right. He’s in my eyeline. Oh, my God, it’s Jim Henson.

And it’s like, stop, stop. You’re like, this was my first starring role in a movie. It meant the world to me like, focus, focus, focus. It was a thrilling moment to finally wrap that scene up and then go over it, like just the biggest uber fan, and get a chance to meet him. And it’s always thrilling when you meet somebody that you so admire, who actually knows who you are. And, yeah, that was pretty thrilling.

Kenn Scott: I think when it comes to the Ninja Turtles, you know, everybody loves the Ninja Turtles. It’s bigger than everybody thought the movies were going to be. The franchise is bigger than the creators ever thought it was going to be. The different things helped propel it, like turbo boosts, along its journey. Probably the first film took the cartoon to a whole other level in the franchise because it was no longer cartoon, brought it out of the world of the mind and the pad, and brought it into a real visceral world you can touch.

I think what a lot of people outside this room don’t know is when people find out that Jim Henson had something to do with the Turtle suits and the Turtles’ creation, they’re just like, Oh, I didn’t know that. And I think it’s not the Ninja Turtles alone that propelled itself to be what it could be on the back of that first movie. When you have Jim Henson, what comes from his mind, and the people who work with him and contribute, that’s a whole other level of magic powder that gets put into the cauldron of what’s being made. And anybody can put a puppet on their hand and talk, but a puppet is not a Muppet, and you can tell the difference when you watch a TV show when you’re seeing a Jim Henson derivative product of some kind or somebody else that’s doing something.

And when you took that magic and mixed that together with the mythology of the Ninja Turtles. It took that whole thing together to make Ninja Turtles what it was. Otherwise, nobody would feel the way they feel about these turtles. They’re real. They were alive. We were right there in your houses. We were actual creatures that you could touch, and people got to talk to and play with. And I think Jim Henson does get a lot of credit, but he doesn’t get all the credit from the rest of the world for what he contributed to making this whole thing what it is.

Judith Hoag: Not to mention the puppeteers.

Kenn Scott: Yeah. That whole world.

Audience Member F: Hi, when you first heard about the movie doing well at the box office, did you go out to celebrate or have any type of celebration for it?

Kevin Clash: I don’t think. I don’t remember doing anything for a celebration.

Judith Hoag: I don’t think we did. I mean, I think it was really, you know, wrap parties and premieres and stuff like that. I think, you know, the crazy thing about filmmaking is you come together, and it’s like summer camp, and you’re all just in it, and you’re exhausted, and you’re playing, and it’s so much fun.

And then when it’s done, you all go, sort of cast back into the wind, and everybody goes back. We had people from London, we had people from New York, people from Los Angeles, people from North Carolina, and you didn’t get a chance to see each other.

And that’s why doing these is really fun, because we do, or when your work gets set and, you know, a familiar face comes in, and it’s a very, actually small business, so you do run into each other, you know, fairly often, or at least now and again. And I don’t think there was what I think we all just kind of, you know, pumped a fist in the air.

Kevin Clash: I think the celebration actually happened more with that was a huge screening of the second one in London. I mean, all these major movie stars were there, and so that was really cool to sit there. And you, I mean, because we got to sit in the Audience with kids and everything, and it was amazing. That was so cool.

And to see these different celebrities, you know, with their kids and stuff like that, I think that was the party for us. It was coming off of the first one, which was so huge. And then the second one was like, you know, “Hollywood,” so it would that was fun. That was fun to be around that.

Kenn Scott: Yeah, if you guys don’t know, the first movie didn’t. They didn’t know how big it was going to be. So they just had cast and crew screenings where cast and crew got to go, I think, in New York and, you know, LA, but because that was so successful, and the second one came out, as Kevin was talking about, they pulled out all the stops and threw a huge premiere at Universal Studios in Hollywood.

And I mean, they had exhibits and performers, and they had like a valet line of cars, Ted Danson and Billy Crystal and Robin Williams just on and on, all these celebrities pulling up and getting out of cars and walking into Universal Studios. That’s when I first met Brian for the first time. And man, that was just.

Kevin Clash: And besides that, I think they were just, they were parents. You know, they weren’t, they weren’t coming as celebrities. They were parents because they were bringing their kids, who, you know, like, even, you know, he was talking about Jim, and Robin already knew about them because of his kids and stuff. So they were coming as parents, and so it was nice to see them excited about the kids because they felt huge.

Audience Member G: Thank you for coming out. Today. I’m Phil, and my daughter Isabel has a question, but she’s getting too shy to ask it. She asked me to. If your ninja turtle could live anywhere, where would you want your ninja turtle to live?

Brian Tochi: On the beach in Thailand.

Audience Member H: Hi, my name is Michael. I’ve seen that movie so many times. You guys did a really good job. So I’m just curious when you were in costume, was it hard to move around? That’s what I found the most amazing, how you made those costume characters look so real, even Splinter.

Ernie Reyes, Jr.: Oh, yeah, yeah, it was crazy. They’re made of latex rubber, which is kind of like a Nerf football. First of all, we’re in North Carolina, and it’s, like, 100 and something degrees, and then, like, the humidity was crazy. And then we’re pretty much split up into kind of two units. So, a lot of action was taken in the second unit. And so we were doing fight scenes. It was like, you know, a normal workday at the movies, around 12 hours.

I remember some days were like 12, 14, 16-hour days, and you’re doing fight scenes all day long. Like. That’s when that’s your job, but imagine taking a Nerf football and dunking in the water, and it just all holds the water. So, like, we sweat in it all day, and then by the end of the thing, like, the costumes were almost dumpy and heavy just from the sweat, you know.

But it was crazy, but it was also just, you know, for me, anyway, I knew that it was something special because I grew up like Bruce Lee movies and Jackie Chan and Jet Li and all that. And so, you know, being part of Golden Harvest for me was like, whoa. These people make martial arts movies, and that’s what I was there for. So it was a lot of it was a lot of fun. It was a crazy amount of work. And I see these pictures of them.

Kevin Clash: You have to do double duty. You got to be inside the Turtle, and you got to act as yourself, which was, like, cool. You know, us walking, you know, they had these amazing martial arts people who actually flew over from Hong Kong, some of them. And we would stand and, you know, the guy whose name was Pat Johnson was amazing. And he would let him show us all.

You know, we’d show Steve, the director, and we’d watch this, and we were blown away by the whole choreography of the fighting that we had. I had no idea. And it was, it was beyond incredible. As a matter of fact, one of the guys from Hong Kong, I don’t think he really understood how the head of the Turtle when he was going to be fighting. At one point, they did the whole scene, and one of them was that this guy just ripped off the head. Ripped it off.

They flew him right back to Hong Kong. He couldn’t do it. You see, this major, major thing happened, and all of a sudden, one it’s like, but it was, I was, I’ve never seen anything like that close up, the talent and the choreography of that was blew me away. The flips and everything was amazing. The nunchucks, everything.

Paige Turco: I was so talented.

Kenn Scott: When it came to the fight scenes talking about how difficult it was, you couldn’t see out of the Turtle’s head. You just had these tiny little pinholes we could see out of it. So trying to do the fight choreography, usually, like, if I was fighting Ernie or Brian or whoever, I can look at and see what’s coming, and they can kind of, we can kind of dance together. Well, because you couldn’t see, we had to train and drill these fight scenes over and over and over again. So that kind of became second nature. Just knew where to turn and what to do. But it was a lot of sound cues.

They’d be yelling at each other, like, if I was gonna punch Ernie or something like that, I’d have to be like, hey, and he knew the look. And we kind of time, like, 123, all these. You kind of heard this, like a military cadence thing going on, and everybody gave each other cues about what we were doing. So we had to find other ways to overcome the limitations we had in order to put the fight scenes and stuff like that together, despite the weight, the heat, not being able to see, and not being able to breathe either. That was a challenge.

Robbie Rist: So, here’s a quick question for Ernie and/or Ken. So I’ve wondered about this for a long time. When there is a martial arts fight, why do people still attack one at a time?

You would think their odds would be better because there are like 15 of them against the one dude usually right but they still attack one at a time. Can someone explain this to me?

Francois Chau: It’s the movies.

Robbie Rist: Well, now it’s ruined.

Moderator – Mike Lopez: So listen, this has been quite, quite amazing. I mean, we have been honored to have such a large reunion of this and discuss it. I think we touched upon the real magic of what these movies meant to everybody but these characters and what all of your work has done. So I think that’s fantastic. But before, before we go, we gotta take care of one more thing that TMNT Collector’s is gonna handle.

Dave: Okay, hold on. Hold on. I gotta come up here for this. Are you guys ready? Are you guys ready to help us sing Happy Birthday to you?

{Audience sings Happy Birthday to Judith}

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Epic TMNT Live-Action Reunion: Cast Shares Behind-the-Scenes Stories at Undiscovered Realm Comic Con Read More »

ThunderCats Voice Actors Reminisce: Comic Con Panel with Lion-O Cheetara and Tygra at Undiscovered Realm

Thundercats Voice Actors Reminisce: Comic Con Panel w/ Lion-O Cheetara & Tygra at Undiscovered Realm

Thundercats voice actors reunite at Undiscovered Realm, sharing behind-the-scenes stories, favorite episodes, and fan moments.

The panel at Undiscovered Realm in White Plains, New York, began with moderator Mike Lopez welcoming the audience and introducing the voice actors from the Thundercats series: Lynne Lipton (Cheetara and Wilykit), Peter Newman (Tygra and Wilykat), and Larry Kenney (Lion-O). The panelists shared humorous anecdotes and insights into their roles, reflecting on how they were cast for the iconic 1980s cartoon series.

Lynne Lipton recounted her audition experience, emphasizing the rarity of landing such a memorable role. She expressed gratitude for being hired by director Lee Dannacher, who asked her to voice multiple female characters, except for Pumyra. Larry Kenney humorously recalled that he often appeared partially undressed during recording sessions, much to Lipton’s surprise.

Peter Newman described the audition process as just another day until he learned he had secured a recurring role in what would become a beloved series. He reminisced about recording in the Rankin/Bass office and attempting various character voices, which ultimately led to his casting.

Larry Kenney detailed the challenging and often frustrating nature of auditioning, noting that actors frequently face rejection. He shared his memories of auditioning for Thundercats, highlighting the guidance he received to avoid cartoonish voices for the Thundercats themselves while embracing dramatic flair for the villainous Mutants. Inspired by Snidely Whiplash from “Rocky and Bullwinkle,” he crafted the voice for Jackalman.

The conversation shifted to the impact of Thundercats on their lives and the recognition they received. Kenney recounted a memorable experience in Toys R Us, realizing the show’s popularity when he saw aisles filled with Thundercats merchandise. He humorously recalled an interaction with young fans who didn’t initially believe he was Lion-O.

Peter Newman shared his first inkling of the show’s success when it topped ratings charts. He described how his work on Thundercats led to other projects like SilverHawks and TigerSharks, appreciating the long-lasting impact on fans. Newman also highlighted a touching moment when he signed memorabilia for children from broken homes, realizing the show’s significance in their lives.

Lynne Lipton recounted reading to children in Harlem and witnessing their excitement over a Thundercats script she brought. This experience underscored the series’ widespread appeal and the joy it brought to fans.

The panelists discussed their favorite episodes, with Kenney fondly remembering the early episodes where Lion-O was still a young boy. Newman enjoyed episodes where his characters had unique moments, like Tygra aging in “The Cave of Time” or Monkian taking the spotlight. Lipton found scenes with Mumm-Ra particularly memorable due to Earl Hammond’s intimidating performance.

They also touched on the camaraderie among the cast, who often recorded together, creating a joyful and collaborative atmosphere. Lipton expressed gratitude for working with talented voice actors like Bob McFadden and Earl Hammond.

The panel concluded with the actors reflecting on rumors of a live-action or CGI Thundercats movie. While no concrete plans had materialized, they expressed interest in participating. The session ended with heartfelt thanks to the fans, acknowledging their role in the show’s enduring legacy.

Special thanks to Ms. Aisling’s ASMR and Consistency for their video coverage of the panel. For more info on Undiscovered Realm Comic Con, visit the official website.

Next: Discuss the Thundercats Reunion on the Film forum

Full Transcript of the Thundercats Reunion Panel

Moderator – Mike Lopez: Hello, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome again to Undiscovered Realm here in White Plains, New York. How’s everybody doing today? So here we are. We are getting started here. We had a little issue with that false alarm. But everybody’s great. Everybody’s happy. We’re here. Thundercats, Ho! We’re gonna get started. We’re gonna welcome you up to the stage. Here already, we’ve got Lynne Lipton, who played Cheetara and Wilykit. And Peter Newman, the voice of Tygra and Wilykat. And, coming up here from behind, the man, the myth, the legend. Here he is. Lion-O himself, Larry Kenney!

Peter Newman: Lion-O who?

Lynne Lipton: You saw I have a crutch because Larry, we had this race, and he tripped me. That’s the kind of that’s the kind of Lion-O he is.

Moderator – Mike Lopez: So yes, we have, we have three great legends here. So we’re very we’re very excited. Yeah, we’re excited.

Peter Newman: And if you notice, the first thing we voice actors like to do is adjust the microphone.

Moderator – Mike Lopez: Welcome, Guys, welcome. It’s such an honor and a pleasure to see you all here. We’ve got this great group of fans here. I mean, whose lives you know you’ve enriched. And you know, people love Thundercats. So I guess, really, to kind of get things started, we’ll just go across the board here with you. How did you? How did you, how did you find this world of Thundercats? Larry and I talked about a week ago. Rankin Bass, who produced the show, did these holiday specials. And then here’s this, like rock and roll theme, which you just heard, action-adventure series. What got you all to Thundercats?

Lynne Lipton: It was an audition. You know, as an actor, you’re always auditioning. And I’d say about 80% of the time, you don’t get the job. It was just one of those auditions where you walk in, and the producer, the woman, and the director was Lee Dannacher, who was our sort of savior-leader, and she hired me. And I’m ever-grateful because she said, “Can you do all the female voices?” which I did except for Pumyra, right? It was the best job. There was a hell of a lot of jokes in the room, and Larry was mostly naked at the time. I was really surprised.

Larry Kenney: I looked a lot better back then.

Lynne Lipton: He did. And it was just very lucky. It was a fun job. It wasn’t like work, and I was with all these guys, and they were wonderful Bob McFadden and Earl Hammond who and Earl Hyman, who was the actor on the old Cosby Show, who played the father. Bob McFadden and everybody, some of them are gone, but you know, to be the only woman in this room with these great, great fun people. It was great.

Larry Kenney: Thank you very much! Anything more?

Peter Newman: No. I think she covered it. Alright. Next. It’s exactly as Lynne was saying; it’s one of my favorite parts about the Thundercats world and (???). It was just another audition, another day, another audition.

Lynne Lipton: Yeah.

Peter Newman: I didn’t know what it was going to become at all. We sent it to the Rankin Bass office, not to a recording studio. And my recollection of it was in an office with him, Jules Bass, and Lee Dannacher, the director. Jules Bass, of Rankin Bass, and basically they said, “Well, we have, you know, these cartoon characters.

Can you do a younger voice? And can you do okay, you do an older voice? Can you do the hero type? And can you do a villain?” I did everything I could think of, any silly voice, anything I could throw at them, just in hopes of getting this job, whatever it was, because it was a job.

And then to find out, I don’t know, I don’t know how many days or later that, “Hey, you’ve got the job,” “Oh, that’s nice.” And then they said, “No, no, this is going to be a series. They’re going to do a whole bunch of episodes of this.”

And yeah, it turned out to be, as Lynne said, just about the best job I had in all the years that I worked, in terms of the fun of working with, you know, really professional people that I looked up to, and because I was relatively new in the business, and, yeah, just from a silly audition. And sometimes… sometimes, life is good, and sometimes, the fates are kind. So thank you.

Larry Kenney: Yeah. The audition process is sometimes very frustrating. You know, because, as Lynne said, you probably don’t get 80% of the ones you go to. And it may be even higher than that because, you know, most of your day is going from one audition to another, maybe going to a recording session, if you were even lucky enough to get a job. And I think I remember most about the audition at Rankin Bass.

The walls were lined with drawings of what the characters looked like and what the Thundertank was. Remember, nobody, none of us, knew what Thundercats was. So when we got there, we just knew it was going to be an animated series. So, when it’s your turn to go in and audition, they asked me to audition for one Thundercat and one Mutant, bad guy, you know, and I remember the most important thing you said to me was for the Thundercats themselves. We don’t want cartoon voices because they’re like half-human and half-animal.

A human voice and talks the way a human talks. You know? And then, for the mutants, that’s where you get to act. Any actor will tell you it’s most fun to play the bad guy in something because you can be over-dramatic.

So I picked Lion-O to audition for, I guess because he was Lord of the Thundercats. And I don’t know. Maybe he’ll be the boss of the place. And I liked the picture of Jackalman. So I decided that before I went in. And I was thinking of jackal, jackal, it’s kind of like a wolf. You know, they’re sneaky, and they’re dirty, and they’re sneering. And first thing again in my mind was one of my favorite old shows, Rocky and Bullwinkle. Are you guys old enough to remember Rocky and Bullwinkle?

Audience Member 1: Yes!

Larry Kenney: The kid knows! Anyway, there was a character named Snidely Whiplash, and he was the ultimate villain. Wore a black cape and had a mustache like this. You know, “Heh, heh, heh, heh! I’m going to get you now and tie you to a railroad track!” So, I kind of combined those in my mind, and Jackalman came out. “We must get the Thundercats, yes?” And the rest, I must say…

Peter Newman: …is a long history.

Larry Kenney: Yeah.

Lynne Lipton: I must say. You know, we did that for the 128 episodes.

Peter Newman: 130.

Lynne Lipton: 130. You know, every time there was a new episode, sometimes there were new characters. So we would actually audition for the characters in the studio that day, you know? And, the guys would say, if it was a female character, I’d say, What do you think I should do? And Larry would say, “Oh, do Katherine Hepburn.” They would give me suggestions.

That’s how I found the character: they would paint a picture of a cartoon character, a new cartoon character in Thundercats, and a character like Mandora. I remember Mandora as a character, and Larry said that because he knew this about me, I used to do, love to do impressions of dead stars.

And I know that sounds like a crazy thing, or a star’s relatives, and I used to do this silly impression of John Wayne’s sister. John Wayne, you might all be too young, but John Wayne was a movie star, and he used to talk kind of like, “Oh, I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”, you know. And Larry said, why don’t you give John Wayne, you know, like a sister, and that’s what mandora is. Mandora is Larry Kenney’s version of John Wayne’s sister. “I just don’t know.”

Larry Kenney: “Well, ya done it pretty good, kid.”

Lynne Lipton: See?

Moderator – Mike Lopez:

So, like you said. The rest is history. And it’s a very rich history. The show. It was almost 40 years ago when it came out. And obviously, you guys travel around the country and beyond to meet fans. We’ve got all these people here today seeing you. When did it sink in for you guys that Thundercat became more than this cartoon series that went to an audition for, and it became bigger than you?

Larry Kenney: I was in Toys R Us. Rest in peace. I used to love that store. I was Christmas shopping about a year after the show had been on the air. And the time previous to that, when I had come to Toys R Us, there was a row, a single row of Thundercats merchandise, you know, action figures, and stuff like that.

But this particular time, when I came back two weeks before Christmas, there were three aisles, all Thundercats. And you know, the ones for He-Man, you know. And so anyway, I walked in, I saw that. I thought, Oh, my God, the show’s a hit. And as I walked up one of the aisles, there were two young boys, probably eight, nine, ten years old, looking at the action figures, and I close. One of them said, “I’m going to get Tygra. He’s the best.”

Peter Newman: You know, smart kid.

Larry Kenney: Well, I dissuaded him of that notion. And then the other one said something about “No! Panthro, Panthro.” I couldn’t help myself. “Excuse me, boys, why don’t you get Lionel? He’s the guy who says, Sword of Omens come to my hand.” They looked at me like I was a pervert, but I just, I get that a lot. And as I did, they started looking at me like this. I felt like an idiot. I kind of slunk away. And as I was walking away, I heard one of them say, “He didn’t even sound like Lion-O. And I went like, “…” If you only knew, kid.

Peter Newman: My recollection of the first inkling of the success was the first ratings that came out when it was number one. It didn’t; it didn’t dawn on me what might lead to it. The concrete thought I had at the time was, well, then I guess we’ll keep making episodes. They’re not going to just shut us down and put us back on the street with nothing to do. And it continued on that way. And we did have 130 episodes, and then SilverHawks after that, and…

Larry Kenney: Sixty-five of those.

Peter Newman: No, that was also 130. We did two full seasons, I believe. I’m pretty sure, anyway. And well, maybe not. Maybe you’re right, maybe 65. Then, there were the TigerSharks and the other smaller series that came after. And it was just wonderful. The notion that Thundercats was anything more than that didn’t come to me until later on.

In one particular instance, a friend of ours, a friend of my wife and I, was a social worker and worked with mothers and children of the broken homes. And when I had told her, told her friends about, oh, I was doing this cartoon series, she commented that she knew some kids who were big Thundercats fans, and did I think I could get anything, sign anything, you know, that she might be able to give to these kids. I didn’t have anything. But I found something, and I don’t remember what it was. I made ten copies and signed them for the kids. Then she came back and said how thrilled these kids were to get this.

That just gave me the first inkling of the power, you know, that this kind of thing could have in someone’s life. And now the men and women are in their 40s and, well, I mean 40s now and beyond, and their kids are, yeah, it’s, it’s hard to believe. Honestly, there was one instance, somewhere in the middle years, I was at a commercial audition, and a friend of mine was talking to me, and we were just having the kind of chat that you have on your audition in the waiting room. And he pointed to a young guy who was standing online for his audition. He pointed and said, Hey, he’s wearing a Thundercats shirt.

And he went over to the young fellow cats. He said, “Well, he did some voices for Thundercats.” And much to my amazing this young fellow was like, “Wow, really, you did?!? Sign my shirt.” So, I did.

Larry Kenney: And then you said, “50 bucks.”

Peter Newman: Well, that was before inflation. $25.

Lynne Lipton: I remember I used to go up to New York. And they’re not homeless kids, but I used to go up to Harlem and read to kids in the schools, and just because I like to do that. It’s a lot of fun. And one day, I thought, I’m going to bring a script, a Thundercats script. Because we had just recorded something.

And I figured maybe the kids would, you know, like to play the parts because I thought that would be such a wonderful thing for kids too, you know. So I made like these little scripts of this script of Thundercats, and I went up to the school and, and I had no idea that Thundercats was, we’re always in the studio, or I was always doing a play, either on Broadway or off, but this was our job. We never knew what the world thought of Thundercats.

And it brought the script, and the kids went crazy, and they played. I let them play all the parts, and that’s when I knew, I mean, they knew the Sword of Omens. They were fighting. It was great. It was just great. I had no idea because we’re recording it in a studio. We had no idea what the real world thought of it, you know?

Larry Kenney: I think we all, as I recall, we all knew the cast and the crew early on; after maybe five or six episodes, I remember sitting at lunch and talking about it and said, “You know, this is really well-written. It’s serious; it’s well-written.”

And then somebody said, at that moment, we had never heard the music yet, you know, because you have to animate first. I’m sorry, you have to do the voices and record the voices first. Some people think that they do the animation possible, and you try to match your lips to it. But that’s impossible. Anyway, the music is just coming in. And they say I’m going to play it for you. Then they hit that thing. {Makes guitar sounds}

Oh, man! It sounded like no other cartoon series.

Lynne Lipton: I just want to tell you I was doing a play, Sherlock Holmes, and it’s all very English. The lead actor at the time was Robert Stevens, who was a fine actor. He, I think, drank a little too much. What can I say? All of a sudden, he found out that I did Thundercats, and he just was like a revelation, you know.

“Excuse me, did you do Thundercats? Did you do Wilykit?” And a lot of times, he had a drink or two. You know. “You want to start?!?”

It was so funny to me that it had such a worldwide acceptance and popularity. And I think Lee once played me a version of it, not only in Japanese but also in some, you know, like Thundercats in another language. I know I heard it once in Spanish, and it was just so funny because the actors that they got to dub our voices were, you know, it’s like, oh, did I really sound like that? It was really good. It was a lot of fun to hear how other people do it.

Moderator – Mike Lopez: And I can say it was really a bubble. At that time, when we were making the show, you didn’t see what was going on in the outside world because there was no social media. There was no internet. Now here we all are, you know, celebrating the work that you did so many years ago.

Peter Newman: What’s the internet?

Moderator – Mike Lopez: So speaking of that, let’s hear from some of the folks out here, if anybody has a question, we’ll get that started.

Audience Member 2: What’s your favorite episode that you recorded for Thundercats for all of you guys?

Larry Kenney: Favorite episode?

Peter Newman: Favorite episode, Larry. Ep-i-sode. He’s an old man.

Larry Kenney: I don’t have a favorite. They’re all great. So, I think for me, at least, it was more fun doing the very first few because that’s when Lion-O was still a little kid. And he didn’t really grow up entirely. He didn’t have a chance to have a childhood. He went right into becoming the leader of the Thundercats. So, I got to voice him as a young boy.

You know, and he sounds pretty much Like the grown-up Lion-O, but he said things like, “Gee, Panthro. I don’t know if I’m cut out to be the Lord of the Thundercats.” And, uhm, it turned out he wasn’t. But they let him do it anyway.

Peter Newman: Did I answer your question?

Audience Member 2: What about Peter and Lynne? What are your favorite episodes that you recorded?

Peter Newman: I don’t know that I have one; as Larry was saying, it was when you got to do something different with the character. That was more fun, generally, than just being a character. You know, on an even, even keel, so that the like the Cave of Time with Tygra, because you got to get old and the sound bubble, or Monkian in this episode, I don’t remember the name of it, but where he gets to take over somehow. And, of course, in the end, he crashes and burns. But it was Monkian having his day. And so it was fun to play that, to just do that beyond what was already done for Monkian.

Monkian was one of my favorite characters, the way Peter did it.

“Hoo, hoo, hoo. What’s so great about liking Monkian? Who asked you? Hoo, hoo, hoo. “

Larry Kennye: He would actually go, “Hoo. Hoo. Hoo.” {makes ape motions with arms to indicate Peter acting out the role.}

Peter Newman: Yeah. I did that. As I said, we would audition in the studio when a new character was introduced. When Monkian came up, there he was drawn, and it was an ape-like character. “Hoo. Hoo.” So, that’s what came out.

Fortunately, they didn’t embarrass me by saying, “Get out.” So, yeah.

Lynne Lipton: My, my favorite scenes were always the scenes Mumm-Ra was in because Mumm-Ra scared the shit out of me.

Peter Newman: Language. Language!

Lynne Lipton: I’m so sorry. You didn’t hear that.

Larry Kenney: Kids, we’d like to apologize for Lynne for saying, “Shit.”

Lynne Lipton: But Mumm-Ra… Earl was a very nice, very sweet, kind man with a big personality, but when he did Mumm-Ra, I mean, it really sometimes scared me because I don’t know about you, but it was just like “Mumm-Ra.” {makes undead sounds} You know, and he’s in the studio, he would become this guy, you know. {more undead sounds} And he was just wonderful and scary and just a nice, funny man, but boy, did that, it scared me.

Larry Kenney: Well, you know, when Mumm-Ra does the transition, “Ancient spirits of evil, transform this decayed form…” So, you know, on screen, Mumm-Ra starts drooling this green bile. Earl really did that. Spittle would start coming out of his mouth. So, he would go, “I, Mumm-Ra…” {wipes mouth}

I don’t know about you guys, but when I read the script, I would look a page or two ahead whenever I saw Mumm-Ra do the thing, and I would move a little further away.

Peter Newman: I would try to be very conscious of my reaction because it was so great to watch him do that. I tried to ensure that I was back far enough from the microphone so that if I laughed because I was just enjoying it, I wouldn’t mess up his work. Because he really works. So I need to get right in my face, and he would just scream, and I would, you know, feel terrible if you messed up the take, and he would have to do it over again. Yeah, so…

Lynne Lipton: Our director is a wonderful woman named Lee Dannacher. She was in the room studio with us, and she had a habit. Always had a habit of, you know, let’s, let’s do another one for safety, which is a way of saying, just in case there wasn’t something right with the take that, you know, she would always ask for another one, and Mumm-Ra was, she’d say, Oh, that’s great. Well, no, let’s do safety on it. I always saw Larry back away again. He’s gonna spit all over me.

Larry Kenney: I thought about bringing a plastic sheet.

Moderator – Mike Lopez: Another question here from this gentleman.

Audience Member 3: Hi, there. I’m Peter. Thanks for being here today. We appreciate you for taking the time to join us. For decades, there have been rumors and rumblings about, uh, live-action or CGI Thundercats for the big screen. At any point in that time, have you guys been contacted to contribute to such a project, either as an actor or as a consultant?

Larry Kenney: I don’t think they would want me anywhere because I still have that leotard, but it’s not a pretty picture. And you’re right, every about every seven or eight years, there’s another rumor. Maybe the most recent one, they even went so far as to say that Warner Brothers has hired a director and a screenwriter, and the director is the guy who did Kong versus Godzilla, and then it goes away. And you don’t hear about it again. I wish they would do another movie.

Peter Newman: I wish they would hire us to do another movie.

Lynne Lipton: I would be Cheetara’s grandmother. I would just, you know, like, have a role in the live-action. “You know. Oh, Cheetara, you just have dirty paws, honey.”

Peter Newman: Tygra would be like, “Has anyone seen my bolo whip? I can’t find it. I’m invisibile to everybody. I don’t know.”

Moderator – Mike Lopez: We have time for a few more questions. This gentleman, right here.

Audience Member 4: Thank you. I’m just curious about the process with the animation. Was the whole cast together for all of the recordings?

Lynne Lipton: We were so lucky, because most animations, certainly other animations that I’ve done, you are in a studio alone. You often just looking at the picture and getting it’s called…

Peter Newman: ADR.

Lynne Lipton: You know, and you’re basically dubbing to the animation. And we were so lucky because most animation is done that way, certainly now, but we were together, and it gave us just fun. And it was very easy to go to work. I mean, I go home and think I’m getting paid for this?

He was, you know, Larry’s one of the most talented funny people I know, and Pete is dear. And all the old guys, you know, who were like masters of voices that you learn from, you learned how to do it from Bob McFadden, and the guy who did Mumm-Ra, Earl Hammond, and, you know, so it was, it was always kind of very joyful, and I felt absolutely lucky. Yeah.

Larry Kenney: Yeah. We were always all five of us, with minor exceptions in the studio together. If, at one point, they were at lunch, and Lee Dannacher here decided she wanted to change a word or two. She might just have that person come in and do it, you know, record it. To this day, I think any actor would would rather be in the ensemble. Can you imagine going to a play, and the first character comes out and does all his lines. Then, the next person comes out and does all his lines. That’s what it’s like when you work just by yourself. I mean, I’m still on a couple of shows. I’m still doing Teen Titans Go and a brand new one, Pokemon: Horizons. We’ve already done 45 of them.

But, yeah, it’s always better. Because, as Lynne said, when you’re together in a group, especially if you’re in a group like ours, everybody becomes like family. I mean, we really love each other, but we were doing it for so long. It took three years to record all those Thundercats, SilverHawks, and TigerSharks. And then we did a Saturday morning cartoon series called The Comic Strip. Does anybody remember that? It was four 15-minute shows. Two hours. Then we did over four or five holiday inspections. Yes, the adventures of delighted The Adventures of Santa Claus. That was Filmation.

So three or four years, we were seeing each other at least a few times a month to work on this. And we all became very close. I know we used to have Christmas parties and stuff like that, so I just really feel it’s better to work together because now, let’s see if I get called into a session, I’ll get there, I’m the only one in there, and they’ll record all my lines, and then I leave. Then, another actor will come in and record all his lines.

Peter Newman: You have to record to video, right?

Larry Kenney: With Pokemon: Horizons, they do ADR. Okay, the difference is Pokemon: Horizons has already been on the air in Japan for three years. So what we’re actually doing is just overdubbing. We’re not, we’re not the original. And for that, I mentioned earlier that you always do the voices first and then the animation.

Well, since the animation is already recorded for this, it kind of turns everything around. Now, you watch a screen, and you they then wait to a certain point before your line comes up, and then three seconds before your line comes up, you hear a beep, beep, beep. And then, on three beeps, you start reading your lines. It’s interesting, but it takes a little getting used to.

Lynne Lipton: It’s more fun to work with a lot of people. It just is, and these guys, they’re just not nice people. You know? But you take it.

Moderator – Mike Lopez: Guys, I have to thank you. This has been an amazing panel. We’re just about out of time, unfortunately. But if you guys have some other questions, you can come visit their tables downstairs. We have the whole weekend. You’re going to be with us so you know again, thank you for your contributions to all of our childhoods, you know, and the generations to come. So, let’s get a round of applause.

Larry Kenney: Thank you very much. And we always keep in mind, always have that there just three people. We wouldn’t be sitting here talking about Thundercats without you people.

Lynne Lipton: Yes, thank you for being fans for all these years. It’s amazing to me. Thank you.

Larry Kenney: So, can we go eat now?

Next: Discuss the Thundercats Reunion on the Film forum

ThunderCats Voice Actors Reminisce: Comic Con Panel with Lion-O Cheetara and Tygra at Undiscovered Realm Read More »

Michael Schwartz, Creator of Armored Comic Book Interview

Explore the journey of Michael Schwartz from screenwriter to comic book creator in his debut comic book series ARMORED, launching May 2024.

From Screenwriting to Comics: Michael Schwartz Unveils ARMORED

Michael Schwartz has a history in feature animation and screenwriting, but has now created his first comic book, ARMORED published by Clover Press. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the book will now be released to the public in May 2024. We got a chance to talk to Schwartz about the history of the project and the learning curve of bringing your first comic book to life.

Armored from Clover Press - Michael Schwartz

Adam Pope: Your new comic ARMORED is coming out in April. Can you explain the premise of the story for those who may not have heard about it yet?

Michael Schwartz: It’s a story about a young orphan teen named Andy Taylor. He’s adopted by this nice couple, but they’re a little strange because two years prior their son died under very mysterious circumstances. Andy is also an interesting orphan in that his parents disappeared under mysterious circumstance and the police don’t know what happened to them. So he spent two years trying to find out what happened to his parents and he’s obsessed about it. So when he moves in with this new couple, he becomes curious about what happened to their son, how he died and he goes to the site of their their son’s death. It’s an old castle ruins and he falls into this old tomb below the castle and finds this medallion that ends up being this magical suit of armor, when he presses this button on it. The suit of armor gives him powers the only hitch is that the armor is possessed by the original knight who wore it hundreds of years ago and he’s forgotten what he’s supposed to do and why he knows he has to train the boy to use the armor, because something big is coming. That’s the premise in a nutshell.

Michael Schwartz was a screenwriter for R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town on Hulu and Gnome Alone on Netflix.

Adam Pope: This is your first comic book project after acting as a screenwriter for other projects like R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town on Hulu and Gnome Alone on Netflix. So what inspired you to make the jump to graphic storytelling?

Michael Schwartz: Well with the screenwriting work I’ve had, a lot of it I’ve come in to “fix” someone else’s story. I never conceived of the Gnome Alone movie, they just asked for help. They had a 40 minute animated movie in storyboard form and I worked with the director and he said, “I could use your help. Do you have an idea of how to make this a feature film? Because we don’t have enough story here based on the script that was written.” So I came in and did, not only a rewrite, but also expanded upon what the first writer had developed with the director. The same goes with Zombie Town. That was a very different movie when I came on board. The script was about a zombie that would pop up out of nowhere. Just a disappearing/reappearing zombie and it was very strange. So I worked with the director to expand on their story and make it a bit of a teenage love story.

With ARMORED, I get to create this thing from scratch and I get to see it fulfilled. I’ve always loved comics and so I’ve always wanted to jump into it, but I didn’t know how to. While I have written a lot of screenplays that I got to write from scratch, none of them have been made yet. It’s really hard to get a movie made. It’s hard to get a comic made as well, I’ve discovered. It can be just as expensive in many ways. But I knew I could at least get the first issue done. So this felt like the right story to tell in this medium, and I just went for it.

Adam Pope: You’re talking about being a comic book fan. So who would you say are some of your biggest inspirations in terms of comic book writing and how does writing a comic differ from writing a screenplay?

Michael Schwartz: For your first question, I grew up in comic book stores. My Dad would take me to them weekly and he would read comics to me. It was all Stan Lee’s Amazing Spider-Man, which my dad read to me from Amazing Fantasy #15 right to Amazing Spider Man #100 and we’d read issues of Fantastic Four and other comics. So Stan Lee was a huge inspiration. But as I got older, I ended up going to film school here in Canada and I got really, really, really into Geoff Johns, the writer, from DC Comics. His writing in particular was a huge inspiration for me, even when it came to making short films. I felt like there was something inspiring about the way he wrote his stories. Maybe it’s because they were a bit more plot driven and I like when things happen. It wasn’t every issue, but I felt like within a single issue, you would have a mid point revelation or surprise and then you’d have a cliffhanger ending. So when I decided, “Okay, I want to write a comic book and have a whole world being built in my head around this idea. How am I going to write it?” I didn’t know structure in comic books like I know three act structure from screenwriting, but I was also like, “If I want to make this an ongoing series, I have to learn how each issue should be structured.”

So I took every comic of Geoff Johns and I created an Excel chart, just to see what he was doing and if there was a pattern and I started to see patterns. Then I took some Tom King comics, and started to see patterns with what he did. So I kind of just picked what I liked about how they structured their comics. Because I tend to read about three comics a night minimum, I already had an idea in my head, but understanding what these masters were doing is what guided me a little bit and I think people will see that with ARMORED. Especially fans of Geoff Johns may see similarities to his structure, at least.

Adam Pope: Over the last 20 years, it seems many writers are using comic books as kind of a springboard to get their stories adapted into movies or TV shows. Since a comic book is essentially a storyboard of how the action could play out on screen. Did you set out with that in mind with ARMORED or is just making it a comic book your main goal?

Michael Schwartz: No. When I came up with it and decided to write it as comic, I had just started working in visual effects full time again, I been a production manager in animation. I went a few years where I was fortunate enough to write about three screenplays a year for different producers. But I hit a point where I was kind of getting tired of writing these movies that I never got to own the screenplay for and they never got made. So I made the decision to jump into visual effects. I have friends in visual effects, and I had one friend in particular say, “You need to come work at our company. You’ll get to work on a Spongebob [Squarepants} movie. So I was like, “Okay, why not?” So I kind of gave up on screenwriting for a bit. But then I had this idea where I was like, “Well, I’m gonna see this through. I’m gonna I’m gonna get this made.” But more than anything, I wanted it to be a comic.

I think everyone thinks, “Hey, this would be nice to be a movie”, but I would love to just break even. I like writing screenplays, but it is very tough. There’s a lot of notes you get from producers that sometimes make sense and sometimes don’t make sense. And in comics, I think you have a bit more control. I’ve hired an editor to rein me in and to cut dialogue or to tell me, “This monster makes zero sense. Come up with a different monster.” So, you know, I still get notes, but it’s different. I feel like I have more control over the story. And I like this medium. If I could fully become a comic book writer, I would. I hope that answers your question. I love comics that much.

Adam Pope: Speaking of your visual effects work, you’ve worked on things like What We Do In The Shadows or the Walking Dead: Dead City or the latest Percy Jackson film on Disney+. So a lot of people in their minds probably think visual effects would transfer into creating visuals for ARMORED. Did you ever consider doing the art yourself, in addition to the writing?

Michael Schwartz: One of the good things about working in visual effects and animation is that I had a base knowledge of what it’s like to work with an artist. I’ve watched over the years, directors have to direct artists about what they want. So I know where I draw the line for myself to let Ismael [Hernandez], the artist on ARMORED, take it and let him be creative, where I don’t have to be so detailed and obsessive about every detail within a panel. So it helps in that sense. But I’m gonna give you an example of why I never saw it transfer over.

So, Percy Jackson. The way it works in visual effects is these producers basically hand out shots or scenes to different studios. Percy Jackson could have been worked on by like five different companies, I have no idea. We were given an underwater Siren creature and I swear from the day I started on that show to the day I left, we hadn’t even finished the creature. It takes so long for not only for the producer side to figure out what is the design, but then we have to model it, then they have to rig it (that’s the joints of the creature), then they have to surface it. Then it’s not just surfacing, it’s like, “How translucent do you want this creature to be?” It goes on and on and on, and it’s so painful. The cost for one creature, it’s like three houses in Toronto. It would cost more than five issues of ARMORED to produce and it’s already an expensive project because we have a lot of fantastic cover artists.

Adam Pope: Speaking to the creatures and things like that, ARMORED has some pretty frightening visuals. Why did you decide to add a horror element to a story of a modern day boy getting a magical suit of medieval armor? It could have been straight ahead adventure, but there’s some horror mixed in.

Michael Schwartz: Yeah, I can’t help it. I grew up with horror, it went hand in hand with comics. It was like one day I would be reading comic books like Batman or The Flash and the next day I’d be watching House or The Monster Squad. That’s what I grew up with. I spent a lot of weekends renting seven horror movies from my local video store. So it’s always going to be present in what I write, I think to a degree. I do like just straight superhero stuff, but with this story we have a couple who are dealing with the loss of their child. Then with Andy, he’s dealing with the loss of his parents. So death kind of permeates throughout this story and so it just felt natural to go there. Especially when you read the first issue or second issue, you quickly find out what the monster is and how closely related to death it is.

Adam Pope: A lot of comic book fans like yourself dream of creating a comic, but sometimes it’s about who you know and figuring out the process. So how did you go from having an idea for a story, to getting a company like Clover Press to agree to publish it?

Michael Schwartz: That was tough. I have to say, I had a really good editor, Chris Stevens. He’s an Eisner Award winning writer, so I had a lot of help from him. He was the one that helped get a lot of the cover artists interested. He’d send them the comic and say, “Would you be willing?” and the artists ended up liking the comic, which helps. Nick Patera was the first artist to do a cover for me and it was just great to hear his feedback because he liked the story and he seemed passionate about it. He knew how the first arc ended and he was like, “Oh, I want to tackle that character that you introduce at the end of the arc!”

I don’t know exactly how it happened. I only sent it to a few publishers to start. One in particular said they wouldn’t be able to publish it for a year and to me that was way too long. Meanwhile, I ended up taking two years to get it published. I don’t know what I was thinking back then, I didn’t know publishing. Then I sent it to Image Comics. I don’t know how people get stuff published at Image. I didn’t even get a response. I didn’t know people in the publishing world like I do now. But I just sent it and it was like into the void. The truth is, I didn’t even have a cover artist when I sent it to them. I didn’t even have a letterer. I had Ismael Hernandez, the artist do the lettering and we knew we were going to redo the lettering. I just didn’t have it done. So it was sent, kind of not finished.

But Clover Press saw it when I got Nick Patera’s cover and Hank Kanalz, the publisher there at Clover, he just immediately got it. He’s like, “I love your cliffhangers.” He knew that I wanted it to be like a monthly or bi-monthly series and the fact that he seems so passionate about it is what made me decide, “Oh, I’m not even gonna shop this around anymore. He seems really into it.” That was exciting to me. So that’s how I got Clover, but I think it was through Chris. Chris knew Hank, because Chris has been working with them on these Marvel Art Of… books.

Adam Pope: It sounds like that covers were kind of a key to get you in the door.

Michael Schwartz: I think it was just to recognize it. But it was, not to toot my own horn, to some degree, how I wrote the story as well. “It sounds like it’s like great story. But he’s invested his money in this. He’s serious about it. He’s paid an artist to create a visual to go along with it.”

I should mention for anyone that’s just getting into it, it’s really hard to get a name cover artist. I went through a list with Chris and I said, “I want all these guys. Just get me one of these.” He couldn’t get them. Then I would reach out and some would get back to me and they’d be like, “I’m booked for two years or I’m booked for eight months”. It is really hard. So when I look at any indie book and I’m like, “Wow, you got that cover artist?” That is impressive. It is difficult.

Even David Mack, he might be a part of this book, and he has a lot on his plate. Jae Lee is doing covers for Thundercats every month and he managed to do a cover for us for on the first issue of ARMORED. It’s great that these creators connecting with the story and then want to be a part of the project.

Adam Pope: So right now you’re hearing from the creative side and from the publishing side and everybody’s “rah rah” and behind it, but since you don’t yet know how the book is going to be received by the general public, what would you say has been the most rewarding part of this long process for you?

Michael Schwartz: Well, obviously, getting Clover was a very key part, because it means it can actually be released. I don’t have to self-publish it. I don’t know how to do that. But I had just done R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town in 2022 and I had met Dan Aykroyd and R.L. Stine. So a year after, when Clover was gearing up to do their Kickstarter campaign, they said, “Do you know anyone you can send the book to, just to get some feedback and see if they like it and might want to give a quote?” So I sent it to them. Aykroyd, I knew his assistant and I said, “Can you see if he’s willing to read it? If he likes it? Maybe he could provide a quote?” So I had R.L. Stine as well, I had his contact info and I messaged him just saying, “Hey, could you read this? If you don’t like it, do not feel like you have to provide a quote or anything, just give it a read.” I didn’t hear anything for weeks. So I was just like, “Oh God, this is nerve-racking, I’m terrified. I’m so terrified.” They both got back to me after six weeks, one after the other. And they both had such positive things to say. Stine had a few criticisms, but also some really, really great feedback. That was just so rewarding to have my childhood heroes give me give me positive feedback like that on my story. It just felt so rewarding. And it felt like, “Okay, it was worth it.”

But even before that, when I first wrote wrote the script, a friend of mine had done work for Marvel. He’s an artist for Marvel and I sent it to him saying, “Hey, can you read the script? Is it up to standards? Does this come anywhere close?” And, and when he read it, and he said, “Oh, this is probably one of the better scripts I’ve read.” And he gets a lot of comic book scripts. I was like, “Okay, maybe I will move forward and hire an artist. That’s great.” That was rewarding as well. Now we have this. So yeah. So you already know it’s a story you want to tell them as it continues on, you’re getting affirmed. Like, “Let’s keep it going. Let’s get this to the next stage.”

Adam Pope: Speaking of which, you’re getting ready for that final stage now and for it to be released. So how can people get their hands on a copy of ARMORED number one and how many issues are you planning to publish?

Michael Schwartz: Right now, if you’re a Kickstarter backer, you’re going to be getting that in a few weeks, or the PDF you’ll get in a few days. Then we plan on doing another Kickstarter for issues 3, 4, and 5 and you will be able to get 1 and 2 and those are all Kickstarter exclusive covers. Even if we end up using one of the covers, it will be different than the actual direct market release. The direct market release comes out on May 15, 2024.

Adam Pope: Well, best of luck with this. It sounds like there’s a lot of excitement behind it and hopefully everybody sees it and gets in on the adventure.

Michael Schwartz: Thank you. Thank you so much, Adam for having me on.

You can now access the Armored Kickstarter at this link.

Michael Schwartz, Creator of Armored Comic Book Interview Read More »

Popgeeks Interview: The Knights Behind Dungeons & DoomKnights

The new Switch / Steam game Dungeons & DoomKnights doesn’t just look retro, it’s 100% authentically the real deal. The game was developed in Assembly language on the original NES by Adam Bohn, better known as “Artix,” and Dale Coop (who’s been behind Kubo and other major NES homebrew releases). We caught both of them for an interview about the making of this game and what inspired it.

My first question is for Artix….Dungeons and Doomknights is far from your first game; you’re mainly known for an MMO called AdventureQuest. Take us back to the beginning.

ARTIX: All my life I have been obsessed with video games– my dream was to make one. In 2002, with the goal of getting just 100 people to play it, I created a web game which would be called AdventureQuest. The silly and bizarre game attracted a lot of attention and went viral. Over 200 million accounts were created by players across the world. The original AdventureQuest has been updated every single week with new content for the past 21 years. Talented players from our gaming community joined to form our studio… where we made other crazy video games (…and also action figures, card games, music, calendars, and experimental stuff.)

The team and I also created a ton of fun and funny games including DragonFable, MechQuest, EpicDuel, BattleGems, IdleQuest, and a dozen others. But in 2009 we decided to try our hand at creating MMORPGs. We made a MMORPG version of the original game called AdventureQuest Worlds. To this day it is our biggest and most successful game. It is updated every week too– in fact, this game is updated nearly daily. The player base is awesome and extremely passionate. Our game’s non-stop releases are a strange form of interactive storytelling which feeds of the things the players say on social media and discord. This game was responsible for the concept of Death Ads (sorry!), and had what we believe was the first live musical event in an MMORPG.

Then we made AdventureQuest 3D. Which is cross-platform 3D MMORPG. Cross platform means it runs on phones, tablets, PCs and Macs. It was a super ambitious project. We all had to learn how to do 3D stuff– and publish it to every platform… every week. Because, it is updated every week with new stuff too. A weird trivia fact is the game appears for a moment on the TV show designated survivor. The special musical events in this game included the bands Breaking Benjamin, Alice in Chains, and Korn. Elvira even hosted our 20th anniversary event that spanned the games.

So where did the idea to go super-retro and make something for the NES come from?

ARTIX: In 2019 I was hitting burn out pretty bad. I needed something to rekindle my love of game making….This is when I discovered NESMaker, which is a tool to help create games for the original 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System. I bought the software and joined their Byte-Off 2019 game jam. It was a one month game jam to make a new game for the NES. The game I wanted to create required a lot of custom 6502 assembly language. This is what NES games are coded in. So I searched their forums for someone who could help– and thank goodness I met Dale Coop. We became instant friends. Alongside my artist-friend, Clarion, we worked on the game. (I chain-watched ALL of Twin Peaks for the first time because of Dale Coop. The show is pretty amazing.) The game project was called “Artix: Knight of the Living Dead” and I was so very proud of it… but looking back, it was pretty terrible! LOL. That is an important part of the creative process.

Every year [our company does] “April Fools Jokes” across our games. I thought it would be funny to do a joke were we announced that the next major AdventureQuest game would be exclusively for the 1985 Nintendo Entertainment system! …then thought it would be funnier if we actually did it. So the little game jam project became the prototype for Dungeons & DoomKnights.

I also entered that competition and played your “Artix” demo, and I think you’re being too hard on yourself. There are a lot of bugs and graphical glitches, but it’s surprising how much of the framework for Dungeons & DoomKnights is in there.

So Dale, this is when you entered the picture…

DALE: I joined the NESMaker community in 2018, during a challenging period in my life. The first Byte Off competition brought immense excitement and engagement as I submitted Underground Adventure, a 2-player arcade game. It was during this time that I stumbled upon the Artix demo. Despite the bugs, I immediately saw the incredible potential of the game – its universe, humor, music, and graphics all hinted at the wonderful project to come. Shortly after, Artix asked for my help in fixing the bugs in that demo. It was a true pleasure, and it didn’t stop there.

That marked the beginning of the Dungeons & DoomKnights adventure. Due to my different timezone (editor’s note: Dale lives in France), we could just see each other online for a brief moment and discuss what each of us had done on the project. I’d occasionally get some surprises when Artix tinkered with the code, but it was fun. Working together on the project, we all learned and progressed a lot.

Describe the game you two ended up making.

ARTIX: Dungeons & DoomKnights is a story that takes place in an 8-bit version of the world of AdventureQuest. It features some of the popular characters and locations which was fun for fans of our other games. The game really is a love letter to all of my favorite childhood games. I grew up on the NES.

You play as Artix…who is supposed to be a Paladin. A magical knight of good. You are hunting an evil DoomKnight… the master of the undead, death knights, and liches…. but instead you find a mysterious red haired girl who takes you down a path of unexpected darkness. The game is a Zeldavania….or, as the Homebrew Club coined it, a DaleCoopvania– which means the game switches between adventure and platformer styles of game play. You can buy a house, play as the dog, learn and switch between new powers, and find secrets which are hinted at in the manual. The game also features the Konami code which unlocks all of the powers…but turns your armor red so everyone knows you are cheating. All of these incredible features and the “Save to Cart” functionality are the product of Dale Coop’s incredible handiwork.

Because Dale Coop is in France and I am in the USA we would sync in the mornings. I learned how to code in assembly language during the project– much to Dale Coop’s horror as he frequently BEGGED me to stop editing things. When I would create things it would almost always break other things. By the end of the game project, with Dale Coop’s mentorship I got good enough to make features. For example I coded the secret where if you kneel with the orb, you get teleported to the area where you can paint your armor different colors.

What were some of the challenges you faced in building the game? What was the most difficult part of it?

DALE: My memory isn’t very reliable, but one of the first big challenges was implementing the saving system. I crashed the game numerous times before finally achieving something functional. I recall that initially, the saving was done at checkpoints, but it didn’t work well. We decided to use a text box (“Wanna save: yes / no”), and Artix came up with the brilliant idea of using a book, which worked really well!

Another significant challenge we quickly encountered was the limitation on the number of monsters in the project (we didn’t have enough objects and tilesets). To address this, I implemented a “skins” system, allowing us to use the same objects (often NPCs) but with different tilesets (graphics). To achieve this, I added new tilesets manually into unused data banks, and during monster loading, a piece of code takes care of using the correct customized tilesets.

When we added the platformer screens to the game, it was quite a nightmare. We had to deal with tile collision issues at the edges when transitioning from one screen to another. I remember spending days or even weeks on that. Most of the time I was working by night… or early morning. I was often tired. but it was really fun and exciting to work on the project so many cool things to implement, new ideas to try (because, yeah, Artix had a ton of ideas). We faced many other issues, bugs, and hurdles throughout the project.

Within the time it took for you to develop Dungeons & DoomKnights, NESMaker updated itself with a new version. You used 4.1, which was buggier than 4.5 and probably added a lot of extra work. I can tell it’s 4.1 because it takes longer for the text boxes to draw and undraw themselves. Did you consider moving the project to 4.5 and rebuilding there, or was the project already too far along for that?

DALE: For D&Dk, we based it on a custom module (my 2 player module) that included numerous fixes from myself. However, we heavily modified it for the project since we didn’t need the 2-player aspect and made other adjustments. By the time version 4.5 was released, the game was already finished, if I recall correctly. Upgrading to the new version was not under discussion. Our engine is quite robust for our purposes, having nearly everything we need. The main advantage of NESmaker 4.5 lies in its left-right scrolling engine and the 8x8px screens but we didn’t need that for that project. Maybe for another one in the future.

One of the more unorthodox elements of Dungeons & DoomKnights is that B is “slash” and A is “dog.” As in, you push the button and a Pomeranian sprints out and keeps running until he hits one enemy or fetches one key. You put a similar idea into one of your later Byte-Off demos, NecroNancy, which let you conjure a cat named “Skello Kitty” in a similar fashion. Was the dog in D&Dk inspired by the cat in NecroNancy?

ARTIX: The dog was inspired by Daimyo, my real life dog. He came into my life in 2001 as I was starting to create the original AdventureQuest. He has appeared in every major game I created. Oddly enough, the Moglin Twilly is inspred by him too. I wanted him as a pet in Dungeons & DoomKnights, but due to technical limitations made summoning him a skill “Fetch!” The mechanic was interesting because in Adventure mode screens he always turns left when hitting a wall. But in Platformer screens, he runs straight only turning around when colliding. Skello Kitty is actually a reskin of Daimyo with a jump added so give it a fun mechanic (and let it hop walls).

Daimyo passed away in 2017. I really miss him.

Anything else about the game’s development you think we might find interesting?

ARTIX: Dungeons & DoomKnights had a lot of help from the NESMaker community. The full list can be seen on the official credits. The game’s physical release was interesting. Because of Covid we could not bring in help from the studio — so my children and I flashed the boards, screwed together the carts, and put together the boxes. I also made a magazine to thank backers for their patience… because the project went weeeeelllll into overtime. You can read the magazine on DungeonsAndDoomKnights.com as well as the instruction manual.

Meanwhile, Jongaar, who did our music, created an entire album of Heavy Metal versions of the songs from the game. It is glorious. Both the 8-bit and Heavy Metal versions of the soundtrack are available on Apple Music, Spotify, and any other major music service. Or you can hear it on Youtube:

Dungeons & DoomKnights Music (Metal Video Game Soundtrack)

Now the game is out, and not just on the NES. How has the reception been?

I am extremely grateful the final game was met with a lot of love. It is scary releasing a passion project into the world…. when you put so much of yourself into something, it is scary to think how you would feel it people do not like it. Thank goodness there are so many awesome people out there who share love for the same things I do. Retroformat Magazine issue #15 reviewed the game and gave us a 9.5/10. CoolSh#t magazine reviewed us and gave us a 100%…. which is bonkers.

New NES Game - Dungeons and Doomknights RULES!

Dungeons & Doomknights Switch Review

To leave things for now, what do you have planned for the future?

ARTIX: Hyped for Byte-Off IV! [editor’s note: it started February 9 and runs until March 17] My time is limited because I am working on www.AQ2D.com — a cross-platform remake of the MMO. But I have never missed a Byte-Off yet. NESMaker game jams are like jello…and there is always room for Jello.

DALE: Each Byte Off is a not-to-be-missed event; it’s a celebration, a gathering of community members. I’m eager and hopeful to find some time to participate this year as well. I’m currently working on finalizing my game, Chibi Monster Brawl, and concurrently collaborating on a few other NES projects. It’s an exciting time, and I look forward to welcoming new people to our community to create new games for the NES.

Dungeons & DoomKnights is available now on Steam and the Switch eShop.

Popgeeks Interview: The Knights Behind Dungeons & DoomKnights Read More »

Today, we’re going to talk with Loot Studios about their upcoming game, Malediction.

From Miniatures to Tabletop Games

Art and Design of Malediction: A Distinct Identity

Gameplay: Strategy Over Luck

A Living Game and Looking Ahead

Inclusivity and Player Engagement

Building the Surge of Power Universe

A Growing Cast of Characters

Expanding the Cast and Crossovers

The Effects Get Better Every Time

Representation and Legacy with Surge of Power

Looking Ahead: Call of the Champions

Adam Pope: How did you get fascinated with movie make-up and decide to pursue that as a career?

Adam Pope: That’s fascinating. Were you involved on the pre-production side? Were there very many permutations of the Gwildor make-up? Do you remember if there were very many changes, or did they have that look from the beginning?

Adam Pope: Now a very well known show that you became involved in the 90’s was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that TV series. You were the make-up supervisor. I am curious, did you enjoy working on a show with so many vampires and werewolves and assorted demons?

Adam Pope: Speaking of blood splatter, this is the time of year that we like to see the streets run red with fun fake blood. Can you give us your personal fake blood recipe, something that’ll look good on camera or at least in a photo?

Why Charles Band Chooses to Continue to Direct

The Vision Behind Pulp Noir

Exploring Virtual Reality and Dark Fantasies in Quadrant

How Virtual Reality Reflects Modern Technological Concerns

The Return of Edgier Storytelling

Death Streamer: A Modern Twist on Vampires

Meta and Ray-Ban’s Glasses Inspire Death Streamer

Filming in Historic Cleveland Locations

Finding the Church for Death Streamer

Transforming a Rundown Church into a Movie Location

Announcing Charles Band’s Church of Chills Event

Looking Back on 400 Films

The Uniqueness of Head of the Family

Engaging Fans Through Patreon

Behind the Scenes Access for Patreon Supporters

Expanding Filmmaker-Fan Relationships with Exclusive Content

Where to Watch Quadrant

From Physics to Star Trek: A Journey of Exploration

The Importance of Space Exploration

Beyond Star Trek: Exploring New Frontiers

Encouraging Future Generations

TMNT Early Days and Unexpected Success

On-Set Experiences and Character Immersion

The Magic of Jim Henson

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Questions and Reflections

Next: Discuss the TMNT Live-Action Reunion on the Film forum

Full Transcript of the TMNT Live-Action Reunion Panel

Next: Discuss the TMNT Live-Action Reunion on the Film forum

Thundercats voice actors reunite at Undiscovered Realm, sharing behind-the-scenes stories, favorite episodes, and fan moments.

Next: Discuss the Thundercats Reunion on the Film forum

Full Transcript of the Thundercats Reunion Panel

Next: Discuss the Thundercats Reunion on the Film forum

Explore the journey of Michael Schwartz from screenwriter to comic book creator in his debut comic book series ARMORED, launching May 2024.

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**Today, we’re going to talk with Loot Studios about their upcoming game, Malediction.**