Feature Category: Article

Ben DeVere • LONE WOLF: THE HUNTRESS – MARKED FOR DEATH

Ben DeVere is the son of fantasy gamebook legend, Joe Dever. Joe passed away back in 2016 and Ben has been carrying on Joe’s legacy, carrying on his father’s wish to complete the Lone Wolf series. This includes a new trilogy, The Huntress series, written by Jonathan Stark. The first book in the series is Lone Wolf: The Huntress – Marked For Death. We caught up with Ben to find out more…

STARBURST: How would you describe The Huntress to a fan of Dungeons & Dragons?

Ben DeVere: For D&D fans, I’d describe it as a solo campaign. The book is the Dungeon Master. That doesn’t mean you can’t play it with friends. In fact, we hosted a teaser campaign on the Lone Wolf fan group on Facebook and had hundreds of people involved in voting for the choices.

What’s the elevator pitch?

Think Castlevania meets Indian Jones, written by Mary Shelley. Exploring the haunted underbelly of a magical city. Tracking a witch’s moving castle through a serpent-infested swamp… all that good stuff!

It’s been quite a journey. Why more books?

It has! But a journey of looking after a legacy. Looking after the legacy is important, of course, but I’m a creative person and so I can’t just republish old books. I had to ask myself, is this just a legacy project, or does it have a future? Are we going to build on what my dad created?

How much of your father do you see in the series?

It’s impossible not to hear his voice when I read it. The themes of self-reliance and being forced to grow up too fast chime with dad losing his own father very young. He was a very private person, loving and funny, but sometimes very insular. The series is called Lone Wolf, after all.

What was your introduction to gaming as an adult like?

Intense. I first met the fans at Lucca, a gaming festival with upwards of a quarter of a million people and queues of Lone Wolf fans wanting books signed and photos taken. I hadn’t even read most of the books I was signing. It was weird.

Why is fantasy so big now?

I’d argue that it’s always popular. What’s new is the way the fandom can engage with creators and with each other. The fantasy fandom is just more online than other genres. There’s a highfalutin argument that we need fantasy more when times are tough, but I’m not going to go there.

What do you make of Critical Role and the like?

I haven’t spent enough time watching their stuff, but it’s a phenomenon. It just proves the appetite for fantasy roleplaying.

What’s next for you?

I’m right in the middle of writing the final book of the Lone Wolf saga. Book #32: Light of the Kai. And this June is Lone Wolf’s 40th Anniversary, so we have a lot of projects in the pipeline for this summer. I’m busy getting those ready, too.

Doctor Who or Doctor No?

Doctor No. I was a huge Bond fan. Goldfinger is the best film, obviously, but I grew up in the Roger Moore era, so hell always be Bond for me.

Dragons or Death Stars?

Death Stars. Dragons is too much like work.

Truth or Beauty?

At 42, I’m precisely middle-aged. So, I’m in the process of turning from Beauty towards Truth, which is a wonderful process.

You can find out more about the Lone Wolf books here.

Win Luc Besson’s DOGMAN on Blu-ray

To celebrate the release of DOGMAN starring Caleb Landry Jones – out March 11th on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital – and we have a pair of Blu-rays up for grabs! To be in with a chance, just read on and enter below…

The latest film from Luc Besson – the visionary filmmaker The Fifth Element, La Femme Nikita and the Transporter series – DOGMAN won the Graffetta d’Oro for Best Film at the 2023 Venice Film Festival. It’s extraordinary, intense and heartfelt – everything you’d expect from the unique and uncompromising mind of Besson.

Caleb Landry Jones (Cannes winner for Best Actor for Nitram) stars as Doug, a troubled man who finds salvation through his canine friends. The cast also includes Jojo T Gibbs (Fresh), Christopher Denham (Billions), Clemens Schick (Das Boot), and Marisa Berenson (Barry Lyndon).

Featuring an emotive score by Besson’s longtime collaborator Éric Serra (Léon), and exquisitely filmed by Colin Wandersman (Pandemonium), DOGMAN features production design by César award winner Hugues Tissandier (The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec).

Think Taxi Driver meets Lassie, DOGMAN, inspired by a shocking real-life story, is a wonderfully styled excursion into the wild world of dog-loving Doug, packed with deliriously exciting set pieces, brutal moments of violence and, of course, an irresistible cast of loveable mutts.

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DOGMAN is out now on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital. You can order today here: https://amzn.to/3VdnHbl

Jeff Wadlow • IMAGINARY

After the success of Truth or Dare and Fantasy Island, writer/director Jeff Wadlow has returned to the horror spectrum through his new movie Imaginary! Daring to create a horror character that could sit alongside the likes of Chucky and Annabelle, STARBURST discovers everything you need to know about the mysteriously off-putting bear that is Chauncey, and much more…

STARBURST: Where did the idea for Imaginary come from? As someone who has already created a couple of horror movies, how excited were you to be working on an idea like this?

Jeff Wadlow: It came from Jason Blum, who signed me to a first look deal, after Truth or Dare and Fantasy Island. He challenged me to make a classic Blumhouse film that dealt with the iconography that is in a lot of his movies. A family, in a house, at night, there’s a bump that they hear. That kind of cadence. He wanted to know what my version of that would be. The second point of inspiration honestly came from somewhere inside of me. I wanted to make a movie about an imaginary friend, and I thought it was really fertile. I enjoy playing with subjectivity in filmmaking, asking the audience, “Do you think this is real, or is this not real? If it’s not real, does it still have real consequences?” and I thought an imaginary friend movie would be the perfect opportunity to explore some of those notions cinematically. Then the third point of inspiration was my co-writers Greg Erb and Jason Oremland, these guys are two of my close friends. They are really talented screenwriters, who had been working within the family film space, and they wanted to make a scary movie about an evil teddy bear. I had asked them to come and talk about ideas at Blumhouse, and so, you take those three things and combine them, and you have the movie Imaginary.

Jessica and Max both have quite tough backstories. What were these like to create, and what did you want them to bring to the movie?

Well, Jessica and Max are the two main adult characters in the film, and they’re dealing with pasts that were problematic, and I think that that is totally relatable. It’s not like they’re particularly special in that sense. We all have trauma and unfortunate things that have happened to us. We’ve had to decide how we want to process and deal with them as we move through our lives. That created the emotional underpinnings of the film. Fortunately, I was lucky to have two incredible actors DeWanda Wise [Jessica] and Tom Payne [Max] play those parts, and bring them to life in a manner that I couldn’t have even imagined myself.

DeWanda Wise is brilliant as Jessica! Can you elaborate on what DeWanda was like to work with and what else did you really want to see from her character?

Working with DeWanda is a pleasure. She is such a pro; I’ve never worked with an actor who is so prepared. She is also an executive producer on the film, so she was really my creative partner in every decision we were making while we were shooting the film. Not just decisions around her character, but, she was helping when it came to picking the costumes that the paramedics were wearing when they show up for that one scene. She was very much my right-hand creative consultant through the whole production process. I love her, she is so talented as an actress, I just enjoy watching her do her thing, and would absolutely kill to work with her again.

What was it like to design and bring Jessica’s childhood home to life, and how did you want the home to feel and come across for the audience?

I really wanted to make sure that the home was not a classic horror movie house. We’ve all seen that scene where the family moves into the Gothic, old, dilapidated, haunted house, and you’re like “Why! Why are you doing this! This is not going to go well for you or these children you’re bringing here!” It doesn’t make any sense. We were shooting in New Orleans, and it was a challenge to avoid that Southern Gothic theme that’s everywhere. I just wanted a house that honestly looked like the suburban dream. This idyllic, middle class place, where you could raise your kids, protect them, and they could have a wonderful childhood. Despite the few things that happened to Jessica when she was young, she pretty much has good feelings about her childhood, which we put on the screen in the credit montage with the home movies, and I just wanted to have that feeling when we saw the house for the first time. From a production standpoint, it was very challenging because we shot all of the first floor stuff on location but then we had to build the second story of the house on a sound stage. We had to match the staircase to make it look like it’s seamless. There are sequences in the movie where Jessica starts upstairs and she walks down the stairs, and we do a real time cut, and we pick her up on the stairs and she walks into the first floor. Then we do another cut and she’s in the basement. We are going from a set to a location to a set in just those three shots. Often probably, stretched out over multiple weeks, and so, keeping all of that straight in your mind is certainly a challenge for a filmmaker.

Alice is pretty much the backbone of the story for the entire film, as she talks with Chauncey throughout. What was that like to work on, and how did you go about threading that key narrative through the movie?

Well that was a creative debate. Like “What does Chauncey sound like? What is it like for Alice to be talking with Chauncey?” There are versions of the script where Chauncey’s voice was a unique thing, but I had this idea in the middle of development that Chauncey’s voice should be Alice’s voice. If a kid has an imaginary friend, the kid would do the imaginary friend’s voice. So then, as it becomes clear throughout the film that Chauncey might be more than just your normal, imaginary friend, it was important for me, for him to keep Alice’s voice. But also for that voice to change. I think that it’s an interesting idea, that continues to evolve throughout the story, and I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but the audience will see that it starts with Alice, and then it changes, but then it also ends with Alice.

Betty Buckley has been in some really awesome horror movies herself! How did she end up becoming the sitter/neighbour Gloria, and what does she bring to the character?

Betty Buckley is an icon! It was beyond a privilege to be working with her. Not only was she in Carrie, but she was also in Split, which is a fantastic horror film, and Jason Blum produced it. She emailed Jason and said “Hey Jason! Do you have any horror movies for me to be in?” and of course, Jason Blum being the savvy producer that he is said “Of course I do Betty!” Then he turned to his team and said “Do we have a movie for Betty Buckley?” Jason then emailed me and said “Can Betty play Gloria?” and I was like “Can she? Will she!? I would love to have Betty Buckley play Gloria” We were really lucky to have her, and it’s not just exciting because she’s such an icon. She’s an icon for a reason, she brings her A-game, and she lights up the screen every time she’s in a scene.

Can you tell us how the look of Chauncey came to be? What was that like to create, whilst also finding a balance where the character can come across as both sinister and innocent?

Designing Chauncey was tricky, because we knew we were trying to make a horror movie icon, like something that people would remember, and would be worthy of being thought of in the same moment as like Chucky, M3GAN or Annabelle. I knew that he couldn’t look as creepy as Annabelle or like a scarred messed up Chucky, because why would any kid want to play with a teddy bear that looks that demonic? But at the same time, we looked at some designs, where he just looked too much like Paddington, or Winnie-the-Pooh, and you’re like “Well, there’s nothing really off putting about this design”. It really just came down to asymmetry, if you look at Chauncey, his ears are off, his eyes are off, and he can still be cute, but that asymmetry creates a feeling of unease. It makes you realise, on some subconscious level that things are not right.

In the trailer, we see Chauncey move by itself up the corridor! So, how important are practical effects to you, and how much can we expect from that approach in Imaginary?

Practical effects could not be more important to me. I always embrace what I call a ‘practical CG hybrid’ approach, which means if we can do the gag practically, if we can create the monster in the real world, if we can do the gag on set, then we should, and then we should use CG to clean it up, augment it, elevate it. Try to fool the audience a little bit more. Audiences are savvy; you can’t just put a guy in a rubber suit and think that they’re going to think that’s exciting, so you have to find ways to support and supplement the practical element. It should be practical because then the actors have something to react to. It gives the thing a real weight in reality. That the audience can feel. Light is interacting with it in an authentic way, and it gives the visual effects artists a reference, so when they augment it, they can make it look like the real thing.

Horror soundtracks are iconic, and for you got to work with the awesome Bear McCreary again. Is there anything you can tell us about that collaboration, and maybe how he helped shape the movie’s soundtrack?

Well, if I can toot my own horn for a second. One of the smartest things I did when making this movie was very early on, and I knew I wanted to work with Bear again. I contacted him well before you would ever talk to your composer, and I said “Hey Bear I need the Chauncey jingle! I want it before we start shooting” and he wrote it months before we started shooting. I hadn’t even cast the whole movie yet. And the first time I heard it, I was blown away. It’s such an earworm. Once you hear it, you cannot get it out of your head. It has almost this Sgt Pepper, Lennon/McCartney thing to it, which is inexplicable, but I think it’s just a fantastic piece of composition. It’s become a part of the film in a way that I just can’t even really explain. I would hum it into the microphone on set when it’s supposed to be playing through the bear, which changed how we edited the movie. I’m so glad I had that thought because you often don’t really get into the music until the movie is done. But it was an important piece of music for the film. I’m so glad that Bear wrote it before we started shooting,

IMAGINARY is in cinemas now. You can read our review here.

THE TELEPHEMERA YEARS: 1999, part 3

Ah, telephemera… those shows whose stay with us was tantalisingly brief, snatched away before their time, and sometimes with good cause. They hit the schedules alongside established shows, hoping for a long run, but it’s not always to be, and for every Street Hawk there’s two Manimals. But here at STARBURST we celebrate their existence and mourn their departure, drilling down into the new season’s entertainment with equal opportunities square eyes… these are The Telephemera Years!

1999-2000

As US TV moved into the twenty-first century, the schedule was full of comings and goings. Sure, old reliables like ER, Friends, Frasier, and Touched by an Angel could be relied upon to bring in millions of viewers for NBC and CBS, but everyone was talking about the new kids on the block. ABC took the top three slots in the ratings with the thrice-weekly Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, while CBS jumped into the reality market with two feet, debuting both Big Brother and Survivor to an America hungry for average Joes. Also arriving on the network schedules was Judging Amy, Malcolm in the Middle, Law & Order: SVU, and The West Wing, while HBO debuted The Sopranos.

For genre fans, Buffy spin-off Angel premiered on The WB, as did UFO drama Roswell, and Relic Hunter, The Lost World, and Beastmaster are began syndicated runs. This made up for the loss of Sliders and Poltergeist: The Legacy, both of which were entering their final seasons, along with Boy Meets World, Chicago Hope, Beverly Hills 90210, Party of Five, and Veronica’s Closet. At least those shows made it to screen in a crowded market where many fell before the first hurdle: this is the story of 1999’s unsold pilots…

Manchester Prep (Fox): Riding high on the insane popularity of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar was very much in demand in the late-1990s and in 1999 she led a group of attractive young things in Cruel Intentions, a sexy, school-based adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses that upped the taboo ante by including some step-incest. Ryan Philippe, Reece Witherspoon, and recently wrong-headed Selma Blair completed a cast that brought in seven times the movie’s budget at the box office, enough of a success that a direct-to-video sequel appeared a year later.

That wasn’t always the plan, though, and the sequel’s origins lie in a proposed TV series for Fox. Entitled Manchester Prep for the hoity-toity school attended by the movie’s young ingenues, it was the brainchild of writer-director Roger Kumble, an award-winning playwright who’d shepherded the original to the screen. Kumble was the only returnee from the movie, Fox’s TV budget unable to stretch to Gellar, Philippe, Witherspoon, or even Blair, and their parts were given to a new array of teen hopefuls, intending to repeat the successful formula of the year before.

A prequel set as Sebastian Valmont (with Robin Dunne of gender-swapped Canadian show Little Men replacing Philippe) is introduced to his new school and his wicked stepsister, Kathryn (newcomer Amy Adams), Kumble’s pitch included a number of new characters to further the intrigues of the blended Valmont-Merteuil siblings. Kathryn is clearly the villain of the piece once more, this time aiming her bile at new student Cherie (Keri Lynn Pratt) and the headmaster’s daughter, Danielle, also the object of Sebastian’s desire, again played by a newcomer in the shape of Sarah Thompson.

Quite how Kumble would have stretched the premise over a full series (and presumably beyond) is anyone’s guess, but you might take clues from how Gossip Girl, also set amongst the privileged Upper Manhattan school set, turned out. Regardless, Fox passed on a series and the pilot was rushed out as a DTV prequel to the original even as that movie was hitting rental stores. Kumble returned with Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, and – yes- Selma Blair in 2002’s The Sweetest Thing and has made quirky romcoms his stock in trade ever since.

Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming: Galactica 1980, the Earthbound sequel to the original Battlestar Galactica TV series has its fans, despite its second-rate cast and continuity shattering setting, but Richard Hatch – Apollo in the original run – clearly wasn’t one of them. In the late 1990s, Hatch decided it was time to get the band back together and pitch a sequel to Universal, one that took up exactly where the original left off some twenty years before, making the events of Galactica 1980 non-canon.

Although Lorne Greene had died in 1987, Maren Jensen had long retired, and Dirk Benedict presumably wasn’t returning Hatch’s calls, Hatch managed to get much of the original cast back on board, with John Colicos’s Baltar and Terry Carter’s Colonel Tigh – now President of the Council of Twelve – lending some heavyweight fan appeal to the project. Hatch, of course, returned as Apollo but the role of Starbuck was not recast in Benedict’s absence, instead being retooled as Starbuck’s feisty daughter (and presumable love interest for a grown-up Boxey).

Hatch’s script, written with French producer (and then paramour) Sophie LaPorte, saw a new breed of Cylons emerge to fight a civil war with the originals, with the remnants of mankind caught in the middle of their battle. A thirty-minute short film was shot, of which only a four-minute trailer has been seen publicly, and the proposed series would have dealt with the new threat and featured a search for the missing Starbuck, Hatch obviously hopeful that his friend would pick up the phone if a series was greenlit.

Hatch toured the trailer around sci-fi conventions in 1999, hoping to catch Universal’s eye with the positive reactions he was eliciting, but Universal already ad their own plans for Battlestar Galactica underway in association with Fox and director Bryan Singer. When that project dissolved due to Fox withdrawing and Singer’s involvement in X-Men, their attention turned to Ronald D Moore, who delivered his darker reboot in 2003. Hatch eventually turned up in that series, as traitor Tom Zarek, and passed away in 2017.

Heat Vision and Jack (Fox): Wisconsin native Rob Schrab exploded onto the comic book scene with the self-published Scud the Disposable Assassin in 1994, soon earning rave reviews in the likes of Wizard magazine and catching the attention of Oliver Stone, who optioned Scud for a live-action movie in 1997. That project ultimately came to nothing and Schrab continued Scud until 1998, ending the series when he moved to Los Angeles with writing partner Dan Harmon – they were both members of Milwaukee sketch troop The Dead Alewives – in the hopes of breaking into TV.

Their spec script for BAM! (or Big Ant Movie) caught the attention of Robert Zemeckis, who signed them to a two-movie deal, although only Monster House ended up getting made, in retooled form in 2005. Such was their buzz that ABC TV also signed them to a deal, one which they found wasn’t to their liking; in order to scare the network into cancelling their agreement (or get to work on something amazing), the pair concocted their idea of the best TV show ever, which the network – predictably – passed on.

Ben Stiller, however, was impressed by their concept and talked Fox into ordering a pilot for Heat Vision and Jack, the story of a former astronaut who is exposed to dangerous amounts of solar energy, granting him super-intelligence whenever it is daylight. Heat Vision is his partner, a talking motorcycle inhabited by the spirit of Jack’s former roommate Doug, who was shot by an experimental ray gun while cleaning his bike.

Jack Black, who had yet to break through in High Fidelity, was cast as Jack, with Owen Wilson providing the voice of Heat Vision, and the cast was rounded out by Christine Taylor, Vincent Schiavelli, and Ron Silver as himself, albeit a Ron Silver who works for NASA and is impervious to harm, the villain of the piece. Heat Vision and Jack wasn’t picked up for a series, but the thirty-minute pilot has become something of a cult classic and can be freely seen on YouTube. Schrab and Harmon moved on to create Channel 101, a monthly pilot festival which gave birth to Yacht Rock, The Lonely Island, and more, a subject worthy of its own entry one day…

The Unbelievables: Ed Solomon began his writing career while still at college, selling a number of scripts to ABC for the final season of Laverne & Shirley and earning himself a place as the youngest member of the Writers Guild of America. It took a little longer for his next opportunity to arrive, hired to the writing staff of It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, during which time he met Chris Matheson and began collaborating on what would become Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

The success of Bill & Ted (and its sequel) upped Solomon’s cache and he was entrusted with the script for Super Mario Bros in 1993, a setback which took a number of years to recover from, only bouncing back with the screenplay for comic book adaptation Men in Black in 1997. In 1999, Solomon began work on a script for an alternate take on the superhero genre, focussed on retired hero Action Armstrong and his superpowered family, living a quiet life in surburbia.

Predating Pixar’s The Incredibles by five years, The Unbelievables was being written at the same time as Mystery Men, but it was an otherwise fallow time for superhero movies, offbeat or not. Men in Black’s production company Columbia/TriStar liked the idea enough to order a pilot for the Fox network, and a twenty-three-minute introductory episode was shot with Corbin Bernsen as Armstrong, Ryan Gosling as son Josh, and Tim Curry as his former archenemy Vaudevillain, now running a bookstore.

The pilot also starred a pre-fame Steve Carrell as Vaudevillain’s sidekick Hershel, alongside Clancy Brown and Annette O’Toole as Armstrong’s ex-wife Qupid, and there’s a warmth to the show that owes as much to the charisma of it’s a-list cast as Solomon’s script. Sadly, Fox declined the show and Solomon moved on the work-for-hire of scripting McG’s Charlie’s Angels, although a low quality upload of the pilot on Dailymotion is a reminder of what could have been.

The Wonder Cabinet (Fox): Created by Glen Morgan and James Wong, The Wonder Cabinet starred Canadian actor Kim Coates as the mysterious Alvin Swissky, head of Der Wunderkammeren, a Philadelphia institute dedicated to investigating medical and biological anomalies. Back in the Age of Enlightenment, wunderkammeren were kept by wealthy men, filled with real and concocted examples of nature gone wrong, and Swissky’s institute is a modern equivalent, fearing that the likes of Ebola and AIDS may be a sign of nature fighting back.

Swissky recruits three maverick medics – heart surgeon Gordon Wayne (Space: Above and Beyond‘s James Morrison), student Sarah Coleman (Poppy Montgomery from Relativity), and unethical neurosurgeon Kevin Spitz (Currie Graham) – to join his team. Their first case is a man sharing his body with an evil conjoined twin (in the shape of a second head), the team forced to decide which one has more right to survive an operation to remove one of the heads.

The Wonder Cabinet was Morgan and Wong’s fourth attempt to parlay their success on The X-Files into a production line of their own. Space: Above and Beyond had lasted for a single season on Fox, the same network had passed on The Notorious 7, and CBS had opted not to progress bail-enforcement drama Skip Chasers to series, but there were high hopes for their latest effort, the gfreak of the week approach that had been so successful on The X- Files easily transferrable to The Wonder Cabinet’s premise.

However, despite an engaging cast and an intriguing set-up, the execution on The Wonder Cabinet left a little to be desired and Fox decided against funding a full series. Morgan and Wong were reportedly given the news during shooting of what became Final Destination, a story originally pitched as an episode of The X-Files that led to a successful career in the movies.

Next time on The Telephemera Years: Kids were still watching TV in 1999, safe from the rise of YouTube for another few years… But what were they watching?

Check out our other Telephemera articles:

The Telephemera Years: pre-1965 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1966 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1967 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1968 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1969 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1970 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1971 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1973 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1974 (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

The Telephemera Years: 1975 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1977 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1978 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1980 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1981 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1982 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1983 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1984 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1986 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1987 (part 1, 2 , 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1989 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1990 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1992 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1995 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1997 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1998 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1999 (part 1, 2)

The Telephemera Years: 2000 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2002 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2003 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2005 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2006 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2008 (part 1, 2, 3 , 4)

The Telephemera Years: O Canada! (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Irwin Allen

Titans of Telephemera: Stephen J Cannell (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: DIC (part 1, 2)

Titans of Telephemera: Hanna-Barbera (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Titans of Telephemera: Kenneth Johnson

Titans of Telephemera: Sid & Marty Krofft

Titans of Telephemera: Glen A Larson (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Quinn Martin (part 1, 2)

Titans of Telephemera: Ruby-Spears

Win EATING MISS CAMPBELL Blu-ray and T-shirt!

The gross-out horror/comedy Eating Miss Campbell is available to buy on Blu-ray, and we have one copy and a T-shirt to give away to one lucky reader! Just read on and enter below…

The film, which has wowed festival audiences, focuses on a Goth, vegan student at Henenlotter High who gets involved with her English teacher and finds herself developing a taste for human flesh. This biting satire on the problems facing the school system in the US and other issues, this relishes every opportunity to offend and push boundaries. Naturally, we loved it.

Written and directed by Liam Regan (My Bloody Banjo), the movie wears its Troma influences on its sleeve and is as wild and wonderfully disgusting as anything Uncle Lloyd Kaufman has released.

The film stars a host of genre favourites, including Lyndsey Craine (How to Kill Monsters), Laurence R. Harvey (The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence), Vito Trigo (My Bloody Banjo), and Lloyd Kaufman himself.

The limited edition release (only 2,500 available, all signed and numbered by the director) is packed with bonus features, including a documentary, commentary, outtakes, B-roll, raw behind-the-scenes footage and much more. The first pressing includes a slipcover by Tricia Zimic (Surf Nazis Must Die! – her first cover for a Troma movie in 30 years!), and sleeve art by Mila K.

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It’s only available directly from the filmmaker from March 4th via refusefilms.com

Win V/H/S/85 on Blu-ray

V/H/S/85 arrives on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital on March 4th, courtesy of Acorn Media International, and one lucky reader can win a copy of the Blu-ray. Just read on and enter below…

Dust off your leg warmers and rewind to the year 1985 for five uniquely twisted tales directed by David Bruckner (V/H/S), Scott Derrickson (The Black Phone), Gigi Saul Guerrero (El Gigante), Natasha Kermani (Lucky), and Mike P. Nelson (Wrong Turn). Giving nostalgia a bloodstained makeover, this series delves deep into the dark and dangerous underbelly of the decade.

In David Bruckner’s Total Copy starring Jordan Belfi (Nefarious) and Kelli Garner (The Aviator) – the wraparound story that holds the anthology together – a narrator presents a made-for-TV documentary following a group of scientists studying an unusual slime-covered entity named Rory. What is he, and more importantly, what can he do?

In Mike P. Nelson’s No Wake, seven friends head out on the road for a fun camping trip. Ignoring signs that they should avoid the water, a group of them decide to take a boat out on the lake, but it’s not long before their leisurely boat ride turns into a nightmare as they discover the water harbours unexpected and ominous secrets…

In Gigi Saul Guerrero’s God of Death, a Mexican news report is interrupted by a catastrophic earthquake, leaving only the cameraman alive. When a rescue team discovers him, they soon realise that escaping the wreckage is the least of their worries…

In Natasha Kermani’s TKNOGD, we meet a performance artist convinced that the world has replaced God with the “God of Technology.” In her quest to awaken this deity using virtual reality, a lethal creature from the unknown unexpectedly confronts her.

In Mike P. Nelson’s Ambrosia, a family hosting a party for their teenage daughter, Ruth, discovers they’re celebrating something far more sinister than a birthday. With the police closing in, it’s not long before the night turns into an all-guns-blazing bloodbath.

In the final segment Scott Derrickson’s Dreamkill, starring Freddy Rodríguez (Planet Terror), Dani Deetté (The Winter Soldier) and James Ransone (It: Chapter 2), a series of a series of brutal taped crimes lead the police to a mind-shattering conclusion.

Get ready to rewind your reality and fast-forward into frights with V/H/S 85, a gory, gruesome collection of sinister stories just calling to be devoured by horror hounds.

Special features include Uncut Super 8 Footage of Dreamkill • Uninterrupted Cuts • Film Commentary.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

V/H/S/85 is released on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital on March 4th.

Everything You Need to Know about Behind the Scenes Features of Movie Production

Making a movie is a drawn-out, multi-step process called “film production,” which sometimes takes years. The process of making a movie has five primary stages. The development stage is the first phase of film production, during which all the preliminary aspects are worked out before pre-production, which is primarily concerned with location scouting, casting, and research, begins.

Once pre-production is finished, filming can start. The duration of the production process will depend on the kind of film you’re making (short or feature-length), as shooting times vary throughout projects Eventually post-production phase later commences where cutting, commentary and sound are mixed which make the movie memorable and then the distribution phase.

So, what are the secrets of successful film production? Read on to find out.

Pre-Production Puzzle

The pre-production stage lays the groundwork for the movie before the cameras roll. In this stage, complex logistical plans are made, storyboards are created, and scripts are polished. To realize the director’s vision, casting, location scouting, costume design, and set construction are all carefully planned.

Cinematic Language

Visual storytelling and a distinct language of shots, angles, and motions are essential to film production. Cinematographers and directors collaborate extensively to create a visual aesthetic that supports the story. The lenses, camera angles, and lighting design shape every scene’s mood, tone, and emotional impact.

The Craft of Editing

Film editing is sometimes referred to as the “invisible art.” Film editors carefully assemble uncut material into a coherent story, influencing the movie’s rhythm, tempo, and emotional impact. Editors create a smooth and captivating visual experience with exact cuts, transitions, and visual effects.

Soundscapes and Music

In filmmaking, sound is essential because it improves storytelling and draws viewers into the fictional world. While composers create original music like those on online casino that amplify emotions and enhance the cinematic experience, sound designers develop complex soundscapes that give the environment depth and reality.

Special Effects Wizardry

Fantastical environments, animals, and explosions come to life using visual and practical effects (VFX). Behind the scenes, VFX artists attempt to seamlessly incorporate these aspects into the movie, frequently fusing digital magic with actual footage. Physical stunts, props, and makeup are all part of practical effects, which need a combination of technical expertise and artistic vision.

Hidden Cameos and Easter Eggs

To connect many films within a cinematic universe or to give fans a nod, filmmakers frequently tuck in inside jokes, hidden references, or cameos. For viewers paying attention, these hidden jewels can give an additional layer of engagement through subtly placed objects or subtle visual hints.

Challenges and Problem-Solving

There are many obstacles in the film industry, including erratic weather patterns and equipment failures. A critical competency for the production team is the capacity for quick adaptation and problem-solving. These difficulties frequently inspire original ideas that improve the movie’s authenticity.

The Role of Collaboration

The value of teamwork is one of the biggest secrets in the filmmaking process. A seamless collaboration across multiple departments, each lending specialized knowledge to the finished product, yields a good film. The collaborative efforts of writers, cinematographers, costume designers, makeup artists, and others enable the director’s vision to be realized.

A Glimpse into Imagination

Featurettes and behind-the-scenes documentaries provide an insight into the complex world of film production. They demonstrate the commitment, ardor, and ceaseless labor that go into making stories come to life. Through these glances, viewers can better understand the detailed artistry and teamwork that go into creating a cinematic voyage.

The Bottom Line

The mysterious workings of the film industry combine to provide the unforgettable cinematic experiences we love. Every process step, from meticulous pre-production planning to magical post-production work, goes into creating the finished masterpiece. Filmmaking is a true marvel that enthralls and inspires people worldwide. Behind the scenes, a tapestry of talents, creativity, and collaboration is stitched together.

Eliza Chan | FATHOMFOLK

Eliza Chan is a Scottish-born Chinese diaspora writer who thinks a lot about intergenerational relationships, diaspora identity, and immigration. Her latest book, Fathomfolk is not only an amazing fantasy novel, it also explores the joys and complications of modern cityscapes and depict multiculturalism based more on East and Southeast Asian cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore rather than London or New York. We caught up with her to find out more.

STARBURST: How would you pitch Fathomfolk to an old friend who really likes Disney?
Eliza Chan: Rather than giving up her home and culture for a man she hasn’t even had a conversation with, what if the little mermaid was an immigrant? How would she adjust to the culture shock and the different way of life above water? Would she be mocked and discriminated against because she tried to brush her hair with a fork? Where does she fit in?

Why should we read this book?
Fathomfolk is the story of a modern cityscape, divided between the generally prosperous humans at the top, looking down on the underclass fathomfolk – kelpies, kappas, mermaids and more – who live in the slums below. It is a book for people who like it when fantasy asks real-life questions and for those who argue with their GM that goblins can’t be born inherently evil as everyone is an individual. It follows three points of view characters: a privileged water dragon, newly arrived in the city; a tired half-siren who has been trying to chip away at the system; and a scheming seawitch, in it for herself; all dealing with discrimination, diaspora identity, and the cost of change. You should also read it for mythology mash-ups, messy, eclectic cities, and delicious depictions of food!

Why Sirens?
I like reading different mythologies from across the world and was getting more and more frustrated at women depicted as the seductress or damsel. Sirens, in particular, just seem to lounge on rocks waiting to drown men and have no other ambitions or life beyond this. It reminded me of the common rhetoric that women were asking for it. I started to envisage a siren who couldn’t switch ‘it’ off and how she would respond to being discriminated against and treated with hostility.

If you could sit one of the characters from the books down and have a word with them, who would it be, and what would you say?
I would sit Nami, the newly arrived water dragon, down with a nice cup of seaweed tea and tell her not jump to conclusions about a city she has only just arrived in. Knowing Nami, however, she would roll her eyes at me and do the exact opposite.

What was the funniest part of getting Fathomfolk published?
I’m not sure it’s funny, but it’s certainly been fun going from polite, professional emails with my editor and team at the beginning and slowly descending into the realms of antler gaps, kelpie butts, and cabbage man references as we got a feel for each other. It’s been brilliant to work with fellow science fiction and fantasy geeks and know they are your people.

Why are we so fascinated with dragons?
For right or wrong, we’ve labelled all reptilian flying monsters as dragons, and that means there are so many varieties to read and write about. What’s not to love about giant magical beasts that can either be your mount, lover or burn you to a crisp on a whim? Seeing my toddler in his dinosaur era at the moment, I also think it harks back to that childhood fascination that many of us never grew out of. There is a duality in my mind between the water and weather-controlling Asian dragons and the fiery-breathing Western dragons, but we can contain multitudes. Mostly, however, I just want to be able to fly.

What’s your favourite piece of folklore to write about?
I like them all, which is probably why I wrote such a mash-up of mythologies and folklore! Researching Fathomfolk made me really aware of how folklore stories are ever-evolving and that there is no one true narrative. For example, growing up, I asked my mother about the Asian dragon and the dragon pearl ubiquitous in Chinese restaurants, traditional decorations and the like. Years later, when researching, I realised everything she’d told me was different from what I was reading. She told me the dragon pearl was its soul; in the most well-known story, it is a source of wealth and prosperity. We treat the written form as the authority on the matter when often it is just one version that happens to be written down. To this day, I do not know if my mother’s stories are from her own childhood or her own flights of fancy. Either way, does it matter? Writing and reimagining folklore as writers do is another evolution in this process, and I loved reimagining dragons and dragon pearls in a new way.

What’s the toughest part of the writing process for you?
Initial drafting is tough for me. I’ve given up on so many novels over the years and never got past about 30,000 words. There’s a really tough point about two-thirds in where you can’t see the wood for the trees, and that’s usually when I throw in the towel. It’s so important to me to have writer friends to support me, to set myself achievable goals and just push through. It’s definitely worth it when I write ‘The End’.

What other projects would you like to work on?
I am drawn to the darkness of the original fairytales before they were sanitised and would love to do a retelling one day. I’d also like to do something akin to Rivers of London or American Gods with a contemporary real-life city setting with the supernatural, but I’d probably take it north to Manchester or Glasgow. On the flipside, I’d equally love to do something with nods to anime and manga, such as Studio Ghibli or Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Too many ideas, not enough time!

What’s next for you?
I’m working on the sequel to Fathomfolk at the moment and also tinkering with my next project, Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Opium War-era Hong Kong.

Doctor Who or Doctor No?
Doctor Who, I’m still in my David Tennant-era mind.

The Little Mermaid or Aquaman?
The Little Mermaid. I particularly buy into Norton’s theory that The Little Mermaid was symbolic of an unrequited homosexual love that Hans Christian Andersen felt for his friend. It makes the othering, inability to speak, pain of transforming to fit in. and the ending so much more poignant.

Selkies or Kelpies?
Oh that’s really hard! I’ve written a few selkie stories back in my day, but I find kelpies more intriguing these days. They are much more unpredictable, the antithesis of the docile unicorn. I love the image of galloping horses as crashing waves, and I was also the sixer of the Scottish Kelpies in Brownies as a kid.

Truth or Beauty?
Truth, every time! My Chinese name 真 literally means real or truth, and whilst I envied the other girls with their beautiful names, I’ve definitely grown into it.

FATHOMFOLK is out now and can be ordered here.

Emma Vieceli | BREAKS

Emma Vieceli is a highly talented and critically acclaimed British comic book artist, and writer. Her work includes BREAKS, Vampire Academy, and Life Is Strange. We caught up with her to learn more about the new edition of BREAKS.

STARBURST: How would you pitch BREAKS to someone who’s only just discovered comic books via Heartstopper?

Emma Vieceli: Firstly, I’d tell that person, ‘Welcome to comics! It’s a big and exciting world of stories, and you chose a great way in.’

For BREAKS, specifically… hmmm. If you’ve been enjoying Heartstopper and are perhaps also keen on reading something sitting a little older and a little darker, BREAKS is a good choice! Whilst still a love story at its core, BREAKS is also a mystery. The characters have their burdens to bear, fears to conquer and choices to make, but they’re discovering themselves alongside a twisting, woven story as they slowly unravel the mystery that connects their families. At times brutal, at times raw, the action is emotionally driven and emotionally complicated. Recommended for older YA readers and beyond, especially as we get into book two in June, I’d say it’s a layered story that moves beyond being pure romance and turns up the drama dial.

BREAKS has been around since 2014; what advice would you have loved to have given yourself back then?

Oh, younger me: Trust that you’re not wrong. This sort of story will find an audience. They’re out there. The time will come when people talk excitedly about LGBT comics and love stories and will watch them adapted on TV and will find it hard to fathom that it was such a struggle when you started. You’ll work hard and give over a decade to making sure this story gets told and seen, but you’ll be so proud when it is. Not rich. But proud. And, by the end of that decade, trust that the world will have changed a lot.

Also, maybe work in black and white and save yourself the trouble of having to convert the whole series down the line?

Why do we keep falling for enemies to lovers stories?

Gawd, I don’t know, but there’s just something delicious about that thin line between love and hate, where emotions are turned up to eleven and can suddenly morph into a new form. In Ian and Cortland’s case, while we don’t get to see a lot of it before the story kicks in, we can assume that the entire rivalry was based on what was so obviously lurking beneath the surface. Tension is a powerful thing.

If you could sit one of the characters from the books down and have a word with them, who would it be, and what would you say?

Oh blimey. They could all use a few words. Except Amilah, maybe. That girl has it all worked out, and I could use her sitting down to give me a few words. But yes, only one of them? Gah. I mean…I guess I’ll have to go for Cortland. Because, for all his faults, Ian sort of tunes into himself a little faster than Cortland does in some ways.

Look, Cort… I know you seem to think that the world rests on your shoulders and that your mistakes are worse than anyone else’s mistakes, but look around you. Everyone makes mistakes. Closing yourself off from people who actually seem to care about you is not the path to making anything better. You are not your anger; not everyone is out to get you, and leaning into feeling good sometimes doesn’t make you a bad person. And hell, sometimes you’re allowed to be angry. It’s what you do with it that matters. You are on the road to recovery, even if you don’t realise it yet. And that tall ginger goof over there… yeah, he’s going to matter quite a lot. He’s going to make a few mistakes of his own, but try not to punish him too much for those. He’s on his own road, but you’re both heading to the same destination.

Why is life so difficult for the characters in BREAKS?

A big theme of BREAKS is about living with legacy. Living in the shadow of what has come before and walking the path you’ve been placed on. All of the young adults in this story are in some way emerging from the past (aren’t we all, in some ways): from having divorced parents or growing up an immigrant to coping with family loss or coming to terms with their own worst actions…it’s why their ambitions, passions, and their ability to find and accept love become so worth celebrating.

How different is creating something like BREAKS compared to Hamlet or Life is Strange?

From Hamlet – immensely! I was working on a ‘very’ known story with an adapter. It was all about how to best illustrate the script and bring out the full meaning of the words.

From Life is Strange – actually, not all that different! Aside from the fact that obviously, I didn’t draw Life is Strange – a big shout out to Claudia Leonardi, who is wonderful! But the themes and emotions in Life is Stange often overlap with what Malin [Rydén] and I had been doing for years with BREAKS. Emotionally, for me, the comics sit in a similar place. Self-discovery. Courage. Accepting past mistakes and learning to live with who they make you. Process-wise, of course, it’s different. I was the writer of a licensed title on LiS – and paid, to boot! – whereas with BREAKS, Malin and I co-wrote the story, each bringing our own characters to the table. Then she did the first pass of the scripts, and I would come in to edit those and move on to creating pages. Sometimes, I’d add scenes; sometimes, she would. It was a fluid process and very much our own. And done in our own time. So, I have a lot more ownership over BREAKS. It’s our baby. But yeah, those emotional beats aren’t all that far apart.

What other projects would you like to work on?

It’s getting harder to answer this as I get older, you know? Partly because I have been lucky enough to work on some of my favourite characters and worlds over the years – Jem/Back to the Future/LiS/Nightwing, etc – but also because our priorities shift. I’ve still never gotten my hands on Gambit, but beyond that, I like being surprised by projects these days. I don’t so much crave specific titles anymore. It’s more about the types of stories I want to tell. A mood. And a big dream for me is to tell more of my own stories too!

What’s next for you?

My next big personal story is called Gods & Graces, and I’m so excited to tell it. It’s going to be a hell of a ride. As it’s me, you can imagine it has similar themes and emotional checkpoints to BREAKS, LiS and the rest… because complicated human emotion and moral dilemma is what I do… but this time, it’s also a historical fantasy fiction. 18th century, so glorious fashion, of course. Set twenty years before the French Revolution proper; it’s part celebration of the birth of queer culture in London’s molly house scene and part epic fantasy as mortals race to become gods… I’m excited! There’s already a subscription button for it up on Tapas, and I’m hoping to launch it there this year.

I’ll also be working on more illustrations for the amazing Juno Dawson, who continues to grow her powerful world of powerful witches. I’m so happy to be a part of it! And I’ll be teaming up again later in the year with friend and multiple-time collaborator Paul Cornell, this time with added Lizbeth Myles joining him on writing duty. We’ll be creating a four-part original story for Magma Comix, and it’s going to be something to really…get your teeth into.

Beyond comics, I’m also – um – writing a musical. So, let it never be said I’m not up for a challenge.

Dragons or Drag Queens?

Do I have to choose?? Can’t the drag queens be riding dragons??

Pop Music or Opera?

Something between the two. I’m a musical theatre baby, after all.

Vampires or Werewolves?

Vampires. That one’s easy for me.

Truth or Beauty?

There is beauty in the truth, and truth can cast beauty.

BREAKS is out now.

THE TELEPHEMERA YEARS: 1999, part 2

1999-2000

For genre fans, Buffy spin-off Angel premiered on The WB, as did UFO drama Roswell, and Relic Hunter, The Lost World, and Beastmaster are began syndicated runs. This made up for the loss of Sliders and Poltergeist: The Legacy, both of which were entering their final seasons, along with Boy Meets World, Chicago Hope, Beverly Hills 90210, Party of Five, and Veronica’s Closet. Many of these new shows became institutions in their own rights, but what about the 1999 debuts that failed to stick their landing? This is the story of five more shows taken before their time…

Cleopatra 2525 (syndication): There are two ways you can go when you’ve enjoyed a monster hit as the co-creators of Xena: Warrior Princess; strike out and do something different or stick with what you know. In a way, RJ Stewart and Robert G Tapert did both in creating Cleopatra 2525, bringing the same XX flavour but adding a dose of sci-fi to the heroic fantasy they’d peddled before.

Jennifer Sky made one-off appearances in shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Seaquest DSV before being cast as Amarice, a woman pretending to be an Amazon who found that she embodied their better qualities on Xena. That pretty much secured her the role of Cleo, an exotic dancer who is put into suspended animation when a breast enlargement operation goes awry, only to wake in the year 2525 and find herself thrown into a battle between men and machines.

Teamed with Hel (One Life to Live‘s Gina Torres) and Sarge (Victoria Pratt), Cleo becomes one of humanity’s best hopes against The Baileys, armed flying robots that now control Earth. Both Torres and Pratt had guest starred in Xena (with Torres, ironically, playing Cleopatra), with much of the rest of the cast also doing time on the Hercules and Zena shows in New Zealand, where Cleopatra 2525 was also filmed.

Sold to the syndication market, the show enjoyed two seasons of fourteen episodes each, but was cancelled without a proper resolution. It retains a hardcore fanbase to this day, thrilled by the girl-powered action and Cleo’s philosophical musings, all of which were borrowed from twentieth century popular culture but wowed her future pals. Torres and Pratt would go on to appear in Firefly and Mutant X, respectively, earning themselves permanent places on the convention circuit, but this was as food as it got for Sky.

Freaks and Geeks (NBC): Paul Feig was a young stand-up comedian trying to make his way in Hollywood when he landed a role in Heavyweights, a dumb comedy about a group of fat kids terrorising Ben Stiller when he tries to get them to lose weight at Summer Camp. Heavyweights was co-written by Judd Apatow, who’d trodden the same boards as Feig a few years earlier, ending up co-creating The Ben Stiller Show, working on The Larry Sanders Show, and writing for The Critic.

Feig and Apatow became good friends and Apatow helped Feig bring a script to NBC, based on Feig’s upbringing in suburban Detroit in the 1970s (which he would later mine for the books Kick Me and Superstud). Feig’s script showed the mundanity of teenage life, those little things that seem like very big things when your hormones are racing, and was built around Linda Cardellini and John Francis Daley as Lindsay and Sam Weir, an older sister and her younger brother who attend McKinley High School in 1980. Lindsay is a mathlete who falls in with the “wrong” crowd, becoming friends (and more) with burnout Daniel Desario (James Franco) and his crew, played by future Apatow regulars Seth Rogen and Jason Segal.

Sam, meanwhile, is enduring life as a high school freshman, his only friends being fellow nerds Neil Schweiber (Samm Levine) and Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr). Wickedly funny and striking a tone somewhere between the absolute despair and naïve hope of your average teen, Freaks and Geeks was an immediate critical hit, earning a diehard audience and making pin-up stars of Franco and Cardellini.

Unfortunately, because it was up against Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in the schedules, was often pre-empted, and because NBC seemed to fundamentally disagree with the producers on how the show should progress, just twelve of the eighteen completed episodes were aired. We’re not allowed to have nice things.

Feig had directed a few of the episodes and moved into that field, working on Arrested Development, The Office, Bored to Death, and other “smart” comedies, while Apatow took Rogen and Sequel to quasi-sequel Undeclared, set in a modern-day college environment, and then exploded with The 40-Year Old Virgin. It’s Freak and Geeks, though, that is the gem in both their filmographies, a rare treat of a show that – like the suburban teens it featured – deserved much better than its lot in life.

Secret Agent Man (UPN): Two years before Tony Shalhoub brought the quirky Monk to life, another character by that name was one of a pair of spies working for a government agency so secretive that no-one knows what its initials – POISE – stand for. Played by Picket Fences’ Costas Mandylor, the galivanting Monk was joined by Dina Meyer’s Holliday under the direction of Brubeck, facing enemy agents organised by their former colleague Prima.

That all the main characters were named for jazz musicians was no coincidence and the show was named for the Johnny Rivers song which had soundtracked the 1960s show Danger Man, leading some to search for a connection between the two. Secret Agent Man used Rivers’ song as its theme, too, albeit one re-recorded by hip-hop artists Supreme Beings of Leisure.

The show was supposed to have debuted as part of UPN’s Fall 1999 line-up but was delayed until March to give producers Barry Josephson and Barry Sonnenfeld (who had just directed another offbeat spy production in Wild Wild West) more time to get the special effects right for its premiere. With the benefit of hindsight, they needn’t have bothered since Secret Agent Man was almost universally despised by critics and audiences alike, or worse still ignored.

Tied for 150^th out of 153 shows that aired during the 1999-2000 season, there was never any chance of second season for the show, although Sonnenfeld’s cachet did ensure that all thirteen episodes were aired. The whole thing was done much better nine years later with Archer but if you’re interested, there’s a few episodes on YouTube. Maybe just get as far as the theme tune, eh?

The Others (NBC): Saturday night is not traditionally a big night for TV in the US, and that was certainly the case in 1999. Both ABC and NBC were showing movies, while CBS put out a double-bill of Martial Law and Walker, Texas Ranger to compete with Fox’s twin helping of COPS and America’s Most Wanted. Occasionally, though, networks would use the night to try out new things (or burn off doomed projects), and both could probably be said of The Others, a supernatural ensemble drama created by John Brancato and Michael Ferris.

Brancato and Ferris had enjoyed a pair of minor hits as screenwriters with The Net and The Game, and The Others was their first TV work since an episode of Æon Flux in 1995, produced in association with former X-Files writers Glen Morgan and James Wong for Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Television. The story centred on Marian Kitt (rookie actress Julianne Nicholson), a college student who joins a support group for people, like her, with burgeoning paranormal abilities.

Nicholson had been handpicked for the role by Steven Spielberg after she’d appeared with the director’s wife Kate Capshaw in The Love Letter a year earlier, and she joined a cast that also included Gabriel Macht, John Billingsley, Missy Crider, and veteran Bill Cobbs, forming a group around Kitt as a sinister threat emerged to target them all.

NBC scheduled The Others alongside the fourth seasons of both The Pretender and Profiler, hoping that the three might build an audience as a block titled “Thrillogy”, but the Saturday crowd just weren’t interested in sufficient enough numbers and all three were cancelled by the end of the year. Nicholson moved onto Ally McBeal, before landing the role of Megan Wheeler on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Brancato and Ferris abandoned TV went back to the movies, scripting Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation, and the Halle Berry Catwoman disaster. Meanwhile, The Others was used as a title for Alejandro Amenábar’s 2001 ghost story, meaning that if anyone remembers the name, they’re probably thinking of the wrong thing…

Clerks: The Animated Series (ABC): Kevin Smith famously maxed out several credit cards in order to make Clerks, his 1994 debut feature about the lives of New Jersey shopworkers based on the experiences of he and his friends. Smith followed Clerks with Mallrats and Chasing Amy, but he and producer Scott Mosier had already begun shopping around the idea to continue the escapades of Dante and Randall in animated form, approaching HBO, Fox, The WB, and several others, before finally landing a deal for a thirteen-episode run with UPN.

At the last minute, ABC made a counteroffer for more money and, with industry insiders warning the pair that UPN would be off the air within a year, they took the Alphabet Network’s offer. Clerks: The Animated Series was produced by Smith and Mosier’s View Askew Productions, in association with Miramax and David Mandel’s Woltz International Pictures Corporation, under the umbrella of Touchstone Television, making it the second adult animated show produced by Disney. In fact, although they went uncredited, it became the first (and so far only) adult animated show produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, more usually found working on such shows as Duck Tales and Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers.

Smith convinced Brian O’Halloran and the notoriously reticent Jeff Anderson to reprise the roles of Dante and Randall, joined by Jason Mewes and himself as drug dealers with a heart Jay and Silent Bob. The story revolved around the return to Leonardo, New Jersey, of billionaire Leonardo Leonardo (played by Alec Baldwin), who begins his plans to enslave all of humanity by opening a rival grocery store to the Quick Stop. Most of the scripts were by Smith and Mandel, a veteran of Seinfeld, although Paul Dini and NewsRadio’s Brian Kelley were also involved.

Despite outbidding UPN for the show, it seemed like ABC didn’t know what to do with it and its edgy content rubbed up against a network owned by Disney. Worse still, they aired episode four first, and then followed it with episode two, a story based around flashbacks to episode one (which hadn’t aired yet). That was it for Clerks, as the network pulled it after just those two episodes, the remaining four completed episodes first seen when they were released on DVD a year later. Successful sales meant that Comedy Central aired the complete series in 2002 and a year later Graphitti Designs released a series of “inaction figures,” celebrating the characters in plastic form. UPN, by the way, lasted until 2006.

Next time on The Telephemera Years: It’s unsold pilot week and 1999’s crop includes some cruel intentions and a box of delights!

Check out our other Telephemera articles:

The Telephemera Years: pre-1965 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1966 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1967 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1968 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1969 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1970 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1971 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1973 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1974 (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

The Telephemera Years: 1975 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)