Weirdhouse Cinema: All Monsters Attack

I'll take it. This is from Jordan. Jordan wrote in to say hello, Stuff to Blow Your Mind team. I don't always watch every Weird House Cinema movie before listening to the episodes, but my partner and I certainly had a blast watching Robot Monster. Our streaming service then recommended us an equally short and hilarious movie with its own unrelated dinosaur fights, the nineteen nine film All Monsters Attack. If you ever had the chance to see it, I'll

give you a short pitch. Uh. This Japanese bank heist meets home alone sci fi action mystery movie is filled with giant monster fights that show kids how to overcome their school bullies. Certainly qualifies as a weird house film, to say the least. I don't think it's been covered yet, and if not, I know my partner and I would love to hear your take on it. Love the show, Jordan's well, Jordan's I hope you were excited for today's episode.

We are indeed covering All Monsters Attack. Yeah, And listeners keep the recommendations coming, because sometimes listeners let us know about a film that's not on our radar, such as this one. Other times, like last week's episode, let Sleeping Corpses lie. That was a case where a listener requested it and that kind of bumped it back up on our list. It was on the list, but it wasn't

at the top. But yeah, so so so let us know anytime something catches your eye, if there's anything near and dear to your heart that you think fits the weird house cinema template. So I think All Monsters Attack is a very interesting film, especially for its place in the history of the Godzilla franchise and for its varied reception history. And I think it's also a little bit

it's interesting in the very different notes it hits. This is a movie that is both quite funny for schlock reasons, as as alluded to in the email, but also I think strangely sweet and even a little bit moving. Yeah, it has it has a good heart. It is a It is a monster film about children, like this is not a it's It's pretty common to see these various Kaiju films where there is a child involved, and we all know that's like Gamera is a friend to all

children and so forth. But this movie especially, is a film where the child is not just a character like the the the the childhood view of the world. It is kind of the centerpiece of the whole picture. Uh like that. The film doesn't make sense unless you realize that it is from the viewpoint of a child and not just from the view viewpoint of a child is in it has a child protagonist, but literally the monster drama in it is a dream in the mind of a child. Yeah. Yeah, this is a film in which

none of the monsters are real. Um Like, none of the monsters that we that we see, none of these fights are actually taking place. They're all in the child's head. They're all in his dreams. But at the same time, it's not like those battles. It's not that they don't matter, like it's ultimately well presented. We talked in our Robot Monster episode about films that have the it's it was all a dream trope in them, And this is certainly a film where a lot of the action is taking

place within the dream. But also there is this it's not presented in kind of a gut punchy, twisty way. We know from the get go that this is a dreamscape we're entering into, and yet at the same time there's also, uh, there's also the real world plot that is a that is taking place as well, and there are steaks in it as well. So it's not like all the steaks are in the dream world and nothing's

going on in the real world. Right. It is a movie about a child who has dreams about monsters, and those dreams about monsters teach him how to solve problems in real life. Now, whether these are good lessons or not, I mean, yes, that's there may be some generational divide on that and there and this is all open for discussion. Yes, So I thought it might be useful here to do a brief digression on the history of the Godzilla franchise and the place all monsters attack has within it. Uh so.

The first Godzilla movie was released in nineteen fifty four. It was directed by Ishiro Honda, the same director as today's movie, and it was about a giant, prehistoric reptilian monster with radiation breath who appears from under the ocean as a consequence of nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. Godzilla attacks Japan and is eventually defeated by the ingenuity

of human scientists. Now, I think it's really important to note that if you have only seen later Godzilla movies, you may be shocked if you go back and watch the original, shocked to discover it's much darker tone, the heavy themes treated in a very solemn manner, and the fact that there is no Kaiju meet Slam. The monsters do not suplex each other. There In fact, there's only one monster. Godzilla is a pure antagonist in the first movie. He doesn't wrestle other monsters, and it is not light

camp entertainment. The original Godzilla is a bleak, doomy movie. Yeah, it's kind of grimy, it's useful black and light is very stark. H It is a It is a serious film about dread and horror in the modern world. However, in the film that would follow, which was called Godzilla Raids Again in nineteen fifty five, Godzilla once again emerges to threaten humankind, but this time there's another element. Godzilla is fighting another monster, so fighting this ancient fire breathing dinosaur.

To me, he's sort of based on the design of an Ankleosaurus um and this would set off a kind of pattern of monster on monster violence that would continue into the following films, including movies like King Kong versus Godzilla, that's the nineteen sixty two mothro versus Godzilla and sixty four, various battles with monsters from outer space and with three heads, other things coming up from the deep and rob I wonder if you would disagree with anything here or have

anything to add to this, but I would argue a few general trends in the Godzilla movies as they go on. One is the trend of the moral valence of Godzilla, who I think goes initially from hard heel to kind of anti hero to full face. What would you agree with that? Oh, yeah, yeah, he's definitely a baby face. And then the most of the films, people are really

familiar with. Yeah, it's often like Godzilla has to show up to fight a bad monster in order to protect humanity from that monster, and he's kind of like a dangerous ally, but ultimately it's he who is defending human civilization from from this really wicked creature. Yeah. Yeah, I think that that trajectory tends to hold true occasionally with You'll see some some new Godzilla pictures that come about in which they kind of go back to basics and go for like the solo monster threat sort of plot.

And I guess one of the main examples of that is um Shin Godzilla from Yeah. Well, a lot of times when they do a reboot, it's like that shin Godzilla is like that Godzilla, that horrible American Godzilla from the nineties is like that yeah, or wait is it now I'm trying to remember. I think it is. Yeah, Yeah, I believe so, though I think the more recent American Godzilla remake that had some extra monsters in it, as I recall, so that would had bad ones that Godzilla

had to fight. Yeah, let them fight, Yes, some sort of radiation eating dinosaur creatures. Yeah. Okay, So there's that trajectory. Another thing is the tone. The tone changes. It goes from the bleak, just doom laden horror of the first movie to a much lighter, campier, sillier kind of entertainment,

even when it sometimes still has commentary. A lot of times, these sillier, campier Godzilla movies will be satirical about, say pollution or politics or the entertainment industry, even like I think there's one where there's like, you know, somebody's trying to boost TV ratings by capturing King Kong and then he gets out and has to fight Godzilla and so forth. Uh So they often satirize real elements in the world,

but they're not as dark as the first one. I would also say, as it goes on, um, you know, I think some people would be tempted to say that the quality of production in the films goes down, but I don't think that's exactly right. I would say the quality of production becomes more variable. It's not like there's a steady decline in the quality of Godzilla movies, but instead we see a sort of all over the place quality pattern. Would you agree with that? I think so,

and I do wonder how much. And this is maybe something that Godzilla scholars may have thoughts on and indeed it is worth pointing out that Godzilla movies are definitely an area where there is a People have written whole books on this, There have been agonimic papers on this. This is this is a well explored region of weird cinema. But I do wonder at times they get into the sillier zone and the kid friendly zone, and I wonder

what are the different forces involved. I mean, part of it is clearly like the reception to Godzilla by young viewers, but then also I wonder how much of it is the filmmakers realizing like not only the limitations of rubber suit um monster effects, but also the potential for humor

with those suits. You know, like if you're going for just hard um uh you know, sci fi or really serious grim horror with it, it feels maybe you've got to be a little, you know, a little more careful about how you use the suit and how you show the suit, where if you open that up a little bit, and there's all this potential for like the goofier stuff

to take place. Yes, I fully agree with that, though there are some films that have managed to do both actually and that's one thing I love about shin Godzilla. I think it succeeds fully in real grim horror and funny camp in the same movie. Yeah, it's a it's a careful tightrope to walk though. But anyway, back to the film we're going to talk about today. It arrives in nineteen sixty nine, and it has long been regarded

as one of the worst Godzilla films. It seems recently though, a lot of critics have kind of softened on it. They've kind of started to come around a little bit. Uh, And you can see the reasons for both both of the for the for the initial harsh reaction and the softening and warming up to this movie. There are certainly elements that are not as impressive as other films in

the franchise. The stakes are less all encompassing. I mean, this is not a world, you know, world defining conflict to save the planet from a three headed monster from outer space or whatever. Instead, it is a child dealing with loneliness and bullying who has dreams about monsters that that inspire him to stand up for himself. It's hard for that to feel as epic as as the other Godzilla movies in either in either an awe inspiring and

scary way or in a funny way. And I think one thing that has to be acknowledged is that the original special effects and production values in this film are very limited compared to some other films in the franchise, and a lot of the special effects sequences that do appear are recycled from previous movies. We'll talk more about

that as we go on. But on the other hand, I think a lot of people have kind of come around on this movie today as simply a different kind of creature than most other films in the Godzilla series. It is a sweeter, more modest, more intimate meditation on what Godzilla had come to mean for the children of Japan and of the world. Having just watched this film this morning for the first time, it's hard to imagine people hating it. I mean, it's seventy minutes. It's sixty

nine minutes long for crying out loud. You mean you don't you don't spend too much time in this picture, um and uh. And it has a lot of monsters in it. I have to come back to the sort of the the Glenn Danzig school of filmmaking. I believe he was asking an interview what makes a great vampire film? And he said, well, a lot of vampires and and and so this film takes kind of that impart, like what makes a great monster film? A lot of great great kaiju film? Well, a lot of kaiju. There are

a lot of Kaiju in this picture. I don't know if all of them are present, as the title would suggest, but a lot of them are present. And Okay, once you've checked that box off, once you're definitely giving the audience all the monsters, what else are you going to give them? And what can you give them? This a little different? What? What? What can you do that would maybe be a satisfying and different story while still delivering all of the things that this picture has to deliver

for for the the audience that they're expecting. I think that's a great point. And I think you could also argue that given the general trends in the Godzilla series up to this point, increasingly kind of sillier and campier type movies and uh increasing use of Godzilla as a face rather than a hell, I think you could argue it was inevitable that these movies would end up including movies that were explicitly meant for kids, not not just

movies that kids happened to love. Uh So, just before All Monsters Attack came out a couple of years before, in nine seven, we get Son of Godzilla, which, true to title, introduced a new character to the Kaiju pantheon, that is Manila, who is yes, Godzilla's son, and the movie deals with parenting themes, showing Godzilla teaching his child how to roar and how to blast out his atomic breadth. In fact, we see some scenes from that movie of this type taken whole cloth and shown again in All

Monsters Attack. And I have read that the introduction of Manila in this movie was the result of a desire at studio at Toho to introduce a cute character and acute relationship to create a movie that would not just appeal to kids, but also to the young parents who would be taking kids to see movies. It makes sense, yeah, I mean, if you want to introduce your your children to these monster movies that by this point you know, you've you've you've grown up on. Uh, it helps if

there's some sort of cute element. I mean, I've I've encountered that myself with my my own son. You know, is there is there a baby Yoda in there, a grow goo that can you know get I mean Star Wars has tons of stuff like that obviously, but you know, is there some sort of like cute element that will definitely catch their attention that they can latch onto and then perhaps they'll they'll latch onto the rest of a

V and franchise as well. Oh yeah, I mean just watch the term and like, you know, your your your harsh, cynical twentysomething Star Wars geeks hate the e Walks until they have kids, and then they watch Return with their kids and then they're like, oh, they're actually kind of great. Yeah, it will describe me a lie in a in a little bit here. He is cute. He is, in fact, more than once we noticed mental It in this movie doing specific sort of sounds and postures reminiscent of our baby.

Uh so, like a donkey sound that he keeps making. Oh, of course the donkey sound, but no, he does. At one point he does it kind of I don't know, like a pose where he's like wiggling his arms and legs and he just looks like a human baby but anyway, so h A lot of footage from Son of Godzilla would end up being reused in All Monsters Attack, and in fact, not just footage from Son, but also from recent uh kaiju movies like Everira Horror of the Deep

that came out in nineteen sixty six. That's more of your classic meat Slam that's where Godzilla battles a giant shrimp crayfish type monster, but also it used footage from King Kong Escapes from sixty seven and from Destroy All Monsters from sixty eight. Yeah, Destroy All Monsters also has man Ala in it. M hm. So why so much recycled footage from other Toho movies? Well, the answer appears

to be extreme constraints on time and budget. I've read that this was in part due to cost overruns from other movies Tohoa was making in nineteen nine, as well

as just general money problems at the studio. These were hard times at Toho, but for whatever reason, the edict came down that this movie had to be made fast and cheap, and I think you can say that when it comes to special effects sequences, it kind of shows, especially to the original ones, and how much footage is reused, but at the same time, I don't think this movie

is hack work. All Monsters Attack was directed by Ishiro Honda, the the A list Toho director who had made the Origin in Old Godzilla, as well as most of the Big movies and the series since then, and despite all the limitations on the production, Honda apparently cited All Monsters Attack as one of his personal favorites from the entire series. I was wondering a bit why this was, and so I was reading from Godzilla the Official Guide to the

King of the Monsters. This was the the official Toho licensed book on the series, written by Graham Skipper, and uh Skipper writes quote All Monsters Attack was truly a labor of love for Honda, a small film that focused less on the big monster fights and more on one young child learning how to stand up for himself. While Honda loved the spectacle and undeniable artistry of orchestrating giant monsters rampaging through cities, he also loved the emotional core

of the people at the heart of these stories. Here he was mostly left to do as he pleased within the constraints, and thus we get what today feels like a small indie film rather than a Kaiju blockbuster. Uh And I think that's right on the money. We're we're kind of left in the end with a cozy little film about childhood struggles, bullying, courage, and the inspiration that we take from our myths. Uh. And it's also a film in which all the monster slamming is relegated to

dream sequences. But there is something very charming about it. Yeah. Again, it checks off the box of all the monsters, lots of monster stuff happening on screen, but then it figures out something very interesting to do with the rest of the picture, and in that it has a lot in common I think with a rather different Kaiju movie, a rather different Godzilla movie that we previously covered on Weird House. That's Godzilla versus Hetera, which which which I would say

is not as memorable from a character standpoint. I think this movie has a has more heart, but that one definitely had a lot of style, a lot of like in a hip message at the core of it. Uh while also giving us monsters. Yes, Hetera is I think a better movie from the point of view of just like weird imagery and having lots of crazy visual flair and stuff that stands out like that, but all monsters

attack has it has a soul and hetera. I don't know, maybe yeah, alright, Well, when we were thinking about elevator pitches for this one, I instantly thought The never Ending Story but with Kaiju. Oh yeah, and it really does remind me quite a bit of the film adaptation of Michael DA's nine novel The never Ending Story. I love both of these, by the way, um. I know Michael Linda did not like the film adaptation, but I have

removed my heart for both of them. But in um, in the film adaptation to The Never Ending Story, we have a kind of lonely child in the city with a disrupted home life who finds courage in the realm of fantasy. And in the film anyway, at any rate, he eventually unleashed is a luck dragon on his bullies. In this film, we have a lonely latchkey kid in late sixties Japan living in a heavily industrialized area, and he finds courage through his dream jaunts to Monster Island.

Instead of actually summoning a Kaiju to defeat his bullies and bank robbers, he home alones them as listener mail, uh suggested, Yeah, he like he lays traps essentially and gets them to fall through holes in the floor. Yeah, all right, Well let's go ahead and listen to the trailer audio on this one. Uh. This is the English dub trailer, which I think works best for the podcast format here, though this is not the cut of the

film I ended up watching. Um. Usually I'm all for the English dub on a film like this, that lets me focus more on the monsters and you know, and the human performances are generally less important in a picture like this, But HBO Max only offered subtitles, so I watched it as if I were viewing a Kurasawa film. Mm hmmmmmmmmmmm. Where is the island? Computer? Go on? Yes, yes, do you take a jet? Take a jet to get there? M m m. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome board

Pan American Flight one Director Monster Island. We'll be flying in thirty five thousand eight and we'll arrive on schedule. We hope you have a pleasant flight. Thank you. M are you watched the island over? What's ther island over? We're ready to land, Scott Zuma and come back on m all right, it sounds like a party, huh. I mean, if I hadn't already watched it, I would bid the is.

Speaking of advertising for this film, I haven't confirmed this, but the Internet alleges that the tagline was see prehistoric monsters crawl out of the hidden depths of the Earth and take revenge against the living. That's not even closed. Doesn't not even remotely describing this movie, not at all all Right, if you're wondering where you can watch this picture, well, as of this recording, you can watch it on HBO Max, but all streaming is subject to change, especially HBO Max

as of late. Um, so watch it while you can there, I guess. But it's also available on Blu Ray from the Criterion collection on They're just absolutely worshipful Godzilla the Showa era Films, Night nine five. I've looked at the physical packaging for this at Atlanta's own Video Drome. They have them for rent there, of course, and the packaging is just splendid, has all this amazing new artwork in it, these very flashy, colorful illustrations of Godzilla and the monsters

that he battles. I may have to pick that up one day. Oh, it's it's it's it's great, it's it's a nice package. All right. Well, let's get into the people here, uh involved in this film. So, as we noted already, Ishu Rojanda is the director left nineteen eleven through legendary Toho film director who of course home fifty four Godzilla in the Movie that started at All and he directed forty four pictures in total, eight of those Godzilla films culminating in seventy five Terror of Mecca Godzilla.

But he also directed Rodan, the Mysteriens, The Human Vapor Matango UM which, by the way, if you're out there enjoying UM the current mushroom Zombie um horror series on television, well you need to go back and watch Matango. Uh. I'm not sure if they were the first mushroom zombie type picture, but they have to be one of the first. If maybe you should do Matango on the show, we

probably should. Yeah, okay, but oh. Other films he did include Frankenstein Versus Bearragon, The War of the Gargantua's Space, Amiba, and more. He was a friend of director at Kira Kurasawa and served as director counselor or chief assistant director on karasas epic Ruyan. His name continues to appear in

the credits on Godzilla movies and in other homages. He also directed nineteen sixty three's at Tragon, which we previously covered on Weird House, and of course, as we mentioned, we also covered seventy ones Godzilla versus Hetera, which he did not direct, but still Godzilla picture. Hondo is a masterful director, and you can you can just feel his storytelling confidence even when he's working with what appeared to be extremely uh limiting constraints on like his budget and

what he could do with the movie. You just see him like kind of just accepting it and plowing straight through and making the best movie he could. Absolutely. Now getting into some of the other connections, I guess it's one of one of the situations when you start looking at the people involved in uh, certainly Tohoe pictures, um you see like this the Japanese studio system of the day in place, so a lot of these uh you know, we're frequent Tohoe actors or frequent um Um Honda collaborators.

So uh. The screenplay here was by Shinichi Sakazawa, who lived nineteen twenty through a frequent collaborator with Honda inscribe of many Godzilla movies, beginning with nineteen sixty two is King Kong Versus Godzilla. And he also wrote Adrigan, which we it's covered for. He was one of the writers on it. I forget how that shook out, but um, anyway, getting into the the actors here, of course we have to call out Haruo Nakajima, who plays Godzilla. He is

the man in the suit. He ROWI seventeen. He played godzill in twelve consecutive films. He was also in Mathra in the War of the gargantuas as well as a Cure Kurasawa's Seven Samurai in a bit role and not as a giant monster. He's generally considered a legend and the rubber monster suit actor par excellence. Was he ever a pro wrestler? Like? How did he get all those

moves down? Um? I don't think he had a wrestling background. Um, he just you know, as I think, like a lot of these, well, the way these different monster actors end up in the suits, that often comes end up to to find them. Like sometimes it's a case where they're like, uh, you know, a studied physical performer. Other times they're like

they're the willing person there. The person that was around it was like, yes, I will do this, and it became their thing, and certainly Uh Nakajima became like one of the most legendary rubber suit I mean certainly the

most legendary Kaiju actor of all time. Now when it comes to Manila, the Little Zilla creature Godzilla's Son, Uh, this uh performance is by little Man Machin whose real name was u Masseo Fukuzawa, who the ninety one through two thousand UM He played Manila in three films, The Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters and All Monsters Attack, which we previously noted, and he followed this up with a couple of Kaiju projects, Ultraman Story from eighty four,

ultra Que the Movie from nineteen ninety. He also played the juvenile version of the title Kaiju in the North Korean kaiju movie Pulga Sary from UM. His final film was the nine Tokasatsu film uh Mick, a Droid Robo Kill Beneath Disco Club Layla. I haven't seen it, but you may have seen that the cover art he's getting like some dark soldier with red eyes on it. Um. Uh, this is not one i'ch steen, but it's a I

think some people really dig it. But anyway, um, this was a diminutive suit actor who according to Godzilla Wiki. I looked at Godzilla Wiki in addition to the normal databases on this one, because they generally just have excellent information about Godzilla pictures. They say that he worked prior to this as a mini wrestler, but I couldn't find out really anything about that, like where he wrestled, who

he wrestled for, what his name was. I haven't guessing he was a little man when he wrestled, but uh, I mean there were there were some Japanese mini wrestlers, but I think even the ones that I'm aware of, they worked outside of Japan frequently, so I don't know how much of a scene there was for this in

Japanese wrestling during this time period. He played a couple of dwarf roles in the early sixties, including the Toshira Maffoony Sinbad movie or well, I'm not sure if it's actually a sin Bad movie, but it was released in the West as The Lost World of Sinbad. I've never seen that one. Now a note on on Manila here. He's not to be confused with god Zuki, the juvenile flying Kaiju from the hand of our Barrack cartoon the Godzilla Power Hour from seventy eight. I know a lot

of you out there, I know exactly what I'm talking about. Also, he's not to be confused with Godzilla Jr. Who debuted in Toho's film Godzilla Versus Mecha Godzilla two and appeared in two pictures after that. Both Godzuki and Godzilla Jr. Have baby dragon vibes, while um, Manila here he's more I don't know how would you describe him. He's kind of like baby turtle without a shell, right, yeah, baby turtle baby frog. Kind of like tadpole, a quadrupedal tadpole.

I'm not sure. Yeah. Very reminiscent though, of a human toddler, not only in his appearance but also in the way he moves around. Yes, I mean, I think they were really trying to play up that baby angle to make, uh, make Manilla as cute as possible. That was the directive. Yes, Now, we mentioned that there's a human child at the center

of this picture. Uh, the child is the character uh Ichiro Miki or just Ichiro is uh I don't even know this is the case where they really say his last name in the picture, but was played by Tomonori Yazaki. Dates unknown. He was a Japanese child actor. This was his first film, followed by mostly TV roles, some ultraman, some common rider through around seventy three or seventy four. His other film is the nineteen two monster flick uh

Diagoro Versus Goliath. I've read that there there's been attempts to sort of find uh this actor as an adult and you know, get his his take on what filming this movie was like. But I don't think any of those, uh those searches were ever fruitful. So I'm I'm not sure you know what became of him. But I lived a private life after his child acting days were behind him. Leave Ichiro alone, let him live his life. Now there's

another character of note in the picture. So again, Ichiro is a latch key kid, so his parents were lot He's left to go home and look after himself and his uh we meet this this friend of his, this um, this man who lives in the same apartment complex that is a toy maker or toy designer, an inventor of sorts. Right, Yeah, he at one point he's building something he calls a quote Kittie computer in the subtitles on the version I saw, But it's like a computer that shows live footage of

a moon landing. Yeah, in great quality. I was like, in color. Yeah, but yeah, so I don't know what's going on there, but yeah, he's a toy maker and he is he's essentially eros uh friend like he's a friend, and he looks after Ichiro sometimes when his when his parents are both working and can't come home. Yeah. This character's name is Shinpei and Nami played by the actor

Hideo i'm Amoto, who through two thousand and three. And this is a sometimes these these various Toho actors are actors that you just kind of see another Toho films, and there's kind of like, you know, just an ensemble of of of of Toho actors. But there's a very good chance folks out there have seen i'm Amoto before because he has very distinctive looks. Tall, thin Japanese character actor with kind of gaunt features that are maybe not accentuated much in this picture because he's just playing a

normal human and nothing. You know, he's not an assassin or anything. But he worked in a number of notable films. His work includes Kurasawa's Yo Jimbo from sixty one, Quite On from sixty four, sort of Doom, and The Tango from sixty six. He was also in Message for Space and a Trigon so, two films that we previously covered, though I think those were smaller roles in those pictures. Uh. He was also in International Secret Police Key of Keys from sixty five, which is known to many Western movie

goers as the movie that What's Up Tiger Lily? The Woody Allen picture was as a dub off. That was a picture where they took a Japanese film and dubbed over it with like new comedic dialogue. I've never seen it, but that's the basic pitch. I think I've never seen it either. Anyway. Amamoto was in a string of Godzilla and Kaiju movies, as well as nix Is Echo Echo as a rat to Birth of the Wizard and nine seven's Mighty Jack was that featured on Mystery Science Theater.

It was, yes, Mighty Jack. Well, he's very good in this role. It it calls on him to be the kindly, understanding adult in in an uncaring world. Yes, let's see, I'm going to skip a bit in the cast here. Um we we do see at Chiro's father a little bit. He's played by Kinji Sahara, who who was born in

two and is presumably still alive. He's a Japanese actor who has the distinction of being in the most Godzilla films, or at least was at the At one point he was in thirteen of them, which I think puts him what one over um the man in the Suit, in addition to numerous other Toho pictures. He was in the first Godzilla movie as a newspaper reporter and a party guy in a boat, and his last Godzilla film was two thousand and four's Final Wars, and it looks like

he was last active around and then finally. The music in this one is by Kunio mia Ucci, who lived nineteen thirty two through two thousand and six, Japanese Toho composer whose first big score was The Human Vapor in nineteen sixty. He followed this up with such films and TV shows as Mighty Jack, Ultraman, Godzilla Versus Gegan, and his stock music was used in Shin ultraman Um, which I haven't seen yet, but apparently Joe it gives ultraman

the Shin Godzilla treatment. Oh well, at least that's what the title and and the posters seemed to imply. Oh, I've looked this up before, but I always forget what it is that the title Shin Godzilla means. And I think the deal is that Shin is a war that has multiple meanings, Like it could be interpreted to mean the word god, or it could be interpreted to mean something like original or pure m. Is that right? I

believe that that that sounds familiar. I haven't looked into it recently, but I remember reading about it when Shin Godzilla first came out, and it's kind of like taken on its own meeting to me, like you put Shin on the beginning of something, and I'm expecting it to have like a lot of scenes of bureaucracy dealing with with UH an outrageous event. So like, I think you could apply it to anything Shin Godzilla, Shin King Kong,

I don't know, Shin Matango there there. You could really go crazy with Shin critters s critters shin grimlins too. That's what we want to see, all right, You ready to look at some stuff about the plot, let's do it. Well, of course, we start with that beautiful Toho logo. I know I've said this on the show before, but it makes me feel so good every time I see the

Toho logo, Really, something in my chest just relaxes. There's something about how it looks like it there's light shining through glass on it that it feels like I am in the waiting room at at an office for a professional that I trust, you know, like I don't know if I'm going to a doctor in this scenario, or or what I'm going to a Tohoe picture, and I trust that I'm going to be taken care of. You are in good hands now. How to describe the score

that plays with the opening credits. The music throughout this movie is generally rather strange in a way that I liked. It's got this opening jazz tune that makes me think a little bit of the Pink Panther. But after many cups of coffee and then once the singing starts, it gets really weird. Yeah, I guess the vibe is kind of hip and fun at least until you start reading the subtitles for the for the opening same song. Oh,

we'll get to that in a second. But also I love how the opening credits are full of monster fight clips, and there was one I genuinely laughed out loud. So it's showing Godzilla fighting with one of the spider monsters. I think that's the monster they fight originally in Son of Godzilla, and they show the fight again in this movie, and so it's showing this big spider and then there's just a freeze frame on the spider spraying spider juice out of its mouth. Yeah. Again, this is a movie

that knows the kids out there want monsters. They know people come to Godzilla to sea monsters, and they're gonna start delivering right away. And I enjoy how the spider has a Sam Elliott mustache. Yeah, it's very furry. It's a disturbingly furry spider. It's a bristly spider. It's got like pink crystals for eyes and Sam Elliott upper lip.

Just because they're using stock footage from old films though, doesn't mean they're not going to go ahead and use footage from later on in the picture, which I I always feel like it's a little cheap in a in a movie, you know, I don't want to see the trailer is probably already ruined enough. I don't need the film itself ruining itself, because we do see like this really sick Judo throw from Godzilla where he drops a monster right on its head. And of course this is

a scene from later on in the film. It's essentially like the finishing move Godzilla uses. That's so good. It's a triple dip. It's from another movie already, and then they show it to you twice in this movie, so you could see they were they were trying to pad out the run time. I think, Uh, then again, I don't know they would have had a credit sequence anyway. Maybe they just might as well. They're like, oh, let's

show that fight again in the credits. Why not. I totally accept your criticism of that as a move, But a lot of movies we have loved have done that. The Really Bloody Sword showed you the entire movie during the opening credits. They absolutely did. Yeah, sometimes you can you can pin it on like Western distributors of of movies from Europe or Asia and clearly, it's just like, well, let's keep them interested so they don't leave the theater

or drive away from the drive in. But yeah, this is this is the the original vision for the pictures that you can't blame it anybody else. Oh, but let's come back to So it's singing this song through the opening credits and they play it again later on. What is the deal with the lyrics here? They're they're intriguing an energetic of female vocalist that, according to the subtitles,

is basically saying, don't be afraid of monsters, kids. Monsters are actually themselves shocked by the real threat industrial pollution, a theme that would become central to the later film Godzilla versus Hetera, which is the one we previously covered on on Weird House before Heatera is just a wicked pollution monster who like powers up by huffing smokestacks. Yeah, in that movie, it's like the central theme and the threat at the center of the film is the physical

embodiment of that real world threat. In this movie, I was thinking about this. I guess it kind of helps to ground the film in a world where the monsters have lost their power. Later, much later, in the picture, the monsters the kaiju are compared to gods, and if here to take that and and run with it. Back to the beginning of the picture. Here, this is like we're living in the twilight of the God. This is

a world that has lost its faith. The grown ups have lost their faith anyway, and the only people who really have faith in the gods a k a. Big rubber monsters are the children. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Like and but a theme of this song, apart from the thing about the pollution, yeah, is explicitly about the monsters being weakened somehow. Like one part says, uh says the monsters are crying why is earth such a hard place to live? That it's the lyric uh, And then

another part is uh. I'm paraphrasing for this part, but it's like wham bam, crash. You can smash everything, but still it's not easy being a monster. See. This is again why they probably had to have a whole bunch of monster footage at the beginning of the picture. You can't have this be the first thing kids watch. They're gonna lose all hope. But anyway, as the credits finish out,

we see, uh, we see some setting. It's the industrial I think it's supposed to be Kawasaki, but it's an industrial area of Japan with a lot of I don't know, oil refineries and factories and just smoke stacks pouring smog everywhere. A barren world populated only by smoke and factories and trucks. But amidst this unforgiving landscape, we see a couple of sweet kids. Itchy, oh, our our main kid. He's walking along holding hands with his friends at Chico and they

are there. I guess they're trying to make their way home after school through this infernal landscape of of suit and asthma. It reminds me once again of last week's picture let Sleeping Corpses Live, where we start off in a very industrial British city and we're supposed to be Manchester, I think gives Manchester. Uh. And the only thing that really calls out like any kind of like spirit of fun or rebellion or anything like that is the streaker

in this film, it's the children. Like that everything is is kind of gross and grinding and busy, but these children are just a basket of joy, you know, holding the hands um against all the grime behind them, And I have to say, I really love these kids, especially uh Ichiro played by Yazaki. Here he's he's just so good. It's just a really solid kid's performance. Like there's a lot of energy and authenticity to it that you don't always see in a in a child actor. Yeah, this

is a cute kid. I was a little confused as to why some reviewers had in the past written stuff that they considered Ichiro annoying, but uh, I think maybe I know I was reading something that made me understand a little better. I think it's possible that part of the reaction to this character was that some people were hearing a particular dub of the film where his lines were dubbed by an adult who did this really nasal,

whiney voice for all of his speaking parts. And I can't be sure, but I think that dub exists, and I think that is not the version I saw, So I don't know if that is the reason for sure, but that would partially explain it, because I thought, I Ro is great, that is a great, great point, and that that's probably the reason. It reminds me of a film like say House by the cemetery where kids. Bob is Bob the kid and the Bob, Yes, Bob the

demon child with an adult voice. Right, Yeah, he's clearly dubbed by a grown woman, and it creates a weird energy in the film, Like you you kind of there's an uncanny nous to him that and there's a certain amount of uncanny is that's supposed to be there, And I mean there's this added layer of of the uncanny and in a picture like this, yeah, Echo is not supposed to be uncanny. He's not supposed to be weird. And you get the wrong dub on there, and it's

going to totally change the feeling you get exactly. So I think that may very well be what's going on. Um. But so we we follow each arro around and a lot of the early parts of the movie are just sort of establishing his daily life and his struggles, and maybe we could talk a little bit about elements from from each of these these things that are established. So

one theme of the movie is bullying. Ich r Oh is consistently bullied by a gang of bigger kids who are led by this this sadist bully king named Gabbara. So we see them knock each er o over on purpose as they run by, and they taunt him and they call him weak, and they make him feel helpless, and you really feel for each Rro Like there's you know these moments where the camera just lingers on his face as he looks frustrated and sad and and knows

that he can't really fight back. Yeah, yeah, and you know he's a good kid, and and he doesn't He just doesn't want to make anything worse. He doesn't want to escalate things. Then you've got another theme. So bullying is one. Another theme is ich Ro's love of the Kaiju.

I wonder what you thought about this. Does the movie take place in a world basically in the real world where monsters don't exist, but the children are familiar with the existing Godzilla movies, or does it take place in a world where the events of the previous Godzilla movies are known of as real events that have previously happened in the world. I couldn't tell which, but I think maybe it's the former, like he's literally seen the films, I think, so if I had to to choose one,

I would go in that direction. Um, just because that basically I mean no particular thing leads me to think that though that there is a part where we see a Kaiju action figure or doll, but I think we saw one in Hetera as well, So that's that alone is not an indicator. But I think overall, I get the feeling that, yeah, this is a world in which the monsters are only on TV and in the minds of children. So Ichiro is having monster paradolia. Like a car goes by and he's like, oh, that car, the

screeching it sounds just like Manila. It goes key ki ki. I don't think I ever heard Nila make a kiki key sound, unless that's supposed to be the donkey sound. Maybe we're getting into that whole situation where we're not sure, uh what or not. It just it varies what sounded animal makes based on the language in which you're describing it. So maybe donkeys go kiki ki in Japanese. Yeah, maybe I couldn't say okay. So that's another theme. It'syero, he

gives bullied, he loves the monsters. But also the theme of this movie is loneliness, and I think it it tackles that in a pretty head on way. It's Erro's family here is is working class and both of his parents work long hours to make ends meet, and he

is often home alone after school fending for himself. So we see a scene where he's walking by the train tracks and this old, you know, busted industrial landscape, and a train starts going by, and the conductor in the front of the train or the engineer, I guess whatever. The guy in the front of the train is his dad, and his dad calls out, oh, hey, Zero, I'm working tonight, be good till your mom gets home. And then actually after this we stick with Ichiro's father for a little bit.

We see him take a smoke break with his co worker, and we we learned that the father wants to save up enough money that they can move away from the smog, move out to the country or to a place where the air is clean. So you see that he's working long hours to I guess, try to get his his

family to this better place. But then also in the scene, we learned from his coworker who's reading a newspaper that there are a couple of bank robbers on the loose, fleeing police with a suitcase full of money, and these are Tchekhov's bank robbers. They will show up later, but we learned that they took fifty million yen, and you can just see Ichiro's father dreaming about what he could do with money like that. Now we come back to bullying.

There's another bullying scene where um Ichiro and and Sachiko are are walking around and Ichiro finds a vacuum tube in the grass. I guess because this is an area that used to be like an electronics factory, and um he finds and then the bullies come up on him and they take away his vacuum tube, and they call him a baby, and they like mock him to his face. And for some reason I found something very heart wrenching about the theft of each rose vacuum tube. I think

it's because he found it. And this kind of hit me in a strong way, because I have memories of being a little kid and finding a treasure of some kind just lying out on the ground somewhere. That's a powerfully nostalgic kind of memory. And I have one specific

memory of something like this happening to me. And I was out at some event, I think, and I found a loose spool of tape from an audio cassette and I was like holding it and letting it blow in the wind, and then an older kid took it away from me and threw it over the edge of a bridge. Um and that, Yeah, that that really stuck with me.

So so anyway, I felt the vacuum tube scene very hard. Yeah, this felt like a very authentic moment in this picture or like, because I think we can all we all have memories like that where we find some sort of weird bit of discarded technology or or a registrate garbage, but it's fascinating and we want to want to keep it and uh. And then also the childhood insult of of him being a baby, Like I definitely I don't have memories of this myself, but I've seen that watching

my my son grow up. Like there's a period where to call someone a baby was the was the biggest insult. Um to the point where he would call the cat a baby if he was snat at a cat sick burn. Yeah, Like it's it's clearly you know, it's clearly hurting, Ichi wrote, but uh to hear this, But then there's also this kind of innocence to it, like these kids are so young, even their their cruelty has a certain innocence to it. Yeah. But then one more element of Io's daily life we

learned about is his friendship with Shiny the toymaker. And and uh so when when he's coming home, I think, I guess Chimpay is like maybe his neighbor. And so he comes home and sees him working on this this electronic device, the kiddie computer that shows people landing on the moon, and h it's clear that you know, he's welcome hanging out in this guy's shop and they're friendly, and him pays a good, you know, nurturing influence on this kid. But it's also funny because he makes this computer,

he expects each year O to be all impressed. But what Ichiro says is the Moon's okay, but there's somewhere else. I'd rather go Monster Island. And then he just starts listing all the monsters. And I was like, oh, this also made me. This seems authentic. Don't don't kids love to list all the monsters or list all the whatevers? Uh? Oh god, they do. And I'm I'm not going to be a hypocrite. I'm also gonna admit I love to list the monsters, and I've never grown out of that.

But yeah, like my son will definitely list all the Pokemon, all the dungeons and dragons, dragon varieties, um and and I think that's great. I love it too. I love good monster list. But I think we see one of the reasons that Ichiro is so infatuated with the monsters. He talks about how they're all stronger than Gabbarra, his bully, and he's like, you know, they don't have to worry about bullies. They they can do what we want, what they want. They're free because they're strong. Uh. And then

eventually we see Ichiro go back home uh. And there's kind of a lonely snack scene where he, you know, his mom left out a snack for him. He has that. He watches some TV and he watches like the news where he learns about the the bank robbers stealing the fifty million yen. He switches I think to a soap opera or the people are like saying, oh, I love you, and then he there's a really funny moment where he I can't remember that the phrase he says in Japanese,

but the translation is he just goes yuck. But then it's segways to him playing around with this like toy radio he's put together that he dreams like of calling Monster Island, which seguys into a dream of him visiting Monster Island. And this is going to be one of the major themes for the rest of the movie is that these recurring visits in dreams to Monster Island where all the monsters live, where we're going to see a

lot of fights between monsters. So much of this is going to be footage from other movies, but I think some original stuff too. And uh, this is where Ichiro meets Manila, the son of Godzilla, and they become friends because they have a lot in common. It turns out Manila is also being bullied by a monster on Monster Island, and that monster has the same name as Ichiro's bully. They're both called Gabbarra. Oh. By the way, he initially dream travels to Monster Island um via direct flight, which

I thought was a marvelous dream sequence. Yes, I love how in these scenes with Manila, he's he's also as he's like, hey, I hear you know Godzilla. Do you think you could introduce me to him? Because I'd love to climb on his back, and Manila is like, well, you know, I'll see, I'll see what Silla talked in this. By the way, Manila says, I'll see what I can do.

But you know, Godzilla, he doesn't like me around all the time because he gets onto me for for not being strong enough, for not standing up to for myself enough and um. And of course that again mirrors the situation with I Tiro. Oh yeah, that's right, because we actually do see a scene where Ichira's father says, you know, he uh, he feels for his son, but he wishes he would stand up for himself. So we're gonna get some some slams, some smackdowns on the island. I think

we see Godzilla fighting um Ibira. I think the Ebro Horror of the Deep, the shrimp crayfish monster. Uh. We see various fights take place, and in a way, Ichiro kind of like watches and learns from them. But he also learns from watching Son of Godzilla, like like morph up and try to fight against Gabbarra. Uh. The like he like grows and he and they fight and Gabra always wins at first. But you kind of like pick up some clues along the way about how he might

beat him later on. Now, Gabra is is pretty interesting. He's he's again our our main kaiju antagonist, and he is original with this picture. So many of the other Kaiju we encounter are aurist clips from other scenes or maybe reused puppets even in the films that they that they originally appeared in, But Gabra exists for this picture. This is his first picture where we see this costume

um and I think he's pretty great. I've read that he's supposed to resemble a mutated frog or toad, but he winds up with more feline features somehow, like kind

of like a green panther. He's like a lizard cat. Yeah, And I think these feelings of like cats similarities are also accentuated by he's green and scaly, but he has the shot cock of orange hair on the top of his head amid these various horns like this, this row of horns down down his head as well, And I feel like the orange hair, the green skin, it kind of gives him a cartoon leprechn look, you know what I mean? Ye yea. Though I've I've of course that's

not what they were going for here. I've read that what they were originally aiming for with this design was more of a something that alluded to the Japanese only you know, kind of an ogre figure. Um. And if you go to the Wicked Zilla page for this monster, you can actually see some of the preliminary sketches, uh, the way they envisioned this creature. And yeah, I can definitely see a sense of the only here before it's

realized in the suit. Oh, that almost kind of makes sense with so Gabra being like this bully who just uh wayleys each yarrow while he's on the way home from school, like sits by the roadside and attacks him as he goes past. He's kind of like a bandit in a way. And that I think there's classically a little bit of overlap between the concepts of some one and and like banditry ideas. Yeah, and I think also

there are often ideas of lightning with the one. And indeed Gabra here has an electricity attack that he uses, um, but he he doesn't have a breath weapon. I thought

that was interesting. He doesn't seem to have a projectile weapon, um, which I think is an interesting choice, uh, because a lot of times in these movies you see some sort of like a ranged specialist kaiju, and that's generally the that's a weak point for Godzilla or for GAMMERA, whoever's facing such a Kaiju, even though Godzilla of course has

an amazing breath weapon that he can use at range. Now, for all of the kind of like sweet elements of this movie, there are also some things that ring kind of weird. One of them is when we're seeing Godzilla training son of Godzilla here training Manila how to use his radiation breath. He's he doesn't by like stomping on his ale. Yeah, I step on your tail that makes you really shoot the radiation. Uh. And until then he can only kind of like blow these like rings of

radiation that don't really do anything. Yeah, So I gets like Godzilla's lesson here is that you must feel pain and m and give in to your anger, like he's basically giving him the dark side of the force field. Strike me down with all of your hate. Journey towards Monster Island will be complete. So again, there there may be a generational divide on on the message here. The parenting message of Godzilla, but I mean it's it's a music of the picture. Yes, I mean there's several things.

There's also a real world thing where uh you know, there's a very nice message about giving giving each a confidence to stand up to his bullies. But I don't know if the exact way that he does that in the end is the best. But I think he kind of like fights them, but then he also at their goating, like pulls a mean prank on a guy who's just trying to paint a sign and gets him covered in paint. I don't know, Oh yeah, and this was what the bullies were trying to get him to do earlier in

the picture. They're like, hey, see that guy painting the sign on the top of the ladder, you should go blow the horn on his motorcycle. So he falls off the ladder and he's like, of course I'm not gonna do that. I'm a good kid, and they make fun of him, and then later he's like, I'm I'm a brave kid. Now watch me go make that man fall off the ladder, and he does. So. I think that

something's a little confused there, But there's another major plot line. Um. I don't think I'm going to go into great detail unless there's anything about it you wanted to hit rob But a major part of the real world plot, apart from what what's happening in the dreams of Monster Island, is, uh, the developing story about the bank robbers with the fifty million yen who are hiding out in a nearby factory. I think it's near the place where Ichero found the

vacuum tube. And ultimately he is kidnapped by these bank robbers because we know it's your loves to like find and pick up treasures, and one of the treasures he finds and picks up is a driver's license dropped by one of the robbers, and oh, now now he knows who they are, so they have to kidnap him, and then ultimately he has to outsmart them with tricks and traps, and after the robbers are caught, there's this very interesting scene where it's almost like the movie is telling us

the moral of the story, and uh, they like the press hale, little Ichiro is a hero, and Ichiro gives credit for his heroism to Manila, to the monster from the Godzilla movies, and uh, and there so there's this exchange where the toymaker his friend Shinpei is hanging out there near all of the reporters and he explains to them. He says, he means Manila the monster. I think I understand.

He's like a higher power. And one of the reporters asks for clarification he's as a higher power, and Shinpai says, that's right. Adults believe in God's so why can't children have their own God's too, like Manila? And it's kind of a funny line, but oh, something stirred in me there.

I absolutely agree. Yeah, this is this is one of my favorite parts of the picture, really, um, because I think it's it's rather insightful and accurate, and I think it's a thing that we we may be touched on to some degree in our discussion of Godzilla and Weird

House before, but here it's directly brought up in the picture. Um, this idea that you know, toy monsters and ultimately monster media in general, that these are icons that connect children in the natural world to the powerful realm of super beings. In this film, localized on Monster Island, which one can easily compare to the various sacred mountains of various cultures around the world. So the monsters are strength and courage.

They are the absolute personification or expression of emotion, and they have considerable power over the grown up human world while not being a part of that world. And of course we see a sequence in this where the humans come in jet planes to conquer Monster Island and Godzilla has to fight them off and destroy some some jet fighters. That sort of thing. I think that was maybe a scene from a previous picture. I'm not sure. I could kind of feel like filler and again checking off the

boxes of what a monster movie should give you. But it also I think works in this sort of vision of like what is what is the energy of the kaiju and why is it so attractive to children? It's like it is big body energy um incarnate, you know, and it is the expression of these emotions that that that there may be only beginning to understand at certain ages.

I think that's all correct. And uh, there was another angle in which I was thinking about this, and maybe this is too much of a reach, but it made me think about this is almost kind of painting a picture of a world highlighting the difference between like the gods of children and the gods of adults, which is where many adults might literally believe that the gods exist

but don't take their lessons in their meaning to heart. Meanwhile, you can have children who can treat known fictional entities like the monsters of god Zilla like gods, and even though they don't literally believe they exist, they do take their their meaning to heart. And so it's it's almost like a question of like adults taking their gods literally but not seriously, and children taking their gods seriously but

not literally. Yeah, I mean it brings me back to another thing I think we've discussed in the show before, like this this space for mythology in our our modern viewpoint, like I don't think the world needs to be just truth and fiction, that it needs to be just um,

the real and the unreal. Uh, you know, the difference between skeptical and fundamentalist viewpoints, Like I feel like there needs to be a room for mythology and under that like a very loose version of mythology, which you have room for actual myths that have cultural resonance, but also fictional things things like Godzilla, things like Star Wars, um or any any bit of of media or imagination that

ends up becoming meaningful to somebody. Yes, I think we should take each Euro's attitude to heart right because he can find absolutely raw core meaningfulness in his in his mythology without it being in fact true that Manila is a physical monster that exists in the world. Yea, though coming back to my question from earlier, I still don't know for sure whether the film is saying that he's just a character in a movie in the world of the film, or whether he was real. It's not quite clear.

But assuming it's the former, that it's a character in a movie, yeah, yeah, I like the ambiguity though in a way it works well with this kind of children's viewpoint of of the world, a world in which yeah, I mean, maybe maybe they are real. Maybe maybe maybe they are It doesn't matter at the end because they really to him. So this was a really fun one.

I'm glad we we did this one. I always have a certain amount of hesitation with kaiju movies, just because you don't want to spend a lot of time on one that is just a monster suit film, Like there's so many. There are a lot of great monster suit films, but they've gotta have something else going on in them to really be to to to really be worth talking about, and in this film definitely had had other things going for it besides some awesome monster battles. Well, I take

that back. I would say the monster battles are awesome in this picture. Don't watch this one just for the monster battles, but it provides a nice balance of things. Mm hmm, well I agree, But I don't know. I might feel different. Maybe I'm just more gung ho about any any great big monster beat down. I didn't feel like Godzilla was ever in real danger in this one. I always knew he had this one handled. But it wasn't just Godzilla's battle. It was also Godzilla's son's battle.

So uh, there's a different, different dynamic going on here. All right, Well, we're to go ahead and close this one out, but we'd love to hear from everyone out there, if you have thoughts on all Monsters Attack, if you have other favorite Kaiju movies that you would like to suggest for the future on Weird House Cinema, or just discussed in general. You know, we we read listener mail on usually on our Listener Mail episodes on Mondays. In the stuff to blow your mind podcast feed, so we're

having to discuss all of that there. Reminder that we're primarily a science podcast with Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Monster Factor Artifact episode on Wednesdays, and then on Friday. We set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. And if you want to see a list of all the films we've done before, we can go to a couple of places. I blog about all these movies. At Samuta music dot com there's just a personal blog, but I maintain that

just mostly weird House stuff these days. And then if you go to letterbox dot com, it's l E T T E R B l x D dot com. Uh, that's a cool website where you can chronicle your own cinematic explorations and make lists and so forth. At Mad Reviews, we have an account there. Our account is weird House and we have a list there that has all the movies that we've discussed in order, and occasionally you'll get a glimpse ahead at what is about to come up

for us. Huch thanks to our audio producer J. J. Pauseway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello. You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.