The Lesser Known Geek Hall Of Fame

We’re replaying one of our personal favorite episodes for NaPodPoMo Day 10. The Shadow was the inaugural inductee into our Lesser Known Geek Hall Of Fame. Hear how he influenced many of the Superhero A-Listers, including a certain other really rich guy who runs around at night...

We’re replaying one of our personal favorite episodes for NaPodPoMo Day 28. The Shadow was the inaugural inductee into our Lesser Known Geek Hall Of Fame. Hear how he influenced many of the Superhero A-Listers. The in-depth show notes can be found here.

Our latest inductee into The Lesser Known Geek Hall Of Fame is our second real-life person and the first living person at the time of this recording.

Jeffrey Combs grew up in California and studied acting at The University of Washington. He is mostly known for horror films, but he also has an extensive background in science-fiction and voice roles.

His first and probably best-known starring role was as Herbert West in the 1985 film Re-Animator, which was based on an HP Lovecraft short story. Not only did Combs play West, but he would also go on to play Lovecraft himself. This means he played both the character and its creator.

Lovecraft wasn’t the only author Combs portrayed. He also played Edgar Allen Poe and L Frank Baum. Other prominent horror projects he appeared in include The Frighteners, and another Lovecraft adaption From Beyond.

Combs is no stranger to sci-fi either. He’s played multiple roles in various Star Trek shows over the year, including Deep Space Nine where he played two separate characters in the same episode. He also was the title role in Dr. Mordrid, which was an unofficial adaption of Marvel’s Dr. Strange.

On top of all that, Combs has an impressive resume of voice roles, including The Question in Justice League Unlimited, The Leader in Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and Ratchet in several Transformers shows and games. He again portrayed HP Lovecraft in the animated movie Howard Lovecraft and the Kingdom of Madness.

Do you have any favorite roles of Jeffrey Combs? Sound of below!

We highlight the early pioneers who crafted the art which has become pretty mainstream today.

Mandrake The Magician made his debut in 1934. Created by Lee Falk four years before Superman, he is considered by many historians to be the first superhero!

Amicus Productions produced several memorable (and not so memorable) horror,sci-fi, and thrillers from 1962-1977

TLKGHOF #9

Our latest induction into The Lesser-Known Geek Hall of Fame is also our first induction of a movie studio. Amicus Productions existed from 1962-1977 as an English production studio, despite being formed by two American producers Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg.

FORMATION

Subotsky and Rosenberg had collaborated on film projects before. In fact, Rosenberg had submitted a pitch for a Frankenstein revival that wound up being given to Hammer Films which became Curse Of Frankenstein. They formed Amicus Productions shortly after. Rosenberg handled the money and funding while Subotsky had more of a hand in the creative process.

MOVIE GENRES

While Hammer Films focused mainly on horror projects, Amicus tried to other genres ranging from horror to sci-fi to thrillers. They may be most famous for making the two standalone Dr. Who movies, Dr. Who And The Daleks and Daleks Invasion Of Earth 2150 A.D. Both films starred Peter Cushing. We did more extensive coverage of these two films in a past episode of Examining The Doctor.

Over the years, many of the Amicus movies would be mistaken for Hammer Films productions due to many of the same cast being used (Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough).

Most of the movies are summarized, and you can see a pretty extensive list here.

There are books available online and GoodReads if you want to learn more about Amicus Productions.

Crazy Train does have a Halloween Playlist with over 10 hours of Scary Tunes for your Halloween Party.

A look at what's to come in October from Geekville Radio

Geekville Radio Halloween Sampler

It’s October, which means for many fellow geeks it’s Halloween Season! We love Halloween here at Geekville Radio and have a slew of special shows and programming in store for you in the coming weeks.

Examining The Dead, our Horror-themed podcast will review two Western films with horror elements. First up, the original Westworld with the iconic performance by Yul Brynner as The Gunman. Next up, the more recent Kurt Russell film Bone Tomahawk. And if you haven’t seen it, it is NOT for the squeamish.

Finally, we’ll talk about horror characters and where they might stand on the classic D&D Alignment descriptions.

Over on The Lesser Known Geek Hall Of Fame, we are inducting the first movie studio, Amicus Productions. They have made many a horror film over the years, to the p[oint where some titles got mistaken for the much better-known Hammer Films company. Whovians may recognize Amicus as the company that produced the two Peter Cushing Dr. Who feature films in the mid-1960s.

In our Classic Wrestling Memories podcast, we will review the oft-referenced WCW Halloween Havoc from 1991. While it actually had a pretty good main event with then WCW World Champion defending the title against Ron Simmons, it is perhaps best-known for having the laughable opening match called “The Chamber Of Horrors Match”. That match ended with the “electrocution” of Abdullah The Butcher. Future Hall Of Famers Sting, Mick Foley, and Scott Hall were also part of the match.

Meanwhile, for Geekville Radio’s Nostalgia Trip, we will be looking at the classic 1960s TV Sitcom The Munsters.

On this very website, we will provide one trailer a day for all 31 days of October.

For our Doctor Who commentary podcast, Examining The Doctor, we will take a look at the Patrick Troughton story The Macra Terror, which sees giant crabs wreaking havoc on an otherwise peaceful city.

As always, we are open to suggestions. Let us know below what you would like to hear when it comes to Halloween themed entertainment from us!

Seth and Crazy Train return for the latest induction into the Lesser Known Geek Hall Of Fame. As longtime fans may know, inductees are not limited to just characters or people. Superheroes, literary characters, heroes, villains, real people, etc… For the first time, we are inducting a feature film. And there is no better inaugural movie inductee that 1979’s The Black Hole.

5:30 – Early Concepts

The 1970s were rife with disaster films such as The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, and of course the Airport series. The reason why they were so plentiful is that many of them drew big at the box office. The Poseidon Adventure alone earned $125 million in 1972, which translates to over $700 million in 2020 dollars. So the idea of a science-fiction disaster movie didn’t seem too out of place.

8:05 – Rewrites, Rewrites, Rewrites

Over the next few years, the film was constantly rewritten by multiple writers. The title would also change over time to names like Probe One and Space Probe One before finally landing The Black Hole as its name.

13:30 – Enter Star Wars

The entire film industry was rocked in May of 1977 when a certain independent film called Star Wars was released. Suddenly, science-fiction was a mainstream genre. Interest in the film, then still called Space Station One, was renewed. Yet another outline was submitted, but this version added emphasis on the black hole itself.

19:00 – The Characters and Premise

As stated before, the premise changed from a straight-up disaster film to one with a villain, Dr. Hans Reinhardt. This new premise saw explorers find Reinhardt’s ship, the USS Cygnus, in deep space. At first, all seems well until Reinhardt’s true insidious history is discovered.

39:30 – Defending The Ending

One of the problems with the film was there was never a firm ending written before production. Even the cast didn’t know the ending until seeing the film at the premiere. The ending has been generally interpreted as Heaven and Hell. But it is worth noting that the Disney producers were hoping for the film to become a franchise with multiple sequels. It’s a pretty safe bet that had the film been a bigger success, the ending would have been a setup for the next story.

46:45 – Windup

The Black Hole deserves credit for helping bridge the gap from traditional sci-fi to modern mainstream sci-fi. And as stated before, it helped usher in a new era for Disney that appealed to adults as well as children. Those precedents alone make it worthy of being the latest entry into The Lesser Known Geek Hall Of Fame.