The Tell-Tale Brains

THE HIJINKS ENSUE STORE IS BACK!!!

Funny T-Shirts, Geeky shirts, Doctor who parody shirts, Team Edward James Olmos shirt, Groverfield Shirt, Sci-Five Star Trek Parody T-Shirt in The HijiNKS ENSUE Store

The newly relaunched HE Store is up and running over at Blind Ferret. Please go check it out and maybe buy a book or a shirt or something. Shirts will begin shipping soon, now that we are all back from Comic-Con.

What’s that in the distance? Why, it’s the faint siren song of the undead. Hearing them is SO much scarier than seeing them. I can only image their desiccated corpses, somehow animated by a perversion of biology, their skin sloughed off to reveal muscle and bone, their entrails spilling out of their gaping abdominal cavities, their… oh, you get the picture. No need to see any of that. Let’s go inside for a long time and talk about how there are probably zombies all over the place.

All of the news about what AMC is doing to The Walking Dead (firing Frank Darabont, requiring 13 episodes for less money than they had to make 6 last season, threatening the cast and crew to keep quiet) sounds BAD. Like REALLY really bad. Why can’y hollywood just pet the pretty rabbit? Why do they have to crush its tiny rabbit skull every time?

COMMENTERS: How else are AMC going to ruin cut costs on The Walking Dead?


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21 Comments

  1. I really want to take you to task and say that clever writers/directors/production designers could get away with filming interior locations that look amazing and you won't notice it at all, panel number two is as absolutely correct as it is hilarious.

    Also, it's a zombie apocalypse: what are they doing keeping all that FRESH food on the craft services table, hmmm? Malnourished gives you that gaunt appearance that's more authentic AND saves the food and makeup budgets.

    • heck, zombie stuff is perfect for the odd bottle-episode or two. But we need to see the sun once in a while.

  2. The Walking Dead has a small cast to pay, not counting extras, and with the loss of Mad Men for a while and the fact that they gave Rubicon the ax permanently, AMC only has to fund two shows, Breaking Bad which I hear is fantastic and The Walking Dead which gave AMC its highest rating for anything ever yet they still gave cuts to TWD? I can understand it, times are tough and all that nonsense; the point of the Walking dead or any really good zombie flick isn't the money and the effects. Who really thinks Land of the Dead was better than Night of the Living Dead? Hell, Pontypool was better than the Dawn remake and 28 Weeks Later paled in comparison to 28 Days Later.

    The real problem isn't the money. I think we'd all be happy to suffer with rubber mask zombies and copious amounts of food coloring and cornstarch. No, the problem is slashing Durabont. Asshole or not, as we learned from the article Joel posted about(or maybe written by) Amy Berg, producers are iportant tothe show creatively and tonally. I'm still going to climb a mountain if I have to to see Season 2 but I will not have as high hopes for it.

  3. "Why can’y hollywood just pet the pretty rabbit? Why do they have to crush it’s tiny rabbit skull every time?"

    that is the SINGLE best analogy for Hollywood's habits I have ever seen. That says it all right there.

  4. One thing I have never understood about zombie movies is if we assume they decompose like normal dead bodies, even accounting for people continually being infected, all the zombies would be piles of gore after a few months. Zombie shelf life for real dangerous mobility should only be a week or two.

  5. I thought that the point of the the zombie "virus" was that the body rotted less slowly and that zombie bodies were still working to some degree. Zombies would get "full" or physically have no more room for more flesh if they didn't process what they ate in some way.

      • No I've read them, I liked how he handled it too. Specifically stating that zombies become more resilient to rot and aren't really affected by being underwater. In alot of stuff the zombies are just walking corpses, exactly like dead bodies except they move. It never gets explained how the zombies don't just fall over unable to move a few days after being turned.

  7. I get that the economy is really tough right now, but they seem to be cutting the budget of all their best shows… the shows that bring in the real viewers. Besides these handful of shows, you just get people flipping channels and accidentally finding a movie they like on the channel. You'd think they'd be nurturing their cash cows.

  8. Th e Producers have asked that they film in Edmonton, Alberta. On Wednesdays. After 6pm.

    The producers have packed everyone a nice PB&J sammich.

    The producers have made crew t-shirts using sharpie markers and Thrift store donations.

    The producers are making script notes with blood

  9. The Walking Dead drew more viewers for AMC than Mad Men or Breaking Bad, and yet Mad Men gets the budget increase? Plus, I thought season 5 was supposed to be Breaking Bad's last, so shouldn't AMC want to boost viewership of what should be one of their tentpole series (and the only series it owns 100%)?

    You don't suppose the Evil Fox Executive has a younger brother working for AMC, do you?

    • AMC has specifically given Mad Men a push because they want the episode count for syndication. That way they can keep making money for decades instead of just a few more years. Doesn't matter to them if Mad Men becomes the dramatic equivalent of Everybody Loves Raymond because they'll keep making a profit. They're looking at the long term and the short term money problems it causes their other programs doesn't matter.

  11. Next season, they'll skip the boat and fishing tackle, and just have two girls standing in shallow water yattering inanely about dads and knots.

  12. Sorry man, but I think youre expecting too much of the lumbering, unthinking juggernaut that is the entertainment business. It merely stumbles across the landscape, spewing out reality shows and commercial tie ins from its many jagged, oozing sores, crushing any original or interesting ideas that arent fast enough to move out of its way.

  13. Am I really the only person here who was horribly, horribly disappointed in The Walking Dead? So disappointed that I only watched every episode ONCE, and don't really care if there's a season 2 at all?

    True, AMC is asking them to do exactly the opposite thing that I need them to do to keep my interest at all. (LESS zombies? Seriously… I don't think it's even possible to have fewer zombies. One at a time is already bollocks. And do we really need that much relationship drama, in a world where humanity might not survive?)

    I think it's obvious that America is ready for a zombie series. AMC is probably not the place to do it. Stars, FX or Showtime would probably all do wonderful jobs with it.

    • I am right there with you (albeit many weeks late. Almost caught up on the archives!)

      I really wanted to like The Walking Dead – I generally like zombies movies and I've read the WWZ and Zombie Survival Guide (which were great!). But that show is so ridiculous! If this is the hope of the human race, then kill them all now and be done with it! These characters are unforgivably stupid and the show is so full of melodrama, it's impossible to get through an episode without screaming at the TV. Yes, drive a car with a honking horn right to your camp so the zombies (who they know are attracted to noise) will know exactly where you are!! Yes, hug your sister's reanimated corpse while she tries to eat your face! STUPID!

      I finished the first season with some cajoling from a friend, but that's as far as I'm willing to go.

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