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The Extras
The Extras
FLASHBACK: Revisiting "The Flash' The Original TV Series (1990-91)
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Today, we sit down with Danny Bilson, co-creator and executive producer of the 1990-91 series "The Flash," and The Flash himself, John Wesley Shipp, to review the recent Blu-ray release and to revisit their memories of the show. This conversation is a real treat as Danny doesn't attend fan conventions so you'll hear things possibly revealed for the first time. We discuss the suit, the writing and production, guest stars, why it was canceled, and the show's enduring legacy. This is an hour filled with remembrances and behind-the-scenes stories that Flash fans will love.
Purchase the new Blu-ray on Amazon:
THE FLASH: The Original Series (1990-91) Blu-ray
More podcast details:
Discover how the high-definition upgrade has unveiled stunning details that were previously hidden, and learn about the pivotal choice to finish the effects on film, a decision that has preserved its quality for modern audiences.
Join us as we tackle the nuts and bolts of superhero costuming with John Wesley Shipp’s firsthand experiences in the Flash suit. Hear about the suit’s practical challenges, from its weight to its heat retention, and the innovative solutions the team developed to maintain both comfort and visual appeal. John shares his initial reactions to seeing himself suited up as the Scarlet Speedster and reflects on the collaborative efforts that made his portrayal of Barry Allen so compelling.
Explore the nostalgia and legacy of "The Flash" TV series with us, featuring insights into the show’s unique tone influenced by comic books and Tim Burton's Batman. Danny and John discuss the camaraderie among the cast and crew, the influence of film noir and literature on the show's style, and the impact of the guest stars, including the unforgettable Mark Hamill as the Trickster. Despite the series’ struggles with time slots and critical reception, its enduring charm and innovative spirit shine through in this Blu-ray release, highlighting its place as a pioneer in superhero television. Don’t miss out on this captivating exploration of a 90s classic.
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Hello and welcome to the Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies and animation, and they're released on digital DVD, blu-ray and 4K or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Millard, your host, and today I'm very excited to have co-creator and executive producer of the original TV series the Flash from 1990, danny Bilson, and the Flash himself, john Wesley Shipp. Hi guys, hey, hey, thanks for having us. So the main reason we're a little delayed on getting this out the Blu-ray is coming out today, but that's because we're all waiting to get our copies right here at the end so that we could take a look at this. But did you get a chance to look at your Blu-ray and what were your original thoughts here as you looked at it?
Speaker 2Well, mine were. I think it looks great. My first reaction, you know being so actor and character centric, and now it's like the canvas has opened up and the clarity and the depth I can see everything that everybody was doing behind me. You know, it's like there's so much to look at. I mean, there was so much going on. Now I understand those nights where I was like, why are you walking down there, lighting all of that? I'm sweating, my you know what off in the suit. And now I'm like, oh, my god, that's what they were doing. Oh, wow, you know. And so for me it's faster paced because there's more clarity and you can see more of what's going on.
Speaker 3And uh, yeah, I, I mean, I'm delighted yeah, I looked at uh, I I got my copy yesterday and I looked at, um, I chose one episode that I directed at random that I haven't seen in 30 years, uh, which was the mirror master, I think, done with mirrors. It's called one with david cassidy and as someone who looked at all the film right in those days, it was all shot on film and I don't remember how we consume dailies. I really don't. I don't know if we screened them or if we were watching big video cassettes, but I think we probably screened them and it looked like it looked on film like 30 years ago. That's what it looks like. When you take a 480i signal and you put it on a CRT the old TVs it looks pretty good. When you put those old DVDs on a high-res screen, the 480i, 480p doesn't hold up so well. So it was really nice to see it as I saw it then. As I saw it, then I will say and I knew this was going to happen is that there's a positive and a negative to this whole thing. There was this wonderful woman who ran post-production at Warner Brothers TV named Karen Pignatore back then, and she insisted that we finish on film on a film negative. But the issue was we were one of the two first shows to be doing digital effects in television. The other was Star Trek, next Generation and us. It was the same team at the Post Group operating this stuff and we're outputting these beautiful effects in video at 480i.
Speaker 3So now when we had to go back to film, you had to take those. We did this back then put them through the optical printer to get them to film, and they always look bad. They look bad originally because we were printing to film and then going to. In the old days we were still showing that printed version that you have now. But the effects nobody's ever seen the effects looking the way they did on video, like we saw them at the post group or before. They were, all you know, low res, printed to high res. So everything looks beautiful. But every time there's an optical print like a transition between a scene or an effect, it's a little raw, right, but back then it's really weird because the public didn't see it either. So we were I'll finish this up we were upset back then because the effects all got degenerated to film. But if they hadn't, we wouldn't have this now. So we have the high def version only because we were finishing on film.
Speaker 3But we're all still left with that. The sacrifice was that the effects never looked as good as the team built them at the post group because we had to finish on film. I don't believe Star Trek had to finish on film, I don't believe they did, and that was a paramount. And so those videos everything looks the same in 480i. So that's my little. That was what I was most interested in.
Speaker 3And then, like John said, you could see all the other work right. Like I don't know if everybody's seen all the other work so well in 30 years. We've seen John's work and some of the other great actors. I'll also talk about guest stars in a minute, because it's like holy cow and april webster and all that. But we always saw the folks, the people, but seeing all the detail that people like don kurt spent his whole time on I actually spent last weekend with don that um see, and he just produced um dark matter, which is running on apple right now. So he's still at it as a visual line the most visual line producer around and that was wonderful to see.
Speaker 1Okay enough, well no, I know it is, I'm glad you brought it up and because I was going to ask you specifically about the optical effects, because doing what I do working in home entertainment, seeing these physical mini releases and then listening to what the fans have to say entertainment seeing these physical mini releases and then listening to what the fans have to say One of the big things about the sci-fi shows of the 80s and 90s is just what you're talking about, and a lot of time they just look horrible and we get so many people saying, hey, why don't they redo them?
Speaker 1And it's like, oh, you got to be kidding me for the cost and the time and it's just not going to happen to redo them all. It's just not the world we live in. But then I was excited when I heard you on the commentary talking about that process. You just explained the fact that you went back to film and I knew. Then I was like these should look much better for the viewer and for you I know you are always going to have that higher quality, you know, remembering the original. But for the viewers now when they pop these in, I mean I'm looking at them and I'm thinking, hey, this holds up so much better than most shows from that era Looks really good because you guys did go back to film said that, that the effects hold up amazingly well.
Speaker 2You know now, obviously there are some times when you can see the switch, but I I for the most part, realizing what we're looking at I was, I was very impressed by the way it looked and by everything that happened at the prison. You know, I because I watched the pilot I mean that was insane. It's just the number of camera shots and angles and everything going on in the background and the lights and the cops in the way of the background of the prison. It was so specific and coordinating what everybody was doing and the tear gas and the shotgun blasts and the special effects of the tornado that rises from not being electrocuted and then falling. I mean I have to say I was impressed.
Speaker 3Well, the hardest thing honestly and I was watching it was getting it done. To be honest, the hardest thing was getting it done because we were doing those in like seven days and by today's budgets I guess relatively it would be similar to a network show, not an HBO or anything like that. It would be more like the Equalizer on CBS. You know it would be that kind of stuff, but if you put it up against something like that it holds its own pretty well visually. And again, the design of the effects, the building of the effects, was actually really good. It was just that optical printing of digital effects and if we had look, I don't think we could have afforded to do the show in all optical printed effects, you know, all film effects. I don't think we could have afforded because we had so many effect shots every episode. I was surprised in Mirror Master, like how many effect shots there were, like how many effect shots there were.
Speaker 1Well, I thought it. I think it holds up really well and I think fans will. To your point, john, what that reviewer said hey, these look pretty good. Especially if you buy and you collect that era. It looks really good and it doesn't take you out. That's the main part. As you're viewing, it doesn't take you out.
Speaker 2It doesn't take. You didn't take me out.
The Challenges of Wearing the Suit
Speaker 1Yeah, take me out yeah, and the other thing that you mentioned on a little bit, danny, was the rest of the images, the set designs, all of the props, everything that you now see in so much more detail and they look great and they hold up. And the suit I was a little worried too about the suit right in hd and I think it holds up very well I was.
Speaker 2I was looking at the suit. I thought you know we were always patching seams and I was always sweating through it, so the foam latex was crumbling by like the second episode, and so I was wondering how, how is that going to look? But particularly a couple shots where we have the multicolored background in the tunnel with Pike and I'm looking at the shading and the individual muscle pieces and I'm like it's really blood red. The shading really is dark, blood red now and you can see the definition that I thought that in many instances the suit looked, if anything, better. It may be me mellowing with time, I don't know.
Speaker 3Well, look, John versus.
Speaker 2The suit is half the production of the show danny, at one point weren't you going to get talk about getting I don't know if you were joking or not getting me a psycho, a psychiatrist, because you thought I said, danny, it's not a mental problem, it's hot yeah, well, why don't you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 1I asked fans to submit some questions and a number of them, and I'm sure you get these at the cons and everything as well. Talk a little bit about playing in the suit, the heat, you know all those things and that experience.
Speaker 2Well, you know, anyone who's ever played one of these roles Batman, tim Burton, batman on, you know, has challenges in the suit and let me just say, over the years, danny, I've learned that no one wants to hear someone who's been privileged to play one of these iconic characters whine about oh, my suit was so hard, you know. Now, given that my suit was really challenging because it was a couple inches of sculpted foam, latex, individual muscle pieces glued over a spandex suit and then flocked with a red material, it had to be glued to my face and under my chin and then taken off with acetate I forget what that was called. And then the makeup for Barry. And then the thing but the most thing was really during the pilot, before we got the cooling vest, was I'd be in it like 25 minutes and I was the sponge. You know you could come up and water, you could bring me out. They would take the gloves off and just turn them upside down and pour the water out.
Speaker 2So, going back and forth, which we did at the beginning from, I remember my first scenes as Barry, the first episode of the regular season, not the hour and a half movie, I think I started shooting Barry scenes at something like indoors at like 5 am after working in the suit, you know. So it was like, oh my God. And then there was difficult. We learned it was a learning process. It was flash, very, flash, very Well. That meant that this was coming off and then make up over time and then the makeup and more glue and you know, and was really, uh, not workable. So we came up with a system where we would either preferably if we could do the very scenes first, then do all the flash scenes. We had to do the flash scenes first and then do the very scenes, but try not to go flash very, flash, very and uh, I hope I wasn't too much of a whiner, I did. I did have. A really fun thing was that I couldn't sit down in it.
Speaker 2But Warner brothers had a solution for that. They rolled out the old Betty Davis lean board for the costume epics where the women were wearing the ball gowns and you would step up into this thing and lean back and prop your arms and then they take the tubing out of the back, plug me into an ice chest and that would circulate ice water and at least lower my body temperature, because you know the director would be talking to me and suddenly, you know I'm listening, yeah, and they're like, okay, plug him in, wake him up. But uh, I have to say, the suit, for all its challenges. Designed by uh, is it george stevens? Bob short, bob short. But who did the drawing? Oh, dave Stevens, dave Stevens, and then built by Bob Short, you know. I mean, we had Oscar winners working on this thing and people still write me and tell me how much they love that suit. So it totally fulfilled its purpose.
Speaker 1I think I want to do one follow-up to that question. That came from a fan and they wanted to know do you remember the first time you saw yourself in it? Tell us about that.
Speaker 2Well, it was a rush for everybody. Remember, the first night we were testing it on the back lot, danny. I came out in it and was like it was overwhelming. And then we had to decide how is he going to run, because in the blur, you know, when I run it was going up and down. So they said, okay, try doing a Groucho Marx scoot. And so there I am, all over the back lot. You know, you're doing your Groucho Marx and I was going to just run, you know.
Speaker 2And luckily, dane Farwell, who was my stuntman you know, I give him all the credit in the world I say I played Barry Allen. That was my job to get the audience to come with me into the suit. Dane was as much the Flash as I and Shirley Walker and Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo and the lighting effects. And you know was, by the time all that started happening, I sort of felt my job, my real job, was over Not over, obviously, but had been completed. That was my focus.
Speaker 2And that's when I was very leery of auditioning at the beginning for a superhero show for television, because my only frame of reference was it being spoofed. Now, believe me, I was watching Batman as a kid every week. I love it. I just didn't feel like that's where my talents. You know, I was always uncomfortable if I felt like, oh, this is supposed to be funny, you know. But April Webster said this is why we're coming to you, because you know you do your best in my ability, within the context of a heightened reality show, to play as truthful the person as I possibly could. I don't know if I answered your question, but I Well, yeah, I mean, it's just kind of.
Evolution of the Flash TV Series
Speaker 1It's interesting the world we live in and I do want to get your perspective on it. But with all of the cons and all the cosplay, there's just a fascination with the suits. There really is, and I think people probably ask you what did you think the first time? You, you know, what did you think first time you saw yourself in it? And you're probably thinking, oh gee, that's so long ago, it's hard to remember. But fans just love the suits and it's really fun. And I have to tell you.
Speaker 2I have to tell you a quick story about that. When I came back in Elseworlds in the CW show as 1990, barry Allen and they had gotten from Warner archives in what looked like a coffin, one of the original suits, danny and I know it was the one I last wore because the ears, the wings were missing and for reference, and they built a new suit and I heard I was very, very reticent. I'm like you know that was 28 years ago, right, you know. And when I watched on the set everyone was so excited. But I heard Mark Guggenheim say vis-a-vis the suit. When he put on the suit he started moving and talking the way he did as that character back in 1991. And, of course, actors, we all realize that the costume, our costume, what we're wearing, has a large part to do with our characterization, particularly with a costume superhero, to that extreme, you know.
Speaker 3Yeah, that was super cool. You sent me a, you texted me a photo of yourself in the dressing room, putting it on when you first got the suit on, and I was it bad the number of hours I was there.
Speaker 2What kind of hours were our transportation department putting in? Like 25-hour days? I don't know. We'd have to ask Benji.
Speaker 3I mean we're all friends. That's the funny thing is, for those of who are still alive, we're still in contact and we're all still friends. Everybody from the hairdresser to the effects producer, to the line producer, to other writers um ads I mean they're all still my friends.
Speaker 2Music, yeah, everybody I see how we're taking a lot of conventions and oh good, yeah, yeah love howard a major influence on the show.
Speaker 3I will always say that that his experience in not mainstream comics, his experience in sort of his blending of film noir film and literature and comics and everything that he does, was a huge influence in a right way on our show, right way on our show. Really, paul and I were looking for fresh and innovative, but he had a voice that when we could keep it from being too complex, at times it was just wonderful. I don't know, maybe they'll ask us what our favorite episodes are. Maybe that's not fair, but I will say that the pilot that Paul and I wrote, of course, is we'll talk about writing when you talk about it.
Speaker 1Sure, no, it's fine, go ahead now.
Speaker 3Okay, I was just going to say that the way we worked was Paul and I wrote the pilot and we always saw ourselves as movie people it's really weird as movie writers. So every episode was its own kind of movie and we would turn it over to the writer and the director. And throughout my whole career in tv it was always we never wanted format because we weren't doing serialized, we were doing individual episodes. We would have preferred it but it wasn't possible at the time because of syndication and stuff. But, um, our theory was always make your movie right.
Speaker 3I would say, on the Flash, the writing, paul and I rewrote everything to some degree because we were there late every night, but we didn't take credit for it. So you won't see our names on a lot of episodes, but we would polish them. We'd polish every single episode On that show. We polished every single episode. And then I directed a bunch which I loved. I just loved doing, and even in the pilot I did all the action. I think in the pilot if we didn't like it we just wouldn't bring that director back. That was kind of our strategy. You know. It's like we didn't tell anybody do it my way, we would just let them do their thing and and see how it went and, and uh, that was kind of how that went and we should.
Speaker 1Anyway, I'll let you ask well, yeah, just to follow up to that, because I did want to ask you about you know you guys wrote the pilot, you and paul. But before that, take us back a little bit. Before that I know there was a show, talk a little bit about that, and then what kind of brought you to the Flash. I mean, some people say, well, I always want to do the show, other people say no it's just the studio brought it to me.
Speaker 3Tell us that story a little bit. Well, we were at Warner Brothers. Look, paul and I had we came from B movies that were very comic booky and comic book influence. That's where we started at Empire Pictures in the 80s and with zone troopers and trancers and some of those, they were all kind of wild B movies that were a little more mainstream. They weren't exploitive like the stuff we did wasn't exploitive, didn't? It Wasn't really violent, had a little bit of comedy. So we started there.
Speaker 3When we got to Warner Brothers, paul was a huge DC fan growing up, a Superman fan in particular, and we had the catalog in a way and what we wanted to do, because we were big fans of Watchmen and we were already developing the Rocketeer for years by the time we got to the Flash. So we used to shop at the Golden Apple on Melrose. I don't want to digress too much, but when we were working at the B-Movie company we would go there for lunch at least one or two days a week and go through the bins and that's how. So we were already into that world. And the Tim Burton Batman was a big permission slip. It was a permission slip. To interpret in a more adult way. I can't say now when I look at it I think it's so adult, but by comparison at the time it certainly was for a comic book show.
Speaker 3So we wrote this script because we love the watchmen. Okay, I just love, love, love watchmen. There were like three books dark knight, watchmen and american flag by howard that were our big influences, and rocketeer, of course, um. So we created this show called unlimited powers, where the flash was the main character. We wrote a script I still think it's one of our best about all superheroes were outlawed in this future and it was all. The villains were all now running the country but nobody knew because they were all disguised and had shaken on different personas and the Flash was like a 40-year-old guy who wouldn't surrender his powers, was frozen and sort of led this rebellion of superheroes and all the development people at CBS this is the year before our Flash all the development people just loved it and out of that came why don't you just do something? Why don't you just do?
Speaker 1the.
Speaker 3Flash. Just work on the Flash. When we said this then I'll say it now. Nothing's any different. Our concept was to make television with the same believability that we read comics when we were 10.
Speaker 3It doesn't mean reality, it just means believable enough. And again I'll go back to the episode I watched last night to prepare for this, which was done with mirrors with David Cassidy, and it was a film noir story. I mean it was good. I mean like the crime was flipping, the gags were good, barry was upset, the girl was teasing the hell out of Barry, john played the hell out of it, tina was jealous, tina's mom was in it and there was snakes, snakes Real snakes, by the way and there was snakes, snakes Real snakes, by the way, not optical snakes Oliver, john, johnny, disco as the mime, which made me fall out because there was a lot of jokes about the mime. But really that's how it evolved, from Unlimited Powers to the Flash, with always that same feeling of believable in its own reality. And I got that from ron howard who said that as a director early on.
Speaker 2But I mean that was just an expression of what we were when I was having my first conversation with april webster and I was expressing some, some doubts, I'd been in new york, I'd been on broadway, you know, I had, uh, done some work. I perhaps delusionally fashioned myself a serious actor and she said, john, just do me a favor, just read the pilot script, read danny bilson and paul de mayo's treatment on the script. And I'm reading the script and suddenly I discover all these human values. Here's a csi guy before csi was cool in a family where real cops worked the streets and his dad's always putting him down. He's the unblessed son of a cop family where real cops work the streets. His older brother is the blessed son, but yet they have a real closeness, played incredibly well by Tim Thomerson. I still think some of my best work in the pilot is with Tim, because Tim is so good and then he gets these powers and it's not okay. I'm going to go be a Q Hollywood hero. It's like I don't want to know from this. I want to get rid of him Now. That really piqued my interest. He doesn't want him until his brother's killed. And then he has a mission and that's when my character really takes off. I think in the pilot, when the mission of avenging the death of my brother becomes paramount. And I'm like these are all.
Speaker 2I got in trouble for using the relationship word at the upfronts, remember, danny, because relationship was the buzzword that year. But the relationships I stuck to my guns, you know, really, uh, really intrigued me. There was a lot of humanity going on within this action adventure, uh, superhero context, so that's. I was like I don't know about the superhero stuff. I had to learn everything from danny and paul, you know. But I could certainly play those elements, you know, the human elements, which were ever present and that's just.
Speaker 3It's interesting like it was innovative for superheroes at the time. It's due rigueur, it's standard now. I mean, look, the Billson DeMayo career, the Petfly story has a lot of stuff that is beloved now where we didn't have enough success at the time to continue to develop our, our work, in particular the flash and the rocketeer. Both of those are truly beloved now by the kids who grew up with those things and we didn't. It's not about money or profit. It's about we didn't get to continue to develop and get a season two of the flash or a sequel to the rocketeer. They're evident. Ultimately there was, there was I don't know what they do 200 episodes or something on the cw or 150, and they're always talking about a rocketeer sequel, but they never involve us or now just me.
Speaker 3So there's something poignant about the whole thing and kind of sweet that I look at the rocketeer in the flash. They're very related, very, very related in terms. Even dave stevens who created the rocketeer and drew it. We had him come in and draw that suit to convince Jeff Steganski at CBS to not put John in a sweat pant with LED tennis shoes. Can you imagine that's true? I mean then we would have been like every other early superhero show, right, you know?
Speaker 3So we were trying to get to the next gen, to that 80s influence from comics to Burton to us, right, and all the other folks involved with Batman, uslan and all the other great people who 80s influence from comics to Burton to us, right, and all the other folks involved with Batman, uslan and all the other great people who allowed that to happen and made it happen. But yeah, I mean it was that the success of it is now right, is right now and John is working all the time and the CW show look what's it like for me? Or what was it like for Paul before he passed. We kept asking for to work on the show. We kept asking for a script. I even went in and met with them once. They had a lot of writers on that show but no, we never got to.
Speaker 3But let me go back to something else I was gonna say earlier. All that cool art we're talking about in the video was so influential or impressed or inspired so many people that on the CW show, I believe, John, you can correct me on this. They were using our Central City logos when they did an episode with the Trickster. They tried to recreate the set.
Speaker 2The Trickster's lair.
Speaker 3And Mark actually called me before he took the gig and said are you okay if I do this because he felt so loyal to the old show. Now I said are you kidding?
Speaker 3go what are you talking about? You know what I mean. And veto. We had a bunch of people that they had guests and john, of course, was a running character on it on the show, so all that is super. Um, at the end of the day, it's super nice. I don't know what else to say. It just it validates or shows respect for our work, right?
Speaker 2david nutter david nutter, he did right david nutter, who directed the pilot, who emmy winning director, uh, red wedding, gabriel. Uh, he, after I finished that first prison scene where we do the moment with the hand on the glass, you know that they sort of recreated for the movie. But um, after we finished shooting that scene, he called everybody together and he called me and stood beside me and he said none of us would be. He spelled it out. He said none of us would be here today if these guys hadn't proved in 1990 and 91 that it was possible. So, yeah, there was great. I know Andrew Kreisberg was determined to bring you on, danny. He and I talked about it, we talked about it and then he left the show. He ended up leaving the show and the helbys took over. It went a completely different direction but, uh, I always thought how cool it would be. I always also want to talk about danny as a writer and as a director as carefully as he was as a writer. And I find this with the writers I've worked with who are really secure.
Celebrity Cameo Appearances in the Flash
Speaker 2There was one point in the lab where Barry had to bare his soul about something to Tina and it just didn't feel quite It't. It was perfect. I was not connecting with it, the way it was written, and I was like Danny, I don't know, I just can't get around this, I just don't. He said, well, what's wrong? I said I just don't really feel like this is really what he needs to say. And then Danny said the next logical question what do you think he needs to say? I said, well, I don't know. Something along the lines of you know this and this and this and this. And he said, well, let's put that together and say that you know. So very supportive.
Speaker 2The other thing that I always tell Danny actors are so rigid about their eyelines. It's like I've seen actors explode if anybody gets in their eyeline. And when Danny would direct an episode I remember. Do you remember once, danny, you were by the camera and you said John, am I in your eyeline? And I said no, danny, I like it when you're in my eyeline. One of the few, only directors. Because everything that I got for that character I got from Danny and Paul. And Danny was so there and so uncompromising. Sometimes we wish maybe he'd compromise, but he was so there and he was feeding the scene and the action. He was feeding whatever emotion I was playing that the consciousness of his presence where I knew he was there was invariably helpful. That almost almost never, ever happens.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's weird. I never, I don't remember. Are you saying that or anything?
Speaker 2I remember, don't you remember? You said oh, john, am I in your eye line? I said, no, danny, I like it. I remember me saying that when you're in my eye line, it's fine, and so you stayed right there.
Speaker 3Yeah, let's, let's.
Speaker 1Well, we need to talk about some of your guest stars and co-stars, but let me go to a question from one of the fans here that will lead us right into that, and that is how much fun, john, was it to play Evil Flash in the trial of the trickster, and how was it working with Mark Hamill?
Speaker 2Danny will tell you, I was so paranoid about wearing a superhero suit in 1990. A-list actors were not lining up to play costume superheroes in 1990, okay, I didn't know what effect ultimately, I was terrified of being viewed as a mascot. I never wanted to have b-roll of me in the set with a cow back, you know, drinking a diet coke and eating a hot dog. So thankfully they were very careful about that to maintain the integrity of the suit. I also I'm stiff in the first episodes and I also wanted to be monosyllabic because I just felt it was a character unto its own and I didn't want to conflict it with Barry, who was the real human. Okay, so there I am being all neurotic and paranoid and here comes Mark, no self-consciousness, 100% committed to this character and playing it with every ounce of his energy, for all. It was worth all the time and I have to say it took me a while but it finally seeped in. If Mark frigging Hamill can commit to this extent, then I need to get over my bad self and I think it may have taken until the final episode, the trial of the trickster, where I'm like wearing trickster boots and I'm knocking over and think about the things we did.
Speaker 2We caught bullets and threw them back at the police. I mean, we were edgy, you know, I think edgy and darker than certainly the CW show. We did things that I'm like. I'm like, oh my God we they never let us do that, do that today. But yeah, being mind controlled by the trickster and even daring to be goofy in the suit, I have to credit mark's fearlessness and dedication you know for for um teaching me a little bit there, you know yeah, you know directing, I directed that both the tricksters and and definitely the first trickster it's trickster is my favorite, both the tricksters and definitely the first trickster.
Speaker 3Trickster is my favorite of the whole thing. It's the first time we got to really do a full blown comic villain. And look, I didn't tell Mark how to play that. Let's not be. Let's be serious here. When you're directing in television in particular even it was my own show. I wanted to cover one thing because it was my own show, I was able to direct and rewrite on the set. That's not so easy if you're not in full control like that kind of stuff there.
Speaker 3Um, but, mark, like john said, I didn't tell him how to play the trickster, you know what I mean. He put that thing on and he was like I I don't remember if it was the first stuff we shot, but I felt like the beginning with the theater and all that and he's menacing and crazy and killer. And then he puts the thing on. So by the time, even in that one, where he has john in the water, torture to me was the most harrowing thing we ever did like, at least for me standing there on the flash, having john the actor going into the water, torture thing. Um, I'll tell you that lana, the hairdresser, who was you know, I still have friends and love is like our mom. She, david newman and I, the ad, turned around like this while john was in the thing and she was weeping, weeping. Oh my God, are you kidding?
Speaker 2Well, I was hanging, get her out of here. I was hanging, suspended from my ankles, from the top of the soundstage, handcuffed, and they had this huge glass container full of gallons and gallons and gallons of water and they lowered me, unconscious, by my ankles, hanging by my ankles, into this tank of water, you know. And the gag was, you know. Then I go all the way in up to my ankles and to hold my breath as long as I could, at some point open my eyes, realize where I was, and start vibrating. Then at that point they took me out and they put Dane Farwell in and they blew up the tank and there goes Dane, out over the loading dock. Gallons of gallons of water propelled out over the loading dock. I mean, it was crazy.
Speaker 2I remember, danny, you walked off the set when they were draping me with snakes and Lana almost lost her mind. Here comes the I didn't know there was a snake gag he throws a mirror down, I look I'm covered in snakes and I go snakes. Well, here comes the guy with the garbage bags, you know. They take the snakes out and they start draping them around. The next thing, lana almost passes out. You know people are leaving the set. At one point a snake crawled over my head and got between my sunglasses and I could see the tongue going out and I had no trouble. Going snakes. I was like now, if I yell and make a sudden move, are they going to attack me? He said no, said no, they're fine.
Speaker 1I don't know what kind of snakes they were, but yeah, that was an experience well, talk about a few of the other, uh, guest stars that you, you guys, really, uh, do you remember?
Speaker 3kind of special yeah you look, april webster was a major force in this show. So we talk about howard or paul and I. We didn't talk about gail. Hickmanster was a major force in this show. So we talk about Howard or Paul and I. We didn't talk about Gail Hickman, who was a real experienced TV showrunner who kept things stabilized in the writing room. But April, the casting of the show for television in 1990 is extraordinary between who she discovered. Extraordinary between who she discovered right, or just so. The episode I'm watching last night, john, you're not going to. I didn't remember this until I'm watching it. All of a sudden we're in an art gallery scene and Mr Blackwell is there making some one line comment. Remember, he used to give the top 10 dress list and all that's best dress. And then at the end the bad girl meets up with her boyfriend, who is Billy Hayes, the guy from Midnight Express, the real Billy Hayes, who the movie was based on.
Speaker 3And he gets in the car and there's a joke about she goes where do you want to go? And she says Istanbul and he says no thanks.
Legacy of the Flash TV Show
Speaker 2You know it's like, but when you go to the bigger one, there was like, but when you go to the bigger one, there was like. I think Angela Bassett was in it. Angela Bassett, bryan Cranston, michael Champion.
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 2It just went on and on.
Speaker 3I was thinking April would always bring great people and our show wasn't a big hit where everybody was like I want to do the Flash show wasn't a big hit where everybody was like I want to do the Flash. But I guess, like you, john, after we were rolling and we were on the air, we did get pretty good reviews up front. I mean, we got a lot of pretty good.
Speaker 2I have an entire framed thing Washington Post, new York Times. Well, they had two reviews in the New York Times, one wasn't so good, one was a rave. The Los Angeles Times, san Francisco Examiner, atlanta Courier-Journal no, atlanta Constitution, the Louisville Courier-Journal all the major newspapers, whenever anyone. I just don't take it enough, personally enough, when anyone makes some uninformed crack about the 1990 show, having no idea about the history of television or the context into which we appeared. I just, without comment, I just put those reviews Because all the critics and all the major, 9.5 on the Zowie Wowie scale, perhaps the best looking show ever made for television. And we're not talking like today, you know a blog, we're talking major critics from the major newspapers all across the country, you know. So, yeah, pretty good they were. Our reviews were excellent and you know what I kept being told was and I guess this partly hank mccann who was my manager.
Speaker 3Then he said john, it's an industry hit, the industry loves it, you know, interesting because paul and I did get a huge deal at paramount after we left warner brothers, and it was all because of the flash. It was all about really about our what we put on the screen. We all put on the screen. Do you have some more questions?
Speaker 1yeah, I mean kind of king off that there's questions here and I just won't read it specifically, but talk a little bit about, you know, the response of the show and then you're you know when you found out you weren't going to get another season and and and then if you had had another season. Some general thoughts.
Speaker 3Well, um, let me explain that, with all of those great reviews, we had the worst time slot in the history of television. So they put us on at eight o'clock on Thursday night that was when NBC owned Thursday night Right, and this was the only young quote unquote young show at CBS. So then Fox drops the Simpsons on our head at eight also. So what are we going to do? Cbs decides to move us to 830. We may be the last hour show ever to air on a half hour. I think we are. I don't think it was. It was done earlier in the 60s and stuff, and maybe in the 70s, but certainly not in the 90s or beyond. And that was just to get away from the Simpsons, which was a massive hit. So we have the Simpsons, we have Cosby, we have all that stuff and I remember we averaged a 16 share Of. Now that's a massive hit.
Speaker 2That's like ridiculous 20 some million viewers. Yeah, you can have a hit with 6 million viewers now yeah, right, and then we were canceled.
Speaker 3um was what? The most disappointing thing and I'm sure john concur will concur, aside from the fact that he was wiped out was was we were figuring it out the whole time, like we were trying to make it better and better and what works and what doesn't work, and we finally got to super villains and still believable, right.
Speaker 3With costume villains and we felt like we were hitting our stride right. So we were all everybody's heard this one, but we were all excited. We were going to do a two-hour launch with our best villains Mark Hamill, david Cassidy and Michael Champion. We were going to have Cap'n Cole, the Mirror Master and the Trickster. We start to build our rogues gallery, which is from the comics right, which is famous, and imagine what we could have done with those actors in those roles in a recurring team up against the flash, I think. I don't know if the audience was ready, honestly, um, but the kids at the time grew up now and and that's why we have this blu-ray right, that's why they they had a that said, let's make it, because enough people will buy it.
Speaker 2I always tell people you know my young people in my audiences, in my Q&As conventions, I say, if you can, sort of suspend your disbelief and imagine a time before DVR. Yes, there was a land before DVR, because we went on in the most difficult time slot and held our own, came in a decent third. I got a call from Jeff Skansky saying listen, we are happy with the numbers that you guys got. If you guys can maintain that, we will be, we are fine. We think you know it held so well on the advanced word. And and then cbs of course had the oldest demographic, as danny said.
Speaker 2So all our in-house advertising didn't reach our target audience. And then we were on the air. And then cbs had the world series and then we were off for two weeks and then we were back on the air and then the first Gulf War broke out and we were preempted. Then they moved us to the half hour. Then they changed our night. I knew when our car I was starting to get fan mail like where are you? We can't find you. I was like only a matter of time. You know if your core audience, I think if there had been DVR we'd probably still be.
Speaker 1Well, it was. It was. It was rare back then. But one of the fans asked were there any discussions about trying to do something off cable or syndication? Was that still too early before the industry was doing that Too early? You also didn't have that advantage.
Speaker 3I did it on another show only three years later. Yeah, honestly, at Viper we went from network to syndication three years later. I would guess that Warner Brothers wasn't thinking in, would? I would guess that morner brothers wasn't thinking in those business models at that time. It wasn't in their strategy. Um, never was talked about, we were just done. It was like bam.
Speaker 1Was it in at the time? Was it considered an expensive show produced at first?
Speaker 2it was the most expensive show warner brothers had ever done right for television I think at first like because we were supposed to.
Speaker 3If I remember correctly, we were supposed to be doing them for about a million or a million one and those first three or four episodes were coming in at a million four. And there was a night on the back lot where all the executives came down to meet with me and Don and Paul and they said if you don't get this down to $1 million an episode, we're pulling a plug. And so that was after the first, I guess, four episodes it seemed like. And then we just reeled it in and, you know, got less extravagant with locations or whatever, how much was our pilot?
Speaker 2Because I've heard numbers. I think that was for $4 million.
Speaker 3I think it was for six, I don't know if it was, I don't remember, but I think maybe four maybe six, I don't know. At the time a pilot was $2,500, let's say for a Talking Heads pilot. So it definitely was an expensive pilot. And we ran a big second unit that I did with all the motorcycles and all those action things.
Speaker 1So yeah, Well, you know, it is what it is in terms of the second season and all of those things that were thrown, those challenges thrown at you. It's unfortunate, but there's still a huge legacy. There's still a huge legacy of what the show did and, I think, in terms of what we are living through now, over the last 10, 15, 20 years, the multiverse, the CW shows, just the way comic book heroes have dominated TV and cinema for the last couple decades. So when you guys think about that and you think about your place in that, what are some thoughts you have?
Speaker 2I'm very proud that I have been fortunate in my career to land in different mediums, at the beginning of a new way of telling them. I landed in 1980 in daytime, at the beginning of the youth revolution. Julianne Moore was my leading lady, kevin Bacon was my dressing roommate. Then I came into the world of the Flash at this brand new way, cutting edge way, of telling these stories for adult audiences. I love Danny. One thing he said to me I loved it at the beginning. He said listen, if we have our way, ptas across the country are going to be calling up and complaining every week. He was telling me you won't be saving a kid from a burning building on page six. I promise I won't put you in a pair of red tights. It's going to be high tech, we're taking this seriously. And it's going to be high tech. It's going to we're taking this seriously and it's going to be done right.
Flash TV Show Legacy
Speaker 1And I was on my way somewhere with that, but I got lost just a legacy of of you know, you playing, you playing the flash and breaking the ground for so many who came after you, actors, and oh yeah, and they, they readily at these at san Comic-Con, at conventions that I do.
Speaker 2it is a given that our show, danny and Paul's show in 1990-91, laid the groundwork for everything that came after. As David Nutter put it, none of us would be here today if these guys hadn't proved that it could be done successfully and by successfully I think he meant successfully, creatively, believably.
Speaker 3I actually never heard any of that, so it's nice to hear you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, we just did the best we could at the time and we were here's. Another trick to the whole thing Paul and I were never on another TV show before this, and in the in, during the pilot period or the develop right around, when they were going to green light the pilot, they wanted to hire another showrunner for us to work for because we had never run a show before, and I, in my youthful arrogance, said absolutely not, you do that, we're out of here. Now what did I care? I was 34.
Speaker 1You know what I?
Speaker 3mean it's like I have my whole life ahead of me. Now I'd be like oh, wait a minute, what are you risking?
Speaker 3But no we said screw it. And they backed off. And here's the thing we never ran a writing staff, we were movie heads. We grew up with a lot of television but stopped watching whenever when we got to adulthood. And that's not completely true. Paul watched and his wife watched a lot of TV, but we approached everyone fresh. I mean, I heard a comment that Don, my good friend, said to somebody on the crew and I've actually never said this to him that I know this that he said these kids don't know what they're doing, they're just playing in a sandbox, like like at the beginning, like he was taking a shot at us because we were. We didn't. We did creatively. We certainly didn't have a ton of now. I did know how to make film. It's not like I didn't, I was a camera assistant. My father was a director. I grew up on sets. I paid a lot of attention to. My father also directed, as many of these yeah, yeah, man, and he's still alive.
Speaker 396 I'll be really yeah, yeah, he's still with us. Um, but we had a way of doing shows I mentioned a little bit earlier of just go make your movie, because we didn't have all of these tv references as tv makers. Right, we were just like let's just make a good story and get it past the network, let's go. And in the big challenge at first was getting villains, and I mentioned a few times. But this was a serious problem because paul and I grew up with the superman tv show. Did you john? With superman tv show, with george reeves, and our whole thing was, even though we loved it, we didn't want to be fighting counterfeiters and bank robbers. It was like absolutely not. And at the beginning the network was saddling us with our version of counterfeiters and bank robbers to some degree.
Speaker 3I will say you know, we had Sven with this injecting the stuff right away. I mean, it wasn't so much, but once we got it we would ease our way to it. There was the ghost who was kind of like an original supervillain that we created. We were moving our way towards the trickster, but finally, you know, we wrote it, we knew we were going to do it, and the other anecdote, of course, is that we didn't call mark.
Speaker 3mark called us, mark called up and said I want to be on the flash and if you ever do a trickster, I would love to do it, and it was. We already had the script and like we were only like a few weeks away from casting it, it was total kismet, right. And again, like John said, and I said, I saw Mark recently, you know, went over and hung out with him. We look, all of us became close through this crazy experience of one season and he just put that thing on and just went. I didn't.
Speaker 3I never said take it down, mark, right. I never said can you bring it down a little? Never, because he knew how to do it within the realms of because he was a psycho, right. Yeah, yeah, remember he'd go through singing that crazy song, you know it was. It was anyway, and as john said, and then john was tripping on marbles and being subjected to his goofy shit, and so that was for me, those are probably my favorites, because it was where we first kind of realized the vision and we had great acting talent. You know, I think Joyce was in it too, if I recall, as the reporter carried over from another episode.
Speaker 3So it was people she worked with, and anyway, we had a good experience, that's for sure, and do we? Are we pissed it didn't go another year? I'll say right now to the camera yes, yeah, yeah, well, I you know.
Speaker 1Look, there's a new Blu-ray coming out. It looks terrific. That's how we started the conversation today and we'll wrap with that, but I think that this is an opportunity. Obviously, I grew up with the show and people my age we're going to want the show because of the bit of the nostalgia, right, and the fact that, hey, I was watching it. I haven't seen it look that good since the beginning, right?
Speaker 3Maybe not even then, because the TVs we had back then were not, that our families was not that great. Now I'm looking at it on a 4K monitor running through my Blu-ray machine and it looks fantastic. But what do you kind of hope that the new Blu John in? But I hope that people see it in the context of the time. Then it's really excellent. Like if you look at Dr no, the first James Bond movie, and you say, think about everything going on around this in 1961. It's really impressive.
Speaker 1And.
Speaker 3I ask that the Flash holds up. It's sweet, it's naive, it's charming. It's got a lot of heart and a lot of wild imagination too. But remember, look at it in the time it was made. It was pretty. We were pushing the envelope a lot as I refuse. Is it cold? Hopefully they'll really. It's very human. You know what I mean. It's very relatable and I'll hand over to the actor now who performed it you know I mean it's uh, it's something that's never really left me.
Speaker 2It came back when the dvd was originally released in 2006 and I started doing conventions and then then when I joined the new Flash. So the people who would come up to me and say I watched your original Flash in 1990 with my father and now I'm watching the CW Flash with my and they get tears in their eyes. Kids, and you're the thread that runs through that, you know, for my family, you know. Back to David Nutter, there was a scene, you know, that I had to do where I had to be. He was very crafty but he was also being very sincere. And right before they called action he came up to me and he said you know I'm like, but but no, it's. You know.
Speaker 2Jc asked me why you never go or do conventions like Howard does conventions. If you did, you would realize to this day how important the show is. And I'll say one more thing my parting gift. They said do you have a parting gift to Grant Gustin at the end of the series. And I said if I have a parting gift, it's to tell Grant when he wants to assess the quality of his work and his show 30 years from now, go back and read the reviews that were written and the industry reaction at the time to assess the quality, because you know, 30 years from now, who knows what's going to be happening?
Speaker 2You know, and for a while there I would get pretty upset because a lot of people who had no idea of context or what we were walking into I say we, what Danny and Paul were walking into and I got to be a part of it. You know, people have no idea that, don't realize the impact that it had, you know. So you know, for a while there these bloggers who really didn't have a sense of context would say well, it's this, it's that, it's not this, it's not that. I feel, and particularly with the Blu-ray release and people seeing it the way it was meant to be seen for the most part, it's going to assume its rightful place in the legacy of the Flash franchise entertainment.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I had the opportunity to work at Warner Home Entertainment while the more current Flash was on, as you referenced it, and I was thinking that those people who really loved the show bought the Blu-rays of that show. I think they need to add this to their collection because, Well, they are. Yeah, because it really, you know, especially with you being in both of them, of course, John but I think it just creates such great content. Thank you, Danny, To what you said too as well is that you know you guys established that world in TV and that legacy that you've created. It's a great thing for the collectors and the fans of the Flash and all of DC, really all that's been created in this DC universe, and it's fantastic to get a chance to chat with you and offer this to the fans. Not every fan can make it to the convention, so this allows people to hear your thoughts in ways that maybe if they couldn't get to a convention and especially, Danny, now that I know that you don't go to conventions, thank you.
Speaker 1I'm never, it's not, I'm not okay, we're gonna need to try to change that and get you to a convention, because I think it'd be great to talk about, uh, this blu-ray at some point too. So, uh, but thank you both for absolutely thank you both for coming on and it's thanks for having me the pleasure.
Speaker 2Danny, it's great to see you. See you, John, soon.
Speaker 3Yes, all right Thank you. Tim.
Speaker 1For those of you interested in purchasing the Flash, there is a purchase link in the podcast show notes and on our website at wwwtheextrastv. And be sure to check out our recent archival audio commentary podcast on the series finale episode, Trial of the Trickster. It was recorded back in 2006 with co-creators Danny Bilson and the late Paul DeMeo. It's a terrific recap of some of their experiences running the show and it was recorded about 15 years after the show ended, so they add some nice perspective to it. If this is the first episode of the extras you've listened to and you enjoyed it, please think about following the show at your favorite podcast provider. Until next time you've been listening to Tim Millard, Stay slightly obsessed.