The Point Radio: Reviving Elmer Fudd
<
And be sure to stay on The Point via 
, RSS, MyPodcast.Comor Podbean!
Follow us now on 
and 
!
Don’t forget that you can now enjoy THE POINT 24 hours a Day – 7 Days a week!. Updates on all parts of pop culture, special programming by some of your favorite personalities and the biggest variety of contemporary music on the net – plus there is a great round of new programs on the air including classic radio each night at 12mid (Eastern) on RETRO RADIO COMICMIX’s Mark Wheatley hitting the FREQUENCY every Saturday at 9pm and even the Editor-In-Chief of COMICMIX, Mike Gold, with his daily WEIRD SCENES and two full hours of insanity every Sunday (7pm ET) with WEIRD SOUNDS!
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN LIVE FOR FREE or go to GetThePointRadio for more including a connection for mobile phones including iPhone & Blackberrys.
Transcript
Hello, it's Mike Raub and welcome to The Point where all parts of pop culture come together. There's more with Billy West about the future of Futurama, the future of Looney Tunes, and maybe your future as a voice guy. In the meantime, we finally got our Spider-Man and Yes! Cancellations on Summer TV.
It's Friday, July 2nd, 2010. Let's get to The Point right now. This is The Point, The Point radio, get The Point radio. It didn't take the revival of Futurama to tell us that when there's a voice to be done in Hollywood, the go-to guy is and will be Billy West.
Billy's been doing it for a while and has recreated and brought back to both television and movies. Some of the classic characters said, well, we would have lost with the death of some great talents like Mel Blanc. Billy's embracing of the classic Looney Tunes characters has done a lot to bring them
back into the forefront in Hollywood and in television advertising as well. So who's his favorite? My favorite Looney Tunes character that I ever did was Elmer Fudd. I just thought it was cooler than Bugs for some reason because he was like a brain dead hunter and you know, it's all wrong on its face.
You know, that's why I like it because it's so oddball. And he would be like a little kid and then he'd go into a maniac and be like, He's very, very quiet. I'm hunting labis. And we did that for a Geico commercial.
That was fun. They made it really look like an old cartoon. That's my favorite of the Looney Tunes. By the way, if you missed that commercial, there's more classic Warner Brothers on the way with Billy.
There is a Looney Tunes laugh, Olympics television show coming up for kids. And I did Elmer Fudd and Matt. It was a whole lot of fun. I mean, all the heavyweights are at these sessions. You know, there's Maurice LaMarche and Jeff Bergman.
So what about Futurama? Did Billy ever think there was a revival possible? I always believed that it would because it was so good in my mind. I said, this is, you know, I've done tons of cartoons and I said, this is like the best thing I've ever done.
How could it not be on television? And, you know, after all these trials and tribulations, they finally worked it out and it's coming on Comedy Central and they're promoting the heck out of it. You know, big buzz about the show. I'm really grateful.
I'm happy. I bought some hints about what's coming up that that Brannigan is going to, you know, wind up on this paradise planet with Leela and you got to watch her suffer through his incessant advances and inappropriate, you know, behavior. And it's usually hysterical to watch a bumbling, stumbling idiot think that he's like a Romeo
and beyond Futurama. I'm like little Johnny Jones. I'm like a boy scout, you know, always do his work and think about work. And that's the kind of thing because, you know, I mean, I would love to just do this forever.
And there really is no cut off point if you can still get down to a studio. All right. So you have imagined yourself as being, well, maybe the next Billy West. How about a little career advice? You can do a lousy impression of somebody.
It's a voice no one's ever heard before. You know what I mean? So don't ever give up hope, you know? New episodes of Futurama with Billy are showing right now on Comedy Central. It's Friday, July 2nd, 2010.
Here's what's going on in pop culture. He will be Spider-Man. Andrew Garfield, who you know from Red Riding, has won the role of Spider-Man in the Sony reboot of the franchise. Mark Webb, of course, is directing the new movie that takes Peter Parker all the way
back to the beginning in high school. James Vanderbilt has written the screenplay. It'll be shot in 3D and it's expected to begin production in December to hit theaters in July of 2012. DC Comics has announced they're shutting down the Zuda Comics website.
The blog, however, the collective will be continually updated at the DC Comics site. Now there will be some select Zuda comic titles available through Comi-ology and the PlayStation Network, part of the new DC Digital announcement that took place a couple of weeks ago. The first 20-page issue of a Zuda title will be free. Subsequent issues will sell for $0.99 each.
Some of the titles to be published digitally include Bottle of Awesome, Supertron, Black Cherry Bombshells, and Lily of the Valley. NBC has pulled the series Persons Unknown and moved it from Mondays to Saturdays, which doesn't look good for that show. It'll begin in that new slot on Saturday, July 17th.
The last Monday episode airs next week on Monday, July 5th. Things for the show, which began at a pretty low mark, have not gained any ground since it began back in June. In the meantime, Stars has pulled the plug on both Party Down and Gravity Network executives said that, quote, after careful consideration, we've decided not to continue with subsequent
seasons of these shows, end quote. Both shows are on the schedule for Fridays on Stars. Steve Carell has confirmed that this next season will be his last on The Office. Carell said that when he first signed his contract, it was for seven seasons. That's this coming season, by the way, so he thought it was time for his character to
go. He's not too worried about what will happen after he's gone. Carell said they've incorporated so many new characters and some new-grade storylines that he has no doubt. The show will continue a strong, if not stronger, than ever.
NBC execs have not indicated whether they will continue The Office, whether Carell leaves or not. This announcement more than likely to be made sometime during the 2010-2011 TV season. Here's another card added to the sequel train. How about Top Gun?
Well, it's not a new subject. Jerry Bruckheimer says he and his partner Don Simpson have talked about it for years. Even Tom Cruise was involved on doing it on his own, but nothing developed. Now there's absolutely new interest in it from both Bruckheimer and allegedly from Cruise as well.
Being solid yet, however, right now they're looking for a script idea and a way to incorporate the Maverick character into some current continuity with obviously some new players involved. On the trail to revive his career, Paul Rubens has said he's wanted to get a new Pee-Wee Herman movie off the ground. He said he'd like to do one either like the Tim Burton movie or a little more like the
TV show. He allegedly had scripts out there circulating that involved both these concepts. Now Judd Apatow is involved and he's developing a new Pee-Wee movie alongside Rubens and Paul Rust who's co-scripting the film. Apatow will produce the film along with Paul Rust.
Of course, Ruben is involved. The plot allegedly involves Pee-Wee on a road trip. We barely recovered from the end of the last TV season. Now it's time to start planning for the next one. Here's some dates for your calendar as far as your favorite CW shows.
Thursday, September 9th, The Vampire Diaries returns to the network with new episodes. The premiere of Nikita follows that with Maggie Q. That again is Thursday the 9th at 8 and 9 o'clock respectively. Smallville is back for its 10th and allegedly final season on the CW on Friday, September 24th starting at 8 followed by the 6th season premiere of Supernatural at 9.
The classic dome, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty based on the 1939 James Thurber book with the same name, is headed for a remake. 20th Century Fox now definitely has inked Gore Verbinski to direct the update of the film. Steven Spielberg was involved at one point.
Many directors have been talked about being involved with the classic remake. Verbinski will be the guy at least in charge for this moment. Steve Conrad, who did The Pursuit of Happiness, is working on a script for the movie. Derrick Robertson, co-creator of The Boys, said he's taking a hiatus from that series. He'll be leaving the book starting with issue number 43.
That's the one that's out right now. It's the final issue of the monthly series. He's going to draw for a while. He will continue to provide covers for the series though in the meantime. Robertson says that one of his reasons for leaving involves the schedule put forth by
the publisher Dynamite Entertainment. He said he's done his best to try to keep the book on a monthly basis. He never wanted fill-ins but well that has happened. And Dynamite is getting the book out on a regular basis. Derrick Robertson co-created The Boys with Garth Ennis back in 2006.
Cryptozoic Entertainment is bringing out something new for fans of World of Warcraft. They're releasing the World of Warcraft class starter decks available in stores this summer. They'll feature cards from both recent and the older decks as well to help form a brand new core format. It's a compacted, new player-friendly format that prioritizes game time and minimizes downtime,
which can't be bad. The decks have a retail price of about $10.99. They can be played right out of the box. That's very attractive if you're a new player just wanting to get in to the wild card game. They'll be in stores coming up on July 23rd.
The weekend box office began early when Twilight Saga 8 clips kicked off with midnight shows on Tuesday at more than 4,000 theaters and it brought in more than $30 million shattering the previous record of Twilight Saga New Moon. It did $26.2 million a year or so ago. The question of course now is whether it can keep it up for the rest of the weekend.
We'll follow the box office as we always do with a complete report at the end of the holiday weekend right here. What you are about to see is bizarre, unsettling and riveting. This is Mike Gold. The only reality show I've ever watched regularly was Ice Road Truckers, but I haven't jumped
into the fourth season and I'm not ready for Ice Road Truckers, the movie. In 3D. Did I mention that? Ice Road Truckers, the movie in 3D. Max Payne director John Moore has pitched the concept to 20th Century Fox.
He calls it a tough guy movie adding quote, we'll turn it into a mission movie that harkens back to Towering Inferno, Jaws or the Guns of Navarone end quote. Yeah, except those movies each had a plot where the tough guys responded to a threat that could kill a whole lot of people. The Ice Truckers, as much as I respect them, deliver big heavy stuffed oil rigs in the
Icebound Arctic. And in 3D? What? A truck is going to fall through the ice and we'll see the iceboxers hands lurching out of the waters as hypothermia sets in?
These are people who drive trucks down non-existent roads. That's hardly 3D House of Stewardesses. The real question is, will people spend $12.50 a ticket for this? And how about the IMAX version? Hey, good luck John.
This is Mike Gold on the Pop Culture Channel. GetThePointRadio.com. That's it for our week, but it's a three-day holiday for most and we're right back here on Monday as we begin our talk with one of the most innovative Hollywood directors who's got his eye on the comic book world.
In the meantime, catch all the pop culture you can handle all weekend long and beyond at GetThePointRadio. Listen free 24 hours a day on your mobile device or your computer at GetThePointRadio.com. This podcast is produced twice every week by Malcontent Media and heard on great websites like ComicMix.com, MichaelDavisWorld.com, ZZ Comics.com and Ravenswolfstudios.com.
You can get in touch with us and grab copies of everything we've done. They're all waiting for you right now in the iTunes Podcast Library under The Point Radio and get in touch with us. Like I said, that's easy. GetThePointRadio.com is our website and you can write us at Listen and GetThePointRadio.com.
Have a great Fourth of July. We'll see you back here on Monday.
