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October 4, 2022

If you loved last week’s episode of The Video Archives Podcast, this week’s episode has a little more of everything! More Quentin and Gala dissecting the plot mechanics of Coma, more of the history of Mikey & Nicky stars Peter Falk and John Cassavetes, more facts about the making of Piranha, and plenty more than that. I have more photos, paintings and posters to accompany your listen on today’s Counter Talk, so let’s dive in…

This episode kicks off a very special father-daughter interview series, as Gala & Roger sit down together to learn more about Roger and the history of Video Archives. The first part goes all the way back to the Video Outtakes era, and Roger’s early days at the store when he was just 14, but there’s much more of this interview to come that I can’t wait for you all to hear. Since we’re getting into the early history, I’ve got to share a few photos of Roger from his time working at Video Archives:

Roger taped this interview at Earwolf’s Hollywood studios, and signed the famous Earwolf studio table (right across from someone else’s caricature of Robert Englund…probably Matt Gourley if I had to guess, hi Matt!)

In the episode, Quentin & Roger compare the virtues of Norman Jewison’s dystopian sports film Rollerball and its Corman-produced quickie knockoff Death Race 2000. I’ll leave the cinematic merits to the two cinéastes supreme, but I will weigh in on which film has the cooler poster…

The Rollerball poster is, frankly, hard to beat - that 70s vintage sci-fi typeface that lands somewhere between ‘disco’ and ‘LCD screen,’ the spiked gear shooting shimmering beams, James Caan slightly cocking an eyebrow, and the tagline “In the not too distant future, wars will not exist…but there will be Rollerball.” (I’ll take that trade!)

The Death Race 2000 art is a lot like Rollerball’s, yet more stylized, with the hero’s face similarly half-draped in shadow/disfigurement. The airbrushed look is gorgeous, and the title sitting in a pool of blood is an excellent touch…but I’m still going to give the edge on the overall design to Rollerball. Death Race 2000 has the better tagline, though: “In the year 2000, hit and run driving is no longer a crime - it’s the NATIONAL SPORT!”

On top of everything else, this week’s After Show features a late breaking Piranha fact from the man himself, director Joe Dante! Joe wrote in to tell us that this newspaper seen in the film was not in fact created for the film, but a bit of “found production design” taken from a real world paper:

Thanks for this amazing bit of trivia Joe, and be sure to check out his excellent podcast with Josh Olsen, “The Movies That Made Me.”

This week we’re shouting out listener Catarina (@cacmrg on Twitter) who painted this beautiful, moody portrait of Mikey and Nicky while listening to our episode. Go check out more of her work!

We also have listener Lillian (@lillian_moschen on Instagram) rocking the Video Archives shirt - she says “driving around listening to fav pod wearing new swag."

Thanks for listening Lillian! That does it for today’s Counter Talk. Next week officially kicks off the spooky season, with our very first theme episode, our very first two-part episode, and our very first episode featuring a guest customer! You won’t want to miss this epochal Video Archives series – until then, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, keep telling your friends about the show, and I’ll see you all next week!

–Josh