Daniel R. Budnik

Join @dannyslacks1.bsky.social and me on August 23rd at 1pm CST for a watchalong party with John Newland's disturbing 1972 TVM Crawlspace. This is a fave. Use #TVMParty to join the discussion. Getting all my Newland love out there!!! Watch here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Xj...

Episode 26: Gunsmoke Episodes 13-15 w/ Dan Budnik Podcast Episode · Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys · 07/29/2025 · 1h 14m

Did you want to hear me talk about Gunsmoke some more? With a gentleman named Hunter? Now's your chance. Follow this link and have a listen. Season 1 Continues! shorturl.at/JKfX8

One of Bert I. Gordon's Best.

I do like when the lady whose names I missed says "Why did he do it... for those people?' As if the fact that they got so nasty in the end meant that they should not be saved. #TVMParty

Let me just end with this... we watched a YT upload of a TV movie that has been viewed over the last decade by over 5 million people. FIVE MILLION. TV Movies matter.

Thank you for joining me and @dannyslacks1.bsky.social today. That was fun! #TVMParty

David Lowell Rich as the radio guy with accent! #TVMParty #lies

If I'm honest with myself, I don't think people falling has ever looked great. Even today. I think we accept that they're supposed to be falling and go with it. (Although, there is one MI film that starts with a great "falling off a roof" bit.) #TVMParty

I think he flies to Heaven!

I like the brief glimpses of the Druids. It's like the end of a found footage movie when we see something for a brief second and it locks in our mind. #TVMParty

I bet these characters went on this plane thinking they'd get a standard disaster. (Mid-air collision. Bomb onboard. Going underwater. Missile attack.) That's why they're so eccentric. That's how we remember them. Sadly, for them, the threat is far more eccentric than they are. #TVMParty

The determination in Shatner's eyes! And the sweet moment with that lady whose name I didn't catch. Very nice. #TVMParty

The country music guy isn't as threatening as they seem to think he is. Maybe if he had been a hippie. #TVMParty

I love some good, eerie chanting. In this film, it was actually done by The Partridge Family! #TVMParty #lies

The use of fire makes sense with the Druid's harnessing of cold. Everyone deciding to set the plane they are in on fire while it's flying may or may not make sense. But it gives them something to do. #TVMParty

Druids on a plane might seem weird but (an old adage but sometimes very true) "It was the 1970s." Across the decade, a ton of speculative documentaries and specials were released. People at that time (and me now) were wild for this stuff. Blame it on Watergate and Vietnam. #TVMParty

Lynn Loring started as a child actress and had a fairly successful career but wanted to work behind the scenes. She started with Curtis who put her in the casting department for Supertrain! #TVMParty

That is it! I feel like Hailey got final approval on the script for that one.

That doll stuff is creepy nuts. The things people will do when they're 37,000 feet in the air stuck on a plane with vengeful druids and Chuck Connors popping the painkillers. #TVMParty

I almost put Alex Haley. That's a different kind of film! And probably would have won an Emmy.

The mix of an eccentric 1970s disaster film cast with an ancient evil makes me think that the script was a collaboration between Arthur Hailey and Nigel Kneale. #TVMParty

Buddy Ebsen had only been playing Barnaby Jones for a short time. But he's clearly left Jed behind in this movie. There's no Clampett in this characterization. #TVMParty

Shatner and Hasselhoff will save us!

Sometimes I think the stewardesses are costumed for a Gerry Anderson live-action show. #TVMParty

Rory wouldn't have put up with this crap from Mrs. Pinder. (In the original script, it is revealed that she ate Mr. Pinder.) #TVMParty

"I'm going to open a bottle of it right now!" Amen and Hallelujah. #TVMParty #BoozeHeals

This was a good year for Roy Thinnes, who appeared in The Norliss Tapes later in 1973. One of my faves!

And maybe this is where I can write a bit about Lynn Loring since Norliss was made by Dan Curtis and he was a great friend to Loring, who was married to Thinnes at the time

#TVMParty

I'm friends with the world's biggest fan of The Norliss Tapes.

All right... TVM Double Feature: Horror at 37,000 Feet and Terror At London Bridge. #TVMParty

I have never been on a plane with a spiral staircase... except in dreams. #TVMParty

Man, I love that Druid Gloop pouring up from the undercarriage. It's a variation of the Satanic goop we see in Bart La Rue's SATANWAR from later in the decade. Also, if you say, "I Don't Know," a bucket's worth of it douses your head. #TVMParty