Episode 140 - Beings Animalculous
May 25, 2025
Show notes
The Psycho Pirate tried to undo Crisis. From Animal Man 23. (C) 2025 DC Comics.
Just in time for the pod’s 10th birthday, a bucket list guest for the show. We welcome, after two years of trying to line up schedules, Grant Morrison.
When we started discussing doing the pod with Grant, it was Animal Man’s 35th anniversary. It’s now the 37th anniversary, but all that matters is finally having the chat. We talk about the book’s creation back in 1988 during the first wave of the British Comics Invasion, when Grant, Gaiman, Milligan and McKean followed Alan Moore in working for DC. This leads to discussing the story that changed the book, issue 5’s “The Coyote Gospel.” From there, it’s talk about everything from B’Wanna Beast to The Red Bee, Captain Cold to The Inferior Five. That’s all leading up to the Psycho Pirate, his trying to undo Crisis and the debut of characters like Overman and Sunshine Superman. And that culminates with looking at the end of Grant’s time on the book, when Buddy travels through Limbo to meet … well, a fictionalized version of Grant, when gets to confront his creator about the death of his family and all the other bad stuff that has happened in these stories.
There’s lots of other stuff in our conversation including Swamp Thing, Sargon the Sorcerer, Doom Patrol, Batman, continuity, metafiction and of course Hypertime, where Grant explains the math behind the idea that most people didn’t understand.
As you may be able to tell during our chat, Animal Man was a very important book for me, it starting at the same time I was beginning college and being exposed to new ideas and writers like Borges. I’m so happy we were finally able to get this done and thanks to Grant’s wife Kristan for all her help over the years trying to balance Trans-Atlantic schedules, natural disasters and various medical issues over that time. But we never gave up, so we hope you like probably one of my favorite episodes of the podcast’s lifespan.
It’s back to the future as we welcome back to the podcast our very first guest, Al Kennedy from House to Astonish. The original plan was to discuss one of Al’s Mastermind subjects, the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (and DC’s Who’s Who), but we only got there after a meandering bit of chat about a variety of subjects, including wrestlers from the 2010s and their current identities (no kayfabe breaking here).
But we do a deep dive on the original 1980s version of the Handbook, how DC’s approach to Who’s Who differed, Marvel’s readjustment with the Deluxe Handbook, the art in both books and more. Amazingly, we didn’t mention the three-ring binder era of Who’s Who or DC doing a spinoff Who’s Who for Star Trek (which DC was publishing at the time).
There’s also some dicussion on some current books we are enjoying, including work by past guests Mark Waid (Justice League Unlimited) and Al Ewing (the gone too soon Metamorpho, with Steve Lieber). There’s also reminiscing about late 90s comics, including John Ostrander and Pascual Ferry’s Heroes for Hire and Starman. Sadly, no Swingers talk, although I had it in my notes. Shame on me.
There’s also some sci-fi media talk, but nothing on Doctor Who (I stopped watching after Capaldi left). Since Al and Paul O’Brien do a Thunderbolts podcast, we obliquely discuss the new movie, the Fabian Nicieza era of the book and rehabilitating of super villains, how the pod with deal with the “fight club” era of the book and more.
Al also discusses some of his other projects, including his Terry Pratchett podcast Desert Island Discworld and some shout-out for our pals Joe and Todd at Longbox Heroes.
Episode 138 - Keep Young and Beautiful
Feb 16, 2025
Show notes
Whitey Caldwell and Kevin Sullivan as tag champs in the early 1970s.
We’re happy to have Beau James (@kingofkingsport) back on the pod for a wide-ranging chat about his career and other classic wrestling topics.
First up, we discuss Beau’s start in the business as a teenager, as it is currently Southern States Wrestling’s 44th anniversary month. We hear about going from behind the scenes gofer to referee to running his own promotion while still in high school. Did the kids in school know about Beau’s “after school job?” And since SSW was just getting started in the early 1990s, we talk about what relationship if any he had with Smoky Mountain Wrestling, which started up in Knoxville around the same time. How did Beau get along with Jim Cornette at the time? Did they peacefully co-exist or did things go sour, like another promoter in the area at the time, Terry Landell?
After that, there’s a long discussion about wrestling footage? Beau talks about of the tapes he acquired when East Tennessee wrestling super fan Kenny Short passed away last year and what newfound footage was on some of those tapes. This leads to a chat about “holy grail” footage that may or may exist and what would we most love to find out actually exists. And then we talk about the wrestlers who were known to be tape collectors during their career and what other wrestlers might have had footage squirreled away that we do not know exists.
We also talk about Beau’s upcoming talk in July at the Thesz/Tragos Wrestling Hall of Fame about East Tennessee wrestling and what artifacts he may be bringing with him to Waterloo this summer. Plus some random chat about the recently-deceased Ed Wiskowski, traffic in East Tennessee and just how amazing it is that just how few travel-related fatalities there were during the territory era, given just how many wrestlers were driving thousands of miles a week at high rates of speed before every place in the country had Interstate roads.
As always, a great time talking to Beau. Be sure to check out the From Outlaws to Independents podcast that Beau does with Jon Boucher and Southern States Wrestling content on YouTube and other streaming platforms.
Episode 137 - Carolina Drama
Jan 02, 2025
Show notes
Dusty Rhodes bemoans to Magnum TA and David Crockett how Baby Doll spent $4035 of his money in Hawaii.
I’m happy to say that after almost ten years of doing the podcast, I can finally welcome Rob Naylor (@NINaylor) to the podcast to talk about Jim Crockett Promotions in the summer of 1985, when Rob and I both starting watching the company.
We begin by talking about how we first found it, possibly on the same TV station in Philadelphia, even though we live 200 miles from each other in different states. And yes for longtime listeners, we play Mid-Atlantic TV Station Bingo (17, 29, 43, 45, 54, 57). We talk about our favorite wrestlers from those shows, including the booker at the time and later Rob’s mentor Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, Magnum TA, Ole and Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Baby Doll, Sam Houston, Manny Fernandez, Jimmy Valiant, the Rock and Roll Express, the Midnight Express and Jim Cornette, Ron Bass, Black Bart, J.J. Dillon and maybe our favorite person of that era, Nature Boy Buddy Landell.
We discuss how the guys in the Georgia loop of the company were rarely on the syndicated TV shows, which is all Rob and I could watch regularly, since neither of us had cable yet. We discuss some of the more memorable angles and feuds of that time frame. Suprisingly, we totally did not discuss the return of Superstar Billy Graham to wearing the tie-dye gear and quoting Bo Diddley and/or George Thorogood.
There’s also a lot of meandering and digressions as one would expect, including the importance of the magazines in our fandom, first getting the Observer, the history of the National, booking around Japan tours, the blandness of Central States and, as young fans, not undestanding the importance of the Missouri title in the wider NWA ecosystem.
This was a very fun show to do and I’m glad Rob and I finally got to nerd out on the show about our early fandom.
Episode 136 - Whip It Good
Dec 21, 2024
Show notes
Do you remember this 1980s TV show, one of many Indiana Jones-inspired projects?
We’re happy to welcome Jason Pays (@JasonPlaysNMS) back to the show for a chat about video games, adventure movies and more.
The main reason Jason is here is to discuss the new game, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Since it’s a massive game and Jason has other titles to play, neither of us has been able to even put a dent in the game yet. At the time of recording, Jason was still in the first setting and I just started the second. So, as you might imagine, not much spoiler talk. We do talk about how much we have enjoyed the game so far and how far the franchise have come since the Raiders game on the Atari 2600.
This leads into a discussion about the original Raiders trilogy, not much about the later films and much talk about the 1980s Indy-inspired knock-offs, including Romancing the Stone, High Road to China, Tales of the Gold Monkey, Bring ‘Em Back Alive, Tale Spin and yes, even The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak, a favorite bad movie from the 1980s Skinemax generation and many impressionable teenagers.
And, as always, there’s some James Bond talk, the eternal ranking of 007 actors, what we’d like to see in future installments and the like.
There’s also chat about No Man’s Sky, Light No Fire and the lack of news about the game at this year’s Game Awards, Jason recently joining the cult of Balatro and other video game chatter.
Thanks to Jason as always for doing the show. You can catch him streaming multiple times a week on You Tube.
Episode 135 - History Repeating
Oct 27, 2024
Show notes
Gorilla Monsoon squares off against Muhammad Ali in 1976, prior to the Ali vs Inoki fight.
It’s our second WON HOF show of the week. We’re happy to have back on the show author and podcaster Brian R Solomon (@brianrsolomon) for another round of discussions about this year’s ballot. We cover a lot of the same topics as we did with Greg on the last show, including measuring tag teams in dog years, not voting for active competitors, judging someone’s entire career regardless of the category in which they are placed and comparisons to both Cooperstown and the Rock and Roll HOF.
We also to talk to Brian about his upcoming book next year on the legendary Gorilla Moonson and what surprised him most while researching the man, in his career, billed from both Manchuria and Cherry Hill, NJ. And since it’s almost Halloween, we also threw out a couple of film recommendations for the season, including Gothic, The Abominable Dr. Phibes and The Black Cat.
Be sure to check out Brian’s podcast Shut Up and Wrestle, especially if you love hearing about the Weston/Apter wrestling magazines, as well as Brian’s great ability to get wrestlers’ children on as guests, as they always have fascinating stories to tell.
Episode 134 - Yippy-Yo Yippy-Yeah
Oct 21, 2024
Show notes
Michael Hayes blinds the Junkyard Dog with the Freebird Hair Cream in 1981.
It’s WON Hall of Fame season and this is the first of our shows examining this year’s candidates. We’re happy to welcome back Greg Klein (@jydbook) to discuss his advocacy of two people in particular, the Junkyard Dog and Houston promoter Morris Sigel. We go over both candidates in detail, including JYD’s drawing power in Mid-South and New Orleans in particular, his time as a main eventer versus his later career, the cultural implications of JYD’s push and his feuds, comparing him candicacy to Paul Orndorff, Sigel promoting Houston for 40+ years, the scope of the Texas wrestling office and how that compares to Roy Welch in the Southeast, wrestlers who got their break in Houston, the Texas Wrestling War and more.
We also go over the rest of the ballot discussing things like “should tag team longevity count in dog years,” lack of footage for pre-territory wrestlers, voting for still-active competitors on the ballot and comparing candidates to their baseball equivalents.
Be sure to check out Greg on some other wrestling podcasts this HOF season. The more discussions on worthy candidate, the better.
Episode 133 - Legend of a Mind
Aug 12, 2024
Show notes
Kevin Sullivan, King Curtis Iaukea and Mark Lewin. Sullivan passed away on August 9 at age 74.
Before we start, an apology for no podcasts during or after the Tragos/Thesz Hall of Fame a few weeks ago. During the travel to the event, we had some weather-related issues at home that necessitated putting any recording plans on hold. But we are now back, although we were it were under better circumstances.
We’re very grateful to Mike Sempervive (@sempervive) to take some time to discuss the recent passing of the great Kevin Sullivan at age 74. There’s no rhyme nor reason for how we talk about the great man’s career: We go from Florida to Knoxville (all six more or times he worked there) to WCW to ICW to Hawaii and all points along the way. We discuss our favorite angles, try to place the Prince of Darkness gimmick in historical context, our favorite angles and promos, including The Dream Mike Davis, the Slaughterhouse, the Varsity Club, the third Head Hunter, the Sheik, Mark Lewin, King Curtis and so much more.
It’s great when Mike has time to fit us in. If we had him on more often, maybe the shows wouldn’t be as long, but the winding road takes us to where we want to be, in the end.
Episode 132 - Furious Anger
Jun 03, 2024
Show notes
Come on, join our convoy. Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) and Furiousa (AnnaTaylor-Joy) in Furiousa.(c) 2024 WB.
It’s movie time again, as we are again joined by Justin Jones (@xPrimusPilusx) to discuss Furiousa, the latest film in George Miller’s Mad Max series and the prequel to Fury Road focusing on the origin of the character played by Charlize Theron.
As you might imagine, it’s a spoiler-filled discussion of all aspects of the film,so if you’ve not seen it yet, you’ve been warned. We start with our overall thoughts and then break down the story beats, the characters, the acting, the practical stunts and everything else under the hot Australian desert sun.
There’s also some other movie chat, including the issues of presenting historical artifacts through contemporary mores, the sale of Criterion and should we worry about its future and a tease of a future episode detailing the great cinematic year that was 1999.
This episode was recorded on my phone immediately after seeing Furiousa, so we apologize for the dip in audio quality Also, to answer some questions asked in the episode, the actor who originally played Immortal Joe, Hugh Keays-Byrne, did pass away in 2020 and the role was played this time by Lachy Hulme, who also played Rizzdale Pell, Dementus’ chief lieutenant. And “the truck driver” was Praetorian Jack, played by Tom Burke.
Episode 131 - Old Lady McDuffie
Jun 01, 2024
Show notes
Greg Klein returns to discuss the UWF Title Tournament, held in May 1986 in Houston, Texas.
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