Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
A Geek Culture Podcast - Two life-long Geeks explain, critique and poke fun at the major pillars of Geek Culture for your listening pleasure.
Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
Beauty and the Beast
Let's turn back the clock and dive into CBS's forgotten fantasy romance Beauty and the Beast, where a lion-man from beneath NYC forms an empathic bond with an assistant district attorney.
It's a tale as old as time.
Indiana Jones. Tell a different story, Make up a new character. Give me more mutt. It's all I've been saying. Give me more mutt. Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Speaker 2:Are they in the proper approach pattern for today? Negative All weapons. Now Charge the lightning field. Uh yeah, okay, so welcome back to Dispatch. Ajax, I'm Skip, I'm Jake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're doing our thing. Yes, our thing. It's called podding.
Speaker 2:Not successfully, but doing it. We're poddy training Well-crafted. Nope, not well-crafted. In fact, we might just start over.
Speaker 1:I think that might not be a bad idea.
Speaker 2:I am the editor here. I am the godlike editor here. I will decide what is it what is not.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Welcome back to Dispatch Ajax, I am Jake.
Speaker 2:I'm Skip. Yeah, he's Skip. We're doing that again.
Speaker 1:Well maybe we'll just do it throughout the episode when we thought we've done.
Speaker 2:Break in like we have to do like station IDs.
Speaker 1:Oh it's half an hour Geez, I fucked it up. Let's start over All right IDs. Oh, it's half an hour Jeez, I fucked it up. Let's start over. Alright, you are listening to WKR 96 in Seattle.
Speaker 2:It's weird that they have both K and W and then a number Is that not normal.
Speaker 1:I'm not from your world.
Speaker 2:You're a drug dealer from another planet.
Speaker 1:I'm just a caveman. Unthought, I don't know about your internet podding ways.
Speaker 2:Bang, here's your pod.
Speaker 1:Hey, don't go stealing my pod, blammo sucker, don't go breaking my heart.
Speaker 2:He immediately murders Kiki D.
Speaker 1:Well, somebody had to.
Speaker 2:Who else is going to? It's got to be the ghost of Charles Bronson Skip.
Speaker 1:Yes, one of the greatest stories of Western culture is the tale of La Belle et la Bête, or the Beauty and the Beast.
Speaker 2:I thought you were going to say the Hangover. The Hangover 3 is a.
Speaker 1:It's the third best one, which is actually the number one, one of all ones in Wondom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have no idea where that's going, but kudos for you for-.
Speaker 1:So the Beauty and the Beast was originally attributed to French I just got a push on To French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbeau de Villeneuve. Wow, having been published in 1740 in La Jeune Americaine et la Comte Marine, or the Young American and the Marine.
Speaker 2:Tales. And if you can't tell, jake took Italian, I did actually, I know, I know I took French, and so yes, I took French in high school. Yeah, yeah, me too.
Speaker 1:And Spanish in grade school.
Speaker 2:I never took Spanish at any point. I think it's part of an institutional racism problem.
Speaker 1:honestly, Well, I mean, that does fit with your whole ethos.
Speaker 2:so my gestalt, as it were.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, that's why you have racist tattooed across your chest.
Speaker 2:So it says racist for life on my stomach, tattooed across your chest.
Speaker 1:It says racist for life on my stomach. R for L.
Speaker 2:Live it. Yeah, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 1:So Beauty and the Beast has gone on to be retold, remade and remodeled for centuries afterward, Truly one of the most enduring stories in all of Western culture.
Speaker 2:So it had to be bastardized by Disney.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean so one of the most. So it's captured the imaginations on screen with the 1946 French classic from Jean Cocteau, from Jean Cocteau and probably for our and later generations, but immortalized in the animated form by the 1991 Disney classic, as Skip might wink at that. Classic in quotes yeah, I read a whole lot of versions of the story when I was researching this, and it's not that far off from many of the tales, although some are wildly variable.
Speaker 1:True, but this tale is old as time. It had a well-received but almost forgotten small screen gem of an appearance back in 1987. In this version, sarah Connor meets Hellboy and they go to the hollow earth and fight mad gangsters, with magic and melodrama mixed in the end Great episode.
Speaker 2:Don't forget to like and subscribe.
Speaker 1:Today we shall talk about the cult classic, the CBS fantasy primetime soap adjacent Beauty and the Beast.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's really hard to look up on your Apple TV or whatever CBS pseudo-fantasy adjacent.
Speaker 1:Well, think of it. If any of you want to see Disputing the Beast, it's nowhere to be found except for YouTube. Yeah, or I think you can watch like three episodes total on Prime, but that's it, oh yeah. I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2:There, weird I'm surprised it's not like just readily available on Tubi. That just seems like the perfect Tubi show. Yeah, it's weird. I'm surprised it's not like just readily available on Tubi. That just seems like the perfect Tubi show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just it's nowhere, it's oddly vacant, which is kind of makes me think that the reason to do this episode is that it is this almost forgotten little diamond in the rough.
Speaker 2:Even just doing a cursory surface level Google search for it. The remake of the show is the thing that pops up. Yeah, 90% of the time.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it is kind of forgotten, and if you just type Beauty and the Beast adaptation, so much else comes up before this. Oh yeah, so this was created by Ron Koslow and written many of the episodes by George R Martin. If you have ever heard of that guy, or if you're waiting patiently for his next book, that will never happen.
Speaker 2:What's he doing now? Has he done anything recently?
Speaker 1:He's doing nothing is what he's doing. He's reaping the rewards.
Speaker 2:I did share an airplane flight with him and saw him in the new mexico and then, uh, san diego airports and, uh, he seemed to be working on a script then, but that was about 10 years ago or 12, 15 years ago, so the most famous author I've flown with would have been Neil Gaiman. I was wow.
Speaker 1:I was flying from Minneapolis to San Diego.
Speaker 2:That's interesting Actually who was he molesting in Minneapolis, do you think?
Speaker 1:Oh, whoever we could find.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, he did one of those like classic. I'm pretending to be asleep so you don't sit next to me. Moves who? George rr martin. Yeah, yeah, I'm glad I didn't do that, but I I can imagine for for you. If that were the case with neil gaiman, you, I'm glad you avoided that in-flight molestation that might have occurred. I doubt george rr Martin would have diddled my bits. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Is that a tower in those pants, or are you just happy to see me? So, alongside George RR Martin, you had Howard Gordon and Alex Gonza. These are the minds behind both Homeland and 24. Classics, they also wrote some episodes of the X-Files as well. Oh, classics, this is Lyndall Hamilton, who was an assistant district attorney. Well, she becomes an assistant district attorney from what we call the world above, which is the world we live in.
Speaker 2:Yes, we all call it that yes, yes.
Speaker 1:We all say that. And then there's the beast known as Vincent Wells. This is played by Ron Perlman.
Speaker 2:Fucking awesome.
Speaker 1:Yes, who's this kind and noble lion man monstrosity who lives in the world below which? First it starts as almost sewer-esque catacombs where the Ninja Turtles might be, but as the show goes on, you see, deeper in, it's like an underground world, like the hollow earth that is underneath new york it to tie it back around it.
Speaker 2:It's deal game. It's never where yeah, yeah, in a lot of ways man, if we could do that crossover between beauty and the beast, the series and the hb ninja turtles, which were basically concurrent, I would fucking die. He doesn't like pizza, as it turns out.
Speaker 1:I have a soliloquy about anchovies that I'd like to tell you.
Speaker 2:He goes on and on about the Rat King.
Speaker 1:So just to break down how this starts, because I did watch multiple episodes, because I saw the show as a kid, I was aware of it, but it only lasted three seasons, even though it did really well, at least for a while. But it's kind of been forgotten and so I needed to kind of refresh my memory of the show. So I watched the first couple seasons, then another later episode, and then the end of the first season and then some into the second season, the end of the second season and the beginning of the second season and the beginning of the third season.
Speaker 2:so when I discovered the show, I remember it was because my grandparents owned a cabin at the lake of the ozarks that we would go to every summer a kind of privilege that my family no longer enjoys and we only got one broadcast channel and it was a cbs channel, and so we were able to watch Beauty and the Beast. Literally, you couldn't get signal for anything else. How odd Zad, or VHS tapes of old Looney Tunes cartoons or Three Stooges movies, over and, over, and over again. So that's how I remember seeing it for the first time. But it was always not only a treat but a sweeping romance, like a live action romance novel.
Speaker 1:I mean we'll get to the enduring qualities of this show and why it still has a fandom to this day that even put on annual festivals and cosplay things. So just to set the scene, in the first episode you have Catherine, played again by Lyndall Hamilton. She is the daughter of a top corporate lawyer in Manhattan and she's dating one of the bad guys from Robocop.
Speaker 2:Oh, now I'm interested.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if you.
Speaker 2:It's not Kirkwood Smith, obviously, but no, it's Ray Wise. You had to dig down for Ray Wise, I don't know One of the greatest B-movie character actors of all time.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a lot of fun actors in this show.
Speaker 2:Which is one of the coolest parts about it. Yeah, there's lots of cool stuff. Ray fucking Wise man Awesome, she's dating Ray Wise.
Speaker 1:He's kind of a little uptight, you know. He's like, hey, your friend is having a bad time. She's bumming us out at this upscale cocktail party. Don't talk to her. And she's like, hey, you're a dick. And she's like, hey, you know, it's what you like about me, baby he played a lot of those characters in that era strangely like.
Speaker 2:Like for a guy that looks like Ray Wise and is Ray Wise like?
Speaker 1:really Ray Wise Just getting typecast, kind of slimy, yuppie, scummy guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I just don't see it from him, and maybe that's just us looking backward at all of his other roles, including Laura Palmer's dad Right, which was around this time he kind of sticks out like a sore thumb, even in RoboCop. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think of the time we could go on about that, but yeah, I mean. Didn't seem out of place to me.
Speaker 2:He is one of the great character actors of all time. So that's he and Kurtwood Smith. Both are just fucking always knocking it out of the park. So, yeah, sure, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's a bit of a more of a side character in the series and he drops off pretty quickly in the scope of the show. But she leaves this party and she's going to walk to go get a taxi and all of a sudden she is kidnapped by these guys, thrown in a van and it is unclear whether she is sexually assaulted or not, oof. But she is beaten and she's like called the wrong name and this guy like the switchblades, like hey, you're never going to talk bad about us again, never be pretty. And he cuts her face up Like real, like jigsaw.
Speaker 2:Jesus Christ and then throw her out. The van.
Speaker 1:Can you fly, bobby? She most certainly cannot fly. Throw her out the van. Can you fly, bobby? She most certainly cannot fly. So she lands. And then you see that she has been found and taken to this underground, which you find out is an underground lair full of old books and tapestries and knickknacks and statues, and that someone is caring for her. Her face is all wrapped up and she can't see anything. She's down there for weeks at least, and we see that there is someone caring for her, reading literature to her and nursing her long. Finally she gets the strength up and she tears off the bandage and she see who is caring for her, and it is is a I don't know, maybe six foot two lion man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's weird. Also, isn't that an interesting inversion In stories like this? You would think, especially in the modern era, you would think that the person bandaged would be the oddly looking one, the beast. Yes, who would be the beast?
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is how you think that maybe this is going to play out, which would be interesting. You see that, like she's all scarred up, her face is just covered in deep lacerations. I don't want to say she looks freakish, but she's horribly mutilated.
Speaker 2:From this point on, let me just put a bookmark here. You said from this porn on which I I that's how you heard it. Please expand on that. Uh, no freud's ears, uh me thanks. Here's what they want to hear from your lips to freud's ears.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that's kind of how it sets up. Maybe she recoils in horror at the sight of this guy at first, but then right away she's like, oh no, there's something inside of him.
Speaker 2:He was kind to me and I I shouldn't lash out just like knight rider, where michael knight is horrifically mutilated in a car accident and then they give him a new face and then now he's just or Remo Williams, if that helps you.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't remember either of them being horribly mutilated.
Speaker 2:But that's the premise of both of those is that they were horribly mutilated in like accidents and then are given new faces and identities. Oh OK, I know it's weird to think because they never in night rider they never address it again.
Speaker 1:Yeah I mean similar in this. I didn't remember her being horribly mutilated at the beginning of this series. She's just linda hamilton, right? So the way they get to that is that she's like who are you? He's like I'm, I'm vincent, you know, I've, I've cared for you. And then she sees a little bit. There's this underground world that he is a part of, cast off from society. They live underground of the city. There are people that help them out and that, the same way, like he's providing help to her, the Morlocks I mean, yeah, in a lot of ways he and his father, who's just known as Father to everybody underground in the series.
Speaker 2:Played by Marlon Brando in Gauze, played by Roy DeTriese actually.
Speaker 1:Oh interesting, he and Ron Perlman are the only people that are in every single episode of the show. Oh wow, not even Linda.
Speaker 2:Hamilton. We will get to that. I can guess why. Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Huh, we could play a game. Why do you think she wasn't in the series? I'm assuming you don't know so.
Speaker 2:Actually I don't. I intentionally didn't look it up. I assume filming Terminator 2. Wrong, but not a bad guess, Okay.
Speaker 1:So she sees this world and then he's like but you must go back to the surface world where you belong. And she's like, thank you. And she's brought up to the surface world where people have been like, hey, where is she at? They've been looking for her for weeks. I mean, they seem worried, but not as worried as you should be. She is found, they kind of immediately bring her to surgery and she has, like a miracle, plastic surgery done to her face which makes her look exactly as she was before, just as beautiful, except that she has a small scar on the side of her face, right below where her ear is, that she just hides with hair for the rest of the series like she was in a face-off type scenario.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how could they possibly do this? It's almost like to the point of why you could have done other things. She was partially blinded or stabbed in the gut, and he had nursed her to health for a bit until she regained her gumption and her eyesight, without having this weird scarring of the face and then taking it away within like the first I don't know 20 minutes of the show.
Speaker 2:It's like extremely intricate for trying to take a twist on that show unnecessarily so yeah.
Speaker 1:It seems bizarre Drops out of being a corporate lawyer and becomes a district attorney for the city of New York and helping fight the good fight which sets up the law and order-esque crime mystery of the week that follows throughout at least the first season.
Speaker 2:Essentially, what you're saying is that it's the show TNT with Mr T. I have no idea what TNT is. We have talked about this multiple times on this show.
Speaker 1:We have not talked about it on this show. Just because you believe something does not mean it's true.
Speaker 2:You with the greatest memory in the world. It's true, I don't have the greatest memory, but I do not know. Tnt and I've never heard of this.
Speaker 1:We haven't talked about this, Skip.
Speaker 2:It was a crime procedural show with MrT who teams up with a district attorney and then whatever, whatever criminal or whatever gets off on some technicality. Then mr t takes it on himself to mete out justice. I know for a fact this is in one of our episodes where he basically like just tears the sleeves off his suit and then goes out and kicks somebody's ass and then solves all the crime I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm looking it up. It went from 88 to 91, so about the same time period, started a little after Exactly, but this is the first time I've ever heard of this.
Speaker 2:This is so in the zeitgeist, this concept of following through the legal cracks and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:So she then uses her resources to try and figure out who it was who attacked her. She finds that it was this pimp character who had hired these goons to try and find a girl who was gonna expose them and had beat her up previously. She has like this bond with her. Tries to get her to testify. She does end up saying that she will testify. She takes her to this friend of hers house to stay off the grid until the trial can start. But people within the DA's office get word out to this guy. He gets those same goons to kill her and then try to kill Linda Hamilton's character, Catherine.
Speaker 2:Not too different from the plot of Blind Fury. We're talking the Rucker.
Speaker 1:Hauer vehicle.
Speaker 2:Yes, I watched it yesterday actually. I think that's why it's fresh in your mind.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, it's true. Yes, I have all sorts of questions on how sharp that fucking sword is and how he can cut through anything Like it's adamantium. You can just do that. It is that's how you explain it Done. They're all looking for Terry O'Quinn and then whomever I think it's Tex Cobb, actually he has the cops in the back and then they go to the woman's house the woman who played Evelyn and was in. They Live and they're pretending to be legitimate cops, looking for him and then they murder her and that's how you get the whole Rutger Hauer story arc kicking off there. It's really not that dissimilar if you think about it, but don't think about it. No.
Speaker 1:I'll try not to. I'll do my best. So at this point her life is in danger. As she is trying to escape these goons, she uses some of the skills that she has acquired because as she became DA, she also was like, terrified to be alone and didn't feel safe. So she found a self-defense instructor who was teaching her to fight dirty and take on anybody anywhere. The first episode is played by one actor, but in the subsequent appearances, before he's dropped off the show, unfortunately, delroy Lindo plays this character. Oh wow, cool. Yeah, totally cool. But the character is completely dropped, sadly. Oh wow, prematurely. So she's trying to fight this guy's off. She succumbs and is about to be murdered when Vincent breaks through the walls down in the basement and then comes and murders these guys with his lion ferocity. That's all you need. This is where we find that they have some empathic bond.
Speaker 1:He has bonded to her spiritually and emotionally, and later on in the series it flows the other direction as well. But throughout the series he can sense her emotions and whenever she's in danger he can find where she's at and remedy the situation. So she constantly finds herself in danger throughout the series and this is how he, like, finds her and saves the day.
Speaker 2:So could Twilight be more?
Speaker 1:derivative Probably, but it'd be hard to do.
Speaker 2:Every time you look into something else it's like oh, twilight stole from that. Oh, yep, that's just what Twilight did. Oh, that's a shame, but Mormon.
Speaker 1:But more man than beast, more man than human. So, and that sets the scene of how the show flows after that. As they have a will-they't, they for most of the series, at least up until the end of the second season. But we'll get to that.
Speaker 2:It's a lot like moonlighting, isn't it? Moonlighting does come up.
Speaker 1:We'll get to a bit of that.
Speaker 2:Funny thing is, I was literally quoting from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the movie which is also concurrent to this.
Speaker 1:Oh, right With Casey Jones and April O'Neil.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this will they, won't they drama?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Sam Malone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the tailspin, as it were.
Speaker 2:Instead of cheers, we just substitute tailspin.
Speaker 1:You know the romantic drama of tailspin which actually came out around this time the early 90s oh man tnt.
Speaker 2:Tailspin were both and well, so how does tommy westfall fit into this?
Speaker 1:yeah, and 1990 yeah, so, uh, cmnc was also all at the same time while the show was on.
Speaker 2:Wow. So Tommy Westfall is staring into his snow globe.
Speaker 1:It would have been like coming off the end of the show.
Speaker 2:But still, but still.
Speaker 1:Indeed. So originally Ron Perlman didn't want to have anything to do with this show. He wasn't interested in any way. He had done some work with stuff on his face and he didn't want to have anything to do with that again.
Speaker 2:Oh, poor Ron Perlman, if you only knew, yeah.
Speaker 1:So Perlman's big break was in Quest for Fire, where he had gotten a lot of claim for his performance, and that involved him with some makeup work to look like a Neanderthal.
Speaker 2:He kind of screams Neanderthal as it is.
Speaker 1:He had also worked in the Name of the Rose, which also required heavy application of makeup. But at this point in his career he was a bit despondent and he didn't want to have any more makeup work and was kind of thinking about not being in acting anymore. But thankfully the guy who worked on Michael Jackson's Thriller came to the rescue Rick Baker, who worked on Thriller and American Werewolf in London.
Speaker 2:Didn't he also do, star?
Speaker 1:Wars, he went on to become one of the most famous special effects makeup artists of all time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Second to like Stan Winston.
Speaker 1:If there's a Mount Rushmore of makeup effects, Rick Baker's 100% on there.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's like him and Stan Winston, the dude that did all the Star Trek stuff and Planet of the Apes and worked for the CIA. That would be at least three of the four right there.
Speaker 1:But he had lobbied for Perlman because he had seen him act before under makeup and he knew that he could do really good. And so, even though Ron Perlman didn't want to read the script and it was thankfully, his agent who kept like pushing it on him left it on his doorstep. When he did read it he kind of fell in love with it and because of Baker's persistence and pushing for him, he got cast to play this role and it really changed his career completely. This became one of his favorite characters that he ever played in his career. With the success of the show it showed him that he did have a career and he could be a viable actor for the rest of his days and went on to give him success.
Speaker 1:Now, unfortunately, Ron Perlman had to sit in the in the makeup chair four hours every day for this, so filming usually went on for 10 hours. That meant his day was 15 hours long. That last hour obviously needed to take off all the makeup and prosthetics for his face and body. But, odd fact, Ron Perlman is allergic to almost every type of prosthetic glue on the market. Jesus, Fortunately they found an alternative, but apparently it was terrible for the environment and was discontinued at the time, but they did manage to make it work.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, that explains a lot about John Rhys-Davies. Then he has the same condition and when he was in lord of the rings, most of the time his eyes are swelled shut and they have to like cut away. So you don't see the fact that he's having a horrible allergic reaction to all of the prosthetics, though it could have been the muslims that were on set, that maybe he was allergic to it was just the immigrants in general. Yeah, yeah, in new zealand, well, he felt them.
Speaker 1:It was a tremor in the force.
Speaker 2:It was a great disturbance.
Speaker 1:Yes, so obviously like Linda Hamilton, your front facing star, and you had Ron Perlman as the poetry sighting, empathetic beast character. But there are plenty of other people in the show. We had talked about Roy DeTriese again, who plays father. He was the head of this underground society. He helped start it, which apparently like at least in he was the head of this underground society, he helped start it, which apparently like at least in the context of the show. It's I don't know 30 years old, so I don't know what was happening with all of these Kavner's underground dwellings previous to that. Oh, you mean the Chuds. Oh, it was all the Chuds' hard work, they kicked out the Chuds, the Morlocks, and just took it over. That makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so at what point does he have a knife fight with Callisto is what I'm curious about. I think that was about 1986.
Speaker 1:That famous period where Linda Hamilton had that mohawk oh man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what Badass. She shows up in Terminator 2 with a mohawk. I'm so way more in than I was before.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I don't know if I'd get more in than what Little Hampton was in T2. Kicks so much ass in that movie. So you have these underground people again, fringes of society that have gone underground to find a home and brethren find a home and brethren. It's like if the ren fair met tmnt land. There are all these people, but everyone wears tattered garb. But you also have normal-ish people. You have helpers, very akin to the watchers in highlander okay where, like they have the helpers when they come and go.
Speaker 1:But you know they provide help or like medical assistance. They're sympathetic people from the world above, as it were, and they're all in charge of safeguarding the secret of the underground utopia Of the ooze.
Speaker 2:You're essentially describing Daniel Stern's character. From Chud, remember, he runs the soup kitchen and helps out all the underground dwellers. You know I had forgotten that. From chud, remember, he runs the soup kitchen and helps out all the underground dwellers.
Speaker 1:You know, I had forgotten that.
Speaker 2:Um, he's like the second major character in the movie. What you're describing essentially is chud, but okay, all right, I'm with you, I can cobble these references together, okay we'll go with that, but you did have Armin Shimmerman as a occurring character, wow. That pops up.
Speaker 1:He's the supervisor of the pipe-based communication system of the underground world.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right. So he's like the Walter Matthau from the taking of Philemon 1, 2, 3 or whatever. Kind of Sure, we'll go with that. If he only had been able to talk to Ron Perlman about sitting in a chair for prosthetics for four hours. Famously, obviously for those of you who don't know played Quark in Star Trek Deep Space Nine Ferengi who, infamously, was in that makeup chair for many hours for each episode yeah, a long long time.
Speaker 1:But they had other people. They had weird magician guy. You had this blind black woman who was like into voodoo. Yeah, it was a little, not the best.
Speaker 2:First of all, a Stephen King character. Second, so you're saying they had Callisto and Calypso? All right, Anybody seen Kraven the Hunter? No, no. I haven't either. That's fine. Does he show up? Here, Well, I mean Calypso shows up in Kraven the Hunter. Yeah, no, I was just trying to think of if anybody like Kraven was in the series that I could remember oh.
Speaker 2:That actually would have been an interesting character to introduce into this show, considering what he does and his powers and origin, at least as proposed in the movie. But probably not. Yeah, it was a cbs show in 1990, so probably not you have bad guys as well.
Speaker 1:Villain of the week that they'd have to stop. You know, either in the courtroom or you know vigilante justice of all kinds, from weird mobsters to. I watched another episode where there was a martial arts kung fu guy who was trying to protect the voiceless and the homeless, running around in like a fake Vincent outfit with razor blade claws Interesting. That he was cutting up hoodlums and bad people that were ne'er-do-wells on the subway.
Speaker 2:It was David Carradine as John Paul Valley. It was actually oh God.
Speaker 1:Now that it's like a black martial arts actor, you would know.
Speaker 2:Well, obviously pre-Michael J White, I think it's like the second episode. It's not the dude from End of the Dragon, is it? That would be interesting.
Speaker 1:Dorian Harewood, who you know from Full Metal Jacket or Sudden Death.
Speaker 2:Yes, Sudden Death the.
Speaker 1:Assault on Precinct 13 remake. Maybe, hey great, you would recognize him. He played the Martian man under voice in the Batman Show.
Speaker 2:Hey, cool, Well it was only four episodes.
Speaker 1:He also played Jim Rode in the Iron man cartoon. How about that?
Speaker 2:Oh, the 90s. Iron man Okay yeah, wow, that was a great show too, actually.
Speaker 1:What the Iron man cartoon from the 90s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it kind of was awesome. They had a lot of interesting deep cut Marvel stuff.
Speaker 1:One of the main bad guys of the series is a character called Paracelsus. Now, this was a Okay yeah, this was apparently like one of the co-founders, along with father of the underground world, but he was cast out. He's kind of like a bad guy throughout the rest of the series, at least up until the end of the second season. This is a play by Tony Jay, famous villainous actor.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, super cool. One of the great character actors?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this one, he so he's always like cloaked and he has a scar on his face, so he has half this metal mask. Okay, very theatrical.
Speaker 2:I understand this is probably an intentional approach, but not just adapting Beauty and the Beast, but they're also like incorporating, you know, Phantom of the Opera and a lot of other romantic fables into this. That one is almost like you might be trying a little hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was hard to say exactly how much magic and mysticism is at play in this. One of the things Paracelsus does is that he's like a master of disguise, and you can see some of George RR Martin's writing come through in here. There's a scene where some of the stuff that Martin is into later make their way into the show before he wrote those books. So Paracelsus goes into this room where there's this witch lady who's molding clay faces, and around this rock walls are different faces. Ah, yes.
Speaker 1:And he's cloaked and he's able to change his voice and, by putting on these masks, become the other people. Wow.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's never going to be used later, never gonna come up at all again, so he uses this at least one time. I saw there's a classic george r mart episode called winter fest okay it goes on to be. This is what the what do they call themselves? The helpers and other people who have become fans of the series put on a Winterfest every year, still, still, still. To this day, you Google Winterfest.
Speaker 2:Well, Winterfest is coming Winterfest 2025.
Speaker 1:Maybe don't do that, maybe Beauty and the Beast.
Speaker 2:I haven't looked this up, but I imagine that it's probably become like furry thing, considering Vincent.
Speaker 1:There is some. When they had in-person winter fests, there were a lot of cosplay yeah, no shit yeah yeah, the caves and candles community. Okay, this has at least 1.6 followers currently on facebook 1.6, it is 1.6 1.6 000 sorry because I'm curious as to how that metric works out but this looks to follow a lot of its fandom of the series and Ron Perlman, different cosplayers who would go to these conventions.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 1:Currently there's a Winterfest online that's active.
Speaker 2:They're missing the boat if they don't advertise it, as Winterfest is coming.
Speaker 1:It is for the fandom to find. We have other paths to take.
Speaker 2:I would rather go to one of those than like some sort of supernatural the show Supernatural meetup. Sure, If this show happened today, it would have been on the CW and ran for 12 seasons. Yes, that is true.
Speaker 1:I also think some of the things about what the show is separates it from CW fodder Sure, it from CW fodder Sure and separate it from its prodigy, because Kristen Kroik did star in a remake. Was it 2009?
Speaker 2:I thought it was 2012, but that could have been when it ended. The weird thing is that it's a remake directly of this show, not a new interpretation of Beauty and the Beast.
Speaker 1:Yes, they remade the show. Oh, it's 2012. Right?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But the things they use. Catherine vincent the new york setting, but instead of a da, I think she's a detective on the force. Instead of being a weird, totally buy it lion hybrid person. He's a former soldier who was experimented on to have beast qualities and is is scarred, oh, and when you say scarred, he's got a scar on his.
Speaker 2:Yes, uh, that's how hideous he is as a beast.
Speaker 1:He's got a scar, otherwise he's your generic early 20s cw hunk guy oh yeah, he's an arrow verse dude oh yeah 100, he might as well be. Yeah, they didn't go too far off the reservation for that particular show there.
Speaker 2:No, they weren't trying very hard.
Speaker 1:But one thing that they did try hard, at least in this show, was the writing. So when you have this fantasy romance that is set in like this New York backdrop, it could come off pretty cheesy. Set in like this Newark backdrop, it could come off pretty cheesy. But what has kept fans and something I found when I was watching, is, like you know, it's pretty well written as far as this type of show goes. You know a lot of the shortcuts that you'd have in a show like this. A lot of the dramatic pitfalls they don't happen as often. The characters well, some of the characters act fairly natural. They have a lot of interesting political takes that they're trying to interweave within the. The dialogue of the show and a lot of the dialogue is pretty fanciful, but it's heartfelt and I don't for lack of a better word, not crappy as many important philosophers have said Well, I mean, you had competent writers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they went on to strut their stuff with other bigger series, but for something that could be really campy and in a lot of ways like wouldn't need to put a whole lot of effort. What separated this from just being run of the mill was that it was well written and well acted. Run of the mill was that it was well written and well acted. You did feel for both of these characters. The way they set up the drama allowed for this story to bloom and for people to really invest themselves into the tale. And another part of that is that you have this Vincent character who, yes, I mean it's Ron Perlman under this lion makeup, but they gave him this swashbuckling Ren Faire aesthetic with this cloak. But he has this 80s mane of hair like an 80s rock star, might have Huge shoulder pads.
Speaker 1:He's big and beefy, this animal charisma, but heart and soul of a poet, this empathic connection to the main character. So he's constantly there for her, not only physically, like in a battle situation, but emotionally. He's never distant. He always knows what she's feeling and he will do things for her. She doesn't know that she needs or has to ask for, but he never asks anything in return Because there was push-pull with both the nature of the story and with CBS. They didn't want it to be too sexual, too sexual. So it's always a romance based on emotion and dialogue rather than physical embraces.
Speaker 2:It's not platonic, but it's past friendly yes, yearning for each other, but never requited. Sadly, part of that is also probably because of the nature of the makeup as well of Ron Perlman's prosthetics. That might actually factor into that a little bit. But yes, like fundamentally, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he can be like this mythic, perfect idea of a man complete devotion and attentive to every whim that she has, and also be sexually. You know there's a beauty to him, Wow, but you know it's his chivalry and his fantasy element that listens to her innermost thing that, like no guy, could ever possibly provide.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean, it's straight up a romance novel. It's a paperback romance novel.
Speaker 1:Yes, but done with a style and grace. And again, you know a lot of those romance novels. They'll have a passionate, throbbing embrace, but you don't have that. You know it doesn't veer into the trashy. It's a little chaste. Yeah, robust chastity. That's always there. But they dance around that doorway.
Speaker 2:But that's part of the appeal of a lot of those kinds of things too is lusting after the unattainable who is also completely devoted to you and will rescue you at any moment. That sort of romance novel archetype More the Harlequin romance than the hardcore romance novel of that era. I think it perfectly fills a void but also cribs. So so much from Phantom of the Opera. It's not just Beauty and the Beast that they're adapting, they're doing so much in tropes of that era at the same time that for it to run three seasons is incredible.
Speaker 1:yeah well, it was only supposed to run two. So, oh, the first season, when it started the ratings were so, so, and then, like, towards the end of the season, it really took off and it was kind of a hit and that first season ended with a kissing embrace, but it was just done in shadow and it was as much in their mind as it was in the physical space. At the end of the first season she's very much like I don't know if I can do this. She's dealing with the memories of her dead mother and looking at her friends, families and she's like I want this, but I also want this. And she's talking to her therapist because she can't tell anybody she knows about this romance that she has. But she comes to understand that what she feels, this love, it's unlike anything else that she has in life and it's worth fighting for. And so she goes and embraces him. I love you and want us to be a thing, even though I must stay above and you must stay below. You know I don't want to like sacrifice what we have to be with someone else Through the second season, this kind of runs.
Speaker 1:There are times where, like there's other possible love interest for Vincent, another possible love interest for her, but they keep coming back to each other. She even tries to come live underground, but you know it's like no, you can't. You have to be part of that world. You have a life to live. We'll still be together, one life to live, as it were. But they didn't want to necessarily ruin the could be, would they, won't they? Dramatic relationship, you know, with a consummation, you know, something like what happened in Moonlighting, like once they got together, well, it's like the show kind of fell apart.
Speaker 2:Every show that has ever had that problem or any franchise that has ever had that problem, that ruins it. I mean X-Files suffered from the same thing. Caroline in the City for anybody out there who watched a lot of TV, oh for Skip Alright.
Speaker 2:I'm the only one. You know what. Cheers only worked because Diane left, which is sad, because that was the only interesting part of the show is the dynamic between her and Sam. But if she had stayed they would eventually have gotten together and then it would have ruined the show. But it had like a thousand seasons because they accidentally didn't have her in the show anymore and then they introduced Rebecca, who wasn't half as interesting, and so you didn't really care as much if they got together or whatever, and so I can't think of a show off the top of my head, at least. Where the will they won't. They pays off when they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's tough and you'll. You'll see this play out here in a minute as well. After the end of the second season, the network was planning to cancel the show, Despite having plenty of fans and being critically lauded. You know it won many awards, it won Emmys, but they're still going to cancel it, Even though at the end of the second season it ends on a cliffhanger where the Beast has killed Paracelsus, the main bad guy of the show, and he's freaking out and losing his mind, possibly becoming a terror to the people underground and maybe even finally lashing out at Catherine herself.
Speaker 2:I actually kind of vaguely remember this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like he was afraid that he had fallen into his sort of feralistic instincts, yeah, yeah, he was starting to lose it and he would like see weird versions of himself, like in mirrors or going to do things, and then he would finally lash out and he was like on the brink of mental collapse and even like physical death. I don't know, it's something to do with his physiology or magic, who's to say but he was about to die so right at the end episode he goes into the catacombs down below, into the dark caves of where nobody goes to.
Speaker 1:I guess go die alone. But Catherine, despite father saying no, she runs after him because he is her life and she is going to be there for him the same way that he was there for her and she is going to be there for him the same way that he was there for her. And it ends with her going into the darkness. You hear roars and her scream out Vincent. And the show just ends for the second season and that's how the network wanted it to just go off the air. That's quite the cliffhanger to leave.
Speaker 2:That's a big one, Thankfully there was a fan petition.
Speaker 1:Finger to leave. That's a big. That's a big one. Thankfully there was a fan petition. The helpers, or the tunnel community as they were called, sent 4200 letters urging and demanding the reinstatement of the show. The campaign didn't immediately work, but after some time the show did pop up and they did a shortened third season that is.
Speaker 2:It's such a star trek archetype right there. I mean, it's what happened the original series, what's happened with star trek enterprise letter writing campaigns, a hardcore fandom bringing it back from the network. That shit does not work. Today it can't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's fascinating there was a show of some acclaim that did come back from arrested developmentrested. Development is a big one. I feel like there's something else, but I can't remember.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but just straight up, literal, physical letter writing campaigns.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, no.
Speaker 2:It's only happened with Star Trek, this and Star Trek Enterprise. I can't think of any other instance in which that is.
Speaker 1:There's probably something else, but I mean physical letters in and of themselves anymore don't happen so a whole campaign based on those.
Speaker 1:That's not going to happen. Unfortunately, the third season was not well received, partially because of what happened at the beginning of the third season. At the beginning of the third season there's like a two episode beginning to the season and in subsequent reshowings it was broken up into two episodes. But it opens with Catherine finding Vincent. They embrace. There's kind of like a nursing back to health in a way. But they have this pretty cringeworthy montage of their embrace, which is a sappy love song, as a rose opens up and pedals and there's like fire, water, like spraying up and their fingers like the woolly hand of Vincent and her hand like slowly meshing together and then pulling apart.
Speaker 1:It's pretty obvious they fucked in this cave. Wait, really you?
Speaker 2:think so, vincent, and her hand like slowly meshing together and then pulling apart.
Speaker 1:It's pretty obviously fucked in this cave. Wait really.
Speaker 2:You think so. There's a train going in and out of this tunnel.
Speaker 1:I don't.
Speaker 2:There's the hot dog with the two walnuts on it slamming into a clam. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But you see, they embrace, but nothing's spoken of that. He's being nursed back to health underground at the same time, in the above land, her boss who she's told that she is in love with someone. He's like hey, good for you, kid, he was investigating some nefarious actions. He is then blown up when a car explodes. That was meant to kill him. She is researching that. Oh, there's like some connections in the underworld that might have set him up to whatever. And then we see that there's a bad guy in shadows who seems to know about vincent and her. He then kidnaps her when she goes to give blood and the nurse comes in after. She's like, oh, you shouldn't give him blood because you're pregnant. And she's like what it's like?
Speaker 2:yeah, don't do that. You know pregnant people aren't supposed to.
Speaker 1:And it's a lion boy, well, we'll, we'll get to that yes, yes because this mysterious, nefarious, only in shadows gangster kidnaps her. She is then pulled away. She is given, like drugs and sodium, pentothal to try and break her. To get more information about the underworld Turns out.
Speaker 2:she killed a lot of people, but they were all bad.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe you know it's a True Lies reference.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, Sorry that wasn't front to mind, but I basically haven't seen that movie since the theater, so I don't know why that.
Speaker 1:I don't know, that's bizarre, but yes.
Speaker 2:No, it was a trailer moment, I mean, that's probably why it stuck in my mind.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you just come out with stuff I'm like where is this coming from? What is this?
Speaker 2:This is why we do the show. There's too much in here, we gotta put it out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it ends up being Stephen McAddy, the bad guy of the third season, mr Pontypool, himself Another great character actor. Yeah, he has kidnapped her and keeps her as a prisoner the whole pregnancy and then steals her baby and flies off on a helicopter as Vincent gets there at the last second, and he also has a doctor shoot her up with, I guess, euthanasia drugs and she dies in his arms at the beginning of the third season.
Speaker 1:Then what the fuck? Yeah, so the rest of the third season is about Vincent's search for his son, this kidnapped baby who's been taken away by Steve McHattie, the Nefarious Gangster. And there is not even I wouldn't even call it another love interest, love interests. But there's a new woman who's introduced to be like the woman in. I think she's like a detective, who's like working on the case. But when you take out beauty in the beauty and the beast scenario, things just don't work the same anymore.
Speaker 1:No, yeah it ends up like at the end of the series. In the last episode he does get his baby back. He seems to be a normal baby boy of some sort. He then rips out the ribs and barbecues them. That's what he was searching for.
Speaker 2:He was searching for a tasty treat. Well, he is a beast, hey a beast is going to beast.
Speaker 1:What are you going to do?
Speaker 2:The sad part is that they were going to remake this with Mr Beast and it was going to be a disaster.
Speaker 1:But losing out the main character. It kind of spelled the death of this series. It kind of no shit Again after their consummation. Would this have worked the same if they were a couple with a child? For the rest of the series it's hard to say. Maybe they killed her off. So double trouble and the reason that she left the show is that she was pregnant herself, and oh, with John Connor, yeah, yeah. With John Connor indeed.
Speaker 2:She's on the run at this point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, John Connor, indeed she's on the run at this point. Yeah, no, she left the show to raise her son Dalton.
Speaker 2:To train him for the coming robot war.
Speaker 1:Bruce Abbott, who was also on the show, who was her husband at the time. He left her while she was pregnant during the show. Oof Yikes, if you listen to her talk about it, she doesn't blame him. Oof Yikes, if you listen to her talk about it, she doesn't blame him. So apparently she was dealing with bipolar disorder at the time and also had some problems like using drugs to kind of stabilize that and was violently lashing out at him.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting, because isn't that almost exactly what they talk about in Terminator 2, when the psychiatrist is going over her diagnosis? I mean that can't be coincidence, right?
Speaker 1:I mean that's I I mean it could have been. I it's my understanding that she didn't realize her kind of mental makeup until later on in life, because she did go on to like recandle her career and truly like put on a map with betrayal as Sarah Connor in Terminator 2. And she did end up having a relationship and marrying James Cameron. But it's also after the birth of her second son she had some postpartum depression. That then, with her bipolar, really messed her up. She blames that for their split as well. Kohler really messed her up. She blames that for their split as well.
Speaker 2:And then she went on to talk about her struggles with mental health and that these conditions and the way she reacted to them was the cause of her split from both of her previous husbands. Kind of a modern day Margot Kidder, but with diagnoses and help.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:At least eventually, eventually. Yeah, I mean at least eventually, eventually. Yeah, I mean it 100%. Derailed her career. Yes, this is probably the most stable thing she had. She had T2, and then what did she do between that and?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I had always assumed that she just kind of dropped out lived her life, you know, yeah, obscurity. But it could have been that it was because of these things that she was dealing with, that she just left to take care of herself and her children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's the most likely scenario. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this weird beast's search for vengeance on his quest to find his long-lost son against a shady villain who's trying to steal his son and maybe expose him that's maybe like a subsequent comic book tie-in later, so that's not gonna keep keep that show going.
Speaker 1:So, as opposed to the previous seasons, you know, which had the normal 22 to 24 episodes, this third season only had 11 episodes and ended with a bit of a whimper and unfortunately Beauty and the Beast kind of faded into obscurity. Again you had a loyal fan base, but it was a really niche thing. Again it had DVD releases, but it didn't really have long-running syndication. After that it didn't come to streaming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's weird.
Speaker 1:So again, it's hard to find and it's not promoted at all that if you want to see it you have to search out on YouTube and backdoor internet areas to Whoa whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2:We're getting to weird stuff right here. That's not. I feel like this show did suffer from not being originally a syndicated series. You know what I mean, and we have talked about this before on the show. But the Star Trek phenomenon of not being on a network but being syndicated, made and then shown on whatever network later, so not being beholden necessarily to the network's demands or their rewrites or what have you. And I feel like this show would have thrived in that era If it had been a syndicated show from the get-go. It probably would have run for a long time and Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman would probably have long TV careers. But the fact that it was tied to CBS specifically, I think, really probably hurt it even despite its loyal fan base.
Speaker 1:Yeah, CBS, because they had the rights to the series. They did develop the reboot in 2012, like we talked about before, but that was a wet fart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no one seemed to like that, even though it did run for just about as long as the original right. Yeah, it oddly, lasted quite a while, even though it was at least three seasons, which is it lasted four seasons. Jesus Christ, it went longer. That's CBS for you. Yeah, even though it was at least three seasons, which is, it lasted four seasons jesus christ, it went longer that's cbs for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two and a half men can get 40 000 years on tv, but back then you can't get three full seasons of beauty and the beast but apparently the people who loved it really loved it.
Speaker 2:Like I'm looking at some of these imdb like 8.7 out of 10, that's crazy one of the reasons I proposed this is an idea of my mother was obsessed with this show. This was like her modern mainstream prime time soap opera. Dark shadows obviously was already over, but this was romantic in basically every sense of that word and it was playing all these tropes and the unattainable man who was always good fundamentally and would save the heroine in her time of peril. I mean it played on so many tropes that appeal to a certain demographic.
Speaker 1:Literature and poetry, and the Renaissance, aesthetic and medieval chivalry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I totally get why people of a certain age or at least well, not even that I mean, like I'm sure that a lot of people today, if they could see this show, would be huge fans.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I watched quite a few episodes. I mean, I didn't have any recollection of them before I saw them, because I vaguely remember the show being on. I remember it being cool, but it wasn't my type of show. As a kid, my parents didn't watch it, so it was more of like a passing knowledge. But like I said it was, I mean it has the trappings of, you know, an 80s fantasy romance show, the pre-procedural villain of the week kind of thing. But again, it's pretty well written and the characters are pretty well done. It shows pretty decent in all honesty it's watchable?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's very watchable. Which?
Speaker 2:is crazy for the kind of shows that we talk about, that it really is.
Speaker 1:yeah, I would say, if you get a chance and you'd like a different take on the beauty and the beast. Because one big thing about a lot of versions of beauty and the Beast is that what might be lobbied as a criticism in a way is that the characters in the show are pretty static. There isn't a real metamorphosis. I mean, their relationship deepens and grows, but them as people and archetypes don't really change. Yeah, yeah, in the story where Beauty does in a way fall for the Beast and he changes into the prince that he was before, you know, in the true fairytale fashion, you don't have that. His beauty is an inner beauty and it's the beauty of his soul and his connection to her, you know, not on a sexual level, but on a truly emotional, deep soul level. And their romance is one of platonic, ideal, romantic union.
Speaker 2:But it also is a longing, yearning, unrequited sexual thing as well, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:No, it's bubbling under that surface, especially deep into the first season and well throughout the second season.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's straight up a romance novel. It's the classic 80s, early 90s romance novel dynamic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but with modern trappings. You know the big city and the life above and the world below.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are so many ways in which this show could have worked long term, but it just fell into a weird era. Show could have worked long term, but it just fell into a weird era. But also, at the same time, you're right it, just based on its premise, can't last too long. You're gonna bump into a wall at some point because something has to change, something has to be different. Like I said, cheers is a complete aberration of the will. They won't they. Those kinds of things can't last. Eventually, something has to change, and nothing, when things are actually requited, work. And so the show. It's so bizarre because it is by a major network and it's got a bunch of great actors in it famous actors in it.
Speaker 1:Well, they weren't necessarily famous at the time, but for a show like this.
Speaker 2:If this show came out, let's say, in 2010 or 12, it would be on the CW and it would probably run for 5,000 seasons. If it came out today, it would probably be on like, I don't know, like an Amazon or like a Netflix original and would have huge actors. And it would be. If it came out just a few years later than it did, and or had been in syndication from the get go, it probably would have had a great run and people would really remember it fondly, more so than currently.
Speaker 1:It might have been the combination of a pre Terminator 2, linda Hamilton, a pre blowing up Ron Perlman. You know you had these writing teams of George R Martin and the 24 guys you had this talent there who gave them the springboard to do more things in Hollywood. But would it have been the same if you didn't have all of these elements? Would it have been the same if it lasted longer? The longer it went, things did get, at least in this short period of time. They got crazier. You had to introduce an underworld, possibly magic villain. You had to have a in the shadows hiring assassins mob boss. That lasted a whole season. Would they have kept upping the ante and would it have been able to sustain under those unruly weights?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I agree with you? I don't think so. That is why it's an odd show, but at the same time it really ultimately probably would have been the same that it is. The premise would have run out. Granted, you wouldn't have gotten stars like you did. If it had come out later, it would have just been whatever cW model that they hired or whatever. But it's a fascinating thing because on TV, on network primetime TV, there were no shows like this. It's an outlier like St Elsewhere. It exists in its time. I don't know if it even belongs in its time then, but it happened and hey we got to see it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of elements, both textually and metatexturally, that put it in this timeless space, which I think also helps it for its watchability today. Even watching it, I kept thinking like man, this should just be set in Paris. It would make so much more sense. But then I keep thinking oh, but there is this weird underworld in New York that a few things have touched on. It's a baffling, and not in a bad way. It's a baffling show, but what are we going to do about it now?
Speaker 1:It happens. No, it happens, and that's why we did an episode on it, because it was so unique, fascinating. It's a fascinating snapshot of an era, with these actors, these writers, an interesting interpretation of the story. Right on the tail end of the show ending, the Disney version comes out.
Speaker 2:The Disney version is so you're right in the social zeitgeist that makes it really, really interesting, and I'm really glad there is a devoted fandom to this day. You know it deserves it. I would hate for the show to be one of the shows that nobody remembers.
Speaker 1:No, and I'm glad that we're at least able to bring it to an audience, however big this is.
Speaker 2:All four of you, thank you. And, by the way, stephen McHattie, is he not the poor man's Lance Hendrickson?
Speaker 1:Oh yes. To a point where, when he is introduced, I kind of like what's that? No, no, it's not. The voice is slightly different enough, but it's the Bill Pullman, bill Paxton Paxton problem. It's much like Pokemon, really Exactly like Pokemon and just like Pokemon. We'd like to thank you from the Pikachu of our hearts for listening to today's pod about Beauty and the Beast and whatever we talked about at the beginning of the episode, which may or may not make it in.
Speaker 2:I think it was a lot about Bronson. There was a lot of Bronson in. There was a lot of Bronson-ing in there. I think Bronson.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we would like to thank you on behalf of CGI Recreated and DH and Charles Bronson. Thanks for listening. We hope you've enjoyed your time with us. If you wouldn't mind, like sharing and subscribing, that's the best way for us to get heard and seen. Wouldn't mind giving us, uh, five throbbing hairy vincent heartbeats on the podcast app of your choice.
Speaker 2:Last name vincent. What? What was his last name? Yeah, I thought he had a last name I think it's wells, if I remember right give us five vincent wells, I think they just call him vincent.
Speaker 1:I don't think he's ever, like truly, given a last name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe on the limited VHS release of the complete series you might actually shout him out with his real name.
Speaker 1:But yeah, hey, thanks for listening to us. We hope you come back for more wild stuff we talk about. Who knows what it's going to be? Oh, it's going to be nuts. Until that time, skip. What else might they do if they're so inclined? Well, what else might they do if they're so?
Speaker 2:inclined. Well, I mean, if they're good citizens, they would.
Speaker 1:We don't have any of those left anymore.
Speaker 2:That's probably true. They'd clean up after themselves to some sort of reasonable degree. Just be polite, make sure you have tipped your waitstaff, your bartenders, your KJs, and don't forget to support your local comic shops and retailers. And from Dispatch Ajax we would both like to say Godspeed, fair Wizards, meow, what does that have to do with this episode?
Speaker 1:He's a cat guy.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, yeah, I'll give you that one, even though we barely touched on that the entire time.
Speaker 1:They don't explain where he came from in the show. No, they.
Speaker 2:You know what, though I don't mind that.
Speaker 1:I think that's fine yeah, he was brought to like a church doorstep they talk about.
Speaker 2:Possibly he was a genetic experiment by the government, but I kind of don't need that, though you know it's like james bond. I don't want to know your origin story. Yeah, no, I kind of like who you are and that the fact that you're weird is good enough. I think that's that's cool, especially since it's like a fantasy romance. I don't need to know the origin. I think I don't. I don't need to know, like, the genetic background of the fucking white walkers. I don't need that, I don't need it, I don't want it and I don't need it. Just just let me enjoy that. You know, that's the difference between sci-fi and fantasy. Like, I kind of need to know what con. I don't need it, I don't want it and I don't need it. Just let me enjoy that. That's the difference between sci-fi and fantasy. I kind of need to know what Khan comes from, but I don't need to fucking know anything about. You know, I don't need to know about the Emperor.
Speaker 1:Oh shit, Palpatine came again.
Speaker 2:Oh, there he is again.
Speaker 1:All over our face.
Speaker 2:He's propped up by so many robotics.
Speaker 1:Please go away.