Ted Raimi has worn many hats over decades of filmmaking. He’s an actor, a director, a writer, a producer, and an icon of multiple genres. Now, he’s trying on yet another hat, one that seems to fit him quite well: Talk show host.
This week, Screambox will premiere Your Dearest, Darkest Friend, a funny, warm, in-depth interview series in which Raimi sits down with fellow genre icons ranging from actors to directors to musicians to talk about their creative processes, their careers, how they overcome adversity, and much more.
But this is more than your standard video podcast-style interview show. It’s a full-blown Gothic production, complete with talking severed heads, mutated rat critters, an old Victorian house, and of course, cocktails.
Ahead of the show’s October 30 premiere, Bloody Disgusting sat down with Raimi to discuss Your Dearest, Darkest Friend‘s origins, its format, and why Raimi came away from the project full of fresh creative energy.
Bloody Disgusting: Ted, this is such a fun show. I just want to start by asking: how did this happen? What was the path to getting your own Gothic, weird comedy talk show?
Ted Raimi: I had done a series of YouTube shorts that I created called Deathly Spirits, where I make a drink, and I tell a scary story, but this was some years ago. I took it off the air, thinking no one cared. Then a bunch of fans were like, “Where’s the show? Where’s the rest of the episodes?” I said, “I’m not making them anymore,” and I went on with my life making movies and TV shows and stuff.
During that time, I was thinking about [how] we get asked really dumb questions as horror buffs. Really stupid ones. “Was the house actually haunted where you were shooting? Was there an actual demon in the car that you feel the presence of?” Like, no, man, we’re making a movie. Are you kidding me? We’re scraping cash together! We’re eating 2:00 A.M. Pollo Loco. We’re just filmmakers.
I noticed that everyone else was getting asked those same questions. I decided to make a little tiny podcast, just a horror insider show, but never got around to it. Then about a month after that, Screambox, that’s headed by [producers] Tony Wash, Charlie Queen, and Lauren Leshansky, called me and said, “Look, we want to make a talk show kind of like Dinner for Five,” which was the idea.
I thought, look, let’s go a step farther. We got a little studio money now. Instead of me sitting down with a chair, I said, let’s build a set. It’s a version of me. I’m now in this dilapidated Victorian mansion at the end of a dead street in this old, faded industrial town, and I invite people into my house to talk. I ply them with drinks to get them more talkative. That’s how it started, and they thought that was a good idea.
BD: One of the best things about the show is how much you get to talk about craft with fellow artists, but then you also get to have your Vincent Price moments in your smoking jacket in your creepy house. What was it like finding the balance between the horror-host Ted and then the real Ted who genuinely wants to get to know how these people work?
TR: It was a trick, and I didn’t know if it would work. That was something that other producers and I talked about. They knew that this was kind of a weird-ass concept. On the other hand, very few fans other than horror fans will accept weird-ass concepts from a talk show.
Your typical viewer would be like, “I don’t get this. Why is he so weird and wonky here, but then he’s like serious Ted Raimi here?” Horror fans get it. We didn’t really make it for a mass audience. Rather, we made it for fans of the genre specifically, who understand that, who get the insider vibe.
Also, I think people are tired of meta stuff. I know I am. I’m sick of seeing references of references of references that I’m supposed to have gotten. If I didn’t see X, Y, and Z movie, I wouldn’t understand this movie. I didn’t want to do anything like that. You don’t have to know anything, I suppose, other than maybe if you did know what Vincent Price and Alfred Hitchcock were like. Even if you didn’t, it didn’t matter. It would be fresh.
BD: You’ve obviously got a very broad knowledge of film, TV, and entertainment history, so there’s a lot of inspiration to pull from. Who were the talk show hosts that you looked to as a guide to your interview style?
TR: There were two of them. One was Dick Cavett, the 1960s guy, who had this very … it’s very unmodern. It’s a very relaxed, calm style. It’s as though he invited them to a living room. He’s got this very sonorous voice that you want to listen to. In a like manner, a modern version of him, though politics aside, no matter where you are in politics, it’s his interview style, which is Bill Maher. I thought it was very much in the Dick Cavett style.
What I didn’t want to do, even though Lord only knows we had enough funny people who were writing on that show, including Holden McNeely from The Last Podcast on the Left, who’s hilarious. We could have just joked it up. It could have been a Conan O’Brien thing, where I sat there and did bits and jokes and ripped them and tried to get stories, but I didn’t want to do that. I think people are frankly sick of that stuff. They want something a little more honest, especially horror fans.
BD: Then, on the other side of that, you also get to have some fun with a rat creature puppet and a talking severed head puppet. What was the creation process like there? How did those two guys become part of this?
TRi: I always loved puppets. I like things like The Muppets. They’re okay. They’re cute for Christmas time and stuff, but I like puppets that were treated seriously. It’s an old tradition. They used to be their own characters that weren’t treated as anything other than human. I wanted to do that, but it’s a very challenging fine line because if you don’t do it right, it could be Lamb Chop. If you do it right, I think it can be weird and fun. That’s why I wanted puppets. I also just think they’re funny. Generally, they’re just funny to look at.
I also thought it would be fun if I forced the guests who came on the show to talk to the puppets. [chuckles] [No matter] how serious you took yourself, as soon as you got on set, you were forced to have a conversation with a puppet. I really think that was a great benefit because it really relaxed a lot of guests who were very nervous. Some of our guests were just forced to be like, “Well, I guess I’m talking to a puppet.”
BD: Did they all know coming in that a severed head puppet voiced by Ed Larson was going to be talking to them?
TR: Some of them. Some of them didn’t. It was a bit of a crapshoot sometimes. There are some people we had to tell. There are some actors who were quite concerned about image, and directors too. I’m not going to name names, but they want to make sure that they don’t look ridiculous, and that’s understandable. Everybody that we had on the show was totally fine with it. I tell you, after you have a drink and you talk to a puppet, you’re pretty loose. That’s where we wanted them, and we got them.
BD: The cocktail element is obviously very important to the show. How did you create all of the drinks? They all look so fun.
TR: Thank you. Some I had an idea for, and I do make my own at home, and I do make wild creations, but those were finalized and solidified by a professional mixologist that they brought in. Charlie Queen, the producer, had a good buddy who came on. I’m not a terrible mixologist, I don’t think. I can make a pretty good batch of drinks, but this guy was great, and he taught me the finer points. I would just shake stuff, like shake a drink. He’d be like, “No, no, no, no. You got to shake it right here. Do this. Pour. No, don’t pour it like that!” I was taught all the finer points. Some were my idea, but many were [when] a professional came and showed me how to do it.
BD: You also close each episode with a trip to the “Oddities Room” in the house, where guests are encouraged to leave a gift. How did that become the final segment?
TR: I was trying to come up with something that was personal, because the point of talk shows is that you want to be personal. You want them to give you information, and you want to give information. I was telling this to my friend Jordan Morris, and I go, “How am I going to get these guys relaxed?” He said, “Do a gift exchange kind of thing where they give you something personal, and you give them something personal.”
At first I was like, “That’s ridiculous. How are they going to do that?” Then I realized that was a really good idea. I wish I could tell you that was my idea, but it wasn’t. It was totally my buddy who came up with that one, but it wound up working great, and the guests really took to it. I thought to myself, if I was on a talk show and someone told me to do that, I thought that’d be great because it means something to me. It doesn’t mean something just to the interviewer.
BD: Because these interviews are very driven by discussions of craft, creative process, and dealing with adversity, I’m curious: What did you take away from these conversations that you want to apply to your own career?
TR: Oh, I think the steadfastness of so many of these guys and girls who’ve been in it for so long. You go on for years, and you go, “I don’t think I can take this anymore. I’ve been doing this crap for 45 years. Is it time for me to just say goodbye and feed my chickens and my cats and stuff? Is this it?” These guys are like, “No, man, this is where it starts,” and I’m grateful to hear that.
I don’t ever want to quit. I don’t ever want to retire. I’m 60 now, and I’ve been doing this for more than 40 years. There are points in your career where you’re like, “Okay, how many more movies can I do? How many more TV shows can I be on? Did I do it all?” No, these guys are just like, “No, no, no.” They’re just grinding on, these rock musicians and actors and directors. You always have something more to offer. I don’t want to burn myself out at 35, which I could have easily done in this business. It’s not hard, considering all the options you have. I’d rather be Clint Eastwood. Just keep going until you just croak. That’s the goal.
BD: So this was a creatively energizing experience for you.
TR: Yes, it was. It was. I didn’t expect it, though. I thought I would just try to make this talk show the best I could, but man, most of these conversations I had, I was sorry when they were over. Charlie Queen directed most of them, and Charlie would tell me, “You got to keep it going. You got to keep it going for 30 minutes because we got to have 30 minutes to cut it down.” I was like, “How am I going to talk to people for 30 minutes?” Every single time, Charlie would go, “OK, we have to stop now. That was an hour.” I was like, “No!” I found that I was incredibly energized doing it.
BD: If this gets the response that I’m sure that you and Screambox and everyone who worked on it is hoping for, are you hoping to do more?
Ted Raimi: Most definitely, yes, but it’s a weird crapshoot. It’s a weird show. I think people who are watching Screambox will get it. They definitely will get it. Whether or not it’s available to a wider audience and someone who normally watches, say, Hallmark Channel, that’s going to apply to them, I don’t know. I’m not sure if someone watching Hallmark Channel will want to see a half-dead rat as a talk show. [laughs] We’ll see. I had such a good time doing it, and I loved all our guests. If Screambox said, “Let’s go season two,” I’d say yes, for sure.
Your Dearest, Darkest Friend with Ted Raimi arrives October 30 on Screambox.
