The Odd Podcast with Joe Parisi

Exploring the history of the legendary Sunset Strip hotel, Chateau Marmont.  Best selling author Shawn Levy has just completed his book "The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art and Scandal at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont" and he is with us to share some incredible stories from this Hollywood landmark's history. From Bogart to Belushi to Britney, we cover a lot of ground in this short quick 45...

Examining the 1990 Tim Burton classic "Edward Scissorhands".  Joining me are the film's production designer, Bo Welch (4 x Oscar Nominee) and Michael Burmeister- the film's location manager.  They take us back to that crazy-colored neighborhood and teach us all about this one-of-a-kind film, how they pulled this off logistically and much more!  

Martial Artist, Fight Choreographer, Kumite Fighter and the man "Bloodsport" was about joins us. We talk about some of your favorite martial arts movies, Ninjas, conspiracies within the martial arts community, what really happened in that tournament and more!

Diving into the 1988 Cannon Films cult classic "Bloodsport".  Joining me are two of the men who fought in "the kumite".  Bernard Mariano is with us, he played "Hossein".  Also, Mohammed Qissi is with us.  Mohammed played "Suan Parades"...the fighter who suffered the nasty leg break at the hands of the evil Chun Li.  

Exploring the 1987 classic "Ernest Goes To Camp" with two of the "second chance kids" from the film..."Bobby Wayne" aka Patrick Day and "Chip Osgood" aka Todd Loyd. We chat about Jim Varney's history working as a commercial actor, Lyle Alzado, Iron Eyes Cody and much much more!  

Examining the 1988 classic film "Big" with actor David Moscow who played young Josh Baskin in the film. Learning about the history of "Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Pop", fortune teller machines and more.  Plus, David gives us some great stories about what it was like living as a child actor in Hollywood in the 80's.  

Scott Michaels (Findadeath.com & Dearly Departed Tours) drops in to talk about his life, his career as the "curator of the macabre" and some of his favorite strange Hollywood stories. Scott has been the owner/operator of the wildly popular website findadeath.com since the late 90's and also owns and operates Dearly Departed Tours in Los Angeles.  You've seen him on "Hollywood Death Trip" on E!, Gh...

Take a step back with us to the late 80's as we look at one of the coolest and most successful commercial campaigns of all time...The California Raisins.  Joining me is Seth Werner, the advertising executive who came up with the idea and Webster Colcord, a claymation guru who worked on the Raisins tv commercials and tv specials.  

Diving into the 1985 classic "The Goonies" and learning a TON of cool info about it.  Our guests include cinematographer/cast member Nick McLean (Mouth's Dad), Ted Grossman (Dead FBI man in the freezer/stunts), John Robotham (Jake Fratelli stunts) and Randall Widener (Sloth stunts).   PLUS I dive into a mystery involving the true identity of "Chester Copperpot".

Be Kind...Rewind.  Examining the rise, fall, facts and fiction surrounding Blockbuster Video.  Best selling author, speaker and business advisor Greg Satell has written about this in Forbes magazine and joins us to discuss.   Visit Greg's online home at www.digitaltonto.com  

Discussing Zoolander with the hilarious, scene stealing actor who played "Todd"... Nathan Lee Graham. We discuss Nathan's life as an actor and grammy winning performer, Zoolander trivia, Webster University, how 9/11 impacted the path of Zoolander more.   

Catching up with legendary actor Mark Holton...the man who brought "Francis Buxton" in Pee Wee's Big Adventure and "Chubby" in the Teen Wolf movies to life. Mark has been in about a million things since the early 80's.  He famously yelled "Hey, It's Enrico Palazzo" in Naked Gun, he played Ozzie in Leprechaun and even appeared on an episode of Seinfeld. Well, in the early 2000's Mark essentially va...

Discussing the 80's tv show Small Wonder with two of the show's stars- Martha Pennington and Jerry Supiran.  This sci-fi sitcom blazed its trail in first-run syndication aired from 1985-1989 and featured a robot in the form of a 10 year old girl.   It was weird and fun and everybody remembers this show.  

This episode explores the 1984 classic "Ghostbusters".  We discuss filming locations, original script ideas, how various special effects were pulled off, the soundtrack and more.   Who you gonna call?  Well, in this case I called 3 people who worked on the film.  You'll hear long form interviews with Jennifer Runyon (the student doing the ESP test), Bill Bryan (creator of the Stay Puft Marshmallow...

Eraserhead was released in 1977 and has gone on to become one of the most highly regarded "midnight movies" of all time.  It was David Lynch's first feature film and the movie that made Jack Nance a cult icon.   Our guest on this episode played "Mary X".  Charlotte Stewart has appeared in everything from Little House on the Prairie to Tremors and she has some incredible stories to tell about her l...

Loners...Rebels...It's time to take a deep dive into the legendary 1985 film "Pee Wee's Big Adventure".  We research several of the supporting cast members who have dropped off the radar, learn about filming locations and then do a few interviews.  We'll chat with one of the film's writers (Michael Varhol), one of the "Satan's Helpers" (Terri Bolo), "Chuck" (Daryl Roach), Stephen Chiodo (Special F...

In June of 1998, the teen movie genre was reborn thanks to a film called "Can't Hardly Wait".  It's a film that takes place over 24 hours- and covers high school graduation, the massive blowout party that night and the next morning where they all begin their new post-high school lives.   We have SIX guests on this episode.  Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont wrote and directed the film...they join us...

Actor & Voice Actor Charlie Schlatter joins us to talk about life, the Ferris Bueller tv show (where he played Ferris), "18 Again" where he starred alongside George Burns, "Police Academy Mission To Moscow", Kick Buttowski (the famous animated character Charlie voiced), Shameless and much more! Charlie is currently raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and you can visit his fundraiser...

He has people skills...can't you understand that?!?? Richard Riehle has appeared in over 350 movies and television show episodes.  He is without a doubt one of the most successful "character actors" in history.  He was the inventor of the "jump to conclusions mat" as "Tom Smykowski" in Office Space.  You've seen him in The Fugitive, Casino, Bridesmaids, Ferris Bueller the tv series, Grounded for L...

Dean Cameron has appeared in so many incredible movies.  He was "Chainsaw" in Summer School, he was the lead in Ski School, Miracle Beach, Rockula, and countless others that you've probably seen a few hundred times on cable tv. Dean shares a little bit of his 30+ year Hollywood story with us and gives us some candid behind the scenes stories surrounding some of those films we know and love.  

One of the all time great martial arts films was released in 1989.  Kickboxer was the second hit film to star Jean Claude Van Damn and to this day it remains a favorite among many action & martial arts movie fans.  On this episode we interview three of the film's stars: "Tong Po" who was played by Mohammed Qissi, "Mylee" who was played by Rochelle Ashana and "Winston Taylor" who was played by Hask...

Today we dive down the rabbit hole to learn about the bizarre 2003 independent drama/cult classic THE ROOM.  Our guest is Rick Harper, a filmmaker who made a documentary all about this movie called Room Full of Spoons.   There are a lot of mysteries surrounding The Room and Rick's documentary answers most of the big questions...but the courts are preventing him for showing the movie anywhere!   Tu...

Discussing the 1987 smash hit "Dirty Dancing" with one of the actual dirty dancers from the film and a gentleman who wrote a book about it all. Our guests are Andrew Charles Koch who was a dirty dancer in several of the key scenes (the clubhouse and the finale) and Stephen Naisch who wrote the book "Deconstructing Dirty Dancing". Look for Andrew on Facebook  Look for "Deconstructing Dirty Dancing"...

This episode explores the 1989 comedy thriller The Burbs, one of my all time favorite films.  We learn about the iconic cast, the legendary backlot the film was shot on and the quirky things that were going on around the set during production.  Cory Danziger joins us.  He played "Dave Peterson", the on-screen son of Tom Hanks and Carrie Fischer.  He gives us his first hand account of the summer he...