Rick Baker & David J. Skal Encore

Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast

Comedy, Arts, Tv & Film, Visual Arts

4.8 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2025

⏱️ 110 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

GGACP celebrates Halloween week by revisiting this conversation from 2021 as Gilbert and Frank celebrate the 90th anniversaries (1931-2021) of Universal Studios’ original “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” with Oscar-winning makeup creator Rick Baker and late author-historian David J. Skal. In this episode, Rick and David talk about sympathetic monsters, mad scientists (real and imagined), the genius of Jack Pierce and the premature deaths of Colin Clive, Dwight Frye and Lon Chaney. Also, David interviews Carla Laemmle, Rick turns Martin Landau into Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange appears in Boris Karloff’s obit and Bram Stoker’s widow tries to kill off “Nosferatu.” PLUS: Ghoulardi! “Man of a Thousand Faces”! The influence of Forrest J. Ackerman! Bette Davis (almost) plays the Bride of Frankenstein! And the boys (once again) try to make sense of “The Black Cat”! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Right, that's it. Come on. Lights out. You've got a test tomorrow. Just two minutes. I'm about to reach the next level. It's going off now. Yeah, whatever. Let's see. Where's the app? Oh, here it is. What? How? Oh, no. You're out. Better look next time. Mom! It's game over for late nights on school nights. EE Wi-Fi controls help you get them off the Wi-Fi and into bed.
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0:57.7	Well, 90 years ago this year, Universal Studios released two motion pictures that starred a pair of virtually unknown actors named Baila Lagozy and Boris Karloff.
1:14.6	Those pictures were Dracula, released in February of 1931, and Frankenstein, released in November.
1:26.5	Both films would go on to become beloved classics of the genre,
1:32.3	terrifying audiences, inspiring horror fans as well as other filmmakers, and paving the way for
1:41.9	dozens of imitators, homages, and even parodies.
1:47.9	And because we're discussing two unforgettable films,
1:53.0	we need two experts to get the job done.
1:57.2	Rick Baker is an occasional actor, a designer, a gorilla expert, a monster maker, an Emmy winner,
2:06.6	and a seven-time Academy Award winner, and perhaps the most admired and celebrated makeup and special effects artists in the history of cinema.
2:21.5	His contributions to the form take hours to list, but here are some.
2:28.6	The Exorcist. It's Alive. King Kong, an American werewolf in London, Harry and the Henderson's, Ed Wood, Men in Black, Grimblins too, guerrillas in the Mist, Planet of the Apes, Hellboy and the Wolfman.
2:49.7	The man even worked on a movie we love to talk about on this show, The Thing with Two Heads.
3:00.1	He's also the author of the 2019 Rick Baker Metamorphosis of Full Color, two-volume 700-page extravaganza,
3:17.3	highlighting his 50-year journey through Hollywood.
3:22.8	David J. Skull is a cultural historian, critic, filmmaker, and the author of numerous books
3:32.8	that are required reading for fans of this podcast, including Hollywood Gothic, the tangled web of Dracula from novel to play to screen.
3:47.0	The Monster Show, a cultural history of horror.
3:53.9	V is for vampire, an A to C guide to everything undead.
4:01.1	Dark Carnival, the secret world of Todd Browning,
	...

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