The Point Radio: Why THE CAPE Will Be Cool

Fans are skeptical about NBC’s next foray into super-hero TV, THE CAPE. However, listen to creator Tom Wheeler explain how he started creating the universe for the series and his love for the genre of comics. Plus character actor, William Forsythe, tells us the difficulty he had assuming the role of one of America’s most horrific serial killers. 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. Welcome to The Point where all parts of pop culture come together. He's one of your more familiar faces on the big screen and now William Forsythe has taken on his most challenging and frightening role. NBC's premiering the cave in a few days. We've got your sneak review coming up and speaking of NBC, Heroes has finally found an audience. It's the 3rd of January 2011. Let's get to The Point right now.

This is The Point, The Point radio, get The Point radio. From The Rock to Raising Arizona to Devil's Rejects, William Forsythe is one of those faces you don't forget on the big screen. And now he's taking on a role of a character that sadly none of us seem to be able to forget. That of John Wayne Gacy in a new direct to DVD feature, Dear Mr. Gacy. William told us that taking the role overall just wasn't

an easy choice. So as an actor, how do you prepare for something this intense? I try to get the facts in front of me. I went to Chicago, I spent seven weeks. I got to know every single person that I could find that knew him. I became very close with the policeman that brought him down. I became very close with his lawyer, Sam Amarante,

who just gave me so much information. I mean all the guys that I spoke to, the things that they told me, just it blew me away because I mean we're talking about a guy who was charming, about a guy who was everyone's best friend. And this is what really scared me about John Wayne Gacy, is that every single person that I met, including his boyfriend friends, it turned out one of my best friends is Ant worked with Gacy in a restaurant. As I began to unfold

things, it just it was so clear that this guy was really scary is that this was a man who was loved because he was charming and wonderful and outgoing and giving. But in reality, he was hiding the fact that he was this horrible, murderous, monster. It's just part of the process. Actors tend to well be liked in a role. So how did William play this part and make sure that in the overall scheme of things, he didn't soften the character.

The whole time I made the movie, I had the resistive temptation to hate him because of what he did. But you know, there's there's no you know, of all the characters I've ever played, this was the most horrific. This was a true journey into hell. And I but I could not ignore the fact that he that what made him scary. And I think what works in the film is that he is charming, that he is likable, that he has all those qualities. But when

he turned it, he turned into a monster. It had been from the boy's perspective. The biggest, most horrifying nightmare you could ever imagine. It's absolutely horrible. The places that this guy went. Even with a role this intense, William still loves the challenge of acting. Look, I've been fortunate. But I've gotten to do what I love to do for my whole life. I've done my I don't know how many I'm sure it's over 120 films. I've gotten to work with

some of the great directors of all time, and work with people that were really committed in caring and love what they do. I feel fortunate to have done that. And, and you know, work with guys like John Frankenheimer and Sergio Leone and Paul Schrader and Warren and just like you just go down the line. And the highlights of my career are the moments when working in a collaborative situation with people who are truly truly passionate about what they do and uncompromising.

You know, that turns me on and makes me more excited than anything. Dear Mr. Gacy with William Forsyth available right now on DVD. It's Monday the 3rd of January, 2011. Here's what's going on in pop culture. What's the prognosis for digital comics in the new year? Well, pretty good. According to Comicology, first off, they've got over 5,000 comics available on their platform and the platform's doing pretty

good too. Since release, the comic allergy app has been downloaded over one million times as well. Seems to be one of the apps of choice as far as comic reading online goes. If you want to get more information, check out the comics allergy app in the iTunes app store. Heavy Metal magazine, along with Hal Hefner, have launched a web comic called Heavy Metal Presents Gates. It's appearing online right now and will be an actual published comic as well. Probably sometime in 2012. The new

comic will start with five pages. There'll be a new page added every week. If you want to get a sample of it, you can do that now at Gates the comic dot com. Let's count this as the first sellout of the new year. Top Cow has announced that Echoes number one completely sold out after only being in comic stores for just about one day. A second printing of Echoes number one is on the way as well and should be available soon. It will be coming in about the same time

as Echoes number two, who can't wait to get both up in their hands at the same time. Make a note on your shopping list that they will be available on January 29th in comic stores. Here's a heads up about a new series that's going to be heading to AMC. You know, they're pretty much on a winning streak with Mad Men Breaking Bad and of course The Walking Dead. It's called The Killing. It's set for a March debut on the cable network. It's pretty much a character intense show about a

murder of a young girl. It's done from three different perspectives, including the lead investigator, the girl's grieving parents and the mayor of the city where the crime took place. If you want to catch more about it, there's an online promo available at amctv.com. We talked about this a little bit before, but here's a new perspective on the list for 2010 of the most pirated TV shows from online from the folks at torrentfreak.com. All right. These are the shows

that have been downloaded illegally the most times. Lost as the number one spot on the list, wrapping up after six seasons, it was illegally downloaded six million times. But here's the most interesting part right next to Lost on the list is Heroes. A series at NBC canceled back in May after basically they felt nobody was watching. The fourth season was the end of that for NBC. And overall Heroes has been downloaded more times than its average weekly television audience.

Think about that for a second. By the way, Dexter was third on the list and it also got more pirated downloads than people were watching it on Showtime on a regular basis. Rest of the top 10 include a Big Bang Theory house, how I met your mother, 24 true blood, Glee and family guy. This is my gold. Thanks to the success of Boardwalk Empire, one of my all-time favorite books is coming to the home screen.

Robert De Niro's company is adapting Lloyd Went and Herman Cogan's Lords of the Levy. The story of how a diminutive political hustler and an overdressed brute became the conduit between the political machine and the mob. Screw Tony Soprano and Nucky Thompson and even Lucky Luciano. We're talking about the birth of the Capone mob here. Capone and his mentor, the man who created the Kausinostra, Johnny Torrio. John Coughlin worked at a hotel bathhouse. He dressed like a

colorblind dandy on speed and wrote really horrible poetry. Mike Kenno was the tiny owner of several profitable saloons where the unemployed and the drunk came for cheap cold beer and a free lunch and the possibility of employment. They were also told who to vote for and on election day they were taken from precinct to precinct to do just that. Bathhouse John and Hinky Dink created the first Warred Ball, which Hinky Dink called a Lollapalooza. Each year for a decade 15,000 people

jammed into a public venue for a bacchanal that would put Rome to shame. Judges, politicians, gamblers and pimps reveled when Bathhouse led a procession of hookers into the event each year. They proved to the world what Hinky Dink often claimed, Chicago ain't no sissy town. This could be a great success. And this is Mike Gold on America's true pop culture channel, GetThePointRadio.com. Well if one of your New Year's resolutions was to expand your comic book reading horizons,

you've come to the right place. Just like we did back last year. Each and every week we'll sit down with you and give you five things that you need to at least pick up and thumb through when you head into the comic shops. Coming in this week, well some interesting choices. First of all, a new Batman series. Okay, you're shaking your head on this one. This time it's based on the, well, much appreciated cartoon series, Batman Beyond. New series from DC and a new look at

this part of the Batman universe begins with number one this week. Also from DC, interesting combination here, Starman and Congarilla. One shot that, well, at least is worth a look through from DC. New Transformers series this week from IDW, Transformers Prime. It's going to run four issues. If you've gotten away from the Transformers universe a little bit, this might be a chance for you to get back and see what's been going on. Also new this week from Marvel, Ultimate Comics,

Captain America. This will also be a book that ties in at some point to the death of Spider-Man. It's a four issue run in the Ultimate universe from Marvel. And finally, a little bit more expensive choice, but one I think you'll like. Essential Iron Man, the trade paperback. This is a new edition of this collection of Iron Man stories. It's the second run of Iron Man, not the really early stuff from Tales of Suspense, but some of the few issues of the regular Iron Man

series back in the late 60s and early 70s. Some beautiful work here by some of the greats of Marvel Comics of the time. Can't beat the price too, nice thick volume for just under 20 bucks. All these and more, yours at a comic store near you. You might want to expand those horizons too. Maybe find a couple of new ones to shop in if you want to. You can do that by starting with the comic book locator service. Add one 888 comic book that's toll free. Better yet, there's a really

cool app available for your iPhone, your iPad, or your eye touch. It's free in the iTunes app store. Television writer, creator, and producer Tom Wheeler loves comics and he's the first one to tell you that. I mean, I'm a lifelong comic book fan. The idea of sort of writing my own comic was always really appealing. You know, writing any comic, I just, I'm just a fan of, you know, I just have always been sort of attracted to those stories. That's the same passion Tom took to create the new NBC series,

When I thought about writing the cape, it was, it came sort of in stages. I knew I wanted to write a story about a father and son and a father who takes on the persona of his son's favorite comic book hero. But then it took a while for me to settle on who that hero should be. And I also wanted it, if I was going to write it for TV, I really wanted to kind of wrap my arms around something that felt like its own comic book universe. Still grounded and emotionally grounded and sort of high

stakes, but I sort of wanted to create my own kind of playground. So the idea of creating a fictional city seemed to fit in a sort of kind of silver age fashion to sort of create, you know, a hero with some silver age sensibilities for even though it's set in the 21st century and just larger than life characters, but see if we couldn't maintain a really sort of strong emotional thread throughout and kind of what some of the great character driven superhero stuff we've seen. We've got a lot more

with Tom coming up. In the meantime, the cape premieres on NBC Sundays at nine and get more exclusive material at NBC.com. That does it for Monday. We've got more on the cape coming up later in the week and more on pop culture, 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the point radio. Listen on your computer, your mobile device, iPhones, droids, we'll take it all. And by the way, do we say it was free and get the point radio.com. This podcast is produced twice every week, just like

it has been on great websites like ComicMix.com and michael davisworld.com. And we're right there in the iTunes podcast directory under the point radio. Get in touch and listen to get the point radio.com and stand by for more. We'll be back in a few days right here. Get the point radio.com.