The Plot - Episode 4 - Inspector Clouseau / The Inspector

The Inspector and The Matzoriley Brothers, from The Great De Gualle Stone Operation. (C) 2022 MGM.

In this episode, we look at what happens when a studio makes a sequel without its creator and without its star and its more successful cartoon analog.

In 1968, Mirisch Films decided to make a third Pink Panther without Blake Edwards, Peter Sellers and Henry Mancini. And we got Inspector Clouseau, directod by veteran comedy producer/director Bud Yorkin and starring Alan Arkin, in between making The Russians Are Coming and Catch-22. If every a film was less than the sum of its parts, it’s this film, which just doesn’t work on so many levels. But its an interesting study in what happens when you remove the creators that make something special.

We also take a look at The Inspector, the animated film/tv series that actually preceded the aforementioned film by three years. The second animated spin-off series from the Pink Panther franchise debuted a year after the first Pink Panther cartoon won an Oscar. The Inspector (and his assistant Doux-Doux) are voiced by Pat Harrington Jr and The Commissioner is originally voiced by the recently-departed Larry Storch and later by Paul Frees. There were 34 cartoons eventually made for either the movies or Saturday morning TV, with such great episodes titles as Napoleon Blown Aparte and Toulouse La Trick. Full of traditional cartoon gags like exploding bombs and surrealistic situations, your tolerance for them in 2022 may be determined by your tolerance for comedy French and Spanish accents.

Episode 111 - Let's Go to the Videotape

The American Ninja from Texas Championship Wrestling.

We’re happy to welcome for the first time to the show, Kris P Lettuce (@krisplettuce), the man behind the Armstrong Alley You Tube channel. We discussed the treasure trove of found footage he has been posting on his channel featuring independent wrestling from the 1980s., 1990s and 2000s.

First up, we talked about his channel and the origins of all this footage, including a subject we’ve been talking a lot lately on the show, tape trading. Just how big was the list of footage from which he was choosing?

From there, we talk about a number of short-lived promotions, including: Austin Idol’s 1993 USA Wrestling, the 1987 Alabama promotion World Organization Wrestling, the 1990-91 Texas Championship Wrestling, the 1991 Nashville International Wrestling Alliance, the 1990 Arkansas International Pro Wrestling, The 1990-91 North American Wrestling Assocation/South Atlantic Pro Wrestling and more. There’s a littany of people we mention here: Idol, Junkyard Dog, the Bullet and the other Armstrongs, Bob Holly, Bill Ash, Stunning Steve Austin, Paul Jones, Robert Fuller, Willie the Wrestling Clown and even Nick Gulas.

There’s also chat about Southeastern/Continental, missing and found footage, Ron Wright and Ron’s Championship Wrestling, wrestling fan subcultures, Kris’ new Patreon, wrestling books, what footage he hopes to get next and more.

Note: The next episode of The Plot should feature two spy-themed Silver Age comics and should be out in a week or two. Thanks for listening.

The Plot - Episode One - Mission Impossible 1966

What happens when a safecracker breaks his hands? Willy (Peter Lupus) and Terry (Wally Cox) from the Mission: Impossible pilot episode.

We’re happy to debut a new podcast series in conjuction with the When It Was Cool network with the first episode of The Plot. What’s that, you ask? It’s going to be an examination of the spy/heist genre. It will look at film, television, comics, cartoons and whatever else that can fall under that umbrella.

First up, we go to the very top of the genre for me, the original Mission Impossible TV show, which ran on CBS from 1966 to 1975. Naturally, we start with the Pilot, which starred Steven Hill as Dan Briggs, the team leader, along with regulars Barbara Bain, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus, Martin Landau and guest star Wally Cox. We look at the background on the show and then some brief chat about the episode itself, where the team goes to a Caribbean country to stop a dictator from using newly-acquired nuclear warheads against the United States.

We also look at arguably the most-remembered episode of the show, Season 3’s The Execution. We have Peter Graves in his second year as Jim Phelps, the regular team and guest villains Vincent Gardenia, Val Avery and Lew Askew. The team needs to get the goods on a mobster trying to control food prices and must get a hitman to rat out his boss by making him believe he is days away from being killed in the gas chamber.

This episode was a little shorter than we planned, but didnt want to just add filler. It was the demo episode, so please forgive any hiccups or glitches. We’ll be back soon with another episode.

Thanks to Karl for the invitation. Make sure you sample the other shows on the When It Was Cool Network.

Episode 107 - Children of the Night

Good Night, Funny Man. RIP Gilbert Gottfried.

It was a bittersweet podcast to do, reliving the life and career of the great Gilbert Gottfried with Longbox Heroes’ co-host Joe Sposto (@joesposto). Most of our memories revolve around Gilbert’s 122 appearances on the Howard Stern show. We discuss our history of hearing Gilbert on the show and many of his famous incidents over the years: Dracula Gottfried, the Jerry Seinfeld voicemail, arguing with Amy Heckerling’s assistant and many more. We also go over many of his other credits: from animation to TV to celebrity roasts to commercials. to his podcast and what futures does it have with his passing. We were both huge fans of Gilbert, so we hope we did his memory justice.

It’s been quite a while since Joe has been on the show, so we also caught up some of our other common interests. We talk about about what comics Joe and Todd have been discussing on their podcast and what he’s been enjoying lately. There’s mention of One-Star Squadron, Word’s Finest, The Nice House on the Lake, Marvel’s Spider-Man books and a few others.

There’s also wrestling chat, mainly about the success of Eddie Kingston, who Joe has been watching for almost 20 years in Chikara and other promotions. We also discuss about the folly of hate watching, watching what content you like, whether it’s new, old, international or some combination of all of it.

And we couldn’t not mention Marvel Puzzle Quest. We mention my passing day 3000 of playing, with Joe not far behind, the choice of new characters being introduced into the game and is it still fun to play after almost a decade of being around.

Apologies for the lack of formal introduction and the occasional cough throughout the show. Our long chat and the wacky spring weather left my voice a little froggy.

Episode 106 - Bad Moon Rising

We’re happy tp welcome back Karl Stern (@WIWCool) from When It Was Cool to talk comics, comics TV, popular culture and classic wrestling.

We start the show talking about the first episode of the new Moon Knight show on Disney+. If you want to avoid spoilers, skip ahead to around the 15:00 mark. We discuss what we did and did not like in the first episode, where they might go from there, changes to the characters from the comics, Karl’s long-time love of the character since the 1970s and more.

From there, we have some general comics chat. We talk about the comics Karl has been reviewing on his podcast network, old comics vs new comics, comics reflecting society, popular culture and the fallacies of high culture vs low culture and more.

Then, it’s on to the wrestling discussion. We talk about wrestling perceptions, how opinion has been shaped over the years by the newsletters, how sources shaped the newsletter’s narratives, particularly in the 1980s, noticable blind spots and biases in newsletter coverage over the years, the “found” Southeastern Wrestling now on Youtube, heel Bob Armstrong, the history of the Original Midnight Express, Norvell Austin and other topics.

Always a fun show with Karl. We have an idea for a show that we hope to do in the future, either here or on his network.

Also, I was on a recent episode of Between the Sheets podcast, talking March 1984., specifically about the start of the Last Stampede, with The Cake and The Slap from the March 17 1984 episode of Mid-South Wrestling TV show. Be sure to check it out.

Episode 104 - He Who Laughs Last

Sean Lock, Jimmy Carr and Jon Richardson play Carrot in a Box on 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

We’re very happy to welcome back writer, comedian and podcaster Kevin Day (@kevinhunterday) back to the show to talk comedy, football and more.

The reason we wanted to have Kevin back on the show was to discuss the British panel show on TV, following the death last year of Sean Lock. Kevin worked with Sean on a number of shows and has written for dozens of shows including Have I Got News for You, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Here Comes the Buzzcocks and many more. We talk about why they are so popular in the UK and haven’t really worked as well in the US. But we do talk about one of the shows that has succeeded in both places and that’s Whose Line Is It Anyway. We talk about improv comedy, the genius of Paul Merton and Tony Slattery, among others, the culture of improv in the US vs the UK and the challenge of doing improv vs stand up. We also talk about the problems of diversity in booking panel shows and the difficulties of avoiding tokenism.

We also talk about podcasts as a means for young comedians to get exposure and segue that into chatting about comedians doing football podcasts, including Quickly Kevin, Comedians Playing Fantasy Premier League and, maybe the grand dame of the genre, The Tuesday Club. We also reminisce about Kevin doing the Chappers podcast more than a decade ago with Mark Chapman, Graham Poll and Roy Meredith.

That leads into actual football chat. We recorded this on Transfer Deadline Day, but not much talk about that. We discuss the arrival of Patrick Viera at Crystal Palace and how much Kevin is enjoying the football at Selhurst Park this year, the rivalry (derby?) with Brighton and the challenges that brings with hosting The Price of Football with Seagulls supporter Kieran Macguire. We also talk about the proliferation of London football clubs, rivalries and tribalism and comparing that to American sports. (Disclaimer: I accidentally swapped Alabama and Auburn in my story and flip-flopped the fandom of the tree killer in that heated blood feud. My apologies to the fans of both teams.)

Kevin is always a great guest and we hopefully to get back in the near future to continue the chat about British sportswriting vs American sportswriting and the other stuff we ran out of time to discuss.

Episode Ninety-Nine - The Night of the Affair Affair

Barbara Feldon and Robert Vaughn from the Man from UNCLE

There were two choices for what to do for episode 99 - hockey or female spies, so we chose the latter. To talk about Agent 99, Mrs. Peel, April Danger and lots others, we’re happy to welcome back to the pod John Champion (@DVDGeeks) from the Mission Log Podcast amongst other shows.

We start, of course, with Agent 99 herself, Barbara Feldon and Get Smart, including the start of the show, her role as straight woman/love interest, the evolution of the show , the 90s Fox sequel/revival and the Numb Bomb movie which noticably did not have Feldon in the cast.

Feldon’s appearonce on the Man from UNCLE led us into discussing The Girl From UNCLE, the one-season spiin-off starring Stefanie Powers. This segues nicely into a chat about the number one female TV spy, Mrs. Peel, played by Diana Rigg on the Avengers. We talk about what made her so special and tallk about some memorable episodes.

Naturally, this brings us to James Bond, where we start with the whole notion of “the Bond Girl,” and how the term has outlived its usefulness in 2021. We discuss our favorite from the movies, whether they were leading ladies or dastardly femme fatales. And that includes some of the lesser-known characters over the years, not just the obvious ones.

(editor’s note: Shamefully, we forgot to discuss Barbara Bain and Mission: Impossible. My apologies)

We end the show with some brief Star Trek talk. Mission Log recently reviews the Deep Space Nine episode “Far Beyond the Stars,” so we discuss how that episode still holds up 30 years later. There’s also some brief chat about season two of Star Trek Picard and the new Roddenberry podcast “Sci Fi 5.:”

As we mentioned on the show, episode 100 is next and hopefully we will be having someone as a very special, after literally years of them asking to do the show. Tune in next time to see if they are here.

Episode Ninety-Six - The Sheik of Araby

Sarge gets a “gift” from Saddam Hussein. Or so he says.

We welcome back Ashraf Khalil (@ashrafkhalil) to take about a dubious wrestling anniversary, the 30th anniversary of Iraqi Sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter winning the WWF title during the Persian Gulf War. We talk about the whole history of the gimmick, friom Sarge’s return to the WWF in the Summer of 1990, his initial heel gimmick, the pairing with General Adnan, his winning the WWF title, the Wrestlemania VII match with Hulk Hogan, the addition of Colonel Mustafa to the group, the split and face turn and blow-off. We discuss what was going in Middle East as all this was going on, as well as the WWF’s war with Dave Meltzer over his coverage of the angle in the National. (Check out the recent Between the Sheets Patreon episode for more on this topic).

This leads into a broader discussion of the depiction of Arab/Middle Eastern wrestlers, from the Terrible Turk in the late 1900s up until the present, including looking at the Iron Sheik, Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie, Scandar Akbar, the Great Mephisto, Muhammad Hassan, the Original Sheik, Sabu and many more. Who were Arab-Americans, who were from the Middle East, who used a fake accent and who didn’t and other relevant questions. Shout out to Charting the Territories podcast for their recent look at the in=ring career of Scandar Akbar, which helped out conversation.

There’s also a lot of digressions in the show, including stuff about comics, Indiana University’s “eight front doors,” pre-Internet journalism and more. Thanks for listening.

Episode Ninety-Five - New Math

Danny Hodge on the cover of the April 1, 1957 issue of Sports Illustrated.

We’re happy to have the debut on the pod this week of Al Getz (@AlGetzwrestling) from Charting the Territories for a wide ranging conversation.

First, we discuss the life and times of Danny Hodge, who passed away last week at the age of 88. One of Al’s main areas of research is the Leory McGuirk territory, Hodge’s home for most of his career. We discuss Hodge’s amateur accomplishments in both wrestling and boxing, his transition to pro wrestling and his career highlights. Al has a number of great stories about Hodge, both in his younger days and the unfortunate end of his in-ring tenure following a car accident.

After that, we talk about an article Al wrote about the early career of pod favorite Buddy Landell. We talk about his start in Poffo’s ICW and his journey up the card until becoming a main eventer in Memphis, during his infamous run in 1986 teaming with Bill Dundee. We talk about his time in Mid-South, Mid-Atlantic and Puerto Rico. This leads to a wonderful digression about the journey wrestlers go on in finding the right persona to adopt in the ring.

We also talk about the statistical-based Al uses on his website and podcast to evaluate wrestlers, how it was inspired by baseball sabermetrics and the folly of using traditional sports metrics to try and analyze pro wrestling. There are also some fun stories about indy wrestling, involving folks like King Kong Bundy and the Honky Tonk Man.

Thanks for listening. Work is slowly continuing on our new It’s A Family Affair project, with a few weeks of Continental TV recapped on the website. We hope to have the next episode of the podcast up soon with a former wrestler as guest. Stay turned for more information. We hope you enjoy the show.

Episode Ninety-Four - It's a Family Affair Number One

Ron Fuller on the Continental Championship Wrestling set.

We are happy to debut the first episode of the “It’s A Family Affair” Podcast, the companion piece to the website project of the same name examining Continental Championship Wrestling. And for our first show, it’s great to welcome back Karl Stern (@WIWCool) to the show. Not only is Karl a wrestling historian, but an Alabama native who grew up watching Southeastern Wrestling and saw its transition to Continental.

In a very wide-ranging discussion, we talk about the transition of the promotion in June 1985, the logistics of the change, why they changed names, format and even announcers, bringing in Gordon Solie to replace longtime host Charlie Platt. We talk about where the promotion was in terms of angles they were running at the time and what they did on the debut show, including bringing in world champion Ric Flair to kick off the first episode.

After that, quite frankly, we just all over the place, talking about just about everything related to the company, including their start in Knoxville in 1974, Ron Fuller acquiring the Gulf Coast terrritory and renaming it Southeastern in 1978, the towns they ran and where the TV show was seen in that part of the country. We talk about Ron Fuller’s career as a wrestler and promoter, including whether we think buying Knoxville cost him the change of being NWA World Champion .

And we discuss just about every name you can think of from this era: Robert Fuller, Jimmy Golden, all of the Armstrongs (Bob, Brad, Scott and Steve), Adrian Street, Rip Rogers, Austin Idol, Tommy and Johnny Rich, the Nightmares (Danny Davis and Ken Wayne), Tom Prichard, Tony Anthony, Jerry Stubbs, The Flame (also known as the Assassin), Roy Lee Welch, Bill Ash, Lord Humongous and more.

We also talk about Karl’s When It Was Cool website, a wide ranging popular culture site, very akin to our own. We even find time to talk about Southern Basterds, then now missing in action comic set in the part of Alabama Karl knows very well.

The goal of the podcast is not only have wrestling journalists and historians on the show, but also the wrestlers were that is possible.

Note: You can also hear me on an upcoming episode of Ron Fuller’s Super Stud Cast, where I can to ask Ron about the creation of Continental and hear how it happened from the man himself.

Be sure to check out the It’s A Family Affair section of the website for a look at the Continental television shows and other articles about the promotion. Thanks for your time.

Episode Ninety-Three - Tragedy Tomorrow, Comedy Tonight

Kevin’s new book, Who Are Ya?

Sometimes the podcast you plan isn’t the one you end up doing. That’s the case with our new pod with writer/broadcaster/comedian Kevin Day (@kevinhunterday). What was supposed to be a chat about Kevin’s new book and his podcast ended up starting with a long conversation about comedy, old TV shows and more.

We innocently began the pod talking about time zones in the United States, which somehow turned into a long chat about old school British comedies, especially the shows that were shown in the States on PBS. This turned into a wide-ranging discussion about American comedy vs British comedy, Monty Python, Dad’s Army, Whose Line is it Anyway?, 1970s British sitcoms brought over to the States, classic spy shows, referentiality in comedy, stand-up versus improv and more. We also talked about Kevin’s son Ed Night (@_ednight) also being a stand-up comedian and the challenges facing the comedy business in Great Britain during the pandemic.

Eventually, we did get around to talking about Kevin’s new book, Who Are Ya?, an examination of the (current) 92 clubs in the English football pyramid. We discuss Kevin’s famous interview on Match of the Day 2 with Sylvester Stallone at Goodison Park, football’s working class roots and the contrast with today’s big business philosophies, at least among many of the Premier League clubs.

We close it out with Kevin’s current podcast, The Price of Football, and some of his old ones. How did Kevin end up working with Kieran Maguire and would the pod have even started had he known Kieran supported Brighton, the hated rival of Kevin’s beloved Crystal Palace. We also talk the old Chappers podcast that Kevin did with Mark Chapman, Graham Poll and Roy Meredith and discuss how the podcast model can be better for concent creators than trying to work in radio or TV.

This was a fun show that went in so many different directions. It’s always fun when you have a guest as multi-faceted as Kevin who can talk about everything from football finance to Randall and Hopkirk Deceased to Robin Williams. Hopefully, we will have Kevin back on the show in the future.

Also, when this show debuts in late October 2020, we hope to be announcing in the next week or so our next project which will have written content on the website and an audio companion, either on this feed or a new one.

Thanks for listening.

Episode Eighty-Nine - The Force of July

The 1986 Great American Bash program cover

We look back at a special wrestling event that took place 36 years ago as we write this, the first date on the 1986 Great American Bash tour, held on July 1, 1986 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. The Winter Palace host was at the shot and has a couple guests to look back at the show.

First up is one of the hardest working man in the podcast business, Kris Zellner (@kriszellner), co host of Between the Sheets (@BTSheetspod) , Exile on Badstreet, Cover 2 Cover and more. We go over the card, match-by-match and talk about some of the infamous stories that happened backstage. We also talk about the 1986 Bash tour as a whole, where it was successful and where it was not. We also talk about a bunch of other subjects including the logistics of watching wrestling in the 1980s, the days of tape trading, how Kris managed to find the time to do all those shows and some recommendations of classic matches to watch online.

(52:18) Also on the show is Mark’s high school friend Jim, who, to protect his real identity, we will call Jim K. Fabe. Jim and Mark were impressionable 16-year old wrestling fans who attended that Bash show in Philadelphia. We talk about what we remember about the show live, other wrestling shows we attended back in the 1980s, favorites then vs favorites and more. We also talk about the current problem in popular culture of separating the art from the artist, centering about Jim’s teenage fandom for Jimmy Snuka and reconciling that with what we know about the death of Nancy Argentino. That branches out into the same problems effecting creators in film and tv, sports, comics and more. It was Jim’s first podcast appearance and we think he did a bang up job talking a trip down memory lane.

Check the show notes below for The Final Best of 7 match between Magnum TA and Nikita Koloff for the Unites States Title from JCP TV and Jim Cornette’s podcast where he discusses the Great American Basn tours.

Episode Eighty-Six - Kaos Theory

The high point of Star Trek Picard: the reunion with Riker, Picard and Troi.

With the Splendid Isolation mini-series ended, we are back to regular episodes. Thanks to those who listened while I tried to keep busy.

We welcome back John Champion (@dvdgeeks) from the Mission Log Podcast (@missionlogpod) to discuss the recently-completed Star Trek Picard season one. We chat about what we liked and what was problematic and where the show might go in future seasons. On the Trek front, we talk about the changes to Mission Log, with Ken Ray departing and Norman Lao arriving at the beginning of the year.

From there, it’s lots of spy talk, starting naturally with Get Smart (since it’s episode 86). From there, it’s a cornucopia of shows on the docket, including Mission: Impossible, the Man from UNCLE and more. With the passing of Robert Conrad, we of course discussed the Wild Wild West, including why the show was so fun. And with the recent death of Honor Blackman, we talk about the Cathy Gale version of The Avengers, as well as her role in Goldfinger.

To round up the show, it’s some other British programs to examine, including Danger Man, the Prisoner, Randal and Hopkirk Deceased (which John had not seen before) , Department S, Jason King and how the star of the last two shows had a connection to the Bronze Age X-Men comic books.

Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy the show.

Episode Eighty-Five Splendid Isolation Four

Jerry Lawler, Dave Brown and Scott Bowden. RIP Scott.

First off, condolences to the friends and family of Scott Bowden, who died earlier this week. We had been talking to Scott the last couple weeks about returning to the podcast to talk Memphis wrestling and even were Tweeting with him a few days ago.

On the show we are finally to nabbed The King of Kingsport Beau James (@kingofkingsport) to be on the show. We start by remembering Scott, as Beau had just done his Kentucky Fried Rasslin’ podcast not that long ago. As one of the foremost experts on East Tennessee wrestling, we pick Beau’s brain on all things about the Knoxville/Southeastern/Continental/USA territory, so plenty of stories about Ron and Don Wright, Whitey Caldwell, Les Thatcher, Ron and Robert Fuller,, Jimmy Golden, Ron Garvin and many more folks. We also talk about Memphis, including the angle (see below) when Robert Fuller brought back Nick Gulas to do an angle about the control of the promotion. There’s way too many stories to listen here, including Beau’s long friendships with Buddy Landell and Jimmy Valiant, starting in the business at 16 years old, indy wrestling horror stories and so much more. Easily one of my favorites podcasts, as Beau is a master storyteller. If you want more, be sure to check out his new Patreon and his King of Kingsport website.

Episode Eighty-Two - Splendid Isolation Number One

You can’t go wrong recommending Negro Casas

Just when you thought it was safe to presume the podcast was gone. Our idle hands were put to use with the creation of a new podcast series “Splendid Isolation,” where we get folks on the blower to recommend things to watch or read or play during all this down time most people now have in their lives.

After a long hiatus, it’s the return of The Cubs Fan (@luchablog). We start off talking about the recent empty arena match held days ago by @LuchaMemes and shown on Lucha+ TV (see link below). Cubs gives a rundown on the show and what matches are worth watching. Then, we discuss the future plans of Lucha in Mexico, including the recently postponed Dos Leyendas show, and when will the hair match between Cavenario and Felino take place. We also mention some recent matches now online to watch and reminisce about CMLL’s 2014 Busca de un Idolo tournament. And if you didn’t notice elsewhere on the site, we are finally reviving our review of that event, which we started a year or ago but progress on it got delayed and delayed. But, now is a good a time to bring it back as ever. You may have even see Friend of the Show @hechicero tweeting clips from some of his matches.

Finally, like millions of people around the world, Cubs and I are addicted to the new Animal Crossing game on the Nintendo Switch. We talk about our respective progresses so far in the game, watching YouTube hint videos versus avoiding spoilers and how it has helped while away the time.

We have a few guests lined up for these short mini-episodes, so hopefully they will help. Thanks for listening

Episode Eighty-One - A Pox on Both Your Houses

Charles Xavier in House of X #1. (C) 2019 Marvel Comics

It’s an old school Beat reunion as we welcome the other half of the House to Astonish podcast, Paul O’Brien (@ifdestroyed), to discuss the relaunch/reboot of the X-Men with the recently concluded House of X and Powers of X. As a long-time chronicler of the mutant corner on the Marvel Universe with his X-Axis column, who better to examine what Jonathan Hickman has done and might do with the new era of X-books. We chat about the events of HOX and POX, the portrayal of various characters in the book and the new line of books, some of which will written by Hickman.

Leaving the X-books aside, there’s also talk about noteworthy books that Paul and HTA co-host (and our first pod guest) Al Kennedy (@housetoastonish) have discussed on their show, including Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen by (former pod guest) Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber, Strange Skies Over East Berlin, Steeple and more.

We end the show with some quick wrestling chat, with the first shots of the new Wednesday Night Wars having just been fired a few weeks ago. There’s talk about the inaugural AEW shows, what worked and what didn’t, the booking so far, the new NWA Power show on Youtube, the greatness of Eddie Kingston and a few other things.

Episode Seventy-Nine - Handsome

Did anyone put more bounties on their opponents than Harley?

We welcome back Wrestling Observer Live’s Mike Sempervive (@sempervive) to the pod, to discuss the life and times of former NWA champion Harley Race, who passed away on August 1 at the age of 76. We discuss the amazing obstacles Harley overcame to become one of the most admired and respected wrestlers on the modern era. We also look at some of his career highlights, opponents and angles. In addition to the appreciation of Handsome Harley, we chat about wrestling history, the greatness of the @RonFullerWelch podcast, the place of the Welch/Fuller dynasty in wrestling history, Jim Barnett, Jerry Jarrett, Ron Wright, Les Thatcher, the Knoxville 5 tape, the old school Wrestling Observer newsletter, watching wrestling in the pre-cable era and much more. An extra-sized show this episode, fitting to discuss the greatest wrestler on god’s green earth.

Episode Seventy-Six - Divided by Zero

Sargasso, from Section Zero. (c) 2019 Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett

The pod returns with a guest we have been trying to get on for quite a while. Longtime comics creator Karl Kesel (@karlkesel) is here to discuss his current Kickstarter project Section Zero 1959, a continuation of the series he and Tom Grummett started almost 20 years ago. We talk about the creation of that series in 2000 and its return as a Kickstarter project in 2017., with the hardcover out now and the story being serialized by Image Comics in April. We talk about the book’s inspirations , notably the work of Jack Kirby. (I interviewed Karl way back in issue 27 of the Jack Kirby Collector about his love of the King and some of his more esoteric characters).

We also do a deep dive into Karl’s career, featuring some of our favorite books over the last couple decades. We chat about a few books he did with Stuart Immonen, Adventures of Superman, the Fantastic Four Annual from 1998 and the DC event series Final Night. We also discuss one of my all-time favorite (and all too brief) comic books series his run on Daredevil with Cary Nord.

On the day of our interview, Section Zero 1959 had two weeks left to go in its Kickstarter campaign and was just over 80% funded. For information on the book and some very cool incentives if you pledge, head over to SectionZero1959.com.

Two other pieces of business: We will soon be starting our series on the website called High Wire Act, which is an episode by episode break-down of the classic 1960s spy show Danger Man (aka Secret Agent). We hope to have a pod up soon discussing that with a returning podcast guest. Also, we are in talks to do our first convention in a few years in the summer. If we do the show, we will likely have a new issue of the magazine out to go along with the appearance.

Spidey Amuck. From Daredevil 354. (c) 2019 Marvel Comics

Episode Seventy-Five - The Shareef Don't Like It

Just one example of Vince McMahon’s great history of Middle East relations.

On the eve of the WWE Crown Jewel (aka Blood Money) special, I’m joined by Associated Press reporter Ashraf Khalil (@ashrafkhalil) to talk about a variety of issues related to the show. Among the various topics discussed, we talk about the history of xenophobia in pro wrestling, Middle East politics, the familial permutations of all the Samoans and other Pacific Islanders, late 1980s AWA, the socio-political demographics of wrestling fans and other diversions. We also actually talk about the show next week, how it will be booked and how much propaganda there will be compared to the first KSA show held earlier this year. Apologies if some of the facts are a little off. We recorded the show a few days after originally scheduled and I did not have all the prep work I had done earlier readily available. Also, this show was recorded with a new program, so there may not sound the same as part shows.

Also, there’s a brief obituary to Keiichiro Kimura, the Japanese animator who passed away recently. He was the animation director and character designer for the classic Tiger Mask cartoon, a favorite of longtime Japanese wrestling fans around the world.

Episode Sixty-Nine - When First We Practice to Deceive

Martin Landau as Rollin Hand.

On the ever of Star Trek: Discovery debuting, we are pleased to be joined by John Champion (@dvdgeeks), co-host of the Mission Log Podcast, to talk Trek and more. 

We begin by going over the career of Martin Landau, who passed away in July 2017. Lots of Mission Impossible chat here, including some of his most memorable episodes and also some of his other guest star appearances as well as playing Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood. We also mention a number of connections between Mission Impossible and the 1960s Star Trek show, including the overlapping guest stars and address the rumor about Landau possibly being on the list of actors to play Mr. Spock.

This segues into our Trek talk, starting with Mission Log about to wrap up reviewing The Next Generation and moving on to the TNG movies and then Deep Space Nine. And we preview Star Trek: Discovery, starting next week on CBS before moving to CBS' streaming service.  What do we know so far based on the trailer and advanced information? John also lets us now how Mission Log is going to cover an on-going TV show. 

We end with a very nerdy chat about the 1967 Bond movie Casino Royale and why we both love it, despite being "a glorified mess." 

Mission Log Podcast (@missionlogpod), host by John and Ken Ray (@macosken) drops every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.