Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This podcast is a collaboration between Costard and Touchstone Productions and the Dads from the Crypt podcast.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Did they have a point, though? At least in part?
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Did they have a point?
[00:00:11] Speaker B: If there were episodes about cannibalism or whatever, might that have had some sort of negative effect on impressionable young minds?
[00:00:20] Speaker C: I have never believed that. I still don't believe it. The stuff that they have in movies and television today is so much worse than anything I ever put out, and I can't see that that ever harmed anybody either. Kids love horror. They love gore. They love all these dreadful things. I have a grandson who just eats this stuff up, and he's about five years old, and all he could do is wait for the reprints of my comics because he loves them.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to what we call in the tv business a very special episode of the how not to make a movie podcast. You want to know the insides dope there is on tells from the crypt. It's this. If there was a real crypt keeper, a kind of ground zero for everything tells from the crypt, it was EC Comics publisher William M. Gaines.
I grew up a huge fan of Mad magazine and the EC comics that preceded it. Like tales from the crypt. Just reading Mad was like getting a master's class in comedy. At Mad, they celebrated Bill Gaines, the man they worked for, even as they made fun of him. Now, while Bill Gaines didn't write or draw anything himself, he was the writing and the artwork's organizing principle.
It may not have flowed from him literally, but it flowed from him nonetheless. Issy and Mad both represented the world as Bill Gaines. Back when I was huddled under the blankets with a stack of tales from the Crypt comic books, it would have seemed a total impossibility that one day I would write and produce the tv version of one of Bill Gaines creations. It would have seemed an even bigger impossibility that I would get to meet him and get his blessing for my tv version as part of the bargain. And yet that happened with one or two exceptions. I have never been a star fucker goddess. I don't care about S t A r s. But Bill Gaines was one of those exceptions. Meeting him, and I say this as a devout atheist, was like meeting God, and it definitely lived up to the moment.
Yeah, Bill Gaines inspired me. You want to color outside the lines? Yeah, go ahead. Fuck the lines. You want to point at the emperor and fact that he's not wearing any clothes? Point away and make sure to laugh extra loud at his microscopic schweeneous. What, me worry? No, alfredy I ain't worrying cause you ain't worrying perversely and ironically, the fact that Bill Gaines became the person he became was entirely an accident. A series of accidents.
Max Gaines, Bill Gaines father helped start the comic book business. In the 1930s. He worked for the then fledgling DC comics. In fact, Max Gaines turned down Jerry Siegel when Jerry Siegel first submitted Supermande to DC. Eventually, Max Gaines ended up in advertising where as part of an ad campaign he did for Buster Brown's shoes, he created a series of Buster Brown comic books to be given away with each pair of shoes. That happy accident put Max Gaines back into the comic book business. Next thing you know, Max starts his own comic book company, EC Comics. Max's son Bill had no interest in comics or publishing. He wanted to be a high school science teacher when another accident, this one with a boat, killed Max Gaines and changed the whole direction of Bill Gaines life. Bill Gaines took over his dad's publishing company and he changed the company's focus from educational comics to entertaining comics. And he started titles like Tales from the Crypt, the Haunt of Fear and the vault of horror.
Like everything good and fun. In the 1950s, Issi drew the ire of people with no sense of humor. The man was determined that comic books like ecs were destroying America's youth. Bill Gaines went before Congress, not that it did much good.
[00:04:27] Speaker C: What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of our own children? Do we forget that they are citizens too and entitled to the essential freedom to read? Or do we think our children so evil, so vicious, so simple minded that it takes but a comic magazine story of murder to set them to murder, of robbery to set them to robbery?
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Eventually, he turned away from EC and got mad. And if you don't think he changed the world by doing that, I don't know what world you're living in.
John Kaseer needs no introduction. He's the voice of the Crypt keeper, of course. But here's the weird thing, and it's a big part of why there will never be a tales from the Crypt remake. The Crypt keeper in the EC comic books and the Cryptkeeper in the tales from the Crypt tv series are not the same character and therefore not the same intellectual property or IP. The cryptkeeper that appears in the tv show is completely separate from the EC comics. Bill Gaines family owns the EC comics. Joel Silver and the other executive producers of Crypt. They own the Crypt keeper who appears in the tv series and Bill Gaines family.
How shall I put this? They hate Joel a lot. They believe that Joel ripped them off while doing the tv series. And so the crypt keeper and tales from the crypt will likely remain divorced from each other forever and ever. Alas, it's always those kids who get hurt in the divorce. Right? But let's put the subject at hand to John Cassir, the guy who filled Kevin Yeager's magnificent puppethe with life.
[00:06:05] Speaker D: Bill Gaines. Bill Gaines, man. You know, first of all, a lot of people don't know this. You know, people who know my career and, you know, know my work as the crypt keeper and have talked to me at length about it or been at one of the conventions where I've had my Q and A's and talk about growing up with the comic books, how in, you know, in a kismethe irony kind of way, I wound up playing the cryptkeeper for something that I loved as a kid that was controversial for me to be able to even look at these comic books, because, you know, my mother was not a, you know, total conservative mom, but she knew I wasn't supposed to be reading these things. You know, my grandfather had a store. When we'd go visit my, my grandfather in his little store in Springfield, Massachusetts, my cousins and I, and I had a shitload of them. We'd go down to the store. My grandfather would give us, you know, a pop, soda pop, whatever, ice cream, whatever, and he goes, you know, go pick something off the rack. You know, my cousins were trying to reach up as high as they could, trying to get Playboy magazines and stuff, as little boys would do. I was taking the tales from the crypt comic books off the stand, you know, and I used to have these Casper comics that I never read. I think I got them from. From, like, a friend down the street or something. I had, like, one of those, you know, file boxes full of them, and I would use the covers, and I'd put them on top of my tails from the crypt comic books. And then, of course, Mad magazine was huge when I was in, I mean, when. When I was in elementary school and my friends started bringing in Mad magazine, you know, or then I got a little older, and they're like, oh, my gosh, this is a takeoff on catch 22. We got to go see that movie. I mean, we would go see the movies that were being sent up in Mad magazine just because they were being sent up in Mad magazine, you know, probably ones that we probably even shouldn't have been seeing either, but just so great.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: A lot of my sense of comic timing, really, I think it comes from that magazine.
It was impeccable. The musical parodies, for instance.
[00:08:16] Speaker D: Oh, forget it.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Just wonderful, wonderful, great stuff.
[00:08:23] Speaker D: You know. And the tales from the crypt comic books, you look at those. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but some of the people have told me that were involved with production with tales from the crypt. They would use the actual comic book almost like a storyboard for how they would shoot certain things.
Each frame of that. Certainly when you look at any kind of horror magazine, pop fiction movie, this kind of thing, they all borrowed from the artists that were in these magazines, which was incredible. But a quick story about William Gaines, how devoted he was to his fans and the kids.
Dear friend of mine, Ari Gross, who we all know as an actor, was in New York with a friend. And they're walking down the street and I think he said. They were like, I don't know, 1213, something like that. And they see EC Comics building that says EC Comics offices. And they just let themself in and walked upstairs and they go, hey, how can we help you? They go, oh, we love this comic book. The next thing I know, they're in Bill Gaines office being given comic books. And he's telling them all about it. And I'm abridging it much because I don't remember all the details because my mouth was probably hanging open when he was telling me this story. But it's such a wonderful story. Sometimes we'll have to have him relate that to us. But that's the kind of thing that I got to experience with Mister Gaines when we did the show. And I didn't have that much access to him a couple of times. But I do remember meeting him when we were doing the crip jam. And he came down and did the little thing with Chucky Booker, who wrote the crip jam. And. And he and I were like, you know, doing the thing. And somehow we got into some conversation. I don't know if it was that night or some other time, he invited me to his house and I walked in to see bookcases like his living room were bookcases that were like, amazed. And they were all scripts and comic books and that kind of thing. This is what I'm remembering, folks. You know, my, but this is, you know, this could have been complete fantasy, could be fiction, but I really remember it to be complete completely.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Where was his house in this case?
[00:10:57] Speaker D: I can't remember.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: East Coast, West coast?
[00:11:00] Speaker D: Here, here. I mean, I was living. I've been living all the time that I've been doing tales from the crypt. I've been living in Los Angeles. I moved here in 1986 from New York, and I've been out here ever since. He just loved what we did with the show, you know, he loved it from top to bottom. You know, I'm sure he had the same problems everybody else did with dealing with the budget and the production people, you know, from the top and that kind of stuff that we don't hesitate to talk about, you know, which is why we don't have the rights anymore.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: And then there's that.
[00:11:36] Speaker D: Yeah. But certainly he's very fondly remembered by his family. I've been contacted by his daughter a number of times. Wendy. Yes. She would contact me whenever they would have. She would have a new grandchild or, you know, or one of Bill's great grandchildren or, you know, the great, great grandchild of Bill's dad, who started it. And they really are into the family history of everything that was created and asked me to do a little voiceover or a little video for the kid to have as a keepsake of the crypt keeper welcoming them into the world, which is just the most amazing thing. Who would be honored with such a thing? So, you know that the Bill Gaines, William Gaines history is deep in my bones. Yes, my breaking, cackling little bones. And, you know, I have nothing but great things to say about my experience with Bill Gaines. I wouldn't pretend to be a historian on his whole history and background and who he was, but certainly had enough experience to know what a great legacy we're a part of.
[00:13:02] Speaker C: I proudly accept this great honor on behalf of my unbelievably talented staff of editors, writers, and artists who were vilified in the early fifties by a Senate subcommittee on juvenile delinquency and by other magazine publishers who claimed we had destroyed the youth of America. It has taken almost 40 years for our work to be recognized.
I thank Joel Silver and his incredible group of moviemakers who have made tales from the crypt the hottest and most successful original programming in box home, Box office history.
Finally, I thank the board of directors of the Horror hall of Fame for this delightful vindication of our efforts.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Before each and every episode of Tales from the Crypt, the Crypt keeper would open his big book of stories to that episode's comic book cover. Comic book artist Mike Vosberg. Vaz drew every single one of them. If anyone in crypt was trying to mine their inner bill Gaines for inspiration, it was Vaz.
[00:14:19] Speaker E: Back in the early sixties, there were these little paperbacks were put out of mad comic books, and you know what they were called? You know, but that was my first time that I saw those mad comics. And I was just like, I was like, wow.
You know, it's what he did in.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Those, in those, in the paperbacks is he simply just, he was simply publishing the same material he put in the comic book format.
[00:14:55] Speaker E: Right. In repackaging them.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Right, right. Which was also a part of his genius, that he would repackage the same material several times and we would happily buy it.
[00:15:05] Speaker E: Well, I was gonna, I guess if you're familiar with comic book history, that was a common thing with publishers. It's like, that's why they didn't give the original artwork back, because they didn't want you giving it to another publisher. And I'm going like, oh, yeah, I can print this. So.
But, yeah, I remember getting noticed. I must have been about eleven or twelve. And my two favorite artists were always Jack Davis and Wally Wood.
And what struck you about both of them?
[00:15:38] Speaker A: What, what was it about Wally Wood and what was about Jack Davis that.
[00:15:41] Speaker E: Through your eye with Jack Davis, it was like they were the silliest drawings in the world. And not only did he do mad comics, but he used to do, at the time, he did these little things called funny Valentines. And it was an education for me because I was suddenly recognizing artists. So when I saw the Valentine's cards, I'm going, oh, that's Jack Davis.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: Of course.
[00:16:02] Speaker E: I guess the fact that he signed all this stuff was helpful too. But I, the other artist for me was Wally Wood.
He drew the most amazing women in his comic books, you know, and I'm sure, you know, it's like just, you know, going, starting puberty about then. It was like, wow, these are neat comics. You know, that's.
And I remember meeting them a couple times, you know, later on when I started working, he died fairly young. He had kidney disease.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: What was it like meeting a hero?
It can be great. It can be less than great.
[00:16:47] Speaker E: He was in his kind of his last stages then of just alcoholism and whatever. But I mean, it was still, it was exciting, but it was also kind of like, you know, it was, it was, um, I remember, um, I, I had a friend that, uh, another Alan, uh, who was an editor at Marvel Comics at, uh, you know, we, he was, he, I knew him since the time he was like, 1314 years old, uh, because he lived here in Detroit. Um, but, uh, he was telling me, he said, yeah, I showed some of your work to, to Wally Wood. And he goes, well, this guy draws women almost as well as I do. And I remember my youthful arrogance. I'm going almost.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Oh, dear. But, but hey, I mean, on the one hand, wow, what a great compliment.
[00:17:36] Speaker E: It was a nice compliment. You know, it's Jack Davis I never did get to meet or, you know, or talk to because he's someone I would have loved to.
But I mean, there were other great guys in those books, too, like John Severinous and who's Bill Elder?
I'm trying to think who else? You know, you know, they're very artists. But I remember for me, it was like it was always the, you know, the wood and Jack Davis were the, were the first ones and, and the stories were so funny because I was familiar with all those comics.
So seeing the satires on them were perfect for me. Probably three or four years later, they came out with some of the science fiction ones. And that was another just revelation because I got to see Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta and God, who else? More WalLY Wood and in fact, my Jorlando, who used to be my editor when I first started comics. One of the great Ec stories I always think of is they were taking Ray Bradbury stories and adapting them and had no idea he was a big comic book fan. And he sent him a letter going like, wow, you guys are really doing great adaptations of these. I'd still like my check, though. And, you know, they immediately called him and were like, wow, you know, we'll get you a check off right away. What would you like? And, you know, would you, would you be interested if we did more of these? And he was, oh, wow. Because he was really excited about that.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Thumb up the impact that Bill Gaines had on the comic book world and on what you do. How would you describe it?
[00:19:23] Speaker E: Amazing in that he brought a level to creativity, to the work that you hadn't seen in comics before or maybe since in terms of the, you know, the writers and the artists that he was using. And secondly, he did it in the background. I mean, when I was a kid, I knew who all these guys were I was telling you about. I didn't know who Bill Gaines was, other than maybe I'd see his name, you know, in mad or whatever. What struck me about Bill Gaines, it wasn't until much later I really understood, like, oh, he's the guy who brought all these guys together. You know, he's one of the giants of the industry. It was like in the early fifties, between the comics code and tv, the industry was just plummeting.
And he managed to continue on with like, okay, this won't sell as a comic book anymore because of the restrictions. But it can be a magazine. And not only was it a magazine, but was groundbreaking in terms of, you know, nobody had ever seen anything like. Like, you know, humor and a satire magazine on a adult. And I use that term loosely, level like. Like what was in Mad magazine for.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Our purposes, Grant Geismann is something of a genuine authority on all things EC comics and Mad magazine. Grant's written collectively mad tales of terror, the EC Comics companion and foul play, the art and artists of the notorious 1950s EC comics. Not exactly light reading. Those are big ass coffee table books that demand a big ass coffee table beneath them. I would say they're exactly what EC Comics and Bill Gaines deserve, but then I would. Grant is also a very well known and highly respected musician. He's played alongside Chuck Mangioni, Liza Minnelli, Josh Groban, Brian Wilson, Robbie Williams, Ringo Starr and Paula Abdul. He's written a few movie scores and tv themes too along the way, like the Emmy nominated one he did for two and a half Men, Mendez.
[00:21:44] Speaker F: I first saw the name Bill Gaines in 1961. I was eight years old and I had already been buying comic books. And some other kids in the neighborhood that were a little older than I was showed me Mad magazine and I was like, what is this? You know, I was fascinated. It was, you know, I was only eight, so I didn't get even a lot of the references. But it was just like something so cool about it. And it's like this glimpse into another world more adult and, you know, kind of, you know, counterculture a little bit even. And I was like, well, you know, where do you get this? I had no idea. And they go, well, you know, you just go down to the drugstore. And I was like, really? They would sell me this. It's like, yeah, it's $0.25. Just go buy it. And from that minute, I rode my bike down to the drugstore.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Talk about a drug.
[00:22:39] Speaker F: Yeah, exactly. I was buying every issue. That's when I first saw the name Bill Gaines. And then they listed on the masthead who all the editors were. So I knew the names Al Feldstein and I knew Nick Meglin and I knew Jerry deFuccio. And then the artists would sign their work. So I knew who Wallace Wood was and I knew who Joe Orlando was and I knew who Don Martin was and whatever, you know. So that began my fascination with, you know, Mad magazine and then a little later, also Ec Comics.
Because in 1964, Ballantyne books, which had been issuing all the mad paperbacks you know, from the early comic material they released. The first one was a compilation of tales from the Crypt, a little paperback from tales from the crypt. And I used to buy all my mad paperbacks at this place in San Jose called books Incorporated. And one day at the end of 64 or sometime in 64, I saw this little next to the Mad paperbacks, tales from the crip paperback. And I picked it up and it was like, oh, I know who these guys are because I knew them from Mad magazine. And I immediately understood that this was something else that Gaines had done and that launched my whole fascination with EC Comics in 1964. You know, the comics I was reading were a little bit of marble, but mostly like DC, Superman, Batman, you know, tails. What was it called? Strange adventure. You know, they were kind of tame.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:19] Speaker F: You know, and so these EC compilations that they were issuing, it's like, man, I had never read anything like that in a comic book. You know, snap endings and. And, you know, kind of grisly drawings from Graham Ingalls. And. And it was just like. And it really aimed at a slightly more adult audience than Superman was, which was very tame, very kind of watered down. You know, there was a lot of gorillas on the COVID and imaginary tales. What if Lois Lane, you know, married Superman and stuff like that? So, I mean, this was like, you know, where did.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: I lost you for a second there, granted.
[00:25:08] Speaker F: Oh, you're back now.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: Somewhere between us, the technology died for a moment.
But I got almost all of what you said. It was lovely.
[00:25:21] Speaker F: Oh, good.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: It was ideal.
You've written how many books about the EC world?
[00:25:33] Speaker F: Well, I think it's six if you count the compilation that I did with Feldstein on his junior and Sunny comics, which he had done in the late forties for Fox publications before he went to EC. And actually, which in a way, got Feldstein the job because the first stuff from his portfolio that Feldstein showed gains were these covers of Junior and Sonny, which were deliberately salacious and, you know, and big breasted woman. They now call them headlight comics, you know, and skimpy outfits and kind of, you know, double entendre kind of stuff. And Gaines was fascinated by that. And he's like, I'm going to hire this guy. And that's, you know, that's how the two of them got started.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: You had creative instincts. You were a musician, right? What compelled you to become an authorization?
[00:26:28] Speaker F: Okay, so, you know, in high school, I was pretty good in English, although music was the dominant thing and was really, since I picked up the guitar at age eleven, you know, that's really what I wanted to do. But I also did other things. In high school. I was on the journalism staff and I was the page two editor of the high school newspaper and I would write articles and, and I was, you know, pretty good at that. I won a little award in San Jose for some article I wrote in the high school paper. So anyway, you know, that was kind of my secondary interest. But the music thing was so strong, you know, I just, you know, full speed ahead on that. But in the back of my mind I always wanted to write a book about something. I'm also a huge Beatles fan, but there's literally thousands of books on the Beatles. So that's like, who's going to do that? Nobody. So, you know, I had a huge collection of mad magazine memorabilia and stuff that I had built up. And I realized there's a book here waiting to be written that no one has ever done. And I kind of knew Bill Gaines and I had written him some letters asking him about collectibles and whatever.
So I pitched this idea to him, you know, about a book on, on Matt and Ec as shown through their own collectibles. And so I didn't hear anything. And I told my wife, you know, well, I guess Bill Gaines doesn't like my idea. And she goes, what idea?
[00:28:01] Speaker A: She.
[00:28:01] Speaker F: I didn't tell her, you know, I had sent this pitch letter and, you know, and she goes, what are you talking about? And anyway, I guess it doesn't matter. I guess he doesn't like it. So then a while later, but it was quite a while, his publishing representative called me out of the blue and go and said, we got your letter. Bill Gaines likes the idea. He wants you to submit some sample chapters of what you have in mind. And then it was like, oh, crap, now I have to do this because I can't disappoint Bill Gaines.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: You were assuming that once your letter arrived at their offices, it would go through some normal channel, and there never was a normal channel. It was a piece of paper that flitted from here to there and God knows where else. It probably, who knows what happened to your poor letter.
[00:28:53] Speaker F: Well, I mean, it's just that I know the gains people now and it takes them a while to do things. So now I understand that, but the point is, when I got the call and they asked me to do some sample chapters, I said, oh, no, now I actually have to do. Before it was just an abstract idea. Now it's like I have to do it because I can't disappoint Bill Gaines. I can't do that. So I stayed up all night every night for about a week, and I had a buddy come over and take pictures of some stuff. And I wrote sample chapters and I assembled a proposal and I sent that to Bill, and he got back right away and they said they liked it. And they gave me permission to shop the book to be published. And Dennis Kitchen at Kitchen Sink Press, who's done some very high quality, even Ec related books, Harvey Kurtzman projects and stuff. Anyway, kitchen sink press said, yeah, we like it. Let's do it. And then the other thing was, you know, it's a huge project. We had to do all these photographs, and I had a buddy come over and photograph hundreds of images. And so now somebody has to assemble that and design it in a book.
But these small press publishers, there's no money in it. So, like, three different designers kind of started it and like, yeah, I'm too busy. I can't do it. And they bailed out. So I finally realized if this is going to get finished, I'm going to have to figure out how to assemble it and design it. So I bought Quark Express and a scanner and a book on Quark express for dummies, and I figured out how to do it. And I actually finished putting the whole book together, and that's how it finally happened.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: That's a wonderful story unto itself, Grant. Holy cow.
Yeah, if you build it, they will come, but you're going to have to build it.
[00:30:53] Speaker F: That's right. You do what you got to do. But I actually remember. So I'm sitting there with the book how to do it.
There was a picture box, empty picture box, and I had to put this image in there and I read how to do it, and then I pressed, you know, whatever import or whatever the command was. And I remember watching the picture box populate. I could see it come in from the back, and it was like, whoa. It totally blew my mind because on the high school, the newspaper, it was old school. You know, back then, you'd send out for type, you'd had a little Pica ruler and you'd have to figure out how many lines, you know?
[00:31:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:36] Speaker F: And they were teaching you, so if you screwed up, they would just cut your article off in mid sentence if you didn't count. Right. So I knew about that and pasting down and all but this, to do it in a digital process and have that just come in and populate the picture box, it was like, wow. Yeah, it was so cool.
So then, you know, the first book came out, which is actually this book collectively mad. It came out in 95, and then I liked doing it, you know, so just for fun, I started thinking, like, well, what other book could I do? And I contacted Fred von Bernowitz, who in the fifties had assembled this complete EC Comics checklist which listed all of the stories and artists for each EC comic, including mad and stuff. But it was just a little mimeograph publication, only text, really. No, no images. And I thought it would be cool to flesh this book out with all the covers in color and have interviews with, you know, different mad people, Feldstein and whoever. And that was my second book, and I totally designed that one from the ground up just because I like doing it.
And I actually worked on the book for a couple years without even a publisher. I just figured, well, something will happen. And I just did it because it was fun.
[00:33:01] Speaker A: Some of the funnest times I had doing crypt was hanging out with Todd Masters in his office come special makeup effects laboratory, trying to imagine what certain terrible things would look like and how quickly Todd could build or create them for the show.
[00:33:17] Speaker G: I have really great parents that just, they didn't require me to hide and read this crap or even make this crap, which is kind of cool. I kind of came in on it, the whole Bill Gaines thing, through mad, actually, because I was a big fan of Mad magazine as a kid, and I kind of, and I certainly knew about crypt and eerie and the whole thing. I didn't quite make all the connections with, you know, Mister Gaines being so center to so much.
But I certainly, you know, he was well depicted in Mad magazine quite often as this kind of like, you know, he looked like God with his beard and his long gray hair.
And so that's how, I mean, Mad magazine was my art school.
And artists like Jack Davis and, oh, the list is very lengthy of, you know, the folks that kind of crossed over with the tales from the crips and the eerie and the creepy. There's so many great artists that Gaines was able to gather, and they all seem to kind of have a similar, I don't know, not necessarily style, but sense of humor. I guess their line spoke of a. It was just joyful, I guess, to look at a Bill Gaines published.
Whatever it was, I look forward to it. And it was just because you could feel it as opposed to, like, I don't know if you're, I don't know how you were with Mad magazine necessarily, but there was the anti mad magazine called cracked, if you remember cracked.
And as an artist, I couldn't even pick up cracked most of the time because it was a whole different batch of personalities. And there was something just, you know, in the way that they were joking. And the intelligence of the, I mean, intelligence and finger quotes that they were able to deliver under Gaines was so unique and different that it was be cliche night and day, but it was pretty fucking night and day.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: I think the progression really was from mad to National Lampoon.
[00:35:30] Speaker G: Oh, yes, of course. Yeah, I was. But, but I was a youngster at that point. Yeah, yeah, yeah was what my cousin had. And I would sneak that crack felt.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: Like cheating on a lover.
[00:35:41] Speaker G: It really did. That's so true. And they, they were usually hanging out of the supermarket next to each other, which was really uncomfortable, you know, because it was like, that's the old man. I don't want to. I already have that one. And there's the fucking new bitch who we know is maybe cheaper, but she's just not as good.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: The, the cracked character just he, they seem to be aiming for Alfred E. Newman ness.
It. What was the, what were they trying to do that mad wasn't already doing? What, what new territory were they carving out for themselves? That was theirs.
[00:36:26] Speaker G: Right?
[00:36:27] Speaker A: I think Bill Gaines had pretty much.
[00:36:29] Speaker G: I don't even remember the character had.
[00:36:31] Speaker A: A name, I think Sylvester something.
[00:36:35] Speaker G: Oh, did he have a name? He was like a window washer or sign.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: A janitor.
[00:36:40] Speaker G: Janitor. It was a janitor, I don't think had a gig.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: No. He was anything and everything. He was an, he was a, he was everyone and he was no one.
[00:36:52] Speaker G: Yeah. And the other thing I remember at that age that, you know, there was a level of disrespect. I got out of crack because I was a kid. The magazine and whole spoke down to us with just dumbass jokes. You know, like their style of setup and payoff was almost like Garfield in the sense, or, you know, Mary Worth. I mean, you know, it was, it wasn't really that complex. And, and I know that's because they were kind of thinking that they were somewhere between Lampoon and. What was that magazine highlights we used to always see in the doctor's office.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: You know, highlights for children.
[00:37:41] Speaker G: Right. And so cracked was like, you know, we're going to pick up the broader audience because we're going to get all these guys because they're just a bunch of idiots.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: But crack was more about.
Cracked was for the moment when you suddenly realized that you preferred goofus to gallant.
[00:37:59] Speaker G: I just smoked up my nose.
Yes, you are correct, sir. Pardon me.
Thanks for that. I haven't had a snort in a while.
There was a lot of crossing the fourth wall, so to speak, with gains in all of his stuff. A lot of his artists would include, like, little commentary about him, you know, not only depicting him like, there was a lot of illustrations of that. Like I said, that Jesus or, sorry, the godlike character. That was Gaines in his large hawaiian shirt.
But there was also a lot of conversation. I mean, if you followed, like, you and I sounded like we were hanging out together back then. If you follow, like, every single issue of these things, you could almost get the behind the scenes story between the fights between the artists, the people that obviously were favored, the other ones that weren't.
You knew about the hilarious holidays, the group holidays that Gaines used to do. I mean, those were in the pages. They would tease that shit occasionally. It would be like the joke.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: You felt like you were part reading the magazine. You felt like you were part of their community.
[00:39:18] Speaker E: Well.
[00:39:18] Speaker G: And not spoken down to.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: No, just not at all. Not at all.
[00:39:23] Speaker G: Like you're around the bonfire just chatting with us and telling fucking dirty jokes. And you're not pulling punches because we think you're goofus or gallant. We just know you're fucking Alan and Todd.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: They referred to the people who were the entertainers as the usual gang of idiots.
And so, yeah, we were. Absolutely.
And yet, of course, the. The beautiful irony was they weren't idiots. They were quite the opposite.
And, you know, Madge readership.
[00:39:57] Speaker G: Really. Python.
[00:39:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And because they didn't talk down to the audience and because they. They were willing to be esoteric.
[00:40:05] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: They kind of informed the audience. Bill Gaines, in the same way that he seemed to attract this incredible, talented roster of artists, he had the same approach toward his audience. There was no advertising in the magazine. It was all subscription based.
[00:40:26] Speaker G: Right.
[00:40:28] Speaker A: Did you ever get to meet Bill?
[00:40:30] Speaker G: I did. I did.
I met him in the hallways of the pasta factory during the. It was, I think, near the conclusion of the Bill Tyler era.
You know, I was, you know, again, I was still super young. I had hair and everything, and I was working on the crypt set. We had re erected it there at the. So we had this place on Venice Boulevard, which used to. This is the top floor of it, used to rent out to productions. We shot nightmare, elm street, five there, and monkey trouble with Harvey Keitel there and a bunch of other shit. But also tales from the crypt, season two through.
[00:41:15] Speaker A: Yeah, we were season two and season three. That was the season that Gil and I came aboard. It had been a pasta factory.
The a one globe company had used it as a pasta factory, and then they moved out. And it was always called cheese Factory. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:41:33] Speaker G: So you'd bump into the most random people, like Freddy Krueger there. Bumped into him once in full makeup. You know, I worked on one of those shows that he was walking around, but still, I always. Very weird memories. And now I think it's just a big mall or something. But, yeah, one of the days I was going to Tyler's office, and out came Bill Gaines looking just like a Mort Drucker cartoon, which kind of freaked me out, you know, because I've been saturated with that imagery for so long. And there it was right in front of me, living, and I don't even think anything intelligent came out of my head. I think I'm probably just babbled and probably vomited or something. But, yeah, I quote unquote, these finger quotes. Met him, but it wasn't like we hung out and talked shop.
I think I said, excuse me, maybe, and I'm gonna go puke, or I don't know. But yeah, he's like. It was literally like meeting God.
[00:42:27] Speaker A: For me, that is exactly how I put it.
And I say it as a. As a total atheist.
It was like meeting God. If that's what meeting God was like. I've had the experience, and it's wonderful.
[00:42:46] Speaker G: Exactly. And it was so weird because it was so fast for me. I think you had, like, an intelligent meeting with him. I had like a.
But still, I came away from it feeling like I really did have a. I hate to say spiritual minute. But there was, you know, boy crush, at least. I mean, it was really just fucking. Wow. That's the dude, you know?
[00:43:11] Speaker A: Now, Gil had an actual relationship with Bill Gaines. They exchanged phone calls on a semi regular basis, and they had meals together. And despite all the rough and tumble of Hollywood, I think Bill Gaines really trusted Gilhezen, and that, more than anything, is why Bill Gaines trusted us. Well, that and the fact that though Bill didn't create the crypt keeper that appeared on the show, he recognized that it captured the spirit of what he intended. He understood that we understood him, and that was a very good thing.
Before you ever met him, when you were growing up, were you in any way influenced?
[00:43:54] Speaker B: I don't think I was influenced by him, but I certainly knew of Mad magazine and Love Mad magazine. I just thought it was the cat's pajamas. I mean, it was just so funny. It was so irreverent, and adults frowned upon looking at it as opposed to looking at the news, which made it even more delicious. So I loved Mad magazine. Never knowing about the gains, never knowing about Bill or his dad, but loving that magazine.
I knew a little bit about the tales world when I was growing up, but I wasn't addicted to it. I knew about it. And it wasn't until we got to do the show that I actually immersed myself in that whole world. From the fifties with his dad to the american committee and him appearing down in Washington, DC, to all that stuff, which I just found very fascinating, considering we're talking about a comic book.
I mean, you know, you're going, you're appearing in front of the House un american committee because you publish a comic book.
To me, I never, I mean, when I was younger and I heard that, I was like, don't they have anything better to do? They out of their minds.
They're bringing these guys down. They're just working a little bit fun at the government and such, and they need to have them investigated.
[00:45:27] Speaker A: It was the same argument when they said that song lyrics needed to be rated, games needed to be rated, as if the games were the cause of the problem. When you see tales from the crypt, the original comics, and then you see mad, you can still see that there's. That there's a certain sensibility that flowed from one into the other. And so when I think about Bill Gaines influence, it wasn't even, it was really the environment he created for these creative people to, to create iconic work. That, yeah, mad magazine especially was for me, so much of what I know about comedy is it's either Mad magazine or Groucho Marx. Those are the starting points.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: Well, I think I told you a story once that I went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and I was staying in this wonderful little bed and breakfast place, and I saw this artwork on the wall. And I was like, that artwork looks awfully familiar to me. And I was going around the corridors looking at all the artwork and going, wait a minute. I know this artwork.
This guy had something to do with tells him the crypt or that world. So I went to the main desk, and I said to the owner, whose artwork is this? And he goes, well, it's a local resident. I go, a local resident who? And he said, well, he's not, you know, he's not in Jackson Hole. He's across the border in the other state, but it's only a 15 or 20 minutes drive. A guy named Al Felstein I went, Al Felstein? You gotta be kidding me. Can you. Can you call him? Do you have a number for him? Can you just tell him that you have a guest who just looked at the artwork and just tell him my name and see if he would like to meet me? Because I would very much like to meet him.
So they called Al. At first, Al was very off putting. He was pretty elderly at this point.
But then once they said, well, the guests name is Gil Adler. He went, Gil Adler. Oh, my God. Have him call me. Give him my number. And we got together, and we had such a great afternoon and evening together, just talking about Bill and talking about the old days and the. When he worked with Gaines in New York.
And they would come out with a comic book almost a day. They would do the artwork in a day.
And it was just so interesting.
The only thing that was a little off putting was Al kept saying to me, you see this artwork? You see this artwork? It's all available, and I'm going to be dead soon. And you made a lot of money over tails and the crypt. You should buy my artwork. It's only $5,000 a shot.
And we went back and forth a couple of times with him about that. Unfortunately, I never bought any artwork of his, which I totally regret now.
[00:48:23] Speaker A: Boy, imagine what that would be worth today.
[00:48:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, do you remember years ago when we first started doing tales?
I'm a big Broadway, New York Broadway theater guy, and Al Hirschfeld was an idol of mine with his artwork that he did with the nina's in the New York Times. And he had a storefront in New York on Madison Avenue. And I went in there one day, and I actually, Al was there. And I was like, you know, I thought I was looking at a comic book because he's such a. He's such a comic character with his beard and his white hair. And we chatted for a while, and I told him about tales of the crypt. He went, oh, Talson, the crypt. Do you know Bill Gaines? I go, yeah, I know Bill Gaines. Of course I know Bill Gaines. So we had this great conversation. Another moment lost, and he said to me, well, you know, I can be commissioned to do artwork. I charge $5,000, and if you want me to do one of my paintings or one of my sketches, we could bring in you and the crypt keeper and bill and alan, because I told him about you, and he said, whatever you want. We could do anything. So I told him about sophie, the dog and tails from the crypt. Tails. And he thought that was hysterical. He goes, well, I could do like a montage for you that. And it was $5,000. And I thought about it, and I thought about it, and I didn't do it.
[00:49:54] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh. Imagine.
[00:49:57] Speaker B: And then when he passed away, I was. First of all, I was awful. I felt awful because he passed away. But second of all, I was like, you know what that thing would have been worth today?
Wow.
[00:50:10] Speaker A: $5,000 investment.
[00:50:11] Speaker B: But you know what it would have been worth between you and me? It would have been worth so much more to have it.
[00:50:16] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:50:18] Speaker B: Can you imagine if he did a thing with the crypt caper, you, me and sophie?
Because that's what I was talking about.
[00:50:25] Speaker A: You know, during. During the. The divorce years, it would have been hard. We would have had to cut the thing in half.
[00:50:35] Speaker B: No, we would never cut the dog masks. No, we wouldn't do that.
[00:50:38] Speaker A: Well, visitation rights of one kind or another, I suppose.
[00:50:42] Speaker B: So. Two opportunities that I missed really terribly that I've regretted. Every time I talk about it, I could kick myself in the head for not doing it, you know, but getting back to Bill, I mean, I really. I knew nothing about him personally when we first started the show. I had no relationship to him other than Mad magazine, and I knew a little bit about him being the editor, but that's about it. But then, because of tales of the crypt, I got to know a lot about Bill. And I think the thing that we did that was really so good for everybody, including good for the show, was very early on, you and I agreed to, you know, HBO was important, and they had to approve everything, and the partners had to approve everything, and everybody had to approve everything. But you and I agreed early on. The only person we cared about was getting Bill Gaines to love it. Not to like it, but to love it.
And I remember we had a conversation with Bill where we sent them. We told him that, and we said, so, bill, we're going to give you the scripts before we give them to anybody. Not to HBO, not to the partners. We're not going to give them to you at the same time. We're going to give them to you first. And we ask that you don't give them to anybody else because they'll be pissed at us. And I said, but we're doing this because we want to know what you think, and if there's something in it that you don't like, you're going to pick up the phone and you're going to tell us, and we're not going to argue about it. We're going to change it. It's that simple.
You have to love this. We want you to have the utmost respect for this show and love this show as much as we do making it.
[00:52:24] Speaker A: It had to be right on.
It had to be right on the money. What we were doing had to be exactly his vision, the way he saw it.
[00:52:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And I had to love it. And so once we did that, he tested us a couple of times and we did that, we got on the phone with him and we said, oh, oh, you didn't like that?
Fine. And I think what you or me said, well, okay, what about this? And we just brainstormed something with him, you know, once we made that change and he knew we were real about it, and we didn't argue with him, and we made a change and came up with ideas on the phone. We didn't say, I will call you tomorrow. We said, well, okay, okay, so you don't like that. Okay, so what about if you did this or he did that or didn't do this?
And he was. I love it. That's great. And we did it. And then thereafter, we kept giving him the scripts before anybody. And, you know, that made. That made the difference to the point where we became very close friends.
You know, he would come to LA once in a while, not very often, and he would only go to muso Frank's. I would say, let's go somewhere else. I'm buying it tonight. And he would go, no, no, no, you can buy. We're going Mousse Franks. I go, no, if we're going to Mussel Franks, I'm not buying because we always go to Mousseau Franks. He goes, okay, then I'm fine. We're going to mussul Frank's. And in New York, we would do the same thing. I would call up and I would say, I'm coming to New York. You around? He goes, Andy and I, his wife would love to get together with you. We only go to Jackson Hole on, I think it was 64th and Second Avenue. And I would say, well, why don't we go there or someplace? No, no, no, we only go to Jackson Hole.
So anytime I would see him in New York, it was in Jackson Hole, and anytime I would see him in LA, it was at Mousso Frank's. And we would spend the whole evening together, you know, and just, just talking about nothing and about everything. Politics, our show, what you and I were doing, how we're feeling, just. It was just a remarkable relationship, and one that I really cherished throughout not only the time of doing the show, but afterwards. And he died.
He died. You know, my wife and I were flying into New York, and we had spoken to Annie, Bill's wife, and they were all excited that we were coming in, and we had arranged to have dinner at Jackson hole the next night and. Or two nights later, and we hung up. And then the next night, the night before we were ready to travel, Annie called me, and I said, oh, how you doing? I'm so looking forward to seeing you tomorrow night for dinner and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she said, can I stop you for a second? And she sounded very serious. And I said, yeah. And she said, bill, pass. Bill passed away today.
And I was like, what? Yeah, he passed away today.
Which just, you know, I didn't expect it. He wasn't ill that I knew of. You know, he was physically a very intimidating guy. He was very, very tall, very lanky, had a big white beard, long white hair, and he looked very intimidating. Worn glasses.
But he was the sweetest guy in the world. I mean, you could talk to him about anything, and he had an opinion about everything.
And it was just before his dad.
[00:55:59] Speaker A: Before his dad died, he wanted to be a science teacher or something like that.
[00:56:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He didn't think much of this comic book stuff. He thought, you know, it was good for his dad, put him through college. It's okay. But then when the un american thing happened, then it became much more of a bigger issue. And it wasn't about making a comic book. It was about politics, and it was about freedom of speech and all this other stuff. He got very involved with the comic book.
[00:56:29] Speaker A: Did he ever talk too much, ever, about his dad?
[00:56:33] Speaker B: Briefly. Briefly, not a lot. We really never got totally into the dad, except he was, you know, he respected his dad, loved his dad. His dad was very good to him growing up, you know, there was no conflict. The only conflict he had with his dad sometimes had to do with politics.
But, you know, I suspect we all have that, you know, and it's not only the age difference, but it's just a different time and world.
[00:57:03] Speaker A: It's perennial.
[00:57:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:57:08] Speaker A: I did not have anything like the relationship you had. I am incredibly envious. But when I.
The one time I got to be face to face with Bill, I met him in Joel's trailer on the set of lethal two.
[00:57:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Dick Donna's trailer.
[00:57:27] Speaker A: Dick, Donna's trailer.
[00:57:29] Speaker B: We were invited for lunche.
[00:57:32] Speaker A: Yes. And meeting him, actually, and getting his blessing at that lunch was like nothing else mattered. It really didn't matter what anyone else said. And I think I know. I kind of walked around with that. We would get notes from Scott and from Joel's people, and we felt completely correct in turning up our noses at any notes because, hey, we had Bill Gaines blessing. Fuck you.
[00:58:08] Speaker B: Well, do you remember how we got Bill Gaines blessing at that lunch?
[00:58:12] Speaker A: Why don't you tell this story?
[00:58:16] Speaker B: So we thought we were going to a luncheon in Dick Donner's trailer with Bill. It would be fun. It would be entertaining. We'd have a good lunch for a change. And we got there, and we had a good lunch.
And then Joel looks at Bill. He goes, so, Bill, should we get rid of these guys?
We could fire them and hire somebody else. We don't need to use these guys anymore. I know I sort of snickered like I'm waiting for the punchline, but there was no punchline.
And he stopped talking, and he was waiting for Bill to say, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's get so and so or so and so, you know? And I'm like. I'm sitting there, I start sweating, and I'm like, wait a minute. Have we been set up to get fired? Are we getting fired today? I can't believe it. I enjoyed lunch, and now I'm going to get fired.
And to Bill's credit, he looked at Joel and laughed. At first, he said nothing, and then Joel pushed it, and he said, no, I'm serious. We can. We can dump these guys. We don't need to use these guys. We can get whoever you want. We get big people in the industry.
And I remember Bill, it was one.
[00:59:28] Speaker A: Of those things where, you know, Joel is kidding, but he could turn serious in a heart until he goes, you know what? Fuck that shit. Yeah, okay. Yeah, fuck these guys.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: They're fired.
[00:59:36] Speaker A: I mean, get anybody. Fuck them guys. Get the fuck out of here. You know, Joel's crazy and impulsive, and that's not impossible, right?
[00:59:44] Speaker B: And even before dessert.
So Bill leaned into the microphone, or not to the table, they might as.
[00:59:53] Speaker A: Well have leaned into the microphone and.
[00:59:55] Speaker B: Basically looked at Joel and said, joel, I'm going to tell you one thing.
You should sign these two guys for life.
They are the best things, the best things that ever happened to tails from the crypt of, I don't want them changed. I want them on the show for life.
And I remember sitting there and I'm sweating, thinking, did I just hear what he said?
And that was the end of the meeting, and the meeting sort of ended, and we went back to whatever we were doing, back to work. I don't remember what we were doing.
[01:00:32] Speaker A: It was pre production on a season.
It was going into season two.
[01:00:38] Speaker B: It might very well have been.
[01:00:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's what happened. And, you know, we were still riding the. The crest of the. The way from yellow.
[01:00:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:00:46] Speaker A: Because yellow was very impressive. Everyone was feeling, wow. Hey, not only did we resurrect the show, right, but we made. We made the show what it was originally supposed to be, that mixture of tv and movies. Like, no one. It's not tv, it's HBO.
[01:01:03] Speaker B: Right.
[01:01:04] Speaker A: And so, yeah, we had actually accomplished the mission that they hadn't intended us to accomplish.
[01:01:11] Speaker B: Well, the one person that understood us and what we were trying to do better than anybody, and the only person that we cared about was Bill Gaines.
[01:01:20] Speaker A: Indeed.
And he was a guy who thought outside the box, and I think he appreciated that's where we were coming from, too.
[01:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:01:29] Speaker A: Yeah. They're all you guys playing by the rules over there, and we're going to go do our thing over here.
[01:01:34] Speaker B: But I remember every time I would see him, he would give me a hug.
[01:01:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:01:37] Speaker B: And I always felt so small because he was so big and he was so sort of, you know, tall and gaunt and long, you know, and he would sort of wrap around me a little bit and I sort of get lost.
[01:01:54] Speaker A: I can imagine. I would literally vanish, but I would.
[01:01:58] Speaker B: I would. I love when he would do that. It just was such a great thing. So that was. That was Bill. That was our relationship with Bill. And it's funny, when I think about tales from the crypt, I always think about Bill.
[01:02:11] Speaker A: One of the things they. They say is it's the last thing you ever want to do is meet your heroes.
[01:02:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:19] Speaker A: Not entirely true.
[01:02:22] Speaker B: Well, I didn't even know he was a hero of mine until we started working together. You know, I thought, okay, he published the comic books. We're going to have to be careful, you know, we're going to make sure. But it turned out to be a real loving relationship that lasted until he passed.
[01:02:40] Speaker A: That he enjoyed what we did with his brand and his creation.
[01:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And that we enjoyed that relationship with him and sharing that with him.
[01:02:52] Speaker A: Indeed. One of the most special experiences of my whole career.
[01:02:57] Speaker B: Yeah, mine, too easy. Yeah, totally.
[01:03:00] Speaker A: What did Bill like to drink?
[01:03:04] Speaker B: I don't think he drank.
I don't remember him drinking liquor. I mean, he loved the hamburgers at Jackson Hole, as I did, as I still do. And he loved Musso Franks. You know, we would get a prime rib there or a Caesar salad, and it was great, you know, and we, and we both very rarely vary from those things. We would just always get the same stuff.
[01:03:31] Speaker A: Well, you know, it's. You get there and they hand you the menu and you think about it for a second, then you go. Then I thank God I got this and I'm not enjoying it nearly as much. Why did I screw with.
[01:03:43] Speaker B: But I know, you know, after that, I used to go with Toby Hooper Mousseau Franks. And then after that, Ernest Dickerson joined Toby and me and we formed this little club, the Alan Whale Club, and we would go to Muso Frank's and I would always order the same thing. I would say, tonight I got to order something different. And then I'd go, no, you know, when I was with Bill Gaines, I had this. I'm going to have it again because I want to think of Bill Gaines tonight.
[01:04:10] Speaker A: What more can you say?
[01:04:11] Speaker B: I don't think anything.
[01:04:14] Speaker A: I said up top that if there was a real crypt keeper, it was Bill Gaines. I hope you've had a chance to see and hear what I meant. I know as I sat down that very first time to try and channel the Crypt keeper just so I could write for him, it wasn't so much Bill Gaines voice I wanted to capture and stick deep inside the puppethe. It was Bill Gaines irreverence to anyone rich, powerful and or full of shit. Its unfortunate that no one will ever be able to remake and update Crypt as a tv series. But hey, on the bright side, no one will go into a remake that sucks and disappoints everyone. And is that really a bad thing? Hey, see you next time, everybody.
The how not to make a movie podcast is executive produced by me, Alan Katz, by Gil Adler, and by Jason Stein. Our artwork was done by the amazing Jody Webster and Jason, Jody, along with Mando, are all the hosts of the fun and informative dads from the Crypt podcast. Follow them for what my old pal the Crypt keeper would have called. Tell rickety crypt content.
