Anything happening with this movie yet?
It's been almost a year since the website had updated news.
shareI'd like to find out what's up as well. I can't wait to see "Commander USA" again, it's been far too many decades.
shareWhile the good Commander *is* in the film as an interview subject (and a very good one!), unfortunately, there isn't any footage of him in the film - it seems that USA Network/NBCUniversal doesn't have copies of his show around anymore. We asked, and they looked, but they couldn't find anything.
Also, the film is focusing more on the local hosts from around the country, as opposed to the national network guys, such as the Commander and Joe Bob Briggs. When we interviewed them, we weren't sure whether we would focus past the local hosts or not - but they both had plenty to say about the hosts that influenced them, which survived to the final cut.
I understand the reason for not including the national network guys, even though Commander USA is the horror host I grew up with. Although I haven't seen it yet I imagine trimming "American Scary" down to a reasonable running time left a lot of good stuff on the cutting room floor, so I can appreciate that you wanted to place emphasis on local hosts. And even by the time hosts like Commander USA came along the horror host was, I believe, in serious decline. Sure I'd like to reminisce about Commander USA and Lefty, but I'm just as excited to learn about horror hosts I never had a chance to see.
The fact that the USA Network doesn't have copies of Commander USA's show, though, is shocking and unforgivable. It's not surprising, but it's still unforgivable.
Unfortunately, I'm not surprised about the tapes being gone. No one expected stuff like this to actually have a shelf life. Many of the early shows are lost completely because they aired live, and no recordings were made.
We heard numerous accounts of how in the early days of videotape, mosts shows would only have one or two master tapes (especially with the 2-inch quad reels) - one for this week's show, and then one for next week's, and they would constantly cycle between the two, erasing a prior show everytime they recorded a new one.
Hopefully, a lot of the good material we had to cut for time or pacing reasons will end up as bonus features on an eventual DVD. Sometimes, I almost think we could have turned this into a mini-series... :)
John Hudgens
Director, American Scary
Not a bad idea... pitch it to Showtime...
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