¶ Podcast Intro & Pilot Synopsis
In 2005, two brothers set off on a road trip that would eventually save the world and change television. For 15 seasons and 327 episodes, Supernatural took audiences on a wild ride of family, fate, and faith. with a rocking soundtrack and a seriously cool car. But that was then, and this is now. And while the show might have ended, we're not quite done with the journey.
And that's why we're watching it all over again, diving deep into every episode of Supernatural with the fine folks who made it. And we're taking you along for the ride. I'm Rob Benedict. I played Chuck Shirley, a.k.a. God. And yes... That's a bit of a spoiler, but spoilers are going to be fair game here. And I'm Richard Spate Jr., and I played the Trickster, also known as the Archangel Gabriel. We'll be talking about the entire series, so don't say we didn't warn you. Buckle up and settle in.
This is Supernatural, then and now. Hey everybody, I'm Rob Benedict. I'm Richard Spate Jr. And we are here to walk you through the series Supernatural, episode by episode. We're going to gently take your hand and guide you through every swinging episode the show ever shot and aired, and that's 327 bad boys. Let's start with the first.
First one, the pilot episode. The one that started it all, Bobbo. You know, in this episode, we get to sit down with Jensen and Jared. Who are they? They played Sam and Dean Winchester, the leads of the show. What? Yeah. I wish I'd known that before the interview.
We get to cover quite a few things with them, including the audition process, how they came to be Sam and Dean. How they met. I mean, it's not only just the audition process, but how those individuals met and bonded. Because, you know, the core of the show is their relationship. Right.
Exactly. And it really is. If they hadn't hit it off, we wouldn't be having this podcast. Robbie and I would be talking about a pilot. It'd be a one-episode podcast, and we would have never met. Right. So it's not even the Sam and Dean origin. It's the Jensen and Jared origin story. Correct.
And then we talk about they had a lot of fun shooting with people on fire on the ceiling. I was going to say, they actually, you know, in the day of practical effects, meaning they did it in real time, right there on the soundstage, they had to actually shoot. In rooms that were on fire. Things that would be considered, quote unquote, illegal to do today. That's right. And run for cover. And then we get into another less talked about show called Threshold that ran for 13 episodes on CBS.
I'll leave that to the boys to discuss. And let's just say we touch on that with great clarity. But let's stick with Supernatural, the pilot episode. This is the pilot episode of Supernatural. We are introduced to the Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean, whose mother was killed in 1983 by something not natural. Oh, yeah. Mary Winchester's death set her husband John on a hunt to find what killed her. 22 years later...
Dean retrieves Sam from college at Stanford after John goes missing. Yep, now this search takes the boys to Jericho, California, where they hunt the ghost of Constance Welch, a woman in white who killed her children. and herself, and now lures unfaithful men to their deaths. With a little brotherly teamwork in a 67 Chevy Impala, Sam and Dean send Constance back home for good. Sam heads back to college only for his girlfriend Jessica to end up dead on fire.
on his ceiling just like his mother 22 years before. What a coinkydink. Yeah, right? We're in the episode with the boys determined to find their mother and Jessica's killer and their lost father. Oh, they've got some work to do, Bubbo. They sure do. Let's get into it.
¶ Reflecting on Pilot, Auditions & Early Days
Okay, here we are. First of all, Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thanks, Rob. Rich. Rich, thank you, Rich. Thank you, Rob. And so we're going to start with the pilot of Supernatural. So I have to admit something. I watched it.
just the other day for the first time. And I have been doing the conventions for, what, 12, 13 years, but I've never watched a pilot. It made so much sense. How many episodes have you actually been in, too? Like 20, 21? Exactly. What about you, Spate? Are you winning this battle or are you losing this battle of most episodes of Supernatural? No, Rob won.
Rob appeared in more episodes than I did. Then I would rather you not talk for the rest of the podcast. We'll direct our comments and questions to... That's a recurring theme in this whole process. If you add your directing credits, you're on... Although unlike...
Rob Rich did his research before coming on the show. So he did watch the first episode. Rob still calls me Jared. I was getting texts from Rob last night going, did you know that Jeffrey Dean Morgan was in Supernatural? Like he's discovering. New elements. A lot of stuff made sense. I'm like, that's why he comes to the convention sometimes. It was listening to Rob live tweet the pilot 15 years later. He's like, holy s***, they're brothers. I watched the show. When is it going to air?
When does it launch? It's a whole dynamic. Yeah, no, it was actually great. And you guys have been your friends now for a while. We've known each other. Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry. We've known each other. We've been acquaintances. You sometimes answer texts. But you did watch the pilot. You're so young. It was a long time ago. Do you have a memory of what that was like of shooting it?
How clear is that in your mind? The pilot for me is pretty clear. The casting process, the pilot. I think because shooting the series Supernatural... Sometimes you'll be filming an episode on Tuesday that you get the script on the prior Friday. So you have three days to kind of go like, okay, I better not forget my lines. Whereas the pilot, it was like shooting a movie where you have, where you're living this.
48 page script for a month or two months or three, whatever it is, not like for three days. So you don't forget your lines. And so you're trying to figure out who you are. You're trying to establish like, okay, who is this character? What do they want me to do? What am I gonna do? I feel like we were, and I could be wrong, but I'm having a memory of us doing preliminary reads.
prior to the holidays and then coming back in like January and doing our executive reads and getting the role. That feels right. So you're auditioning like... in front of producers and then you came back in in january and tested in front of well for us i think so yeah yeah i think you're right for us it wasn't really an audition as much as it was
a meeting because jensen was on smallville i was on gilmore girls right and so we both already had a relationship with one of other studios and at the time one of those network and so like we know these guys like they show up on time they uh hit their marks they say their lines they hang their wardrobe
There are a lot of talented actors and actresses out there, but I think one of the reasons, and I don't know if I'm jumping the gun here and talking about something that we're supposed to talk about later, but one of the reasons that I... fully believe that Supernatural went so long is because everybody who got involved with minor exceptions was just easy, you know? Like, and Ackles and I were just sort of like, we always talk to each other.
Like, we just kind of thought of ourselves as soldiers who didn't have to risk their lives. It was like, okay, you tell me where to be, tell me where to go, tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it. Not like, well, you know, 4 a.m. is early. And I remember, and I'm sure Ackles does as well, like back in the early days, there was no social media.
the ways to publicize a show and we shot in Vancouver. There were no iPhones. There were no iPhones. Yeah, that's right. So they would, they would swap us out and be like, Hey, we're doing a radio press tour next Monday. Jensen did the last one. So you're doing this. And what that meant was that we'd wake up at 2.45 in Vancouver to make sure that we were on a phone call at 3 a.m. to air.
live at 6 a.m. on the East Coast. And so we do an hour of New York, Boston, D.C., Jacksonville or whatever. And then at... 4 a.m. Vancouver time, it was now 6 a.m. in Chicago, Dallas, whatever. And so you would do four time zones, so four hours worth of radio interviews. You'd wake up at 2.45, start from 3. go till six or seven or whatever.
And then you'd get picked up and go to set and shoot an 18-hour day. Yeah, so it was just a lot of work. But again, especially in those days when we were both 20-something without wives and kids. We can handle it. We were like, all right, whatever. We'll be a little tired. I'll take a...
¶ Building On-Screen Chemistry
sip of coffee at 8 p.m. to get me through the next six hours. Right. Do you remember when you met each other? I do, yeah. Was there a chemistry read? Well, literally the network studio test was... basically our chemistry read. So, I mean, yeah, I can see it as clear as day. Walked into the WB Ranch. Now, was Eric Kripke there in the room and David Nutter, the director? They were there.
And is that when you first met them as well? No, we had reread with them. We had met them. A month or two before. One of my first ever jobs was an episode of ER that Nutter was directing, and I was a guest star on it. And Jim Belushi was my dad. And so I'd worked with Nutter. And I feel like I had auditioned for something else with him. I can't recall exactly. But then Kripke I'd met just independently. PJ, I think, was there. Nutter, Kripke.
All producers on the show. Yeah. I knew Nutter from Smallville. He directed the pilot of Smallville. Okay. And it came down to me and Welling for Superman. Wow. So I'd run that gamut with Nutter once before. I mean, I read once for them. I didn't even read for Dean. Really? I read for Sam.
Wow. Those were the sides. Yeah. They're like, okay, we have an idea of who Sam is, so let's see what you tend towards. But the sides were, it was a scene between Sam and Dean. Did it end up, was it just empty sides? I don't recall. But they were only reading.
Was it Empty Sides? Do you recall if it was Empty Sides or if it was actually a scene from the episode? Oh, like was it just written? Yeah, it was just a basic audition scene. But Dean was still written with, you know, the voice that carried through and became the character. I read for Kripke and David at Wonderland at McG's offices on Sunset. Oh, of course. And I sat down and David said a few nice words because we'd gone through that Smallville thing together. And then I read for Sam.
And then at the end, I was like, guys, I really appreciate it. But is there any way I could read the other guy for you? And they both, like, looked at each other and laughed. And they were like, you don't have to. And then that was it.
And then the next time, the first time I ever read Dean was when I walked in, met him at the ranch. I looked at the sign in sheet. There was no other names. He was the number one name on there. And I signed in right underneath him and I looked at him and I was like. where's everybody because usually there's five other actors per character and you chemistry read you'll read exactly swap people out one with six two with seven and nobody showed up and they finally came out and said jared jensen
We're ready to have you back. And so we went back there. We went into the room with all the suits. And we read together for the first time in front of everybody. In front of 20 and 25, 30. Yeah, it was 30 executives. In a big office. And I read for. PJ, Nutter, Kripke and McG and I read Sam and I had a holding deal with Warner Brothers at the time which basically meant
they were going to put me on something. So it was like, hey, you can't audition for CBS or ABC or NBC or Fox or whatever else was on at the time because we're going to hire you next year on something. We just don't know what. Maybe you'll be a guest star on Dawson's Creek.
Maybe you'll have your own show or whatever. And I read, and I'm going to sell out our mutual friend, Eric Kripke right now. So after I read either that day or the next day, or by the end of the week, my manager and producing partner and friend to this day, Dan Spilow. he called and was like, hey, what's the word? Like, how is Jared's read? Do you want something else? And at this point in time, I really wanted this show. And the note from Kripke was...
He's great. We love him. But we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. No way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so Dan was like, what? At the time I was 21 or 22. And Dan had to call and be like, listen.
Jared, you know, was magna cum laude. He's actually a smart guy. He's an academic. He was going to be pre-med at UT with engineering, double degree. I know he comes off as dumb. Yeah, he's a national scholar. Don't let his looks fool you. He's a smart guy. He looks dumb and he bumps into stuff, but I promise he can...
the Duchovny intelligent part as well. He just farts a lot. Yeah, he fart a lot. He smells and he'll break s***. I still tease Kripke that he didn't want to hire me initially because he thought I was stupid. Hilarious. What turned his opinion around?
I paid him a lot of money. I wrote him a check. He still thinks that. Well, back in the day, he just wanted... No, he never changed his opinion. Yeah. But you never went back to read again. So it wasn't like he gave you... No, no. Back in the day, Kripke, he just wanted brown paper bags of black tar heroin. Right.
I just did the boys. He's still going strong, man. I don't know. I wasn't privy to all the conversations, but I think when Spilo called, it's like, listen, this guy was actually an academic in school. Like, you know, like he was national. and he was going to do pre-med engineering at UT, this and that. They were like, okay, well, let's give him another shot, but have him smart it up a bit or dumb it down a little bit.
And so that's when, so a week later, whatever it was, that's when Ackles and I met there at the ranch. I see. Yeah. And then when did you realize that you had chemistry, that the two of you, that this was going to work? Because in the pilot, you know, the thing that really...
It makes you go, oh, this is a show I want to keep watching. Is the two of you in the chemistry you have? The producers say, by the way, that the scene on the bridge is when they knew. I felt it kind of instantly because, you know, it was just he and me.
And so you're in a 10 by 10 waiting room waiting to get someone to walk two doors down the hall to the room with the 30 people that will decide your future. Right. And so you just kind of shoot the shit a little bit. And he's like, so where are you from? I was like.
Texas. He's like, me too. I was like, cool. And then he softened a little bit. He's like, who's your team? I was like, Cowboys, Longhorns, Spurs. He's like, all right. Well, I don't know about Spurs. You know, I'm from Dallas. I like Mavs. But all right. He was like, he softened ever so slightly, bristled a little bit at the Spurs comment. He's like, so you ever listen to country music? And I was like, do I ever listen to country music? I'm a Texan. He's like.
Okay. Soften a little bit more slightly. He's like, tell me about your family. I was like, all right. Well, I got an older brother, younger sister. What about you? He's like, I got an older brother, younger sister. It's easier to work for the CIA. Never do a chemistry read with Jensen Ackles. But long story short, you know, we shot this for whatever, 10, 15 minutes. Realized that we both had parents that were still married, living in the house we grew up in.
And in Texas, we like the same teams. We listen to the same music. We both kind of play guitar and like to be athletic and fit. There was also something, and I don't know if you guys remember this, but back in the day, those audition rooms were really... an interesting kind of toxic almost they were an interesting window into like human emotion and and yeah all of it yeah human nature and i always kind of strived to take the air out of that
You know, the people sitting there really nervous, kind of rocking, reading their lines, standing up, you know, going over their stuff. And for me, I almost took a little pleasure in popping that focus. for a lot of people because i had i had my lines down i was i was good to go so if somebody was really intensely like and i don't know if i did it for for just the overall Feeling of the room or if I was just messing with them a little bit, but I would just start making small talk with them to
to almost knock him off their game. That's funny. Do you think that's what you're doing to him in that moment? Well, no, because we weren't going against each other. But I think I was just used to popping that pressure and releasing that pressure a bit. So it was just make some conversation with the guy.
Even to this day, once you're about to test for Studio Network, you've signed a six-year contract. And so if you go into the room next door to the waiting room and they say, cool, we'll take you, that's the next six years of your life. And so Ackles, to his credit, was like...
Well, let me ask some hard questions off the bat. I suppose like, how's your day? Good, how's your day? Oh, good as well. I might have to put up with this guy. Yeah, I might have to live with this guy for the next five to six years if we are so lucky. Yeah, right. And I kind of do a similar thing.
it's been a while but if you have 10 minutes before you have to get married to this person or not you don't want to ask like what's your favorite color you want to ask like all right where are you from like what are your likes and dislikes yeah what's your family history yeah yeah
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¶ Pilot's Uncertain Future & Industry Realities
But you get along in the reading, and then obviously it leads to you guys both get the gig. And so when you both know you have the job, how long from I'm hired to now you're on set together? I feel like that was quick. Yeah, it was just a few weeks. Yeah.
I remember before I was in Warner Brothers, the big lockup. In Burbank. In Burbank. And we were going through, like, the big wardrobe lockup, and we were kind of picking our outfits with the costume designer, and I felt like that was pretty quick. afterwards. And so you got this great cast around you, Adrian Pilecki. Steve Railsback, man. Let's not forget Steve Railsback. He's awesome.
Dude, Rob, Steve Railsback played Manson in the Charlie Manson story. That's right. He's great. And then, of course, Samantha Smith playing your mom. We didn't know that she'd be back. Sarah Shahi. Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Oh, great. Alden Ehrenreich was in Wendigo. Don't forget R.D. Call. Who did he play? He was the sheriff. Oh, yeah. I mean, these guys are great. You can tell, too. These are great actors. When you finished shooting it, were you like...
I think we've got something here. That's a good question. I mean, I felt like Peter Roth was running Warner Brothers Studios at the time. He just retired. And he believed in this show and believed in Jensen and me. A lot. And I've only kind of realized how much he believed in the two of us after the fact. Because at the time, you're just like, oh, wow, like they're hiring...
big names and really talented people. They're spending a ton of money doing long days. We're having our cinematographer had just won an Oscar for a short film that he had directed and lit and yeah. And so it was just, you would look around and go like, well, yeah. And you're like, these people are all great. They surrounded us with people who were more technical because they had worked for years or just outrageously talented.
And so I knew that we had made a great product. But, you know, the vagaries of the industry are intense. And so you're like, well, maybe they go like, no, we want to do comedies this next year. And so you don't really know. You know, like I realized that I have a job when I get a check in the mail, not, you know, after having filmed it, not like, oh, well, that was really good. And so I think we looked at each other.
And I had done a few pilots prior to Supernatural, Jensen as well. Jensen even did a show that shot... several episodes and didn't get it. So you're never, you're never, you're like, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to cash this check yet. Like I'm proud of the work I did. We shot seven episodes of that show and Fox just shelled it and never saw the line. Yeah. Yeah. And so it was like $15 million they pumped into this thing and it's just collecting dust somewhere.
yeah wow yeah i'd love to see it i remember that year 2005 there every network seemed to have some kind of uh supernatural kind of show or alien show or something that it's right after lost lost was on the year before the year before and so this year there's a lot of it like heroes heroes was that the same year it was the year you're after the year before Really? 2005 was Invasion on ABC, Surface on NBC, and a show that I was on called Threshold on CBS. Never heard of it. Thank you.
Not a fan. 13 episodes. That's a weird name. But anyway, the point is... That's funny because Firefly did 13 episodes. They made a whole movie about it. There's still conventions. I'm a big fan. I don't know that that... really did anything. You know, it's Carla Gugino and Peter Dinklage and myself, but the point is, this isn't about me, guys. This is your podcast, but...
The point is, every network had a show. The only one that made it, the only one that made it past was your show. We definitely outlasted, I think, the only show... that was of that year, of that class, was Grey's Anatomy that is still on, that outlasted us. They didn't keep the same cast, though. They didn't keep the same cast, but also, Grey's made the choice to go on. odd infinitum, whereas Ackles and I and the gang that put the show together, the rest of us.
¶ Visuals, Practical Effects & Episodic Demands
decided like, hey, we should probably meet our wives and kids someday and live in our country of residence. We should come up for air at some point. Yeah, we should take a breath. Tell us more about Threshold. No, no, no. I have two thoughts about the pilot. So you talk about the DP. I noticed visually it's much darker than the rest of the show. Visually, it's a darker...
and more contrasting lighting. It's more lit like a horror movie, I think, than the show ended up being. Well, that was kind of the initial idea. It's almost like a horror movie per week. But long story short, that's unsustainable. We would have... three hour lighting setup sometimes. We had over three weeks to shoot the pilot. We shot a 42 minute pilot, you know, with 18 minutes commercials.
In the time that it took to shoot two episodes. Yeah, two and change episodes. And so we went from Aaron Schneider to Ceres LaDuciere. And when you go to episodic television and they say for an actor. And I imagine for crew as well, that one hour episodic television is the most difficult job. You know, like we mentioned earlier, if you do a movie, even if it takes as long as a season of television, you have that movie script six months in advance.
Three months in advance. At the minimum, a month in advance. And you know what to expect. You know that if you're riding a horse in the movie, you better start taking horseback riding lessons. You know if you're doing kung fu, you better start going to learn jiu-jitsu.
kung fu and whatever you know that like oh i have a sex scene i better start eating less candy or oh i have to make some jokes in the midpoint of the script i better try and work on my comedic timing whereas with the one-hour episodic drama there are 20 times as much as 23 for us.
where you get a script you know nothing of that you're going to be filming in three days. So I was like, hey, here's an episode where you speak Spanish. You're like, I don't f***ing know Spanish. Or you speak sign language. You're like, I don't. Or you're doing a handstand for three scenes. You're like, I've never done a handstand.
of my life and so you don't have any time to prepare and so every moment you're not filming the current episode you're scrambling trying to figure out how to get prepped for
The next episode that you just read. Combing the Vancouver casting offices for a handstand guy. Yeah. With long hair and a big forehead. Piggyback on that. How much, when you shot the pilot, did you think about... what your character's situation was in terms of like there's a great scene between the two of you where you're like dad's on a hunting trip dad's on a hunting trip and he hasn't been home in a few days and you're like oh
you know it's time to you know and then did you think about what your life was because you your character dean didn't have a home essentially yeah well and tying that into kind of what we were talking about prior to this like when did we know that we had something yeah that we thought was could be a success. I've just been thinking about that and I think it was the day that we shot that particular scene.
It was the house. It was Sam's house, which I believe was down by USC. Oh, yeah. It was in USC. Yeah, it was a USC house. And that was the day that we shot the fight scene, which he and I. We're very comfortable with doing it. And I was like, oh, good, because there's going to be a lot of action. And he and I are both athletic enough to handle this stuff, so that's great. And then that scene, the dad's on a hunting trip, hadn't been home in a few days.
And then I think there was also matching that with I saw the playback of me kicking the door in after Jess lights on fire. And it cuts to me coming back for him and kicking the door in. And I remember I saw that shot and I was like, oh, that's some heroic shit right there. That's awesome. And I was like, we might get three seasons out of this. That's great, dude. That's great. This is going to be a home run. We might even get four seasons out of this show.
I remember that day, and it was also the same day that we went outside when the sun went down. We went outside and we shot the very last shot of the pilot. We got work to do. Yeah. It was that same, that day. Was that at Satakoy? Was that at Satakoy Studios? Was that the day that we lit the roof on fire, literally? No, I mean that. That wasn't that day. This was literally on location at USC filming at that house. Wow. And we shot that street. All right.
And with the back of the Impala that night after we shot the fight scene that afternoon. That's so cool. You know, that scene, the end sequence of the pilot, and I don't think I've ever talked about this just because I've never thought about it.
But it was multi-part. We shot him kicking in at the door at USC, me getting the cookies and the note, laying down on the bed and seeing her body, just like Jeff saw Sam's body on the roof. And then we shot... a scene at satikoi studios where it was it was as if you took a four-walled with a floor and a roof bedroom and took one wall off and so when you looked at the set
It would be the bed on the right. It's like a sitcom set. The door on the left. Yeah, sitcom set. And they don't do this these days, I don't believe. No. But we actually shot. The wide angle that Nutter wanted of Sam laying down on the bed with live fire. Inside. Inside the set. Inside the soundstage. Inside the soundstage. With Jared in the bed and me.
Running in and grabbing him with live fire. And then they were like, as soon as you get warm, run. If you feel too hot, get out. Give us what you can, but as soon as you feel unsafe or hot. Get out of the fire. And then like fire trucks there, like full on fire department there. I remember there was one take and you were really, you were really emotional in that particular scene. And I'm supposed to.
pull you back and you were fighting so hard against me and I was starting to get hot and instead of Instead of me going like, you know, we got to go, we got to go. I was like, I'm getting hot. We got to go. And that's when he went from like, that wasn't too heroic. Maybe two seasons. Maybe two seasons. Maybe two seasons or at least.
¶ Kripke's Vision & Impala's Legacy
until my eyebrows grow back. Exactly. Ooh, it burns, it burns. It burns, it burns. Hot, hot, hot. Hot, hot, hot. The effects in the first episode, too, I thought I was impressed with. Sometimes you see something I made 15 years ago and you're like...
That could have been better. That must have been threshold. I should have never brought that up. I thought this would be a funny tidbit. No, that's got legs. I thought the effects were pretty good. The ghost sort of... yeah going in and out i thought was a cool it holds up remarkably well i mean and even well now i know it's real fire but like so let me ask you this the the ceiling gag yeah for jess and for uh mary
Were you guys around when they shot that? No, I was not. No, I don't know how they did that. Because that's intense looking too. And that also leads me to ask, because you did a pilot with the lady, but you didn't have any scenes with her, did you ever meet Sam Smith?
Yes, yes. We met her the day they shot the Get the Boys Out of the House. We met her. I remember meeting Jeffrey Dean Morgan as well that day. We met him. He was really excited. He was like, hey, man. That was great. When he runs with young Sam.
To get out of the house. Yeah, and hands him off to Dean and says, Dean, turn around and run as fast as you can. Yeah. That was the same day. I mean, it was a big day. It was a lot of epic. Every day was a big day. Like, these were long days, and there were a lot of them. And the set where we shot the scene driving up to the house, it was a practical house. And I feel like that was also, and I remember Jensen.
He's still, obviously, he's a musician and he's really into music. But he had just told me about Ray Lamontagne, who had just had his first album come out. And so I bought the CD, drove in my SUV, and I think I made it through the entire Ray Lamontagne. trouble album between the time I left my house in uh in North Hollywood and got to set wherever it was and there was one day where I don't think we shot anything after lunch. And that was a scene where...
Sam pulls up and then Sarah Shahi's character, the woman in white, she appears. And it's also the exterior of the house that we end up going inside a chute where the dresser is smashed against the wall. But I think like after lunch, they started setting something up and six hours after lunch. It wasn't lit yet, and they were like, you...
uh, we're going to go ahead and send you home and we're going to do this tomorrow. And you're like, what? Like, why don't you remind me six hours ago? And they just didn't realize yet. So the days were long, long, epic. It was big. Well, you know, there's so many iconic scenes in this episode, in this episode, especially now, of course, looking back and retro.
and going, wow, that sets up so much stuff. Did Kripke ever tell you, like, hey, by the way, you're going to find your dad in episode whatever? No, you didn't know anything. No, we were along for the ride just as much as the audience was. I mean, we would get a script and be like, whoa, what's going to happen? So there was very...
little kind of discussion and that model really never changed over the 15 years i mean the maybe the last couple seasons yeah there were a few episodes like the french mistake they called us ahead of time to say like hey
How do you guys feel about this? We're thinking about something. How do y'all feel about playing Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles? Right, right. And we talked about it with each other and thought like, how do we feel about it? Like, okay, as long as we're Sam and Dean Winchester.
then you can call us whatever you want to call us. But, yeah, for the most part, Kripke didn't – he didn't give us – He never did. It always felt like that for me, too. And he didn't give anybody, but he had this, like –
bible in his head yes of where he was going what was going to happen the character arcs and stuff but he didn't share it to anybody and i i would imagine that's just probably self-preservation so he doesn't lock himself into anything yeah if he needs to pivot or he needs to adjust he's able and he had written the initial
conception of what became Supernatural when he was at USC writing school. It was something that he'd been trying to sell for years, and they were like, eh, that ain't got legs. We'd rather pick up Threshold. I think it was... God damn it. I think it was originally...
It was originally, like, cops. What was it? Cops meets Route 66? Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Sam and Dean were, too, were, like... Oh, were actually cops. Oh, no kidding. Police officers, yeah. I know it was, like, on the road a little bit. It changed a bit. Interesting. But eventually landed on brothers. Last question, then we're going to have to... Why wouldn't that work? You don't like cop shows?
What are you trying to say? You know what I'm doing for a living right now? Did you ever see Threshold? Because that explains a lot. Okay, I forgot what I was saying. Did I mention Peter Dinklage was in it? I only watched his scenes. So we also get to meet... We also get to meet Baby, the Impala, which is another iconic character in the show. Do you remember seeing that and seeing the Impala and going, wow, this is a cool car. This is going to be...
Nate, do you remember that moment? Yeah. Well, I remember reading it in the script because I was thinking, oh, it's going to be talking about a classic car. It's going to be probably a Mustang or it's going to be a Challenger or it's going to be something like that. But the Impala was kind of a little bit of a left field. choice in the best way possible. So I've always been a big fan of that. You know, Krippy could have gone with the obvious choice and instead he went...
He went a little left field. Old gangster. Yeah. Old gangster. Which I love it. I love that. And it's an element, a little bit of almost like a superhero. You know what I mean? That's your Batmobile. Yeah. You know what I mean? Right. Very much so. Trusty old. It's absolutely an archetype.
You know, I mean, Luke Skywalker has his lightsaber, you know, and the natural, it was the baseball. You know, like there's that. Yeah. Like Harry Potter has his wand. Threshold is dinklage. You know, you don't get to joke about this. You're not in this. I couldn't help it. I couldn't help it. I'm sorry. Yeah. There was so much. And Kripke, I think one of the first conversations he and I had.
had said like, Hey, have you read Joseph Campbell? And I was like, yeah, I did. You know, my, my mother taught heroes, myths, and legends in high school. And she's, you know, she's English major and we were big readers in our family. And so I was familiar. with the archetypes and those classic storytelling tropes. And randomly, I always was a 60s Chevy.
or just classic car fan my first ever car was 69 camaro which is almost done it's been being restored for about the last 10 years just because i've been waiting for like oem parts and doesn't that anyways and i'd also had like a 65 mustang that i bought and restored a little bit and sold
And I had always been into late 60s muscle cars and late 60s watches. That's cool, man. So seeing it was like, yeah, I don't think I'd ever seen in my life a 67 Impala. I knew of them and I knew the engine blocks and whatnot because I was kind of a... nerd yeah he asked me he very similar conversation he said uh you know are you familiar with joseph campbell and that whole character archetype and i said are you kidding me i love evil dead i ash is like one of my favorite characters
And he just, he kind of paused and he looked at me and he was like, I chose wisely. He's like, put me behind a steering wheel and I'll f*** you.
¶ Episode Wrap-up & Podcast Segments
He's like, that's the dean I wanted. That's it. There he is. There he is. Perfect. All right. Well, thanks, guys. Thanks. Appreciate you talking about the pilot episode. It's epic. It's epic having you guys here. And we come to that threshold where we're going to change. Yeah. On that note, thanks for joining us. Hey there, this is Richard Spate Jr., and I hope you're enjoying the episode. But we need to pull over for a few seconds for some messages.
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to be able to talk to those guys, but to get them both to actually sit down in a room at one time. It's like catching a Sasquatch and an abominable snowman and roping them together. Or herding two very large cats. Very large, sexy cats.
So fun, though. So fun to talk to the guys. Oh, so great. And to get the original story of how they met and how they bonded with each other. And Jensen saying, you know, so what's going on? Where are you from? What team do you root for? Truly. Sounds like a classic Ackles interview.
So we're talking about the pilot and a couple things we need to track as we go for people keeping score. Yeah. So this is our first installment of The Bitch Count. Right. We'll be tracking all the bitches and sons of bitches across the entire series, because why not? I think we mean as they are spoken, not the actual person who might be a bitch. I mean, nobody thought that. I'm just saying the word bitch. You know what I'm saying, Robbie? We'll just take the check. Thank you.
Okay, so we've got two bitches in this episode. Rob and Rich. That's right. But in the episode, the actual episode, we've got two bitches, both from Dean. We'd like to point out the first use of the iconic jerk bitch exchange. Right. Yeah, that's excellent. That was right there. It's an immortal. Yeah.
You know, moment between the boys right there and the pilot. Yeah, especially in these first couple episodes, you get some immortal lines set. We're like, oh, that's where that came from. Catches me off guard a lot. We're also going to start to count. We're calling it the antiques road trip. And we're counting things that make the show a little bit dated. A little dated.
Right. So for this one, do you remember when computer monitors were the size of microwaves? I mean, the computer they do the research on when they go into the library. Yeah, I know. And it's like a dot matrix printer. Yeah, I got one for you. Yeah. In the opening scene with Sam in the bar, the guests are talking about, you know, I don't have the perfect family.
And the guy goes, yeah, well, we're not exactly the Huxtables. He makes a Cosby show joke. That's right, which you can't really make anymore. Nope, I can't even say it here in the podcast. No, we might be cutting that out. And then the other thing we're going to walk you through is creepy kid watch. Oh, yeah. There are a lot of creepy kids on this show. Other trivia points worth bringing up is...
The note from Jessica on Sam's cookies were written by Holly Ollis, who was our longtime publicist from the WB. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. One of the only two episodes shot in the United States. The other one was the Bloodlines backdoor pilot in season nine. Interestingly, I didn't know on TV at that time you could show Sam's cookies. Holly did. So there was a mistake in the end and other early scripts where Dean refers to not talking to Sam for two years.
rather than four, because Sam was initially supposed to be 20, not 22. Wow, there you go. And did you know that Eric Kripke's son was born on Sam's birthday, May 2nd? Wow, I did not know that. Two years after the pilot was shot, meaning it's not something that Eric set up. It just happened. Mind blown. Yeah. And Dean shares a birthday with Kripke's wife. That's kind of weird. Kind of on the nose.
¶ Supernatural Lore & Pilot Credits
So let's get into the lore of this show. The Woman in White is a real folktale with many forms. The key inspiration for this version is La Llorona. from Mexico, a figure who possibly has origins in pre-colonial indigenous culture. Originally the woman who was the subject of the hit song from the 80s, Maisha Rona. That's right. But the Mexican version was La Llorona. Right. I mean, the most common...
Version of the story, La Llorona, the weeping woman who lost her husband, sometimes to death and other times to infidelity, as in Supernatural's version. In her grief, she kills her children. She immediately regrets this because it was a bad idea. She should have done that. and then she drowns herself, which is hard to do. But because of her crimes and suicide, she cannot enter heaven, and so she wanders the night weeping. In other versions, her children are illegitimate, and she kills them.
because their father will never accept them. Oh, but it's nice. She obviously has her crap together. Stories of mother killing their children go back a long ways in many cultures to figures like Medea in Greece. As Sam notes, there are other women in white all over the world. It just seems to be a popular choice color for ghosts. Interestingly, the woman in white is not allowed to appear after Labor Day.
This episode also combines the woman in white with another popular story, the hitchhiking ghost. Interestingly, there are stories in Hawaii of an old woman in white asking for rides on the big island. She gets in the car and then disappears, and it is believed she is the volcano goddess Pele, which was popularized in the cartoon that the rock was in. Moana. There you go, Moana. And...
One of Brazil's greatest soccer players. That is correct. Pele was also a soccer player. This pilot episode starts Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester. Chenson Ackles as Dean Winchester. Jeffrey Dean Morgan as John Winchester. Samantha Smith as Mary Winchester, Adrian Palicki as Jessica Moore, and Sarah Shahi as Constance Welch. The episode also features Ardy Call, Steve Railsback, Derek Webster.
Emile Walker-Smith, Elizabeth Bond, Miriam Korn, and Robert Peters. The episode was written by Eric Kripke, directed by David Nutter, edited by Paul Karasik. With music by Christopher Linertz and featured songs by Ginger. Classic, Eagles of Death Metal, the Allman Brothers Band, ACDC, and Keith Rozier. Or if you're watching on Netflix, you'll hear music by Rabbit Junk.
Rev. Freakchild, The Loveless, and The Bad Touch. It was executive produced by Eric Kripke and Robert Singer. And it first aired on September 13, 2005. Well, Rich, this is going to be fun. It already was fun. That's right. We're already mid-fun. I know. But it usually takes me an episode to realize, you know what?
You're right. I don't hate this. This was a good idea. Yeah, this is great. This is super fun. We're already, I mean, the fact that we already launched this bad boy with Jared and Jensen, I mean. I know. It's great. I can't wait for episode two. Me neither. In the meantime, let me tell you about this podcast, the episode of Supernatural Then and Now, was hosted and executive produced by me, Richard Spade Jr., and that guy, Rob Benedict.
It was produced by Stephen Hine, written by Jessica Mason, author of The Binge Watcher's Guide to Supernatural, An Unofficial Companion. And edited and associate produced by Trey Booty.
¶ Final Thoughts & Podcast Promos
Music provided by Tim Wynn. The episode was recorded with the help of Sonic Fuel Studios. This podcast is a production from Story Mill Media. For the latest on this and other podcasts, follow Story Mill Media on Instagram and Twitter. I used to get mistaken for Barry Watson. Barry Watson. And I feel like I've signed a piece of paper as Barry Watson. You've seen Krippy's first movie. That's right. That's right.
When my girlfriend at the time in season one or two of Supernatural was flying from LA to Vancouver, she sat next to some guy and they're chatting. He's like, what do you do up there? She's like, I'm visiting my boyfriend. And he's like, oh, cool. Is he Canadian? She's like, no, no, he's filming a TV show. And he's like, oh, what TV show? She goes, oh, it's new. It's called Supernatural. He goes, no way. Is he the short one or the one from Seven Heaven? And she's like, well, he's...
Jensen's not short. Jensen's like six foot something. She's like, I've never been on Seventh Heaven. It's 2005. And two brothers set off on a road trip that would save the world and change television. Simon and Garfunkel? Not brothers. I think you should say that. Well someone at the other day came up and told me they really loved a movie that rich was in as if I was in it They're like we really loved you and driven and I was like it was a great movie and I go
Thank you so much. You should have signed something. Yeah. Rob, hey, love driven. From the darkest corners of our imagination comes a game show that's more ridiculous than terrifying. Welcome to Tickled to Death. The horror comedy game show where nothing is sacred, everything's a little unhinged, and the only thing more cursed than the questions are the jokes. I'm Roz Hernandez, your fearless host. And each week...
I'll be leading a brave group of guests through twisted horror trivia, improv games and enough sarcastic banter to make you question all your life's choices. So come for the screams. Stay for the snark. Listen to Tickled to Death wherever you get your podcasts. And hit follow unless you want the show to follow you. In the meantime... Don't get tickled to death. Oh, the Regency era. You might know it as the time when Bridgerton takes place or the time when Jane Austen wrote her books.
But the Regency era was also an explosive time of social change, sex scandals, and maybe the worst king in British history. And on the Vulgar History Podcast, we're going to be looking at the balls, the gowns, and all the scandal of the Regency era. Vulgar History is a women's history podcast, and our Regency Era series will be focusing on the most rebellious women of this time.
That includes Jane Austen herself, who is maybe more radical than you might have thought. We'll also be talking about queer icons like Anne Lister. Scientists like Mary Anning and Ada Lovelace, as well as other scandalous actresses, royal mistresses, rebellious princesses, and other lesser-known figures who made history happen in England in the Regency era. Listen to Vulgar History wherever you get podcasts.