Robserecaps Five – episode 35 Hot Topics!
by Joe
A scatter shot episode with a variety of topics, but the Rob promises he’ll talk about the famous 501 Jeans commercial. Give it a listen here.
- The Rob starts off by saying he’s talking comics with us, we’re talking comics with him. Was not aware podcasts were a two way street
- Since we’re still in 1990/1991, we’re not going to get to DC yet, as they were reactionary to what Marvel would be doing and once Image becomes the number 2 company in August of 1992
- We are at seven episodes in a row bringing up the Batman Legends of the Dark Knight #1 construction paper covers, take a shot
- the Rob loves Neal Adam and John Bryne, but to him Kirby is King
- the Rob cites the upcoming Wanda/Vision show very much like the original miniseries from the 70’s, actually 1983 (passing mention of the recent Tom King run) which was “kinda kinky” because it was about a girl who fell in love with a pile of wires
- Marvel/Disney keeps all the good stuff from the comics out of the movies/TV shows, mentions the ‘Demon in a Bottle’ storyline which was in Iron Man 2, IIRC
- the Rob is excited about the casting of She-Hulk but can’t remember the actress’s name, knows she was in Orphan Black
- the Rob, in talking about the She-Hulk comic from 1979, does an Austin Powers impression which is delightfully on brand. Also says the original She-Hulk looked like ‘Red Sonja with green paint’
- Talks about the Six Million Dollar Man and how the Bionic Woman died in her introduction episode, but a letter writing campaign brought her back in her show that was more popular than the Six Million Dollar Man
- Since the Bionic Woman was now owned by the studio, this caused Stan Lee to create She-Hulk, Spider-Woman and Ms. Marvel, that last one doesn’t quite line up as that book was on the stands two years before the Incredible Hulk TV show
- the Rob says the 70’s comics were awesome “all those guys dropping acid, doing the hard stuff”, mentions a bunch of names, alleges Jim Starlin was doing mushrooms when writing Warlock, says his peer group was boring “maybe some hashish, I never saw Todd McFarlane do mushrooms and I never saw Erik Larsen do cocaine”
- “Cable and Deadpool have over 300 comics with their name on the front, I’m not sure She-Hulk has even 100” With the legacy numbering, she has 163
- As a child, the Rob lent his friend Nathan a bunch of his old comics, who’s mom threw them all away
- the Rob states that Dan Jurgens is a DC Comics MVP “FOR LIFE” and he ain’t wrong
- the Rob gets distracted again ragging on DC saying out side of Lobo (who Donny Cates should go and make big like he did for Venom) DC was doing nothing in 1990, cites a bunch of books (Shade the Changing Man, Books of Magic, etc.) that would go on to be staples at Vertigo
- the timeline gets a bit muddy here as the Rob talks about leaving for WonderCon (which there wasn’t one in 1991) and seeing the ad, “Do you do something interesting in your 501s? Call us and tell us and you can be in our commercial!”
- The Rob states at the time he knew X-Force #1 was selling 3 million copies so he says on the message he writes the number comic in the country, but when they call him, he’s just then drawing X-Force #1
- The ad company came out to film at the Rob studios, then a few weeks later, when they got Spike Lee to film the commercial, they had the Rob pack up his office and fly it out to Spike’s studio in Brooklyn
- Both the Rob and his wife hate the mustard yellow shirt he wore in the commercial
- when he comes out of the dressing room, all three female ad exes at the shot exclaim “oh my god, he has no ass!”
- Spike Lee directed him to read the dialog aloud as he drew, after three takes and unable to muster more than a mumble (the Rob did not know he’d need to act in a commercial) the ad exes state again “We’ve made the wrong choice!”
- Spike Lee pulled up a camera and a chair, and recorded 20 minutes of conversation, talking Fantastic Four, drawing Spike as a super hero, etc. to break the mood
- I’m not sure how I feel about the Rob’s Spike Lee impression
- The whole shoot is four days, two travel days, two filming days, the scene of the Rob on the loading dock took 30 takes
- the Rob’s scripter at Marvel NY got the commercial early (because Marvel had to sign off on it) who told the Rob he was terrible in it, but the Rob knew it was just envy
- The Rob saw the commercial and thought it was cute and funny and would work, states the commercial ran a year and a half and he made a quarter million dollars off residuals from it
*Please note* the thoughts and ideas in this post do not reflect those of my co-host, Todd. He doesn’t care about any of this.
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