Have You Seen This?, Author at Have You SEEN This?

175 – Cast a Deadly Spell

A disheveled Julianne Moore and Fred Ward from the climax of CAST A DEADLY SPELL (1991) — “I miss the graboids”

Jen and Tim try to say something nice about a pay cable attempt at Lovecraftian horror/comedy, Cast a Deadly Spell. Also, Jen tries and fails to remember the time she massively insulted Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid out of nowhere.

Jen is so dumb she forgot to mention who directed Witch Hunt, the sequel to Cast a Deadly Spell: Paul fucking Schrader. Will we watch it? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Tim confused Peter Scolari of Bosom Buddies with Mark Linn-Baker in Perfect Strangers, or maybe he was thinking of Bronson Pinchot. Does it matter?

Jerry Smith over at Certified Forgotten makes a fan’s case for the movie, so we’ll include it as a concession to an imaginary genre podcast Fairness Doctrine.

Finally, for more throwback horror, try our episode on the first Kolchak telefilm, The Night Stalker!

174 – Penda’s Fen

Tim is too cool to talk about a nerdy British kid’s coming of age story, so Jen and special guest @bitterkarella step in to talk about cult BBC teleplay Penda’s Fen.

For just $5 a month, hear it and over 80 more episodes on our Patreon!

BFI did indeed release Penda’s Fen on blu-ray in 2016, but it’s also available on YouTube!

The 2010 post that originally turned Jen on to the film may be found at John Coulthart’s excellent art blog, Feuilleton. At the time of writing, Penda’s Fen was almost impossible to see, as a home video release was far in the future.

As for Penda’s Fen, whenever a TV executive tries to argue that television hasn’t dumbed down I’d offer this work as Exhibit A for the prosecution. Rudkin and Clarke’s film was screened at 9.35 in the evening on the nation’s main TV channel, BBC 1, at a time when there were only three channels to choose from. A primetime audience of many millions watched this visceral and unapologetically intelligent drama; show me where this happens today. – John Coulthart

Jen mangled the words to the Bonzo Dog Band’s “Sport” a little bit (“Sport, sport, masculine sport / equips a young man for society”), but you get the idea.

Also, be sure to listen to our discussion of the Alan Clarke-directed The Firm, along with its inferior remake.

173 – Lake of Fire

Jen and Tim welcome reproductive rights expert Mellie to discuss an exhaustive documentary on A BIG COMPLICATED ISSUE: Tony Kaye’s overview of abortion in the US, Lake of Fire.

Hear the whole episode at our Patreon and get access to more than 80 other bonus episodes!

Looper has the rundown on Tony Kaye’s battle with New Line Cinema (and Edward Norton) over the final cut of American History X.

The Nation has a pretty good overview of the intertwining of anti-abortion activism and white supremacy in the United States.

Randall Terry is still alive, unfortunately, but Paul Jennings Hill, John Burt, John Salvi, and Norman Weslin are not.

Be sure to listen to Mellie’s first appearance on the show, where we picked apart the anti-abortion propaganda film The Silent Scream.

Want more discussion on reproductive ethics? Try our FREE episode on 1997’s Gattaca.

172 – Gattaca

Subscribe at the $5 tier on Patreon to hear the full episode and get two bonus episodes every month and access to our Discord!

Tim and Jen have a mild and cordial disagreement about Truman Show screenwriter Andrew Niccol’s flop first feature: Gattaca.

The Cinemaholic has an explainer for the ending, just in case you’re stupid.

The studio attempted to sell the film as a sci-fi thriller, going by the trailer. See it in 4K over at YouTube. Am I crazy, or is that Richard Kiley narrating for a touch of educational-television believability? Guess they spared no expense!

In an interview snippet, Gattaca cinematographer Slawomir Idziak talks about working on an episode of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s televised masterpiece, Dekalog.

Finally, if you want to hear our episode on George Romero’s Martin, it’s also free! (But first come to our Discord and talk to Tim about Traveller.)

171 – Faust: Love of the Damned

Jen and Tim welcome @bitterkarella to talk about a tWisTeD comic book movie, the Spawn before Spawn, Faust: Love of the Damned!

Hear the whole episode at our Patreon and get access to more than 80 other bonus episodes!

Read an interview with director Brian Yuzna to learn more about Fantastic Factory, the production company that brought you that titty inflation scene. He also talks about The Guyver!

If you found yourself confused by our reference to ”Two Wet Bears,“ you can watch it on YouTube. It’s an attempt to pass off a pencil test as a finished animated short, and features almost every year at Jerry Beck’s Worst Cartoons Ever panel at Comic-Con. (Also listen to our episode with Jerry about the Monkees’ sole feature, Head!)

This is the Sara Matthews Bitter Karella was talking about, by the way. Apparently she was uncredited in Repossessed, in spite of her memorable appearance. For shame!

Too much of a pussy for this xXxtreme anti-hero? Why not enjoy our episode with tons more pussy, Cats on Park Avenue!

170 – Cats on Park Avenue

A cat on a skateboard from Cats on Park Avenue (1989) — mrow!!

Tim and Jen scratch their heads over a Japanese musical that’s positively infested with cats, Cats on Park Avenue. It has nothing to do with New York or the musical Cats.

Hear the whole episode on our Patreon and get access to more than 80 other bonus episodes!

Complex has the story on how Disney literally killed five golden retriever puppies while making Snow Buddies, a direct-to-video follow-up to Air Bud.

Marty Stouffer became popular with his Wild America series on PBS. A few of his ex-employees alleged that he staged many scenes in the show, which he denied.

You can watch the scene from Sledge Hammer! that Tim mentioned, and after that you can watch the whole series on YouTube, because it’s right there and it’s a great show!

For more musical madness, try our episode on the Dr. Seuss-penned The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T!

169 – Dick Tracy

Warren Beatty and Madonna in Dick Tracy (1990)

Paul Jay returns to talk with us about Warren Beatty’s greatest love! No, not women— by all evidence it’s Dick Tracy. Also, we are interrupted by a dog.

View one of Beatty’s rights-maintaining Dick Tracy specials, in which he’s interviewed by Leonard Maltin while in character as his favorite comic strip detective.

We’ve talked about Warren a couple of times before on the show— once with beloved recurring guest Sean Morris for Bulworth, and once to inagurate the whole dang podcast with our Ishtar episode!

A small shaggy black dog sleeping on an ottoman. He is very cute. — Moose!

168 – Body Slam

Sam Fatu and Roddy Piper in Body Slam (1986)

With Tim AWOL (Absent With Overabundant Lego), Jen invites wrestling expert Darren Herczeg to discuss a half-assed wrestling comedy, Body Slam!

Hear the whole episode at our Patreon and get access to more than 80 other bonus episodes!

You can read Dirk Benedict’s idiotic whining about the female Starbuck over at the Internet Archive.

For a peek into the primordial soup of reactionary mass media, read this piece about Wally George and his UHF televison show, Hot Seat. More proof that the worst place God created is not the Nefud desert, but Orange County, California.

Speaking of shock TV, watch a representative clip of The Richard Bey Show! Bey later claimed that his show was cancelled because he aired an interview with Gennifer Flowers, one of several women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault. #ClintonBodyCount

Finally, don’t forget to follow the world’s greatest Instagram account, a veritable museum of weird gimmicks and jobbers, @hamandeggers. Our special guest Darren does, so shouldn’t you?

167 – The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T

Tommy Rettig in The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)

Jen and Tim talk about a truly weird musical fantasia from the mind of beloved children’s author Dr. Seuss— The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.

Hear the whole episode at our Patreon and get access to more than 80 other bonus episodes!

So much of this episode wouldn’t exist without the superlative work of Seuss biographer Brian Jay Jones. His book Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisl and the Making of an American Imagination highlights Geisl’s creativity and enduring legacy in popular literature. Jones talked in depth about the life of Dr. Seuss on the Our American Stories podcast (listen to our show first though lol).

The charming animated short Gerald McBoing-Boing may be viewed on YouTube.

Jen mentioned the Australian child murderer (and worse) Mr. Cruel— see the legitimately terrifying police sketch of the suspect at Wikipedia, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.

And yes, we highly recommend that calendar Rifftrax short we mentioned, whether you like to laugh, or if you’re just genuinely confused about how to use a calendar!

166 – Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Russell Crowe aboard the Surprise in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Tim and Jen discuss a beloved epic whose time has come, the Peter Weir masterpiece Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World!

The GQ article mentioned appears to be yet more proof of the widespread affection for this film.

The doctor who pioneered sanitary practices in medicine was Ignatz Semmelweiss, although these ideas didn’t take hold until the time of Joseph Lister. Additionally, other medical men (like Oliver Wendell Holmes, for one) arrived at similar notions independent of Semmelweiss. The latter, in fact, refused to publish anything about hand washing because he believed these practices to be “self-evident.”

If you want to read about Grover Cleveland getting surgery at sea and see some icky-yet-illumunating photos, the New York Academy of Medicine has a good blog post about it. If you want more, the book Jen mentioned is called The President is a Sick Man, and author Matthew Algeo answered questions about it in this C-SPAN presentation.

And finally, if you love Russell Crowe as much as we do, listen to our chat about an early starring role for him, Virtuosity!