The Point Radio: A Decade Of Fright With The GHOST HUNTERS

It’s been ten years of terrifying jumps and unexplained events on the SyFy series, GHOST HUNTERS. The stars of the show talk about how’ve they have survived a decade and a few the scariest moments they have faced. Plus funny man Jerrod Carmichael brings his talents to a new NBC series and tells us what to expect.

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Transcript

The Point Radio. It's Mike Raub. Well, it's been 10 years of spooks and scares for the guys on Ghost Hunters. And we'll talk to them about what it's like to survive for a decade on TV. Well, Gerard Carmichael brings his funny to a new series on NBC,

and he gives us a little sneak peek. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio.

So the premiere of the new season, the sci-fi series, Ghost Hunters, is celebrating 10 years on the air. And I talked to investigators Jason Hawes and Steve Gonzalez about exactly what has changed over the past decade. Well, I think a lot of the cast members have changed.

They've come and gone. They've been removed. They've been replaced. But still the show is about investigating and trying to figure out truly what's going on, looking for the real answers behind what clients who are calling us in are experiencing. And just trying to help them out in any way possible. Also, you know, the team has changed a little bit.

Jason and I, being the only two investigators and cast members that have been there since episode one, but we're able to run pretty much a drama free now. You know, all the team members get along. Everything runs smooth. No headaches. No headaches. And we're at a point now where we can focus on our clients and our investigation

unlike we've ever been able to before. So the team's in a really good place. So how has the show survived this long? Well, I think a lot of it has to do with we're very interactive with the fans that have made the show a success. We communicate with them online. We go. We head to their states. We visit them. We do appearances. But also I think it's that we're not willing to just accept something as a ghost or paranormal.

We're truly looking for the answers. And I've heard that from endless fans that just say, you know, they love the show because we're truly looking. We're not, you know, turning around and running out of a location or trying to really hype things up. We're looking for the real reason. We're walking in. We're level headed. We're looking, trying to recreate the experiences, trying to debunk the claims and so forth.

And, you know, there's been so many shows that have come on since we started. We've been doing this for going on 11 years now. So many shows have come on in this field that have since been canceled and so forth just because they're made for television. We weren't casted by a production company. This was something we did long before the shows about us.

We'll do it long after we weren't put together by a production company saying this person will work great with that. We're our own team. He's been with me for longer than any other investigator right down to Grant, who used to be on the show as well. And I think it really goes to show. Well, the new season is here. So what can we look forward to?

Well, this season we've got some great investigations. We've wild turkey distillery in Kentucky, the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. And we've, you know, we've worked with Southern Vermont College. A lot of these locations that have had these huge claims for so long and had wanted to get us in. And we've been able to get out there.

Everything right down to locations where we're going, we're meeting up with the town mayor to go, because they want us to check out some of these buildings and some of these locations and the claims. And we were able to document some great activity. We were also able to debunk and figure out some other problems that were going on. I think the evidence this season is kind of standalone from some of the other seasons.

We've got some really great visual evidence, some things that we've never been able to catch before. Phenomenal audio. Phenomenal audio. Phenomenal audio. And I think this is going to be a season for evidence and really a season for the hunt of it.

Very focused on the hunt and on the evidence. And I'm excited to see how each episode sort of unfolds and how true it is to our investigation. I'd say Wednesday night on Sci-Fi Channel, you dim the light, you turn on our show and get prepared. Yeah. How'd the guys each get started in this?

Well, honestly, I went from somebody who never really believed in the paranormal or thought about it to somebody who was sort of funny. Somebody who was sort of trusted in the field just due to having my own personal experience. And from there, just looking for answers, trying to understand how these things were possible. And that's how I connected with Steve. Steve was one of the first people I connected with in this field.

And we built a friendship just looking for those answers. But my situation was just a private experience which took a non-believer sort of, allowed me to see things that I didn't think were possible. And I've just been looking for the explanation ever since. For me, my first memory was very young. I want to say maybe five or six.

Whenever you're just able to read, watching a movie called The Entity, and it scared me like crazy. My mom told me it was make-believe. But at the end, I read, you know, based on true events. And I literally remember being hooked ever since then. Over the past decade, I talked to Jason and Steve about a couple of their scariest moments.

Oh, geez. Biggest, the scariest moment. Well, of course, like the Stanley Hotel, we were there, we were investigating for nine days, even though the show makes it look like we were there for six hours. But we were there nine days. And one of the nights I had a glass shatter from the inside out in my room, all caught on film. I had the door open and closed, and latch itself, all caught on film again.

So we've had some really incredible, incredible things go on. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, in the past, there's been, for me, not necessarily scary, but intriguing is the thermal footage we catch. You know, we get full stuff we've caught this season. I mean, we're talking full-bodied apparitions.

We're talking things with features, faces that you can see, voices that are very, very clear. We don't classify our EVPs like other teams do, but I can just tell you that they're awesome, very clear, and very crisp. Again, this is the season for the evidence and for the investigation. The scares continue with season 10 of Ghost Hunters every Wednesday on Sci-Fi. The flight radio.

There's a lot of crime coming to prime time on WGN America. All that and more as we check what's going on in pop culture. Clever marketing and a pretty cool campaign paid off for the premiere of Fear the Walking Dead on AMC. The show's premiere brought in some 10.1 million viewers setting a new all-time cable record for a premiere. It was 6.3 million adults in the coveted 18 to 49 year old demo that watch, which was also a record.

Closest thing to it was the season five premiere of The Walking Dead, which drew some 17.3 million viewers, with 11 million of those being in again that coveted demo. Of course, another new season of the regular Walking Dead series begins in just a few weeks. If you're a TV game show fan, then head on over to the digital television network buzzer because this month they're doing seldom seen pilot episodes of vintage game shows during a special promotion called Lost and Found Week. It actually begins on September the 7th and some of the shows that will be aired will be body talk on a roll TKO Star Words.

And interestingly enough, the rare 1992 premiere of Family Feud. Yet another reason why San Diego is such a cool place. Residents of the town can now get video on demand on city trolleys. The city's Metropolitan Transit system has installed video on demand to service for smartphones, laptops and tablets on their trolleys. They can see things like movies, television shows, cartoons and sports events.

WGN America is kicking off their new Prime Crime light up next week with a six episode back to back marathon of elementary. Then the next night three episodes back to back of Person of Interest. Those two shows join Blue Bloods in the new block. It'll be kicking off with a 100 episode two week event that will take place on WGN America. And again, it all begins the next Monday, August 31st.

What's going on with TV and Twitter? Well, the most talked about shows this past week included things like WWE Raw, Teen Wolf and Catfish the TV show from MTV. The number one most talked about show on Twitter, of course, was Fear the Walking Dead on AMC. This week, Corporate America is still reeling from the Ashley Madison scandal. And if you wonder if it affects comics in any way.

Well, interestingly enough, no registered emails were listed from any comic book company, including DC, Diamond, Image, Boom, Dynamite or any of the publishers. Also, none of the online sources like comic book resources or news or drama as well. In fact, the only tie to comic books at all was one registered email from a few years ago from Marvel. That was a Peter Dot Parker at Marvel Dotcom.

I guess at that point he might have been single. The point, the point. From doing stand up to films like Neighbors, Gerard Carmichael might be just a funny guy, but he's a lot more too, including executive producer, writer and the star of the Carmichael show. I ask him to tell me about the new series.

You know, I think the best way to describe the show would be that it's a conversation. You know, it reflects the conversations that we have in real life. For example, you know, my girlfriend moving in with me and me not wanting to tell my parents, which I think it's really funny. But I'm really excited about the episode that comes right after that, which is essentially a kick get shot by a police officer and, you know, a protest ensues and the family is divided over the issue.

And we have a very real conversation around that. And I know it sounds heavy, but I think it's, you know, fun and interesting in the sense that we haven't seen these types of conversations play out, especially in this format in a while. And so, you know, I think the show is very much so. It's just this conversation that reflects what happens in our everyday lives. So what makes this show stand out?

People have options. You know, when it comes to shows, like you were saying, there's so many options, you know, just acting and broadcasting cable and, you know, web shows. And, you know, things like that. So because you have options, it's my obligation to really try and make the most interesting show that we can and one that respects the intelligence of the American audience. So, you know, we try and do just that and, you know, a whole people like it.

So growing up, was he always a funny guy? Yeah, yeah. Pretty funny, you know, just something you realize that if you make people laugh, you don't have to turn in your homework. And so that's been the basis of a lot in my life. You've ever kid and then that develops into, you know, being a comedian and writing a show.

So what's his favorite part of all of this, the writing and the creating or the actual performance? I mean, that's really a great question. It's hard to decide because, you know, they're all so important and you can't have one without the other. So, you know, I kind of just immersed myself into whatever part of the process, you know, where we're in the office writing. Then it really is just a moment in the morning for nights that turn into thing up to seven a.m.

Trying to finish, you know, script and then in acting, it's, you know, just these fun days of, you know, the live studio audience, you know, you know, we definitely perform in front of these, you know, great crowds. And they're all equally pretty fun. Pretty fun. As a guy who writes material for himself and other comedians as well, is it easier to perform his own stuff?

It isn't, you know, it is in the sense that you definitely, you know, sometimes can be a bit over guarded with the material. But it isn't when, you know, listen, for me, the fun part is being a producer. You know, you can just change lines and no one says anything to you. So, you know, that's the fun part. You know, you just kind of change the cord.

We kind of let the show breathe and change as we go. So besides the new series, what else is next? A lot of stand up, you know, doing a lot of performances, you know, just jumping back into that. And, you know, the world I knew first and really excited to do that a lot. And, you know, just talking about the show, I'm excited for people to watch.

Catch the Carmichael show with new episodes every Wednesday on NBC and see more right now at NBC.com. That does it for the podcast right now. We're back in a few days. And along with us celebrated actor Billy Bob Thornton, who's got a huge project right now that doesn't involve being in front of the camera. All that and more on websites like ComicMix dot com. Get the point radio dot com. And you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram under the point radio.

Subscribe to the podcast in the iTunes podcast directory. We love that. And then be back here in a few days. Get the point radio dot com.