Cagney and Lacey – Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers

SNMS’ Side-Cast: A Conversation w/ Wilford Brimley & Martin Kove

Wilfred Brimley Welcome to a very special Exclusive Edition of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers Presents, The Side-Cast! This week SNMS catches up with two legendary actors in their own right: the well-renowned Wilford Brimley, and film and television icon Martin Kove! Last month Dion Baia and J. Blake attended the 2017 Monster Mania Convention in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Dion was able to sit down and chat with these two amazing thespians.

Mr. Brimley whose credits include The Thing, Cocoon, The Firm, Hard Target and The Natural just to name a few, briefly talks about his reasoning for getting into the film business, his favorite role, as well as setting the record straight on some of the stories online about his early life. Not one to mince words, Mr. Brimley is direct and to the point.

Martin Kove Mr. Kove, known most notably as Sensei John Kreese of the Cobra Kai Dojo, also starred in such classics on the big screen as The Last House on the Left, The White Buffalo, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Steel Justice and Wyatt Earp, talks at length about his start in the film business, some embarrassing moments (he at least thinks) in his appearances in ’70s episodic television and why he feels The Karate Kid has become the cult classic it is today. Mr. Kove also goes into why he feels the 1980’s television show Cagney and Lacey, that he costarred on, was so ground-breaking and ahead of it’s time, and touches on other character’s he portrayed throughout his profound career.

Kove also laments about the one iconic actor he regrets not working with when he had the chance, and also laughs about the one legendary actor he caught up with years later, with who admitted to being a huge Cagney and Lacey fan. And he opines about the one American film genre that he has an immense passion for, and feels needs to be resurrected.

So come on down and take a listen to these exclusives, on another exciting installment of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers!

EXTRAS!

Here’s Martin Kove signing Dion‘s Cagney & Lacey boxset; and here is Mr. Kove doing his badass Cobra Kai pose; then after realizing Dion was a huge C & L fan, here is a straight pose.

Click here to check out Mr. Kove’s book recommendation, Wyoming Wind: A Novel of Tom Horn by Jon Chandler.

Check out the 1989 CBS show Hard Time on Planet Earth starring Martin Kove!

Watch Martin Kove in this 1977 Irish Springs Commercial!

Have a look at this great Wilford Brimley on Craig Ferguson in 2011!

Take a look at Wilford Brimley doing a PSA to combat the Meth epidemic in his home state of Utah.

Here’s a rare heard 1988 audio cassette of Wilford Brimley reading Clement Moore‘s poem, The Night Before Christmas (Just ignore the photo slideshow, which seems to be done to be funny).

And, check out Wilford Brimley and the Jeff Hamilton Trio Live, performing Pick Yourself Up!

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October 21

Night of the Creeps, 1986

The boys are crawling back with their eyes clouded-over for week three of their October Halloween-Horror Binge, here at Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers! J. Blake and Dion Baia have delved deep into the video store racks and dusted off one from way down on the bottom shelf. They’ve selected an 80’s horror classic, and an absolutely undeniable classic for hardcore zombie fans! So what do you get when you take the urban legend of the escaped lunatic, add in 1950’s alien invaders, sprinkle in some elements of classic Film Noir, and then mix in the living dead for good measure? Well we’re here to ‘thrill you‘ this week with Fred Dekker‘s near perfect Night of the Creeps, from 1986!

Night of the Creeps, 1986

Dion and Blake mince no words about their love for this film, and their appreciation for Mr. Dekker. They ease on into the ‘cast by reminiscing about attending community-organized Halloween parties as young kids back in the early 80’s, and jokingly psychoanalyze each other over what they’re nostalgic for by laughing about what they were exposed to as children. They then get into the meat and bones of Night of the Creeps. They gush over all the many clichéd tropes that are purposely brought together and used perfectly, to add to a sometimes hilarious, serious, and quite frighteningly effective and amazing 80’s horror movie. The boys reaffirm and solidify their undying (no pun intended) love for the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Tom Atkins. They also analyze the mashup of various 1950’s sci-fi and horror elements, and how they all play into a nostalgic and loving homage to that era’s segment of genre films. And they discuss the notorious original, alternate ending. So to address the huge elephant in the room, why did this film flop? Why did it play into effectively destroying it’s director’s, Fred Dekker‘s Hollywood career? Was it perhaps too smart and too forward thinking for it’s own good, making it fall short to the expectations of the general 1980’s audience? And does this film, in fact, deserve the credit and reverence that A-list genre films of the time garner? Well, you better grab your shotguns and flame-throwers, duct-tape your mouth’s shut, and keep your High School dates close, because here comes an all new edition and third installment of the October-Halloween binge of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers!

Extras!

Check out the original trailer for Night of the Creeps!

Take a look at the deleted scenes!

Have a gander at the original ending!

Check out a rare panel discussion with the original cast from the 2010 Monster Mania!

Here’s SNMS‘ very own J. Blake‘s autograph from the man, the myth, and the legend, Mr. Tom Atkins!

As discussed in the podcast, HERE is the before, and HERE is the transformation of the rare hologram pin for the short-lived 80’s TV show Werewolf!

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Category: Action, Classic, Comedy, Comic Books, Horror, Sci Fi, Uncategorized | LEAVE A COMMENT

June 3

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Double Feature- 1990 & 1991

Has it been 2 weeks already?! Well then welcome back to another exciting, wacky, and in this week’s case, new and unique edition of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers! This time around J. Blake and Dion Baia are doing a bonafide double feature, something that was to weekend sleepovers as Jack Daniels was to Frank Sinatra. And after throwing dump truck-loads of money at Quinnipiac University polling and hosting scores of focus group studies, they came up with the perfect pair of films for their inaugural double feature. And what lucky pair did they choose? Well the 1990 and 1991 classics Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze of course!!!

TNMT Double-Feature

The boys are completely sleep deprived this time around but still working on all cylinders, trying to cram as much info as they can about this classic franchise into a tiny, humble podcast. After voicing their concerns about the growing intelligence of the machines on the Island of Sodor (which oddly has NOTHING to do with the TMNT), the fellas quickly jump right into the topic at hand, the backstory of the beloved Ninja Turtles. They discuss the Half Shelled Heroes’ incredible journey from comicbook page to the small screen, leap to action figures, and finally their landing on the 35mm big screen. After the original 1990 film became such a success, Blake and Dion reminisce about the Turtle phenomenon that overtook the world. This popularity greenlit a second film, which made it to the screen just 10 days shy of a calendar year from the original’s release; making it possibly the quickest sequel put into production since the old studio system days of yesteryear.

So was the 1990 movie really an ‘independent’ film? How technically advanced and also cumbersome were the turtle suits, comparably, from one movie to the next? Was the original film really criticized for being so dark and violent, that it actually was censured in the U.K. and some other European countries because of it’s ninja connotations? And then was the 1991 sequel actually criticized for being too light-hearted and not as faithful to the source material.. wait, wha?! And will the lads actually get through the podcast before becoming too incoherent? Well order your pizza pies, grab your skateboards and your favorite pair of Nunchakus, because the guys are heading down into the sewers this week in this colossal double header, on another episode of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers!

EXTRAS!

Here is one of the original sketches of the TMNT, quite possibly the earliest sketch of the whole quartet, which in May 2012, sold at auction for $71,700.

Check out the 2014 documentary on the TMNT discussed in the cast, entitled Turtle Power: The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Have a look at the deleted scenes from the original 1990 TMNT film!

Here are the fab four on Oprah, circa 1990, with an entire child audience!!

While we’re here, have a watch of the long out of print 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out of Their Shells Tour film!

Have a look at this amazing arrangement of the TMNT cartoon theme song, performed by Scott Bradlee and Post Modern Jukebox (from their Saturday Morning Slow Jams series), sung by Righteous Music Media‘s own Drue Davis!

Last but certainly not least, check out this rare gem, the music video for the 1990 Partner in Kryme single, Turtle Power!