Welcome back to OH!CAST, where host Cal, Herward, and late-comer Graeme resurrect the fan-favorite segment: Roll for Persuasion Geek Debate! Cal welcomes back Herward (out of cryogenic sleep) to roll a D20 against 20 random geek topics. We jump straight into a high-stakes, hilarious debate where you’ll hear controversial takes on Star Trek, James Bond, and some of the biggest TV shows of all time. This episode is a must-listen for anyone who loves arguing about pop culture.
For another deep dive into the world of tabletop and language, don’t miss our conversation on the specific challenge of translating TTRPGs into Scottish Gaelic.
Best & Worst Openings in Film and TV
The D20 lands on a classic topic: Best and Worst Openings. The crew wastes no time tearing apart Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s pilot, “Encounter at Farpoint.” They call the pilot a “45-minute script made into a two-hour pilot.” Then, Herward throws a curveball by naming Roger Moore’s For Your Eyes Only as a simultaneously brilliant and terrible opening. Specifically, he discusses the infamous pre-title sequence. This sequence—designed to kill off Blofeld without naming him—features Bond dropping him down an industrial chimney. This section is a prime example of the controversial nature of the Roll for Persuasion Geek Debate.
Most Overrated TV Show of All Time
Next, the Roll for Persuasion Geek Debate heats up with Most Overrated TV Show of All Time.
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LOST: Cal and Herward agree this show is dreadful. They criticize its “mystery box nonsense” which had “no payoff to any of the mysteries.” Herward even jokes the ending reveals they “have been dead the whole time,” making it a waste of time.
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Game of Thrones (GoT): Cal calls the series a “good, solid fantasy” but argues it couldn’t live up to the exceptional hype. Herward agrees, but reserves his main criticism for the show’s “absurdly horny” writers. He cites a sequence where Littlefinger is explaining a complicated plot while two women are engaged in a sexual act in the background. He calls this puerile and unnecessary filler.
This segment perfectly showcases why the Roll for Persuasion Geek Debate feature is so beloved.
Top Five Fictional Vehicles
Finally, they roll for Top Five Fictional Vehicles:
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Ecto-1 (Ghostbusters).
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USS Defiant (Deep Space Nine): Cal names this ship, noting Ben Sisko designed it for one purpose: to take revenge on the Borg after they blew up his wife. He describes it as “a whole set of guns strapped to an engine.”
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Gunstar (The Last Starfighter): Herward praises this computer-generated spaceship for its awesome look and the ultimate secret weapon, Death Blossom.
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Eagle Five (Spaceballs): The “camper van with wings” known for doing a handbrake turn in space.
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Red Dwarf (the ship itself): Named for its “shonky” BBC budget look that still managed to appear vast and mind-blowing at the time.
The episode finishes strong with this Roll for Persuasion Geek Debate topic.
Full Transcript Outline (Quick Jumps)
Full Episode Transcript
Cal (00:01.742)
Hello everyone and welcome to OCAST, your island gateway to all things geek. It’s good to be back and welcoming. He has been resurrected. You’ve not heard him on this show for a long, long time. Welcoming back, Herward. How are you doing? Welcome back from the dead.
Good, I’m out of my cryogenic sleep.
It was Halloween the last time you were on this show. Imagine that.
I know it’s terrible. I always say to people, life gets in the way and life is really getting in the way. it’s lovely to be back though.
Yeah, right. It is. We’ve got something interesting planned tonight. We’ll see how this goes. Last night in our chat room, we eventually spun out this idea. Tonight’s episode is what’s going to be, might be a regular feature, might see a comeback depending on what the results are tonight. It’s role for persuasion. So we have listed 20 random geek topics and we’re going to roll a D20 and to
Cal (01:12.334)
And Herward, just to verify, just so no one can accuse that I’m trying to torture you, you do see a dice on the screen that I am going to roll. So this isn’t me just shouting notes from the top.
Lovely digital d20. I have to say that Callum I I do not like digital dice give me something tactile that I can I can roll When we were doing when we were doing that charity stream and we were playing with Chris Gonneman and I was using digital dice there I rolled badly I Don’t I don’t think I’ve had a session where I’ve rolled so poorly so
However, here, some of the topics I’m quite interested in are in the low numbers. So let’s go.
Yeah. Okay. So rule number 17. yes. There you go. You said that and you’ve cursed it already. So number 17. Best and worst openings in film and TV. Do you want to open this one or shall I go for the open?
I will go for Worst. It’s an easy one for me. It is Star Trek The Next Generation, the first ever episode encounter at Farpoint. I don’t know how, do you know this episode at all?
Hereward (02:20.738)
Go for it.
Hereward (02:37.134)
No, but I can pretend to.
I don’t know how to break it down, but it literally was a 45 minute script that they were forced to make into a two hour pilot. And it tells, it really tells. There is a five minute sequence of the enterprise and the saucer section docking. And then 10 minutes later, there’s a scene of Ryker watching the video of that happening. There’s kind of padding.
in the most extreme. It’s the acting is horrific. and it’s just just and the plotters there’s a strange station where things magically appear when people wanted to and it turns out the station is actually a giant space jellyfish. There you go. That’s how’s that for a still a solid plot and we’ve got a new look he’s appeared. I will have to add him to the
And just invading our stream right now is Graeme. Welcome to the show. We’re already underway here.
Sorry.
Hereward (03:45.87)
I was on the wrong one entirely.
All right, well that’s a good start. So we rolled a 17 best and worst openings in film and tv. I’ve just given one of the worst so seeing as you’ve just arrived you don’t have a clue what’s going on. Over to you, Graham. Best and worst tv film openings.
So.
So only related to stuff.
Next slide.
Speaker 3 (04:13.79)
or yeah okay go with
going to have to.
Hereward (04:23.31)
one of the best openings film on TV. You’ve got to be thinking, or I’ve got a real soft spot for Star Trek insurrection.
Okay.
where you’ve got the whole bet with the car.
ridiculous Gilbert and Sullivan.
Yeah.
Hereward (04:41.708)
and worth and data singing a British Tar.
Yep. See, my worst opening was the TNG pilot episode. Encounter at Farpoint. Yeah, I can see you laughing. So, Hedoward’s just nodding along like he pretends to know any of this.
We
Yeah.
Alright, was short and sweet but her word, the ball is in your court now.
Hereward (05:08.974)
I’m gonna throw a bit of a curveball here.
I’m not sure if this is a good one or a bad one. Most people would probably say this is a bad one. I’m a huge James Bond fan. And as everyone knows, the best James Bond was Roger Moore.
All right, I can hear. I just said you’ve said that in a back signal. Yeah, but I’m just saying that’s set a back signal out to desert Ireland to come and debate you virtually again.
Mm-mm.
Speaker 3 (05:46.318)
Thanks.
As we can debate this till the cows come home, there’s a simple fact here that, know, Des is wrong. James Bond for me is forever Roger Moore. And it’s almost like the NAFTA, the James Bond film, the more I love it. Most people when they go, the best James Bond opening, it’ll be the spy who loves me, you know, where he skis off the…
He skis off the cliff and the parachute opens. I’m actually not going with that one because I think that’s like a genuinely good opening. I’m going to go with one that just is either brilliant or just complete nonsense. Those curious mixes.
Have a good one.
I think I’ve got a gut feeling what this might be.
Hereward (06:36.27)
So am I. It’s the opening to For Your Eyes Only, where James Bond is standing at… I’ve got to add a little bit of context here. I think For Your Eyes Only is a really fascinating James Bond movie. It was the one that followed up from Moonraker. So where can you go…
after you’ve sent James Bond into space, like with the absolute excesses and just pure ridiculousness of like a space laser battle and James Bond and just Hugo Drax and all that nonsense. And as they often do when they have made a really silly James Bond film, they follow it up with a much more serious one. You know, if you think about, you know, we had the absolute
Yeah.
Hereward (07:30.728)
mess that was Die Another Day which had the invisible car and and just it was just rubbish it was a i mean it was a terrible experience it was actually funnily enough one of the worst experiences it’s the worst experience i’ve ever had in this
When that was a question, the quiz last year, that severely triggered you for the whole weekend, I think.
I’m triggered. actually not going to talk about intros now. I’m just going to spend 10 minutes ranting about why Die Another Day should just be forgotten. I’ve actually been mugged in a cinema, and that was a more enjoyable experience than Die Another Day.
Right, anyway, back to topic, topic, topic, topic.
So you’ve had Moonraker, you’ve had the silliness. so they do their kind of, it’s not a hard reboot because it’s still Roger Moore. So it’s what we call a sort of soft reboot of Bond. And what they do with For Your Eyes Only is it’s much more down to earth. It’s much more serious. They’re still silly one liners and they’re still daft moments. And you still have the guy that does the double take whilst drinking his wine and stuff, which you get in all the best Roger Moore Bond films.
Hereward (08:44.334)
But it’s much more grounded thing, you know, there’s no kind of space bases or undersea bases, you know, it’s all quite straightforward, apart from the intro. And it’s almost like the intro is, I’m not sure what they’re trying to do. It’s quite curious because it’s one of the few Bond films that remembers that, of course, Bond was married to Teresa and then then widowed immediately.
on, you know, as they’re driving to their honeymoon. So it starts with him standing, standing at her grave side. And, you know, it’s Roger Moore standing by her grave side, even though it was George Lazenby that was widowed, but you just ignore that, you know, and then someone comes up and says, Mr. Bond, there’s a helicopter for you. And he goes and gets in the helicopter. And then the helicopter is taken over by Blofeld, who’s using a like
The thing is, he’s not named as Blofeld. That’s a curious thing. And his face is in… Well, actually, yeah, I’ve read a little bit of it. This was the, when the rights issue that led to Never Say Never Again. This was a, it was like what they could and couldn’t use. And there was so much dispute. And this is why the sequence actually, it was them getting rid of that to say,
So.
Cal (10:13.044)
kill it off in a way. It was kind of an uphear to whoever was suing them for the rights.
Nice. Okay. Yeah. Because then of course, never say never again, Blofeld is around in that, isn’t he? But yeah. So, so, so you have this sequence where it’s not Blofeld. They can’t name him, but it’s clearly Blofeld because he’s in a wheelchair. He’s got a neck brace on. He’s bald like Telly Savalas was and he’s got a white cat on his lap. So he’s controlling the helicopter by remote control.
And then Bond has to climb on the outside of the helicopter whilst it’s spinning around in midair and, you know, Blofeld is tormenting him. And then he takes over, he gets hold of the helicopter and kind of rips out the remote control steering device. So he takes the helicopter and then he flies and finds Blofeld in his electric wheelchair. He then is like.
Please
like this. And he’s like trying to get away with his electric wheelchair, which Bond then proceeds to use the the the skis of the helicopter, you know, at the bottom to to pierce the back of Blofeld’s chair and pick him up and then drop him down an industrial chimney. And that’s the opening of the film. And as I’m thinking about it, I’ll just I might just go now and watch for your eyes only again, actually, lads, because I love that film. And and
Hereward (11:41.23)
It’s terrible and most Bond fans will say, it’s so stupid and stuff. But there’s something, there’s something quite brilliant about it.
And if I remember right, before he drops Blofeld down this chimney stack, does Blofeld not say something like, I’ll give you shares in a factory in Sheffield? There’s something about a factory in Sheffield he shites a bond. It’s most bizarre line and no one’s ever figured out what that’s about.
gonna have to go back and watch it but yeah I mean it’s just this blow felt in a wheelchair skewered to the bottom of a helicopter that then gets to and I think there’s one point where Roger Moore puts his like puts his hand out the helicopter window and sort of pats him on the head and says keep your hair on brilliant
And it’s, saying that it’s also got the ending of that film is also something to behold, because that’s the Maggie Thatcher cameo kind of.
Yeah, and that’s it. Dennis Thatcher’s trying to eat biscuits and she’s like slapping his hand away from the biscuits in. Brilliant. Brilliant.
Cal (12:50.638)
Alright, I think that’s
And he’s not, he’s not, and yeah, and Margaret Thatcher’s not talking to Mr. Bond. She’s talking to a parrot that’s just going, right here like this.
Give us a kiss, give us a kiss. And she’s ooh, ooh. And she’s going, ooh. So yeah, yeah, a parrot seducing Maggie Thatcher is at the end.
That’s my simultaneously best and worst introduction to a movie.
All right, OK, good one. Shall we roll again and see what comes up? yeah.
Hereward (13:22.51)
Let’s do it.
16 geez. Most overrated tv show of all time. I’ll go with Hedoward to start this one off.
Lost.
Was that it?
Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s the right answer. It’s It’s one of those shows that’s just like everyone’s like, man, have you watched Lost? Have you watched Lost? Have you got to watch Lost? And I remember just being like, no, I’m not going to watch Lost because because I didn’t have the channel. What was it? Was it on Sky or something like that? I’ve never had Sky.
Cal (13:59.552)
It started off on channel. It was on channel four. Listen for a while.
Definitely started on channel 4. well I don’t have an excuse for not. I just think because everyone was like, oh, you gotta watch Lost, gotta watch Lost. I was like, no, I’m not gonna.
Yeah.
Cal (14:12.494)
It was like a really solid first season and it was kind of intriguing and then it became so obvious as it went on they don’t know how to finish this. It’s this whole mystery box nonsense that JJ Abraham waxes on about. And it’s like it’s just mystery for the sake of it, there’s no payoff to any of the mysteries.
I didn’t have anything. mean it was
Cal (14:41.58)
And it just got so frustrating. And then when you got to the end, you were like, no, just, yeah. I was like.
I watched the first season and I was just, I only watched the first season like last year or something. I only finally got around to it because I was like, okay, it’s been long enough now that people won’t irritate me by going, have you watched Lost Again? So I was like, finally, I’ll give it a shot. see what it’s like. And it was absolutely, and yeah, I totally agree with you, Callum. It was just, it was like,
Yeah, that’s absolutely rubbish.
Hereward (15:17.466)
I can see them sitting around a table just going, do you know what we could do now? There could be a monster, but we won’t show the monster. Oh yeah, great idea. Do you know what we could do now? could like have someone. Yeah. They were just like, they were probably doing what we’re doing now. They were probably just, had a load of things and they just rolled the dice and write this episode. We’re going to have a monkey in a hat.
Pool or beer?
Hereward (15:43.342)
and stuff. Yeah. Everyone’s like what’s that monkey about? And then we’ll never mention it again and yeah it was stupid and um it annoyed me and well a fun thing I like to like to do whenever I go to charity shops is look at all the box sets of Lost because no one wants to rewatch it with that terrible payoff in from what I’ve heard in the last season where yeah nothing’s really resolved or some nonsense. Well and everyone obviously was
The last episode is basically they’ve been dead the whole time and you’re thinking, well, this was a great use of my time just to find that out. They’ve all been the whole time. right. Nothing mattered.
So there we go lost I barely I’ll beat for any lost fans out there I will hold my hands up and say I barely watched any of it because it was so dreadful and you’re idiots
See, we talked about this before and I’m torn between two things here.
Game of Thrones or X-Files for me? Both kind of quite controversial. It’s just when I finally got around to watching Game of Thrones after hearing everyone talk and I thought, okay, I like this, but it’s not this and it’s good, but it’s not this exceptional thing that I thought it was gonna be that was gonna blow my mind. It’s a good, solid fantasy. That’s all I could say about it. Maybe because I’m not a big.
Cal (17:13.25)
See, this is me, myself and Hedda were definitely separate. I’m definitely more a sci-fi guy. I mean, I just thought, see if this is good, this good acting, all that really good, just not, just could not live up to that hype for me. And then X-Files was exactly the same. That should have been home tough for me. I should have lapped that up. And again, I go around the first two seasons, this is pretty good. And then it just, what on earth? It got up its own behind, basically.
They were really got a bit self absorbed at times. Yeah.
How long more did you watch it after the fight?
I watched one, the thing was I watched one episode at the time and apparently when I looked it up it said it’s actually gonna be one of the watched episodes and then maybe that’s why it put me off. It’s an episode where they in the first season where they all age, they get quite old. And I’ve heard that’s actually meant to be, it’s not a well liked episode at all. But that was the first episode I saw and I said, this is it, my goodness.
Yeah.
Hereward (18:18.286)
There was a little period there. Why don’t you go ahead? I agree with Callum after season one and two. The X-Files, when they started having a kind of consistent plot that followed on episode after episode, and if you missed an episode, you didn’t have a clue where you were, it really took a nosedive then. But the first two seasons of X-Files, particularly…
the first season and things like Squeeze and Tombs and Fire. And in the second season, was it Fluke? Where there was like this giant humanoid fluke worm living in sewers and stuff. Episodes like that, I just think, you know, they’ve aged badly, but they were just cracking television at the
I won’t hear a bad word said about the first season of the X-Files. It’s clunky in places and it’s clearly far smaller budgets than TV shows get now. But it was at the time, I remember just being so blown away by it.
Yeah and it’s also, it wins the award for the only TV show where this happened well. It’s the X-Files finale and they said what it’s still going. Like everyone thought that it like did anyone make it past the third or fourth season? It just it was so huge in the mid-90s those first two’s everyone and then nobody talked about it and it kept going for eight years after that somehow. Sorry Graeme.
to me.
Hereward (19:56.61)
No, was just going at one point it was sort of essential view, because it was the only thing that was on Leica at that time. I remember as well, around about the time they tried to bring back the outer limits, they tried to bring back Twilight Zone, and none of them quite hit the same way that the X-Files was at that point.
tell you one thing and it was Chris Carton made it, Millennium. That was way better than X-Files because Lance Henderson, what can you say, Lance Henderson is is goat basically. I’ll have to say that.
Millennium was amazing.
Hereward (20:29.218)
And it was another show that was hit the whole, was that Channel 4 as well or was that BBC 2? I think it was 4.
It was four or two you went for your sci-fi in the 90s. Yeah.
And I’m sure that Millennium was one of the ones that got shunted about all over the schedule. They skipped so many episodes that when you actually go back and watch it 20, 25, 30 years later, there’s huge chunks of it you don’t remember because genuinely I never saw so many episodes. It’s like watching something new all over again.
Yeah.
Cal (20:57.09)
Yeah.
Cal (21:02.946)
Yeah. Even though this is a bit overrated, that is probably a criminally underrated show millennium and it doesn’t get enough mentions, I think.
are you a-
Let’s just jump in about Game of Thrones though.
I am.
I decided not to go there. I decided not to go there too much because I know probably when the comments arrive they’ll explode at me for if I started really crashing it because everyone will say well season eight but I’ve not made it to season eight yet.
Hereward (21:39.834)
you see, if you think season eight is dreadful, I am kind of with you on Game of Thrones. I remember watching it. And again, it was one of those things. It was on Sky. don’t have Sky. So everyone’s like, Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones. No, I’m not watching it. And when we finally did get around to watching it, was like, it’s all right. know, but it one thing about Game of Thrones, we’ve got to we’ve got to
got to talk about is the sex position. think the, think I actually suspect that the writing table was entirely like 14 year old boys who were just like absurdly horny. And they’re like, yeah, so we have to push the plot on here and explain it, but can we do it whilst like a woman’s got her boobs out? There are literally sequences in.
Not just like, it’s not like once or twice. It’s some of the seasons. It’s like virtually every episode. And there was one bit I thought that was particularly egregious. That just, I remember just thinking, this is awful. How do people not see how kind of crass and naff this is? And it was where Littlefinger, who admittedly owns a brothel, but he’s this chack called Littlefinger.
And he’s literally talking about his incredibly complicated plan to undermine people and get that, know, alliances and break alliances and forge new alliances. he’s literally talking about this, but the rises are like, well, people won’t pay attention to this. They just don’t want too much talking. So in the background, there’s two women noshing each other off. it’s just like, come on.
It is so puerile and so distracting for one, but also just like it just it’s unnecessary. And, you know, I think the problem with fantasy cinema is it’s always got sort of stuck on kind of, you know, sculpted bodies like Arnie and loincloths and heevy bosoms, know, Red Sonja in her little skimpy array and stuff and, you know, and
Hereward (24:02.164)
Fantasy can be so much better than that and then there’s Game of Thrones which really has the potential to be You know serious adult, you know, but adult doesn’t just mean having people with the boobs out every five minutes. It’s yeah It was it and that that part of Game of Thrones really annoyed me and I recently tried to rewatch the whole season I made it about five episodes in I was like I can’t be bothered with this I’m not 14 years old anymore
Peace.
Hereward (24:30.862)
This stuff, I don’t find it tis- I don’t find it tis-ilating, I just find it annoying.
What?
When we gave my throne was actually took about three or four tries to get into the first instance because. Three certainly first two episodes, maybe first three episodes. You’re just hit with this absolute deluge of characters who you expected to know exactly who they like. They all look a little bit too alike at times. I mean, genuinely, I think it was embarrassingly far into before I worked out who was Robb Stark and who was John Snow.
Yes.
Cal (24:59.32)
Yeah.
Hereward (25:10.892)
But it was like at times they were trying to do too much in an episode. And to introduce too much.
Yeah.
Yeah, you’re just getting hit with so much information all the time.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it kind of put me off things like the couple of Amazon series, you know, the
Cal (25:32.43)
dragon one yeah what’s it called yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yes.
Hereward (25:39.084)
Yeah. Which again, you can think of it as if there’s a big George RR Martin writing component in it, then it could be worthwhile. But at the same time, can I be bothered? I just want something silly to watch when I go home from work now.
Yeah.
Cal (25:54.382)
Yeah, you need a bit of an escape. Right, so shall we roll again?
Graham didn’t get to do one. That’s because the one that Graham immediately thought of was lost.
Alright, yeah, there’s agreement there. Alright. Jeez, this dice is going high all the time.
Look at that.
That’s what you’re saying about digital dice. You don’t like them. You’re really not liking this stuff. they’re top five fictional vehicles. I think we should, all right, I will write. Right, okay. Let me think about this picture. Top five fictional vehicles. Well, Ecto-1. Yeah, that’s a good one. Ghostbusters vehicle. What more? don’t know. There’s not more you can say.
Hereward (26:39.861)
Act two one.
Cal (26:47.774)
could say about DECTA 1 unless, Hedda, where do you got any comments about all DECTA 1?
Hereward (26:56.974)
It’s in Ghostbusters.
Yes, I am going to go for a spaceship here. I am going to go Star Trek fan the USS Defiant for me. That is the best one to start. That’s Deep Space Nine. It’s what I love about this ship, what makes the ship great is so, Herod, you’ll be aware of Star Trek’s piece of exploration. So all the
vessels were designed around us. They’re basically for flying around, making peaceful contact with other races, you know, peace and love vibes. This ship was designed by Cisco because the Borg blew up his wife. So he went away to the shipyards and spent years just designing a ship so he could go and kill and take revenge on the Borg. That is all this ship is.
It’s just like a whole set of guns strapped to an engine that can barely hold together and it’s just so he can satisfy his bloodlust. And there’s just something wonderful that that exists in the Star Trek universe. This ship is just… This is just me being really pissed off. That’s the only reason the Defiant exists. It’s an uncomfortable ship, but it’s all just designed for Ben Sisko to go and kick some ass. Which just… That’s Sisko doing. If you ever watch Deep Space Nine, you’ll understand.
that is Cisco all round. Because you have the card, the peace loving diplomat and then you’ve got Cisco who likes to shout and punch people on a regular basis.
Hereward (28:37.118)
I’m going to confess I don’t watch Star Trek. I’m not particularly aware of anything in Deep Space Nine. So when you said it was designed by Cisco, I thought you meant the bloke that wrote the thong song.
No, this is Benjamin Sisko and his whole character. It was like I say, because this came right after we had Picard. you know who Picard is, Edward? You know what his character’s like,
Yeah, he didn’t write the thong song.
No, yeah, well that’s one of his many achievements. But no, he was the well-spoken diplomat who carefully thought out, negotiated, he delivered, you know, well-mannered speeches. Whereas Cisco, he just literally does. He gets angry, he shouts at people, and he likes to punch people a hell of a lot. In fact, there is one scene, and Graham, you remember, it’s that the episode Trouble with Tribbles. And Dax says to…
Yeah, and that’s where they travel back to the original enterprise and what Dax says to him, wouldn’t you like to meet Kirk? All the things he did, the peace treaty and then, yeah, yeah, I’d like to know what it was like to fight the gorn. So basically, it’s this because I want to know what it felt like to punch a giant lizard man. That’s really what’s Kirk’s greatest achievement.
Hereward (29:57.432)
Genuinely, think if you have to watch one Star Trek, should be Deep Space Nine.
Yeah, and my the caveat will be it might take a few attempts for you to fully appreciate I didn’t like it the first time I watched it as a teenager Because it wasn’t TNG but then the years have gone by you just realized there’s some It is some of the best tv ever written not just star trek and herward I do mean that there is some incredible stuff in deep space nine And some of the their best episodes there’s no action in them
just pure dialogue driven stuff. I can never recommend people who don’t like Star Tech, just go for Deep Space Nine and just give it a chance. Just be patient with it. And you’re rewarded so richly by it.
Cal (30:47.886)
So, uh… What? You’ve got a what? A ship. I thought you said something else. Some other S.H.I. word.
watching my language tonight. Even though we’ve been talking about some things that really boil my blood, I’ve been very good. No, got a ship.
It’s the Gunstar from The Last Starfighter.
All right.
I think the design of it is really really cool but I also think the just seeing it move around on screen for those that are aware the last Starfighter was one of the first films other than Tron but let’s face it I think the effects in the last Starfighter are better than that Tron and certainly the you know you watch it now and you’re like
Hereward (31:49.578)
looks terrible but at the time it was jaw-dropping the effects it was the first kind of computer graphics spaceship flying around and stuff and yeah it looks awesome it looks like a kind of classic video game spaceship and then it’s got that bit where they do death blossom which let’s face it is the greatest secret weapon ever and it spins around and shoots everything
And yeah, it’s awesome. So there we are, the Gunstar.
So, all right, we’ve got two more ships or vehicles. Here’s one I’m going to throw out. I’m going to throw this one out. see, Hedwig, I think you might just know this off the bat, Eagle Five.
Cal (32:39.775)
that’s got some, you know, Eagle-Five.
Speaker 3 (32:45.998)
Stata Stata Stata
No. Spaceballs. Spaceballs. It’s Lone Star ship which is just a camper van with wings like…
No.
Speaker 3 (32:57.934)
Of course!
No,
Eagle 5? Of course, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, what are just the introduction? Yeah, carry on.
It’s a great bit where Eagle 5 does a handbrake turn in space. always loved that. yeah, of course. Yeah. But let’s face it, Spaceball 1 goes ludicrous speed. It’s got an onboard petting zoo as well, which I think most spaceships are lacking these days.
Cal (33:36.334)
Yes, they go to.
Cal (33:43.438)
Yep, definitely and it goes to plaid as well
That’s ludicrous speed. Graham, name one, come on. Name one, I want to throw out some love for Red Dwarf.
yeah. Just Red Wharf itself.
Red Dwarf in general, but the ship itself as well.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:04.942)
it to work.
You know, the time… Starbug or the dwarf itself? I’m talking the dwarf itself.
That’s it, maybe.
Yeah.
just purely because again, that, sort of time period watched it. It was all a little bit shonky, you know? but at the same time you watched it. And even when, when Starbucks came in, and everything that was happening, you just thought this looks amazing. know, even though, know, you know, objectively, does not look amazing. Yeah. There was just something absolutely brilliant and mind blown about it.
Cal (34:26.146)
Yeah.
Cal (34:47.694)
Because you’ve got to be… Yeah, and it was made on a very BBC budget for the time. Yeah. And yet they somehow make that ship seem so vast in the outside shots. If you go and watch… what’s it called? It’s called outside the making of season one. But they talk about how they filmed that ship and they extended it. And it’s so ingenious. Like, I love hearing the stories of how they do things on models. And it’s just like a lost art now that.
Yeah, I mean that’s the sort of thing that I enjoy. A bit like your own love for things like Hawk the Slayer, word.
where someone else might say that it maybe doesn’t look the best. But you know from just watching it that it’s up there with the greatest pieces of media that have ever been produced.
You know, Graham, as you’ve been talking about the dwarf, I’m just like, I’m back in my bedroom at like 11, 12 years old watching it on my little boxy TV. you know, I prefer it when the effects were miniatures, when they went through, do you remember when they transferred it to kind of 3D graphics and it looked better, but it didn’t at the same time, there was something.
Hereward (36:14.648)
There was something really endearing about the kind of miniatures that they used. I tell you what we were able to do, because we cared about the characters, because we laughed with them. We grew so close to them. You think about like Rimmer and Lister and Cat and Crichton and like…
We
Hereward (36:32.746)
like I think most people that watch red dwarf like that were fans of red dwarf genuinely love those characters so yeah and when you’ve got when you’ve got characters that you love you can forgive all the sins of like the fact that the sets were born absolutely
Cal (36:49.368)
Yeah, like glorious. The glorious series, yeah. Which kind of came back quite strongly, not as good the kind of the last three seasons, but they were like a bit of a return to form in a way, not the high form, but after that awful episode where they returned to earth and there was something involving them going to Coronation Street, that was pretty, yeah, I did not like that, but they managed to recover from that. yeah, right. And it’s coming back next year again. They’re doing another special I heard.
I’ll be.
Yeah, it’d be a nice… Because it is one of those shows like, like Dave Lister as he gets older can become a more comedic character. You know, the older he gets a bit more pathetic and all. The more pathetic you make Lister, the more comedy you can get out of him. So it does work that way. It’s not like other shows where they have, like they’ve moved on, like him trying to do action stuff now at his age. That’s kind of perfect comedic material for Lister.
going.
Speaker 3 (37:50.04)
Mm-hmm.
All right, so that’s five interesting vehicles. No X-Wings, no Millennium Falcon, no Enterprise. I was quite surprised by that. So shall we roll again, gents?
Let’s do it again. I’m going to bow out just now. All right. We’ll pick up a child.
Okay, this dice is weird.
We’ve had 17 before. Roll again.
Hereward (38:20.27)
No
This is the only time they-
Because because Rhiannon suggested this topic and no one knows what she was talking about. So this is actually the SJMAS conspiracies.
Yeah, I have to go fuck up my child now.
Yeah, that’s a good response though. Oh, there we go. Number three, number three. Oh, head of words. Oh, head of words. I’m just going to walk away now and let you gush endlessly about this topic. So the topic is nice and simple here. Basic fantasy, the floor is yours.
Hereward (38:45.47)
See you in a bit.
Hereward (39:09.106)
I’m going to start with a proviso that I didn’t actually throw this one in. was Kieran, wasn’t it? Kieran said, let’s talk about basic fantasy. So thank you, Kieran, for getting to my favourite topic in the entire world. For those that don’t know, basic fantasy is a role playing game system created by Chris Gonneman, who we’ve had on the show twice.
once i interviewed him once but then he he did your stream didn’t he we had him dm
He is the first ever guest to have appeared on OKCAST before OKCAST ever existed. You can know the timeline of the show.
and yeah, gone.
and so he wanted to create a role playing game that was based on old D and D. I’m so ill informed and ill prepared for this, funnily enough. But he wanted to create something that was based on old D and D that was simple and straightforward. And this was at the time when the OGL, the Open Gaming License was around. So he went and did it. He went and
Hereward (40:27.41)
use something that largely made use of old D &D, but dropped the unnecessary stuff. Added all the flab and added some really nice stuff that’s emerged. It’s like ascending armor class rather than descending armor class.
Yeah, hold up, fly.
Hereward (40:49.496)
and it’s a it’s DND in all but name.
Hereward (40:58.498)
but it’s D &D stripped of the flab. And the flab has been there in all honesty since the 90s, since AD &D in my opinion. mean, AD &D was the 70s. So, I mean, it does away with so much that you think, how can the game run without that? So there’s no skills, no skills trees or anything like that. There’s no…
there’s no alignment. There’s, you know, there’s, far more limited, character classes. So the thing that differs from old D and D is that, race and, and class are separate in old D and D. You know, if you were a dwarf, that was your class. You were a dwarf. You were, you could be a dwarf and L for half length and they were your classes. So what he did was he took the
AD and D thing where race and class were separate and he’s kept that. But he’s limited the number of classes in the basic standard basic fantasy. You’ve only got fighter, cleric, magic, user, thief.
Yeah.
Cal (42:13.486)
And saying that, the other thing I’ve got to point out is because I’ve run some D &D sessions over the summer in our open days. And they always ask me, because like, where can I get this? And I say, geez, you’ve got to fork out for a rule book, dice. The other thing, basic fantasy is like the hardcover rule book, it’s only about nine or 10 pounds. You get this lovely hardcover and get a few cheap sets of dice and it’s so, there you go, you’re ready to go.
for a fraction of the price.
Callum, it’s more than that. mean, the thing that really turns me on to basic fantasy is this actually open source and it’s free. mean, you can go to the basic fantasy website, basic fantasy.org and you can go to the download section and you can download anything.
from there for free. So you can download a role playing game. can download campaign settings. You can download monster compendiums and stuff. You can get anything there for free. And it’s always been done with that in mind. And what I find particularly lovely about basic fantasy is the community. They are just people that just love gaming.
and love D &D, but don’t love the kind of corporate monster that let’s face it, D &D has, has always been. mean, people, piss and whine about Wizards of the Coast and their terrible model of business and stuff. But Wizards of the Coast bought it from TSR and TSR in the 1990s when I got into D &D were awful.
Hereward (44:04.492)
I mean, the number of splat books that were released for AD &D second edition, which meant that the rules was just this massive unwieldy, you know, you, could have so much going on in the game that it was impossible to ensure consistency and stuff. And, and it was all done for money. You know, they would just put this stuff out just for money, money, So what, what basic fantasy really is
wonderful about is it’s this nice kind of open source game that anyone can access for free. can buy the stuff, but Gonneman himself doesn’t make a penny from it. He, you literally buying it as print cost.
Yeah, like what I said about the hardback version is he’s not selling that at profit. It’s just so people can have a nice hardback version and he doesn’t get a single penny. But that’s I just like, oh, a nice hardback rule set just for the action of the cost.
What a game, honestly. It’s how I got back into role playing. I was contacted by during lockdown, the second lockdown, think, five and a half years ago, maybe more. I was contacted by a friend of mine. said, have you ever played D &D? I fancy giving it a go, you know. And I said, yeah, sure, let’s do it. And then I started looking because I’ve…
Yes.
Hereward (45:36.098)
you know, moved around a lot and lost all my old or sold all my old D and D books. And it was all a D and D second edition when I was, when I was a, yeah, a wee lad. So I was like, I don’t have the rule books anymore. And then I was looking at fifth edition. was like, man, it would be like a, you know, each book was 40, 120 quid just for me to have the stuff to run a game. And then you play, I would have to buy the players handbook. That’s another 40 quid each.
And I remember just thinking, this is crazy. And I’d heard of basic fantasy. You know, I’d not been a player, but I’d always been interested and kept interested in what D &D was doing. So I just recommended, let’s try this system. You know, it’s cheap. It’s well, it’s just not even cheap. It’s free. And started using it five and a half years later. Yep. Same campaign.
I’m still
Yep, you’re kind of known on our start because that’s the BF evangelists.
It is beautiful. if it doesn’t have enough complexity, there’s lots of stuff that people can, you can just download extra stuff. So, if you want to have ranges, you can download a supplement that allows you to have ranges. If you want to have a Paladin, you can do that. I’m running a session in a couple of weeks time and.
Hereward (46:59.886)
Graham there and Scarlett, they want to be gnomes. Well, why not? Go on, you can be gnomes. So we’ve downloaded the gnome supplement and off they go with it. yeah, it is utterly joyous.
And that’s another thing, and I do remember, see, and I can’t remember the link, but there is a site now that will translate your DND 5E characters into BF characters. I have seen a website where you can take, and it’ll just, and there you go. If you don’t wanna lose your 5E characters, there’s a way you can get into BF quite easily.
Yeah, I actually think, you generally when I start to talk to people and I always say, play D &D because as I said, it is D &D and actually it’s so I play a lot of old D &D modules using the basic fantasy rules because it’s no difficulty at all to convert. one thing I will say before we change topic, the thing that struck me most
was during the OGL crisis of last year. Time slips by me so fast. when Wizards of the Coast decided they were going to revoke the open gaming license, was it two years ago?
was two years. think it’s two years. Yeah.
Hereward (48:23.296)
Crikey. Yeah, was. They were going to revoke the open gaming license. But it might be three years ago. Who knows? Anyhow, when they made that decision, they were going to revoke the open gaming license and replace it with something else. And people thought, hang on a second, everything that’s been made using the open gaming license will then not be legit. There was a time when people thought that. So Gonneman’s kind of rallied the community of basic fantasy. And he said, look, we’ve got to we’ve got to put a fourth edition out and we’ve got to put it.
using what’s it called?
Creative Commons. So Creative Commons, no one can revoke that. So literally in the space of a couple of months, they rewrote the rule book. They took the third edition of basic fantasy, which was great, but it was based on the open gaming license. And they just made sure that there was not a single word in the open gaming license so that they could keep putting it out there.
Yes.
Hereward (49:28.278)
And it ended up being Wizards never revoke the open gaming license. But now people feel the OGL is potentially on shaky ground because Wizards could do this if they wanted to. So it being in Creative Commons, think Gonneman has said, this is probably the last edition of it. This is it. This is what we’ve got. I’m not going to hold my breath, but yeah, it is watching the community come together like that.
Alright.
Hereward (49:57.144)
doing something so fast to protect something that they love and something that they know is a great tool for other people. It was utterly amazing to watch.
And add into it, Chris himself is an unbelievably approachable, welcoming guy. Any questions you have about it, he’s more than happy to talk to you about it. He is just the most accommodating, lovely, generous guy you could ever meet.
Yeah. And yeah, it was was a proper kind of pinch me moment when he agreed to DM and it was like, remember sitting there being like, I’ve been playing this game for five years. the guy that invented the game is DMing me. And it was like, this is quite special.
Not only that, we were his first ever outside the US group that he’d ever taken on a session. I thought, surely not. Said, the first time he’d ever done it. As you said, I think he was ready for our kind of style of humor and kind of anarchic kind of style we play these games. I could see him double taking, especially what Gonzo was up to in that game. Anyway, we won’t get too much into that stuff.
So I think we’ve got time for another
Hereward (51:17.326)
people. Let’s do one more. Let’s do one more.
Yeah, we won’t get too much into talking about gonzo here. Twelve, twelve. your biggest geek guilty pleasure.
Well that’s easy.
Talk to you later.
Go on Callum.
Cal (51:36.398)
Oh, there’s so much here. I’m trying to think. I don’t know if it’s a guilty pleasure. I was going to say my collection of science fiction short story anthology magazines, but that’s not really a guilty pleasure because that’s actually there’s good stuff there. Oh, man, I’m struggling with this. Something that I should feel that’s a guilty pleasure.
I am struggling to think of anything that I like that’s a guilty pleasure, really. I I enjoy bad movies and all that. ooh. Is that a science fiction, terrible film that I… Yeah. All right. I’ll have to hand this over to you when I think about this.
Hereward (52:25.39)
Yeah, sorry, I was belching off mic.
you
Lovely.
It’s a difficult one. Because you know what, I don’t think we should be guilty of something that gives us pleasure. I’m gonna be really, I’m gonna be like Jordan Peterson here. What do mean by girl? What do you mean by pleasure? Do you know what, I could say Hawke the Slayer, but actually I don’t feel guilty for liking Hawke the Slayer. Hawke the Slayer is so…
lovely in what they were trying to do. And I don’t want to kind of put it down in any way by saying I feel guilty doing it. I’ll tell you something that I don’t feel particularly guilty about at the moment. But I know it’s probably not the greatest thing in the world.
Hereward (53:26.926)
I was at tech mobile. We’ll do a little plug for Louie here, the great tech mobile in Stornoway. And I was chatting away to Louie and then I spy on the shelf behind him. He had some NES games that had been traded in found in a house clearance or something. And this kid had brought him into, know, see what he could get for them. And I was like, Oh, Louie show me those NES games. What you got there? And one of them was McDonald land.
You ever played McDonaldland on the NES?
No, no, nope, nope.
In the States is known as mckids. And it’s, it’s surprisingly good. And I bought it I like retro games, I don’t have a huge collection for the NES, but I thought I’ve heard McDonald land is good. So I bought it. So the plot is that you play either Mick
Hereward (54:31.822)
who’s this white kid or Mac who’s this black kid with a proper, what’s the kind of 90s haircut, know, kid and play had them, you know, the, do you remember kid and play the rappers? There’s a term for it.
Is it the Edward Farlong haircut from T2?
No, no, no. it’s it’s kind of like a height. Is it high something anyhow? He’s got this big hair and, interestingly, it’s one of the first video games where you can choose to play a character of a different ethnicity other than white, which I think is quite interesting. so they play exactly the same. There’s just the change of sprite and it’s a platform game.
And you have to go in. Ronald McDonald has had his magic bag stolen by the Hamburglar and you have to go in, go and find different McDonald cards in a very generic kind of platform game in order to progress to the next world.
This sounds like another film that was a shameless McDonald’s plug Mack and me turned into a game.
Hereward (55:55.168)
Yeah, well, do you know what? It is a shameless McDonald’s game and you know, you’ve got Grimace, you’ve got the Hamburglar and Birdie. People always forget about Birdie. I’m stuck on the second world at the moment, which is Birdie’s Treehouse. But do know what? It’s really good. It is not up there with Super Mario Brothers 3, which is probably the greatest game on the system and one of the greatest platform games of all time.
But you know what? It’s damn close. It is for a horrible corporate tie in. McDonaldland or mckids is surprisingly good. So the next time you’re doing your 24 hour stream, I’m going to say, I want to see you playing McDonaldland on the NES. All right. See how far you get with it. There’s something about it. The first time you play it, you’ll be like, ah, this is terrible.
And only that, yeah, and only that you’re probably going to request a plate after one o’clock in the morning to see me lose my mind, is it?
Yeah, but it is good. There’s some GANY level design. There’s some really interesting stuff, you know, where you end up walking upside down on things and you can flip gravity. And of course there’s your ice level, but with the ice level, you have extra stuff where you have to throw snowballs at things to get them out the way. And you slipping as a kind of mechanism to help you get further when you’re jumping and stuff.
It is actually a really good little platform. So I don’t again, I don’t feel guilty playing it, but it is one of those games where you think now some corporate tie in like that’s going to be terrible. No, check it out. If you’re a retro gamer, check out McDonald land on the NES. It’s it’s good.
Cal (57:49.004)
I have had time to think now. We’re going back to this wonderful decade we keep bringing up. Like you see on many other geek podcasts, it’s always the eighties, but I think the two of us always keep bringing up the nineties. I think the nineties is really where it’s at. It’s not the eighties, it’s gotta be the nineties. So you’ll remember the launch of Channel 5, And you’ll remember it was stuffed with American TV shows that…
the other channels in our lovely country did not want. And this one I remember so distinctly and it is, you are cringe, but it’s something you’re really contour.
yeah, with Tia Leoni.
No, Tia Carrere!
Click!
Cal (58:43.004)
She is,
She was in Wayne’s World.
Yes, but she was also, how do I say this on a family? She starred in…
adult entertainment, kind of more mainstream adult entertainment before she did this. And so it’s like, yes. So, you know, if you look up this axis name, certain things will appear and you have web search and the images. Yes.
I want that on my search engine, thank you very much.
Cal (59:16.078)
You don’t really count it in there. what’s wrong with you, Really count it.
Relic Hunter’s great.
Yeah it is. It’s like got the cheesiest music as well that that which will stay in your head for days when you hear that theme music and it is basically woman was this before now was this before Tomb Raider if it is it’s quite interesting because this could have been the pre-Tomb Raider Tomb Raider it was after Tomb Raider wasn’t it?
Hang on. Let me have it. I’m going to Google it. You keep talking.
Yeah, 1999, there’s only three seasons of this and this is pure comfort. Switch your brain off. I just want to watch something silly and it does the job fantastically.
Hereward (59:59.246)
Sydney Fox, that was her name. Sydney Fox. Brilliant.
And it is, it’s just woman Indiana Jones. And you can tell this was a terrible script that maybe the creator had. And I can get to Carrere, that well-known actress of that variety of films. That’ll get it made. That’s sort of my theory as to how this show ever got made.
You know, I don’t think she was in adult movies.
I’m pretty sure not the, it was the more, the late night channel five kind of adult movies I’m talking about. Not the hard stuff.
think you’re doing her wrong here. No, come on. She was in True Lies. She was in Rising Sun. She was in Kull the Conqueror with Kevin Sorbo.
Cal (01:00:48.302)
Here we go.
Hereward (01:01:01.72)
She was the voice of Nanny in Lilo and Stitch. Who knew? Yeah.
EEEEK
No, well, no, she did. She did do softcore. Again, we’re trying to keep this clean, but no, she did. So an interesting career this lady’s had. She’s kind of, she’s versatile, if nothing else, showing like the range of things. But yeah, we’ll get back to Relicant. know, gotta get off the subject of the other films she’s been on. yeah, it’s, there’s a bit of a hint of Buffy to it as well, I would say.
That’s her assistance, like a foppish kind of posh English guy. Again, quite Giles-esque. But yeah, it’s just every week. Goes on a silly adventure, kicks some cheesy stunts and all that. And it’s just like, I remember it was on on Saturday nights and I was just like, what better way, sitting here with a beer, could spend my Saturday night just watching the cheesiest of cheesy American shows.
And I remember even more specifically, it was on after one of my favorite cheesy, but just not guilty pleasure, but martial law. Do you remember that one?
Hereward (01:02:20.718)
Of course with some
and Arsenio Hall, I mean that was pure class that show and I was mocked so heavily at the time for watching it but I said what more do you want out of Saturday evening TV than this but it’s just a bit of Jackie Chan-esque action every week it was just yeah like Channel 5 got a lot of stick at the time but it did scratch and it’s just you just wanted some fun Channel 5 was the place to go back then
You know, I think we’re touching on that point I made, you know, we shouldn’t be ashamed of things that give us pleasure. mean, obviously, if you’re watching, you know, if you’re getting pleasure from watching something like Human Centipede 2, then you should be. That’s degenerate filth. But like, if you’re watching something relatively innocuous and harmless and nerdy, whether it be old.
Yes.
Hereward (01:03:14.83)
You know, old episodes of Relic Hunter or playing old video games that are endorsed by corporate monsters and stuff. I don’t think we need to feel guilt about these things. I think it’s quite important that, you know, we… The world’s a pretty grim place at the moment and we take our pleasures where we can find them. And it’s… I think these things are harmless and nice.
and we should embrace them and celebrate them. Yep. yeah.
I was just going to say sticking on channel five, the shows they have, they have what I think the most criminally underrated sci-fi series ever. That only lasted two seasons, never got picked up again. And James Cameron was heavily involved in this. I think you might know what I’m going to say. Dark Angel. That is such a crime that would never lasted more for longer. That was so good. And that was Jessica Alba’s first major role as well.
Such a good series that so many neat sci-fi ideas and it was just treated so… America, what is it with you and just canceling shows at the blink of a hat? At the drop of a hat even, or the blink of an eye. So yeah, I don’t know what it is. There’s been so many times on Netflix I’ve watched the shows that that’s really good. Second season, oh, it’s not happening. Wow. They don’t give it a chance. It’s frustrating.
like this one again another recommend we’re going to roll to 1899 on netflix watch that and like you’ll be thinking how did this not get a second season it was fantastic mind-bending stuff and had an ending that just flipped everything on its head i can’t describe too much because i might give stuff away but look at up 1899 on netflix
Cal (01:05:11.98)
There we go, that’s been a-
Should we do one more Callum? Terrible. I’ve been sinking beer whilst we’ve been talking so I’ve got to go run to the toilet. So do you want to roll one? Right. And keep talking and I’ll be back in a second.
Yep, I know.
Cal (01:05:28.918)
Right Al, and we’ll have a nice break too.
Cal (01:05:41.954)
we Edit, we’ll edit this bit out. AI editor, are you, this is gonna be the AI that edits this out. So AI, please, this bit here, get rid of it. Yeah? The AI, the AI, yeah. You get rid of this AI, you better do. I’m watching you.
Cal (01:06:10.626)
Da da da da da.
Hereward (01:07:18.83)
Apologies for that.
No, I’ve just been I’ve actually just been looking up to your careerist uh resume she’s got a lot of geek cred this woman I never realized this television air wolf a team MacGyver Friday the 13th series quantum leap tales from the crypt wow Hercules finished relic hunter Johnny Bravo I think that’s some pretty solid geek cred she’s got in there
Yep.
Anyway, we did just back to the dice roll. Seven. That’s quite an interesting one. Comics that are not Marvel or DC.
Cal (01:08:04.224)
some good stuff here now i’m gonna go with one this is probably a very heavy one to go with mouse do know this one
Why have we got to go with mouse?
Come on. It is a speedy do-
We were doing so well.
Cal (01:08:33.182)
There is some elements that are not that great, but most of essentially it’s the tale of, it’s basically an allegory for what happens in the Holocaust and they’re played by, and the role of the prisoners, the Jews in the camps is, there are mice in this comic and the Nazis are cats. The one problematic element is the
There is portrayals of the Polish people as pigs, which is, that’s questionable, very questionable what they did there. But the rest of it, it is widely regarded as a fantastic bit of literature. I don’t think there’s much more I can say about it. won multiple awards. I think it’s taught in some schools as well. And it just goes to show you, if you think comics are kid stuff, there’s a good place to start. It’s a good, it’s a very important one to look at as well.
I do think there’s much more you can say about mouse.
say one bit I think the father-son relationship because it has a framing device where the son is writing a comic book about his father who would who went through the Holocaust and was in the concentration camp and there’s there’s really beautiful touching stuff and also some really subtle observational stuff like the dad
bit that always sticks with me is the dad being a hoarder and like keeping just like drawers full of useless things broken and spindles and bits of string and stuff like this. Because when he was in the concentration camp, you never knew when these things might come in handy. And it’s a pattern of behavior that follows on through the rest of his life. And it’s little little observational details like that. Yeah.
Hereward (01:10:34.062)
And I think it’s all based on Art Spiegelman, the artist and writer. It’s based on his own father. so I think the whole thing is, it’s so incredibly powerful.
Someone.
Cal (01:10:47.404)
Yeah it is. Just that we asked to discover how the poles are portrayed in it, which is a bit problematic, but other than that very solid. But then most media there’s some elements you’ve got to look over somehow. So over to you for a comic that’s not Marvel or DC.
Hereward (01:11:07.416)
first one that sprang to mind is 2000 AD. For those who don’t know, AD is Britain’s greatest comic, and I’m including Viz in that. As much as I love Viz, 2000 AD is just amazing. Yeah. But I’m not gonna talk about 2000 AD, I’m gonna be annoying. I’m gonna talk about a relatively little known comic that…
Long and so many careers, yeah.
Hereward (01:11:36.77)
has made me laugh harder and more often than any other. it’s, I think there was only two series of it done. I’m gonna have to check whilst I’m talking here, but it’s called Adventures in the Rifle Brigade. It’s written by Garth Ennis, who of course wrote Preacher.
And it’s drawn by Carlos Esquerra, who of course drew Judge Dredd. There was a sequel called Adventures in the Rifle Brigade Operation Bollock. That’s what it’s called. Adventures, it was published by Vertigo Comics, who of course do adult adult comics. Adventures in the Rifle Brigade is singularly one of the funniest comic books I’ve ever read. It’s.
It’s about a kind of Dirty Dozen style, except there’s not a dozen of them. A Dirty Dozen style troop of soldiers who undertake the missions that are too dangerous for anyone else to do. So they’re led by Captain Darcy, who’s really the only one that has substantial dialogue. He’s this square jawed, mustachioed chap who’s just totally heroic.
but also like to the point of just being completely absurd. Like, you know, they’re about to jump into, you know, out of an airplane and someone says, have you got the map? And he’s just like maps are for girls and then jumps out, you know, he’s completely awful. And then, and then the other characters in it are, there’s a guy, I’m just reading Cecil Milk, who is, he’s just, he’s like Walter the Softie from Beano.
and just like completely pathetic, but prone to like getting injured and going through this kind of sequence of, I’m dying, I’m dying, know, Captain, hold me and stuff like this. And it’s terrible. There’s Sergeant Crumb, who’s quote, allegedly the largest man in the British armed forces, a man so frightening his parents emigrated upon his birth and who was institutionalized at the age of one.
Hereward (01:13:58.784)
and later eight his uncle. It’s this kind of humor. So that’s Sergeant Crumb. Sergeant Crumb is from Yorkshire and all the dialogue he ever says is, hey, up. And then there’s, there’s Corporal Giza, who’s, who’s like a cockney psychopath. And he only ever says, you’re out of order.
Hank the Yank. Hank the Yank.
He’s an American who blows stuff up and he only ever says, God damn it. And then there’s the Piper. The Piper is, plug your ears, Scottish audience, the Piper is, I’m reading the Wikipedia entry here, but he’s a walking Scottish caricature. He’s very old. said to have served the Darcy family for five wars.
The Piper carries a bagpipe into battle made of human remains. he’s playing the bagpipe has the effect of invigorating members of the rifle brigade while being extremely traumatic for anyone else. So you’ve got these, I mean, it works on stereotypes. You you’ve got your Northern bloke, your softy, your American and your insane Scotsman who bears more than a passing resemblance to
one of the guys from Dad’s Army. It is one of the funniest comic books I’ve ever read. It’s of course written by Garth Ennis, which means it’s completely scatological, completely inappropriate for children. my goodness, if you like kind of coarse humour and egregious violence and just real belly laughs, yeah.
Cal (01:15:32.642)
Yeah.
Hereward (01:15:46.132)
Adventures in the Rifle Brigade. There we go.
I’m gonna throw in one more. In a way, this is the reason we’re doing this show tonight. It’s by a man called Steve Niles, who we are gonna have on the show at some point. And it’s gonna say the greatest name ever for a comic book character. In my own unbiased opinion, this. He came up with criminal macabre, the Cal MacDonald adventure. Do I need to say anything? What a genius.
genius name that is. And I discovered this and that was back in the early 2000s. Just got the internet at home and I thought what happens if I search my own name and then this came up and I bought all the books. Loved them because my other kind of pleasure is I do, I’ve got a soft spot for noir fiction and this is noir with a twist on it that Cal MacDonald and his zombie henchman
work in LA and they take on the cases of keeping back all the supernatural forces from invading LA. So werewolves, vampires, you name it, any kind of monster like that, it’s his job. He takes on these cases and he’s also, he’s a drug addict, he’s hooked on painkillers and alcohol, so he’s out of his box all the time. And the art by Ben Templesmith, it’s got that
amazing haze so you’re in this kind of narcotic induced haze with Cal in it. So yeah, so yeah probably so yeah what I what I gotta say again is your genius naming. You cannot come up with a better name for a character than that. Just pure narcissism that I love. It’s bizarre that the guy the guy created is a a pill popping psychopath basically.
Cal (01:17:44.482)
Not, I’m not saying anything about myself there at all. I’ll give you some, I’ll just go to quick fire, some notable mentions. They called us the enemy. That’s well worth the reads. Very moving story. I don’t know if you know that one. They called us the enemy.
No, no, not familiar with I might have to check it out.
George Takei from Star Trek, he was imprisoned because he’s a Japanese American in the Second World War. He was put into a, they had a weird name for them. It definitely wasn’t a labor camp of any kind. It was a fun, happy camp they put all these Japanese American citizens into for no reason other than they happened to be Japanese Americans. And that’s about his experience. And it’s called, they called us the enemy. Very exceptionally moving book.
Walking Dead, even though the TV show I think has diluted the appeal of the comic,
The things are amazing,
Cal (01:18:44.174)
and they are very dark. They’re way dark. It goes to places the TV show just could not. Personal favorite, I know this one’s a device of Spawn. I love Spawn. I’m a sucker for Spawn. Also, the Spawn 90s film, regardless of what you say, it is one of the best soundtrack albums in existence. So there you go.
I’m gonna add another one. I’ve got still, it’s followed, I’ve traveled around with it a lot over the years, every move. So they’re all looking a bit tattie, but I still do have my six volumes of Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira. Each volume is the size of a phone book. I mean, they are huge. And I’m not talking a phone book for the Highlands and Islands, I’m talking a phone book for a…
know, or London, they’re massive, great. And I’ve got all six volumes of it. And Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira is so different to what the movie ended up being. It’s far, it goes into far more detail about civil unrest and youth crime and the impact of power and how power changes people and
Yeah, I cannot recommend it enough. So that would be one.
And with that I’ll give one kind of Japanese recommendation Battle Royale comic. Yes, screw you Hunger Games, you watered down Battle Royale. That’s all I could say. you took a good fantastic and you just watered it down to nothing. was Battle Royale. The movie’s great and the comic is even, if you want everything expanded even more, the comic is a phenomenal read.
Hereward (01:20:15.202)
Amazing.
Hereward (01:20:39.832)
Come on, Cal. We got, I think I’m getting a list. I’m enjoying this. This is good.
What did you
Cal (01:20:46.612)
You’re enjoying it, right? We’re going to have to do more shows of this. In fact, think in the future we’ll have an audience suggest topics and then we’ll roll for them. Right, let’s roll.
One more.
11. Favorite bad film. I don’t know is that any we talk about bad films so much. To narrow it down to one is very difficult.
See the problem is is again if I like it, why would I call it a bad film?
But it’s a film, you know, that’s inept, but it brings you joy. I think that’s the best way I could describe it. I’m going samurai cop. Just samurai cop. That’s the, see, for a lot of connoisseurs, when people are trying to get into bad films, the problem is some of them are very difficult. for a lot, like see Birdemic, for example, that is not a beginner’s bad film, that.
Cal (01:21:43.82)
You’ve got to have really soaked in some awful films before you can take something. Whereas Samurai Cop’s just nice and accessible, completely incompetent, utterly hilarious. just one more. It fails on every level as a film, but it succeeds in just sheer entertainment value. don’t think the plot is, yeah, like all just basically incoherent. It’s a, it’s lethal weapon done on no budget.
and no clue and no talent but yeah what more can you say and I love it.
Cal (01:22:25.304)
Where Long is
Yeah.
Yeah, you will laugh so hard watching this film. It is so just, yeah. Like I laugh harder. It’s harder than any comedy I know. It’s samurai cop that creases me up and has me on the floor. Okay, so quick one from you.
Well, it’s got to I’ve got to say it then fine. We’ll go there. I’m going to talk a bit about Hawk the Slayer for those that don’t know. Hawk the Slayer was a groundbreaking movie because it was actually a fantasy film predating Conan the Barbarian. It was Conan the Barbarian that created the real boom for sword and sorcery movies in the 1980s. But but Hawk the Slayer actually
predates it by at least a couple of years. it was actually designed to kind of cash in on the Star Wars craze, know, science fiction and science fantasy and stuff. But of course, the British studio couldn’t pull together anything like a budget to do a science fiction film. So they went, okay, let’s do a fantasy film.
Hereward (01:23:42.13)
it’s heavily inspired by the kind of Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns in the way that the fights and stuff are shot, you know, lots of closeups of people’s eyes and stuff before the action starts. I, I gotta be blunt. mean, it’s made on the micro budget. I mean, it was made for a tiny, tiny amount and realistically, you’re not gonna get
special effects, you’re not gonna get actors that are gonna be able to carry a film like that. But what I love about Hawk the Slayer is it’s all never once do they sort of start winking at the camera like, we know this is rubbish. We’re just having fun with it. know, everyone in it is so earnest and so into it. And it’s nicely written and it’s well paced and
You know, the special effects of absolutely risible. mean, it’s mostly just dry ice. It’s the special effects is mostly just dry ice and occasionally ping pong balls with reflective strips that make it look like the kind of sort of fireballs. They’re meant to be fireballs, but it looks like ping-pong bouncing around. I mean, it is, it is in that sense, dreadful. But at the same time, there’s something about it that’s just really watchable.
It’s fun. It’s really good fun and it’s got quite a good fan base and recently 2000 AD have have well they own the right rebellion that owns 2000 AD own the rights for Hawk the Slayer now so they’ve actually done Garth Ennis wrote a the sequel which was published at a comic book form and it’s really good and then another one that wasn’t penned another season
just recently that wasn’t penned by Garth Edison that also has good reviews. I’ve not managed to catch up with it yet, but it’s like it’s become part of the 2000 AD kind of family now and Hawke the Slayer is no longer a cinema character. He’s a comic book character, but yeah, for fans of fantasy cinema, know, I think everyone knows that it’s like micro budget, but there’s something about it that’s just lovely.
Hereward (01:26:09.118)
and whether it’s its kind of disco synth soundtrack, which steals quite a lot from Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, if we’re utterly honest, but that’s a great soundtrack anyhow. So yeah, I think the other thing that you have to say when talking about Hawke the Slayer is they did have one star, Jack Palance is in it. And I think Simon Pegg,
Yeah, it is.
Hereward (01:26:36.632)
described his performance as Olympic gold medal in mental. I mean, he’s just the most over the top, over the top screaming bonkers performance. It’s great fun to watch. He’s clearly enjoying playing an utterly villainous guy. And he even kind of reprises his schtick from, you know, the Western Shane with, you know, pick up the gun, except in this is pick up.
Pick up the sword, pick up the sword. So, yeah, there we go. Hawke the Slayer. Watch it.
Right and I suppose we’ll do honorable mentions. think, well, one, this is everyone, probably the room, the room, what more can you say? Tommy Wiseau, also the book of the making of that is a must read if you’re just interested in film. One for me is Who Killed Captain Alex, which I love just for the sheer passion of those guys. There’s an action film made for $200.
in a slum in Kampala, Uganda. And it’s just the passion and love for cinema. It’ll make you fall in love with cinema that I don’t care what anyone says. It’s incomprehensible. It’s but it’s just just people who are just passionate just doing something and it’s just got such an endearing kind of quality to it. And I kind of think what else?
going to name one, but it’s going to I know it’s going to angry you up, Callum. Howard the duck.
Cal (01:28:18.902)
Yeah, no, I’m good. I just-
I just find it unpleasant to watch. I just cannot get any enjoyment. I have tried so much. After everything you said, I watched it and watched it and I just said, this is just an unpleasant experience.
a strange experience. it’s yeah.
Very bipolar.
I don’t think it’s unpleasant in the sense of like the human centipede part two. Now that’s an unpleasant film, but I think there is something tonally so wrong with Howard the Duck. Were they shooting for a teenage market, as would be evidence from the duck boobs that you see in the first two minutes of the film? Or were they shooting for kind of a child audience?
Hereward (01:29:17.346)
Yeah.
because there’s wacky hijinks there’s wacky hijinks and then suddenly he’s working in a massage parlor and you’re like
in a massage pile and fishing fishing bras out of the mud pools and stuff. It is bizarre. But there is some bits in Howard the Duck. And I’ve said it before, I’ll say again, my favourite movie monster of all time is the Dark Overlord from the Nexus of Summoners at the end of Howard the Duck. It’s it’s actually a stop motion monster created by Phil Tippett, who of course did work on
Empire Strikes Back, he did work on Robocop, all the stop motion animation in Robocop, know, Ed 209. Phil Tippett is an absolute legend. And the monster he designs there is just the freakiest, goofiest, but most horrific thing I’ve ever seen in a movie. yeah, I, so yeah, how the duck gets special mention for me.
Yeah, it’s just like I said, I just can’t enjoy it. That’s that’s where it just fails for me. It’s just on a probably got a soft spot for this just for as a kid and that’s He-Man the canon He-Man it is awful but it tickles the nostalgia button in me and it’s just like canon canon you or something in fact
Cal (01:30:51.662)
any movie in canon history is just they just made things they just said you just want cheap enjoyment canon was the place to go i was saying that go and listen to my interview with sam first and bug lovely guy who directed directed american ninja and electric boogaloo and he still could he could not tell me where that title came from i was hoping to get closure on that but he couldn’t provide it so i think we can shall we wrap
Shall we wrap there before we…
A is definitely enough Callum, so…
I think we’ll do this again. This has been a lot for I didn’t know how this would go, but it has been entertaining. We might do one where we get people to suggest their topics that we roll on. Thank you. Thank you for coming back for having you back on the show. It’s been so long.
lovely. If I had days with like 26 hours in, I’d be able to squeeze in this stuff even more. But I am spread mercilessly thin. what is it Bilbo says? Like butter spread on a crumpet too thin or something like that. But yeah, it’s always a pleasure. yeah, we will be hopefully back together at Ocon.
Cal (01:32:09.461)
Yes!
Going and pestering people with a microphone again.
I think this episode should drop the week before Ocon. So yeah, you’re gonna, so we will, if you’re listening to us, we will be pestering you and you guys will be able to do the role for persuasion challenge for us. up on the show, I can announce a few guests. We have Kennedy Allen from the wonderful Women at Work podcast, Feminist Athletic podcast. We’ve got Eira Richards.
We all know and she’s part of the Ocon family. then we have got our first police and Paul Frommer, linguist who came up with the Navi language in Avatar. His first ever podcast, which I could not believe when he spoke to me. So that’s a bit of a coup for us. And then who else has agreed? trying to remember who’s agreed. I’ve got a long list of people who’ve agreed to come on.
I’ve completely forgotten the others. Tanya, Tanya Roberts has just agreed. Yes, Tanya and she’s another Okon regular and there’s a few others that I haven’t quite under percent confirmed but I hope to announce very soon some very impressive ones as you’ve seen in the chat.
Hereward (01:33:34.03)
So yeah, but of course everyone can join in when we’re at Ocon. So if your tickets are on sale now.
Yep, and it will still be on sale when this episode goes out. And to remind you, at half past three, if you head to where the talks are, you can take part in an episode in person. We’re going to attempt to do a live episode for the love of comics because combined, Marvel and DC have been in existence for 175 years at this point. So it’s going to be anything and everything comics. And you’re welcome to come along. The mic will be going around the crowd.
anything you want to say about comics. If you’ve got opinions, if you disagreed with us, hear about our comics. You’ve got the chance to say a piece of them.
Hereward (01:34:22.818)
Yes, marvellous. Well, thank you very much, Callum. What a lovely way to spend an evening.
Yeah, it is. It’s been fun. And just do the old, I can’t do that fake voice like the influencer. Remember to smash that like button. jeez. Yeah, I just can’t do that phoniness. I can’t speak like I’ve got no, like my soul has died inside.
Is that a thing that we do on Spotify? Do you have a like button on Spotify?
subscribe. can leave a review.
Yeah, you should definitely subscribe to the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, rate us.
Cal (01:35:01.158)
Gooden, we’re going into some territory again. Thank you. We’ll leave on that note.
Wayne sang a song about that, didn’t he?
Yes, yes, did, so peace. Right, I’ve got to steer this ship back into Kammerwatersch, right? Thank you everyone, thank you for listening, thank you, for taking part, and we will speak to you all. We’ll see you at Ocon. Come up and harass us in Persian, please.
Goodbye everyone.
