July 13

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, 1991

Welcome back to another exciting episode of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers! This week Dion Baia and J. Blake are exploring one of their favorite franchises -talking all things Star Trek– and taking a deep-dive into the 1991 film, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country !

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Blake and Dion jump right in, unpacking this huge topic- from the original series, to the feature films, and all the other elements that led to this movie, Star Trek VI , as well as utilize the fantastic novelization. They also lay out all the social and geopolitical events that were unfolding around the world at the time that played into this film (which the boys consider one of the best of the series). So watch your Romulan Ale intake, and monitor any enormous neutron radiation fields, because the lads are dissecting one of their absolute favorites in this all new installment of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers!

(During the episode Dion and Blake excitedly referred to the great character actor Ward Bond as Wade Bond and his fabulous show Wagon Train as Wagon Trail  yes they can get overzealous at times.)

(Brock Peters was not the voice of the Kingpin on the 1994 Spiderman animated seriesbut instead it was Roscoe Lee Browne.)

Extras!

Check out the original trailer for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country!

Here’s a great featurette from 1991 on the making of Star Trek VI!

Have a look at this great interview with composer Cliff Eidelman about the film.

Take a listen to the amazing spine-tingling episode of Suspense, entitled The Flesh Peddler, starring the great DeForest Kelley.

As referenced in the podcast, here’s a young Dion HERE and HERE blissfully playing with his CHiPs tricycle, before the now notorious ‘incident’.

January 29

The Night Stalker, 1972

Welcome back to another all new edition of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers! To celebrate the return of The X-Files to the small screen, J. Blake and Dion Baia decided to go back and cover a film and character that is very close to both their hearts, which has been also cited by Mulder and Scully creator Chris Carter as a direct inspiration for his show. If you haven’t already guessed, this week the fellas are talking about the ground-breaking TV movie The Night Stalker, from 1972 starring the great Darren McGavin as the iconic Carl Kolchak.mcgavinnight-stalker

The boys setup the podcast by giving a little backstory about the ‘TV movie” or as it was called, the “Movie of the Week“, adding some context on how popular the format was and continues to be; and the astounding precedent The Night Stalker achieved by becoming the highest viewed TV film up until that time. Dion and Blake discuss all things Kolchak and shamelessly gush about their love for Darren McGavin and the amazing character he helped bring to the screen. They also explain the story about how an unpublished manuscript by Jeff Rice was taken and adapted by legendary writer Richard Matheson and turned into the highest rated tv movie up until January 11th, 1972. So, what was it about this story that was so popular for audiences? How does the film hold up more than 44 years later? What occured that made McGavin become so disenchanted with the 1974 TV series, which eventually got cancelled after only one season? What has become the legacy of Kolchak the Night Stalker? And what was the flub during the podcast that practically stopped the recording in it’s tracks, and turned the lads into two laughing school girls? Well all those juicy questions will be answered on this awesome and exciting all new episode of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers!

EXTRAS:

Check out this great and VERY interesting page on the official Darren McGavin and wife Kathie Browne McGavin‘s website about Kolchak the Night Stalker, giving a timeline for the series and the actor’s direct perceptive during the project, along with very candid interviews about the show.

Here’s another link to the McGavin/Browne website, showing the unproduced Kolchak scripts, including what was to be the third film, The Night Killers.

EXCLUSIVE: Straight out of the SNMS Archive, check out this original art by Douglas Klauba for the C. J. Henderson Kolchak novel, The Lost City. Here is the finished product, as it looks with it’s titles.

EXCLUSIVE: Another work of art right out of the SNMS Archive, take a look at this original comic book page #38 from issue #2 of the 2002 run of the Kolchak comic book series, entitled Get of Belial.      Here is the finished page as it looked.

EXCLUSIVE: Another out of the SNMS Archive, this original newspaper advertisement for Darren McGavin starring in the brand new 1974 Kolchak The Night Stalker television series

Check out the link to John Carpenter’s The Thing limited edition Christmas ornament brought up in the podcast.