Hello and welcome back to The Dana Gould Hour. Your brief audio respite from the world’s worst reality show, reality. Samm Deighan is here. She is a film historian and author and has written such books as The Legacy Of World War 2 in European Art House Cinema and a study of Fritz Lang’s child murder romp M. Her new book, written with Andrew Nette is entitled Revolution In 35 MM, Political Violence And Resistance In Cinema, From The Art House To The Grindhouse 1960 to 1990. It covers everything from The Battle Of Algiers to Coffin Joe to Zabriskie Point.

Harry Medved and Bennet Yellin are here. Harry Medved wrote the book the 50 Worst Movies of All Time when he was in high school! He was 15 when he wrote that book. And that was in the late 70’s before VHS tapes. He also wrote, with his brother Michael, the Golden Turkey Awards, which, as you know, is what helped put Ed Wood back on the map in the mid-eighties.

He has a series now on PBS called Locationland, where he takes audiences on a tour of famous film locations, this was back when films had locations, as opposed to standing in front of a green screen at a warehouse in Atlanta. I recently had the pleasure of joining Harry on a tour of the locations for a little film you may have heard me talk about, Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Bennet Yellin is an author and screenwriter, he’s written, with the Farrelly Brothers, There’s Something About Mary, Dumb And Dumber, Dumb And Dumber Two. Bennet and Harry have been friends for eons and they are here to talk bad movies, good movies and Ed Wood movies which are, of course, an alchemic mixture of the two.

True Tales From Weirdsville tells the tale of the place both wonderful and strange, Twin Peaks. Like everyone else I was super bummed out by the passing of David Lynch in January. I think it was a combination of things. The election, we were in the middle of these catastrophic fires and then, just when things couldn’t get worse, they did. As much as I love David Lynch and his work, and have back to…I guess Blue Velvet, what he stood for meant more to me than any particular film or television show or what have you.

He was uncompromising in his vision, you could like it or not. That wasn’t the point. That’s a rare thing these days, when studios and networks seem to be operating under the belief that the only audience worth getting is everyone alive, and anything less is a failure. Twin Peaks, it’s origins, success, fall from grace and resurrection is a terrific microcosm of how Lynch’s refusal to compromise created something far greater than the sum of it’s parts, it flew against convention, challenged audiences. In the case of Fire Walk With Me, it really challenged audiences. But in every instance, time has proven Lynch’s instincts were right, so we’re going to do a two, possibly three part series on Lynch’s career through the lens of Twin Peaks.

And NOW, it’s on to our filthy business.

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Aaaaaaand we’re back. Episode 1 of season 14 of the Dana Gould Hour Podcast. Has anything of interest happened since the last episode? Don’t think so. Certainly not here in Los Angeles, or America. Okay. Great. Let’s get at it!

Drew Friedman is here. Drew Friedman is one of the premiere illustrators and cartoonists in America. You know his work from The New York Observer, the New Yorker, his books, Warts And All, Old Jewish Comedians, More Old Jewish Comedians, Still More Old Jewish Comedians, Too Soon, Drew Friedman’s Sideshow Freaks, Heroes Of The Comics, More Heroes Of The Comics, the list goes on and on. In 1987 I discovered his book Any Similarity to Persons Living Or Dead is Purely Coincidental and it quite literally redefined my sense of humor. It is hard to articulate the impact the book had on me. No kidding. Drew has a new book out called Schtick Figures, portraits of people important to Drew. And me. People he refers to as The Cool, The Comical and The Crazy. Portraits of people like Gilbert Gottfried, #2 and #3 as only Drew can draw them. Drew is also the subject of a new documentary that’s about to be released entitled The Vermeer Of The Borscht Belt, Drew Friedman is here.

Kurt Sayenga is a writer, director and producer. We first met when Kurt ran the series Eli Roth’s History Of Horror. Kurt now has a series on Shudder called Horror’s Greatest. Season #2 just dropped, with guests like Davi Dastmalchian, Joe Hill, Jonah Ray, Alex Winter, Mick Garris, yours truly and many, many more. Kurt’s here to talk about the show and the topics covered this season as it continues to explore our fascination with all things cinematically horrific.

Cinematically horrific. If you want to examine the realistically horrific, True Tales From Weirdsville takes a deep dive into the 1957 classic A Face In Crowd, starring Andy Griffith, written by Budd Schulberg and directed by Elia Kazan. It tells the cautionary tale of what happens when a corrupt, amoral grifter gains a position of power and influence in America. It was made in 1957 and it was a FREAKISHLY predictive film.

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Hello! And welcome back to The Dana Gould Hour Podcast. It’s the holidays! The election is over and, although I haven’t been paying much attention to politics, I’m sure everything turned out grea... WHHHHHAAAAAA?!?!?!?!?!

But I’m still me and you’re still you, so let’s be who we are and do what we do.

Bob Fingerman is here. Bob is an old pal, and one of the finest comic artists in the biz, Bob gained fame in the 90’s with his comic Minimum Wage which was one of my favorites of the era, along with Dan Clowes' Eightball and Peter Bagge’s Hate. Bob has a new graphic novel out called Printopia and a new book that’s sort of a career retrospective to date (anyway, he’s still a young man) called That’s Some Business You’re In. We’ll be talking about that, his days writing for Cracked and then later MAD working with Harvey Kurtzman, all that and more, Bob Fingerman.

Burt Kearns is here. Burt had visited us before discussing his books The Show Won’t Go On as well as his biography of the great and fascinating Lawrence Tierney. But his new book holds a special fascination for me, and probably you if you’re listen to this podcast with any regularity. It’s called SHEMP! And it’s about Shemp Howard, The great Stooge. People think Shemp replaced Curly. He did not! Curly replaced Shemp, and then Shemp re-replaced Curly after that. But it’s not just Stooge lore, although there’s a lot. It’s also about showbiz in the 1930’s and 1940’s, the experience of American immigrants and how they helped define our culture and so much more. It’s a great read. It has a forward by your friend and mine, Drew Freidman. SHEMP! With an exclamation point.

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