Cinematic Curiosities and Wisconsin Wonders (Hour 1)

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Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Peach Wabba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who once tore his ACL playing chess, Pete Schwabba.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome to Nightlight.

I've played chess in a while.

Every time the intro happens, I kind of want to play chess again.

I forgot all my good moves.

Hey, welcome to Nightlight.

This is a Wednesday night edition of Nightlight.

I know that because there's no parking because of the farmer's market here in Green Bay.

Hope you're having a great day.

Great to have you.

Fun show tonight.

Perfect way to help you unwind after a long day, and I'm just the guy to do it.

But there's another guy to do it here, too.

And his name is Conrad, and he's working the board tonight.

Hey, buddy.

Hey.

How's it going?

Yeah, it was a good day.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah, you got nothing today.

You had all these great

health

club stories the last couple nights.

Nothing weird

happening.

It's back to school now, Ty.

So, like, when I go to the gym, there's not that many people there.

That's fantastic.

Which is a great thing.

Yeah.

You

can just go to whatever machine, not have to wait.

I

love it.

It's a

beautiful thing.

I'm at the Marinette Planet Fitness, typically, when I work out, and there is, I have not waited for a machine maybe ever.

Well, I mean, like, yeah, I think, like, you know, it's not that populated.

I

mean, all I use is the snack machine.

Hi-yo!

The tanning bed, the massage chair.

I can't do the tanning bed.

I do the massage chair, I do the hydro massager, but I lay on my stomach.

How many reps?

Well, it's free.

It's $25 unlimited, so I get token after token.

But I took a couple of weeks off.

Since my staycation, I've had trouble.

I finally did a plank today and some sit-ups.

Nice.

And I just couldn't bring myself to walk.

It was like not...

Don't know I gotta get back to the gym.

I'll either go to night or tomorrow night.

That's my that's my plan But you go every day.

Yeah, really typically different muscles though.

Mm-hmm All right, maybe you could give me a little tutorial

write up some notes for

me.

I got I got a plan that I You know a sign a scientific base lifting schedule that I have and I use so You know I get one off day

one off day a week, one rest day.

And then six days a week.

And how scientific, like, you're not like wearing a lab coat to the gym or

something.

Who's this guy?

It's science-based lifting.

So it's like, you know, stuff science has proved through these lifts.

Okay.

Yeah.

Trying something new.

I've only, I've been doing it for two weeks now.

Have you noticed the

difference?

Yeah.

After two weeks.

Wow.

But I've also been lifting since the beginning of the year.

So it's like, if the strength was just the beginning of the fiscal year.

or the actual January 1st.

January 2nd.

2nd.

Is that your New Year's resolution?

Yeah.

Oh, nice for good for you, dude.

And you're sticking with it.

Oh, yeah.

I've been pretty good this year.

I have taken a couple weeks off.

I do that once in a while.

I'll slack off, or I'll find a reason not to go.

Yeah.

And that's not good.

But

I

don't take too much time

off.

Hey, fun show tonight, folks.

We're going to kind of vary it up a little bit.

Northeast Wisconsin based actor Dan Davies will be here at 635.

Dan is the creator writer producer of the stage play Ed Gein the musical and here's the issue with Dan I can't keep track of his project I know I think that was a stage play and then a movie and now it's a book and then it's a comic book and then they're making it into a Broadway show I don't know what's going on, but we'll we'll talk to Dan.

He's got several projects We're gonna discuss with him.

He's a very busy guy and a multi-talented guy.

He is also involved in

the remake or reboot, or I think they're calling it a reimagination of the giant spider invasion.

Bill Rebane's film from the 70s, they're shooting new scenes to add to this called classic.

So Dan will tell us where we're at with that.

And if things go well, maybe we'll take his picture in the window.

We'll see what happens.

You know, I have a friend that took his girlfriend.

I forget if it was birthday or anniversary.

To the Ed gain the musical.

Oh, nice.

And he said he loved it.

That's a real aphrodisiac,

I can't imagine.

And he said he loved the tickets because they're especially shaped or something like that, yeah.

Oh, that's kind of cool.

I am curious.

Did he like it?

Oh, he said it was funny in it, but then serious.

Here's the thing about

creating a show called Ed Gein the Musical.

It can be great.

It can suck.

It can just be weird.

It can be funny.

It doesn't matter.

All bets are off.

Anything goes because it's got such a nutty name.

That's the genius of, I think, and I've heard it's very good too for many people, but you really can't go wrong with that title, I guess is what I'm saying.

Yeah.

So I love when couples walk by the window out here of the Nightlight Studio and they always, if I make eye contact with them, they always feel compelled to wave.

No,

you don't have to do it.

I look at

each other throughout the you know, you don't

have to what if I did that every time I looked at you?

And then at 720 this is fun and kind of different here at nightlight We have a tailgating expert appearing on the show in hour number two Celebrity chef Robbie Schultz will be here in at 720 he is the

owner of the Bear Creek Smokehouse in East Texas.

He's going to talk to us about various kinds of barbecuing.

And this is by the same company, PR company that set up the interview with David Zucker that I reached out to.

They're just awesome.

Raquel and Laura, they're outstanding people.

And they set up an interview with Robbie.

And I thought, well, yeah, we got to have him on because Wisconsin is like the tailgating home.

I think anyway, I don't know.

how they do it in Texas or I assume, I know it's popular everywhere, but it seems like between the Packers, the Brewers, the Badgers.

High school football games.

Yeah.

Metal school recitals.

People tailgate and drink before they go in to watch their kid play the French horn.

But Robbie will be here at 720.

I've seen a couple of interviews with him.

He's a really fun guy and really into Barbie.

I have a lot of, actually,

When I was looking over the promotional materials, I realized I have a lot of questions about barbecue.

I don't know.

I know the basics.

But like, we'll talk to Robbie about that.

And he can tell us what's what.

That's at 720.

And we've got a couple texts I wanted to read.

They were on the social media yesterday.

We missed it during the show.

But our question last night was, what is the worst job you've ever worked?

And my pal Bob Bro, who was an opera singer who's been on this show, remember when Bob was here?

He was like on our third show

or

something like that.

I think he's saying Danny Boy in the studio.

Oh yeah, that's

right.

He's just great.

He went to Marinette Catholic Central, probably about seven or eight, I don't know, older than me.

But a great guy just retired from the University of Utah from teaching opera.

He tours all over the world.

And Bob said his worst job was stacking deer hides and turning gloves inside out at Saranac.

That's a glove store in Marinette.

He says, I also worked as a roofer.

That's a job I couldn't do.

I don't like being

up.

I would have the fear of falling off every day, pretty much.

And here's the weird thing.

My pal Tom is a roofer.

He put our roof on our house like 11 years ago.

And I said,

Aren't you ever worried you're gonna fall off the roof and he goes, oh, I've fallen off a roof tons of times.

Oh, that's good.

Like, if that's what you do, it's just an occupational hazard.

Luckily, he said it's like a ranch house and he landed okay.

Like, seriously, you could fall five feet and kill yourself if you land the right way.

Or the wrong way, I should say, but I don't think I could do that.

And the deer hide thing doesn't sound appealing either.

That's a great one.

Thank you, Bob.

And then Civic Media's own Chuck Gennaro says cleaning buses that return from Brewer game trips.

Oh, that's, yeah, that's like cleaning

the bar.

That's very similar.

That's

the

first thing I thought of was like countering cleaning the bar.

So I'm sure Chuck was a go-getter though.

And I assume that was when he was younger.

I don't think Chuck's still

cleaning buses.

I'm sure he got paid more than 20 bucks.

Well, I don't know.

Chuck's probably older than you.

It might have been worse, depending on when it happened.

And we have a great question tonight, so let's not waste any more time, folks.

Let's get to the nightlight question of the night.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This

question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

If someone told you they'd never seen a movie before, what is the one film you would show them?

You're hanging out.

Person you're hanging out with says they've never seen a movie.

It's hypothetical.

Well, yeah, I was gonna say, first of all, that's a red flag.

Oh, it's a red flag.

You don't hang out with people like that.

I don't think you should be friends with them.

But you have an opportunity to show them a movie and kind of describe the whole experience, let them have a pleasurable experience.

What is the one film you would show them?

855-752-4842, 855-756.

Let me know.

And we will read your text on the radio.

You can text us at that number, or you can leave us a stream comment if you're watching on YouTube, Facebook, or X, whatever it's called now.

Elon Musk's Juggernaut.

And we can text us on the app.

The Civic Media app is very easy to use, and we are on statewide, so you can pretty much...

I think hit any station.

But I know we've got high school sports now happening too.

We do.

Yeah.

It's, it's alright.

They're already in like the second or third week now.

Jimmy Koska said at the

end of this weekend, I thought that high school football season will be one third over.

Yeah.

It's, I mean, that is crazy.

Well, there's not that many games compared to other, you know, you know, like the NFL or college,

but it's still going fast.

It's insane.

I always forget about that because they start practicing like in July or whatever.

So, however you're joining us, folks, tonight, it is great to have you on this Wednesday night as we segue from summer into further summer and fall is right around the corner.

It kind of feels like fall too, doesn't it?

Yeah, a little bit.

I'm waiting.

I'm still waiting for that really hot day that's just going to come out of nowhere.

I hope

so.

I'd like to get one more good swimming in the Bay.

We live kind of close to the water.

I just started swimming

again.

I feel like you haven't.

Gone on the lake at all.

Why do you say that?

I don't know

because I have fair skin Because I'm an inside guy.

I didn't want to say it

but I I do I do go to the water I sit at the pier we have like a community pier and I'll sit there sometimes But I have probably had not been swimming in two or three years and this year I've been in a few times and if it feels great I don't know what my aversion was but I'm back at it.

So do you swim?

No,

not really if anything I'll go into a hot tub

Okay By yourself That's I mean first if I'm at the why the why oh the why hot tub if there's no one in there I'm like oh yes, you get all

those old naked dudes.

Oh, that is

bizarre

That's why I try to you know if I can I'll change before I go yeah, and then After I go somewhere else, you know, I'll change there.

I try not to go into the locker room.

That's how it

is at

I think it's a generational thing.

Like I grew up with community showers, community troughs like we've talked about.

It's just, I'm just tired of male nudity.

I don't ever need to see an old naked dude again in my life.

And in the locker room, you expect to see a certain amount of nudity, okay.

And I'll change by my locker, but I'm like, some of those guys walk around like they're, you know,

proud and they're like,

yeah,

they should just not do that, you know,

from one side to the other.

And they're like, Oh, gotta go back here.

Oh, gotta go.

You're just like, okay.

You ever get that weirdo who like stand there talking, you naked, he'll put his, he'll put his leg up on

the bench and

kind of like, it's like, stop it.

I don't talk to anyone when I'm in a locker room.

If I'm in there, I get whatever I need to do.

And I leave.

You

don't really want to make eye contact with

anyone because

you don't want to give people the wrong oppression.

You don't know what their motives are and it's sad, but when there's nudity involved, it's a game changer.

You don't know what people are thinking.

Those are the two times you don't want to make eye contact with people.

When you're in a men's locker room or when you're passing someone on 41, as you're passing.

Or in the bathroom.

Or in the bathroom.

Here's the worst.

When you're passing someone in the nude on 41, that's when you really don't want to make eye contact.

You've done that?

Sure.

Think about that one.

We'll dissect that one after a very short break here, folks.

We're going to read your texts, and I'm going to talk about a really cool new movie that has made it to theaters, and I knew it would.

It's Pete Schwabba on Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

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listening to Civic Media.

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This is Night Light with Pete Schwabba.

I am Pete Schwabba.

Dan Davies will be here at 635, folks.

He is a Northeast Wisconsin based actor who has carved out a nice career for himself right here based out of, I think he's an Appleton.

And Dan is part of some great projects.

We'll talk to Dan at 635.

You know what else Dan is known for is kicking back with a good Stoge.

Oh

yeah.

An Appleton cigar, if you will.

So we'll talk to Dan about movies and cigars and all kinds of fun stuff.

And then celebrity chef and tailgate expert Robbie Schultz will be here at 7.20 tonight.

So that's a little acting, little food, some great talk coming up on Night Light this evening.

Our question of the night is, if someone told you they had never seen a movie before, yes, that would be weird.

But what is the one film you would show them?

And I thought about this long and hard because, you know,

I love the movie.

Some of my go-to favorites are The Sting, Midnight Run, I love Groundhog Day.

I just have a ton of them, LA Confidential.

But I thought, what is a movie that would encapsulate all the different cinematic elements?

So acting, writing, dialogue, little suspense, some comedy, and I went with Quick Change.

You know, that's a recommendation that...

You gave me, and I really enjoyed that

movie.

Yeah, great

film.

Yeah, it was a fun watch.

New York City looks so cinematic at times.

I love that.

You got Bill Murray, you've got great dialogue, Gina Davis, Randy Quaid, and a lot of suspense in this funny movie.

Very clever the way they rob the bank.

I just think it has pretty much everything.

Yeah.

I'm

looking at the social media responses.

What did you say, Ken?

I think you're gonna like what I said.

Oh God,

I think I clicked like this Facebook friendship is not working out by the way I Immediately I guess I could have clicked like even if we weren't friends Conrad says I'd show them the joy of one of the rocks many action comedy films We've already talked about action comedy now 99.9% of the time action comedy does not work,

you know, but it's great because either you could get like Kevin Hart in it to Ryan Reynolds

strike to strike three

What

is

Blacks and One?

Give me one of your give me one of those movies that you like that you would show an unsuspecting stranger who

would... Jumanji.

The Rock?

Oh, is he in the remake of that?

Yeah, okay.

Both, you know, there's two of them, though.

It might be a third one.

Look, the

guy is charming.

He's not a terrible actor.

He's got charisma and fact, and we talked about this a little bit last night in this new movie, The Smashing Machine, he drops 60 pounds.

And he's getting some Oscar buzz, believe it or not.

I saw that originally, that picture on Instagram.

Which

one?

Oh, the losing weight?

Yeah, the picture of him.

And the first comment was, he looks like the pebble now.

And I left a lot at that.

That's just some online witticisms.

Yeah, obviously I'm joking.

I would not.

Most of those films are tolerable.

They're not great films.

entertainment

with popcorn to kill some time,

yeah.

I would show them the whole Star Wars trilogy.

That's just how it'd go.

Be like, get ready to get locked in for nine hours.

Well, that would make them, if you showed them one Star Wars movie, it would make them want to watch more.

I guess that would be the goal if they'd never

seen

a movie before.

But Patrick Mines says, human centipede, and now I saw human centipede somewhere else today too.

It's driving me crazy.

It wasn't my email or something.

Jody Hinman on social media says, Plains trains an automobile starring Steve Martin and John Candy.

That was in my list too, Jody.

I almost put that one because I think that's a pretty much a flawless movie.

Yes.

She says it's both funny and heartwarming.

Totally agree.

Matt Harper, Green Bay rock rap artist, picked a good one too, The Departed.

Mostly because it's my favorite movie, Matt says.

And I even responded to that.

I said, it's one of those movies you can't turn off.

The Departed is just a great...

Even though I think there are too many great actors in it, it's distracting the star power that movie has.

I like movies where you can kind of lose yourself and the cast you don't really, they look like regular people.

That cast is fantastic, but there's like 10 A-list movie actors in it.

Great choice though, man.

Amanda Nimmer, our pal here at WGBW and Civic Media says quiet place.

Amanda goes horror.

Interesting.

Yeah, that is interesting.

Dan Davies is here.

Hey Conrad, read the next one.

Read one of our, read one of our texts so I can take Dan's picture.

Well, so if we go to the text line, John Murray from Madison, you talking about, you know, Ed Geene, the musical?

You said, yikes, the musical?

Oh, is he in for a treat?

Dan is here, by the way.

You want to let him

in?

I'll

keep reading.

Nick Wallander from

One of the local funny guys here in Green Bay says Raiders of the Lost Ark, and that's a great one too, Nick.

Great movie, fun again, and that's an action-adventure movie that works.

It's funny, it's got Harrison Ford, some great stunts, some great action, love the choice.

Our pal Rich Talarico says this is a pruder film.

That just did not surprise me at all from

Rich.

That's

the film that showed Kennedy's head getting shot.

It's horrible.

It's a joke you would expect from a Key and Peele writer.

Yeah, okay.

Great stuff, Rich.

Thank you, buddy.

And then Danny Wheels, our pal Daniel Wheeler says, if this person has truly never seen a movie, I'd assume their religion discourages it and would ask them to go for a nice evening walk instead.

See, Daniel would not disparage anyone.

He would cater to their whims or

their

needs.

Very

sweet.

Go on that walk and talk about a movie.

Sure.

Yeah.

Well, there are, you know, if someone's religious, there are faith-based films.

I think those are harder to find, good ones anyway, but they're out there.

But all great stuff.

Going to the stream, Dave is watching the show on the stream as he often does and says, Shawshank, great one.

He also says Spaceballs.

There we go.

Can't go wrong with baseball's little Mal Brooks Then he says the unknown man trilogy a fistful of dollars a few dollars more and the good the bad and the ugly Now Dave is kind of cheating like you did those are more than one movie

Well, you know, I picked the rock and Star Wars, so

okay fair enough All good stuff.

We're coming back with a local actor Dan Davies.

He's got a lot to update us on

and celebrity chef Robbie Schultz at 720.

That's all coming up next on Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

Hey, this is Mike Starr and you're listening to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba.

Welcome back.

That was a lovely break.

Good to have you with me tonight, folks.

It is a Wednesday night here in beautiful downtown Green Bay.

We are broadcasting statewide here tonight as we do every night from City Deck Landing, coming up at 7.20.

Celebrity chef and tailgate expert.

I assume that means tailgating food, not just an expert on your...

Tailgate, but Robbie Schultz

will be tailgating people.

Tailgating, driving very closely, being that guy that I want to strangle.

He'll be here at 720.

Our question of the night, folks, is if you were with someone who had never seen a movie before, what is the one film you would show them?

You got one crack to get them hooked on movies.

What are you showing them?

Text us on the stream at 855-75248.

What is it?

752?

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.

Yeah.

Every once in a while, my old phone number comes in.

This is

very similar.

Or drop us a comment on the app and we will read your text on the radio.

Joining me now at Nightlight here in the studio is the amazingly talented, the very busy Northeast Wisconsin based actor, Dan Davies.

Hey, buddy.

Hello, Pete.

How

are you?

You're no stranger to this show.

No, I'm not.

I love this show.

Can you guys hear me?

We can hear you.

Can we hear him?

Oh, perfect.

It just seems a little echoey on this thing.

Your volume is right there.

Okay, excellent.

No, I'm glad to be here again.

Pete, you've always been just in my corner and I love you.

Wow.

In the biblical

sense.

Not in the big way.

Well,

both,

yeah.

Well, I guess you could say Biblical's a big way, but we'll address that another time.

But

yeah,

it's great to have you here, Dan.

Do you have a movie you would show someone?

Like, you know, it's probably hard to believe for a guy like you, all you do are try to make movies and you act and all that kind of stuff.

But what movie would you steer someone

towards?

If they had never seen a film before, I would show them The Exorcist, because I'd want to scare the hell out of them right away.

No, we'll do it.

Because then you've got them in an excited state.

Yeah.

And then you can kind of divine them from here on in.

But if you show them the scariest film of all time, which is The Exorcist, they're going to be on edge.

And that's what you want to do to somebody who's ever seen a film before.

You're going biblical.

You're going

exorcist.

We're having

all kinds of deep conversations here tonight so far.

That's a great choice.

That's a great one.

It's great to have you here.

How are things?

How are you doing?

Good.

Good.

Got a new toupee for a new role.

That's a toupee?

Yeah, that's the newest one.

That is fine work.

So it is, actually.

When you

say newest one, do you have like a...

So for films, you always, you know, you get different ones.

Like for the Giant Spider invasion, I'm supposed to look like it's 1975.

So the toupee I have is a 1975-influenced look.

from that era.

But

this one is another one for another upcoming project.

But yeah, things have been busy and good and real good.

I'm excited for everything.

Well, you're a busy guy.

And I love that you're getting it done here from Northeast Wisconsin, which is probably a little more work, but good for you for getting all these projects or seeing them through.

Let's start, Dan, with The Lion and the Narcissist.

You're having a screening coming up.

Yeah.

Tell us about the movie and then tell us about the screening.

Sure, sure.

So the movie is based on an Amazon bestseller called The Lion and the Narcissist by Dr. Catherine Ciampas.

It is a riveting story about narcissism and about what she went through in this really destructive relationship.

but it's a redemptive story and it's an amazing story.

And I play a character who is the narcissist.

The joke is when I was pitching, when I talk about the film, they're like, are you the lion or the narcissist, Dan?

And so it's based on that true story.

And I play this gentleman who is a narcissist who abuses his girlfriend, but she finds a redemptive way through her faith and through her...

tenacity to get through it.

And it's really a beautiful story.

And we're having that at the Hartford, Schubert's Hartford Theater, September 19 in Hartford, Wisconsin, which is outside of Milwaukee.

Yeah, super, super excited for that.

And, you know, our executive producers and directors and Scott Cron and Darren Elliott Folcher.

And we've got this young actress who actually plays the

the female lead in it, Lexie Crown, who just did a wonderful job with it too.

She's a natural.

So it's a great project and I'm super excited to be involved with it.

And it's also kind of a teachable moment.

I think it's gonna help a lot of people that are in those types of relationships, those narcissistic driven relationships.

And it gives people hope when they need it.

And that's the most important thing is doing a film that can actually help people.

That's very well said.

So the film is done and is that like a premiere in Hartford?

Yeah, it's a premiere and we're gonna be able to get feedback from the audience as well, which is always really cool because you know, you need feedback from from the Ticket-paying audience and so it's it's it's gonna be a fun kind of a deal You know, we've had this discussion before 90% of all independent films never get an opportunity to be seen on the big screen, right?

And this is a big deal for a lot of people.

And we used a lot of Wisconsin based casting crew, which is really important to me because I'm, you know, I bleed green and gold and Milwaukee Brewer blue and Badger red, you know,

I'm

Wisconsin is cheese and bratwurst.

And so that was important to have that great casting crew that were literally most of them from we had a few Chicagoans.

We didn't hold that against them.

Yeah, well, nor

should you.

As a hybrid here, I would

take offense to that.

That's right.

You are kind of a hybrid.

My top

button for that, Dan.

But yeah, so we're excited for that.

That's really exciting.

So how can people get tickets to this?

I assume it's, what's the capacity?

Are there still

seats?

Yeah, so tickets are still available and it's Schubert's Hartford Theater.

In Hartford, Wisconsin, but if you look up the line in the narcissist, it'll kind of direct you to the Hartford-Schubert Theater.

It's a 10-plex, Cineplex, and we're taking over one of the theaters for the night.

We're having a red carpet event and photos and all those fun things.

Are you gonna do a Q&A?

We're gonna do a little intro, and then we'll do a Q&A more so, I think, on the Saturday.

We have a Saturday matinee.

Which is a little bit more laid back Because we're so late it actually starts at 9 p.m.

Um by the time we're done It's gonna be approaching 11, you know midnight 11 or midnight or so so we we just want to make it kind of an intro short Q&A But more so probably that Saturday morning matinee, okay, where people a little bit more relaxed.

We have a little more time

to do, you know, the Q&A's with it.

And that's always important too because people have a lot of good questions.

Oh, yeah.

Watch the

film.

To me, that makes the whole.

Especially when you're going to see an indie film and you could talk about their process and

all the

project came together, you can't beat a good Q&A.

Oh, yeah.

Especially independent film.

Yeah, for sure.

So where was that shot?

Dan, was that shot around Milwaukee?

Yeah, we shot at O'Connor, Milwaukee, Hartford area, you know, that area of the West suburbs of Milwaukee.

And that was really, really cool.

We had a lot of great people, you know, helping us in that community where the actual book is based as well.

So we filmed the movie there.

Right.

And we had, again, the locations.

Everybody came to the fore and said, what can we do to help you with it?

When you do independent low-budget films, it's important to get that team that is free to core with all of the community and hotels and bars and restaurants and the places that you're shooting at.

And that's always great to see.

That's such a Wisconsin thing to see.

Absolutely.

That is the voice of Dan Davies.

He is a Northeast Wisconsin based actor and an actor, producer, writer of such films as Ed Gein, The Musical, The Giant Spider Invasion.

We're going to talk about both of those.

But Dan, let's go to Ed Gein, The Musical.

I was saying earlier, you kind of can't miss.

The film is going to be a hit.

just with that title.

Because if people walk out and go, what was that?

You go, well, the title.

What were you expecting?

Or it could be hilarious or just

great

music.

I've heard nothing but good things about

this.

But it's an

older title.

You did it about

15 years ago.

So

where are things out with that?

Yeah.

So 2010, we made the film and had a great success with it.

And then about a year and a half ago, I adapted my screenplay into a theatrical play, a stage play.

Right.

And we performed it in Oshkosh at the Time Community Theater.

But we filmed it, professionally had it filmed.

Craig Connit and JB Thompson and all those characters are part of it.

So we created a DVD.

So this is the DVD release and the screening for it.

And the fun thing about it is a whole day long event.

We're shooting part of the Deep State.

which I'm in as well.

So they're getting extras at the Time Community Theater in Oshkosh during the day to shoot a sequence, a scene for the Deep State, and then at night we have at Game the Musical DVD release and screening.

and DVD if people want to buy the autograph DVDs and everything.

But it was a success when we did it.

We had over 400 people show up for the theatrical play and they absolutely loved it.

And it is a different, it's a play about a serial killer who's a necrophilia cannibalistic, you know, sicko, you know?

Was

it hard to get Ed Gein to autograph?

So how do you...

When people leave that show, Dan, are they shaking their heads?

Are they laughing?

Are they still horrified?

What is the reaction from the crowd?

That's another great question, because people can see that we put a lot of time and effort.

We try to not humanize Ed Gein because he was a monster, but people kind of get...

of the reason why he became who he became.

His parents physically and sexually abused him.

And he was terribly abused as a young man.

And that's a recipe for disaster.

That's

a

recipe for a monster.

So we bring that up.

and we don't shy from it, and we don't glorify his actions either.

It's a harsh light on Ed Gein, but it has to be.

And the Netflix people from the Ed Gein story, it's been really kind of cool.

That's gonna be airing with Charlie Hewnam playing Ed Gein in October.

They've been reaching out as well, and it was kind of neat to have this symbiotic relationship with them as they promote the Netflix Ed Gein story, monster the

Ed Gein

story.

And so that's been really kind of cool.

But yeah, so it's this Saturday at the Time Community Theater in Oshkosh.

Tickets are dirt cheap, and it helps the Oshkosh Community Theater, which is a 501C3 nonprofit.

which we need independent theaters in Wisconsin, in the United States, and this is a beautiful, really cool, older theater.

I don't know if you've ever been to it, but it's really cool.

No, but we have the owner on, or

the

guy who runs it.

Yeah, Phil.

Phil, yeah.

And independent theaters are so important for so many reasons, because A, they...

They're a connection to the past and most of them are beautiful.

Yeah,

and they don't make like our theater in Marinette is this kind of cookie cutter most of the mega plexus They're comfortable.

They're nice great, but these old theaters have such character and and they're willing to show independent films Which

is great

to or film festival films.

So that's September 6th.

That's the Saturday

people find tickets.

Yeah, if they go to time community theater

their website or their Facebook and just look up Ed Gein, the musical DVD release.

They'll be able to find opportunities to pick up tickets.

It's only 10 bucks online.

And we're giving away a bunch of stuff and props and all kinds of fun things.

And having the DVD release too, we're doing a limited run of 80.

of the DVD of it.

So that's really fun, too.

As

usual,

your boys are tuning in, Dan.

Craig Kennett, who's also been on the show from time to time, says, Ed, gain the musical.

The stage play has a great heart.

Fantastic job on the story.

Thank you, Craig.

Much appreciated.

Thank you, Uncle Craigers.

Uncle Craigers.

When we come back, we're going to do a very short break, but we're going to talk to Dan about the Giant Spider invasion, folks.

This is a film that came out the same year as Jaws, 1975.

It's a cult classic.

It was shot in northern Wisconsin.

The director was Bill Robain who is still around and Bill has given the go-ahead to these young upstart group of Wisconsin filmmakers, Dan included, to do a reimagining.

I like how you guys titled

that.

So

we're gonna talk about that coming up next.

This is Nightlight with Peach Waba on the Civic Media Radio Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Light with Pete Schwabba, and that is Edith James.

I love that song.

John Murray from Madison says, Yikes.

What was he referring to?

Oh, that's Ed Gean.

You read that one, right?

Yeah.

Ed Gean, the musical.

Yikes, Dan.

That was a...

That's a good reaction.

He says, the weird perversion of it all makes you curious.

Well, that's exactly what I think Dan is hoping for here.

From the 414, the Shawshank Redemption.

Why get busy living or get busy dying?

Plus, it's a friendship movie.

It's a great movie, 414.

And those are responses to tonight's question of the night.

If you were with someone who had never seen a movie, what movie would you show them?

So John Murray says, Star Wars.

But the disappointment with their next 20 movies might make them go back and not watch movies again Sounds like his own plays devil's advocate with himself.

That's a talent right there folks Dan Davies is with me here in the studio We're talking about some of his projects that you can look forward to in the near future and the very near future if you are in Heartland, Wisconsin on the 19th and 20th You can see Dan and the lion and the narcissist Hartford.

Yep

What did I say?

Oh, Hartford, yeah.

Okay.

And then September 6th, that's this Saturday at the Time Theater, Time Community Theater in Oshkosh, Ed Gein, the musical.

Great stuff, Dan.

And now we're going to talk about...

Alright, so I mentioned this before in 1975 this great movie called The Giant Spider Invasion came out Directed by Bill Rubin.

Did Bill write it too?

No,

Bill had I think it was Robert Easton and Richard Huff Okay, and they were fairly famous writers from the 50s and 60s Okay, and they were part of the team so the story goes he locked one of them in a room to finish it because the the shooting script wasn't finished on the day of

So they locked a guy in and promised him sandwiches if he was giving, and water if he was giving pages.

I'll feed

you if you write.

Yeah, literally.

Straight up back and forth.

I love it.

The Giant Spider invasion, I've seen it.

It's a cult classic.

It's got Alan Hale and Barbara Hale.

No relation,

interestingly

enough.

And who's there's another kind of a bigger name actor in

that.

Yeah.

So there's Steve Brody, who was a actor from the fifties, who was more famous in the fifties and seventies.

And then there were a few other ones that were more like character actors were famous.

But, you know, Skipper was the most famous

and

Barbara Hale from Perry Mason, excuse me, were the two most famous.

Right.

And the rest, though, had their own following, you know, but but the bloom had been off the rose.

Excuse me.

for a number of them because their heyday was 20 years prior to that.

But

it's a really fun movie, folks, and if you haven't seen it, and most likely you haven't, but you are gonna have another opportunity.

Dan is part of a team that has decided to not reboot, not remake, reimagine the Giant Spider invasion.

What goes into a reimagining, Dan?

So it's all about the terminology.

If you say that you're doing a reboot or a remake or prequel or a sequel, you literally have to make a movie from the ground up.

So we came up with an idea, and Bill Rabain was so integral to this, of we've got 80 minutes of the original film.

That you know, it's been a mystery science the theater 3000 and all kinds of different avenues did 25 million dollars box office in 75 and We thought if we could add period correct Scenes to it to bolster the film the film is funny.

It's campy.

It's science fiction.

It's scary But it's very funny to like Alan Hale is very funny in it

And so if we added 20 to 25 minutes of period correct footage to bolster the film, then it becomes its own entity.

So

we take that 80 minutes, now it's 100 minutes, we're adding more of a campiness, a little more comedy to it, a little more scares to it, just to kind of fill in the holes.

Because with Bill, Bill always thought,

over 50 years when he originally did it, I wish I would have done it differently.

Every filmmaker does it.

Now he has that opportunity.

He's directing it 50 years later at the age of almost 89, which is never ever seen in Hollywood.

Yeah.

What?

How is that?

Because he made this film and whose idea was it, Dan?

Was it his?

You know, you guys developed a relationship with Bill.

Craig was nice enough to sit when we had Bill on the show and kind of help facilitate the interview.

What was it, a sell job?

Did you have to sell him on this idea or did he

have to sell you?

No, it was such a good team effort.

When you have, you know, Craig Connit and JB Thompson and Bill Rubin especially as the leader saying, this is what I would like to do because I've always had, you know, questions of how could I fill the scene in or how could I bolster this or how could I put, you know, sell.

in this wound together from scene to scene to scene.

So as we were talking, we said, well, hell, we could reduce some of these scenes.

I play a newscaster, Ted Titman, who was like Ron Burgundy and Walter Cronkite had a baby, who drinks a lot.

I'm kind of this character, a newscaster in it, but we've got some really cool scenes, but it was a team effort, but Bill always leads the charge.

Bill Rabain, still at 89, leads the charge.

Wow.

Yeah, he's Sharper's attack.

That's fantastic.

So is it hard, Dan, from a technical standpoint?

You're shooting all this stuff.

I don't know what they shot on 30, 16, 35 millimeter, whatever it is.

But whatever you guys do now, how much of an effort did you have to go find materials to splice it together?