Welcome to the Archive

Matt and Dan interview Stan Taffel and Bryan Cooper about their classic film festival, Cinecon, and why it's been an important touchstone for classic movie fans for sixty years. How do they choose their films? How do they book their guests? What kinds of under-seen material will they have this year? If you are interested in attending, Cinecon will take place during Labor Day Weekend at the Writer's Guild Theater in Beverly Hills, and tickets are still available at cinecon.org

The Archive Guys chat with author Greg Ehrbar, whose upcoming book Hanna-Barbera, the Recorded History: From Modern Stone Age to Meddling Kids shines a light on the talented voices, composers, musicians, and technicians who played a vital role in the studio's success making records. Together, we dive deep into the often-overlooked world of sound and music recordings from Hanna-Barbera's library. Whether you're a casual fan or an eminent scholar of animation history, this podcast will offer you something new to discover, from the recording careers of beloved characters to the creative minds behind the sounds. Plus, we make terrible jokes.

It's Christmas in September as Matt, Kelsie and DW interview Bret Berg, the Creative Director of the Museum of Home Video on their quest to create something new from the depths of the video vault. What kind of stuff? Old commercials. TV specials. Promos. The kinds of things that people kind of forgot about. Bret walks us through a few of his complications including "200 Christmases in 2 Minutes" - an assemblage of every time the word "Christmas" is uttered in the 1994 Beverly Hills 90210 Christmas Special. Every week, join Bret and his multi-talented cohorts as they present a live streaming cabaret of found footage at museumofhomevideo.com

Matt and DW pontificate the Secrets of Home Entertainment with Heath Holland of Cereal at Midnight. First, they delve into the philosophy of Collecting Physical Media, the early horror soap Dark Shadows' DVD Box Set shaped like a coffin, Canon Film's New Year's Evil on Blu-ray along with endless digressions on things like NFTs, man's inhumanity to man, and Matt's terrible business idea that inspired him to buy a box of broken Palm Pilots.

Matt interviews Bryan Cooper of the Hollywood Heritage Museum about their upcoming classic film festival, Cinecon and why - with the proper precautions - it's a great time to return to live events. Unlike other Hollywood Classic Film fests, Cinecon focuses on rarities like Silent Films, video jukebox shorts, kinecon, along with pioneering special guests. This year, Cinecon will be taking place Labor Day Weekend at the Hollywood Legion Theater with tickets still available at cinecon.org. DW remains uncharacteristically quiet since his audio goes out while traveling on a cross-country train.

Kelsie, Matt and Dan discuss the classic supernatural TV series' deluxe NIGHT STALKER (1974) Blu-ray and the show's long shadow on modern TV, the many alternate endings of Sam Rami's horror sequel ARMY OF DARKNESS (1990), the VHS-only privileged-human-hunter thriller OPEN SEASON (1974) starring Peter Fonda, why the Supreme Court's 1990 Abend ruling affects what gets released from the vault, and a story about how one of the guys' dogs stuck their nose directly in the crotch of a certain star of Godfather III. Twice.

Director Noah Mucci joins the guys for a very special all-star episode! We start off talking to Noah about his new Sci-Fi indie feature LUNAMANCER (2021) currently on the festival circuit before quizzing him on his quest to see every James Bond Movie for the very first time - in backward chronological order! After that, we delve into Kino Lorber's special-feature packed blu-ray of the Sci-Fi TV movie KILLDOZER (1974) starring Clint Walker (Cheyenne), produced by Herbert F. Solow (Star Trek) and based on a 1944 novella by SF Hall of Fame writer Theodore Sturgeon (Star Trek). How do you top that? How about a discussion on the VHS-only better-than-you’d-expect anti-drug masterpiece, CARTOON ALL-STARS TO THE RESCUE (1990) featuring an animated Alf, the Chipmunks, Garfield, Bugs Bunny, Daffy, the Smurfs, the Muppet Babies, Huey, Dewy, Louie, Michelangelo, Pooh, a genuinely terrifying George C. Scott, a musical number written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (Beauty and the Beast) and a special appearance by President George Bush, Barbara Bush and Millie the First Dog.

Filmmaker David Weiner answers all our questions about In Search of Tomorrow, his brand new comprehensive five-hour documentary about 80s SciFi movies. Then we make a wrong turn in the Great Pyramid of Egypt and wind up in the 8 episode network TV obscurity Otherworld (1985), starring Breaking Bad's Jonathan Banks. Afterward, we touch on Lon Chaney's lost horror silent, London After Midnight (1927), and its impact on fandom before wrapping things up with a listener's question about an early TV show none of us ever heard of!

Matt, DW and Kelsie are joined by comedian Joe Wagner for the first episode of this new podcast. We introduce the concept of the show and get right into the world of obscure films with a discussion about the world's most popular film IP, Marvel Superhero movies, and how its long tentacles have taken control of pop culture. Next, we talk about Kino Lorber's new Blu-ray of Alias Nick Beal (1949), a supernatural Film Noir Thriller co-starring Satan, which leads to a digression about other movie devils including The classic Monkees episode The Devil and Peter Tork (1968), Matt's (only) professional film acting gig as Satan in Warlock 2: The Armageddon (1993), and the terrifying demon in the Korean horror, The Wailing (2016). Next, Joe introduces us to a bizarre rarity that's almost next-to-impossible to catch, The Astrologer (1977) and explains why it's unavailable. Finally, we wrap up with taking questions from YOU, the audience!