Last night, The World of Weird Monster Show reran their debut episode, which featured my favorite horror movie of all time, Night of the Living Dead. However, this time around, the film was shown with a running audio commentary (like those found on DVD special features) from some of WOW’s cast (crew). While little was said about the Romero flick, it was an excuse for the creative forces behind the show to talk about the show’s conception as well as the early trials and tribulations of producing a low budget cable access show. At the moment, it’s the most in depth look at WOW. At least until Undead Johnny publishes a “tell all” book. At one point during the commentary, there was a discussion about a show idea where the premise would be a behind the scenes look at WOW. When it was mentioned that one of the reasons that the idea hadn’t been done was because they figured no one would shoot it, Apryl immediately pointed to me. Heck yes, I would shoot this!
The debut episode also set up the show’s main draw – the characters. Unfortunately, the comedic skits were rather hit and miss, especially the opening Undead Johnny interview scene which was way too long (though the ending blood bath was pretty fun). On the other hand, these early attempts at comedy go to show how much WOW has improved with each season.
Apryl never did get why there was a commentary over the entire feature, since there wasn’t really anything being said that pertained to the movie. For me, being someone who has seen Night of the Living Dead a few hundred times, even owning multiple copies (including the early colorized version), I thought of it as another version of the horror classic. And I got to hang out with some of my late night cable access friends. Last night’s show was also an attempt to give the viewers something “new” before starting Season 4, which I believe will be WOW’s best season yet.
They’re not stupid, they’re troopers!
– Dementia’s response to a crack that the viewers were stupid for watching the entire commentary episode.
